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Entries in Barack Obama (32)

Thursday
Mar112010

Israel: Masquerade of "Proximity Talks" and Settlements (Levy)

After the announcement of the planned construction of 1,600 Israeli housing units in East Jerusalem, Haaretz's Gideon Levy put the absurdity on paper by declaring there is someone to blame now: Israel’s Interior Minister Eli Yishai:
Here's someone new to blame for everything: Eli Yishai. After all, Benjamin Netanyahu wanted it so much, Ehud Barak pressed so hard, Shimon Peres wielded so much influence - and along came the interior minister and ruined everything.

Israel-Gaza: EU Endorses Goldstone Report

There we were, on the brink of another historic upheaval (almost). Proximity talks with the Palestinians were in the air, peace was knocking on the door, the occupation was nearing its end - and then a Shas rogue, who knows nothing about timing and diplomacy, came and shuffled all the proximity and peace cards.



The scoundrel appeared in the midst of the smile- and hug-fest with the vice president of the United States and disrupted the celebration. Joe Biden's white-toothed smiles froze abruptly, the great friendship was about to disintegrate, and even the dinner with the prime minister and his wife was almost canceled, along with the entire "peace process." And all because of Yishai.

Well, the interior minister does deserve our modest thanks. The move was perfect. The timing, which everyone is complaining about, was brilliant. It was exactly the time to call a spade a spade. As always, we need Yishai (and occasionally Avigdor Lieberman) to expose our true face, without the mask and lies, and play the enfant terrible who shouts that the emperor has no clothes.

For the emperor indeed has no clothes. Thank you, Yishai, for exposing it. Thank you for ripping the disguise off the revelers in the great ongoing peace-process masquerade in which nobody means anything or believes in anything.

What do we want from Yishai? To know when the Jerusalem planning committee convenes? To postpone its meeting by two weeks? What for? Hadn't the prime minister announced to Israel, the world and the United States, in a move seen at the time as a great Israeli victory, that the construction freeze in the settlements does not include Jerusalem? Then why blame that lowly official, the interior minister, who implemented that policy?

What's the big deal? Another 1,600 apartments for ultra-Orthodox Jews on occupied, stolen land? Jerusalem won't ever be divided, Benjamin Netanyahu promised, in another applause-winning move. In that case, why not build in it? The Americans have agreed to all this, so they have no reason to pretend to be insulted.

The interior minister should not apologize for the "distress" he caused, but be proud of it. He is the government's true face. Who knows, perhaps thanks to him America will finally understand that nothing will happen unless it exerts real pressure on Israel.

What would we do without Yishai? Biden would have left Israel propelled by the momentum of success. Netanyahu would have boasted of a renewed close friendship. A few weeks later, the indirect talks would have started. Europe would have applauded, and Barack Obama, the president of big promises, would even have taken a moment away from dealing with his country's health-care issues to meet with Netanyahu. George Mitchell, who has already scored quite a few diplomatic feats here, would shuttle between Ramallah and Jerusalem, and maybe Netanyahu would eventually have met with Mahmoud Abbas. Face to face. Then everything would have been sorted out.

Without preconditions, certainly without preconditions, Israel would have continued to build in the territories in the meantime - not 1,600 but 16,000 new apartments. The IDF would have continued arresting, imprisoning, humiliating and starving - all under the auspices of the peace talks, of course. Jerusalem forever. The right of return is out of the question, and so is Hamas. And onward to peace!

Months would go by, the talks would "progress," there would be lots of photo ops, and every now and then a mini-crisis would erupt - all because of the Palestinians, who want neither peace nor a state. At the very end, there might be another plan with another timetable that no one intends to keep.

Everything was so ready, so ripe, until that scoundrel, Yishai, came and kicked it all into oblivion. It's a bit embarrassing, but not so terrible. After all, time heals all wounds. The Americans will soon forgive, the Palestinians will have no choice, and once again everyone will stand ceremoniously on the platform and the process will be "jump-started" again - despite everything that the sole enemy of peace around here, Eli Yishai, has done to us.
Monday
Mar082010

Latest Iran Video: Hillary Clinton's Message to Iranian Women (8 March)

Another move in Washington's public diplomacy campaign: last March, it was President Obama's Nowruz (New Year) message to the people of the "Islamic Republic of Iran"; this March, it is Secretary of State Hillary Clinton's message to Iranian women on International Women's Day:

[youtube]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TAvn_0NkeMg&feature=youtu.be[/youtube]

The Latest from Iran (8 March): Foreign Affairs

Friday
Mar052010

The Latest from Iran (5 March): Re-aligning

2030 GMT: Academic Special. We've posted an entry noting how Iran's regime and America's self-proclaimed "Truthful Encyclopedia", Conservapedia, have allied against deviant professors.

NEW University Special: Iran & Conservapedia Ally Against Dangerous Professors
Death, Confusion, and Clerics in Iran: The Case of Mohammad Amin Valian
Iran Film Special: Watching Shrek in Tehran
The Latest from Iran (4 March): A Death Penalty Mystery


2015 GMT: Karroubi Watch. Iranian authorities have prevented the son of Mehdi Karroubi, Professor Mohammad Taghi Karroubi, from flying to Britain. Mohammad Karroubi's passport was seized at the airport.

Mehdi Karroubi's website, Saham News, reported, "[Mohammad Karroubi] was planning to fly to London for university related work, including the re-publication of his book 'Just or Unjust War?' and the completion of another book related to international law."


1915 GMT: The Valian "Mohareb" Case. The US Government, shifting its attention from the nuclear issue, has called on Iran to release Mohammad Amin Valian, allegedly condemned to death for protests between July and December: "We find this disproportionate punishment deplorable and urge his immediate release. If the Iranian government wants the respect of the international community, it must respect the fundamental freedoms of its people."

1905 GMT: Smoke Screen. In a letter to "Western" media, the editors of six Iranian websites associated with "principlist" politicians have complained about the presentation of post-election events, accusing the Western outlets of distorting events in Iran and acting “unprofessionally.”

The operators of Alef, Tabnak, Jahan, Khabar Online, Farda, and Hamshahri Online websites, asking the Western journalists to use “professional conscience" to review events, focus on the case of Neda Agha-Soltan, killed by a Basiji gunman:
Since the Iranian government was struggling to calm the public and the opposition sought to whip up excitement, in your opinion which side could expect to gain from murdering Neda?....How are the inconsistencies in remarks made by Arash Hejazi in the video clip that is available and the BBC interview where he provides details justifiable? And as a more general question, how credible is the story when an assassination on a quiet street prompts passersby to move closer to film the victim up close instead of fleeing the scene? Did you consider such skepticism before you publicized the story? Was your conduct professional?

The letter continues with the report of the rape and murder of Taraneh Mousavi, a claim which proved to be unsubstantied, accuse Western media of reporting on the news by resorting to an “obscure blog.”

1855 GMT: The Clerical Challenge (cont.).  Remember Mr Verde's column yesterday on how the Supreme Leader and the regime may have let themselves in for some religious trouble over the alleged death sentence handed out to 20-year-old Mohammad Amin Valian as "mohareb" (warrior against God)?

Well, Ayatollah Bayat-Zanjani has joined Ayatollah Sane'i in criticism of the "justice" in the Valian case: "Mohareb are those who attack people with arms and shed their blood, not protesters."

1630 GMT: Political Prisoner Watch. Reports claim that the head of Mir-Hossein Mousavi’s presidential campaign in Shahinshahr in Isfahan Province has been in prison since 11 February.

Prominent reformist Behzad Nabavi was released for five days on Wednesday night.

The sentence for journalist and economist Saeed Leylaz has been reduced to three years.

1500 GMT: Well, Here's a Surprise. The pro-Larijani Khabar Online prints a sustained attack on the foreign policy of the Ahmadinejad Government, notably its pursuit of Iran's nuclear case.

1455 GMT: Rafsanjani Watch. Rah-e-Sabz continues to press the line that Hashemi Rafsanjani is keeping his distance from the Government. The website claims that Rafsanjani, his ally Hassan Rouhani, and former Presidential candidate Ali Akbar Nategh Nouri are staying away from meetings of the Combatant Clergy Association because of their differences with the group.

1445 GMT: Another Warning to Mousavi. Iran's Prosecutor-General Gholam-Hossein Mohseni-Ejeie has attacked Mir Hossein Mousavi: If a Government cannot pursue someone because of his attachments [Note: Attachments to whom or what?], that is a deviation. People expect Mousavi's public punishment.

0740 GMT: Yesterday's Top Statement. Mahmoud Ahmadinejad announced:
Our atomic bombs are our youth and athletic heroes. A nation that possesses determination, intellect, culture and civilization doesn't need to make atomic bombs. Those who suffer from inferiority complex and lack a historical background and civilization are the ones that claim they need atomic bombs.

0725 GMT: Washington Endorses A Nuclear Deal? Perhaps the most significant Iran-related signal that will be missed today....

US Deputy Secretary of State Jim Steinberg met Japanese Foreign Minister Katsuya Okada yesterday on the Iran issue. Steinberg's media statement was bland:
Japan plays a very critical role on this question. It's a leader and a very strong voice in supporting a non-proliferation regime with a very strong commitment to dealing with the challenge of nuclear weapons.

But for those who can de-code diplomatic statements, the Deputy Secretary offered an important signal: "(Japan) is very influential with Iranians and can have a very big impact....(I am) grateful for the strong statements they made during a recent visit by Iranian officials here."

The significance is missed by Agence France Presse, which reports the statement. That "visit by Iranian officials" was the occasion for Speaker of Parliament Ali Larijani to embrace a "third-party" deal in which Japan would enrich Iran's uranium stock to 20 percent.

So now what do you think Steinberg was discussing with Foreign Minister Okada?

0640 GMT: The Sanctions Dance. Outside Iran, a lot of attention will be expended on the continuing discussion of tougher sanctions on Tehran. Brazil's pointed rejection, made during US Secretary of State Hillary Clinton's visit, has checked the momentum --- whipped up in the media --- for an American resolution in the UN Security Council. The Council on Foreign Relations has a useful analysis.

Clinton is now talking about "months", rather than "weeks", for a US initiative. That may not be a bad thing for Obama, who reportedly is sceptical of the impact of further economic measures, but the battle will now move to the US Congress, which continues to press for sweeping rather than gradual sanctions.

0625 GMT: And so the end of another week in Iran. Beyond the bluster of the regime, most of the daily news has concerned political prisoners: some released, usually on bail and commanded to silence or face a return to jail, others swept up and detained.  A case we had not noted before: Radio Farda reports that student Ali Kanturi has been sentenced to 15 years for "abduction" and "extortion".

The regime's heavy hand, despite all the tensions and confusions within the Government, does seem to have quelled public protest. Perhaps most notable is that there do not appear to be the university demonstrations that marked the period between 13 Aban (4 November) and Ashura (27 December). With the regime also continues to try and choke off the opposition media, the public face of resistance now comes primarily through the statements and interviews of figures like Mir Hossein Mousavi and Mehdi Karroubi.

Of course, that does not mean that resistance has been quelled. It is more a case that, in this period between 22 Bahman and the Iranian New Year, it lies smoldering. Another crisis or mis-step by the Government could bring it to the fore; more likely, however, is that the challenge to President Ahmadinejad and, indeed, to the Iranian system will come through erosion.
Not an erosion of legitimacy --- the point that should not be forgotten is that legitimacy has been beyond this Government for many Iranians --- but an erosion of authority as the economy stumbles and there is no visible sign of the "unity" that the regime trumpets again and again in its pronouncements.

That is why the curious "death penalty" case of student Mohammad Amin Valian raises interest. As the affair unfolds, with no confirmation that the Ashura protester has actually been condemned to die, the disquiet and now open opposition of clerics indicates that the Government will continue to face problems --- and the Supreme Leader will be pressured --- over the notion of "justice".
Friday
Mar052010

Middle East Inside Line: US Warns Palestine, New Israel Proposal on Iran, Turkey's Reaction to US "Genocide" Resolution

USWarning to the Palestinian Authority: According to a document sent by Washington to the Palestinian Authority and obtained by Haaretz on Friday, the Obama Administration will assign blame and take action if indirect talks fail due to one side's fault. After clearly stating Washington's position for "a viable, independent and sovereign Palestinian State with contiguous territory that ends the occupation that began in 1967", the report continues:
We expect both parties to act seriously and in good faith. If one side, in our judgment, is not living up to our expectations, we will make our concerns clear and we will act accordingly to overcome that obstacle.

Lieberman's Proposal to Washington on Iran: Israel's Foreign Minister Avigdor Lieberman said Thursday that he doubted the United Nations would follow through with Western demands for harsher sanctions over Iran's contentious nuclear program, and he urged the United States to impose an embargo similar to the one it has held on Cuba for the last 50 years. He claimed that the Iranian regime would collapse in a year with such an embargo. Deputy Foreign Minister Danny Ayalon is flying to Washington on Monday to present the foreign minister's proposal.

Turkey's Reaction over US Votes Condeming Armenian "Genocide": On Thursday, the House of Representatives Foreign Affairs Committee voted 23-22 to call the World War I-era killing of Armenians "genocide". Minutes after this vote, passing the resolution to the full House, Namik Tan, the Turkish Ambassador to Washington, was withdrawn, and Washington's ambassador to Ankara, James Jeffrey, was called to the Foreign Ministry for talks. Foreign Minister Ahmet Davutoglu said: "We expect the US administration to, as of now, display more effective efforts. Otherwise the picture ahead will not be a positive one."

Both Barack Obama and Jeffrey expressed their displeasure with the vote; however, Ankara continues to declare this is a matter of "honour".

At the press conference, when asked whether consequences might include the withdrawal of soldiers from Turkish Afghanistan or the closure of the American base at Incirlik, Davutoglu said: "Of course, we will evaluate the situation as the Government. We will also talk to our President and the opposition."

However, a diplomatic source from Israel said that Ankara did not turn to West Jerusalem for help in Washington to fight the resolution.
Wednesday
Mar032010

Afghanistan in Wonderland: Great US Victory or Down the Rabbit Hole?

Thomas H. Johnson and M. Chris Mason, writing in Foreign Policy, are sceptical about the loudly-hailed "victory" for US forces, taking the town of Marja in Helmand Province in Afghanistan, and the detention of Taliban leaders in Pakistan:

The release of Tim Burton's new blockbuster movie, Alice in Wonderland, is days away. The timing could not be more appropriate. Lewis Carroll's ironically opium-inspired tale of a rational person caught up inside a mad world with its own bizarre but consistent internal (il)logic has now surpassed Vietnam as the best paradigm to understand the war in Afghanistan.

The war in Afghanistan, as we have written here and in Military Review (pdf), is indeed a near replication of the Vietnam War, including the assault on the strategically meaningless village of Marjah, which is itself a perfect re-enactment of Operation Meade River in 1968. But the callous cynicism of this war, which we described here in early December, and the mainstream media's brainless reporting on it, have descended past these sane parallels. We have now gone down the rabbit hole.

Two months ago, the collection of mud-brick hovels known as Marjah might have been mistaken for a flyspeck on maps of Afghanistan. Today the media has nearly doubled its population from less than 50,000 to 80,000 -- the entire population of Nad Ali district, of which Nad Ali is the largest town, is approximately 99,000 -- and portrays the offensive there as the equivalent of the Normandy invasion, and the beginning of the end for the Taliban. In fact, however, the entire district of Nad Ali, which contains Marjah, represents about 2 percent of Regional Command (RC) South, the U.S. military's operational area that encompasses Helmand, Kandahar, Uruzgan, Zabul, Nimruz, and Daikundi provinces. RC South by itself is larger than all of South Vietnam, and the Taliban controls virtually all of it. This appears to have occurred to no one in the media.

Nor have any noted that taking this nearly worthless postage stamp of real estate has tied down about half of all the real combat power and aviation assets of the international coalition in Afghanistan for a quarter of a year. The possibility that wasting massive amounts of U.S. and British blood, treasure, and time just to establish an Afghan Potemkin village with a "government in a box" might be exactly what the Taliban wants the coalition to do has apparently not occurred to either the press or to the generals who designed this operation.

In reality, this battle -- the largest in Afghanistan since 2001 -- is essentially a giant public affairs exercise, designed to shore up dwindling domestic support for the war by creating an illusion of progress. In reporting it, the media has gulped down the whole bottle of "drink me" and shrunk to journalistic insignificance. In South Vietnam, an operational area smaller than RC South, the United States and its allies had over 2 million men under arms, including more than half a million Americans, the million-man Army of the Republic of Vietnam (ARVN), 75,000 coalition troops, the Vietnamese Regional Forces and Popular Forces (known as "Ruff-Puffs"), the South Vietnamese police, the Civilian Irregular Defense Groups (CIDG) and other militias -- and lost.

Yet the media is breathlessly regurgitating Pentagon pronouncements that we have "turned the corner" and "reversed the momentum" in Afghanistan with fewer than 45,000 men under arms in all of RC South (including the Afghan army and police) by fighting for a month to secure a single hamlet. Last year this would have been déjà vu of the "five o'clock follies" of the Vietnam War. Now it feels more like the Mad Hatter's Tea Party. "How can we have more success," Alice might ask, "when we haven't had any yet?"

So here we are in the AfPak Wonderland, complete with a Mad Hatter (the clueless and complacent media), Tweedledee and Tweedledum (the military, endlessly repeating itself and history), the White Rabbit (the State Department, scurrying to meetings and utterly irrelevant), the stoned Caterpillar (the CIA, obtuse, arrogant, and asking the wrong questions), the Dormouse (U.S. Embassy Kabul, who wakes up once in a while only to have his head stuffed in a teapot), the Cheshire Cat (President Obama, fading in and out of the picture, eloquent but puzzling), the Pack of Cards army (the Afghan National Army, self-explanatory), and their commander, the inane Queen of Hearts (Afghan President Hamid Karzai). (In Alice in Wonderland, however, the Dormouse is "suppressed" by the Queen of Hearts, not the White Rabbit or the Cheshire Cat, so the analogy is not quite perfect.)

For his part, as the Economist noted this week, Karzai has made fools of all the Western officials who sternly admonished him to begin a new era of transparent democracy, seizing control of the Electoral Complaints Commission to dismiss its independent members. Like the Queen of Hearts, Karzai has literally lost his marbles, according to our sources in the presidential palace. Or, as U.S. Ambassador Karl Eikenberry more diplomatically phrased it in his leaked cable, his behavior has become "erratic." He hasn't started shouting "off with their heads" yet, but the legitimacy thing is toast. Only the massive public relations exercise in Marjah kept Karzai's kleptocracy out of the media spotlight in February.

The military and political madness of the AfPak Wonderland has entered a new chapter of folly with the detention of a few Taliban mullahs in Pakistan, most notably Mullah Baradar, once the military strategist of the Quetta Shura, the primary Taliban leadership council headed by Mullah Omar. Like the Mock Turtle and the Gryphon in Alice in Wonderland, this has the Washington establishment dancing the whacked-out Lobster-Quadrille: Instant Afghanistan experts at the White House and pundits at august Beltway institutions like the Brookings Institution are absurdly calling the detentions a "sea change" in Pakistani behavior.

In fact, it is no such thing. Pakistan has not abandoned overnight its 50-year worship of the totem of "strategic depth," its cornerstone belief that it must control Afghanistan, or its marriage to the Taliban, and anyone who believes that is indulging in magical thinking. What has happened is, in fact, a purge by Taliban hard-liners of men perceived to be insufficiently reliable, either ethnically or politically, or both. It is well-known that there had been a schism in the Quetta Shura for months, with hard-liner and former Gitmo prisoner Mullah Zakir (aka Abdullah Ghulam Rasoul) coming out on top over Mullah Baradar. Baradar sheltered fellow Popalzai Hamid Karzai in 2001 and possibly saved his life after an errant U.S. bomb in Uruzgan province killed several men on the Special Forces team that was escorting him. Baradar later became a confidant of the president's  brother, paid CIA informer Ahmed Wali Karzai, and met occasionally with the president himself in the tangled web of Afghan politics.

The core Ghilzai leadership of the Taliban had long suspected Baradar of being too willing to negotiate and too partial to his kinsmen in making field appointments. Indeed, this suspicion led to the creation of the Quetta Shura's Accountability Council in late 2009, whose job apparently included removing many of Baradar's excessively Durrani and Karlani appointments.

This explains why when Mullah Zakir, the hard-line military chief of the Quetta Shura along with Baradar, was detained near Peshawar two weeks after Baradar was detained, the Inter-Services Intelligence (ISI) - Pakistan's powerful military spy service -- released him immediately. Meanwhile, all of the other lesser figures currently in detention (including Abdul Kabir, aka Mullah Abdul Kahir Osmani, the RC East regional commander; Mullah Abdul Rauf Aliza, an Alizai Durrani, former Gitmo prisoner, and Taliban military chief for northern Afghanistan; and Mullah Ahmed Jan Akhundzada, former shadow governor of Uruzgan province and Ishaqzai Durrani) are known moderates and allies of Baradar.

In other words, the Quetta Shura has used the ISI, its loyal and steadfast patron, to take out its trash. Those few mullahs suspected of being amenable to discussions with the infidel enemy and thus ideologically impure have now been removed from the jihad. This is not cooperation against the Taliban by an allied state; it is collusion with the Taliban by an enemy state. Pakistan is in fact following its own perceived strategic interests, which do not coincide with those of the United States. Pakistan has masterfully plied the Western establishment with an LSD-laced "drink me" cocktail of its own, convincing everyone that it is a frail and fragile Humpty-Dumpty that must not be pushed too hard, lest the nuclear egg fall off the wall. This is nonsense. In fact, what is needed against Pakistan's military leaders is a lever more powerful than "strategic depth" to force them into compliance and make them stop sheltering al Qaeda, destabilizing Afghanistan, and killing hundreds of Americans by proxy.

Unfortunately, in this AfPak Wonderland, there does not appear to be any magic mushroom to get back to normal. Instead, Afghanistan and Pakistan policy is trapped in an endless loop in a mad policy world operating under its own consistent internal illogic. Unlike Alice, the handful of Afghan analysts in the United States who actually understand what is happening cannot wake up or break through the corporate media noise. Far worse, thousands of brave U.S. Marines and soldiers are caught up in this deadly political croquet game where IEDs, not hedgehogs, are the game balls. The Duchess's baby really has turned into a pig, and there seems to be no way out of this increasingly insane rabbit hole.