Informed Comment

Thoughts on the Middle East, History, and Religion

Juan Cole is President of the Global Americana Institute

Sunday, November 30, 2008

India: Please Don't Go Down the Bush- Cheney Road

Many Indians have called the attacks in Mumbai "India's 9/11." As an American who lived in India, I can feel that country's anguish over these horrific and indiscriminate acts of terror.

Most Indian observers, however, were critical in 2001 (and after) of how exactly the Bush administration (i.e. Dick Cheney) responded to September 11. They were right, and they would do well to remember their own critique at this fateful moment.

What where the major mistakes of the United States government, and how might India avoid repeating them?

1) Remember asymmetry

The Bush administration was convinced that 9/11 could not have been the work of a small, independent terrorist organization. They insisted that Iraq must somehow have been behind it. States are used to dealing with other states, and military and intelligence agencies are fixated on state rivals. But Bush and Cheney were wrong. We have entered an era of asymmetrical terrorism threats, in which relatively small groups can inflict substantial damage.

The Bush administration clung to its conviction of an Iraq-al-Qaeda operational cooperation despite the excellent evidence, which the FBI and CIA quickly uncovered, that the money had all come via the UAE from Pakistan and Afghanistan. There was never any money trail back to the Iraqi government.

Many Indian officials and much of the Indian public is falling into the Cheney fallacy. It is being argued that the terrorists fought as trained guerrillas, and implied that only a state (i.e. Pakistan) could have given them that sort of training.

But to the extent that the terrorists were professional fighters, they could have come by their training in many ways. Some might have been ex-military in Britain or Pakistan. Or they might have interned in some training camp somewhere. Some could have fought as vigilantes in Afghanistan or Iraq. They needn't be state-backed.

Keep your eye on the ball.

The Bush administration took its eye off al-Qaeda and the Taliban, and instead put most of its resources into confronting Iraq. But Iraq had nothing to do with al-Qaeda or the Taliban. Eventually this American fickleness allowed both al-Qaeda and the Taliban to regroup.

Likewise, India should not allow itself to be distracted by implausible conspiracy theories about high Pakistani officials wanting to destroy the Oberoi Hotel in Mumbai. (Does that even make any sense?) Focusing on a conventional state threat alone will leave the country unprepared to meet further asymmetrical, guerrilla-style attacks.

Avoid Easy Bigotry about National Character

Many Americans decided after 9/11 that since 13 of the hijackers were Saudi Wahhabis, there is something evil about Wahhabism and Saudi Arabia. But Saudi Arabia itself was attacked repeatedly by al-Qaeda in 2003-2006 and waged a major national struggle against it. You can't tar a whole people with the brush of a few nationals that turn to terrorism.

Worse, a whole industry of Islamphobia grew up, with dedicated television programs (0'Reilly, Glen Beck), specialized sermonizers, and political hatchetmen (Giuliani). Persons born in the Middle East or Pakistan were systematically harassed at airports. And the stigmatization of Muslim Americans and Arab Americans was used as a wedge to attack liberals and leftists, as well, however illogical the juxtaposition may seem.

There is a danger in India as we speak of mob action against Muslims, which will ineluctably drag the country into communal violence. The terrorists that attacked Mumbai were not Muslims in any meaningful sense of the word. They were cultists. Some of them brought stocks of alcohol for the siege they knew they would provoke. They were not pious.
They killed and wounded Muslims along with other kinds of Indians.

Muslims in general must not be punished for the actions of a handful of unbalanced fanatics. Down that road lies the end of civilization. It should be remembered that Hindu extremists have killed 100 Christians in eastern India in recent weeks. But that would be no excuse for a Christian crusade against Hindus or Hinduism.

Likewise, Prime Minister Manmohan Singh, as a Sikh, will remember the dark days when PM Indira Gandhi was assassinated by her Sikh bodyguards after she had sent the Indian security forces into the Golden Temple-- and the mob attacks on Sikhs in Delhi that took place in the aftermath. Blaming all Sikhs for the actions of a few was wrong then. It would be wrong now if applied to Muslims.

Address Security Flaws, but Keep Civil Liberties Strong

The 9/11 hijackings exploited three simple flaws in airline security of a procedural sort. Cockpit doors were not thought to need strengthening. It was assumed that hijackers could not fly planes. And no one expected hijackers to kill themselves. Once those assumptions are no longer made, security is already much better. Likewise, the Mumbai terrorists exploited flaws in coastal, urban and hotel security, which need to be addressed.

But Bush and Cheney hardly contented themselves with counter-terrorism measures. They dropped a thousand-page "p.a.t.r.i.o.t. act" on Congress one night and insisted they vote on it the next day. They created outlaw spaces like Guantanamo and engaged in torture (or encouraged allies to torture for them). They railroaded innocent people. They deeply damaged American democracy.

India's own democracy has all along been fragile. I actually travelled in India in summer of 1976 when Indira Gandhi had declared "Emergency," i.e., had suspended civil liberties and democracy (the only such period in Indian history since 1947). India's leadership must not allow a handful of terrorists to push the country into another Emergency. It is not always possible for lapsed democracies to recover their liberties once they are undermined.

Avoid War

The Bush administration fought two major wars in the aftermath of 9/11 but was never able to kill or capture the top al-Qaeda leadership. Conventional warfare did not actually destroy the Taliban, who later experienced a resurgence. The attack on Iraq destabilized the eastern stretches of the Middle East, which will be fragile and will face the threat of further wars for some time to come.

War with Pakistan over the Mumbai attacks would be a huge error. President Asaf Ali Zardari and Prime Minister Yousuf Raza Gilani certainly did not have anything to do with those attacks. Indeed, the bombing of the Islamabad Marriott, which was intended to kill them, was done by exactly the same sort of people as attacked Mumbai. Nor was Chief of Staff Ashfaq Kiyani involved. Is it possible that a military cell under Gen. Pervez Musharraf trained Lashkar-e Tayiba terrorists for attacks in Kashmir, and then some of the LET went rogue and decided to hit Mumbai instead? Yes. But to interpret such a thing as a Pakistan government operation would be incorrect.

With a new civilian government, headed by politicians who have themselves suffered from Muslim extremism and terrorism, Pakistan could be an increasingly important security partner for India. Allowing past enmities to derail these potentialities for detente would be most unwise.

Don't Swing to the Right

The American public, traumatized by 9/11 and misled by propaganda from corporate media, swung right. Instead of rebuking Bush and Cheney for their sins against the Republic, for their illegal war on Iraq, for their gutting of the Bill of Rights, for their Orwellian techniques of governance, the public gave them another 4 years in 2004. This Himalayan error of judgment allowed Bush and Cheney to go on, like giant termites, undermining the economic and legal foundations of American values and prosperity.

The fundamentalist, rightwing Hindu Bharatiya Janata Party, which has extensive links with Hindu extremist groups, is already attacking the secular, left-of-center Congress Party for allegedly being soft on Muslim terrorism. The BJP almost dragged India into a nuclear war with Pakistan in 2002, and it seeded RSS extremists in the civil bureaucracy, and for the Indian public to return it to power now would risk further geopolitical and domestic tensions.

India may well become a global superpower during the coming century. The choices it makes now on how it will deal with this threat of terrorism will help determine what kind of country it will be, and what kind of global impact it will have. While it may be hypocritical of an American to hope that New Delhi deals with its crisis better than we did, it bespeaks my confidence in the country that I believe it can.
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Aljazeera English on the Aftermath of the Mumbai Attacks


Aljazeera English interviews victims of the Mumbai attacks in hospital, several of them Muslims.



Aljazeera English also reports on the reaction in Pakistan to the Mumbai events, both on the part of Foreign Minister Qureishi and in an interview with hard line radical fundamentalist Gen. Hamid Gul, a former head of the dreaded Inter-Services Intelligence.


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Saturday, November 29, 2008

12 Killed in Mosque Bombing;
Controversy Rages over Security Pact

A suicide bomber detonated his payload outside a mosque in the largely Shiite town of Musayyib on Friday, killing 12 and wounding 23. Musayyib is in Babil province, and the US turned over security duties there to the Iraqi government last month. The Sadrists plamed the bombing on the security agreement and continued US presence in the country.

Hamza Hindawi of AP asks whether Prime Minister Nuri al-Maliki was weakened by the deal-making in which he had to engage to get the security pact through parliament. He had to agree to a national referendum, and to a package of reforms aimed at making Iraqi government more consensual and less concentrated in the executive, as for all practical purposes, it has become under al-Maliki. I am quoted as wondering whether the current alliance between al-Maliki's Islamic Da'wa (Mission) Party and the Islamic Supreme Council of Iraq of Abdul Aziz al-Hakim will survive. If not, the two will square off against one another in December, during the next federal parliamentary elections. The constitutions stipulates that the largest single bloc in parliament gets first shot at forming a government, and that might not be the al-Da'wa Party.

Al-Hayat reports in Arabic that controversy continues to rage around the security pact, dividing communities against one another. The Association of Muslim Scholars condemned the Iraqi Islamic Party and other Sunni Arab parties for "selling Iraq" with their votes in its favor. Muqtada al-Sadr announced three days of mourning in protest against its enactment, but he did not order his supporters to engage in confrontation to overturn it, "in order to safeguard the unity of the country. One of the aides to Grand Ayatollah Ali Sistani called it a "diminution" of Iraq's sovereignty.

Muqtada asked his followers to mourn formally in mosques for three days, and to hold wakes (for all the world as though someone had died in the family). Muqtada all by himself will leave behind enough material to keep symbolic anthropologists busy for centuries. He sent out a statement expressing his "condolences" to Iraqis at this calamity, an agreement of abasement and humiliation. Hundreds of Sadrists managed to demonstrate after Friday prayers, despite strict security, and to burn American flags.

In Karbala, an aide to Sistani, Sheikh Ahmad al-Safi, said he had two concerns. First, would the Iraqi government actually exercise sovereignty to the degree stipulated in the agreement? And, second, he regretted the lack of any guarantee that Iraq would be removed from Chapter 7 of the UN Charter (and thus regain its independence from the UNSC). He pointed out that as long as US troops were on Iraqi soil, the government in Baghdad would not be truly sovereign, since it could not inspect the mail of American residents of Iraq, and US troops retained freedom of movement.

Ayatollah Muhammad al-Ya`qubi expressed his "disappointment" that the pact was enacted. (He is the spiritual leader of the Islamic Virtue Party or Fadhila, which is strong in Basra).

The Bush administration finally released the official English text on Friday. Some parliamentarians have expressed fears that it is not exactly the same as the Arabic text.


The European Union on Friday urged member states to take in 10,000 of the most vulnerable Iraqi refugees in Jordan and Syria. While it is a praiseworthy step, it cannot in itself resolve a massive crisis of 1.5 million Iraqis displaced abroad.
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Friday, November 28, 2008

Mumbai Attacks and Indian Economy

Aljazeera English reports on the potential economic impact of the Mumbai attacks.



I don't think there are long-term economic implications of the attack as long as Mumbai authorities put in basic security in key areas. In the Middle East, the big tourist hotels have metal detectors and security staff and concrete barriers that keep car bombs away from the building. Indian hoteliers may just have to go in that direction.

There have been past terrorist attacks of similar magnitude, as well as communal violence that had much bigger death tolls (Hindu extremists in Mumbai and elsewhere killed hundreds of Muslims during the aftermath of the destruction of the Babri Masjid in the early 90s (and were helped by Shiv Sena police in Mumbai), and more recently, in 2002, there was the pogrom against Muslims in Gujarat), in which the provincial government was implicated. These events do not interfere with an economy in the medium or long term. It is only if there is instability on an ongoing basis.

I once talked to a merchant in Cairo about this sort of thing. He said his bad years were 1956, 1967, 1973, 1982. They were the years of the Arab-Israeli wars, and he was glad to have peace. But in the years in between, business always recovered.

This Aljazeera English report from yesterday contains a radio statement from one of the terrorists explaining his motives.



He cited Hindu extremists' attacks on Muslims, as in the Babri Mosque incident and in Gujarat.

This is typical hothouse crackpotism. Muslims are 13 percent of the Indian population. I lived in India for a couple of years, and my perception is that mostly people get along fine. There are Hindu-Muslim tensions (but so are there tensions between lower and upper caste Hindus, or between southerners and northerners, between Hindus and Christians, etc.), and occasionally they boil over. But aside from a relatively small number of Hindutva fanatics on the one side, and tiny Muslim terrorist groups in Kashmir (e.g.) on the other, there isn't normally a big problem.

It would help if President-elect Obama would follow through on his stated commitment to finally getting a resolution of the Kashmir issue, since it generates a lot of the tensions.

CNN is reporting that two of the terrorists may have been Britons of South Asian heritage (about half of UK Muslims are originally from Kashmir). If true, that datum would make sense of some of the tactics used in Mumbai (concentration on Americans, British and Israelis or Jews), since many young British Muslims view Anglo-American actions in Iraq and Afghanistan as a genocide against Muslims, and Israeli actions in Gaza and the West Bank as a slow genocide against Palestinians. In their fevered imagination, Hindu India is an ally in this generalized persecution of a harmless and righteous community.

In fact, the ruling Congress Party generally attracts the Muslim vote and in turn New Delhi does favors for the Muslims.

My suspicion is that a US withdrawal from Iraq will lead to fewer such incidents (The Iraq War was cited by the perpetrators of the bombings in Madrid and 7/7 in London, and it is probably implicated in this one too. Fallujah is a rallying cry).
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Passage of Security Pact Strengthens al-Maliki;
Provides Obama with Strong Partner in Withdrawal

Al-Hayat reports in Arabic that 149 MPs out of 198 in attendance voted for the security pact, including the three major blocs, the (Shiite) United Iraqi Alliance, the Kurdistan Alliance, and the (Sunni Arab) Iraqi Accord Front. The Iraqi Accord Front demanded as the price of its positive vote, and got, a commitment that the Iraqi government would conduct a national referendum no later than July on the agreement. Al-Hayat said that the Sadr Movement MPs came dressed in black and held up placards on which was written "Absolutely "No!" to the Agreement." The 30 Sadrists were among the 49 present who voted against the agreement. For its part, the Islamic Virtue Party (Fadhila) boycotted the session (it has 15 seats).

Al-Zaman writing in Arabic pointed out that 149 out of 275 MPs is only 54 percent, while Grand Ayatollah Ali Sistani had said he wanted a broad buy-in among the diversity of the Iraqi people.

I suspect the big Sunni Arab vote of the Iraqi Accord Front, along with that of the Kurdistan Alliance and the United Iraqi Alliance Shiites, will satisfy Sistani.

Joseph Krauss of AFP interviews analysts on the passing of the Iraqi-American Security Pact on Thursday. He quotes Hamid Hassan of Baghdad University as saying, "This agreement will make Maliki's position very strong (in Iraq) because it includes a timetable for the withdrawal of American and coalition forces. . . This success will also send a message to President-elect (Barack) Obama and his people that Maliki is a strong person and a person who can be relied on."

Krauss also quotes Hosham Dawod at France's CRNS, "He knows that he has a small party, Dawa, but he is trying to create a dynamic around his person to enlarge his base . . . He is trying to obtain the support of the t19ribes, the technocrats, the middle class, the urban population of the big cities and even the Sunni Arabs in the areas disputed with the Kurds."

I am quoted saying, "Maliki can only survive in the medium to long term if he can avoid being painted as a puppet of the Americans . . . This security agreement, because of its stipulation that the US gets out on a timetable, potentially turns Maliki into a hero of national independence."

McClatchy reports the views of analysts who fear that al-Maliki may get too powerful in the wake of this victory. He is establishing tribal councils, which have a paramilitary element, and which some fear will become the prime minister's private militia, and might intimidate voters so as to strengthen al-Maliki's Da'wa Party.

McClatchy reports political violence in Iraq on Thursday:

Baghdad

- Around 10 pm of Wednesday a magnetic bomb targeted a civilian car in downtown Baghdad. An officer of police commandos was seriously injured and then died in hospital.

- Around 7 am a roadside bomb targeted an army patrol in Qahira neighborhood (east Baghdad). One soldier was killed and three others were wounded.

- Around 10 am a roadside bomb detonated in Maisloon intersection in Karrada neighborhood (downtown Baghdad). One civilian was killed and six others were wounded.

Mosul

- A suicide bomber targeted a police patrol in downtown Mosul city. Six policemen were wounded.

- A suicide car bomber targeted a police patrol in Mansour neighborhood in Mosul city. Two civilians were killed and 28 others were wounded including 16 policemen.'

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Iranian Radio Says Referendum Will Arm Iraqi Officials Against US 'Pressures'

The USG Open Source Center translates a radio broadcast from The Voice of the Islamic Republic of Iran praising the passage of the Security Agreement between Iraq and the US by the Iraqi parliament. The celebratory style shows that official Iran has swung behind the agreement as a tool for getting the US military out of their western neighbor. Chief Justice Ayatollah Mahmud Hashemi Shahrudi had praised the agreement. (Shahrudi is Iraqi in origin and served 1982-84 as the head of the Supreme Council for Islamic Revolution in Iraq, now led by Abdul Aziz al-Hakim.) Although Supreme Leader Ali Khamenei initially opposed it, he fell quiet once the Iraqi cabinet passed it. Both President Mahmud Ahmadinejad and Speaker of Parliament Ali Larijani strongly opposed it, but they don't appear to control the official radio. So if this agreement really were a good thing for Bush, would Iran be this happy?

Iranian Radio Says Referendum Will Arm Iraqi Officials Against US 'Pressures'
Voice of the Islamic Republic of Iran Radio 1
Thursday, November 27, 2008
Document Type: OSC Translated Text

The Iraqi parliament has approved a referendum on the Baghdad-Washington security agreement. On this basis the agreement will be put to a referendum in Moradad (month beginning 22 July) next year. The security agreement, which is called SOFA (US-Iraqi Status of Forces Agreement), was approved by the parliament following months of consultation between the American and Iraqi officials and after many arguments and making some changes to its contents.

The draft of the agreement was revised and amended seven times due to strong resistance by Iraqi political groups against the irrational demands of America.

According to Resolution 1770 of the Security Council, the military presence of American troops was coming to an end by the end of the current Christian year. For this reason, to pursue their strategic objectives, the Americans have been trying for the past year to legitimize their presence in Iraq by imposing an agreement called SOFA on the Iraqi government but their efforts have been met with domestic and foreign oppositions and concerns, especially the neighboring countries. And of course, these concerns have been proved right with the recent attack on Syria.

This security agreement, which specifies the beginning of 2011 as the time for the complete withdrawal of American forces from Iraq, contains many conditions. One of these conditions, notably the withdrawal of American troops after guaranteeing stability in Iraq, can be used as a pretext by the future American government to prolong its stay in Iraq. For this reason, this agreement has been faced with opposition from various groups in Iraq giving rise to the issue of holding a referendum.

The agreement of the Iraqi government and parliament with holding a referendum shows that Iraqi officials, who are under pressure from America, will be in a better position to express their views by referring to the general consensus and the support of the Iraqi people, and will be able to free themselves from the pressures of the American statesmen.

(Description of Source: Tehran Voice of the Islamic Republic of Iran Radio 1 in Persian -- state-run radio)
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Thursday, November 27, 2008

Security Agreement is Passed by the Iraqi Parliament

Reuters reports that the Iraqi parliament passed the US-Iraqi security agreement, which stipulates that all US troops will be out of Iraq by 2011. of 275 members of parliament, 198 attended and 149 voted in favor. That means it barely passed from the point of view of an absolute majority, though it was a clear simple majority. Apparently the al-Maliki government bowed to Sunni Arab demands that the agreement be submitted to a national referendum, California-style. If that is true, it is possible that it could still be rejected by the Iraqi people. But al-Maliki got it through parliament by painting opponents as implicitly opposing a US withdrawal, and that campaign tactic may work with the general public, too.
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Obama Condemns Mumbai Attacks;
Bloggers Finger Lashkar-e Tayiba;
Pakistan Pledges Support

The terrorist attacks that have left some 100 persons dead and 250 wounded in Mumbai (Bombay), India, caused President-Elect Barack Obama to express his support for the people of India. The Press Trust of India reports:

' Washington, Nov 27 (PTI) US President-elect Barack Obama today pledged full support to India to "root out" terrorist networks as the international community denounced as "outrageous" the multiple terror strikes in Mumbai that claimed at least 100 lives. (bama, who is continuously monitoring the situation, spoke to Indian Ambassador Ronen Sen over phone and conveyed his message that his thoughts and prayers are with the people of India. A statement issued by his Chief National Security Spokesperson Brooke Anderson said the Mumbai terror attacks demonstrated "the grave and urgent threat" of terrorism. "The United States must continue to strengthen our partnerships with India and nations around the world to root out and destroy terrorist networks," it said. The Democratic President-elect, who also spoke to Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice about the situation, told Sen that he is completely supportive of all actions of the Bush Administration to be of whatever assistance to the Government of India in dealing with the menace.'


The attacks have provoked a good deal of comment in the Indian blogosphere.

Aditi Nadkarny focuses on the targeting of tourist hotels and of American, British and Israeli nationals by the terrorists, warning that they may have developed a new technique that menaces citizens of those countries abroad even though improved security has made such attacks difficult to pull off in the metropoles. She notes that many previous such attacks had instead targeted Indians.

Indiavikalp focuses on the report that one of the captured terrorists confessed to being a member of the Lashkar-e Tayibah (Army of the Pure), a Pakistan-based jihadi group that used to train in al-Qaeda camps. This group is an offshoot of Da'wa wa Irshad (Missionizing and Guidance), which was linked to the Ahl-i Hadith movement and was originally founded in the mid-1980s to combat Shiite influence in Pakistan.

Devinaa, who has family and friends in the city, gives a blow by blow timeline of unfolding events.

A lot of Indian bloggers focused on the fact that the terrorists came into Bombay on rubber boats, and darkly hinted that they had arrived from Karachi, Pakistan. That would have been some ride.

Rediff.com did a revealing series on the Lashkar-e Tayiba (just click on the arrow pointing to the right to advance through it).

Meanwhile, Pakistan's foreign minister, Shah Mahmoud Qureshi, pledged 'complete support' in India's struggle against terrorism, noting that Pakistan deals with the problem every day.

AP has video.



India has been suffering from the rise of terrorist groups, some of them Hindu extremists targeting Muslims.

In recent weeks, Hindu extremists have killed 100 Christians in the east of the country.

Even in cosmopolitan Mumbai, Hindu extremists have attacked Christians.
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Voting on Security Agreement Postponed

The Iraqi parliament did not take up with security agreement on Wednesday, delaying the vote until at least Thursday. The ruling clique is negotiating with the largest Sunni Arab coalition, the Iraqi Accord Front, which wants an end to debaathification.
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Wednesday, November 26, 2008

Queen Rania's Top Ten List

Queen Rania of Jordan has for some time had her own channel on youtube and has done a number of broadcasts attempting to clarify the reality of Islam, to present a modernist vision of the place of women in Islam, and to combat extremist interpretations of her religion.

The queen, who (like me) is a graduate of the American University in Cairo, worked at Citibank and Apple Computers in the region before marrying Abdullah bin Hussein of Jordan in 1993 (he is now King Abdullah II). She has been lauded for her work for women's rights in Jordan, and she is a new breed of queen, holding the rank of colonel in the Jordanian armed forces.

The queen was given award as a visionary at the youtube streaming video awards show recently, and accepted it with grace and humor, doing her take-off on David Letterman's top ten list.



Also check out her more serious interventions. Here is part I of Queen Rania's interview with Fareed Zakaria on women and Islam on CNN:



and here is Part II:


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Terrorist atttacks in Mumbai

Coordinated attacks have been launched in Mumbai (Bombay) on tourist hotels and sites, leaving over a dozen dead. Some of the attacks were with machine guns, others with bombs. Two of the terrorists are said still to be holed up in a tourist hotel and under siege by Indian police. No word yet of the group behind this bold, coordinated attack, which is still going on.
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2 GIs Killed, 2 Wounded;
Bush Has own Interpretation of Security Agreement;
2/3s of Iraqis below the Poverty Line

A US soldier and a Marine were shot to death and two Marines were wounded in the northern Iraqi province of Ninevah on Tuesday, and the same attack killed 3 civilians. At least one of the attackers wore an Iraqi army uniform. 16 US troops have been killed in action in Iraq in November, up from zero in October (when the Bush administration presumably ordered the US military to avoid engagements during the run-up to the election).

The LAT reports that Sunni Arab parliamentarians are demanding significant concessions from the al-Maliki government in return for voting in favor of the US-Iraqi security agreement on Wednesday. They want guarantees that the government will stop being run as a tyranny of the Shiite majority, and they want the release of 16,500 Iraqis, the vast majority of them Sunni Arabs, held by the US military.

The votes of the Sunni Arab minority are important to al-Maliki, since they would show a national consensus for the security agreement. Al-Hayat reports in Arabic that President Jalal Talabani will write the Sunni Arab MPs a letter giving them undertakings with regard to their demands. Al-Hayat says that the Iraqi Accord Front, the Sunni fundamentalist coalition with 44 members in parliament, seems likely to split its vote. The Iraqi Islamic Party (a branch of the Iraqi Muslim Brotherhood) is demanding a national referendum on the agreement, and is nervous about voting for it because the Sunni cleric they follow has given a legal ruling or fatwa against it. The Iraqi Front for National Dialogue, another component of the Iraqi Accord Front, says it intends to vote for the agreement.

Grand Ayatollah Ali Sistani, the spiritual leader of the Iraqi Shiites, has said he would only support the agreement if it was adopted by a wide national consensus. His opposition would cause a lot of trouble, so al-Maliki needs to get some proportion of Sunni Arabs aboard. Deputy Speaker of the House Khalid Atiyah of the Shiite United Iraqi Alliance told AFP that the government did not want the agreement to pass by only two or three or four votes, but rather would prefer to gain an absolute majority for it.

One Shiite lawmaker said that the government could only count on 139 MPs to vote for the measure, which would just barely pass it if most MPs attended the session (there are 275). (If it passes, it seems to me more likely to pass with a simple majority.)

McClatchy reports that the Bush administration had deliberately not released the official English version of the security agreement it is negotiating with Iraq, fearing that extensive public debate on it in the US press might throw up criticisms that would be taken up by Iraqi parliamentarians, causing it to be rejected.

It is quite remarkable that this agreement, on which the fate of tens of thousands of American troops depends, has not been officially available to the American public or to Congress!

The McClatchy story makes it clear that the exact wording of some articles appears to have continued to be negotiated right up until the moment, though even agreement on wording has not produced agreement on the meaning of the words. (Iraqis should have been warned about Bush's 'signing statements,' in which he attempts to reverse the intent of the laws that Congress passes and he signs, just by appending a commentary in Bushspeak.)

McClatchy adds:

'The Bush administration has adopted a much looser interpretation than the Iraqi government of several key provisions of the pending U.S.-Iraq security agreement, U.S. officials said Tuesday — just hours before the Iraqi parliament was to hold its historic vote.These include a provision that bans the launch of attacks on other countries from Iraq, a requirement to notify the Iraqis in advance of U.S. military operations and the question of Iraqi legal jurisdiction over American troops and military contractors.'


In other words, the Pentagon will studiedly ignore the more important provisions of the agreement, if Bush has his way.

McClatchy got hold of copy of the official translation on Tuesday, posting it in pdf here.

Iraqi lawmakers are challenging the deal on developing the country's natural gas worked out between the federal petroleum ministry and Royal Dutch Shell, feeling that the terms granted Shell are almost monopolistic.

Al-Hayat also reported that the head of police in Kirkuk for provincial affairs charged on Tuesday that the Ministry of Defense had gone ahead with organizing Arab tribal levies into a "support council." Typically such councils are personally loyal to the prime minister. Such support councils in the north were rejected by the Kurdish Peshmerga paramilitary, so al-Maliki's step in continuing to form them is bold.

All the crowing about "victory" in Iraq on the American Right completely ignores the miserable condition of the Iraqi public. This pdf presentation gives the findings of a recent survey of a random sample of 11,000 families all across Iraq, done at Baghdad University.

About 40% of these households were headed by women, an unusual finding for a patriarchal Arab society. About two-thirds of these female heads of household are widows, bespeaking the horrific loss of life among Iraqi males during the past five and a half years. Some 15% of female heads of household are divorced. Given the shortage of men produced by the war, divorcees may not easily be able to find a new mate. And then there is this odd statistic of 7.5% of female heads of household being single. The authors of the study interpret them as spinsters. It is not clear if they are both orphans and spinsters, so that they are living alone, or if they are heading a household of unemployed parents or siblings. The authors think they are having trouble finding a husband because of all the males killed in the war.

In the US, households headed by women are disproportionately poverty-stricken and it is likely this is true of Iraq in spades.

Nearly half of these families have 6-10 members, while 43% have 1-5.

Two-thirds of these families live on less than $210 per month, but given the size of the families, the average per capita income in this group is $420 per year. The international poverty line is set at $500 a year, so two-thirds of Iraqis are living in poverty. The population of the poorest country in the New World, Haiti, has an annual per capita income of $550.

Over two-thirds of families receive no aid from the Iraqi government, even though their needs are clear, and 50% get no aid from NGOs.

Among displaced families, 13% would not return home even if they could, so great is their fear.

The study asked people if they would vote in upcoming provincial elections, and 58% said yes. Nearly a quarter were undecided.

I fear I would not pay any attention to the survey's findings on voting preferences. Iraqis have consistently lied to pollsters in recent years about this subject, saying they will vote in large numbers for secular parties or independents, but then they have turned around and put in the religious parties. Things can always change in this regard, but I doubt that it will. The Islamic Supreme Council of Iraq, the Da'wa Party of PM Nuri al-Maliki, and the Sadr Movement have networks and supply local security and services in many neighborhoods. These factors are decisive in a way that mere inclination is not.
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Tuesday, November 25, 2008

Afghans fear Lack of Food Aid;
Resent Corruption;
Pakistan Abolishes Civilian Wing of ISI

Aljazeera English reports on Afghan fears that foreign aid won't reach them:



Pervasive corruption is also deeply angering the AFghan public.

Meanwhile, the Pakistan chief of staff, Ashfaq Kiyani, has abolished the political wing of the Inter-Services Intelligence, which had been accused of shaping Pakistni politics by rigging elections or destabilizing government it did not like.

Pakistan's war on the Taliban is swelling refugee camps.
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20 Killed in Baghdad Bombings;
Al-Maliki New Strong Man?

Three bombings in Baghdad on Monday left some 20 persons dead and many others injured. One bomb targeted a mini-bus with female Iraqi government employees on it. A woman suicide bomber detonated her payload in a crowd just outside the Green Zone. Although the Western press tried to tie these bombings to the vote on Wednesday on the security agreement with the US, such bombings are still commonplace in the capital, and are mostly carried out by Sunni Arabs

Although some commentators used the bombings to raise the question of whether it is safe yet for the US towithdraw, I don't see it. The bombings happened despite US military personnel being in the country.

The security agreement to be voted on Wednesday will affect the fate of 16,500 Iraqi prisoneers still in US custody. The agreement stipulates that the US may no longer hold Iraqis without charges and indefinitely. The US only has actual documented evidence against a few hundred prisoners, but considers some 5,000 highly dangerous. Military prosecutors are now working on these cases overtime.

The LAT says that the quick release by the Iraqi government of an Iranian national arrested by the US military in Iraq shows Iran's clout with the Iraqi government.

The LAT also speculates about the impact of the security agreement on Prime Minister Nuri al-Maliki, who has asserted himself as a strongman in the past 8 months. He may have an even freer hand were the US to leave.

It is being alleged that the US kept a file on the private life of UK Prime Minister Tony Blair, a serious violation of an informal agreement of the British and US governments not to spy on one another. The US was allegedly also listening in to the pillow talk of Iraqi interim president Ghazi al-Yawar. (Al-Yawar was wooing Nasrin Barwari, an interim cabinet minister whom he later married as a second wife). You have to wonder how much cooperation Bush extracted with these spy techniques applied to foreign leaders.

Al-Hayat reports in Arabic that lines have hardened among Iraqi parties in the question of whether they will vote for or against the security agreement in parliament on Wednesday. The United Iraqi Alliance (Shiite fundamentalist) has redoubled its backing. But the Sunni Iraqi Accord Front continues to have reservations, while the Sadr Movement is die-hard against it. The Sadrists are predicting that the votes are there to defeat the agreement.

At Tomdispatch.org, Larry Wilkerson is highlighted as a truth-teller.



' McClatchy reports political violence in Iraq on Monday.

- Around 7:30 a.m. a magnetic bomb detonated under a bus for Ministry of Trade employees carrying 18 passengers – 17 female employees and a child. Fourteen passengers were killed, including the child. Three women and the bus driver were wounded, police and witnesses said.

- Around 8:30 a.m. a female suicide bomber detonated near the checkpoint three outside the International Zone where the U.S. embassy and Iraqi government buildings are located. Iraqi police say five people were killed – three civilians and two Iraqi soldiers – and 2 others were wounded. The U.S. military confirmed one death, the Iraqi soldier, and eight injuries.

- Around 11 a.m. a roadside bomb targeted a police patrol in Sinaa street near the Technology University in the Karrada neighborhood (east Baghdad). One person was killed and five others were wounded, including three policemen.

- A mortar hit Meda’in town ( south of Baghdad). Six people were wounded.

Diyala

- Gunmen killed three brothers in Thiaba village of Muqdadiyah town (east of Baquba) around 11 a m.

Mosul

- A sniper killed a policeman in Borsa neighborhood in Mosul city.


- Gunmen opened fire on policemen in Intisar neighborhood in Mosul city. One policeman was injured.'

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Monday, November 24, 2008

Obama: More Aid, Troops for Afghanistan;
Stewart: Don't Put in More Troops

President-Elect Barack Obama talked to Afghan President Hamid Karzai by telephone on Saturday. Late that day, Karzai's office issued a statement about the conversation:

' "Obama said America will increase its commitment to bring security and stability to the government and people of Afghanistan . . .

"Obama also emphasized that combatting terrorism and bringing security to Afghanistan, the region and the world would be a priority of his government . . ." '


Reuters says that 4,000 persons have been killed in political violence in Afghanistan this year, about one third of them civilians.

Former British diplomat Rory Stewart, who runs a philanthropy in Kabul now, warns President-elect Obama against sending more troops to Afghanistan to fight the Taliban. Stewart argues that Afghanistan is just not that important to US security. Stewart writes in the NYT
' President-elect Obama’s emphasis on Afghanistan and his desire to send more troops and money there is misguided. Overestimating its importance distracts us from higher priorities, creates an unhealthy dynamic with the government of Afghanistan and endangers the one thing it needs — the stability that might come from a patient, limited, long-term relationship with the international community.'


We invaded intending to attack Al Qaeda

The US has 32,000 troops in Afghanistan and NATO has over 30,000 more. The US Marines are drafting plans to send 15,000 more from their branch of the military to fight in the vast, rugged country.

NATO, Afghan army, and dissident Afghan forces are preparing for a long hard slog this winter, since fighting may not decline this year in the way it has in the past, says the LAT.

The idea of army tribal levies to fight Taliban and anti-government dissidents is fraught with dangers. It also may not work. Analyst Khalid Aziz sketches out a more promising plan:
' "If you look at the counterinsurgency history and its doctrine, you cannot win and fight against an insurgency only by using military forces. Twenty percent is supposed to be the military side of it [and] 80 percent is supposed to be the people side of it," Aziz said. "Now that is not the ratio that we are seeing in Pakistan or Afghanistan. It is the other way round, we see 80 percent military action and only 20 percent the civilian side." '


Just this weekend, 8 Canadian troops were wounded by a roadside bomb, and a French soldier was killed and another wounded south of Kabul.

Aljazeera English reports on Taliban attacks on NATO convoys bringing food and other supplies from Pakistan to Western troops in Afghanistan.


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Wertheim: There is Racism and There is Racism II

Anne-Ruth Wertheim writes in a guest op-ed for IC:

After I wrote my article “There is Racism and There is Racism’’, I received quite a few often very emotional reactions. At the Trouw website, in personal emails and at any number of blogs. Some of the readers who responded are just as concerned as I am that the latest developments can lead to violence. The distinction I drew between the two kinds of racism and the mechanisms that go along with them have encouraged them in their efforts to head us all in a more peaceful direction. Others reacted with indignation. But all things considered, it is clear that a newspaper article like this about such a complicated issue can also evoke misunderstandings. . .

In your article in Trouw you agree with Harry de Winter, who compares Islamophobia to the Holocaust. That is total nonsense!

Harry de Winter compares Islamophobia to how the public mind set was primed for the Holocaust in the 1930s. How considerable percentages of the European populations allowed themselves to be convinced that their society’s problems at the time were all the fault of their Jewish compatriots. I think the comparison is a valid one and I will illustrate why below.

Racism is all about races and has nothing to do with cultures!

It is true that exploitation racism is focused on peoples or ethnic groups like the indigenous natives in the colonies or the blacks in South Africa. Cultural racism is a completely different story. It targets mercantile minorities, the Chinese in Indonesia and the Indians and Pakistanis in Uganda. European anti-Semitism can also be viewed as cultural racism.

Prejudices are always expressed without people actually meeting and getting to know each other and they pertain to entire groups. Our society puts so much emphasis on the individual and our individual freedom. People who are the object of prejudices are however solely viewed as members of a group and held collectively responsible for whatever other members of the group do. Depending on the kind of socio-economic problems and feelings that are involved, prejudices can be focused on ‘race’ (whatever that may be) or ethnic group at one extreme and culture at the other, and everything in between. The two kinds of prejudices also often both occur as factors in mixtures.

Criticism of Islam doesn’t have anything to do with racism!

The point here is not criticism of this religion or that. Of course that is something that should be able to be expressed. The point is that people are labeled because of their religion, isolated from the rest, discriminated and ultimately perhaps even violently driven out of the country.

Muslims and non-Western immigrants are racists themselves, so what are they complaining about?

There is racism all over, that is true, and it needs to be analysed and combated all over. An eye for an eye and everyone goes blind, that is no solution.

What in the world do you mean by different kinds of racism?

It is a distinction that can be used to clarify the mechanisms in effect at the moment in our society. I think it is important for people to be able to see them for what they are.

In cases of exploitation racism, a small group of people benefits from the work done by huge numbers of other people. The happy few have workers do hard, dirty and often dangerous jobs under poor working conditions and for low wages. They don’t want to have to admit this is exploitation, so they spread the notion that they are so stupid and backwards they wouldn’t want it any other way.

In cases of cultural racism, competition among groups plays an important role but not the only one. For centuries and all across the globe, there was economic competition between the established populations and mercantile minorities who, as it happens, had also been living there for centuries themselves. The established population was jealous of their ingenuity and perseverance and looked for ways to eliminate them as rivals or at any rate weaken them. They started by casting suspicion on their deviant culture including their religion, and telling stories about how sly they were and how dangerous because they were out to rule the world. In the end they started to believe the stories themselves and the fears would periodically get so out of hand that mass violence broke out against the minorities in what was called pogroms. In the anti-Semitism that prevailed in Europe, competition was a factor side by side with for example the Christian accusation that the Jews had killed Jesus.

You wrote that prejudices can serve to justify certain things.

Prejudices can mask or legitimate underlying feelings. That was clear in the cases of exploitation racism in the colonies and in competition racism against the mercantile minorities as well. Colonials who felt uncomfortable with their role as exploiters were all too willing to believe the exploited people were quite happy with things as they were. After all, they were born stupid, lazy and childlike. An additional advantage was that the colonials could feel superior to them. Of course the people who were bothered by the successes of mercantile minorities could hardly call them stupid and lazy. They turned to the aspects developed later in life, their culture. To them the solution was to see the behaviour of the mercantile minorities as deviant, unreliable and scary, so that in the end, they had only themselves to blame for their demise.

The things people say about Muslims are not just made up, they are true.

As one regards the cultural racism on the rise here in the Netherlands, one might wonder whether and to what extent there are other feelings underlying the prejudices about Muslims and essentially about all non-Western immigrants. Our society is permeated with competition for money and goods as well as fame and honour. It is accompanied by all kinds of feelings that people are not supposed to have, as we are told from early childhood. You should not be jealous of people who are doing better than you, you should be able to cope with loss, you should be happy for other people’s accomplishments and so forth. So it is very understandable that people prefer to conceal their socio-economic motivation. For example, their irritation at having to compete with immigrants, their jealousy if immigrants are successful, and their problems about having to share the public space with them. It is more comfortable to believe that the entire group simply does not count, that Muslims are so dangerous that it disqualifies them. It would not be the first time in history that the belief in a common enemy met a need for harmony and consensus, especially in times of economic insecurity like we are experiencing today, what with privatization, globalization and market mechanisms…

Do you mean gut feelings?

No, because it is not a term that explains anything or solves anything. What is more, it has a condescending sound to it. I am trying to analyze how people come to believe in cultural biases.

You wrote that cultural racism is gaining ground in the Netherlands. But isn’t it inconceivable that competition is playing a role here? Aren’t the immigrants way too far behind and much too problematic?

In recent decades, there has been a shift in the Netherlands from disdain for the first labour immigrants from Turkey and Morocco to growing distrust and fear of Muslims and actually all non-Western immigrants and their children and grandchildren. At the moment, there is a mixture of prejudices, remains of the familiar old condescension and fear and suspicion. I think that at least in part, this shift can be explained by the growing ability of immigrants and their children and grandchildren to compete. So I think this shift is going to continue. Their emancipation is in full swing and they are in the process of taking the places they have earned for themselves in all the sectors of society including the highly educated ones. Everyone can see and feel this, even though most of the media do keep stubbornly zooming in on the lags and the problems, which of course are there as well.

Nature or nurture, what difference does it make?

Sometimes victims of exploitation racism, who can’t help being the way they are, also find themselves getting a bit of sympathy, even though of course it is not nice to get it from people who look down at you. Victims of cultural racism however are to blame for being the way they are. In the course of their lifetime, they have internalized their identity and pernicious ideas and customs in their very essence. They are given a choice: either abandon their identity, ideas and customs and lose their self-respect or be excluded from society. If such a thing is possible, this makes cultural racism even more ruthless than exploitation racism.

They just have to integrate, period!

Forcing people to either abandon their identity or be excluded is not integration. All over the world, immigrants integrate into new societies, sometimes after one generation, sometimes after two or three, in infinite different variations. Jewish Europeans were completely integrated and often even assimilated and it did not save them from mass annihilation.

What does group formation have to do with violence?

In both types of racism, prejudices focus on a group. It does not matter that much to the exploiters whether the group is sharply defined, the more people it includes, the better. In cultural racism, step by step the borders are reinforced until a recognizable group has been constructed that can be eliminated as a whole. The mercantile minorities could be identified by their appearance and names and Jewish Europeans, who were more difficult to recognize, were forced to wear a yellow star. Delineation of this kind makes it possible to scapegoat an entire group. Over and over again this has proved to be an excellent way to avert tension in a society.

A clearly defined group can also be more easily accused of being under the influence of foreign powers and thus unreliable. Last spring doubts were suddenly expressed about the loyalty of Ahmed Aboutaleb, Nebahat Albayrak and Khadija Arib, who had all recently risen to high positions in Dutch society. No one could claim they still had to integrate or make up for some lag so new ammunition had to be found: they had two passports. As I noted in my article in Trouw, doubts about loyalty and the accusation of being loyal to distant powers are part of cultural racism. Jews were accused of following the Wise Men of Zion, a non-existent sneaky association bent on ruling the world. And Chinese traders were thought to be marionettes of the big bad mother country.

If and when it comes to violence, a very important difference between the two types of racism is the nature of the violence. In exploitation racism, violence is focused on a few individuals in public to make it clear to everyone else that resistance is useless. In cultural racism, violence is on a mass scale because it is designed to murder all the members of the group viewed as dangerous or drive them out of the country.

You wrote that we tend to tone cultural racism down by calling it Islamophobia!?

Islamophobia only pertains to the fear of Islam. Although a phobia is an exaggerated, unhealthy and irrational fear, in only a few years and under the influence of this very same irrational fear, the term has been weakened to now mean a justified fear of Islam. Nowadays people barely seem to feel any embarrassment about using it this way. I want precisely these people to appreciate the severity of the situation. And to realize that in the end, incessantly spreading fear and discord in a population can lead to mass violence. It is naive and arrogant to think this kind of violence can only break out in distant countries and that we in the West are too respectable. That is not what our history tells us. It is also short-sighted and misleading to act as if Islamophobia is something very different than racism just because it targets a religion and not a race, whatever that may be. As I noted above, the cultural racism that is emerging in the Netherlands and is toned down by calling it Islamophobia has quite a few features in common with competition racism against mercantile minorities and with anti-Semitism as well. The main point of racism is that it singles out a specific segment of the population, targets it with prejudices about traits people are either born with or acquire, and then treats them as if these prejudices are actually true.

Why don’t you refer to it as discrimination? That doesn’t sound as bad.

Discrimination can be an aspect of racism and often is, but it is not always demonstrable. The people who treat a group unfairly or exclude it can often defend their decisions by saying they have nothing to do with race or religion and claiming to have totally different reasons in mind. The term racism covers a lot more than just discrimination, it also includes biases and preconceptions and prejudices and can include violence as well.

Don’t you think it turns people off if you accuse them of racism?

I am not accusing anyone of anything, I am analyzing the situation and showing what can happen. I hope and trust that it would be a good thing if more people could understand the mechanisms in operation here. I do think though that the people who encourage and spread fear of a specific segment of the population are taking on a very heavy responsibility. They are attacking, so they are the attackers. By labeling the people they are attacking scary and dangerous, they are creating a very advantageous reversal of the whole picture. In one fell swoop, they turn themselves into the attacked party instead of the attackers. They present themselves as victims of the danger they themselves have invented, and they try to persuade everyone else to share their prejudices. And instead of seeing the situation as something they themselves are creating, they say the Muslims ought to be able to deal with it and should not act like victims.

But I have faith that we are capable of rational thinking, well maybe not all of us but certainly most of us. If a lot of people, whether they are politicians or not, see what is actually happening, in the end they will stand behind what is in the interest of society as a whole and thus also in their own interest.

But don’t you think extremist Muslim violence is dangerous?

Of course I think extremist violence based on religion, whether it is Islam or any other religion, is dangerous and needs to be combated. But not by randomly holding people responsible just because they believe in the same religion. Whenever the media focus on violence, they automatically refer to extremist Muslim violence. I think they should also consider the possibility that violence might break out here in the Netherlands against the Muslims and all the other recognizable non-Western immigrants. People’s fear is an incredibly strong motivation for outbursts of violence. The media would be wiser to expose these mechanisms for what they are.

. . . I [was] happy to take advantage of the opportunity Anja Meulenbelt is offering me as a guest on her blog to elaborate upon my analyses based on these readers’ responses.

Anne-Ruth Wertheim is a journalist and the author of various books including De gans eet het brood van de eenden op, mijn kindertijd in een Jappenkamp op Java (The Goose Snatches the Bread from the Ducks, My Childhood in a Japanese Prison Camp on Java, 1994). An Indonesian translation of the book was published in March 2008.She works with the concepts of exploitation/colonial racism (contempt or condescension) and cultural/competition racism (envy and distrust). Other articles she wrote about racism could be found at http://www.risq.org/article492html, at http://www.risq.org/article427.html and http://www.risq.org/article441.html.
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Sunday, November 23, 2008

Bush and Rant on Red Sea Piracy

Piracy by Somali pirates in the Red Sea region threatens to reduce world trade through the Suez Canal by about a third, and could raise petroleum prices again if the smaller oil tankers have to go around the Cape of Good Hope to Europe.

Wouldn't it be in part the duty of President Bush and the US Navy to make sure there is security on the high seas?

I haven't seen that Bush ever did anything about the problem.

But he didn't hesitate to send two aircraft carriers at once into the Persian Gulf, just to tweak the Iranians.

Bush was like some yahoo on Dukes of Hazzard-- he was always up for a hotrod street race, but he did not care anything about actually supplying security to anyone. His posturing, threats, and actually invasions have just left the legacy of a lawless world, and Red Sea piracy is only one manifestation of it.
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SOFA Vote Set for Wednesday;

The Iraqi parliament has postponed its vote on the proposed US-Iraq security pact from Monday to Wednesday. MPs had complained that there were not given enough time to study its provisions. It is still not clear how the Sunni Arab MPs will vote; without their support, the agreement would likely be seen as a joint Shiite-Kurdish conspiracy.


Sunni Arabs have grievances against the Baghdad government, but many seem willing to cooperate with it.

The presidency council in Iraq has criticized Prime Minister Nuri al-Maliki for building up tribal levies of Shiite Arabs into forces supporting the PM. There are rumors in Iraq that they are loyal to the Da'wa or Islamic Mission Party, and may play a role in strengthening that party against Shiite rivals.

Further evidence that Kurdistan is already acting like an independent country surfaced on Saturday, when it was revealed that the Kurds have imported arms from Bulgaria without directing so much as a by your leave to Baghdad.

An Iranian arrested last week by US forces at Baghdad Airport as a gun runner has been released. Maybe the Iraqis wanted him running guns (see story just above).
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Wertheim: There is Racism and There is Racism-I

A new kind of racism is gradually emerging in the Netherlands. Not the classical contempt for others, but a cultural racism of distrust and fear.

In an ad in de Volkskrant, a leading Dutch daily paper, on 17 March 2008 tv-producer Harry de Winter compared how people talk about Muslims in the Netherlands with anti-Semitism against Jews. In recent years, anyone who ventured to draw this comparison was viewed as a nutcase. Islamophobia was the justified fear of Muslims and didn’t have anything to do with something as awful as the Holocaust. But De Winter’s comparison pertains to the preparations, i.e. how the inhabitants of European countries were gradually persuaded in the course of the 1930s that there was something really not quite kosher about the Jews.

Calling what the Muslims are dealing with racism still encounters strong reluctance in present-day society. There is another reason why. Racism means systematically looking down on certain people and there is little or no evidence of that here today. Racism is what happened in the colonies, what was done to the slaves, the blacks under Apartheid and Afro-Americans in the United States. All we are doing here is “calling a spade a spade and saying what we think. It is a question of the right to have an opinion, and without even being nasty. They ought to be able to cope with that and it should have happened a long time ago.”

It is true that the colonial racism we are familiar with is on its way out. But it is not the only kind of racism there is. For centuries and all across the globe, there has been a very different kind of racism, cultural racism. It is not about looking down on people, it is about fear and distrust. Though we tend to tone it down by calling it Islamophobia, this is the racism that is gaining ground in the Netherlands.

The two kinds of racism are as different as can be, but do have one thing in common. They are both brimming with biases and preconceptions. Colonial racism sees certain people as being unable to take care of themselves, stupid, lazy and childlike. The new cultural racism virtually turns this upside down. Muslims and essentially all non-Western immigrants are rarely called stupid, even though they do have a lot to catch up on. They are mainly unreliable and their cultural baggage, including their religion, is very dangerous and very scary.

I myself was once part of a minority. As a half-Jewish white child, I grew up in the former Dutch East Indies, which is now Indonesia. In the colony, Indonesians had to work on the plantations for very low wages. This was justified with the usual prejudices. The literature of the former Dutch colony is filled with examples of the racial features the colonists attributed to the natives. Their Indonesian personnel was simple-minded, gullible and lived from one day to the next. They couldn’t help it, that was simply their biological makeup.

As anyone who is not lily white can testify, there are still traces of this kind of exploitation racism in the Netherlands. After the horrors of the persecution of the Jews, the word racist did come to have very nasty connotations. But when the Turkish and Moroccan labour migrants entered the country, the Dutch were ready to look down their noses at them. They couldn’t do anything but heavy physical work, nor did they want to, and they were too stupid to learn Dutch. But very gradually, something changed.

For centuries, cultural racism turned against mercantile minorities, there were Indians and Pakistanis who were driven out of Uganda and pogroms against the Chinese in several Asian countries, like Indonesia. And indeed, European anti-Semitism had a great deal in common with this kind of cultural racism. Wherever cultural racism emerged, it was fraught with malicious preconceptions, but nowhere was claimed that anyone was stupid or lazy. On the contrary, the group in question was sly and hungry for money and power.

It was not that there was anything wrong with their biological features, it was their culture that was so scary, their deviant ways of acting and thinking, their religion. And that was something they could definitely do something about, i.e. put an end to their abhorrent practices, abandon their religion. What is more, they were competing with the established population, which was another thing that was not likely to be appreciated. Even though no one liked to admit being jealous and it seemed preferable to focus on their unreliability.

Let us examine the similarities to the new racism in the Netherlands. Condescension has been replaced by fear, distrust and contempt for things “people can change, if only they want to”. Fortunately most people are not contaminated by these ideas. They can clearly see how the dangers of extremism have been declared applicable to all Muslims. And no matter how much they differ, how all the non-Western immigrants are lumped together into one recognizable group. How they become a scapegoat for everything that goes wrong, the atmosphere in certain neighborhoods, the streets that are so unsafe, and nowadays even for traffic jams. And the contempt they are confronted with if they speak out against discrimination, which is then referred to as typical victim behaviour.

The people who refuse to go along with this are not blind to the problems, they see perfectly well what solutions of this kind can lead to. They do not close their eyes to the lessons of history.

Last year the loyalty of the New Dutch was suddenly in question because they had two passports. Doubts about loyalty and the accusation of being loyal to distant powers are also part of cultural racism. Jews were accused of following the Wise Men of Zion, a non-existent sneaky association bent on ruling the world. And Chinese traders were thought to be marionettes of the big bad mother country.

Lastly, there are the risks of violence. Wherever exploitation racism dominated, rebellious individuals used to be subjected to public corporal punishment as a warning. Everyone else would be left unharmed. After all, they had to be capable of hard labour. But wherever cultural racism prevailed, as many members as possible of the group deemed to be a threat would be eliminated, murdered or driven out of the country. That violence was on a mass scale, though there were fatalities on both sides. It was preceded by intensifying the spread of rumours about how dangerous the group was and how justified the fear.

The dynamite was there, it was just a question of lighting the fuse. It usually remained a mystery who made the first move. It is fortunately nothing like that yet here, but an end does have to be put to the black cloud hanging over us. This can be done once more people get a clear view of the mechanisms in operation here.

(After this article“There is Racism and There is Racism I’’ was published, I received quite a few often very emotional reactions and questions. So I decided to publish an article in which I answer the questions and explain more, see: There is Racism and There is Racism-II ).

This article appeared in Podium, the Op-Ed section of the Dutch daily paper Trouw on 19 March 2008 and is reprinted here in English with the author's permission.


Anne-Ruth Wertheim is a journalist and the author of various books including De gans eet het brood van de eenden op, mijn kindertijd in een Jappenkamp op Java (The Goose Snatches the Bread from the Ducks, My Childhood in a Japanese Prison Camp on Java, 1994). An Indonesian translation of the book was published in March 2008.She works with the concepts of exploitation/colonial racism (contempt or condescension) and cultural/competition racism (envy and distrust). Other articles she wrote about racism could be found at http://www.risq.org/article492html, at http://www.risq.org/article427.html and http://www.risq.org/article441.html.
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Sevilla: Survivor Corps Supports Returning Troops and their Families!

Dani Sevilla writes in a guest op-ed for IC:

Within the United States there are over one and a half million service members that have served in military operations in Iraq and Afghanistan. Over thirty thousand have been physically wounded, but many more have experienced less visible, psychological wounds. Traumatic Brain Injury and Post Traumatic Stress Disorder have emerged as signature injuries of these conflicts, with recent reports suggesting an increase in rates of suicide, alcohol and drug abuse, homelessness, and domestic violence among returning service members and veterans.

These traumatic affects of conflict, left unaddressed, could have far-reaching negative consequences for the individuals affected, their families, and our country. Survivor Corps’ work in some of the most conflict affected countries in the world has shown community reintegration to be the key factor in those that overcome their traumatic experiences, and those that are consumed by them.

YOU CAN HELP!

Operation Survivor

Ongoing conflicts in Iraq and Afghanistan are creating a generation of veterans in the United States from all branches of the armed services and all 50 states who are struggling to overcome physical and psychosocial injuries. Most combat veterans convalescing in military hospitals across the country will survive physically, but getting on with their lives after returning home to their families and communities is proving a significant challenge for hundreds of thousands. Among the 1.6 million who have served since 2001, suicide is on the rise, as is unemployment and incidents of substance abuse and domestic violence.

The successful reintegration of returning service members is an issue that will have a long-lasting impact on American society, and may become the single defining struggle facing this new generation of veterans. Survivor Corps and its partners are determined to avoid the mistakes made when veterans returned from Vietnam, which resulted in tens of thousands of post-war suicides and over 200,000 men and women living on the streets.

To head off this tragic outcome, Survivor Corps will build peer support programs at the community level that will bring service members and veterans together for mutual support and encourage both individual responsibility and collective action to help others in need.

Survivor Corps is offering an alternative “treatment” that can be made readily available in all communities, regardless of proximity to traditional military or government centers of support. Our approach is nimble enough to address the needs of individual survivors, while still broad enough to build a coalition of survivors and service providers working to effect long-term positive change.

This new program will help the recovery and reintegration of hundreds of thousands of returning U.S. service members at a critical time for them and their country.

Click Here to read more about Operation Survivor http://survivorcorps.org/NetCommunity/us/

Dani Sevilla
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Saturday, November 22, 2008

Thousands Demonstrate Against US Security Pact;
MPs Said to Receive Death Threats

McClatchy reports that tens of thousands of protesters came out against the US-Iraqi security agreement on Friday, mainly Shiites of the Sadr Movement. Parliamentarians who favor the pact, such as Hadi al-Amiri of the pro-Iranian Badr Corps paramilitary, vowed that the demonstrations would make no difference to the vote.



AP emphasizes that the crowds burned Bush in effigy. Does that mean they aren't planning to name a street after him after all?

The LAT Iraq blog reports the demonstration as well, noting the absence of US troops. The photographs are worth checking out.

Al-Hayat reports in Arabic that there were similar demonstrations in Basra, Diyala and Salahuddin Provinces.

Al-Hayat also tries to figure the support for the agreement in parliament. They count 53 members of the Kurdistan Alliance and 83 members of the United Iraqi Alliance (Shiite fundamentalist), for 136 out of 275, less than the 138 needed to pass. But this accounting ignores the 5 seats held by the Kurdistan Islamic Union, which invariably votes with the other Kurds, so that comes to 141.

Al-Hayat figures 106 firmly against, including 41 from the Iraqi Accord Front (Sunni fundamentalists). But some members of IAF may vote for the agreement (2 of 6 IAF members voted in favor of it on the cabinet).

Al-Hayat speculates that the deputies leaving for pilgrimage to Mecca, who thereby will miss the vote on Monday, are largely from the United Iraqi Alliance, which would subtract positive votes in favor of the agreement. I'm not sure, however, why the UIA MPs would be more likely to go on pilgrimage than, e.g., Sadrists or Sunni fundamentalists.

Al-Hayat also says that some MPs are privately admitting that they will absent themselves on Monday because they are getting severe pressure to do so, and some are even getting death threats. That severe pressure and death threats thing could explain why so many MPs suddenly were stricken with an attack of piety such that they just had immediately to go on pilgrimage to Mecca.

If I were a betting man, I'd say that the security agreement is likely to pass through parliament, even if narrowly-- though if the Sunni Arabs do unanimously vote against or absent themselves, the agreement will lack the legitimacy that would have come from a national consensus across ethno-religious groups.

Kurdish guerrillas of the PKK blew up the Iraq-Turkey oil pipeline on Friday, halting petroleum exports from the north.

McClatchy reports political violence in Iraq on Friday:

' Baghdad

A roadside bomb targeted civilians near a checkpoint manned by National Police in Doura, southern Baghdad at 7 a.m. Friday, killing three civilians, injuring fifteen people including three policemen.

A roadside bomb targeted an Iraqi Army foot patrol in al-Arabi neighbourhood in Mansour, central Baghdad injuring two soldiers and two civilians.

Nineveh

A truck bomb driven by a suicide bomber targeted a checkpoint manned by Iraqi Army in Thawra neighbourhood, downtown Mosul at 8.30 p.m. Thursday, injuring thirty six people including six soldiers and causing severe material damages to surrounding buildings and civilian cars.

Kirkuk

An adhesive bomb stuck to a civilian car parked in front of a civilian home in al-Ghaz neighbourhood detonated at 6.20 p.m. Friday causing material damages to the car.

A mortar round fell in al-Khassa neighbourhood, near Kirkuk Mosque without causing any casualties or damages.'

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Afghanistan: Green Energy?

The US is helping put wind turbines into the Panjshir Valley to help Afghanistan with alternative energy.



Aljazeera English asks if it is really working, and who would benefit:


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Iran: Seven Faces of a Civilization



Check out the video: Iran, Seven Faces of a Civilization.

'Beyond the gate of time lies a civilization with seven thousand years of celebrated heritage.

A cradle of civilization a tolerant world empire a crossroad of civilizations a world of artistic forms and shapes a kaleidoscope of architectural marvels recreated for the first time'


Also at Youtube in smaller installments:


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Friday, November 21, 2008

Dubai: Party on, Dude

Even though Dubai's boom has turned to bust, the emirate known for its gaudy exuberance, which comedian Jon Stewart once called 'what happens when Saudi Arabia and Las Vegas have a baby,' couldn't restrain itself from yet one more big bash.



South African casino owner Solomon Kerzner spent $20 million on fireworks and other party notions to celebrate the opening of his new Atlantis resort on Dubai's Palm Island, at an event bedecked by celebrities such as Robert DeNiro and Charlize Theron. As soon as the fireworks ended, Atlantis "goddess" Priyanka Chopra called for partying to begin, and Kylie Minogue led the way.

The fireworks at the grand opening were spectacular:



Still, real estate prices on Dubai's Palm Jumeirah island have fallen by 40%, since prospective buyers can no longer easily get loans, given the credit crunch.

You have to wonder whether the world's first "dynamic building" is still going to get built.


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35 Wounded in Mosul Car Bombing;
Sistani Upbraids MPs;
Al-Maliki Threatens to Resign

The Iraq War is still hot in the northern city of Mosul (pop. 1.7 mn.) , where 10-12 car bombs still are detonated every day. On Thursday, McClatchy reports, "A suicide car bomber detonated in Mosul city around 8:30 pm. Police opened fire on the car before targeting a police station in the area that made its driver swerved away of its direction. Thirty five people were injured in that incident."

Al-Hayat reports in Arabic that Prime Minister Nuri al-Maliki has threatened to resign if the parliament does not pass the security agreement on November 24.

Some MPs are complaining that by the constitution, the agreement should have been turned over to the relevant parliamentary committees. Only if the latter reported it out should the government have proceeded with the first reading. Instead, the agreement went straight to the full parliament.

Grand Ayatollah Ali Sistani on Thursday lambasted members of the Iraqi parliament who have left to go on pilgrimage to Mecca rather than staying in Baghdad to debate and vote on the US-Iraqi security agreement. (Adult Muslims have a duty to go on pilgrimage to Mecca at least once in their lifetimes if they can afford to do so, but there was no pressing necessity for the MPs to go this year). Some of those who have left are members of the United Iraqi Alliance, the party that announces its allegiance to Sistani and has campaigned by using his image.

If the security agreement is passed, the 163,000 private contractors that the Pentagon employs in Iraq will become subject to Iraqi law and could be tried in Iraqi courts. It is not clear if private security firms such as Blackwater will be willing to operate in Iraq under such rules. Blackwater cowboying is accused of causing a lot of trouble in Iraq, as with Fallujah and Nissour Square.

In fact, some observers, according to McClatchy, , are suggesting that private security guards could be tried even for actions they took before the agreement was enacted.

Tom Engelhardt is skeptical of the Pentagon's argument that the US has too much materiel in Iraq to withdraw it all in only 16 months.

Experts testifying, and members of Congress commenting, at a hearing Thursday on the Status of Forces Agreement insisted that it is a treaty and must be ratified by the Senate.

The US, Iraq and Turkey have established a joint committee to combat the PKK (Kurdish Workers Party), guerrillas of which are holed up in northern Iraq, from which they have launched attacks on Turks across the border.

A court ordered the release of 5 Algerians from Guantanamo on Thursday. They had been arrested in Bosnia and charged with being al-Qaeda. The judge found that the government had insufficient evidence to hold them. (Not to mention that during the Bosnia war, the US government had winked at Muslimm activists going to Sarajevo, on the grounds that they would fight rogue Serb forces; so it is ironic that Bush turned around and arrested these former allies.)
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Joint Experts' Statement on Iran

Below is a statement on Iran that I and others are hoping will be adopted in Washington as a way forward. Any of my readers who has a way of getting this statement to decision-makers in Washington should please do so. Just Foreign Policy is doing it as a petition. Also, my blogger colleagues should please comment widely on it.

It was carried by wire services such as Reuters and also the Associated Press.

Gary Kamiya at Salon pointed to it.

Michael Theodolu covered the statement in the Gulf.

Jim Lobe has written about it, under the rubric "Obama urged to forego Iran threats."

The statement follows:

Among the many challenges that will greet President-elect Obama when he takes office, there are few, if any, more urgent and complex than the question of Iran. There are also few issues more clouded by myths and misconceptions. In this Joint Experts' Statement on Iran, a group of top scholars, experts and diplomats - with years of experience studying and dealing with Iran - have come together to clear away some of the myths that have driven the failed policies of the past and to outline a factually-grounded, five-step strategy for dealing successfully with Iran in the future.

Joint Experts' Statement on Iran


Despite recent glimmers of diplomacy, the United States and Iran remain locked in a cycle of threats and defiance that destabilizes the Middle East and weakens U.S. national security.

Today, Iran and the United States are unable to coordinate campaigns against the Taliban and al-Qaeda, their common enemies. Iran is either withholding help or acting to thwart U.S. interests in Iraq, Afghanistan, Lebanon, and Gaza. Within Iran, a looming sense of external threat has empowered hard-liners and given them both motive and pretext to curb civil liberties and further restrict democracy. On the nuclear front, Iran continues to enrich uranium in spite of binding U.N. resolutions, backed by economic sanctions, calling for it to suspend enrichment.

U.S. efforts to manage Iran through isolation, threats and sanctions have been tried intermittently for more than two decades. In that time they have not solved any major problem in U.S.-Iran relations, and have made most of them worse. Faced with the manifest failure of past efforts to isolate or economically coerce Iran, some now advocate escalation of sanctions or even military attack. But dispassionate analysis shows that an attack would almost certainly backfire, wasting lives, fomenting extremism and damaging the long-term security interests of both the U.S and Israel. And long experience has shown that prospects for successfully coercing Iran through achievable economic sanctions are remote at best.

Fortunately, we are not forced to choose between a coercive strategy that has clearly failed and a military option that has very little chance of success. There is another way, one far more likely to succeed: Open the door to direct, unconditional and comprehensive negotiations at the senior diplomatic level where personal contacts can be developed, intentions tested, and possibilities explored on both sides. Adopt policies to facilitate unofficial contacts between scholars, professionals, religious leaders, lawmakers and ordinary citizens. Paradoxical as it may seem amid all the heated media rhetoric, sustained engagement is far more likely to strengthen United States national security at this stage than either escalation to war or continued efforts to threaten, intimidate or coerce Iran.

Here are five key steps the United States should take to implement an effective diplomatic strategy with Iran:

1. Replace calls for regime change with a long-term strategy

Threats are not cowing Iran and the current regime in Tehran is not in imminent peril. But few leaders will negotiate in good faith with a government they think is trying to subvert them, and that perception may well be the single greatest barrier under U.S. control to meaningful dialogue with Iran. The United States needs to stop the provocations and take a long-term view with this regime, as it did with the Soviet Union and China. We might begin by facilitating broad-ranging people-to-people contacts, opening a U.S. interest section in Tehran, and promoting cultural exchanges.


2. Support human rights through effective, international means

While the United States is rightly concerned with Iran's worsening record of human rights violations, the best way to address that concern is through supporting recognized international efforts. Iranian human rights and democracy advocates confirm that American political interference masquerading as "democracy promotion" is harming, not helping, the cause of democracy in Iran.


3. Allow Iran a place at the table - alongside other key states - in shaping the future of Iraq, Afghanistan and the region.

This was the recommendation of the bipartisan Iraq Study Group with regard to Iraq. It may be counter-intuitive in today's political climate - but it is sound policy. Iran has a long-term interest in the stability of its neighbors. Moreover, the United States and Iran support the same government in Iraq and face common enemies (the Taliban and al-Qaeda) in Afghanistan. Iran has shown it can be a valuable ally when included as a partner, and a troublesome thorn when not. Offering Iran a place at the table cannot assure cooperation, but it will greatly increase the likelihood of cooperation by giving Iran something it highly values that it can lose by non-cooperation. The United States might start by appointing a special envoy with broad authority to deal comprehensively and constructively with Iran (as opposed to trading accusations) and explore its willingness to work with the United States on issues of common concern.


4. Address the nuclear issue within the context of a broader U.S.-Iran opening

Nothing is gained by imposing peremptory preconditions on dialogue. The United States should take an active leadership role in ongoing multilateral talks to resolve the nuclear impasse in the context of wide-ranging dialogue with Iran. Negotiators should give the nuclear talks a reasonable deadline, and retain the threat of tougher sanctions if negotiations fail. They should also, however, offer the credible prospect of security assurances and specific, tangible benefits such as the easing of U.S. sanctions in response to positive policy shifts in Iran. Active U.S. involvement may not cure all, but it certainly will change the equation, particularly if it is part of a broader opening.


5. Re-energize the Arab-Israeli peace process and act as an honest broker in that process

Israel's security lies in making peace with its neighbors. Any U.S. moves towards mediating the Arab-Israeli crisis in a balanced way would ease tensions in the region, and would be positively received as a step forward for peace. As a practical matter, however, experience has shown that any long-term solution to Israel's problems with the Palestinians and Lebanon probably will require dealing, directly or indirectly, with Hamas and Hezbollah. Iran supports these organizations, and thus has influence with them. If properly managed, a U.S. rapprochement with Iran, even an opening of talks, could help in dealing with Arab-Israeli issues, benefiting Israel as well as its neighbors.

***

Long-standing diplomatic practice makes clear that talking directly to a foreign government in no way signals approval of the government, its policies or its actions. Indeed, there are numerous instances in our history when clear-eyed U.S. diplomacy with regimes we deemed objectionable - e.g., Soviet Union, China, North Korea, Libya and Iran itself (cooperating in Afghanistan to topple the Taliban after 9/11) - produced positive results in difficult situations.

After many years of mutual hostility, no one should expect that engaging Iran will be easy. It may prove impossible. But past policies have not worked, and what has been largely missing from U.S. policy for most of the past three decades is a sustained commitment to real diplomacy with Iran. The time has come to see what true diplomacy can accomplish.


Annex
Basic Misconceptions about Iran


U.S. policies towards Iran have failed to achieve their objectives. A key reason for their failure is that they are rooted in fundamental misconceptions about Iran. This annex addresses eight key misconceptions that have driven U.S. policy in the wrong direction.

Myth # 1. President Ahmadinejad calls the shots on nuclear and foreign policy.

President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad has grabbed the world's attention with his inflammatory and sometimes offensive statements. But he does not call the shots on Iran's nuclear and foreign policy. The ultimate decision-maker is Supreme Leader Ali Khamenei, the commander-in-chief of Iran's forces. Despite his frequently hostile rhetoric aimed at Israel and the West, Khamenei's track record reveals a cautious decision-maker who acts after consulting advisors holding a range of views, including views sharply critical of Ahmadinejad. That said, it is clear that U.S. policies and rhetoric have bolstered hard-liners in Iran, just as Ahmadinejad's confrontational rhetoric has bolstered hard-liners here.

Myth # 2. The political system of the Islamic Republic is frail and ripe for regime change.

In fact, there is currently no significant support within Iran for extra-constitutional regime change. Yes, there is popular dissatisfaction, but Iranians also recall the aftermath of their own revolution in 1979: lawlessness, mass executions, and the emigration of over half a million people, followed by a costly war. They have seen the outcome of U.S.-sponsored regime change in Afghanistan and in Iraq. They want no part of it. Regime change may come to Iran, but it would be folly to bet on it happening soon.

Myth # 3. The Iranian leadership's religious beliefs render them undeterrable.

The recent history of Iran makes crystal clear that national self-preservation and regional influence - not some quest for martyrdom in the service of Islam - is Iran's main foreign policy goal. For example:

• In the 1990s, Iran chose a closer relationship with Russia over support for rebellious Chechen Muslims.

• Iran actively supported and helped to finance the U.S. invasion of Afghanistan.

• Iran has ceased its efforts to export the Islamic revolution to other Persian Gulf states, in favor of developing good relations with the governments of those states.

• During the Iran-Iraq War, Iran took the pragmatic step of developing secret ties and trading arms with Israel, even as Iran and Israel denounced each other in public.


Myth # 4. Iran's current leadership is implacably opposed to the United States.

Iran will not accept preconditions for dialogue with the United States, any more than the United States would accept preconditions for talking to Iran. But Iran is clearly open to broad-ranging dialogue with the United States. In fact, it has made multiple peace overtures that the United States has rebuffed. Right after 9/11, Iran worked with the United States to get rid of the Taliban in Afghanistan, including paying for the Afghan troops serving under U.S. command. Iran helped establish the U.S.-backed government and then contributed more than $750 million to the reconstruction of Afghanistan. Iran expressed interest in a broader dialogue in 2002 and 2003. Instead, it was labeled part of an "axis of evil."

In 2005, reform-minded President Khatami was replaced by the hardliner, Mahmoud Ahmadinejad. But the same Supreme Leader who authorized earlier overtures is still in office today and he acknowledged, as recently as January 2008, that "the day that relations with America prove beneficial for the Iranian nation, I will be the first one to approve of that." All this does not prove that Iran will bargain in good faith with us. But it does disprove the claim that we know for sure they will not.
Myth # 5. Iran has declared its intention to attack Israel in order to "wipe Israel off the map."

This claim is based largely on a speech by President Ahmadinejad on Oct. 26, 2005, quoting a remark by Ayatollah Khomeini made decades ago: "This regime that is occupying Qods [Jerusalem] must be wiped off/eliminated from the pages of history/our times." Both before and since, Ahmadinejad has made numerous other, offensive, insulting and threatening remarks about Israel and other nations - most notably his indefensible denial of the Holocaust.

However, he has been criticized within Iran for these remarks. Supreme Leader Khamenei himself has "clarified" that "the Islamic Republic has never threatened and will never threaten any country" and specifically that Iran will not attack Israel unless Iran is attacked first. Ahmadinejad also has made clear, or been forced to clarify, that he was referring to regime change through demographics (giving the Palestinians a vote in a unitary state), not war.

What we know is that Ahmadinejad's recent statements do not appear to have materially altered Iran's long-standing policy - which, for decades, has been to deny the legitimacy of Israel; to arm and aid groups opposing Israel in Lebanon, Gaza and the West Bank; but also, to promise to accept any deal with Israel that the Palestinians accept.

Myth # 6. U.S.-sponsored "democracy promotion" can help bring about true democracy in Iran.

Instead of fostering democratic elements inside Iran, U.S.-backed "democracy promotion" has provided an excuse to stifle them. That is why champions of human rights and democracy in Iran agree with the dissident who said, "The best thing the Americans can do for democracy in Iran is not to support it."

Myth # 7. Iran is clearly and firmly committed to developing nuclear weapons.

If Iraq teaches anything, it is the need to be both rigorous and honest when confronted with ambiguous evidence about WMDs. Yet once again we find proponents of conflict over-stating their case, this time by claiming that Iran has declared an intention to acquire nuclear weapons. In fact, Iranian leaders have consistently denied any such intention and even said that such weapons are "against Islam."

The issue is not what Iran is saying, but what it is doing, and here the facts are murky. We know that Iran is openly enriching uranium and learning to do it more efficiently, but claims this is only for peaceful use. There are detailed but disputed allegations that Iran secretly worked on nuclear weapons design before Ahmadinejad came to power, concerns that such work continues, and certainty that Iran is not cooperating fully with efforts to resolve the allegations. We also know that Iran has said it will negotiate on its enrichment program - without preconditions - and submit to intrusive inspections as part of a final deal. Past negotiations between Iran and a group of three European countries plus China and Russia have not gone anywhere, but the United States, Iran's chief nemesis, has not been active in those talks.

The facts viewed as a whole give cause for deep concern, but they are not unambiguous and in fact support a variety of interpretations: that Iran views enrichment chiefly as a source of national pride (akin to our moon landing); that Iran is advancing towards weapons capability but sees this as a bargaining chip to use in broader negotiations with the United States; that Iran is intent on achieving the capability to build a weapon on short notice as a deterrent to feared U.S. or Israeli attack; or that Iran is seeking nuclear weapons to support aggressive goals. The only effective way to illuminate - and constructively alter - Iran's intentions is through skillful and careful diplomacy. History shows that sanctions alone are unlikely to succeed, and a strategy limited to escalating threats or attacking Iran is likely to backfire - creating or hardening a resolve to acquire nuclear weapons while inciting a backlash against us throughout the region.

Myth # 8. Iran and the United States have no basis for dialogue.

Those who favored refusing Iran's offers of dialogue in 2002 and 2003 - when they thought the U.S. position so strong there was no need to talk - now assert that our position is so weak we cannot afford to talk. Wrong in both cases. Iran is eager for an end to sanctions and isolation, and needs access to world-class technology to bring new supplies of oil and gas online. Both countries share an interest in stabilizing Iraq and Afghanistan, which border Iran. Both support the Maliki government in Iraq, and face common enemies (the Taliban and al-Qaeda) in Afghanistan. Both countries share the goal of combating narco-trafficking in the region. These opportunities exist, and the two governments have pursued them very occasionally in the past, but they have mostly been obscured in the belligerent rhetoric from both sides.

About the Experts

* Ambassador Thomas Pickering (Co-chair)
* Ambassador James F. Dobbins (Co-chair)
* Gary G. Sick (Co-chair)
* Ali Banuazizi
* Mehrzad Boroujerdi
* Juan R.I. Cole
* Rola el-Husseini
* Farideh Farhi
* Geoffrey E. Forden
* Hadi Ghaemi
* Philip Giraldi
* Farhad Kazemi
* Stephen Kinzer
* Ambassador William G. Miller
* Emile A. Nakhleh
* Augustus Richard Norton
* Trita Parsi
* Barnett R. Rubin
* John Tirman
* James Walsh

For more about the experts see the bottom of this page.


Disclaimer


This statement is the product of a large group of experts with diverse knowledge, experience and affiliations. While all members strongly support the general policy thrust and judgments reflected in this statement, they may not necessarily all concur with every specific assertion or recommendation contained therein.
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