May 13, 2008 10:37

Yes, I'm Still in Beirut

Sorry I haven't been blogging folks, but I've been overwhelmed with the upheaval in Beirut. Hopefully you've been catching my stories about the Hizballah siege of Beirut on time.com

If not here are two of them:

After the Blitz, Hizballah Runs Beirut

Surrendering to Hizballah

And tomorrow I'll return to regular programming, I promise.

--ALB

May 13, 2008 8:14

A Reporter's Take on Iran in Iraq

For an alternative look at Iran in Iraq, read Nir Rosen's provocative piece on Steve Clemons' Washington Note. Rosen challenges the conventional wisdom of Beltway policymakers and media narrative-setters. He pulls no punches in taking on everybody from the U.S. military's Gen. Petraeus to the Washington Post's editorial board. Nir, a former colleague of ours in TIME's Baghdad Bureau, has written extensively for the New Yorker, the New York Times and others. He's a reporter who has covered America's military involvements after 9/11 more closely on the ground as anybody has. His reporting on that is contained in his book, just re-issued in paperback, The Triumph of the Martyrs in Iraq.

A few excerpts from his take on Iran in Iraq, "Selling the War With Iran":

I have remained shocked, like many journalists and academics familiar with the region and its languages, that the Americans have shown no improvement in their understanding of the Muslim world with which they are so deeply engaged militarily and as an imperial power... too often the so called experts are equally ignorant. Remarkably, their lack of background, expertise or language skills and their repeated errors have not diminished the credibility of people such as Fred Kagan of the far right American Enterprise Institute (a Russia expert!), or Kenneth Pollock of the Brookings Institute or their cohorts...

Moreover the dominant parties in the government and in those units of the security forces that battled their political rivals in Basra and elsewhere are the ones closest to Iran. The leadership of the Iraqi government regularly consults Iranian officials and is closer to Iran than any other element in Iraq today. Moreover, the Americans have always blamed their failures in Iraq on outsiders, Baathists, al Qaeda, Iranians, because they refuse to admit that the Iraqi people don't want them. So Iran is a convenient scapegoat to explain the strength of the Sadrists, a strength actually resulting from the fact that they are a genuinely popular mass movement. Blaming Iran also lets the Americans maintain the illusion that the Mahdi Army's ceasefire is still in effect. I expect this from the Bush administration and the ideologues who back it. But when the American media, which, in the build up to the American attack on Iraq abdicated its duty to challenge those in power and inform the public, continues to demonstrate the same lack of skepticism, it is very distressing...

The truth is, most allegations about Iran's role in Iraq and the region are unfounded or dishonest. Iran was responsible for ending the recent fighting in Basra and calming the situation after Iraqi parliamentarians who backed Prime Minister Maliki approached it. The Iranians, never close to Muqtada or his family, were so annoyed with Muqtada and his presence that they reportedly ordered him out of Iran where he had been living in virtual house arrest anyway since arriving six months earlier. Iranian officials and the state media clearly supported Prime Minister Maliki and the Iraqi government against what they described as "illegal armed groups" in the recent conflict in Basra, which is not surprising given that their main proxy in Iraq, the Supreme Iraqi Islamic Council dominates the Iraqi state and is Maliki's main backer. The Supreme Council is of course also the main proxy for the US in Iraq and somehow in the Senate testimony it was forgotten that its large Badr militia was established in Iran and is actually the only Iraqi opposition group to have fought on the Iranian side against Iraq during the Iran-Iraq war. Moreover, the Badr militia was a branch of the Iranian Revolutionary Guard that is so demonized today, and Badr dominates the ministry of interior, if not most of Iraq at the higher echelons. But none of this openly available information made its way to the Post's editorial writers or the dominant discourse in the US...

There is no proxy war in Iraq, because the US and Iran share the same proxy and the US installed that proxy and empowered it. Today, to the extent that we can talk about an Iraqi "state," it is dominated by the Supreme Council and its Badr militia. The Sadrist movement of which the Mahdi Army is a loose militia is also the largest humanitarian organization in Iraq, providing homes, security, rations, clothes and other services to hundreds of thousands of Iraqis. It is a complex movement and certainly is as guilty of crimes as all the other groups that took part in the Iraqi civil war, including the Americans...

Most of those who fight the Americans in Iraq do so not at the bidding of a foreign power but out of genuine and sincere opposition to the American occupation. The Americans never grasped this and always assumed it was about the money, or al Qaeda, and now part of a silly Iranian conspiracy. After at first siding with Iraq's Shiites much to the consternation of America's so called "moderate" Sunni allies, the Americans are now targeting Shiites and perhaps even Shiite Iran as Bush prepares for once last war on his path to the "New Middle East." But without the help of an acquiescent media supplicating to Bush administration and US military officials they might not be able to go to war once again...

I believe that in fact Iran is a positive influence in Iraq, that it has a close relationship with the Kurds and the Shiites and that the Iranian regime, unlike its Sunni neighbors, is not sectarian and is very pragmatic. If Iraq's Sunnis dislike Iran it is because Saddam Hussein initiated a war of aggression against Iran and succeeded in demonizing Shiites. Admiral Mullen was wrong when he said that Iran prefers "see a weak Iraq neighbor." Iran and the former Iraqi Prime Minister Ibrahim al Jaafari even discussed Iran training Iraq's security forces. Iran has close relations with Sunni Islamist Hamas and its foreign policy is not a Shiite one at all. Iran does not seek to conquer or control its Arab neighbors but it also chooses not to be an American puppet or client regime, and that has always been the sin the American empire will never pardon...

--By Scott MacLeod/Cairo

May 13, 2008 7:24

Bush at Israel's Birthday Party

A special treat awaits Bush in Israel. For the first time in 40 years, a fragment of the Dead Sea scroll will be on display for the president. Bush may pride himself on being low-brow, but as a reborn Christian, he can’t help but be impressed by the 2,000 year old manuscript bearing the words of the Prophet Isaiah: “They shall beat their swords into plowshares.”

How’s that for irony? The last thing that Israelis want from the U.S.A. are plowshares. (They’re probably all made in China, anyway.) Israelis want weapons. The faster, bigger, more lethal weapons the better. And they want Bush to do something about Iran. Pronto. That doesn’t mean dropping pieces of agricultural machinery on Iran from B-52s. The Israelis want the Americans to destroy Iran’s nuclear facilities to smithereens because they believe that President Ahmedinejad is certifiably loony and is likely to use whatever nasty toy he’s building against Israel.

Bush and his entourage arrive Tuesday night. But this won’t be a trip where much gets accomplished on the Israeli-Palestinian peace initiative. It’s Israel’s 60th anniversary, and Bush is here to party.

Besides, there won’t be any Palestinians around at these festivities. Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas is staying away. Israel’s independence is hardly a celebratory matter for Palestinians who refer to the event as the Naqba, the disaster or catastrophe. And, even of there were one or two Bush fans among the Palestinians who might want to cross into Israel and wave a little flag as the Great Man’s motorcade whizzes by, they can’t. All entry points from the Palestinian territories into Israel are closed off. That means all the Palestinian laborers, teachers, and students, along with Time’s own correspondent Jamil Hamad are all stuck on the other side of the security fence. The Israelis are fearful that Palestinian militants may want to wreck the birthday party. Even with the lock-down, the Israelis still aren’t taking any chances. Over 14,000 police are on duty in Jerusalem during the president’s visit, and everyone, Israelis and Palestinians alike, will breathe a collective sign of relief when the bash ends and Bush leaves. Me too.

---by Tim McGirk/Jerusalem

May 11, 2008 10:56

James Rubin: "Obliterate" in Context

James Rubin, State Department spokesman in Bill Clinton's second term, emails to argue that some of the reporting on Hillary Clinton's remark about obliterating Iran has been out of context and has contributed to an ill-informed discussion. Here's what Rubin has to say:

For those who have focused on the "obliterate" controversy, two points seem relevant. First, Senator Clinton was responding to a hypothetical question about what the United States should do if Iran attacked Israel with nuclear weapons, which would mean the probable destruction of Israel.

Second, for those of you who may remember the Cold War, we talked a lot in those days about mutual assured destruction which is pretty much the same as mutual obliteration. Those kinds of things were commonly said as part of deterrence.

More important, if you read the entire quote you will see that she is saying we are able to obliterate, which is a statement about capabilities analagous to many things said during the Cold War. When describing this, she went on to point out that such a thing is terrible to think about, a comment that I don't remember made all that often by the eight American presidents who regularly discussed America's capability to completely destroy the Soviet Union.

Both Senator Obama and Senator Clinton chose to respond to a hypothetical question about an Iranian nuclear attack on Israel. In doing so, there was inevitably going to be misinterpretation. The Iranian government has chosen to misinterpret the remarks in order to play the victim. I don't think they should be encouraged in their diplomatic games.

Rubin calls attention what Clinton's said in the Democratic candidates' debate in Philadelphia on April 16. A reporter set the stage by asking the candidates whether the U.S. should consider an Iranian attack on Israel as if it were an attack on the U.S. Here's how Clinton responded:

I think that we should be looking to create an umbrella of deterrence that goes much further than just Israel. Of course, I would make it clear to the Iranians that an attack on Israel would incur massive retaliation from the United States.

But I would do the same with other countries in the region. We are at a very dangerous point with Iran. The Bush policy has failed. Iran has not been deterred. They continue to try to not only obtain the fissile material for nuclear weapons, but they are intent upon using their efforts to intimidate the region and to have their way when it comes to the support of terrorism in Lebanon and elsewhere.

And I think that this is an opportunity, with skillful diplomacy, for the United States, to go to the region and enlist the region in a security agreement vis-a-vis Iran.

It would give us three tools we now don't have. Number one, we've got to begin diplomatic engagement with Iran. And we want the region and the world to understand how serious we are about it. I would begin those discussions at a low level. I certainly would not meet with Ahmadinejad because even again today he made light of 9/11, and said that he's not even sure it happened and that people actually died.

He's not someone who would have an opportunity to meet with me in the White House. But I would have a diplomatic process that would engage him. And secondly, we've got to deter other countries from feeling they have to acquire nuclear weapons. You can't go to the Saudis or the Kuwaitis or UAE and others who have a legitimate concern about Iran and say, well, don't acquire these weapons to defend yourself unless you're also willing to say we will provide a deterrent backup. And we will let the Iranians know, that, yes, an attack on Israel would trigger massive retaliation. But so would an attack on those countries that are willing to go under the security umbrella and forswear their own nuclear ambitions. And finally, we cannot permit Iran to become a nuclear weapons power. And this administration has failed in our efforts to convince the rest of the world that that is a danger, not only to us, and not just to Israel but to the region and beyond.

Therefore, we have not to have this process that reaches out beyond even who we would put under the security umbrella, to get the rest of the world on our side to try to impose the kind of sanctions and diplomatic efforts that might prevent this from occurring.

--By Scott MacLeod/Dubai

May 8, 2008 11:03

Is This the Start of the Next Lebanese Civil War?

A Shia militant dressed as a police officer fires into a Sunni neighborhood/Photo by Pasqual Gorriz

The barricades have spread. The airport is blocked. Rolling gunfights and sporadic rocket fire have sent the residents of Beirut to the cash machines and grocery stores to prepare for the worst. But the most telling sign that the second day of violent clashes between supporters of Lebanon's American-backed government and the Iranian and Syrian-backed opposition is moving towards civil war came from a speech from Hizballah chief Hassan Nasrallah, the leader of the opposition. Nasrallah said that a recent government decision to shut down Hizballah's private communications network amounted to an act of war.

Hizballah views its communications network as an important weapon in its military struggle against Israel. (See Nick Blanford's story from yesterday "Cell Phone Civil War"). Today, Nasrallah, who in the past has said that Hizballah's weapons are only for use against Israel, ominously declared that his forces would fight an internal battle against the government if it didn't reverse its decisions to shut the mobile phone network and to remove the head of the airport, whom the government suspects of pro-opposition sympathies. Nasrallah accused the government of trying to do Israel's dirty work by disarming Hizaballah, and of trying to turn the airport into a base for the Mossad and CIA.

Just why the government chose this particular moment to move against Hizballah's infrastructure remains unclear. Hizballah, which fought Israel to a stand-still in the summer war of 2006, is much stronger and better organized than government forces, and is certain to win any confrontation. Still, Hizballah would have much to lose in an open civil war. Not only would the chaos distract them from the far more dangerous struggle with Israel, but it could also help radical Al-Qaeda affiliated Sunni jihadi groups infiltrate Lebanon.

So far there is no word yet of casualties from the clashes, which are being fought mainly by rival street gangs in areas of west and central Beirut where Shia and Sunni neighborhoods meet. Because Lebanon's constitution divides power among the country's main religious groups, Lebanon's political stand-off has devolved into a sectarian one, with the main action pitting Muslims against Muslims, mirroring regional tension as a whole.

Which may limit the Lebanese governments ability to back down from a fight it cannot win. The officials who moved against the Hizballah network are known to coordinate their actions with the United States, and the Bush administration may be digging in its heels into Lebanon while its days in office are on the wane.

Photo by Pasqual Gorriz

--Andrew Lee Butters/Beirut