September 30, 2007 2:34
Spin Dr. Rice
A state of denial about the real Middle East? A forced effort to salvage Bush's legacy? A stubborn determination to persist with flawed policies? What to make of Condi Rice's spin (such as here and here) in New York this week, as she rallied support for Bush's proposed international meeting on the Middle East and laid down her narrative of what the administration has accomplished in the region thus far.
Some Middle East musings on a Sunday afternoon:
Rice: "I'd certainly consider it a breakthrough if this meeting, which it must do, takes us from... a pretty strong commitment on the part of the [Israeli and Palestinian] leaders to try and lay a foundation for the two-state solution to a next step toward that two-state solution. I can't tell you right now whether that means that they find some process by which to make further progress on understandings, whether it means that they actually start negotiations."
The dangerous Middle East crisis requires urgent, meaningful and principled attention. Bush's push for an international meeting seems to be turning out to be so belated, half-hearted and lacking vision that Rice's spin sets the bar pretty low for success. Hence, any "meeting" that produces a "next step" can be hailed as a "breakthrough." Such is the administration's effort that two months into the preparations, Rice still isn't sure what the meeting's purpose is--for the parties to achieve vague "progress on understandings," or "actually start negotiations."
Rice: "I was just at the AHLC meeting that Norway chaired, which is the donor coordination mechanism for the Palestinians, and it was quite a remarkable atmosphere of guarded optimism."
Or was that gloom? Rice's spin seeks some positive buzz around a peace effort that is clearly in trouble. The donors attending the meeting are aware of the economic catastrophe that has befallen the Palestinian territories since the breakdown of the peace process and especially since the aid embargo imposed after Hamas won democratic elections. A new World Bank report says that GDP has dropped a third Gaza since 1999 and that a third of Gazans live in poverty.
Rice: The reason for the donors' "guarded optimism" is that "for the first time in a long time, the Palestinian-Israeli track is moving."
Spin, which attempts to downplay the evident lack of actual progress thus far in the Olmert-Abbas talks. Little wonder about that: it's an Israeli prime minister, whose popularity dove into single digits after the 2006 Lebanon war, and now faces a fraud investigation over a home purchase, holding informal chats--even Rice acknowledges that they are not "negotiations" yet--with a Palestinian president who doesn't control any of his territory and whose party lost the last elections. More would be achieved if an American president formulated a blueprint based on past promising negotiations, seized the opportunity provided by the 2002 Arab peace offer, brought the pair together and banged heads. What has Rice's polite coaxing achieved? After meeting Rice two weeks ago, Abbas bluntly complained in her presence that Bush's peace effort still lacked credibility and trust, and that Israel needed to halt Jewish settlements and construction of the separation wall and end the economic closure and invasions of Palestinian areas.
Rice: "Step by step, from where they were, they've come a very, very long way. They are now discussing...these core issues [borders, settlements, refugees and Jerusalem] for the first time since 2000."
More spin, to downplay the actual peace-process backsliding that has occurred during the Bush presidency. Rice's "very, very long way" is progress only by the standards of an administration that until recently didn't try to achieve much. The Israeli-Palestinian talks are still nowhere near the level they were during Clinton's last month in office. Despite difficulties such as the intifadeh, Clinton somehow managed to continue mediation throughout his two terms. Bush, on the other hand, took a conscious policy decision to break off U.S. dialogue with the Palestinian leadership, thus contributing to a political breakdown that was disastrous for Israelis and Palestinians alike. The parties have not "come a very, very long way"; they're making baby steps to pick up where they were before Bush entered the Oval Office.
Rice: "We've had a series of steps, I think starting with the President's declarations in 2002, moving through Sharon's Herzliya speech in 2003 about dividing the land and accepting the Palestinian state, moving through the much maligned roadmap... elections in the Palestinian territories...that brought Hamas to leadership, Hamas' recognition then that it could not govern, Hamas' decision then to launch the coup d'etat in Gaza, which while it has created a difficult situation did then refocus attention on the Palestinians who are prepared to support the two-state solution, a good government in the Palestinian territories then leading to the breakthrough, I think, with Israelis that you're seeing now."
More spin, attempting to depict as progress how Bush's policy to isolate rather than talk with the Palestinians blew up in his face. It is the ensuing chaos in the West Bank and Gaza that compelled Bush to extend America's belated support for a two-state solution and Sharon to abandon the fantasy of perpetual control over Palestinian territories.
Rice: Bush's policies "have led us to a place where you have an Iraq in which you no longer have a dictator who was an avowed enemy of the United States, but yes, a fragile democratic government that actually is going to be friendly to the United States."
Despite Bush's untruths about WMD and Al Qaeda links, the spin to justify the Iraq invasion will never cease. Here, Rice employs the Arab bogeyman approach--whoever opposes American policies, Saddam, bin Laden, Arafat, whoever, is simplistically cast as a sworn enemy--that has led to confused thinking and calamity in the past. (Historical note: We'll grant Rice that bin Laden is an avowed enemy of the United States. Saddam, for all his criminal behavior, was not. The Reagan administration resumed diplomatic relations with Baghdad, signaling its appreciation of Saddam's war against Khomeini's Iran. One Donald Rumsfeld was part of that scene and shook hands with Saddam himself in Baghdad. When Saddam was threatening Kuwait on the eve of his 1990 invasion, Bush 41's ambassador told Saddam the U.S. does not take sides in intra-Arab squabbles. When Saddam attacked, Bush changed his mind, drove Saddam out of Kuwait and launched sanctions that drove Iraqis backwards toward the pre-industrial era.)
Rice: "I think that what you are beginning to see is a fairly wide recognition that whatever you think about how the United States got into Iraq, that an American commitment to Iraq--not at the levels that we are now, but an American commitment to Iraq for some significant period of time is going to be critical not just to stabilizing Iraq, but to stabilizing the Middle East."
Rice spins the "wide recognition" as a ringing endorsement of Bush's current strategy for Iraq, but it's more like Colin Powell's famous Pottery Barn rule, "You break it, you own it." Now that Bush's invasion and bungled follow-up caused a political tsunami, yes, even many war critics realize that it will be a problem if we just pull our finger out of the dike.
Rice: "There is a narrative that says that the Middle East was perfectly stable and then we decided to overthrow Saddam Hussein, we decided... that Yasser Arafat was not a man of peace and so we wouldn't deal with him, and so we didn't - decided not to pursue a Palestinian state and by the way, we introduced all this notion about democracy and that destabilized things and why can't we just go back to the Middle East as it was."
The spin tries to show that the Middle East isn't any more of a mess than it was when Bush came to office. However, it is indisputable that Bush's decisions to isolate Arafat and overthrow Saddam--whether you are for or against them--have been followed by a palpable rise in violence, death and political instability. (By the way, whose "narrative" said the Middle East was "perfectly stable"? Hasn't the Middle East always been a synonym for volatiity?)
Rice: "I would just remind people what the Middle East was. The Middle East was a place in which in 2001, we inherited a situation in which the Camp David process had collapsed, Arafat had declared the second Intifada, Ariel Sharon had been brought to power not to make peace with the Palestinians, but to defeat them."
If Rice's spin expresses her true understanding of recent Middle East history, she should save everybody the plane fare and cancel Bush's international meeting now. The Camp David process did not collapse until Bush arrived in office. Clinton came close to negotiating an agreement and was still trying to do so in his last weeks as president. When Bush arrived, he immediately abandoned Clinton's active mediation to close the remaining gap, snubbed Arafat and embraced an Israeli prime minister who had spent a career trying to destroy Palestinian leadership and settle the Palestinian territories with Jews. It might have saved Israelis and Palestinians considerable grief had Bush possessed the statesmanship to persuade Sharon that trying to "defeat" rather than deal with the Palestinians was a recipe for another Middle East disaster.
Rice: If you look at where we are now, you would not have guessed that in 2007, we would be talking about an international conference to perhaps move toward the establishment of a Palestinian state.
Why not? Bush could very well have done what his father, in fact, did in 1991 and organize an international peace conference in 2001. Palestinians and Israelis--not Sharon's party, agreed--had come tantalizingly close to a historical settlement at Camp David. Trust broke down, and then the talks collapsed completely when Bush withdrew U.S. mediation, but the ideas remain in play even today. What a difference it might have made if Bush had sought to use America's powerful influence and moral authority to sustain the peace process, instead of encouraging Israel's right-wing government to unilaterally impose its policies on the Palestinians and the region.
Rice: "In 2001...you had a Middle East which had a kind of little secret, which was that these authoritarian regimes in the Middle East were providing no potential outlet for legitimate, healthy political competition. But there was plenty of political competition; it was just taking place in a radical mosque."
Rice's spin implies that thanks to Bush, democracy is on the way. Actually, the Arab authoritarian regimes haven't budged much on freedoms. Lately, they are clamping down as much as ever. See the State Department's Human Rights report for 2006. And, guess what? Bush's coziness with "these authoritarian regimes," thanks to the rise of the Islamists and Bush's problems with Iraq and Iran, is improving by the day.
Rice: "In 2001, you had Syrian forces occupying Lebanon for decades, Hizballah in complete control of the south. That gave way to a Lebanese war and you now have, admittedly, a fragile government in Lebanon, but Lebanese forces throughout the country, Syrian forces out, et cetera."
Rice is still trying to spin Lebanon as a Bush success story, but Lebanon is rather a case study in what has been too often wrong with American policy. Syria's troops invaded Lebanon in 1976 with an American green light to stop a civil war; it became an "occupation." Hizballah was created by Iran in response to the Israeli invasion of Lebanon in 1982 that was at least amber-lighted by Washington. Olmert with Rice's ill-advised backing launched another Lebanese war in 2006 that brought few results and has jeopardized the "fragile government" that Rice claims to support. Lebanese forces are stationed throughout the country now, but Hizballah remains the powerhouse. Syrian troops are out, but that's primarily due to a mass uprising to protest Hariri's assassination, and Syria's influence remains pervasive. There has been no successful outcome in Lebanon, and won't be until the broader Arab-Israeli conflict is properly addressed and resolved. Yet, the fact is that Bush has done nothing to promote an Israeli-Syrian deal over the Golan Heights in seven years.
Rice: "Perhaps most importantly, in 2001, you had Saddam Hussein in power taking shots at our aircraft as we patrolled no-fly zones and I remember one of the earliest discussions that we had was, what if he got lucky and brought one of them down. You had Saddam Hussein making a mockery of the sanctions that had been put to him through the oil-for-food program, malnutrition rates rising in Iraq because of the sanctions, and Saddam Hussein still threatening his neighbors and with an insatiable appetite to one day restart his weapons of mass destruction programs. Yeah, now it's a fragile government in Iraq, but he's gone."
More spin to justify Iraq, but the administration's contradictions are as evident as ever. We invaded because Saddam was "taking shots" at U.S. warplanes and Bush was afraid he might get "lucky"? Most Americans would take a downed pilot or two rather than nearly 4,000--and counting-- U.S. troops deaths. Because Saddam was making a mockery of sanctions that were strangling his economy and making America look inhumane? Bush certainly taught Saddam a lesson he'll never forget. Because he had an insatiable appetite (those insatiable Arabs!) to restart WMD programs? Wait a minute, Bush said he already had done that.
Rice: "I think that the decisions that were taken in 2001, 2002, 2003 have actually created new opportunities. We just have a few months to try and seize them."
More spin to shore up Bush's legacy, a stretch that deserves to be in the Spin Hall of Fame. In canceling America's mediation of the peace process, refusing to talk to elected Palestinian governments (whether Arafat or Hamas), invading Iraq and sparking a civil war there, Bush was actually creating "new opportunities" for the U.S. to bring peace to the Israelis and Palestinians? (Hmmm, arsonists create new opportunities for fire fighters, too.
Rice: "There are some reasons to believe that there might be some ways to make progress there, largely having to do with the emergence of a Palestinian leadership in Mahmoud Abbas and Salam Fayyad that really does accept the two-state solution, accepts Israel's right to exist, accepts the renunciation of violence, and seems to be very devoted to weeding out corruption and fighting terrorism... President Bush... over the last several years has really changed the terms of the debate about the Palestinian-Israeli issue to one about fighting terrorism, to one about the creation of Palestinian institutions that are democratic and clean and can govern for the Palestinian people, not accepting, for instance, Yasser Arafat, who both had a foot in terrorism and a big foot in corruption."
Rice's spin that American can finally mediate the peace process again because Bush found a Palestinian worthy of his efforts reflects the mindset that has led to so many past failures. To paraphrase Israeli statesman Yitzak Rabin, who did make a peace deal, you don't make peace with friends, you make it with enemies. For decades, neither Israel nor the U.S. deemed Arafat a "partner" for peace. After the 1987 intifadeh threatened Israel's occupation of the Palestinian territories, Rabin decided Arafat was a partner, after all. When his successors didn't get the deal they demanded, they cast Arafat out as unworthy of being a partner. The question of whether to seek a deal with Palestinians has little to do with whether this or that leader renounces violence, weeds out corruption or fights terrorism. Rather, you seek peace because it is in your interests to do so, and if the Palestinian leadership has the willingness to make a deal, too, and the political support to back it up.
Rice: "It is also a time when the Arab states are really concerned about Iran... It has caused the Arab states to reach out in ways that they haven't for a long time to think about how they might move - how we might move an Israeli-Arab track as well as the Israeli-Palestinian track forward."
In spinning that the Arabs are finally wising up and seeing things Bush's way, Rice is revealing the mindset problem again. Rice is implying that the U.S. can leverage Arab fears about an ascendant Iran in getting them to do things--like pressuring the Palestinians to accept a dubious deal--that they weren't willing to do before. But a Middle East settlement that has the wide popular support needed to make it lasting will only come about through addressing the legitimate interests as well as rights of all the parties--not by getting "these authoritarian regimes," as Rice herself derisively calls them, to strong-arm their Palestinians and Syrian brothers into making a quick deal.
--By Scott MacLeod/Cairo
September 29, 2007 8:14
Jerusalem's Crosstown Traffic
Friday was one of those days that Israeli police dread in Jerusalem. Over 75,000 Muslims were streaming to the Temple of the Mount to celebrate the third Friday of Ramadan, while at the same time 25,000 ultra-orthodox Jews were crossing the city to bury former Chief Rabbi Avraham Shapira, 96, a spiritual leader who opposed giving land back to the Palestinians.
Helicopters buzzed over the Old City, casting a fleeting shadow across the golden dome of the Temple Mount. Streets were blocked off and tougher measures were imposed on Muslim worshippers: travel permits were canceled for Palestinians coming in from the West Bank and no man under the age of 45 was allowed to attend prayers at the Temple Mount, considered one of Islam’s holiest shrines. It was from here, on the same rock where Abraham is said to have offered to sacrifice his son, that Prophet Mohamed is believed to have ascended for a round-trip to paradise.
The security measures seemed to work. The opposing currents of Jewish and Muslim worshippers flowed past each other over the pavement stones of Jerusalem without mishap.
Because Rabbi Shapira died during the Feast of Tabernacles, or Sukkot, his disciples urged followers “not to shed tears” as the funeral procession wound up to the Mount of Olives. But not all Israelis wept his passing.
Considered a great spiritual leader and Chief Rabbi between 1983 and 1993, Rabbi Shapira was a thorn in the side of former Prime Minister Ariel Sharon during the 2005 disengagement of Jewish settlers from Gaza. He said that surrendering any land to Palestinians was forbidden under Jewish law.
One critic, Yossi Beilin from the leftists Meretz party, told the press:
"What he did created a very serious crisis for an entire generation. He sought to nurture faith but was in fact responsible for the biggest spiritual crisis in recent years. An entire generation of young people was willing to believe, because of him, that the disengagement wouldn't happen – and when it did, he had no answers to offer them," said Beilin.
But Rabbi Shapira’s supporters claimed he was sagely right about Gaza. Says Knesset Member Benny Elon, "He was the rabbi of all rabbis. Today we know how right he was regarding the ridiculous uprooting of (the Gaza settlement) Gush Katif." Many Israelis say that the many rockets fired out of Gaza by militants show the fallacy of offering to trade back land for peace with the Palestinians.
---by Tim McGirk/Jerusalem
September 27, 2007 11:05
Israeli Reporters Without Borders
It must be frustrating for Israeli reporters to live next to some of the most interesting countries in the region but to be unable to visit. Lebanon and Syria are still technically at war with Israel, and Israelis aren't legally allowed inside the two countries. (Though Israel does invade from time to time.)
But that doesn't mean it's a good idea for Israeli journalists -- many of whom are dual-nationals -- to sneak into hostile countries using non-Israeli passports and publish stories in the Israeli media.
This seems to have become something of a trend. Today, Yedioth Ahronot, one of Israel's largest papers, published an account by one of their correspondents who had visited the site in Syria attacked by the Israeli air force earlier this month. And in June, two Israeli reporters visited Lebanon and filed reports about life in Beirut and south Lebanon.
While it would be great to have more stories in the Israeli press about the complexities of the neighborhood, those published so far haven't produced much that isn't widely available in the international press. At best they have a drive-by "Gee, we're not in Kansas anymore," quality, and at worst they are boring. Ron Ben-Yishai's visit to an agricultural research center in eastern Syria to see if they were making nukes was predictably anti-climactic. "From a distance, we could see some pits that looked like part of a mine or a quarry. But it was hard to identify exactly what was being done there."
The consequence of these fly-by-night reporting trips is that it becomes harder for other foreign journalists to work in these countries. There has been a palpable clampdown on the foreign press in Lebanon ever since the Israeli reporters pulled their stunt. It's a lot more complicated to get access to Hizballah, or to visit southern Lebanon, and the sense of humor failure is such that my TIME colleague Nick Blanford got detained a few weeks ago by Hizballah and the Lebanese authorities on suspicion of being an Israeli spy. It remains to be seen what will happen in Syria, which was a much more difficult press environment than Lebanon even before this.
But there's at least one good reason for Israelis to use their second passports to cross forbidden boundaries: brotherly love. That's what brought 32 year-old Israeli Daniel Sharon to Lebanon. The gay Israeli used his German passport to visit boyfriends in Lebanon until Sunday when he was arrested in Beirut.
Though Sharon -- who converted to Islam and seems to have something of an Arab fetish -- might be a diplomatic headache for the German embassy (which is trying to secure his release), there's a school of thought which holds that gay men -- who face discrimination all over the Middle East -- could be the key to brining peace to the region.
Here's the mission statement from a website called -- ahem -- Mideast Piece:
"Mideast Piece aims to unite people around the world through shared adoration of that most sacred and bronzed of species, the Middle Eastern man. Whether Muslim, Jewish, Christian or Druze, these desert men are more valuable than any Saudi oil well."
"As greater appreciation for the Middle Eastern male develops, we are confident the international community will intervene to preserve and protect this endangered species from destroying itself (and, on occasion, others). There are too many unattractive, pale people on Earth for the world not to make the entire Middle East a natural reserve of hot men, complete with admission fee, monorail, and – of course – petting zoos."
--Andrew Lee Butters/Beirut
September 26, 2007 10:26
Mahmoud & Co. (Con't)
As Ahmadinejad was speaking at Columbia (click on Al-Jazeera clip, above) and the United Nations (IRNA's transcript, Part 1, here) this week, Iranian authorities were releasing Ali Shakeri from Evin Prison. He's the last of four Iranian-Americans to be freed from detention. He had to post the equivalent of $107,000 bail and may not be able to leave Iran for the U.S.
Columbia President Lee Bollinger's insulting attack on Ahmadinejad, meanwhile, has Iranians rallying around the Iranian president back home: MPs, academics. Even Ahmadinejad's political arch-enemy, Akbar Hashemi Rafsanjani rushed to his defense.
Check out Rick Stengel's account of Ahmadinejad's Iranian-style hospitality.
--By Scott MacLeod/Cairo
September 26, 2007 3:04
Lebanon: Not Ready for Prime Time
Here's a gratuitous photo of a Lebanese reporter at yesterday's short-lived parliamentary session which failed to elect a new president. (You can read my story here.) I just want TIME readers to know that I too cover most major news events wearing stiletto heels.
--ALB/Beirut
September 25, 2007 1:32
Knockout Fight of the Year! Bollinger vs. Ahmadinejad
Ahmadinejad didn't say anything new as far as I could tell. University President Lee Bollinger's remarks (click here for the full text) at Columbia were far more interesting.
Certainly, there was nothing wrong with Bollinger confronting Ahmadinejad to his face about his and Iran's various reckless words and actions that have helped make the world a more dangerous place. Bollinger was on shakier ground in his black-and-white depiction of the struggles taking place in the Middle East. I was surprised, however, that Bollinger felt the need to insult Ahmadinejad so personally. That sounded a little more like a Friday sermon in Tehran than a discourse in the American academy.
Bollinger opened with the words: "Let's then be clear at the beginning: Mr. President, you exhibit all the signs of a petty and cruel dictator."
He closed with the words: "Today, I feel all the weight of the modern civlized world yearning to express the revulsion at what you stand for."
Memo to Bollinger:
Ahmadinejad is an elected president; even if the balloting was cooked, as many Iranians feel, he had the genuine support of a huge number of Iranians. If there is a dictator in Iran, it is the un-elected heir to Khomeini who is far more powerful, Supreme Leader Ayatullah Ali Khamenei. Khamenei's office derives legitimacy for many Iranians--including many of his sharpest critics-- from the fact that the Islamic Republic he heads came into being through a genuine, popular revolution.
For a scholar, Bollinger acts simplistically in denouncing what Ahmadinejad stands for. He's made reckless, perhaps ignorant statements about Israel and Jews. But to many Iranians, he stands for something else: national pride, empowering the poor and other things. Notwithstanding suspicions about Iran's nuclear intentions, Ahmadinejad is on record strongly rejecting the development of nuclear weapons. Bollinger and many others may think that's a lie. But it would be more useful to spar with Ahmadinejad on this and other issues than spew denunciations.
I might have been a tad less sanctimonious. Yes, Americans have alot of legitimate complaints about Iran's crimes. Many of the points Bollinger raised were correct and put to Ahmadinejad eloquently. Yet, Bollinger speaks as if he is unaware that his own government overthrew an Iranian prime minister, installed and supported for three decades a brutally repressive shah and then backed the tyrant Saddam Hussein when Iraq was using WMD against Khomeini's Iran.
Judging from Bollinger's impulse to land a knock-out punch, perhaps he served to prove his critics right: he made a mistake to allow Ahmadinejad into the ring.
--By Scott MacLeod/Cairo
September 24, 2007 11:19
Ahmadinejad, Rock Star
Ahmadinejad's visit to New York is creating an even bigger frenzy this year than the last two times. He's a politician and that's exactly what he wants. Some though of course not all of the fury against him in the U.S. is politically generated by the bourgeoning confront-Iran industry.
His interest in visiting Ground Zero struck me as pure showmanship. When I interviewed him in Havana prior to his New York visit last year, he showed no interest in going there, to pay homage to the victims of terrorism or otherwise. I well understand the anger over his plans to visit the site; given Iran's connections to past terrorist acts involving the deaths of Americans, the visit would have been widely viewed as dishonoring the 9/11 victims.
When it comes to his Columbia University appearance, however, let him speak. Among other things, it will remind many people including folks back home who desperately want it that there is something sacred called freedom of speech. Let Americans hear what he has to say, first hand, and let Ahmadinejad hear how Americans react to his views. It has not helped either country that our governments have refused to be on speaking terms for the last 28 years, especially now when many believe Iran is building a nuclear bomb and Bush is considering an attack on the country to prevent it. It's not appeasement to talk. It is foolish to fuel a dynamic that encourages war. Americans, for good reasons, don't like Ahmadinejad's policies. (Many Iranians don't like them, either--read what Akbar Ganji is saying today.) Iranians have some good reasons for opposing American policies. It's crucial for the future of the Middle East and perhaps the world that the U.S. and Iran find a way to develop a dialogue; sparring with Ahmadinejad in New York isn't a bad way to start.
One of the finest pieces of American statesmanship in recent years was when the Clinton administration extended an olive branch to Ahmadinejad's predecessor Khatami seemingly with that aim in mind. In a speech to the American-Iranian Council in 2000, Secretary of State Madeleine Albright did a remarkable thing: on behalf of the U.S. government, she acknowledged America's responsibility for overthrowing a popular Iranian prime minister and installing the shah, backing the shah's brutally repressive regime and later supporting Saddam Hussein's bloody war against Khomeini's Iran.
...There is much common ground between our two peoples. Both are idealistic, proud, family-oriented, spiritually aware and fiercely opposed to foreign domination.But that common ground has sometimes been shaken by other factors. In 1953 the United States played a significant role in orchestrating the overthrow of Iran's popular Prime Minister, Mohammed Massadegh. The Eisenhower Administration believed its actions were justified for strategic reasons; but the coup was clearly a setback for Iran's political development. And it is easy to see now why many Iranians continue to resent this intervention by America in their internal affairs.
Moreover, during the next quarter century, the United States and the West gave sustained backing to the Shah's regime. Although it did much to develop the country economically, the Shah's government also brutally repressed political dissent.
As President Clinton has said, the United States must bear its fair share of responsibility for the problems that have arisen in U.S.-Iranian relations. Even in more recent years, aspects of U.S. policy towards Iraq, during its conflict with Iran appear now to have been regrettably shortsighted, especially in light our subsequent experiences with Saddam Hussein.
Alas, that speech didn't produce any dramatic, immediate breakthroughs. It was a start. It touched a lot of hearts and minds in Iran, and perhaps got Americans looking at the Islamic Republic through a different lens, too. Lately, we've all been heading down the opposite course.
--By Scott MacLeod/Cairo
September 24, 2007 9:57
Fashionable Firearms
One thing that I've been noticing in Lebanon over the past few month's is a marked improvement in the quality of firearms. The Lebanese army and police used to carry Vietnam-era American and Soviet-bloc assault rifles that looked as if they'd actually served in Vietnam. Now, possibly as a result of foreign aid, the streets are filled with soldiers carrying stylish black rifles with folding stocks and see-through plastic magazines.
It's a good thing that the Lebanese army is getting a badly needed upgrade. The sorry state of their weaponry became apparent during the battle at Nahr al Bared, when the Islamic militants were better armed than the government. But it's not so fun to see new weapons showing up in the hands of the kind of guys who don't like having their pictures taken at public events. These guards at Friday's funeral for an assassinated member of parliament were sporting an American AR-15 with all the fancy gee-gaws -- flash suppressor, infrared and telescopic sights, the works. If only they could upgrade their taste in sunglasses.
--Andrew Lee Butters/Beirut
September 24, 2007 2:50
Ganji: "Difficult Days" for Iranian Democracy Activists
Friends of Akbar Ganji have emailed me a letter that the Iranian dissident has written to U.N. Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon dated Sept. 18, 2007. I paste it below, for the topical issues Ganji addresses and the focus on Iran we'll see in New York this week with Ahmadinejad's visit to the U.N.
Ganji, a journalist who spent six years in prison for criticizing state repression, starts out with a strong rebuke of U.S. foreign policy toward Iran spanning the last 50 years. Writing "we categorically reject a military attack on Iran," Ganji blasts Bush's democracy funding and talk of attacking Iran for actually undercutting the credibility and work of Iranian democracy activists. He complains that Iran's dispute with the West has deflected the U.N.'s attention from Iran's internal repression and asks the world to condemn the regime's human rights violations. Attached to Ganji's letter is a list of 302 "public intellectuals, writers, and Nobel Laureates" who are said to have "endorsed" it. (See the names here.)
To His Excellency Ban Ki-moon, Secretary-General of the United Nations,The people of Iran are experiencing difficult times both internationally and domestically. Internationally, they face the threat of a military attack from the US and the imposition of extensive sanctions by the UN Security Council. Domestically, a despotic state has – through constant and organized repression – imprisoned them in a life and death situation.
Far from helping the development of democracy, US policy over the past 50 years has consistently been to the detriment of the proponents of freedom and democracy in Iran. The 1953 coup against the nationalist government of Prime Minister Mohammad Mossadeq and the unwavering support for the despotic regime of the Shah, who acted as America’s gendarme in the Persian Gulf, are just two examples of these flawed policies. More recently the confrontation between various US Administrations and the Iranian state over the past three decades has made internal conditions very difficult for the proponents of freedom and human rights in Iran. Exploiting the danger posed by the US, the Iranian regime has put military-security forces in charge of the government, shut down all independent domestic media, and is imprisoning human rights activists on the pretext that they are all agents of a foreign enemy. The Bush Administration, for its part, by approving a fund for democracy assistance in Iran, which has in fact being largely spent on official institutions and media affiliated with the US government, has made it easy for the Iranian regime to describe its opponents as mercenaries of the US and to crush them with impunity. At the same time, even speaking about “the possibility” of a military attack on Iran makes things extremely difficult for human rights and pro-democracy activists in Iran. No Iranian wants to see what happened to Iraq or Afghanistan repeated in Iran. Iranian democrats also watch with deep concern the support in some American circles for separatist movements in Iran. Preserving Iran’s territorial integrity is important to all those who struggle for democracy and human rights in Iran. We want democracy for Iran and for all Iranians. We also believe that the dismemberment of Middle Eastern countries will fuel widespread and prolonged conflict in the region. In order to help the process of democratization in the Middle East, the US can best help by promoting a just peace between the Palestinians and Israelis, and pave the way for the creation of a truly independent Palestinian state alongside the State of Israel. A just resolution of the Arab-Israeli conflict and the establishment of a Palestinian state would inflict the heaviest blow on the forces of fundamentalism and terrorism in the Middle East.
Your Excellency,
Iran’s dangerous international situation and the consequences of Iran’s dispute with the West have totally deflected the world’s attention and especially the attention of the United Nations from the intolerable conditions that the Iranian regime has created for the Iranian people. The dispute over the enrichment of uranium should not make the world forget that, although the 1979 revolution of Iran was a popular revolution, it did not lead to the formation of a democratic system that protects human rights. The Islamic Republic is a fundamentalist state that does not afford official recognition to the private sphere. It represses civil society and violates human rights. Thousands of political prisoners were executed during the first decade after the revolution without fair trials or due process of the law, and dozens of dissidents and activists were assassinated during the second decade. Independent newspapers are constantly being banned and journalists are sent to prison. All news websites are filtered and books are either refused publication permits or are slashed with the blade of censorship before publication. Women are totally deprived of equality with men and, when they demand equal rights, they are accused of acting against national security, subjected to various types of intimidation and have to endure various penalties, including long prison terms. In the first decade of the 21st century, stoning (the worst form of torture leading to death) is one of the sentences that Iranians face on the basis of existing laws. A number of Iranian teachers, who took part in peaceful civil protests over their pay and conditions, have been dismissed from their jobs and some have even been sent into internal exile in far-flung regions or jailed. Iranian workers are deprived of the right to establish independent unions. Workers who ask to be allowed to form unions in order to struggle for their corporate rights are beaten and imprisoned. Iranian university students have paid the highest costs in recent years in defence of liberty, human rights and democracy. Security organizations prevent young people who are critical of the official state orthodoxy from gaining admission into university, and those who do make it through the rigorous ideological and political vetting process have no right to engage in peaceful protest against government policies.If students' activities displease the governing elites, they are summarily expelled from university and in many instances jailed. The Islamic Republic has also been expelling dissident professors from universities for about a quarter of a century. In the meantime, in the Islamic Republic's prisons, opponents are forced to confess to crimes that they have not committed and to express remorse. These confessions, which have been extracted by force, are then broadcast on the state media in a manner reminiscent of Stalinist show-trials. There are no fair, competitive elections in Iran; instead, elections are stage managed and rigged. And even people who find their way into parliament and into the executive branch of government have no powers or resources to alter the status quo. All the legal and extra-legal powers are in the hands of the Iran’s top leader, who rules like a despotic sultan.
Your Excellency,
Are you aware that in Iran political dissidents, human rights activists and pro-democracy campaigners are legally deprived of "the right to life"? On the basis of Article 226 of the Islamic Penal Law and Note 2 of Paragraph E of Section B of Article 295 of the same law any person can unilaterally decide that another human being has forfeited the right to life and kill them in the name of performing one’s religious duty to rid society of vice. Over the past few decades, many dissidents and activists have been killed on the basis of this article and the killers have been acquitted in court. In such circumstances, no dissident or activist has a right to life in Iran, because, on the basis of Islamic jurisprudence and the laws of the Islamic Republic, the definition of those who have forfeited the right to life (mahduroldam) is very broad.Are you aware that, in Iran, writers are lawfully banned from writing? On the basis of Note 2 of Paragraph 8 of Article 9 of the Press Law, writers who are convicted of "propaganda against the ruling system" are deprived for life of "the right to all press activity". In recent years, many writers and journalists have been convicted of propaganda against the ruling system. The court’s verdicts make it clear that any criticism of state bodies is deemed to be propaganda against the ruling system.
Your Excellency,
The people of Iran and Iranian advocates for freedom and democracy are experiencing difficult days. They need the moral support of the proponents of freedom throughout the world and effective intervention by the United Nations. We categorically reject a military attack on Iran. At the same time, we ask you and all of the world's intellectuals and proponents of liberty and democracy to condemn the human rights violations of the Iranian state. We expect from Your Excellency, in your capacity as the Secretary-General of the United Nations, to reprimand the Iranian government – in keeping with your legal duties – for its extensive violation of the articles of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights and other international human rights covenants and treaties.Above all, we hope that with Your Excellency's immediate intervention, all of Iran's political prisoners, who are facing more deplorable conditions with every passing day, will soon be released. The people of Iran are asking themselves whether the UN Security Council is only decisive and effective when it comes to the suspension of the enrichment of uranium, and whether the lives of the Iranian people are unimportant as far as the Security Council is concerned. The people of Iran are entitled to freedom, democracy and human rights. We Iranians hope that the United Nations and all the forums that defend democracy and human rights will be unflinching in their support for Iran’s quest for freedom and democracy.
Yours Sincerely,
Akbar Ganji
--By Scott MacLeod/Cairo
September 23, 2007 11:49
RE: Dictators and the Good Doctor
Bernard Kouchner spent much of last week trying to back-peddle from his war talk against Iran.
Once again, though, he proved himself less than the artful diplomat while giving a talk in Washington. When the Code Pink women's peace group unfurled banners saying "Bush=Kouchner=Warmongers," Kouchner responded, "But I agree, stupid!" Kouchner did have the grace, however, to ask police to permit the protesters to return to the room after they were expelled.
Kouchner's loose talk obscured an more important initiative that he is launching on behalf of Nicolas Sarkozy's America-tilting French government: he is spearheading a diplomatic effort to convince Europe to impose new sanctions on Iran if the U.N. Security Council, due to Russia and Chinese opposition, fails to significantly tighten sanctions against the Islamic Republic. Such a move would have serious economic repercussions for Iran; European countries, notably France and Germany, maintain substantial trade and investment relations with Iran. Kouchner has already asked French companies to cease their Iranian investments. Major French business players in Iran include Total, Gaz de France and Renault.
Thanks to a second front opened by Sarkozy's France, the Iran crisis is heating up.
--By Scott MacLeod/Cairo
September 23, 2007 10:29
Kian is Free, Sort Of
Dr. Kian Tajbakhsh, one of the Iranian-Americans accused earlier this year of anti-regime activities, has been released from Evin Prison.
This is good news, so far as it goes. Two others who were freed have been permitted to leave the country. Thus far, it appears, Tajbakhsh is required to remain in Iran. The three should never have been arrested in the first place, and much of their treatment confirms the worst characterizations of the Iranian regime. But we can hope that the Iranian authorities are signaling their interest in cooling down the increasingly dangerous moves that play into the hands of American hard-liners looking for reasons to attack Iran.
The last Iranian-American in custody appears to be Ali Shakeri, a businessman who works with the Community Advisory Board of the Center for Citizen Peacebuilding at the University of California, Irvine. He was apparently detained at the airport in May after visiting his elderly mother, who died during his stay. Iranian and U.S. officials have confirmed his detention, and his family has said that they received a phone call from him from his undisclosed place of detention. Iranian officials have said that his case is not related to the others, which may explain why he remains in detention.
On Saturday, Human Rights Watch rebuked the Iranian government for Shakeri's treatment and called for his immediate freedom: "It’s outrageous that the Iranian government has held Ali Shakeri in solitary confinement for over four months. President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad should order his release immediately.”
Surely Ahmadinejad will be asked about the detentions when he answers questions at a forum at New York's Columbia University on Monday. For the third straight year, his New York visit, on the occasion of the annual U.N. General Assembly opening meeting, is generating a storm of controversy--not least over the question of whether his views questioning the Holocaust and Israel's right to exist as a state deserve a platform in the U.S. If he is allowed to speak, Ahmadinejad may even nudge O.J. out of the news.
--By Scott MacLeod/Cairo
September 22, 2007 1:52
News Flash: Muslim Denounces Terrorism!
Among the unfortunate examples of Muslim bashing in the U.S. are Op-Eds of Thomas Friedman, who has sometimes used his very influential platform as a best-selling pop author, prestigious Middle East maven and New York Times pundit to accuse Muslims of some sort of collective responsibility for extremism and terrorism. One of his recurring points, as he wrote two months ago after the latest terrorism episode in Britain, is that "hundreds of Muslims have committed suicide amid innocent civilians...without generating any vigorous, sustained condemnation in the Muslim world."
Maybe it hasn't been up to Friedman's standards of being vigorous and sustained. But Muslim leaders and ordinary Muslims have consistently condemned extremism and terrorism. I agree if he is saying that the Muslim world can and must do more to advance unambiguous moral imperatives. On the other hand, many could (and do) turn around and say that Americans, including the U.S. government and Friedman too, are at fault for not making a vigorous and sustained criticism of Israel's occupation policies.
So, some folks including Friedman might want to take a look at the latest Muslim denunciation, not only of extremism and terrorism, but of Osama bin Laden himself. The interesting twist this time is that the critic is Saudi preacher Salman al-Audah, a leader of Saudi Arabia's important movement of politicized Wahhabis known as Sahwa Islamiya. Al-Audah is a major influence on Bin Laden, who often cited Audah's political views and condemned the Saudi government for imprisoning him for them. When one of Bin Laden's men gave me a copy of Bin Laden's letter to King Fahd in 1996, I noticed that it was dedicated to Audah and another Sahwa scholar.
Audah chose to issue his attack on Bin Laden on the Cornerstone program of Middle East Broadcasting, one of the prominent Arab satellite channels seen throughout the Arab world, on Sept. 14, coinciding with the sixth anniversary of 9/11 as well as the start of the holy month of Ramadan. That qualifies as pretty vigorous. He also has posted the letter on his website, in Arabic as well as English, which I reckon qualifies as a form of sustainment.
Here it is in full (and bold-faced, so nobody has any trouble reading it):
Brother Osama:How much blood has been spilled? How many innocent children, women, and old people have been killed, maimed, and expelled from their homes in the name of “al-Qaeda”?
Are you happy to meet Allah with this heavy burden on your shoulders? It is a weighty burden indeed – at least hundreds of thousands of innocent people, if not millions.
How could you wish for that? – after knowing that Allah’s Messenger said: “Whoever as much as kills a sparrow in vain will find it crying before Allah on the Day of Judgment: ‘My Lord! That person killed me in vain. He did not kill me for needful sustenance.”
This religion of ours comes to defense of the life of a sparrow. It can never accept the murder of innocent people, regardless of what supposed justification is given for it.
Didn’t you read where the Prophet (peace be upon him) said: “One of the prophets once sat under a tree and was bitten by an ant. Because of this, he burnt the ant’s nest. Thereupon, Allah inspired to him: ‘Why not only the one ant?’ ” [Sahîh Muslim]
Allah revealed to that prophet: “What? Just because one ant had bitten you, you have set fire to an entire nation that extols Allah’s glory!” [Sahîh Muslim (2241)]
If this is the case for a nest of ants, consider how much worse it must be to visit harm upon human beings.
Who is responsible for all of those young Muslim, who are still in the bloom of their youth, with all the zeal of their age, who have strayed down a path they have no idea where it is headed?
The image of Islam today is tarnished. People around the world are saying how Islam teaches that those who do not accept it must be killed. They are also saying that the adherents of Salafi teachings kill Muslims who do not share their views.
However, the reality of Islam is that our Prophet (peace be upon him) did not kill the treacherous hypocrites in his midst, even though Allah had revealed to him who they were and informed him that they were destined for the deepest depths of Hell. Why did he stay his hand? He gave the following reason: “I will not have people saying that Muhammad kills his companions.”
Brother Osama, what happened on September 11 – crimes that we have condemned vociferously since that very day – was the murder of a few thousand people, possible a little less than three thousand. This is the number that dies in the airplanes as well as in the towers. By contrast, Muslim preachers – who remain unknown and unsung – have succeeded in guiding hundreds of thousands of people to Islam, people who have ever since been guided by the light of faith and whose hearts are filled with the love of Allah. Isn’t the difference between one who kills and one who guides obvious?
Our Lord tells us: “Whosoever kills a human being for other than manslaughter or corruption in the Earth, it shall be as if he had killed all mankind, and whoso saves the life of one, it shall be as if he had saved the lives of all mankind.” [Sûrah al-Mâ’idah: 32]
Guiding one soul to knowledge and faith is a momentous achievement. It is what will earn us great blessings.
Brother Osama, what is to be gained from the destruction of entire nations – which is what we are witnessing in Afghanistan and Iraq – seeing them torn them with plague and famine? What is to be gained from undermining their stability and every hope of a normal life? Three million refugees are packing into Syria and Jordan alone, not to mention those who are fleeing to the East and the West.
The nightmare of civil war which now reigns supreme in Afghanistan and Iraq brings no joy to the Muslims. When the Prophet (peace be upon him) heard about a man named Harb (meaning “war” in Arabic), he promptly changed his name to something else, because the Prophet hated war.
Allah says: “Fighting is prescribed for you, though you detest it.” [Sûrah al-Baqarah: 216]
War is something hateful that must only be resorted to under the most dire and compelling of circumstances when no other way is found.
Who stands to benefit from turning a country like Morocco, Algeria, Lebanon, or Saudi Arabia – or any other country for that matter – into a battlefield where no one feels safe? Is the goal to obstruct the government? Is that, then, the solution for anything?
Is this the plan – even if it is achieved by marching over the corpses of hundreds of thousands of people – police, soldiers, and civilians, even the common Muslims? Are their deaths to be shrugged off, saying: “They will be resurrected in the Hereafter based on the state of their hearts.”
Indeed, all of those who are slain will be resurrected based on the state of their hearts. The question we must ask ourselves, however, is in what state are we going to be resurrected? How are we going to find ourselves when we meet our Lord? How will it be for someone who has all those countless deaths weighing down upon him, whether he wants to own up to them or not?
The concern for conveying Islam’s message to humanity is one that can influence others and convince them. This is a far greater and far weightier concern than that of using brute force and violence to bend others to one’s will. “Allah sent His Messenger (peace be upon him) as a guide for humanity, not as a tax collector.” as `Umar b. `Abd al-`Azîz used to say.
Who is responsible – brother Osama – for promoting the culture of excommunication which has torn families asunder and has led to sons calling their fathers infidels? Who is responsible for fostering a culture of violence and murder that has led to people to shed the blood of their relatives in cold blood, rather than nurturing the spirit of love and tranquility that a Muslim family is supposed to have?
Who is responsible for the young men who leave their mothers crying; who abandon their wives; whose small children wake up every day asking when daddy is coming home? What answer can be given, when that father may very well be dead, or missing with no one knowing of his fate?
Who is responsible for Western governments pursuing every charitable project in the world, so that the orphans, the poor, and the needy throughout the globe are deprived of food, education, and other essential needs? Who is responsible – brother Osama – for filling the prisons of the Muslim world with our youth, a situation which will only breed more extremism, violence, and murder in our societies?
Muhammad (peace be upon him) – my source of guidance as well as yours – is what he came with not enough for you? He was sent as a mercy for all humanity. Allah says: “And We sent you merely as a mercy for all humanity.” [Sûrah al-Anbiyâ’: 107]
The word “mercy” is not to be found in the lexicon of war. Where is the mercy in murdering people? Where is the mercy in bombing places? Where is the mercy in making people and places into targets? Where is the mercy in turning many Muslim countries into battlefields?
The Prophet (peace be upon him) brought all of Arabia under his sway without a single slaughter, despite all of the battles that were waged against him. The number of people who were killed during the twenty-three years of his mission were less than two hundred people. The Muslims who were killed during that time by their enemies were many times in excess of that number.
What do a hundred people in Algeria, or double that number in Lebanon, or likewise in Saudi Arabia hope to achieve by carrying out acts of violence – or as they say, suicide attacks? These acts are futile.
Let us say – purely hypothetically – that these people manage to take power somewhere in the world. What then? What can people who have no life experience hope to achieve in the sphere of good governance? People who have no knowledge of Islamic law to support them and no understanding of domestic and foreign relations?
Is Islam only about guns and ammunition? Have your means become the ends themselves?
That ideology that so many young people have embraced in many parts of the world, is it revelation from Allah that cannot be questioned or reconsidered? Or is it merely a product of human effort that is subject to error and to being corrected?
Many of your brethren in Egypt, Algeria and elsewhere have come to see the end of the road for that ideology. They realize how destructive and dangerous it is. They have also found the courage to proclaim in their writings and on the air that they were mistaken and that the path they had been on was the path of error. They admit that it cannot lead to anything good. They have sought Allah’s forgiveness for what has passed and have expressed their sincere regrets for what they had done.
Those with brave hearts need just as much to have courageous minds.
Do you not hear the voices of the pious scholars, those who worship Allah day and night and are truly heedful of Allah – don’t you hear them crying out with the very same words that the Prophet (peace be upon him) used when Khâlid b. al-Walîd, the commander-in-chief of his army, acted in error: “O Allah! I plead my innocence to You from what Khâlid has done.”
These same words still echo after 1400 years in the cries of the scholars of Islam: “O Allah! I plead my innocence to You from what Osama is doing, and from those who affiliate themselves to his name or work under his banner.”
Life, Osama, should not be a single lesson. We must face numerous lessons throughout our lives, and these lessons are of a great variety.
I am no different than that of a lot of other people who are concerned with Muslim affairs. My heart pains me when I think of the number of young people who had so much potential – who would have made such great and original contributions to society, who had so much to offer that was constructive and positive – who have been turned into living bombs.
Here is the vital question that you need to ask yourself and that others have the right to demand and answer for: What have all these long years of suffering, tragedy, tears, and sacrifice actually achieved?
I ask Allah to bring everyone together upon the truth and right guidance. I pray that he guides us all to what pleases Him.
--By Scott MacLeod/Cairo
September 22, 2007 12:32
Mideast To Condi: Your Time Is Running Out
Watching Condi Rice's lightning visit to Jeusalem and Ramallah--in preparation for crucial Middle East discussions on the sidelines of the U.N. General Assembly this week-- I wouldn't bet the farm on President Bush's proposed international meeting to discuss an Israeli-Palestinian settlement. Rice went out to get a first-hand reading from Israeli and Palestinian leaders on how their bilateral discussions have been going. Bush's idea is for the gathering to "provide diplomatic support for the parties in their bilateral discussions and negotiations, so that we can move forward on a successful path to a Palestinian state." The signs that I see, alas, are that this U.S. effort, like so many others before, is too half-hearted to go anywhere. Rice may as well start writing her memoirs where she can give her excuses why Israelis and Palestinians proved unable once against to achieve peace during Bush's eight years in office.
After her meeting with Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas, Rice had some diplomatic blah-blahed to say: "We have had wide-ranging discussions...the President [Bush] and I are absolutely devoted...I look forward to our many opportunities to press forward..." For his part, Abbas hit Rice between the eyes with some substantive comments that indicated things are not going too well in his bilaterals with Israeli Prime Minister Ehud Olmert:
We have asserted to Secretary Rice our serious pursuit to reach a framework agreement to implement solving the issues of the final status, issues which are the borders, the Jerusalem refugees, and the issues of settlement and water. And within this vision we have met periodically with Israeli Prime Minister Ehud Olmert in our pursuit to reach an agreement that includes a timeframe or a schedule for implementing -- solving final status issues.
We have asserted to Secretary Rice that in order for the peace process to restore its credibility and the trust of the people of the region in it, there is a need for immediate halt of all Israeli settlement activities in Palestinian territories and to stop the construction of the wall of separation and annexation and expansion and to end the siege and the closure imposed on our land and people in all its forms because of its devastating impact on our economy and the standards of living of our people, which has reached its lowest level and constitutes a major source of concern to us and has its repercussions and negative effect on security and stability.
We have asserted also on the utmost importance for stopping the Palestinians of invasions and arrests, the last of which was the invasion of the city of Nablus and its refugee camps. And Israeli threat, the recent Israeli threat to escalate collective punishment, particularly in Gaza.
In this regard, the talk of Israeli politicians and their statements issued following the meeting of the security cabinet yesterday -- that Gaza is a hostile territory -- has serious and grave political connotations. All these measures undermine the efforts exerted from our government for the sake of threatening security and enhancing order in different Palestinian cities.
We have also asserted the importance of our -- the issue of our funds, the prisoners, and the need to release them and end their suffering and imprisonment, as we have been promised more than once.
On a hopeful note, Olmert talked up the idea of a deal with Abbas when he addressed his Kadima Party this week, warning that Abbas was a moderate partner for peace who could be swept away by militants like Hamas if Israel doesn't respond to him. But that's a far cry from giving Abbas the minimum he needs to sell a deal to the Palestinians. His own Defense Minister, ex-PM Ehud Barak, ridiculed the idea of making concessions to Abbas only to please the lameduck American president. In any case, Olmert's allies are quoted saying they would give Abbas less than Barak offered the Palestinians at Camp David in 2000 and was turned down by Arafat.
What all this means is that the Israelis are divided among themselves, the Palestinians are divided among themselves, Olmert is weak, and Abbas is weak, yet Rice expects them to rise to the task of leadership and forge the way forward. Rice says that Bush's April 2003 "Roadmap to a Permanent Two-State Solution isn't dead--forgetting that it was supposed to have solved all the issues by the end of 2005. The New York Times quoted a U.S. official saying at the time, when Colin Powell was still secretary of state: "There have to be some steps by the Palestinians and some reciprocation by the Israelis if we are going to restore trust and dialogue on both sides. We haven't got much time."
Well, time is running out and Bush continues to squander it. It appears that Rice remains far from getting Olmert to agree to Abbas's demand to fully address the final status issues of borders, Jerusalem and refugees. The Saudis and other Arabs are wondering whether they will bother showing up at the meeting if that is the casel; they are upset that Rice continues to call it just a "meeting," when they want a full-blown peace conference. "It's time to sit down and solve the problems, not just to continue talking in another 'meeting'," an Arab diplomat told me. ""We've been talking for decades."
Everybody knows what the outlines of a settlement are: Israelis and Palestinians came very close to a deal back in 2001 when Clinton was still president and before Bush took America out of the mediation business for six years. My hunch: there will be a meeting, it will be postponed until early '08, the Saudis and other players will excuse themselves, Olmert and Abbas will sign a memo stating some progress, and Bush will urge them to... hold some more meetings. I can only conclude by repeating what I blogged in April, when Rice was working hard to get Olmert and Abbas talking again:
Let it be remembered that in 2007, the United States missed what may be a last chance in many years to negotiate a final peace settlement between the Israelis and the Arabs. That failure, if it happens, will keep the Middle East on boil for more years to come, leading to further bloodshed between Israelis and Palestinians, probably between Hizballah and Israel, and possibly between Palestinians themselves.
It is becoming apparent that [Rice's] efforts lack a big vision or a commitment on the part of President Bush, which may amount to a historic abrogation of U.S. responsibility given the significant opportunity offered in the Arab League's occupied-land-for-full-peace initiative of 2002 relaunched at the Riyadh summit last week. American leadership is crucial, yet Bush refuses to take a clear stand on what a fair and just Israeli-Palestnian settlement should look like, and then use America's influence in the region and the world to sell that bold vision to the concerned parties.
--By Scott MacLeod/Cairo
September 21, 2007 9:17
Jerusalem's Unseen Eyes
In the bazaar of Jerusalem’s Old City, the Israeli police have cameras, hundreds of them, hidden throughout this labyrinth of stone and faith. The cameras were put there during the Intifada in 2000 because Palestinians would fall on Jewish students with knives and escape into the alleys.
It was the most medieval of assassination techniques; for centuries, this was how murder was carried out in the Old City, the slash of a blade, a scream or two, and the fading sound of the assassin’s footfalls on the stone.
The cameras don’t always stop the killing, but it makes it easier for the Israeli police to catch the escaping murderers.
A few days ago, I was invited into Jerusalem's police control center, a darkened, high-tech room with banks of TV screens. Many of these invisible eyes are trained on the Temple Mount and Western Wall. A sensible precaution; all it would take is some fanatic --he (or she) could be Jewish, Muslim or Christian-- to set off a bomb and trigger World War III.
It was the ultimate reality TV show. Tourists streamed along the Via Dolorosa, pursued by souvenir vendors with holy oil and rosaries. A trio of veiled Muslim women peered at a glittering necklace in a goldsmith’s display. A baker’s apprentice weaved through the crowd like an acrobat, balancing a plank of sesame-flecked bagels in his up-stretched hands.
Watching these scenes, I began to understand the voyeur’s fascination. It’s the power of invisibility. That middle-aged woman at the spice market, the one adjusting her skirt… could she feel on the back of her neck that she was being watched?
A policewoman showed us a few tapes from the closed-circuit cameras: a knife fight between feuding Arab families, police busting carjackers. “Would you like to see a funny one?” the policewoman asked, mischievously.
Of course, I replied.
I wish that I could have grabbed a copy of the tape and posted it online. Shot from a camera high in the vaulted ceiling of Jaffa Gate, it shows three workers hefting a giant painting. It’s heavy work, so they prop the huge canvas against the ancient wall and stroll off for a cigarette break. But they didn’t stand the painting steady. Slowly, it tipped over, just as a black-hatted ultra-orthodox student was hurrying by. The Yeshiva student’s head was too full of the Talmud, or the thought of lunch, to notice this slow-mo calamity. Sure enough, the painting fell on top of him, knocking off his hat and squashing him to the pavement. At that moment, while the student lay there stunned, perhaps wondering what he had done to offend the Almighty, a woman bustled past.
What was extraordinary was that she paid him no notice, as if it were the most commonplace occurrence on a trip to the Old City to see an ultra-orthodox student pinned like a bug under a giant canvas. The painting was wrapped, so I couldn’t see it. But I like to think that the painting had a religious theme, with thunderbolts and a bit of Biblical wrath.
Chuckling, we left the command center. But over my shoulder, I looked back and saw that the sharp-eyed watchers had gone back to their TV surveillance screens, scanning the humdrum scenes of bazaar life and trying to decipher whether that youth bounding up the steps of the Via Dolorosa carrying a sports bag is on his way to the gym or to blow up a holy shrine and start World War III. It’s not that far-fetched, sadly.
---by Tim McGirk/Jerusalem
September 21, 2007 7:43
Car Bombs and Coffins
I was getting treatment for a back injury on Wednesday when the explosion occurred, causing me to jump up from prone position on an examination table to look out the bay window of my physical therapist's office. Sure enough a pillar of black smoke rose from the densely populated foothills of northern Beirut. Car bomb.
My physical therapist is a whole lot better connected than I am, so I stayed in his office while he worked the phones, calling the bodyguards of his political clients, all of whom were unscathed. But he scooped the local media and soon discovered the real target of the attack: Antoine Ghanem, a Christian member of parliament in the American-supported government coalition.
This was yet another in a string of chillingly professional hits on Lebanon's anti-Syrian politicians and activists. As many as 38 MPs from the ruling majority have been hiding out abroad under the protection of allied governments -- France, Egypt, Italy, UAE, Britain -- but have been trickling back into the country ahead the country's presidential election season, which begins on Tuesday with a scheduled vote in parliament. Ghanem had retuned from Abu Dhabi just two days before. Four other people died in the attack. Now most government MP's have moved into a special wing of Beirut's fanciest hotel, which has been fortified with airport-style security measures.
One interpretation of these assassinations is that Syria is playing a deadly numbers game against the Lebanese government, picking off their parliamentary majority one murder at a time. But cynics note (and there is no shortage of cynics in the Middle East) that there are plenty of other possible suspects. The Israelis might be trying to foment conflict between the Lebanese government and the Hizballah-led opposition, the better to isolate Hizballah, Israel's deadly foe. Or one of Lebanon's Christian political parties might be doing some internal housekeeping, rubbing out rivals or sacrificing the occasional martyr in order to motivate the base. These are of course conspiracy theories, but this campaign of assassinations is nothing if not a conspiracy. Or multiple conspiracies. No one really knows.
But that hasn't stopped the Lebanese government coalition, the United States, and the UN Security Council from almost instantly blaming Syria. "They are trying to plant fear in the hearts of Lebanese, prevent the rebuilding of Lebanon, and prevent the election of a president," said MP Namat Allah Abi Nasser at today's funeral for Ghanem. "If this happens it will be the end of Lebanon, which is what the Syrians are looking for." One top member of the government even called the attack a response to the Israeli air raid on Syria earlier this month, as if the Syrians released a press statement.
Foreign ambassadors were out in force at the funeral despite a free-floating feeling of panic, one reason perhaps why the event was modestly attended compared to other recent funerals and rallies. The fact that US Ambassador Jeffrey Feltman -- who rarely appears in public -- made the trip all the way down from the isolated embassy compound in the hills outside Beirut wasn't enough one young woman following alongside the coffin of a bodyguard slain in Wednesday's attack. "Where is George Bush?" she yelled. "We need his help!" This corner of Beirut may be one of the last places in the Middle East where one can hear that on the street.
Girls mourning the death of a young bodyguard slain alongside Lebanese MP Antione Ghanem on Wednesday
--Andrew Lee Butters/Beirut
September 21, 2007 12:00
Bush's Top 10 Reasons for Bombing Iran
I may be the last person to know Bush's current thinking on bombing Iran. But with the topic increasingly making news, I'll share some observations from my perch in the Middle East. I'm prompted to blog on this after seeing Steven Clemons's Salon piece "Why Bush won't attack Iran," which conforms to some of my thinking. I was intrigued to read that at a recent high-powered Washington dinner party (Scowcroft, Brzezinski, Bhutto, etc), a show of hands included 16 people who felt Bush was headed to military action and only two (including Scowcroft, a vocal, pre-war critic of the Iraq invasion) who thought he would hold his fire. This is contrary to the straw poll I've been taking among