Jahan Salehi – Page 3

Patrick Seale, “Obama’s Appointment with History”

February 19, 2013 - Jahan Salehi

U.S. President Barack Obama’s visit to Israel on 20-21 March is likely to be one of those seminal events which will decide his place in history. He will either seize this unique, and probably final, chance to breathe fresh life into the moribund two-state solution of the Israeli-Palestinian conflict or he will consign Palestinian hopes of statehood to oblivion, and go down in the history books as a wimp who surrendered to narrow and partisan political concerns.

Like no other American President since the foundation of the Jewish state sixty-five years ago, Obama now has it in his power to shape Israel’s future and its relations with its neighbours. Whatever the pressures he is under from Israel’s supporters in the United States — and they are very great — the ultimate decision is his and his alone. He is President of the world’s most powerful nation. He has secured re-election for a second four-year term, with all the moral and political authority that that achievement confers on him. Moreover, unlike many of his predecessors, he truly understands what needs to be done in the Middle East, as he demonstrated in his famous Cairo speech of 4 June 2009.

It is worth recalling his words on that occasion:

The situation of the Palestinians is intolerable. America will not turn our backs on the legitimate Palestinian aspirations for dignity, opportunity and a state of their own… The only resolution is for the aspirations of both sides to be met through two states, when Israelis and Palestinians each live in peace and security. That is in Israel’s interest, Palestine’s interest, America’s interest and the world’s interest. That is why I intend to personally pursue this outcome with all the patience that the task requires.

The time has come to hold Obama to that pledge. He knows that only U.S. power can check and reverse the headlong land-grab of Palestinian territory by messianic Jewish settlers and their right-wing nationalist supporters, which is extinguishing all hope of Palestinian statehood — and, by the same token, threatening Israel’s future as a democratic state.

Will Obama give a speech at Rabin Square in Tel Aviv? Will he dare tell the Israelis that the U.S.-Israeli special relationship — on which Israel depends for its very survival — will be put at risk if the land-grab is not halted and reversed, making way for a Palestinian state?

Whether or not Obama has the courage to speak out — and translate his words into deeds — will determine not only war or peace in the region but also whether the United States will be seen as the friend or the enemy of Arabs and Muslims across the world, and all that that implies in terms of American influence, strategic interests, trade opportunities and ultimate security. The United States has already aroused ferocious hostility by its devastating wars in Iraq and Afghanistan, as well as its pitiless drone strikes against alleged terrorists in several countries. But this will be nothing compared to the anger Obama and the United States will arouse if he is seen finally to abandon the Palestinians to their fate.

As well as visiting Israel, Obama will also be calling briefly on Mahmud Abbas, president of the Palestinian Authority at Ramallah and on King Abdallah of Jordan in Amman. But these latter meetings will be of trivial importance compared to his duel with Israel’s hard-line Prime Minister Binyamin Netanyahu, whose attachment to the dream of a “Greater Israel” no longer needs demonstrating.

Israel has pursued this dream relentlessly for decades — certainly since the premiership of Menachem Begin, a pre-Independence terrorist leader who fought against Britain’s mandatory government in Palestine. During his crucial term of office as prime minister from 1977 to1983, Begin signed the 1979 peace treaty with Egypt, which gave Israel’s unchallenged military supremacy over the Arabs for more than three decades; he bombed Iraq’s Osirak nuclear plant in 1981; and he invaded Lebanon in 1982 — killing some 17,000 Palestinians and Lebanese. Israel remained in occupation of southern Lebanon for the next eighteen years, until driven out by Hizballah guerrillas in 2000.

Above all, Begin promoted the construction of settlements in occupied Palestinian territory, a systematic land-theft which has continued ever since. Begin’s legacy lives on. Over the past several decades Israel has not hesitated to use great violence against the unfortunate Palestinians — arresting, torturing and killing them in large numbers, seizing and settling their land, demolishing their houses, stealing their water, and subjecting them to innumerable humiliations and human rights abuses. It has illegally claimed sovereignty over Arab East Jerusalem — thereby ruling out the possibility of a Palestinian state living side by side with Israel in peace and security. Will this pattern of criminal behaviour be halted and or will it continue with impunity?

Obama is visiting Israel at a time when Netanyahu is still likely to be deep in negotiations over the composition of his next government. It will be Obama’s opportunity to influence the choices Netanyahu makes. As their country‘s best — and perhaps only real — friend, Obama must remind Israelis that West Bank settlements are illegal under international law, and that if their land-theft and settlement construction continue, Israel must eventually face sanctions, international pressure and isolation — much like the package of punitive measures which Israel has pushed the United States into imposing on Iran.

What hope is there that Obama will have the courage to tell Israelis that their actions are putting at risk their vital relationship with the United States? Obama’s actions over the past four years give little ground for hope. He has allowed himself to be humiliated by Netanyahu. In a curious way, he seems to have fallen under Israeli control, at least where the Middle East is concerned. As Professor Fawaz Gerges of the London School of Economics writes in his new book, Obama and the Middle East: “The United States is no longer seen as omnipotent and invincible…” Or again, America’s wars “have diminished America’s power and influence in the Middle East and the international system.” Could it be that Israel has managed to put a stranglehold over America’s decision-making? There is certainly plenty of evidence of that.

Only this week the International Herald Tribune gave pride of place on its opinion page to an incendiary diatribe which seemed to be written by an Israeli propagandist. However, the author was none other than Tom Donilon, Obama’s national security adviser. In the article, he categorically blames Hizballah for the despicable attack on Israeli tourists in Bulgaria (although no convincing evidence has yet been published), calls on the world to recognise the “nefarious nature” of the Lebanese resistance movement, and demands that the European Union add Hizballah to its terrorist list. Such crass partiality is not worthy of a great power like the United States.

Perhaps, as Fawaz Gerges warns in his book, “We are witnessing the beginning of the end of America’s moment in the Middle East.”

Patrick Seale is a leading British writer on the Middle East. His latest book is The Struggle for Arab Independence: Riad el-Solh and the Makers of the Modern Middle East (Cambridge University Press).

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Released: 19 February 2013
Word Count: 1,184
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Patrick Seale, “Can the United States Strike a Deal with Iran?”

February 12, 2013 - Jahan Salehi

Negotiations with Iran are once more on the international agenda. After an eight-month break, the five permanent members of the UN Security Council plus Germany — the so-called P5+1 — are due to hold a meeting with Iran on 25 February in Kazakhstan. What are the prospects of success? In a nutshell, that would seem to depend more on the climate in Washington than in Tehran. Iran is gesturing that it wants to negotiate, but Washington has not yet signalled any greater flexibility than in the past.

In a major speech in Tehran last Sunday, President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad addressed the United States: “Take your guns out of the face of the Iranian nation and I myself will negotiate with you,” he declared. Meanwhile, the Iranian ambassador to Paris told French officials that, provided a work plan was agreed, Iran was ready to allow inspectors of the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) to visit Parchin, a military facility where Iran is suspected of having done work on atomic weapons. Ahmadinejad himself has said repeatedly that Iran was ready to stop enriching uranium to 20% if the international community agreed to supply it instead to the Tehran research reactor for the production of isotopes needed to treat cancer patients.

The only recent encouraging word from the United States was a hint by Vice-President Joe Biden at last week’s Munich security conference that the time may have come for bilateral U.S.-Iranian talks. Iran’s Foreign Minister Ali Akbar Salehi responded positively to Biden’s offer, although he added that Iran would look for evidence that Biden’s offer was ‘authentic’ and not ‘devious’.

The road to a U.S.-Iranian agreement is littered with obstacles — grave mutual distrust being one of them. There is little optimism among experts that a breakthrough is imminent. For one thing, Iran is almost certain to want to defer any major strategic decision until a new President is elected next June to replace the sharp-tongued Mahmoud Ahmadinejad. To strike a deal with Iran, the United States would also need to assure its Arab allies in the Gulf that they would not fall under Iranian hegemony or lose American protection. Guarantees would no doubt have to be given.

Israel, America’s close ally, poses a more substantial obstacle. It is totally opposed to any deal which would allow Iran to enrich uranium, even at the low level of 3.5%. Wanting no challenge to its own formidable nuclear arsenal, Israel’s long-standing aim has been to halt Iran’s nuclear programme altogether. To this end it has assassinated several Iranian nuclear scientists and joined the United States in waging cyber warfare against Iranian nuclear facilities. Its belligerent prime minister, Binyamin Netanyahu, has for years been pressing Obama to destroy Iran’s nuclear programme and — better still — bring down the Islamic regime altogether.

Faced with these obstacles, it is clear that any U.S. deal with Iran would require careful preparation. Obama would need to mobilize strong domestic support if he is to confront America’s vast array of pro-Israeli forces. They include Congressmen eager to defend Israeli interests at all costs (as was vividly illustrated by the recent Chuck Hagel confirmation hearings), powerful lobbies such as AIPAC, media barons, high-profile Jewish financiers like Sheldon Adelson, a phalanx of neo-con strategists in right-wing think tanks, influential pro-Israelis within the Administration, and many, many others. The cost in political capital of challenging them could be very substantial. Nevertheless, elected for a second term, he now has greater freedom and authority than before.

Obama is due to visit Israel on March 20-21, something he did not do in his first term. This visit will be the first foreign trip of his second term — in itself a sign of its importance. Although the White House is anxious to play down suggestions that he will announce a major initiative, either on the Israeli-Palestinian conflict or on Iran, there are issues he cannot avoid. He may, however, choose to raise them in private talks with Israeli leaders rather than in public. His message is expected to be twofold: Israel should not delay in granting statehood to the Palestinians, however painful that choice may be, and it should be careful not to make an eternal enemy of Iran. Both conflicts have the potential to isolate Israel internationally and threaten its long-term interests, if not its actual existence.

In his first term of office, Obama resisted Netanyahu’s pressure to wage war on Iran. This was no more than a semi-success, however, since he managed to blunt Netanyahu’s belligerence only by imposing on Iran a raft of sanctions of unprecedented severity. They have halved Iran’s oil exports, caused its currency to plummet and inflation to gallop, severed its relations with the world’s banks and inflicted severe hardship on its population.

The key question today is this: What are Obama’s intentions? Is he seeking to bring down Iran’s Islamic regime, as Israel would like, or is he simply seeking to limit its nuclear ambitions? If ‘regime change’ is his aim then sanctions will have to be tightened even further and extended indefinitely. But if Obama’s aim is to strike a deal with Iran over its nuclear programme then he must give it at least some of what it wants: such as sanctions relief; acceptance of its right under the Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty to enrich uranium to a low level for peaceful purposes; recognition of its security interests, of the legitimacy of its Islamic regime born out of the 1979 revolution, and of its place in the region as a major power.

The P5+1, which are due to meet Iran later this month, remain so divided that they are unlikely to improve substantially on their previous miserly offer, which was to provide Iran with some airplane spare parts if it gave up uranium enrichment to 20% — its trump card. It is the paralysis of Iran’s dealings with the P5+1 that has lent credence to the idea that the best hope of a breakthrough may lie in bilateral U.S.-Iranian talks — perhaps even a summit meeting between President Obama and Ayatollah Khomeini.

For such a summit to be successful the United States would have to change its approach. Iran’s supreme leader has made clear that Iran will not negotiate under threat of attack. There would have to be give and take. Above all, Iran wants to be treated with respect. This is the challenge facing Obama.

It is worth remembering that there is as yet no evidence whatsoever that Iran has decided to build nuclear weapons. Nor has it developed a reliable delivery system. Instead, it has focussed its efforts on medium-range missiles unable to reach Israel. It has no second strike capability. As President Ahmadinejad stressed during his visit to Cairo last week, Iran has no intention of attacking Israel. Its posture is purely defensive.

If Obama were to act with boldness and vision, he could defuse a nagging problem which has plagued the region for years. It is surely time for the United States to draw Iran into the regional community of nations and put an end to 34 years of unremitting hostility.

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Released: 12 February 2013
Word Count: 1,179
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Patrick Seale, “A New Phase in the Struggle for Syria”

February 5, 2013 - Jahan Salehi

While blood-letting in Syria continues on a grand scale, the situation in and around the country is far from static. Three major developments are worth noting, as they are changing the nature of the struggle.

First, the United States and its Western allies are becoming increasingly alarmed at the rise to prominence in Syria of extremist al-Qaeda-backed rebel groups, such as the Nusra Front (Jabhat al-Nusra), which has eclipsed all its rivals in fighting prowess in the field. Washington has put it on a list of foreign terrorist groups.

Indeed, many are beginning to ask what is the point of the United States and its allies waging war against al-Qaeda across the world — in Afghanistan, Pakistan, Yemen, Somalia and, most recently, in Mali — while giving free rein to it in Syria, thereby no doubt guaranteeing it a major role in any post-Asad government. The spectre of a Taliban-type regime on the doorstep of Europe is causing real concern and explains the increasing reluctance of Western countries to arm the rebels.

The current European Union embargo on arms deliveries to Syria is due to expire on 1 March. Will it be renewed or will weapons be allowed to flow in? The British and French foreign ministers, William Hague and Laurent Fabius, have been very much in favour of arming the rebels. But they are likely to meet stiff resistance at the next council meeting of European foreign ministers in Brussels on February 18. The Western mood is now far more cautious in dealing with the Syrian crisis.

A second major development is a growing split in the civilian ranks of the Syrian opposition, a fractious body at the best of times. The Turkey-based Syrian National Council (SNC), dominated by the Muslim Brotherhood, has always rejected any negotiation with the Syria regime so long as Bashar al-Asad remains in power. Its prime objective is to topple him. But the SNC has proved to be an ineffective body of squabbling exiles, exercising little control over the fighters in the field. To remedy the situation, Qatar and the United States sponsored the creation last November of a new opposition body — the Syrian National Coalition — headed by an apparently moderate Islamist, Moaz al-Khatib, who had been the Imam of the Great Omayyad Mosque in Damascus. The old SNC was incorporated in the new Coalition as a sort of junior partner.

Al-Khatib’s new Coalition, however, has not done much better than its predecessor. Its constituent factions have failed to show enough cohesion to allow it to form a credible opposition ‘government’ — and thereby win real financial and political backing from the West, not to speak of weapons.

Such is the background to the political bombshells recently dropped by two opposition figures. Haytham al-Manna, a veteran Paris-based Syrian civil rights activist, has from the start of the uprising in 2011 firmly opposed the rebels’ resort to arms. When the world’s attention was focussed on the fighting, he was ignored. But the military stalemate has contributed to a change of mood, which has allowed al-Manna to re-emerge into public view. On 28 January, he chaired what seems to have been a highly successful meeting of like-minded opposition figures in Geneva. Two days later, on 30 January, Moaz al-Khatib — perhaps not wishing to be upstaged by al-Manna — dropped his own bombshell by announcing (on his Facebook page) his willingness “to take part in direct talks with representatives of the Syrian regime…”

This dramatic statement was seen as a positive response to President Bashar al-Asad call on January 6 for a major conference of national reconciliation tasked with drawing up a charter outlining how Syria was to be governed in future, the terms of which would then be put to a referendum, followed by elections, the formation of a new government and a general amnesty.

Moaz al-Khatib was immediately denounced by opposition hardliners, notably by the Muslim Brothers. He was forced to explain that he had spoken in a purely personal capacity, but it was widely suspected that he was reflecting a growing trend in the opposition which, despairing at the horrendous human and material cost of the conflict, is perhaps almost ready to give dialogue a chance. No doubt, al-Khatib has also grasped that, as there is little hope of Western military and financial aid on the massive scale required, it might be time to explore the possibility of a negotiated settlement with the regime.

Needless to say, Israel is watching these developments with very great attention. Indeed, a third major recent development was Israel’s air strike on the night of 29-30 January on Syria’s prime military research establishment, the Scientific Studies Research Centre (SSRC), located at Jamaya north-west of Damascus. Israel’s alleged motive was to prevent the transfer to Hizballah of sophisticated Russian weapons — such as advanced radars and anti-aircraft missiles — which might restrict Israel’s freedom to strike Lebanon at will.

In fact, in mounting this latest attack, Israel’s motives were probably more ambitious. As is well known, it is anxious to bring down the whole so-called ‘resistance axis’ of Iran, Syria and Hizballah, which in recent years has managed to develop a certain deterrent capability vis-à-vis Israeli power. Israel’s bombardment of Syria’s research establishment was very probably intended to provoke the ‘resistance axis’ into responding with an attack on an Israeli target — which would then have provided Israel with the pretext for an all-out assault.

Israel has a score to settle with Hizballah, which fought it to a draw when Israel last invaded Lebanon in 2006. Israel is also worried that the five members of the UN Security Council plus Germany (the so-called P5+1) might make progress at their next meeting with Iran, which is due to take place in Kazakhstan on February 25. It is particularly concerned at reports that the United States and Iran might engage in a bilateral dialogue, as U.S. Vice-President Joe Biden has recently hinted.

None of this is to Israel’s taste. It has for years been urging the United States to destroy Iran’s nuclear facilities — and bring down the Islamic regime — in much the same way that pro-Israeli neo-cons, using fraudulent intelligence, pushed the United States into invading and destroying Iraq in 2003. Equally, Israel does not want the Syrian opposition to engage in dialogue with the regime and arrive at a peaceful settlement. It wants Syria to be further enfeebled and dismembered, much as Iraq was a decade ago, and from which it has far from recovered.

Much will depend in the coming weeks on the wisdom of President Barack Obama’s new team and, in particular, on the new Secretary of State John Kerry. Will he encourage negotiations to resolve the Syrian crisis peacefully so as to stem the destruction of the country and its people, as well as preventing the further destabilisation of Turkey and Lebanon, or will he play Israel’s traditional game of subverting the region so as to reign supreme?

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Released: 05 February 2013

Word Count: 1,153

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Patrick Seale, “A Peace Package for the Middle East”

January 29, 2013 - Jahan Salehi

Three highly-dangerous Middle East problems — Iran’s nuclear ambitions, the bloody civil war in Syria, and the long-festering Israeli-Palestinian conflict — pose a grave challenge to President Barack Obama and his foreign policy team of John Kerry at State, Chuck Hagel at Defence and John Brennan at the CIA. America’s vital interests in the Middle East, its political reputation, its ability to project power and influence are intimately tied up with the way it deals — or fails to deal — with these problems. So what advice might one be bold enough to give to President Obama and his team?

Each of these three problems is profoundly destabilising for the region as a whole and risks triggering a war of unpredictable consequences. Taken separately, each of them has so far defied resolution. One suggestion is that tackling them as a package might prove more effective.

Consider, for a moment, how closely inter-connected they are. No one is more concerned than Israel about Iran’s nuclear programme, which it sees as a threat to its military supremacy and ultimately to its security. It fears that a nuclear capable Iran would restrict the freedom — which Israel has enjoyed for decades — to strike its neighbours at will, when they seem threatening.

Iran, however, does not stand alone. Its fate is closely linked to that of Syria, its principal regional ally. Syria has also been the most ardent champion of Palestinian rights and of Lebanon’s freedom from Israeli control. Indeed, the so-called ‘resistance axis’ of Iran, Syria and Lebanon’s Hizballah has sought to deter or contain Israeli attacks while challenging U.S.-Israeli hegemony in the Levant.

Needless to say, Syria’s calamitous civil war has gravely weakened the resistance axis. Israel’s dearest hope is to destroy what remains of it by urging the United States and its allies to bring down the Tehran and the Damascus regimes, thus freeing Israel from any constraint from these powers in its relentless drive for a ‘Greater Israel’.

It can thus be seen that Iran’s nuclear programme, Syria’s existential crisis and Israel’s land hunger are inextricably linked. Attempts to deal with these problems separately have so far failed. The obvious conclusion is that they may be better dealt with as a package. These are not marginal problems which can be left to fester. If the United States wishes to protect itself, its interests and its allies in a highly turbulent environment it must make a supreme effort to resolve them.

Moreover, this is a unique moment: President Obama has been re-elected for a second term. His political authority has been enhanced. The world is looking to him for leadership. Although many other foreign policy problems clamour for his attention — the rising colossus of China first among them — he knows that the Middle East, for all its maddening complexity, latent violence, and the current resurgence of Al-Qaeda, not least in Syria, cannot be ignored.

He should consider the possibility of a trade-off between Iran’s nuclear programme and a Palestinian state. The proposal is simple enough: If Iran were to agree — under strict international supervision — to give up, once and for all, its ambition to become a nuclear-capable state, Israel would, in exchange, agree to the establishment of an independent Palestine on the West Bank and Gaza, with its capital in East Jerusalem. The exact terms of the trade-off would evidently need negotiation and refinement, but the main lines and necessary mutual concessions of an Israeli-Palestinian deal have been extensively debated and are widely known.

Such a bargain between Iran’s nuclear ambitions and an Israeli-Palestinian settlement is not as far-fetched or as fictional as it may sound. Iran has boxed itself into a corner. It knows that the United States will not allow it to become a nuclear power. It wants a dignified exit from its present predicament and an end to crippling sanctions. Israel, in turn, faces international isolation — not to speak of the permanent threat of terrorism — if it insists on stealing what remains of the West Bank. It, too, needs a dignified exit from the insanity of its fanatical settlers and religious nationalists who, if unchecked, would condemn Israel to pariah status and permanent war. A trade-off would resolve two of the region’s most intractable problems to the great benefit of everyone concerned. Peace and normal relations with the entire Muslim world would be Israel’s very substantial reward.

What about Syria? It lies at the very heart of the regional power system. Its on-going civil war is threatening to destabilise its neighbours — Lebanon, Turkey, Iraq and Jordan. Israel itself will not be immune. Islamist fighters, some linked to Al-Qaeda, are flowing into Syria, while refugees are fleeing out to neighbouring states in very large numbers. The toll of dead and wounded is heavy, material destruction great and human misery incalculable.

It is by now abundantly clear that there is no military solution to the conflict: Neither the regime nor its opponents can hope to win an outright victory. No outside power wants to intervene militarily. Yet the regime and its enemies are incapable of negotiating an end to the conflict without outside help.

What should the international community do? First, the United States and Russia (with active support from other powers) should join together in imposing a ceasefire on both sides of the conflict. This could involve deploying an international force around Syria’s borders to prevent the inflow of fighters, weapons, and other military equipment to both government and rebels.

Secondly, major external powers — Arab, Western, Chinese, Russian and others — should solemnly pledge to contribute to a Syria Reconstruction Fund of some $10bn-$15bn. The money would be entrusted to the World Bank and disbursed only when a permanent ceasefire is in place and when some clear progress is made towards a negotiated settlement. The existence of the Fund will provide a real incentive.

Thirdly, the United Nations Secretary General, with unanimous backing from the Security Council, should summon a conference of national reconciliation in Damascus attended by regime representatives as well as by all Syrian factions, groups, parties and prominent individuals prepared to renounce war.

The task will not be easy. The wounds of the conflict are very deep. But for the sake of Syria and its neighbours — for the sake of peace in the region — a supreme effort must be made to prevent the collapse of the Syrian state and its possible fragmentation. The difficult task will be to reshape Syria’s political system on democratic lines. Political freedoms will have to be guaranteed, individual rights respected, police brutality ended, the rule of law observed, government services restored and minorities protected. An essential goal must be the preservation of the Syrian Arab army as the indispensable institution of the state. In Iraq, it was the disbanding of the army which led to the collapse of the state, triggering the catastrophic civil war from which the country has yet to recover.

If Barack Obama were to adopt the programme outlined above and throw his full weight behind it, his place in history as a great peacemaker would be assured.

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Released: 29 January 2013

Word Count: 1,174

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Patrick Seale, “The New Weapons of War”

January 22, 2013 - Jahan Salehi

One of the first decisions John O. Brennan, America’s new CIA director, will have to make is whether the United States should target leaders of Mali’s Islamic fighting groups with drone strikes — in much the same way as it has killed Islamic militants extensively in Afghanistan, Pakistan, Yemen, Somalia and elsewhere over the past decade. Before being promoted head of the CIA, Brennan was President Barack Obama’s senior counter-terrorism adviser, responsible for the escalation of drone strikes in Pakistan and in Yemen.

As the Islamist threat to the Sahel has grown over the past year, following the overthrow of Libya’s Muammar al- Qadhafi, President Obama and his security advisers are known have debated whether to deploy armed drones in North Africa. Indeed, an American decision to deploy armed drones may already have been taken — triggered both by the war France launched this month against Islamist militants in Mali and by the reprisal raid which Islamic militants carried out against a major gas plant in south-eastern Algeria.

In today’s highly disturbed international environment, armed drones have become the supreme weapons of war. Pilotless machines, like the suitably-named Predator and Reaper, can stay airborne over hostile territory for more than fourteen hours before striking unsuspecting targets with missiles travelling faster than the speed of sound. The United States is thought to have about 8,000 drones in service, of which one thousand are armed. Israel is also an active manufacturer of drones. According to SIPRI (the Stockholm International Peace Research Institute) 41% of drones exported between 2001 and 2011 were Israeli-built.

The raid against the Algerian gas plant at In Amenas is thought to have been planned by Mokhtar Belmokhtar, a former Al-Qaida ‘emir’ who had formed his own militant group, the so-called ‘Signatories in blood.’ Algerian Special Forces flushed them out in a number of operations beginning on January 16, killing most of them. But many Algerian and foreign hostages also perished. Islamist internet sites have since hailed the attack on the Algerian gas plant as a great achievement and have called for assaults on French targets.

Responding to a call for help from the Malian government, France has made no secret of its intention to destroy the Islamist fighting groups in northern Mali and restore the rule of the Bamako government over the whole country. The groups it is targeting are AQIM (Al-Qaeda in the Islamic Maghreb), MUJAO (Movement for Unity and Jihad in West Africa) and Ansar al-Din. These are the Islamist groups which routed Touareg insurgents in northern Mali last year, seized major towns including Timbuktu, and then established their own, often violent, Islamic rule. In view of the vast seize of the arid country — Mali is about twice the size of France — it may prove a tough and long drawn-out assignment.

Both the United States and Algeria were, for different reasons, reluctant to be sucked into the Mali conflict, but events may now have made it impossible for them to stay out. Under President Obama, the United States has been seeking to disengage from armed conflicts, such as the long and costly wars in Iraq and Afghanistan. Algeria, too, was keen to stay out of the Mali conflict as it is still recovering from the wounds of its bitter civil war against Islamist fighters in the 1990s, which is thought to have claimed well over 150,000 lives. The Islamists in Mali are, in many cases, veterans of Algeria’s civil war. The last thing Algiers wanted was to draw them back onto its own territory. But with the raid on the gas plant, this has now happened. Whether it likes it or not, Algeria is engaged in the conflict.

The French Mirage jets bombing the militants in northern Mali are said to be operating out of airfields in both Algeria and Chad. Will they now be joined by American armed drones? Like the Mirages, drones require access to airfields and over-flight rights in neighbouring countries. Drones also need informers on the ground able to pinpoint potential targets, and convey this sensitive intelligence by electronic means to the drone controllers. In Afghanistan, where the United States has used drones extensively, informers such as these have often been caught, tortured and executed by the Taliban, after having made forced video confessions of their espionage on behalf of the United States. It remains to be seen whether the United States can recruit networks of informers in northern Mali for this dangerous task.

Drone strikes are undoubtedly effective, but they are also highly controversial. As well as eliminating alleged terrorists, their victims are often innocent bystanders. Evidence presented in a joint report by the Bureau of Investigative Journalism and London’s Sunday Times showed that the CIA had deliberately targeted people who had gone to the aid of victims of a strike. Wives of militants had also been struck as they were taking their husbands’ bodies for burial. In 2012, some 470 Pakistanis were killed by drone strikes, of which at least 68 were non-combatants. In a recent poll of Pakistanis, 74% said they viewed the United States as an enemy. Indeed, many experts believe that drone strikes create more terrorists than they kill.

In Yemen, U.S. drone attacks against al-Qaeda militants in the south of the country have also risen steeply in the past year. At least 185 people were killed by drone strikes in Yemen last year. But such lethal counter-terrorist operations have a political cost: They arouse fierce hostility not only against the United States but also against Yemen’s own leaders who allow U.S. drones to operate on their territory. President Abd Rabbu Mansur Hadi (who replaced the long-serving Ali Abdallah Saleh last February) is thought to have asked for U.S. help against al-Qaeda.

In Afghanistan, Pakistan and Yemen counterterrorist operations alone, such as the United States has favoured, have failed to bring peace. On the contrary, they have all too often made matters worse. To be effective, they need to be part of a wider policy of negotiation, compromise and the search for a political resolution of conflicts. Mali will provide the latest test. The error of the Bamako government was very probably not to have conceded a measure of autonomy to the Touareg in the north of the country. Had they done so, the Islamist groups would have had no pretext to intervene.

In a report in the Daily Beast (an offshoot of Newsweek) of November 20, 2012, Cameron Munter, a former U.S. ambassador to Pakistan, was quoted as saying: “The problem [with drone strikes] is the political fallout…Do you want to win a few battles and lose the war?”

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Released: 22 January 2013

Word Count: 1,101

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Patrick Seale, “Yemen Seeks to Talk Its Way Out of Chaos”

January 15, 2013 - Jahan Salehi

Although politically divided, suffering economic hardship, rent by bitter grievances and burdened by a history of civil conflict, Yemen has chosen to resolve its difficulties by means of a great National Dialogue. It has chosen to talk rather than to fight — a decision of great wisdom. The date for the Dialogue has not yet been announced but it could begin as early as February and last several months, bringing to the capital, Sana‘a, five or six hundred key personalities from all parts of the country. Huge hopes rest on the success of this democratic experiment.

A major incentive which has focussed Yemeni minds is a pledge by the international community to provide $8 billion in aid — if, and only if, the National Dialogue is successful in settling the most glaring inter-Yemeni disputes. The funds are intended to help the government create a climate of security and stability, provide jobs and services, launch economic growth, bring home some at least of the six million Yemenis abroad, and nurture the right conditions to attract much-needed inward investment. But for any of this to happen, Yemen must stay united.

Can Syria learn from the Yemeni experience? One cannot help wondering whether a promise of substantial aid by the international community to rebuild Syria after the colossal devastation of the civil war might not encourage the regime and its opponents to end the horrendous killing and give dialogue a chance.

In Yemen, the principal architect of the National Dialogue is President Abd Rabbuh Mansur Hadi, who came to power on 27 February 2012 with powerful backing from the Gulf Cooperation Council. He replaced President Ali Abdallah Saleh who had ruled, one way or another, for 33 years – first as President of North Yemen from 1978 to unity with the South in 1990, and then as President of a united Yemen from 1990 to 2012. Although he no longer sits in the presidential palace, Ali Abdallah Saleh remains head of his political party, the General People’s Congress. His sons, half-brothers and nephews have retained powerful positions in the military. It was only very recently, in late December 2012, that President Mansur Hadi issued decrees merging units commanded by Saleh’s relatives and some of their rivals, such as General Ali Muhsin’s 1st armoured division, into a new unified military structure. These commanders have had their wings clipped. But they still remain powerful, if under somewhat tighter control.

The ambitious aim of the National Dialogue is nothing less than to decide what sort of a state Yemen is to be. Should it be a unified country (as was attempted by the 1990 unity agreement) or a federation of North and South — or even a decentralised con-federal state, which might give a measure of autonomy to the many different pieces of the Yemeni puzzle? Should Yemen’s system of government be parliamentary or presidential? Will the army and security services – all too often divided into rival power centres — continue to play a central role, and often a corrupt one, in the affairs of the country? Or will they be tamed and controlled by a civil state?

What relations should Yemen have with its powerful northern neighbour, Saudi Arabia, the hegemonic power in the Arabian Peninsula? Over the years, Yemen has greatly depended on Saudi financial help. In return, the Saudi Kingdom has felt the need to have a say in Yemeni affairs if only to prevent Yemeni violence and instability spilling across its border. In the last couple of years, after a brief war in 2009, the Saudis have greatly strengthened their border defences. Nevertheless, one way or another, Saudi Arabia and Yemen need each other. Their relations will require very careful handling.

Another major concern of the Yemenis is that the United States has designated their country as a frontline state in the battle against al-Qaida. Primarily concerned with protecting its own homeland from terrorist attack, the United States has carried out muscular interventions against alleged Islamist terrorists in Yemen and other countries, notably by means of strikes by pilotless drones. As these strikes inevitably kill innocent civilians as well, they have aroused bitter anti-American feeling in parts of the population — a hostility often directed against the Yemeni government, accused of complicity with Washington. To carry the war to al-Qaida, the United States has also sought to create a local Yemeni counter-terrorist force, separate from the rest of the armed services. But this has deepened divisions within the Yemeni military and within Yemeni society as a whole. The extent to which Yemen should cooperate with the United States in counter-terrorism poses a tricky dilemma for the Yemen government. It needs American aid, but it cannot ignore the hostility of much of its population to American policies.

These are only some of the difficult subjects which the National Dialogue is expected to discuss. The problems are so great that the Dialogue might fail. But the fact that Yemenis have decided to resort to dialogue rather than to violence is very much a step in the right direction — and an example to others.

Perhaps the greatest of all problems facing Yemen is the clashing identities of different parts of the country. Aden and the South — shaped by the British presence from 1839 until 1967 and then by two decades of Marxist rule — were greatly disillusioned by union with the north in 1990. In 1994, the South tried to break loose but was defeated. Today, a powerful southern movement known as al-Hirak, embittered by the corruption, land grabs and aggression of northern tribes, is campaigning for autonomy or even outright secession.

The Hadhramaut, with its capital at Mukalla, is also seething with anger at the central government, which it feels has abandoned it. Law and order has broken down, the cost of living has spiralled out of control, while U.S. drone attacks enrage the population. Many Hadhramis want to break away from Yemen and form their own independent state.

In the north of Yemen, around the city of Sa‘dah, a Zaydi revivalist movement, the Huthis, rose in rebellion against the central government in 2004 and, in the following years, fought several rounds against the government. It remains untamed. Indeed it seems to have expanded its control over the whole Sa‘dah governorate.

Can a National Dialogue reconcile these profoundly different regions? Can it win over the local populations, deal seriously with their legitimate grievances and mould them into a unitary state? This is the huge challenge facing President Mansur Hadi and his colleagues. They will need the support of the international community and of their rich Gulf neighbours because a ‘failed state’ in Yemen could threaten the stability of much of the surrounding Arab world.

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Released: 15 January 2013

Word Count: 1,113

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Patrick Seale, “Obama’s Big Foreign Policy Headaches”

January 8, 2013 - Jahan Salehi

Viewed from Europe, American foreign policy would seem to be in a frightful muddle. President Barack Obama’s new team, which takes office later this month, will be confronted with a host of difficult issues. The team will include John Kerry at State and Chuck Hagel at Defence, if their appointments are confirmed by the Senate.

Hagel, a distinguished independent thinker, is already facing a fierce smear campaign by pro-Israeli sympathisers on the grounds that he is not pro-Israeli enough. The outcome of the battle will show the extent to which the United States can free itself from Israeli shackles, restoring its battered reputation and freedom of action in the Middle East.

The many severe challenges facing America include what to do in Afghanistan, Pakistan, Iran, Israel, Palestine, Syria, Yemen (as well as whether to continue the ‘targeted killings’ by drone strikes which have aroused furious anti-American sentiment in several countries), not to mention relations with China and Russia. Dealing with these problems will require hard and radical thinking — and no doubt, in some cases, a painful change of course.

Take Afghanistan? Is the United States pulling out after Dec. 31, 2014, or not? Afghan President Hamid Karzai is due at the White House in the coming days. He will want to know what future protection he can expect from the United States. He will certainly have in mind the fate of President Najibullah, butchered by the Taleban when they captured Kabul in 1996 after the Russians departed.

Today, no one can deny that the security situation is deteriorating. Every other day brings news of young Afghan soldiers turning their guns on their Western trainers, of Taleban infiltrators killing Afghan soldiers in their beds. Most Afghans — especially those who live in the countryside — are a conservative people, devoted to their religion and their tribal traditions. They want an end to the wars which have devastated their country. They want the foreign infidels out.

The Soviets invaded Afghanistan in 1979 — somewhat reluctantly — in response to cries for help from local Communists who had seized power and killed President Daud, only to find themselves confronted by an anti-Communist uprising. The Russian occupation lasted ten grim years, 1979 to 1989, causing much loss of life on both sides. It was ended sensibly by President Gorbachev, when the Soviet Union itself faced collapse.

Capturing Kabul in 1996, the Taleban butchered President Najibullah who had presided over the last years of the Russian occupation. Then in 2001 — to avenge Al-Qaida’s devastating attack on New York’s Twin Towers on 11 September 2001 — the United States invaded Afghanistan and drove out the Taleban, who had mistakenly given Osama bin Laden’s Al-Qaida house room.

America’s Afghan war has now lasted nearly 12 years. It has claimed tens of thousands of lives, including many innocent victims of indiscriminate bombing, and disrupted life in much of the country. It has cost billions of dollars, contributing to America’s crippling deficits. It is now blindingly obvious that most Afghans do not want the Americans there. Yet President Obama is said to be pondering whether to leave 6,000 or 10,000 or 20,000 troops behind. Their fate would not be enviable.

It would surely be better for the United States to withdraw altogether in 2014, while putting its full weight over the next two years to promoting an inter-Afghan settlement. This would involve bringing together all the local forces and factions in a large Loya Jirga or tribal council. Regional powers with a stake in Afghanistan’s future must be brought in too, notably Pakistan and India, Iran and the Central Asian countries bordering Afghanistan, as well as China and Russia. Qatar (which has opened a Taleban office in Doha) and Saudi Arabia may also have a mediating role to play. It would be wise for the United States to stay well in the background, if not out of the Afghan debate altogether.

In his first term of office, Obama missed the chance of negotiating a ‘grand bargain’ with Iran which would have stabilised the vital Gulf region. Instead, blackmailed by demented threats to attack Iran from Israel’s Prime Minister Binyamin Netanyahu — which risked dragging the United States in on Israel’s side — Obama imposed on Iran the most crippling sanctions ever imposed on any country. This was surely a grave mistake. It has inflicted pain on ordinary Iranians and aroused great anger against America. It has yet to be proved that Iran is seeking nuclear weapons. Instead, Israeli warmongering and international sanctions risk triggering a devastating war, which no one in the region wants except for some Israeli fanatics. The heart of the problem is that Israel intends to prevent any of its neighbours acquiring a deterrent capability so as to give itself the freedom to strike them at will. This is not a formula for harmony in the turbulent Middle East. The United States must understand that a regional balance of power rather than Israeli military supremacy is the best way to keep the peace.

America’s gravest problem is that Israel, its closest ally, is turning into a far-right racist statelet, imposing undemocratic laws at home and oppressive policies towards its captive Palestinians. The Israeli election of January 22 is likely to bring to government dangerous religious nationalists — such as Naftali Bennett’s Jewish Home Party — which advocate the immediate annexation of 60 per cent of the West Bank, dooming the two-state solution to final extinction. These policies are in blatant contradiction with U.S. values and interests.

The great question of Obama’s second term is whether he can regain control of America’s wayward ally and rein in its dangerously self-destructive policies. It will not be easy but it must be done for the sake of both the United States and Israel — and for the peace of the entire region.

Syria poses yet another painful dilemma for the United States. Obama committed himself early on to President Bashar al-Asad’s overthrow — largely under Israeli pressure to weaken and isolate Iran. But the United States has belatedly woken up to the fact that Bashar’s fiercest enemies are Islamic extremists close to al-Qaida — the very terrorists the U.S. has been fighting across the world! An extremist victory could turn Syria into another Afghanistan.

The only way out of the dilemma is for the United States to join Russia — as well as Turkey, Qatar, Saudi Arabia and some excitable European countries — in imposing a ceasefire on both sides as a necessary precondition for a negotiation. This will hopefully lead eventually to some sort of national reconciliation and a peaceful transition of power. There is no other sensible way out of the Syrian tragedy.

The world will be watching to see whether Obama’s team can clear its head of outdated notions and seek to resolve conflicts rather than inflame them.

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Released: 08 January 2013
Word Count: 1,128
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Patrick Seale, “Grim Prospects for the Middle East in 2013”

January 1, 2013 - Jahan Salehi

The coming year is unlikely to be a happy one for the tormented Middle East. Although some dictators have fallen and many Arabs are now demanding their rights, there is no escaping the fact that the balance sheet of the past two years remains profoundly negative. In no country of the Arab Spring is there as yet any convincing sign of peace and reconciliation, of good governance, of a better standard of living for ordinary people, of an enhanced sense of citizenship, let alone of genuine democracy.

Some countries have suffered more than others. In Syria, the cries and tears of the martyred population — the tens of thousands killed, the hundreds of thousands wounded, maimed, starving and displaced — weigh heavily on the conscience of the world. Yet there is no end to the agony. To quote UN envoy Lakhdar al-Brahimi, Syria is in danger of descending into hell, if it is not there already.

Individual Arab countries are not the only casualties. The Arab political order has been dealt massive blows, and remains in great disarray. What does this mean? It means that the ability of Arab states to work effectively together has been greatly reduced. They find it difficult to affirm their independence from predatory foreign powers or defend Arab causes in the international arena. The Arab voice today carries little weight.

Some Arab countries have acquired great wealth, but it is no exaggeration to say that the Arabs as a whole — seen as a block of like-minded people sharing a language, a history and a system of beliefs — are not in much better shape than they were more than sixty years ago when Arab Palestine was lost to the Zionists in 1947-48, and when the Arab world was comprehensively defeated by Israel in 1967.

Why do I hold these pessimistic views? Look at the evidence.

• Two major Arab countries, Syria and Iraq — each of whom once had a critical role in defending Arab interests — today face fragmentation and dismemberment, even the possible loss of their national identity. We are witnessing nothing less than the redrawing of the map which created these states out of Ottoman provinces after the First World War.

• Another curse from which the Arabs are suffering is the flare up of hate between Sunnis and Shi’is. These brothers in Islam — worshiping the same God and honouring the same Prophet — behave today like irreconcilable opponents. Nothing has weakened the Arabs more than this fraternal feud, and nothing has brought greater joy to their enemies.

When, in 2003, the United States disbanded the Iraqi army and outlawed the Ba‘th party — the two key institutions of the Iraqi state — it brought down the state itself, triggering a Sunni-Shi’i civil war in which hundreds of thousands died and millions were displaced. Two results of the conflict were particularly disastrous: First, the poison of sectarian conflict spread throughout the Arab region. Secondly, Iraq, under Shi’a leadership, lost its traditional role of serving as a counterweight to Iran. The resulting upset in the balance of power aroused fears among some Gulf Arabs of Iranian domination.

For independent observers, such as myself, these fears were greatly exaggerated, but they have had the unfortunate consequence of causing many Gulf Arabs to view Iran as an enemy rather than a partner — and to turn to the United States for protection. No doubt, American and Israeli propaganda against Iran have played their part.

• Egypt, the traditional leader and most populous of all Arab countries, lives under the shadow of bankruptcy. Its economy is on its knees. Tourism and foreign investment have dried up. Fertility rates, which should have been controlled from the 1950s onwards, were allowed to soar. Over-population has robbed much of the population of any reasonable prospect of a better life. Dependence on American aid, and on American-controlled institutions such as the International Monetary Fund, has greatly restricted Egypt’s ability to pursue an independent foreign policy in the Arab interest.

• The Palestine cause, central to Arab pride and identity, is all but lost. The two-state solution is virtually extinct. The Arabs face the prospect of a devastating defeat, completing that of 1948. Rich Arab states have failed to use their leverage with the United States and Europe to demand justice for the Palestinians. Another reason is Palestinian disunity. A third is the rise in Israel of fanatical religious-nationalists determined to create a Greater Israel in which Palestinians would either be corralled like serfs into isolated bantustans or driven off the land altogether.

Israel has been able to steal Palestinian land, spurn peace, prevent any expression of Palestinian statehood, dominate the region militarily and strike its neighbours at will, for one principal reason: It has enjoyed the limitless support of the United States. Although elected for a second term, President Barack Obama still seems reluctant to confront pro-Israeli forces which have achieved great influence in the United States, not least in the U.S. Congress. Yet the paradox is that many Arabs still turn for protection to the United States! This is folly. The Arabs must break loose from American apron strings and learn to defend themselves.

What New Year resolutions would I dare to recommend to Arab leaders?

First, do everything possible to heal the crippling Sunni-Shi‘i rift, which gravely weakens the Arab world. An early move would be to summon a grand conference in Mecca of ulema of all sects and tendencies — and keep them there until they hammer out their differences.

Secondly, protect what is left of Syria — and its central role in containing Israel. Stop the killing by bringing the regime and its opponents to the negotiating table, whether they like it or not. There is no military solution to the crisis. The only way to end the orgy of destruction is to impose a ceasefire on both sides, halt the delivery of funds and weapons to the regime and the rebels, isolate murderous extremists in both camps, and mobilise the United States and Russia, as well as the European Union, Egypt, Turkey and Iran, in support of a political transition. The key issue is not whether President Bashar al-Asad stays or quits. At stake is the preservation of a unitary Syrian state. This must be done to protect Syria’s unique historical heritage, its state institutions, its ancient minorities, and its vital regional role in defence of Arab independence.

Thirdly, demand justice for the Palestinians even if it means threatening a breach with the United States and the expulsion of American bases from the Gulf.

Fourthly, start a strategic dialogue with Tehran. Enmity between Arabs and Iranians is a profound mistake. Only an Arab-Iranian partnership – a partnership between equals based on mutual trust and mutual interests — can protect the vital Gulf region from the dangers of war and from the ambitions of external powers.

It is probable that only a radical rethink of current policies, attitudes and alliances will rescue the Arab world from the dark pit in which it finds itself. But which Arab leader will dare undertake such a task?

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Released: 01 January 2013
Word Count: 1,164
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Patrick Seale, “The Kurds Seize Their Chance”

December 25, 2012 - Jahan Salehi

Many Kurds have come to believe that the present prolonged turmoil in the Middle East — in Syria and Iraq and, to a lesser extent, in Iran and Turkey — is giving them their best chance of self-determination in modern times. They are determined to seize it. It could be that the map of the region is being redrawn before our eyes.

During the four hundred years of the Ottoman Empire, the Kurds enjoyed considerable autonomy and even political unity. Since they lived in largely inaccessible mountains, the Ottomans allowed them to run their own affairs. When the Ottoman Empire was defeated in the First World War, it signed the Treaty of Sèvres in 1920 with the victorious allies — a treaty which among its many provisions, seemed to promise the Kurds a state of their own. But the Turks would have none of it. They were determined to create a strong Turkish state out of the ruins of Empire.

Mustafa Kemal Atatürk’s Turkish national movement fought the Sèvres Treaty and, after long negotiations, forced the allies to sign a new treaty, the Treaty of Lausanne of 1923, which recognised the sovereignty and borders of the new Turkish Republic. This was bad news for the Kurds, because the Lausanne treaty made no mention of them. Instead, they found themselves carved up between the new Turkey and the Arab states of Iraq and Syria formed by Britain and France out of former Ottoman provinces. The Kurds have had to live with dispersal and oppression ever since.

Kurdish hopes of a better life have now been revived, largely because of a number of important regional developments:

• In Iraq, the central government in Baghdad and the Kurdish Regional Government (KRG) in Erbil seem to be on the brink of war. Both sides have massed large numbers of troops along a contested border in the oil-rich region of Kirkuk. The immediate causes of the dispute are first, a contract the KRG has signed with Exxon Mobil to drill for oil in the Kirkuk area; and secondly, a proposed strategic energy partnership between the KRG and Turkey. This would involve a government-backed Turkish company drilling for oil and building export pipelines from the KRG to Turkey to transport Kurdish oil and gas to international markets. Needless to say, if these projects were to go ahead, they would bring Iraqi Kurds a big step closer to independence.

Baghdad is now fighting back. Sami Alaskary, an aide to Iraq’s Prime Minister Nuri al-Maliki has said that “if Exxon lays a finger on this territory… we will go to war for oil and for Iraqi sovereignty.” Baghdad has put Lt. Gen. Abd al-Amir al-Zaidi in command of Iraqi troops confronting the KRG. This officer is thought to have played a role in Saddam Hussein’s 1988 Anfal campaign against the Kurds. Showing defiance, KRG’s President Massoud Barzani paid a high-profile visit to Peshmerga front lines on December 10.

At this delicate moment, the stroke suffered by Iraq’s President Jalal Talabani, 79 — himself a Kurd — has removed from the scene a potential mediator between Baghdad and Erbil.

Fearing that a close KRG-Turkish partnership will cause Baghdad to ally itself even more closely with Iran, the United States has urged the KRG to go slow in its oil deals with Turkey. But Washington has been rebuffed. The Kurds smell independence.

It will be recalled that the autonomous Kurdish enclave emerged under Western protection in northern Iraq following the U.S.-led invasion in 2003. With its own flag, national anthem, presidency and parliament, the KRG has since acquired several characteristics of independent statehood, in particular its own powerful armed forces — the Peshmerga, meaning “those who face death” – are believed to number some 200,000 men. Although Iraq’s new constitution of 2005 defined the country as a federal state of Arabs and Kurds, Iraqi Kurdistan, increasingly dynamic and prosperous, has virtually broken free from Baghdad’s control.

• In Syria, the prolonged civil war is destroying the once strong and united country. Vicious fighting between the beleaguered Syrian regime of President Bashar al-Asad and numerous groups of rebel fighters is increasingly taking on the appearance of a sectarian war between the Sunni majority and the minority Alawi community, the latter well represented in the army and security services. The fighting seems to be leading inexorably to the fragmentation and partition of Syria, with each sect and ethnic group looking to its own defence.

Last summer, Syrian government troops were deliberately withdrawn from Kurdish-majority towns along the Turkish border in the north of the country. By handing this strategic border region over to the Kurds, the Syrian regime evidently sought to punish Turkey for its support of the Syrian rebels. It may also have withdrawn its troops because it needed them to fight the rebels elsewhere. The area is now being governed by the Kurds themselves — by the Kurdish Democratic Union Party (PYD), an armed and disciplined movement formed in 2003, closely allied to Turkey’s militant Kurdish organisation, the Kurdish Workers Party or PKK.

Also on the scene in northern Syria is the Kurdish National Council, a loose grouping of eleven Syrian Kurdish factions, formed in 2011. On December 11, Shirku Abbas, chairman of the Kurdish National Council, declared in an interview that the United States and its European allies had agreed to provide finance and logistics for an independent Kurdish army strong enough to keep Islamist and Salafi fighting groups out of the Kurdish regions of Syria. Shirku Abbas made no secret of his ambition to create an independent Kurdish enclave inside a federal Syria on the model of the KRG in northern Iraq.

• Turkey, in turn, is being forced to make concessions to its own militant Kurds. A mass hunger strike by thousands of Kurdish political prisoners was brought to an end last November after an appeal by the PKK leader Abdulla Ocalan from his island prison of Imrali. Turkey’s Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdogan himself acknowledged the role played by Ocalan. Indeed, there are suggestions that Erdogan may now be contemplating a political negotiation with Ocalan — and further concessions to the Kurds.

• Always anxious to weaken and subvert its neighbours, Israel has for years armed and trained the Kurds of Iraq against Baghdad. Since the 2003 war, its relations with the KRG have grown still closer. Israeli drones are said to be operating against Iran from bases inside the KRG, while Mossad is said to have launched cross- border intelligence missions from the KRG against Iran’s nuclear facilities. Israel is also said to be backing a Kurdish guerrilla group inside Iran, the PJAK (or Party for a Free Life in Kurdistan) to carry out armed attacks against Iranian targets.

The misfortunes of one are the blessings of another. The more the Arabs sink into disunity and warfare, the more its enemies will triumph – and the more the Kurds will believe that their dream of independence may at last be realised.

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Released: 25 December 2012
Word Count: 1,146
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Patrick Seale, “Can the United States Strike a Deal with Iran?”

December 18, 2012 - Jahan Salehi

In recent weeks, there has been talk in the media — in both the United States and Iran — of the possibility of direct bilateral talks between Washington and Tehran over the many subjects in dispute between them. If such talks on a comprehensive package were to take place, they could break the deadlock in U.S.-Iranian relations which has existed ever since Washington’s ally, the Shah, was overthrown by the Islamic revolution of 1979.

Needless to say, hardliners in both capitals oppose direct talks. In Washington, the ‘war party’ does not want to talk to the Mullahs, it wants to bring them down. In Tehran, the instinct is not to give an inch in the belief that the United States is seeking nothing less than Iran’s abject capitulation. Mutual mistrust is so deep that it would require a miracle, or some truly inspired diplomacy, for the United States to strike a bargain with the Islamic Republic of Iran.

In the meantime, the five permanent members of the UN Security Council plus Germany (the so-called P5+1) are said to be considering holding a new round of high-level negotiations with Iran on the nuclear question — the first since last June. Reports suggest that it might be held in Istanbul in January. But real progress by the P5+1 seems unlikely unless Washington and Tehran give an indication that they are prepared to be more flexible. Without a push from both capitals, a breakthrough seems unlikely.

The prospects are far from bright. The spectre of a war against Iran — waged by Israel with reluctant American tolerance — has overshadowed the region for much of the past two years. To head off the danger of an Israeli strike which might have compelled the United States to join in, President Barack Obama imposed on Iran the most crippling sanctions ever imposed on any country. War was thus averted. But it will again be on the agenda of Israel’s hard-liners and their American supporters in 2013, if no progress is made towards a settlement.

A war against Iran — which could easily spread to the whole region — is the very last thing the turbulent Middle East needs. On the contrary, a lowering of tension is urgently required to create a climate in which compromise is possible – not only in resolving the dispute with Iran but also the many other violent regional disputes, such as the civil war in Syria and the long-running Israeli-Palestinian conflict, which continues to claim its victims and spread its poison.

The Iranian case is particularly difficult to resolve because it is more about geopolitics than about nuclear technicalities. In other words, it is less about Iran’s alleged ambitions to acquire nuclear weapons — for which there is as yet no convincing evidence — than about the nature of the region’s political order.

The United States views the Islamic Republic as a challenge to American hegemony over the oil-rich Arab Gulf. Israel, in turn, wants military supremacy over all its neighbours. In 2003, it and its friends put relentless pressure on the United States to destroy Saddam Hussein’s Iraq. Once this was achieved, the same pro-Israeli forces turned their attention to the Islamic Republic of Iran, because its nuclear programme was seen as a potential threat to Israel’s nuclear monopoly. Israel has long conspired with Washington to bring down the whole so-called ‘resistance axis’ of Tehran-Damascus-Hizballah, seen as a challenge to U.S.-Israeli dominance. It has made repeated attempts to crush Hizballah and Hamas, and has not hesitated to assassinate Iranian atomic scientists. In league with the United States, it has also waged clandestine cyber-warfare against Iranian industrial facilities.

For their part, Saudi Arabia and its Arab neighbours view Shi‘ite Iran as a hostile power which is seeking to challenge Sunni supremacy in the region and undermine the Arab political order.

These are among the underlying geopolitical reasons why a breakthrough in relations with Iran seems unlikely — whether in bilateral talks with the United States or in the wider framework of P5+1 negotiations. And yet it would require only a modicum of goodwill for a deal to be struck.

What is Iran seeking in these discussions? First, it wants recognition of its right to enrich uranium on its own soil for peaceful purposes. Its right to do so is spelled out in Article IV of the 1968 Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty, of which it is a signatory. Peaceful purposes include nuclear power generation. Iran is planning to build several nuclear power plants in addition to the one at Bushehr. Iran has, moreover, agreed to regular monitoring of its nuclear activities over the past decade by the International Atomic Energy Agency. (Israel, which has a large arsenal of nuclear weapons, refuses to sign the NPT or allow monitoring of its nuclear plants by IAEA inspectors.)

Secondly, Iran has repeatedly offered to cease 20% enrichment of uranium if it is allowed to purchase fuel rods from abroad for the Tehran Research Reactor, which makes medical isotopes for close to a million Iranian cancer victims. It is prepared to restrict its uranium enrichment to below 5% — thus posing no threat of weapons proliferation — if, in return, it is given relief from the sanctions which have targeted its oil exports, its financial transactions and its nuclear industry, and which are imposing great hardship on its population. Thirdly — and more generally — Iran wants recognition of the legitimacy of its Islamic regime which emerged from its 1979 revolution. It wants to be recognised as an important regional power and not be treated as a pariah state.

Iran’s chances of achieving these goals do not look good. On the contrary, the U.S. Congress is pressing for even stiffer sanctions. Under Israeli pressure, the United States insists that Iran end all uranium enrichment, not merely 20% — and that it must do so before securing any significant concessions in return. In making this extreme demand, the United States has brushed aside Iran’s rights under the NPT and ignored its long compliance with the safeguards of the International Atomic Energy Agency. Instead, the United States has based itself on politically-motivated UN Security Council resolutions, beginning with Resolution 1696 on July 2006, which demands that Iran halt all uranium enrichment on the grounds that the unproven suspicion that it intends to go nuclear poses a threat to international peace and security.

Is it not time for other members of the P5 — notably Russia and China — to rebel against the American-led punitive sanctions against Iran, and themselves engage in sounding out Iran’s intentions? In May 2010, Brazil and Turkey reached an agreement with Iran to ship out to Turkey 2,500 pounds of low-enriched uranium, but the U.S. shot it down, reverting instead to imposing still more sanctions. If Russia and China were now to take the lead in striking a bargain with Iran, it might induce Washington to think again, and even to follow suit.

But, shackled by a pro-Israeli Congress, how much freedom does President Barack Obama have to break America’s long and dangerous stalemate with Iran?

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Released: 18 December 2012
Word Count: 1,164
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Patrick Seale, “Obama’s Appointment with History”

Patrick Seale, “Can the United States Strike a Deal with Iran?”

Patrick Seale, “A New Phase in the Struggle for Syria”

Patrick Seale, “A Peace Package for the Middle East”

Patrick Seale, “The New Weapons of War”

Patrick Seale, “Yemen Seeks to Talk Its Way Out of Chaos”

Patrick Seale, “Obama’s Big Foreign Policy Headaches”

Patrick Seale, “Grim Prospects for the Middle East in 2013”

Patrick Seale, “The Kurds Seize Their Chance”

Patrick Seale, “Can the United States Strike a Deal with Iran?”

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