Monthly Archives: November 2012

Why Americans don’t understand Palestine

Scott McConnell writes: If a man from Mars descended to observe Israel’s attack on the Gaza strip, he would have seen one group of humans trapped in a densely populated area, largely defenseless while a modern air force destroyed their buildings at will. He might have learned that the people in Gaza had been essentially enclosed for several years in a sort of ghetto, deprived by the Israeli navy of access to the fish in their sea, generally unable to travel or to trade with the outside world, barred by Israeli forces from much of their arable land, all the while surveyed continuously from the sky by a foe which could assassinate their leaders at will and often did.

This Martian also might learn that the residents of Gaza — most of them descendants of refugees who had fled or been driven from Israel in 1948 — had been under Israeli occupation for 46 years, and intensified closure for six, a policy described by Israeli officials as “economic warfare” and privately by American diplomats as intended to keep Gaza “functioning at the lowest level possible consistent with avoiding a humanitarian crisis.” He might note that Gaza’s water supply is failing, as Israel blocks the entry of materials that could be used to repair and upgrade its sewage and water-treatment infrastructure. That ten percent of its children suffer from malnutrition and that cancer and birth defects are on the rise. That the fighting had started after a long standing truce had broken down after a series of tit-for-tat incidents, followed by the Israeli assassination of an Hamas leader, and the typical Hamas response of firing inaccurate rockets, which do Israel little damage.

But our man from Mars is certainly not an American. And while empathy for the underdog is said to be an American trait, this is not true if the underdog is Palestinian.

Among the chief milestones of Washington’s reaction to Israel’s military campaign were: President Obama stated from Bangkok that America supported Israel’s right “to defend itself” and “no country on earth would tolerate missiles raining down on its citizens” while national-security aide Benjamin Rhodes added “the reason there is a conflict in Gaza is because of the rocket fire that’s been launched at Israeli civilians indiscriminately for many months now.” Congress took time off from partisan wrangling about the fiscal cliff to pass unanimously two resolutions, in the Senate and House, expressing its “unwavering commitment to the security of the State of Israel” and backing its “inherent right to protect its citizens against acts of terrorism.” Its members could further inform themselves by attending a closed briefing by Israel’s ambassador Michael Oren on November 28, the only figure invited by the House Foreign Affairs Committee to testify.

As the fighting continued, Walter Russell Mead, a prominent political scientist, conveyed impatience with the just-war tradition seemed to inhibit Israeli air attacks, which by then had killed and wounded scores of people. Mead asserted that Americans would back an Israeli response of “unlimited ferocity.” [Continue reading…]

Facebooktwittermail

Syrian rebels turn looted missiles on Assad’s aircraft

The Guardian reports: Syrian rebels are believed to have used surface-to-air missiles to down two government aircraft in less than 24 hours – the first time such weapons have been used in the 20-month insurrection.

The downing of the aircraft is being hailed as a significant tactical advance in northern Syria, where fierce clashes between Assad regime forces and rebels over the summer have given way to several months of stalemate and rising despair on the opposition side.

A warplane crashed on Wednesday near Darat Azzah outside Aleppo after being shot at from the ground. The wounded pilot was captured. Late on Tuesday, a regime helicopter also crashed. Several videos uploaded to the internet clearly showed a missile hitting it broadside before it plummeted to earth.

Facebooktwittermail

The old ‘iron wall’ strategy is beginning to fail Israel

Tony Karon writes: Mowing the lawn. That’s how some Israeli securocrats described their recent air-strike campaign in Gaza. Periodic bombardment won’t eliminate Hamas or resolve the conflict, but they hope to re-establish a temporary deterrent against militant rocket fire.

Callousness aside, the metaphor shows that Israel has no political strategy for dealing with the challenge posed by Hamas in Gaza. Nor, for that matter, does it have any strategy for dealing with the efforts of President Mahmoud Abbas, who tomorrow takes his quest for UN recognition of Palestinian statehood to the General Assembly.

The Israelis may not drop bombs on Ramallah, but neither have they offered Mr Abbas any credible pathway for ending the occupation through diplomatic petitioning.

Pathological as it may seem, Israel’s leaders are following a long-term survival strategy based on blasting the Palestinians into temporary submission, while strengthening their defences for a renewal of hostilities they see as inevitable.

On the wall of prime minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s office hangs a portrait of Zeev Jabotinsky, ideological forefather of his Likud Party. In his 1923 pamphlet The Iron Wall, Jabotinsky warned that it was Israel’s fate to be perpetually at war. “That the Arabs of the Land of Israel should willingly come to an agreement with us is beyond all hopes and dreams,” Jabotinsky wrote, because native peoples have always resisted the arrival of foreign settlers to claim their land. “As long as there is a spark of hope that they can get rid of us, they will not sell these hopes, not for any kind of sweet words or tasty morsels, because they are not a rabble but a nation, perhaps somewhat tattered, but still living.”

As a result, Jabotinsky warned, Israel would have to be created unilaterally, behind an impregnable “iron wall” of military force – only once it had been brutally demonstrated to to the Palestinians that resistance was futile and that they had been utterly defeated, he argued, would they be willing to accept the diminished status Israel could then offer them. “A living people makes such enormous concessions on such fateful questions only when there is no hope left.”

In that spirit, Israeli military doctrine has long rested on aggressive “deterrence”, unleashing overwhelming force against any challengers. From the raids on nationalist Palestinian villages that made Moshe Dayan an Israeli hero in 1948 to Ariel Sharon’s Unit 101, which bludgeoned Palestinian villages suspected of housing fedayeen fighters in the 1950s, “deterrence” has meant imposing a prohibitive cost on the entire Palestinian population for any resistance. The same logic has driven recent Israeli policy on Gaza. [Continue reading…]

Facebooktwittermail

Australian prime minister bows to pressure to abstain on Palestine vote at U.N.

Interview with Palestinian ambassador Izzat Salah Abdulhadi about Labor's decision to abstain in a UN vote on Palestinian membership.

The Sydney Morning Herald reports: Julia Gillard has been forced to abandon her personal opposition to Palestinians winning a seat in the United Nations – despite threatening to exercise a prime ministerial veto and demand Australia reject the bid.

The backdown headed off an ugly stoush in Labor caucus that threatened to deliver a fresh blow to Ms Gillard’s political authority over backbench demands Australia recognise Palestine as just one step short of a fully fledged nation.

Israel is fiercely opposed to the move – expected to be put in a formal resolution on Thursday in New York – and Ms Gillard had insisted to cabinet colleagues that Australia would also vote against it.

Ms Gillard had previously nominated support for Israel as a key foreign policy priority and last year overruled former foreign minister Kevin Rudd, directing Australia reject Palestinian membership of the UN cultural body, UNESCO.

But during a heated cabinet debate on Monday night, at least 10 ministers, including several from the Right faction, warned Ms Gillard she faced a caucus revolt should Australia vote against Palestinians winning an equivalent standing to the Vatican in the General Assembly.

Labor’s longest-serving foreign minister, Gareth Evans, also made a direct intervention over the issue, travelling to Canberra on Monday to warn MPs that Australia would be “on the wrong side of history” by opposing the Palestinian bid and would lose credibility for its hard-won UN Security Council seat. [Continue reading…]

Facebooktwittermail

Israel will be supported by U.S., Canada, Micronesia and Guatemala at the U.N.

Israeli officials say they are unconcerned about tomorrow’s vote in the UN General Assembly where Palestine will become a non-member observer state. The occupation will continue and none of the Jewish settlements will be removed from the West Bank. The Israelis dismiss Mahmoud Abbas as a corrupt political leader who is fighting for his own survival.

Ynet reports: Israel has accepted it cannot stop the Palestinians from going forward with their UN status upgrade bid on Thursday. The General Assembly is set to approve Mahmoud Abbas’ bid to upgrade the Palestinian Authority’s status to from observer to non-member state.

“I wouldn’t overstate the importance of the UN vote,” a senior Israeli official said. “True, we’re going to see fireworks in Ramallah but the settlements will remain exactly where they are and the IDF will continue to operate in the same areas.”

The forum of top nine ministers has yet to decide what steps to take in response but it appears Israel will keep a low profile so as not to turn the focus away from the Palestinian move which clearly violates the Oslo Accords.

Meanwhile, one by one European nations on Wednesday announced their support for the Palestinian bid.

Spain, Switzerland, Denmark and Norway all issued statements announcing they will vote in favor of the status upgrade on Thursday. Meanwhile, Germany and the Czech Republic will likely not endorse the bid.

“I am happy to announce that Denmark will vote in favor … (in) the vote on Thursday,” Danish Foreign Minister Villy Soevndal said in a statement.

“For some time it has been clear that the Palestinians have wanted an upgrade of their status at the United Nations to that of a non-member observer state. After several weeks of talks, a resolution was finally presented yesterday,” Soevndal said.

On Tuesday, France officially announced it would be endorsing the Palestinian bid. It is estimated that most Asian and African nations, with the exception of Malawi, Togo and Cameroon, will also vote in favor of the status upgrade.

Britain is set to abstain as will Italy, Australia and Germany. Israeli officials estimate that other than Israel itself, the US, Canada, Micronesia and Guatemala will vote against the bid.

Having realized the battle has been lost, Israeli officials are trying to downplay the move. “We won’t be passive and sit idly by,” a state official said, “but there’s no need to issue statements. We’ll respond when the time is right.”

Though Israel is accusing the Palestinians of grossly violating the Oslo Accords it has announced it will continue to honor them herself.

However, it has been revealed that Foreign Minister Avigdor Lieberman has recommended deducting the NIS 750 million owed by the PA to the Israel Electric Corp. from the tax money Israel transfers to the Palestinians every month, in accordance with 1994 Paris Agreement.

The state official also dismissed Palestinians threats to try Israeli statesmen and officers over settlement construction in the International Criminal Court. “We need not fear this,” he said.

Meanwhile, Israel is stepping up its criticism of Abbas. A senior official said Tuesday that the Palestinian president is no longer relevant and that his UN bid is meant to guarantee his personal political survival.

Abbas is a corrupt leader, he said, who has postponed the West Bank elections for more than two years as he knows he will lose to Hamas.

Facebooktwittermail

Netanyahu holds poll lead after Livni entry, survey says

Bloomberg reports: Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s lead heading toward elections on Jan. 22 has been little affected by the entry into the race of former Foreign Minister Tzipi Livni, according to a poll published today.

Livni’s new party, dubbed “The Movement,” would win just seven seats in Israel’s 120-seat parliament, according to a voter survey commissioned by the Haaretz daily. Netanyahu’s combined list with Foreign Minister Avigdor Liberman, Likud- Beitenu, would garner 39 seats according to the survey, more than double the 18 seats gained by its nearest contender, the Labor Party.

Other Netanyahu allies in the current ruling coalition would provide the prime minister with more than the 60 seats needed to form a new government, the poll showed. Livni’s former Kadima party, now headed by former Defense Minister Shaul Mofaz would gain just two seats, the survey showed.

Facebooktwittermail

Rebels seizing initiative in long war for Syria

Reuters reports: Rebel strikes against military bases across Syria have exposed President Bashar al-Assad’s weakening grip in the north and east of the country and left his power base in Damascus vulnerable to the increasingly potent opposition forces.

Rebel fighters, who have taken at least five army and air installations in the last 10 days, are still waging an asymmetrical war against a powerful army backed by devastating air power, and predict months of conflict still lie ahead.

Their tactics are gradually choking off Assad’s forces in the northern provinces of Aleppo and Idlib, as well as the eastern oil region of Deir al-Zor, while in Damascus “there is a sense that the flames are licking at the door”, a diplomat in the capital said.

The steady capture of military installations and arsenals is sapping the morale of Assad’s forces and also ensuring a modest supply of new weapons to relatively ill-equipped rebels whose calls for a no-fly zone — which proved crucial in the Libyan uprising — have been ignored.

Although they have yet to seize control of a single city, or translate their dominance in swathes of rural Syria into “liberated” territory free of air and artillery strikes, rebels say that their increasing prowess on the battlefield and growing armories have finally allowed them to take the initiative. [Continue reading…]

Facebooktwittermail

Conflict has left Syria a shell of its former self

The Los Angeles Times reports: First his parents’ home in eastern Syria was reduced to rubble, followed by his father’s pharmacy. Then Melad received a call last month informing him that his own apartment in a Damascus suburb had been obliterated by a bomb unleashed by a MiG jet.

By then, he had become inured to the sense of loss.

“I got to the point that when I would hear of another of our properties destroyed, I started laughing,” said Melad, a computer engineer who now helps with the humanitarian effort in Syria. “Just as we have gotten accustomed to the amount of blood over these last two years, we have grown accustomed to the destruction.”

Much of Syria has become a disaster zone: In September, the opposition group Syrian Network for Human Rights estimated that more than 2.9 million homes, schools, mosques, churches and hospitals had been damaged or destroyed since the uprising began in March 2011. More than half a million are a complete loss, it said.

Weeks later, the group’s founder, Sami Ibrahim, estimated that 600,000 more buildings had been shelled or bombed, as the government of President Bashar Assad escalated its campaign with daily airstrikes by helicopter and warplane. [Continue reading…]

Facebooktwittermail

The killer swarms that armies can’t defeat

John Arquilla writes: Today marks the bicentennial of the culminating catastrophe that befell the Grande Armée as it retreated from Russia. This past weekend one of the French Emperor’s descendants, Charles Napoleon, traveled to Minsk in Belarus to attend ceremonies commemorating the disaster at the nearby Beresina River crossing, where thousands died — many by drowning — in a final, panicked rout in freezing weather. Bonaparte had marched deep into Russia with nearly half a million soldiers; he returned with less than 25,000.

Given that Napoleon was the great captain of his time — perhaps of all time — and that his armies had conquered and held most of Europe, the tragic events on the Beresina demand explanation. His defeat is something of a puzzle, too, as the Grande Armée won the campaign’s pitched battles fought at Smolensk and Borodino. Harsh winter weather, the commonly assumed culprit, cannot explain the result either; the first frost didn’t arrive to bedevil the retreat until just a few weeks before the Beresina crossing.

The answer to the puzzle is that Napoleon and his forces were beaten by what a young Russian hussar, Denis Davydov, called his “indestructible swarm” of Cossacks and other raiders who constantly harried the French columns on the march. They also struck relentlessly, repeatedly, and to fatal effect at the Grande Armée‘s supply lines. As David Chandler, an eminent historian of Napoleon’s campaigns, put it: “raids of Cossacks and partisan bands did more harm to the Emperor than all the endeavors of the regular field armies of Holy Russia.”

Davydov, who probably inspired Tolstoy’s character “Denisov” in War and Peace, had lobbied his superiors hard for the creation of a small force of behind-the-lines raiders. General Pyotr Bagration, not long before his death in battle at Borodino, gave Davydov permission to launch his swarm — though he detached only a single troop of riders to accompany him. This was all that Davydov needed, though, as he picked up Cossacks, freed Russian soldiers taken prisoner, and recruited willing peasants along the way. Soon the French knew no rest. In Davydov’s own words, they “had no choice but to retreat, preceded and surrounded by partisans.”

The Beresina bicentennial provides us a moment to contemplate one of history’s greatest military debacles from an alternative point of view: as an outcome driven not by the clash of hundreds of thousands of troops massed tightly on some constricted battlefield, but rather as the result of constant pinprick attacks from all directions, mounted by a relative handful of irregulars. Who acted like a swarm of bees.

Davydov’s concept of operations portended an entirely different approach to military affairs, one that would grow ever more valuable with the advance of technology. The Russian partisans of 1812 attacked French wagon convoys. Fifty years later, in the Civil War, Confederate raiders disrupted rail lines, imposing near-fatal delays on the advance of Federal forces. In World War I, T.E. Lawrence and his Arab irregulars swarmed the 800-mile-long rail line from Damascus to Medina, contributing mightily to the eventual Turkish collapse. At sea in World War II, U-boat wolf packs swarmed Allied convoys, nearly winning the war for Hitler.

Throughout the Cold War, and on into the post-9/11 era, the swarm — simultaneous attack from several directions — has been the favored fighting method of insurgents and terrorists. [Continue reading…]

Facebooktwittermail

Why does Leon Panetta hate democracy?

Micah Zenko writes: Once upon a time, at the end of significant and sustained global military commitments, the White House sought to reduce a defense budget that had been awarded steady increases year after year. Ordered to make cuts by a White House-Congress budget summit agreement, the Pentagon undertook a series of reviews to adjust the U.S. military’s role in a transformed international environment. The National Military Strategy determined: “The real threat that we now face is the threat of the unknown, the uncertain. The threat is instability and being unprepared to handle a crisis or war that no one predicted or expected.” The secretary of defense further warned that the United States still faced “[a] world that is full of instability, where there are threats and challenges to a stable world.”

Despite its newfound concern over uncertainty, instability, and the unknown, the Pentagon’s updated military strategy allowed for a 25 percent reduction in defense spending over a five-year period. With the federal budget deficit having increased more than 50 percent over the preceding half decade, certain members of Congress sought even larger defense cuts of 40 percent over five years. During a contentious hearing, one of those congressional members — the House Budget Committee chairman — warned that “The days of big spending, free-wheeling defense budgets are clearly over.” To which the secretary of defense fired back: “We’ve already cut the living daylights out of the defense budget, Mr. Chairman.”

Sound familiar? Readers with long memories will recognize the year and the players: 1991, and the fight was between Secretary of Defense Dick Cheney and House Budget Committee Chairman Leon Panetta over the first post-Cold War defense budget. Cheney won, and Pentagon spending was reduced by 25 percent over five years.

Today, the White House and congressional Republicans are racing to find an agreement to avoid sequestration, which would mandate $492 billion in defense cuts — roughly $55 billion per year — from fiscal years 2013 through 2021. This would be in addition to the $487 billion in lower spending that the Pentagon proposed over the same period. Even if sequestration is avoided, there reportedly will be limited additional reductions in U.S. military spending — cuts that many analysts and defense contractors believe are inevitable.

Like Dick Cheney 21 years ago, Secretary of Defense Leon Panetta has engaged in an exhaustive effort to avoid both sequestration and any further reductions in the Pentagon’s budget. The distinction between Panetta and his predecessors, however, is in the tactics he has employed to protect his bureaucratic turf. Panetta has belittled the process of deliberative democracy, told Congress how it should reduce the federal debt, and declared that the Pentagon cannot survive another penny in cuts. [Continue reading…]

Facebooktwittermail

‘Innocence of Muslims’ filmmaker sentenced to death by Egyptian court

Al-Masry Al-Youm reports: Cairo Criminal Court on Wednesday sentenced seven expatriate Coptic Egyptians to death in absentia over involvement in the production of an anti-Islam film made in the US.

The amateur film, “Innocence of Muslims,” sparked protests in Cairo and among Muslim communities around the world who saw the film’s portrayal of Prophet Mohamed and Islam as offensive.

The text of the ruling has been forwarded to Egypt’s grand mufti for approval and has been asked to make a decision by 29 January.

The seven defendants are the film’s alleged producer Nakoula Basseley Nakoula, Maurice Sadeq Girgis Abdel Shahid, a lawyer and a founder of the Washington-based National American Coptic Assembly, the assembly’s spokesperson Nabil Adib Bassada, physician Fekry Abdel Masih Zoqloma, religious program presenter Morcos Aziz Khalil, Phoebe Abdel Masih Paules Salib and Nader Farid Nicola.

Five of the defendants live in the United States, one in Australia and another in Canada.

Last week, the New York Times published an interview with Nakoula Basseley Nakoula in which he described his reasons for making the film.

Facebooktwittermail

Egypt’s five branches of government

Rami G Khouri writes: The dramatic events in Egypt over the past few days following President Mohammad Morsi’s unilateral decree giving him unchallenged political authority should not surprise or frighten anyone. In fact, the continuing developments can be seen as a positive stage in the country’s historic political transition from autocracy to democracy. We are witnessing now the first serious move by several important sectors of governance and political society to affirm their influence, and start to shape a checks-and-balances foundation for the democratic transition that remains to be completed.

Egypt’s democratic political development is less tidy than Canada’s or Sweden’s. It has been clear since the first parliamentary elections last year that five branches of government now prevail in Egypt, and they need time to shape their relationships: the presidency, judiciary, parliament, military (SCAF) and citizens in the street (Tahrir Square). Slowly but surely, the powers of each of these five parties are being defined and exercised. Historically, the military and presidency held the most power. Today, a shift is underway that sees the presidency and Tahrir Square being the most powerful in the short run, but with a clear mandate for the judiciary to safeguard civilian authority and oversee the whole process of change. This will evolve again when the constitution is promulgated and parliament elected in the coming months.

So the most important aspects of this week’s developments, to my mind, are the assertion of the role of the judiciary, and the first serious move by secular liberal and opposition forces to come together into an alliance that could challenge the dominance of the Muslim Brotherhood and their Salafist colleagues. The rapid establishment of a protest tent camp in Tahrir Square by assorted populist forces and demonstrations against Morsi’s decree across the country are an important reminder of the single most significant development that happened during the overthrow of the former Mubarak regime and the assumption of presidential powers by Morsi: The political legitimacy of the ruling civil powers in Egypt is now grounded in populist consent, now represented by demonstrators in Tahrir Square. [Continue reading…]

Facebooktwittermail

Morsi’s majoritarian mindset

Michael Wahid Hanna writes: Egyptian President Mohamed Morsi turned Egyptian politics on its head on Thanksgiving eve with his now familiar style of governance: a unilateral, surprise decree, the fourth of its kind since Morsi assumed his position in June. Each of these decisions has proceeded with little to no consultation and, regardless of their intent, each proclamation was notable for carving out further and broader authorities for the executive. The common thread linking these decisions is the majoritarian lens though which the Muslim Brotherhood understands political life and democratic politics — one which bodes ill at this foundational moment when Egypt is attempting to refashion its social compact and establish a sustainable constitutional and political order.

Morsi’s majoritarian mindset is not anti-democratic per se, but depends upon a distinctive conception of winner-takes-all politics and the denigration of political opposition. Winning elections, by this perspective, entitles the victors to govern unchecked by the concerns of the losers. This chronic overreach has cemented the divide between Islamists and non-Islamists and heightened suspicions of the Brotherhood’s ultimate intentions.

The latest constitutional declaration included defensible measures such as victims’ compensation and the reopening of cases related to the violent repression of protesters. But they came with a poison pill, namely, the granting of unlimited and unreviewable presidential authority. In plain terms, Article VI of the declaration enshrined immunity for any and all presidential decisions and an ostensibly temporary form of unchecked one-man rule. Needless to say, for a deeply divided country that had risen up against the authoritarian rule of Hosni Mubarak not two years past, these steps were shocking and ominous for many outside the Islamist political fold (and perhaps even some within it). These measures set the stage for potential repressive actions by an unchecked executive in response to any form of opposition. [Continue reading…]

Facebooktwittermail

Protesters descend on Tahrir Square in Cairo

The Guardian reports: More than 100,000 people took to the streets of Cairo on Tuesday to protest against a decree by the Egyptian president, Mohamed Morsi, that grants him sweeping constitutional powers.

Columns of protesters from all over the Egyptian capital descended on Tahrir Square, the focus of the January 2011 revolution, in numbers that rivalled the rallies in the 18-day protest that toppled the authoritarian ruler Hosni Mubarak.

“Dictator” was the word being used to describe Morsi’s new status after last Thursday’s decree, which grants the immunity for the president from judicial review as well protecting a controversial constitutional assembly dominated by the group he is affiliated with, the Muslim Brotherhood.

“Today’s protests are to overthrow oppression and stand up to the new dictatorship of Morsi, his decree and a constitution far removed from the revolution,” said Haytham Mohamedeen of the Egyptian Revolutionary Socialists movement. “He has to back down. The revolution and the streets will dictate what he will do. If he stands in the way of the revolution he will share the same fate as Mubarak.”

Other marchers – who took to the streets in numbers similar to those that toppled Mubarak – called for Morsi not merely to rescind his decree but to step down from the presidency. The chant of the 2011 revolution – “The people want to bring down the regime” – was echoed in other major Egyptian cities, including Alexandria and Suez. [Continue reading…]

Facebooktwittermail

How Israel threw Barack Obama ‘under the bus’

Mark Perry writes: Remember Barack Obama’s “pivot to Asia”? Announced during his first term, then reinforced by Hillary Clinton’s detailed monograph on the subject one full year before his re-election, the “Pivot to Asia” was seen as Obama’s signature second term foreign policy initiative.

The pivot was not simply an acknowledgement of Asia’s growing economic power (it accounts for 25 percent of US exports and 35 percent of its imports – and supports 2.4 million jobs). It marked a break with the United States’ decade-long engagement in Iraq and Afghanistan – a hapless budget sapping adventure that yielded few benefits. So while Obama would never publicly say so, the message to the Arab world – and Israel – was clear: We have other priorities.

Or maybe not.

Just days before Obama embarked on a high profile trip to Thailand, Myanmar and Cambodia, which was intended to symbolise this “pivot”, Israel assassinated Ahmed Jabari, the head of Hamas’ military wing. The eight-day conflict that followed not only pushed Obama’s three-day Asia tour off the US’ front pages, it sent ripples of exasperation through the administration’s foreign policy establishment.
US President Obama visits Thailand

“Here we go again,” a senior State Department official told me just 24 hours after Israel’s attack. “The Middle East is like quicksand: The more you struggle to get loose, the more you get pulled back in.”

The statement is hardly an exaggeration. While Obama toured Thailand’s Wat Pho monastery, renowned for its giant reclining Buddha statue, his foreign policy staff was providing him hourly updates of the Gaza fighting – which continued even as the president met with Myanmar’s democracy icon, Aung San Suu Kyi.

By the time the president visited Cambodia to attend a summit organised by the Association of Southeast Asian Nations, the strain of focusing on the day-to-day requirements of his tour while handling a worsening Middle East crisis was beginning to take its toll. Obama’s irritability was undergirded by the barrage of questions he faced on the Gaza crisis, even as he attempted to refocus the press corps’ attention to the importance of his Asia tour.

But that proved nearly impossible. On the day before his arrival in Phnom Penh, Obama spent hours dealing with the crisis, making numerous calls to Israeli Prime Minister Binyamin Netanyahu and Egyptian President Muhammad Morsi.

Correspondents accompanying the President learned of the phone calls and pressed Obama’s staff: Was the Gaza crisis becoming too much of a diversion? Was Asia now “on the back burner”? Ben Rhodes, Obama’s deputy national security adviser, issued a testy response: “At the risk of having a double metaphor with a pivot,” he said, “We believe that the United States can walk and chew gum at the same time.” [Continue reading…]

Facebooktwittermail

Global opposition to drones and disappointment with Obama on climate change and Middle East

Pew Global Attitudes Project: Much of the world cheered the November 6 re-election of U.S. president Barack Obama. But the president’s honeymoon may be short lived. Disappointment with Obama’s first term foreign policy may challenge both his popularity and his ability to present a positive image of the United States around the globe.

Prior to the election, overwhelming majorities in Western Europe, Japan and Brazil supported Obama’s reelection. But they were upset with signature elements of his foreign policy. In particular, a survey conducted by the Pew Research Center’s Global Attitudes Project earlier this year found widespread opposition to drone strikes, a cornerstone of the Obama administration’s anti-terrorism policy, and many believe the president hasn’t sought international approval before using military force, as they expected he would when he first took office. In addition, publics around the globe say Obama failed to meet their expectations that he would tackle climate change and take an even-handed approach to the Israel-Palestinian conflict.

Four years ago, Obama came to office with the world behind him, reversing a decade-long trend of negative opinions of the U.S. Between 2008 and 2009, the percentage of Germans, French, Spanish and Indonesians expressing positive views of the U.S. increased by at least 25 percentage points, and double-digit increases were also evident in Mexico, Argentina, Brazil, Britain, India and Nigeria. Even in some Muslim countries, where Obama has never enjoyed broad popularity, the image of the U.S. saw modest improvements in Jordan, Egypt and Lebanon when Obama was first elected.

But clouds loom on the horizon, as overall approval of Obama’s international policies and confidence in the American president have declined around the globe since 2009. Among Obama’s biggest problems is his administration’s drone campaign against extremist leaders and organizations. Majorities in virtually every country surveyed in 2012 oppose this policy, which is a key component of American anti-terrorism efforts. Opposition is especially prevalent in Muslim countries – at least eight-in-ten in Egypt, Jordan and Turkey are against drone strikes – but about three-quarters in Spain, Japan, Mexico and Brazil are also against drones, as are 63% in France and 59% in Germany.

Obama is now confronted with a sense of disappointment over unmet expectations during his first term, especially when it comes to his handling of global climate change, and especially in Western Europe. In 2009, large majorities in France, Germany, Britain and Spain believed Obama would take significant measures to control climate change. By Spring 2012, however, fewer than three-in-ten in these countries said Obama had, in fact, done this. Significant gaps between expectations and evaluations of Obama’s performance on climate change were also evident in Poland, Russia, Turkey, Egypt, Jordan, Pakistan, China, Japan, and Mexico.

In Western Europe, Obama also failed to meet expectations on his handling of the Israeli-Palestinian conflict. Although 61% in Germany, 57% in France, and nearly half in Britain still believed Obama had been fair in dealing with both sides in the Spring 2012, as many as 79% in each of these three countries said they expected Obama to be even-handed on this issue at the beginning of this first term.

In most of the predominantly Muslim countries surveyed, where expectations that Obama would be fair in dealing with the Israeli-Palestinian conflict were already low in 2009, even fewer said the American president had handled the conflict fairly. For example, after Obama took office, about a quarter of Egyptians believed he would be fair, compared with 11% who said Obama had been fair in 2012. Double-digit gaps between expectations and evaluations were also evident in Turkey and Pakistan.

Facebooktwittermail

Assad destroying Damascus in order to save it

The Wall Street Journal reports: All that remains of Abu Mohammed’s ancestral home here in Syria’s capital are two small adobe brick rooms and a few fig, loquat and mulberry trees.

It was bulldozed as part of a government slum-clearance program that appears to have a political motive: isolate neighborhoods sympathetic to Syria’s armed insurrection, and then obliterate them, according to critics, human-rights groups and even some officials within the government itself. “We are like gypsies now,” says Mr. Mohammed, who took his wife and five children to another part of the city after sections of his neighborhood, Qaboun—one of the first to rise up against Syria’s regime—were flattened and ringed by military posts.

The campaign stands in contrast to the all-out urban warfare in the northern city of Aleppo. Here in the capital, Damascus, the strategy appears designed to cripple and disperse the rebels through the destruction and encirclement of communities where they operate.

For the regime of President Bashar al-Assad, the stakes in Damascus are nothing short of retaining control of the nation itself. “If they lose Damascus, they lose the state,” says Patrick Seale, a British author and Syria expert.

Senior security officials within the Assad regime say partial demolitions of pro-rebel neighborhoods in and around Damascus are a key element of an ambitious counterinsurgency plan now unfolding. The plan also involves the expansion of regime-funded militias known as “Popular Committees” within the capital.

These officials say the strategy applies lessons learned from other offensives against the rebels since the start of the conflict more than 20 months ago, most notably in the central city of Homs.

The government’s official position is that the destruction is part of a long-discussed master plan to rid Damascus of illegal slums. City officials say illegal settlements account for nearly 20% of the capital’s 26,500 acres.

Based on several extended visits to Damascus and vicinity last month—some of which coincided with demolition by military authorities—the destruction appears to be occurring only in areas where opposition fighters have been active. In addition, much of it has been overseen by the military rather than municipal authorities, residents say.

“There’s still work to be done, we are not finished yet with cleansing operations that are in response to popular demand,” says Hussein Makhlouf, a relative of Mr. Assad and governor of Rif Damascus, the province surrounding the capital.

In his Damascus office, Mr. Makhlouf praised the government’s official slum-destruction decree, known as “presidential decree No. 66,” as a model for urban renewal. He said demolitions will soon begin in Daraya, Harasta and Yalda, all suburbs that have been at the center of the insurgency against Mr. Assad. Mr. Makhlouf was forthright about the motives behind the demolitions, saying they were essential to drive out rebels, or “terrorists” as he called them.

Facebooktwittermail

Palestinians in Syria

The Washington Post reports on the fractured relationship between Syria’s 500,000 Palestinians and the ruling Assad family: Palestinian refugees in Syria, in comparison with many countries in the region, are more integrated into society and have greater rights, such as the right to own property. As a result, the Assads have long touted themselves as regional leaders for the Palestinian cause.

So it was no small snub when some Palestinians supported the uprising and took up arms against the government. Opposition activists say there are units within the rebel Free Syrian Army made up entirely of Palestinian fighters.

There is also a sectarian dimension. Sunni Palestinians sympathize with the predominantly Sunni opposition in its fight against a Syrian government led by Alawites, who are an offshoot sect of Shiite Islam.

Within the Palestinian community, the group that best embodies the conflicting views is Hamas. This year, Hamas’s political leader, Khaled Meshal, expressed support for the Syrian opposition and moved his base to Qatar, a dramatic step for a group that had been receiving Syrian support for more than a decade.

“The regime supported us — that’s true. But the Syrian people have also supported us,” said the head of international relations for Hamas, Osama Hamdan, who is based in Beirut.

He added: “We as the Palestinian people are seeking to have our freedom, our right of self-determination. So we will not stand in a position which may be against the will of any nation or any people.”

But the leaders of Hamas’s military wing, which is largely based in the Gaza Strip, have taken a different stance, analysts say. In recent years they have received financial and military assistance as well as training from Iran, one of President Bashar al-Assad’s closest allies, and have remained supportive of the Syrian government.

The group’s difficult position on the Syrian uprising was evident in comments Meshal made at a news conference in Cairo on Wednesday. He thanked Iran for its support during the recent Israeli military operation targeting Gaza but noted that his praise came despite “disagreements on the situation in Syria.”

Syrian security services raided Meshal’s office in Damascus this month, according to a Hamas statement. But the fallout between Hamas and the Syrian government had surfaced earlier this year; in late June, Hamas official Kamal Ghanaja was assassinated in Damascus, and his body reportedly showed signs of torture.

Many activists say the killing was carried out by Syrian security services in retaliation for the group’s shifting allegiances.

Facebooktwittermail