The retired British ambassador, Oliver Miles, addresses some of the speculation on whether Julian Assange will be able to leave the Ecuadorian embassy in London now that he has been offered political asylum.
Jeremy Harding quotes someone talking of Assange being ‘set on a rapid path to Ecuadorian citizenship and finally awarded a minor consular position, which gets him from the steps of the embassy to a boarding gate at Heathrow under diplomatic immunity’. That won’t wash: you don’t get diplomatic immunity in Britain until your name has been notified by your government and accepted by the FCO [Foreign and Commonwealth Office], which can refuse without giving reasons.
When Assange went into the Ecuadorian Embassy I assumed that the FCO would ask the Ecuadorians either to hand him over or let the British police go in and get him. Not to do so would send a message to every crook in London: find an ambassador, pay him off, and you have free passage to the Costa del Crime.
If the Ecuadorians said no, the British government would be under no international diplomatic obligation to take the matter further, but if they did not do so they could not fulfil their obligation under British and European law to extradite Assange to Sweden. I would assume that they would assess their options, up to and including expelling the ambassador, considering ways to get the Ecuadorians to change their position, and taking into account other British interests that might be at risk. Timing is always important, and in this case it seems that the British government need be in no particular hurry.
We will not allow Mr Assange safe passage out of the United Kingdom, nor is there any legal basis for us to do so. The United Kingdom does not recognise the principle of diplomatic asylum.
It is far from a universally accepted concept: the United Kingdom is not a party to any legal instruments which require us to recognise the grant of diplomatic asylum by a foreign embassy in this country.
Moreover, it is well established that, even for those countries which do recognise diplomatic asylum, it should not be used for the purposes of escaping the regular processes of the courts. And in this case that is clearly what is happening.
Mark Weisbrot writes: Ecuador has now made its decision: to grant political asylum to Julian Assange. This comes in the wake of an incident that should dispel remaining doubts about the motives behind the UK/Swedish attempts to extradite WikiLeaks founder Julian Assange. On Wednesday, the UK government made an unprecedented threat to invade Ecuador’s embassy if Assange is not handed over. Such an assault would be so extreme in violating international law and diplomatic conventions that it is difficult to even find an example of a democratic government even making such a threat, let alone carrying it out.
When Ecuadorian foreign minister Ricardo Patiño, in an angry and defiant response, released the written threats to the public, the UK government tried to backtrack and say it wasn’t a threat to invade the embassy (which is another country’s sovereign territory). But what else can we possibly make of this wording from a letter delivered by a British official?
“You need to be aware that there is a legal base in the UK, the Diplomatic and Consular Premises Act 1987, that would allow us to take actions in order to arrest Mr Assange in the current premises of the embassy. We sincerely hope that we do not reach that point, but if you are not capable of resolving this matter of Mr Assange’s presence in your premises, this is an open option for us.”
Is there anyone in their right mind who believes that the UK government would make such an unprecedented threat if this were just about an ordinary foreign citizen wanted for questioning – not criminal charges or a trial – by a foreign government?
First, the merits of the case: Assange clearly has a well-founded fear of persecution if he were to be extradited to Sweden. It is pretty much acknowledged that he would be immediately thrown in jail. Since he is not charged with any crime, and the Swedish government has no legitimate reason to bring him to Sweden, this by itself is a form of persecution. [Continue reading…]
I would add this one speculative note: that the British government did not act on its own initiative in making its outrageous threat to storm the Ecuadorian embassy. It was surely acting under pressure from the U.S. — pressure that led the British, as they so often do, to surrender their better judgement if by doing so they might hope to please Washington. Why this obsequious relationship still endures, heaven only knows.
The Guardian reports: The diplomatic and political minefield that is the fate of Julian Assange is expected to come a step closer to being traversed when Ecuador’s president, Rafael Correa, gives his decision on whether his country will grant the WikiLeaks’ founder asylum around lunchtime on Thursday.
The decision – if it comes – will mark the end of a turbulent process that on Wednesday night saw Ecuador’s foreign minister, Ricardo Patiño, raging against perceived threats from Britain to “storm” the embassy and warning that such a “dangerous precedent” would be met with “appropriate responses in accordance with international law”.
The dramatic development came two months after Assange suddenly walked into the embassy in a bid to avoid being extradited to Sweden, where he faces allegations of sexual assault.
At a press conference on Wednesday, Patiño released details of a letter he said was delivered through a British embassy official in Quito, the capital of the South American country.
The letter said: “You need to be aware that there is a legal base in the UK, the Diplomatic and Consular Premises Act 1987, that would allow us to take actions in order to arrest Mr Assange in the current premises of the embassy.”
It added: “We need to reiterate that we consider the continued use of the diplomatic premises in this way incompatible with the Vienna convention and unsustainable and we have made clear the serious implications that this has for our diplomatic relations.”
On Wednesday night appeals were tweeted for Assange supporters to occupy the embassy to prevent British police from arresting him, and while there was a police presence outside the embassy, Scotland Yard insisted that officers were simply there to “police the embassy like any other embassy”.
Patiño said he was “deeply shocked” by the diplomatic letter. Speaking to reporters later, he said: “The government of Ecuador is considering a request for asylum and has carried out diplomatic talks with the governments of the United Kingdom and Sweden. However, today we received from the United Kingdom a written threat that they could attack our embassy in London if Ecuador does not give up Julian Assange.
“Ecuador, as a state that respects rights and justice and is a democratic and peaceful nation state, rejects in the strongest possible terms the explicit threat of the British official communication.
“This is unbecoming of a democratic, civilised and law-abiding state. If this conduct persists, Ecuador will take appropriate responses in accordance with international law.
“If the measures announced in the British official communication materialise they will be interpreted by Ecuador as a hostile and intolerable act and also as an attack on our sovereignty, which would require us to respond with greater diplomatic force.
“Such actions would be a blatant disregard of the Vienna convention on diplomatic relations and of the rules of international law of the past four centuries.
“It would be a dangerous precedent because it would open the door to the violation of embassies as a declared sovereign space.” Under international law, diplomatic posts are considered the territory of the foreign nation. [Continue reading…]
The Associated Press reports: An Israeli attack on Iran’s nuclear program could trigger a bloody monthlong war on multiple fronts, killing hundreds of Israelis or more, the Israeli Cabinet’s civil defense chief warned in an interview published Wednesday.
It was the most explicit assessment yet of how the government sees events unfolding in the aftermath of an Israeli attack.
Matan Vilnai, who is stepping down as the “home front” Cabinet minister to become Israel’s ambassador to China, described the scenarios to Israel’s Maariv daily at a time of heightened debate about the Iranian nuclear threat.
Vilnai, a retired general who was deputy military chief of staff, has spent the past five years overseeing upgrades of Israel’s civil defense systems, including air-raid sirens, bomb shelters and a public alert system.
In the Maariv interview, Vilnai said “the home front is ready as never before.” Nonetheless, he said the country must be braced for heavy casualties in the case of conflict with Iran.
Vilnai said the government has prepared for the possibility of hundreds of rockets and missiles falling on Israeli population centers each day, with the expectation of 500 deaths.
“It could be that there will be fewer fatalities, but it could be there will be more. That is the scenario that we are preparing for according to the best experts,” he said. “The assessments are for a war that will last 30 days on a number of fronts.”
Reuters adds: Martin van Creveld, a military historian who is critical of the Netanyahu government’s Iran posture, posited a deterioration in Israel’s fitness to confront an enemy state since it absorbed Iraqi missile salvoes in the 1991 Gulf war.
“More than 20 years of fighting the weak has bred in Israel a revolting blend of aggression and self-pity,” he said, referring to outgunned Lebanese and Palestinians.
Van Creveld questioned whether Israeli morale was prepared for the costs of an Iran war, such as downed pilots. But retired air force chief David Ivry, who masterminded Israel’s 1981 bombing of Iraq’s atomic reactor, dismissed such pessimism.
Even were Iran to take 10 pilots captive, he said, “we’ll free 10,000 prisoners to get them back. If the country decides that its national security is at stake, then the price is paid.”
Philip Handleman, U.S.-based co-author of “Air Combat Reader – Historic Feats and Aviation Legends”, said he believed Israel was willing to tackle Iran though bereft of the long-range bombers and refueling planes available to the Americans.
“I don’t think Israel would be ‘banking on’ subsequent U.S. military involvement, though that might very well happen. If Israel strikes, it would be out of a pureness of heart, a very primordial survivalist instinct,” Handleman said.
Israel’s resilience has been underestimated in the past.
Hezbollah leader Hassan Nasrallah used to compare it to a “spider’s web” – easily blown away. Then Hezbollah triggered the 2006 war with a cross-border raid which Nasrallah later rued, saying he would not have ordered it had he known Israel’s response would be that fierce.
There is ample indication Israel would similarly try to hit Iran and its allies hard and fast, hoping to curtail the fight.
“War is difficult and sad, and when it is unavoidable it should be embarked upon with all capabilities utilized so as not to become its victim,” Shimon Peres, Israel’s president and a Nobel Peace Prize laureate, wrote in a weekend newspaper essay.
The Guardian reports: The UN has issued a damning 102-page report saying that Syrian government forces and Shabiha fighters have carried out numerous war crimes in the country including murder, torture and the massacre of 100 civilians, almost half of them children, near the town of Houla in May.
The UN’s independent international commission of inquiry said the violations were the result of “state policy”. It claimed president Bashar al-Assad’s “security forces and government” at the highest levels were involved in “gross violation of international human rights”.
The violations included “unlawful killing, indiscriminate attacks against civilian populations and acts of sexual violence,” it said. The report painted a bleak picture of events on the ground in Syria, noting the situation inside the country has “deteriorated significantly” since February.
The commission, led by investigator Paulo Pinheiro, also reported that Syria’s rebels were guilty of violations including murder, torture and extra-judicial killings. But it said abuses by anti-government groups were not “of the same gravity, frequency and scale” as those committed by Syrian regime forces and allied Shabiha militia.
The UN’s findings were published on another day of carnage inside Syria. Opposition activists said at least 30 people were killed and scores wounded when a Syrian jet bombed a hospital in the northern city of Azaz, close to a strategic Turkish border crossing, which was captured by rebels last month after a fierce battle.
The Los Angeles Times reports: In million-dollar apartments in a neighborhood of the city as yet unscathed, the battle for Aleppo plays out daily on flat-screen TVs. Amid imported sofas and abstract art, the revolution doesn’t seem so close.
But as the call for night prayers rang out from the minaret of the nearby mosque on a recent day, two loud explosions boomed.
“Do you hear that?” a father of seven asked, briefly looking away from the TV. “It’s like this every night.”
From the balcony, which on this night let in a little cool summer breeze, his family can occasionally see smoke rising above other Aleppo neighborhoods that are under attack by forces loyal to President Bashar Assad.
The father is solidly opposed to Assad, but he fears the prospect of rebels who have filtered in from the suburbs seizing his neighborhood as they try to take Syria’s largest city and commercial hub.
“What [the rebels] did was wrong, coming in and forcing all these civilians to flee and live in schools. You came to protect civilians, but now you’re hurting them?” said the father, one of the city’s merchants. “It’s wrong what they did.”
As the fighting intensifies in a city once regarded as immune to the violence racking much of Syria, some opposition activists are concerned that those who have taken up arms against Assad have made a serious miscalculation here. They fear that the offensive is creating a humanitarian crisis they are ill-equipped to handle and turning many of those affected against the rebels.
“The military campaign for Aleppo came too, too early,” said Marcell Shehwaro, a dentistry graduate and a prominent activist. “Because people here didn’t see the government violence that would make them believe the Free Syrian Army was needed.”
Even now, weeks into the battle for Aleppo, the traffic of everyday routines still snarls roundabouts in safer parts of the city. Syria’s national flag still flies freely here, and the walls are devoid of antigovernment graffiti that festoon rebel-held areas.
Pricey restaurants in nice neighborhoods open — expectantly — every night.
Abdulaziz “Abu Jumuah” Salameh, who heads a coalition of dozens of militias called the Al Tawheed Brigade, acknowledged that the city may not have wanted the rebel offensive to begin so soon. But that didn’t matter: The revolution has its own timing.
“Other provinces finished their revolution, and Aleppo hadn’t started yet,” he said, speaking from his headquarters in Tal Rifaat, a town north of the city. “You could wait 100 years, and Aleppo still won’t be ready.”
Even as rebels continue to stream into Aleppo, there is bitter disagreement over whether they can win over its residents. [Continue reading…]
Nehemia Shtrasler writes: The Second Lebanon War taught us something new about the Israeli economy. In 2006, we were sure that the economy would get caught up in a crisis and deep recession following the barrage of rockets on the north, which we feared would hit Tel Aviv. But it turned out we were wrong. The economy was unusually strong and stable. It did shift down a gear for one quarter, but it returned to its previous pace of growth immediately afterward, as though nothing had happened. So maybe our economy will be able to survive an attack on Iran intact?
This time around, the Bank of Israel and the Finance Ministry are predicting that an attack on Iran would cause serious economic damage. They are concerned that the economy will ground to a long-term halt; they worry about bankruptcies and mass layoffs. The Bank of Israel is preparing to launch a program protecting the banks from a possible panic manifested by a mass withdrawal of money, which could put the banking system at risk of bankruptcy.
An attack on Iran would be condemned around the world. There are already countries, companies, labor associations and consumer groups that boycott Israel because of its occupation of the territories. An attack on Iran would broaden and intensify the boycott. There are also European companies that won’t trade with Israeli companies because of the risk they say Israel poses. And when that threat is actualized – when rockets fall on Tel Aviv – the rest of the world’s investors will also flee. So we should expect stocks and government bonds to drop sharply, and the deficit to rise in the wake of an increase in security expenses as tax revenue drops.
A military assault on Iran will also spell a sharp rise in oil prices, which will intensify the global recession and make us even less popular in Europe and the United States than we already are. Because if there’s anything that unemployed Spaniards or Greek demonstrators really don’t want right now, it’s a gas hike.
Iran’s response to an attack is expected to be far more significant than Iraq’s late and relatively minor response to the bombing of its nuclear facility in 1981: dozens, and perhaps hundreds, of rockets fired on Israel as an initial reaction, boosted by a drizzle of rockets over the long term. A few Shahab-4 missiles a day will be enough to cause immense damage to morale and to the economy. You can’t live a normal life under a daily threat like that. People will be scared to go shopping and the malls will be empty. Demand for goods and services will drop and factories will go bankrupt. Tourists will stop coming, investors will flee, the ports will be paralyzed and international airlines will stop landing here.
As a result, the shekel will drop sharply, inflation will rise, interest rates will be sky-high and unemployment will go up. One blow will follow another. At least housing prices will drop, though.
Under such a scenario, we will have no choice but to ask our only friend for help. But given the state of relations with U.S. President Barack Obama, there’s no reason for him to rush in to assist Israel. After all, he opposes an attack in the first place, and particularly doesn’t want one now, on the eve of presidential elections. It is this undermining of the alliance with the United States that is the most dangerous step of all.
In both his first and second terms of office, Benjamin Netanyahu has managed to make himself hated by the U.S. administration because of his manipulative approach toward the Palestinian issue. Now he, along with the rest of us, is reaping the fruit of that approach.
It appears that the Israeli public understands full well the degree to which we are dependent on the United States. It’s not just the $3 billion a year or the new military aircraft. Without a source of more weapons during wartime and without diplomatic protection, our situation will be frightfully dangerous. All it takes is for a U.S. president to imply that he’s reconsidering his country’s ties with Israel and we will become a pariah country to which no one will want to lend even a single dollar. Under such conditions, even international corporate giants like Teva won’t be able to get credit abroad.
But wait, isn’t it possible this whole doomsday scenario won’t take place and the dour predictions will turn out to be just as mistaken this time around as they were in 2006?
In light of the massive differences between the war in Lebanon and a military assault on Iran, one would have to be an incurable optimist to believe that’s the case. The doomsday scenario seems to be the most likely.
The Guardian reports: A former intelligence chief has been appointed as Israel’s new minister for homeland security, as speculation about a military strike targeting Iran’s nuclear programme intensifies.
Avi Dichter, 59, who headed Israel’s internal security agency, Shin Bet, from 2000-05, will be confirmed in the new post at a special parliamentary session this week. Dichter has previously indicated a cautious approach to military action against Iran. In February, he said Israel should not act unilaterally: “Israel is not a superpower. We cannot lead the world offensive against Iran … We need to prepare, just in case nobody plans to do anything, but to lead it will be a total mistake.”
Two months ago, he said he was glad the former Mossad chief Meir Dagan had spoken out against a military strike.
Febrile speculation over whether the prime minister, Binyamin Netanyahu, and defence minister, Ehud Barak, are close to ordering military action in the coming weeks has dominated the Israeli media in recent days. In an article on Friday in Israel’s biggest-selling daily, Yedioth Ahronoth, commentators Nahum Barnea and Shimon Shiffer wrote: “Insofar as it depends on Binyamin Netanyahu and Ehud Barak, an Israeli military strike on the nuclear facilities in Iran will take place in the autumn before the US elections in November.”
Barnea later wrote that he and Shiffer had since been “bombarded with phone calls from people who asked if it was time to hide in the bomb shelters”. [Continue reading…]
Hamas never has faced such large challenges and opportunities as presented by the Arab uprisings. It abandoned its headquarters in Damascus, at much cost to ties with its largest state supporter, Iran, while improving those with such U.S. allies as Egypt, Qatar and Turkey. Asked to pick sides in an escalating regional contest, it has sought to choose neither. Internal tensions are at new heights, centring on how to respond to regional changes in the short run. Leaders in the West Bank and exile tend to believe that with the rise to power of the Egyptian Muslim Brotherhood in particular and the West’s rapprochement with Islamists in general, it is time for bolder steps toward Palestinian unity, thereby facilitating Hamas’s regional and wider international integration. The Gaza leadership by contrast is wary of large strategic steps amid a still uncertain regional future. These new dynamics – Islamists’ regional ascent; shifting U.S. and EU postures toward them; vacillation within their Palestinian offshoot – offer both Hamas and the West opportunities. But seizing them will take far greater pragmatism and realism than either has yet shown.
The Arab uprisings hardly could have caused a more stark reversal of Hamas’s fortunes. In the stagnant years preceding them, it had been at an impasse: isolated diplomatically; caged in economically by Egypt and Israel; crushed by Israeli and Palestinian Authority security forces in the West Bank; warily managing an unstable ceasefire with a far more powerful adversary; incapable of fulfilling popular demands for reconciliation with Fatah; and more or less treading water in Gaza, where some supporters saw it as having sullied itself with the contradictions of being an Islamist movement constricted by secular governance and a resistance movement actively opposing Gaza-based attacks against Israel.
Facing reduced popularity since the 2006 Palestinian legislative elections that brought it to power, Hamas had to contend with criticism from without and within, the latter accompanied by defections from a small but important group of militants who left to join groups more committed to upholding Islamic law and to engaging in attacks against Israel. All in all, the movement could take comfort in little other than that Fatah was doing no better. Continue reading →
Al-Masry Al-Youm reports: President Mohamed Morsy is studying whether to amend the Camp David Accords to ensure Egypt’s full sovereignty and control over every inch of Sinai, said Mohamed Gadallah, legal adviser to the president.
Calls for amending the peace treaty with Israel, which also governs the security presence in the Sinai Peninsula, have been on the rise since last week’s attack on a military checkpoint at the border left 16 Egyptian security officers dead.
Former presidential candidate Hamdeen Sabbahi called for the amendments Saturday. The Revolutionary Youth Union has filed a lawsuit before an administrative court demanding that the peace treaty between Egypt and Israel be amended.
Morsy has vowed several times since he took office to preserve international treaties that Egypt has signed.
Gadallah didn’t give more details on the issue while speaking to Al-Masry Al-Youm Monday. He added that Morsy would soon order the release of another batch of military detainees.
Luke Harding writes: It was 5am, and Mohamad Baree was hiding with his fighters behind a large rock. Some 300 metres away, a column of Syrian army tanks was advancing towards Aleppo through the countryside. The group of rebels were waiting for it. Baree watched. He then set off a powerful roadside bomb. It blew two of the tanks up. The others staged a panicky retreat to their base in the northern city of Idlib.
“From a military point of view the operation was successful,” Baree tells me a week later, as we bump along in the back of his unit’s battle-scarred minivan. Baree, 27, is dressed in khaki fatigues. He carries a Kalashnikov and a pistol. Despite his appearance, he explains that he is actually a pharmacist who has spent seven years living in Odessa; his brother, another fighter in Syria’s revolution, a lawyer.
Syria’s grinding 17-month war has typically been portrayed as a sectarian conflict. In this version, Bashar al-Assad’s embattled Shia Alawite sect – about 10% of the population – is pitted against the country’s Sunni majority. To an extent, this is true. But the reality is more complex. Some of Baree’s co-fighters are members of what could loosely be called the rustic poor – carpenters, decorators, farmers. Others are educated. Baree says that a professor of chemistry has been giving the rebels tips on bomb-making, helping their military effectiveness. There are army defectors, medics, video activists, even information officers.
The sectarian faultlines are blurred as well. Baree acknowledges that his own group of around 150 rebels, from the village of Korkanaya, near Idlib, is predominantly Sunni. But he says many of his friends are Alawite. “We talk over the internet. They don’t like what Bashar is doing either,” he says. Baree says he has broken off with one childhood friend, a Sunni and a local teacher; the teacher had implacably supported the regime ever since Syria’s uprising began in spring 2011.
The situation in Aleppo, Syria’s largest metropolis, engulfed by fighting since July, meanwhile, is also many-layered. Aleppo is one of the most ancient cities on the planet, home to various Christian denominations, historically a large Jewish population, now all fled, as well as wealthy Sunni traders, many favourably disposed to the regime.
In the mountains just outside Aleppo you find the ghostly ruins of Byzantine churches. There are poor Kurdish hamlets. I find the frontline town of Anadan semi-wrecked and abandoned.
One Aleppo resident I speak to, an engineer living in a regime-controlled district, says he supports the revolution. But he admits many of his neighbours don’t. “If I were to generalise I would say the middle class and upper class don’t want the rebels. They want everything to be how it was,” he says. Many poorer Aleppines had welcomed the rebel Free Syrian Army (FSA); others viewed it as a bunch of dangerous extremists; almost all were terrified of what the fighting would bring.
According to Baree, Syria’s revolution has little to do with external forces, or Islamist radicalism. It is, he tells me, the product of Syria’s own domestic dynamic and a logical reaction to the brutal behaviour of Assad. Assad had responded to the Arab spring and demands for political reform by arresting, torturing, and shelling his opponents, thus turning a few isolated demonstrations into a mass armed insurrection. “We tried to persuade him through peaceful means. But this didn’t work. So we took up weapons,” Baree says. Some guns from outside were arriving in Syria. But none have reached his unit, he adds. [Continue reading…]
Homa Khaleeli writes: Are radical feminist separatists infiltrating Saudi Arabia’s ruling elite? Have the women of the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia undergone a wild revolution, read Love Your Enemy? and decided to eschew all male company to create their own political systems and free themselves from the patriarchy? I hope so, because otherwise it’s hard to imagine the convoluted logic behind a decision to build all-female cities to boost women’s employment.
The country already has separate schools, segregated universities (and the biggest all-female university in the world) not to mention offices, restaurants and even separate entrances for public buildings. Now industrial hubs are to be built so that women can be hidden away even further than their current dresscode of abaya, headscarf and niqab allows.
The country’s segregation is so extreme the plans bring to mind the US’s racial divide under the Jim Crow laws, ensuring “separate but equal” institutions for black and white people. And like the legalised discrimination in the US, “equal” in this context means no such thing. The female half of the adult population of Saudi Arabia is considered unfit to control their own lives. Women cannot decide whether to leave the house, whether or who to marry, whether to work or study, whether to travel, what to wear, or even whether to have major surgery – without the consent of a male guardian.
In a country of such startling misogyny, which treats women like children, it is hardly surprising there are few women in work and that it is becoming a crises the ruling elite is being forced to take notice of. Almost 60% of the country’s college graduates are women, but 78% of female university graduates are apparently unemployed – despite the fact more than 1,000 hold a doctorate degree. In total only 15% of Saudi Arabia’s workforce are women. And unlike in many recession-hit countries, there are more than enough jobs to go around – the economy apparently booming. [Continue reading…]
David Hearst writes: While Syria’s civil war dominates the world’s attention, less dramatic and telegenic events in Egypt retain the power to decide if popular uprisings will succeed in establishing a democratic alternative to tyranny in the Arab world.
Something of that magnitude has just happened in Cairo. Arguably it is just as significant as the ousting of Hosni Mubarak in February last year. The system was decapitated but continued in the form of the military council, which assumed transitional rule. On Sunday the heads of that system, which has dominated Egypt for decades, were toppled – apparently with its acquiescence.
Morsi got rid of the man who was expected to replace Tantawi – the army chief of staff, Sami Enan – as well as the leader of every service of the armed forces. Tantawi’s replacement, the head of military intelligence Abdel-Fatah el-Sissi, will now report to Morsi himself, not to Scaf. Further, Morsi annulled the constitutional power grab that Scaf made on the second day of the presidential election in June, which gave the military a right of veto over the new constitution that is in the process of being drawn up.
Accused by the left and liberals of political weakness, of cohabiting with the military, the Muslim Brotherhood president today stands accused of the opposite contention – accruing too much power. And it is true, that in assuming for himself the power Scaf had to appoint a new constituent assembly should the current one writing the constitution fail to agree, the Egyptian president now has the powers of a Russian one. But Morsi is no Vladimir Putin. [Continue reading…]
Issandr El Amrani argues that it is too soon to determine where the new balance of power now lies: It is hard to believe that the timing of moves by Egypt’s president, Mohamed Morsi, to purge senior officers from the military and impose his power was purely coincidental. It was the 23rd day of Ramadan, the evening of the Night of Power, during which the Qur’an was first revealed to the Prophet Muhammad.
The Qur’an states that the Night of Power “is better than a thousand months” – this seems apt considering that these changes seemingly put an end to many months of confusion about where power lies in the new Egypt.
But is it for the better? And where does power lie now?
Within the military, it is clear that the new figure of power is Abdel-Fatah el-Sissi, formerly head of military intelligence and now the minister of defence.
Considerably younger that Hussein Tantawi, the ageing general he replaced who was first appointed by Hosni Mubarak in 1992, Sissi brings with him several younger officers. His ascension puts an end to a months-long power struggle over who is in control of the military.
The lack of an immediate challenge to Sunday’s moves suggests that, essentially, there has been a successful coup within the military, in alliance with Morsi. We also know this new military leadership is willing to give Morsi the powers their predecessors had refused him – Morsi could not have regained control without their help. This speaks not of a triumphant civilian president getting the generals in line, but of a confluence of interests. It does not tell us whether it will last, or where the balance of power lies. [Continue reading…]
Al-Masry Al-Youm reports: “Breaking: Mohamed Morsy is the president of the Egyptian Republic,” said activists on social media websites jokingly as an expression of Morsy’s assertion of power after catching the country off guard by sending the head of the Supreme Council of Armed Forces Mohamed Hussein Tantawi and Chief of Staff Sami Anan to retirement Sunday.
In an unprecedented reshuffle of the 19-member SCAF, Morsy replaced Tantawi, who has been defense minister for 22 years, with current Military Intelligence Chief Abdel Fattah al-Sisi who was promoted two ranks and now heads the ministry and the armed forces, the presidency’s spokesperson Yasser Ali announced on Sunday. The president also promoted Sidqy Sobhy, the third field army leader to be the military chief of staff, while Mohamed al-Assar was appointed as deputy defense minister. Additionally, Head of Naval Forces Mohab Mamish was assigned as leader of the Suez Canal Authority.
Political and military experts say that Morsy’s radical decision to cast aside Tantawi and Anan, who remained on top of the military institution for decades, indicates that the president is consolidating his power over the military establishment in a tactful manner, without necessarily ending the legacy of the military state. For one, the promotion of second rank military officers is considered a tactical move to preempt any possible opposition from the army, they argue.
“It’s a takeover of military rule rather than the end of military rule. This is another phase of authoritarian rule,” says Robert Springborg, a professor at the Department of National Security Affairs at the Naval Postgraduate School and an expert on the Egyptian military institution.
“The military is now serving as an instrument for the Muslim Brotherhood. Morsy’s move institutionalizes normal civilian control over the military,” he added.
Springborg argues that “the way it was done indicates that the Brothers have a plan from before” and that last week’s attack on Egypt’s border with Gaza and Israel in Sinai paved the way for the move.
Sixteen Egyptian soldiers were killed by armed men on 6 August at the Egyptian border with Gaza and Israel. The attack fueled criticism of the lack of military readiness and a failing state in the strategic peninsula.
As a result, Morsy replaced intelligence chief Mourad Mowafy with Abdel Wahed Shehata and appointed Hamed Zaki as head of the presidential guard, while North Sinai Governor Abdel Wahab Mabrouk has been sacked from his post along with the head of the Central Security Forces. Furthermore, Hamdi Badin, commander of the military police, was also removed from his position.
Morsy had to first guarantee authority over the Presidential Guard and Central Security Forces to defend the president against any street riots that might take place as a reaction to the military leaders shuffle, Springborg told Egypt Independent. “They [Muslim Brothers] prepared the ground.”
Professor Emad Shahin, who teaches political science at the American University in Cairo and who specializes in Islamist movements, also thought the reshuffling was well calculated by Morsy. “The reshuffling is very smart, as it avoids escalation and ensures the loyalty of the military establishment. Now the military institution is under the authority of the elected president,” said Shahin. He agreed with Springborg that the Sinai attacks “served Morsy” as he is viewed as reacting strongly by holding security officials accountable. [Continue reading…]
After a period in which the possibility of civilian rule in Egypt appeared to be severely constrained by the military’s unwillingness to yield power, Morsi’s move looks like a major step in Egypt’s transition towards full-fledged democracy — unless, that is, you’re an Islamophobic Israeli. Barry Rubin, who seems convinced that this time the sky really is falling, writes: “This is a coup. Mursi is bound by no constitution. He can do as he pleases unless someone is going to stop him. And the only candidate — the military — is fading fast, far faster than even we pessimists would have predicted.”
Marc Lynch writes: After long weeks of political gridlock and stagnation, Egypt’s elected President Mohammed el-Morsi suddenly hit the gas over the weekend. Over the span of a few days, Morsi removed the head of General Intelligence, the head of the Military Police, the top two senior leaders of the Supreme Council of the Armed Forces, and the heads of all the military services. In addition to this SCAF-Quake, Morsi also canceled the controversial Constitutional amendments promulgated by the SCAF just before he took office and issued a new, equally controversial amendment and roadmap of his own. What’s more, this all came after he replaced the editors of major state-owned newspapers with people viewed as sympathetic to the Muslim Brotherhood and cracked down on several other critical papers. Zero to 180 in three days — even Usain Bolt would be impressed by that acceleration. Swirv.
What does it all mean? It’s a bit of a cop-out, but really it’s too soon to tell. As always in Egypt, information is both scarce and abundant. Nobody really knows what’s going on, rumors of every variety fly fast and furious, and everyone has pieced together plausible-sounding theories based on their fears or analytical predispositions. (Remember, though, as a rule it’s almost never as bad as it seems on Twitter.) It will take a while for the full implications to become clear. Eventually, more reliable information will trickle out about what really happened: were Tantawi and Anan consulted, or did they find out on TV? did junior officers collude with the Presidents office, or were they equally surprised? And the behavior of key actors in the coming weeks will shed light on their intentions this weekend: does Morsi move to impose an Islamist vision or reach out to create a broadly based constitutional convention? does the military strike back in some form? Until then, just about everyone — in Cairo, in Washington, and everywhere else — is struggling to pierce through the haze and make out what they can.
Taking that uncertainty into account, I can see at least three dominant takes on what’s going on. Those who believe the SCAF remains fully in control see a clever scheme to cement long-term military rule in alliance with the Muslim Brotherhood by gently dumping the unpopular figureheads while retaining an institutional hold on power. Those who fear the Muslim Brotherhood see the makings of a full-scale Ikhwanization of Egypt, with Morsi seizing dictatorial powers, brushing aside the secular bastion of the SCAF, and putting himself in place to shape the new constitution. And those who still see the prospect for some kind of real democratic transition can find some comfort in an elected President removing the senior leaders of the outgoing military junta without a bloody fight and asserting the principle of political control by an elected President. None of these three strikes me as completely right and all probably have some elements of truth.
Adele M. Stan writes: It’s official: The Republican Party is now officially a wholly-owned subsidiary of the Koch brothers’ political enterprise. How else to explain Republican presidential candidate Mitt Romney’s pick of Rep. Paul Ryan, Wis., as his running mate. Yes, that Paul Ryan — chairman of the House Budget Committee and author of the infamous Ryan roadmap budget plan, which promises to turn Medicare into a privatized voucher system, and yank health care from millions of children whose parents happen to be poor. And that’s just the beginning. In addition to a raft of cuts, the Ryan plan would end the Earned Income Tax Credit, which millions of parents count on.
It’s a plan that even former House Speaker Newt Gingrich deemed too “radical.” Asked by NBC’s David Gregory to respond to Ryan’s proposal, Gingrich famously said (video): “I don’t think right-wing social engineering is any more desirable than left-wing social engineering. I don’t think imposing radical change from the right or the left is a very good way for a free society to operate.” (Of course that was before Gingrich walked back those remarks, apparently reminded by some savvy operative that he might not want to anger the Kochs, to whom Ryan, 42, is something of a youthful ward, having been the beneficiary of years of support from the Koch-founded Americans For Prosperity.)
In case anyone should miss the point that Ryan is a very Kochy guy, Romney did his big reveal of running-mate Ryan this morning aboard the U.S.S. Wisconsin, a decommisioned ship docked in the all-important swing state of Virginia. However important Virginia is to the electoral math, Wisconsin is a highly symbolic icon for the Tea Party. It’s not only Ryan’s home state; it’s the poster state of right-wing triumph, the place where Gov. Scott Walker successfully fended off a recall attempt made by progressives in response to a bill he rammed through the state legislature that all but ended collective bargaining for the state’s public employees. Much of the credit for Wisconsin’s right turn goes to Americans For Prosperity, which boasts a particularly aggressive Wisconsin chapter, which began building a network of activists there in 2005.
Ryan’s association with the group goes back almost that far. In 2008, he was granted the Wisconsin AFP chapter’s “Defending the American Dream” award, handed to him by a young county executive who served as emcee for those festivities — a guy named Scott Walker. Since then, he has made countless appearances on the group’s behalf, at anti-health-care reform rallies on Capitol Hill, on conference town halls across the country and at Americans For Prosperity and Americans For Prosperity Foundation events. (Just enter Ryan’s name into the search engine on the Amerians For Prosperity Web site, and you’ll come up with eight pages of citations.) In fact, Ryan was due to speak at last week’s conference sponsored by the AFP Foundation in Washington, D.C., forcing increased speculation about his running-mate prospects when he failed to show.
For Romney, the pluses in picking Ryan are these: the Tea Partiers, who are less than wild about Mittens, really love them some Paul Ryan — as does David Koch, who will be seated as a Romney delegate at the Republican National Convention in Tampa. Koch and his brother, Charles — the mbillionaire owners of Koch Industries, the second largest privately held corporation in the U.S. — are major donors, not only to political candidates, but to a range of right-wing think tanks and groups. In the post-Citizens United world, those donations add up to millions in political advertisements by all manner of non-profit groups. Already, Americans For Prosperity has made a $27 million air-time buy for running anti-Obama ads. [Continue reading…]
Want help going beyond the horse race? We’re gathering the best stories out there on Congressman Paul Ryan, his positions, and his background. Have other stories to share? Add them in comments.
Background
Fussbudget, The New Yorker, August 2012 This sweeping profile is a great introduction to Paul Ryan and his politics. Starting in his hometown of Janesville, Wisconsin, it lays out the evolution of Ryan’s economic beliefs, and his rise through the G.O.P – from his early affinity to Ayn Rand to failed attempts at privatizing Social Security, to his Path to Prosperity budget plan, which would make radical changes in Medicaid and other social programs. The article also looks at the ways that federal-funded projects have helped Ryan’s hometown–and notes that Ryan’s plan “would drastically reduce the parts of the budget” that are funding exactly these kinds of projects.
Ryan shines as GOP seeks vision, The Milwaukee Journal Sentinel, April 2009 A broad look at Ryan from his home-state paper at a time when Ryan’s national profile was on the rise. Ryan discusses, among other things, how having gay friends led him to break with his party on a gay rights bill in Congress and his “real passion” — bowhunting.
The Legendary Paul Ryan, New York Magazine, April 2012 A look at how the Republican party rallied around Ryan’s “Path to Prosperity,” putting the newcomer’s fiscal agenda at the center of the 2012 presidential campaign well before voters had even chosen Romney as their Republican nominee.
On the paradox of Paul Ryan, The American Conservative, April 2012 What does Mitt Romney gain from Paul Ryan? Romney may be betting on a boost from conservatives who view Ryan as a hero for his aggressive stance on entitlements and federal spending, but as W. James Antle III points out, that may not be enough to win over grassroots conservatives. Antle writes that despite his anti-entitlements campaign, Ryan’s voting record “more closely resembles that of the Republicans who have lost to Tea Party primary challengers than that of a ruthless government-cutter.”
Man with a Plan, Weekly Standard, July 2012 The Weekly Standard’s Stephen Hayes wrote a favorable profileof Ryan in July in the midst of veep buzz. The piece traces his entire career with a particular focus on how, in recent years, Ryan became “the intellectual leader of the Republican party.”
How Important is Altas Shrugged author Ayn Rand to Paul’s political philosophy? The Atlas Society, April 2012 In a 2005 speech to the Atlas Society, Paul said, “The reason I got involved in public service, by and large, if I had to credit one thinker, one person, it would be Ayn Rand…you can’t find another thinker or writer who did a better job of describing and laying out the moral case for capitalism.” According to the excerpts and audio of his speech posted on the society’s website, he also said that Rand was “required reading” for his interns and staff. But recently, Ryan has said while he had read Rand’s novels when he was young, his supposed obsession with her was “an urban legend.” “I reject her philosophy,” Ryan told Robert Costa at National Review in April. “It’s an atheist philosophy. It reduces human interactions down to mere contracts and it is antithetical to my worldview.”
Policy
A Closer Look at Ryan’s Budget Roadmaps, The New York Times, August 2012 As part of an in-depth look at Ryan’s polarizing House Republican budget plan, the New York Times highlights two studies of how the plan would affect Americans. One, a long-term analysis by the Congressional Budget Office of some of Ryan’s suggested changes to Medicare and Medicaid, found that, “Under the proposal, most elderly people who would be entitled to premium support payments would pay more for their health carethan they would pay under the current Medicare system.” The other, a study by the Tax Policy Centerof the Urban Institute and the Brookings Institution, found that “the tax cuts in Paul Ryan’s 2013 budget plan would result in huge benefits for high-income peopleand very modest—or no— benefits for low income working households.”
What’s Paul Ryan’s foreign policy? Foreign Policy, April 2012 While Ryan has a limited record on international affairs, he has spoken about everything from how to handle China (less hawkishly than Romney) to getting cosier with rising powers India and Brazil. Foreign Policy’s helpful overview says the overall picture that emerges is “a bit of a Rorschach test.” Ryan says the U.S. should stay deeply engaged– “America is the greatest force for human freedom the world has ever seen” — while he has also called for cutting funding for U.S. international aid.
Ryan’s personal finances and connections
Ryan is wealthy–but not by Romney standards. The congressman reported 2011 assets valued at between $2.4 and $9.3 million, according to an Associated Press report looking at his recently filed financial disclosure form. The money is spread in small chunks over various stock investments and in business interests in Wisconsin and his wife’s home state of Oklahoma. You can browse his assets here(.pdf). Ryan also filed an amendmentto his disclosure noting that his wife’s mother died in 2010 and the family gained interest in a trust worth between $1 and $5 million.
Paul Ryan’s Shrewd Budget Payday, Daily Beast, June 2011 The website takes a closer look at mining, mineral, and energy holdings owned by Ryan — primarily in his wife’s home state of Oklahoma — and how they would be positively affected by Ryan’s proposed tax policies. A Ryan spokesman told the Daily Beast: “These are properties that Congressman Ryan married into. It’s not something he has a lot of control over.” The piece also reports that relatives of Ryan have received federal farming subsidies.
Paul Ryan has got plenty of friends on K Street, Politico, August 2012 A brief look at the friends Ryan his wife Janna have made on K Street in their years in Washington, among them former Ohio congressman Mike Oxley (of Sarbanes-Oxley fame), who is now a lobbyist for the Financial Industry Regulatory Authority (FINRA). Janna Ryan, a tax attorney, herself worked as a lobbyist for PriceWaterhouseCooper, the article reports.
Ryan’s Unlikely Alliance with Organized Labor Mother Jones, May 2011 Ryan’s family construction business relies on union labor. “I grew up in organized labor,” Ryan told the Milwaukee Magazine in 2005. “I have a lot of constituents who are in organized labor. I really do not have this ‘us against them’ mentality.” As a congressman, Paul has worked closely with local union leaders and fought to protect the wages of construction workers. While many of his policy plans are directly opposed to what unions want, some unions have continued to support him. Over the course of his career, the Carpenters & Joiners Union has given him $57,500—only slightly less than he has received from Koch Industries, according to The Center for Responsive Politics.
Correction: This post originally said that the Mother Jones article was published in November 2012. It was actually published in May 2011.
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