Category Archives: Lands

Iran reformists cheer election gains, conservatives play down shift

Reuters reports: President Hassan Rouhani and his allies won big gains in elections that could deepen Iran’s engagement with the world after his government ended years of sanctions by agreeing to curb its nuclear program.

The outcome in the results for Tehran on Monday was a blow to the conservative Islamic establishment, although it retains decisive power due to Iran’s unwieldy dual system of clerical and republican rule.

Most of the lawmakers who failed to win re-election to the new parliament strongly opposed the nuclear deal, including Mehdi Kouchakzadeh, who called Foreign Minister Mohammad Javad Zarif a traitor, and Rouhollah Hosseinian, who threatened to bury the negotiators under cement for agreeing to concessions to world powers.

“This election can be a turning point in the history of the Islamic Republic,” said an editorial in reformist newspaper Mardomsalari, whose managing editor, Mostafa Kavakebian, won a parliamentary seat in Tehran.

“The biggest achievement of this election is the return of reformists to the ruling system … so they won’t be called seditionists or infiltrators anymore,” he said, referring to hardliners who accused reformists of links to the West.

Rouhani and allied centrists and moderates won 15 out of the 16 Tehran seats in the 88-member Assembly of Experts, which is tasked with choosing the country’s next supreme leader, final election results for Tehran showed. Some of the 15 elected in Tehran were in both conservative and reformist electoral lists. [Continue reading…]

Barbara Slavin writes: When given the chance, Iranians have generally voted for reformists or pragmatists, from Mohammad Khatami for President in 1997 and 2001, to Rouhani in 2013. The exception was Mahmoud Ahmadinejad, a populist hardliner who defeated a former President, Hashemi Rafsanjani, in 2005 and won again in 2009 in elections marred by fraud. Reformists swept parliamentary elections in 2000 but were disqualified en masse by the Guardian Council in 2004, 2008, and 2012.

The Guardian Council also ruthlessly pruned the candidate roster this year, removing nearly half of the more than 12,000 people who sought seats in the 290-member parliament, including almost all declared reformists. But a surviving reformist leader, a Stanford University-educated engineer and former Khatami Vice President, Mohammad Reza Aref, cobbled together candidates most supportive of Rouhani and the nuclear deal. Bolstered by a social media campaign that included a video of Khatami urging people to vote, this “List of Hope” swept all thirty seats allotted to the capital, Tehran. Among those defeated was the top hardline candidate, Gholam-Ali Haddad-Adel, a former Speaker of parliament whose daughter is married to Khamenei’s son, Mojtaba.

In polling for the eighty-eight-member Assembly of Experts, Rafsanjani, a former Chairman of the body, led the field for sixteen seats in Tehran. Among those who failed to make the cut was Mohammad Taqi Mesbah-Yazdi, who is known as “Ayatollah Crocodile” for his anti-democratic views, and Mohammad Yazdi, the incumbent chair of the Assembly.

While the final tallies depend on runoff elections in some constituencies, the gains for more pragmatic figures, particularly in parliament, should make it easier for Rouhani to implement economic reforms and to appoint and retain qualified cabinet ministers.

As the scope of the mandate became clear, Rouhani told the official Islamic Republic News Agency on February 27: “It’s time to open a new chapter in Iran’s economic development based on domestic abilities and international opportunities…The people showed their power once again and gave more credibility and strength to their elected government.” [Continue reading…]

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Berlin’s museum tours in Arabic forge a bridge to refugees

Ishtar_Gate_at_Berlin_Museum

The New York Times reports: The Pergamon Museum is home to the famous Ishtar Gate, a monument of blue and white tile decorated with golden lions and daisies that was once the entrance to ancient Babylon. When Kamal Alramadhani, a 25-year-old Iraqi economics student, saw it for the first time this month, “I got goose bumps,” he said, pointing to his arm.

“It’s from Iraq,” he added quietly, through an Arabic translator. “My country.” A native of Mosul, Mr. Alramadhani studied economics at the University of Baghdad and came to Germany in October, part of a wave of asylum seekers that is stirring opposition here but also leading the government to look for ways to help the migrants adjust.

That afternoon, Mr. Alramadhani and about 30 others — some of them teenagers who had walked much of the way from Syria — were visiting the museum for the first time, on a free Arabic-language tour. It is part of a new and growing state-financed program to introduce the refugees to Germany’s cultural heritage — even, of course, when some of that heritage comes from the Middle East.

The visits can be fraught. “Sometimes people say: ‘The Germans have all our heritage! They stole it!’” said Zoya Masoud, 27, who led the Arabic-language tour that afternoon at the Museum of Islamic Art, which is part of the Pergamon Museum and filled with treasures from empires past. Often, the visitors say the art is probably better off in Berlin because so much in Syria has been destroyed by the war and the Islamic State, Ms. Masoud said.

Other times, the tours bring up raw memories for visitors who have arrived in the last three months. At a painted marble wall niche from a house in Damascus that dates to the 15th and 16th century and was inhabited by Samaritans, a Christian minority, “some people want to cry,” Ms. Masoud said. “When they see the colors and the shapes, they get chills.”

Ms. Masoud is not a refugee — she grew up in Damascus, a child of Syrian and Lebanese parents, and moved to Europe to study in 2010, before Syria fell into civil war. She is one of 19 guides — 18 from Syria and one from Iraq — who are part of a program, called Multaka, or “meeting point” in Arabic, which began in December and is aimed at training refugees to become museum guides. [Continue reading…]

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If you hate your own government then the crimes of dictators who it vilifies become easy to excuse

Idrees Ahmad writes: On Sunday, when one of Hollywood’s most politically active and humane figures weighed in to condemn the media for “misleading the public on Syria”, one could only welcome the intervention.

Except, Mark Ruffalo, the Oscar-nominated star of Spotlight, was not indicting the media for failing the people of Syria; he was condemning it for being insufficiently sympathetic to the regime and Russia. He was recommending to his 2.23 million Twitter followers an article by Boston Globe columnist Stephen Kinzer in which he alleges that the “American press is reporting the opposite of what is actually happening”; that it unfairly describes everything Russia and Iran do as “negative and destabilizing”; and it fails to report that in the Assad regime and Russia’s assault on Aleppo, its inhabitants are “finally see[ing] glimmers of hope”. Kinzer’s basis for these claims? A comment “on social media” and the opinion of a “Beirut-based analyst” (in reality a pro-Hizbullah activist who is a contributor to the Russian news outlet RT and the Iranian supreme leader’s personal news site).

To compensate for its fact deficit, Kinzer liberally sprinkles his article with straw men. He claims that journalists are misleading the public by describing Jabhat al-Nusra, as “moderates,” not as “the local al-Qaeda franchise”. As a matter of fact, no one refers to Nusra as “moderates”, and a Nexis search of major newspapers reveals virtually no article that doesn’t refer to it without mentioning its al-Qaeda affiliation.

This article was a sequel to another, published three days after Russia started a series of attacks on MSF-run hospitals, which was boldly titled: “On Syria: Thank you, Russia!” In it Kinzer prescribed that “Russia’s policy should be ours: prevent the fall of Bashar al-Assad’s government, craft a new regime that would include Assad or his supporters, and then work for a cease-fire.” However, to accede to the opposition’s demand for a cease-fire, he insisted, would be to “guarantee continued war”. In a subsequent TV interview, Kinzer lauded the foreign policy wisdom of Donald Trump. (Similar sentiments have also been expressed by his Irish counterpart, Patrick Cockburn of The Independent).

Ruffalo wasn’t the only one promoting this nonsense. Beyond the agoraphobic netherworld of internet conspiracists, it was also warmly received by bestselling authors, Daily Show producers, liberal academics, Pulitzer Prize-winners, and think-tankers.

Why do bien pensant liberals like Ruffalo fall for such dross? Ideological blinkers? Or has dissent become all about aesthetics? It seems at any given moment maintaining an adversarial posture is more important than substantive engagement with an issue. Why bother with details when one can derive them from general principles? And if the reality of an issue contradicts one’s preconceived notions, then reality itself must be brought into question. Shooting the messenger is always a reliable option. But dressed up as criticism of “the mainstream media”, “the establishment”, or “Washington”, even a full-throated defence of fascism acquires the sheen of fearless truth-telling.

There are few things more commonplace than an Oedipal disdain for one’s own government. In this solipsistic worldview, one has no need to understand the dynamics of a foreign crisis; they can be deduced remotely. If you hate your own government then, by virtue of being in its bad books, a Putin or an Assad becomes an ally. [Continue reading…]

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Air strikes hit six towns in Syria’s Aleppo day after truce, monitor

Reuters reports: War planes attacked six towns in Syria’s northern Aleppo province early on Sunday, the Syrian Observatory for Human Rights said, a day after a cessation of hostilities agreement took effect.

Syrian insurgents said the air strikes were carried out by Russian war planes in support of Syria’s government, but the Observatory which monitors the conflict said the identity of the jets was not clear.

“We do not know which planes carried out the strikes and also we are not sure if this is considered a breach to the truce because it is not clear if these towns are included in the truce,” the Observatory’s director Rami Abdulrahman said.

Syria’s state media did not mention the strikes. Russia’s defense ministry declined to comment. [Continue reading…]

Huffington Post asked Joshua Landis: Could this limited ceasefire be a first step towards a future peace deal?

I doubt it. Russia and Syria are committed to reconquering all of Syria. So far Putin doesn’t seem to show any signs of losing interest in Syria or getting stuck in a quagmire.

I think this momentary pause is first and foremost to demonstrate that America is doing something. There’s tremendous pressure on the United States. This is both for humanitarian reasons — as Russia bombs hospitals and a tide of humanity pushes up against the Turkish border — and because [President Barack] Obama needs to do something to smooth the feathers of our traditional allies, like Turkey and Saudi Arabia, who are apoplectic and accuse the U.S. of abandoning them.

I think Obama told the Russians: Give us a ceasefire, even if it’s a limited one for short duration, because I’ve got to take something home. And this is what the Russians have come up with. But obviously Assad is very interested in pressing his advantage right now — he has the rebels on the run. The Syrian regime’s objective is to shut off the rebels’ supply chain to the Turkish border, and the more truces they sign, the longer they have to linger and wait. [Continue reading…]

Track ceasefire violations at Syria Ceasefire Monitor.

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The Arab world and the West: A shared destiny

Jean-Pierre Filiu discusses his book, Les Arabes, leur destin et le nôtre, which aims to shed light on struggles in the Arab World today by exploring the entwined histories of the Arab World and the West, starting with Bonaparte’s expedition to Egypt in 1798, through military expeditions and brutal colonial regimes, broken promises and diplomatic maneuvers, support for dictatorial regimes, and the discovery of oil riches. He also discusses the “Arab Enlightenment” of the 19th Century and the history of democratic struggles and social revolts in the Arab world, often repressed.

Filiu is also the author of From Deep State to Islamic State: The Arab Counter-Revolution and its Jihadi Legacy, “an invaluable contribution to understanding the murky world of the Arab security regimes.”

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Brexit has the potential to destroy the EU

Wolfgang Münchau writes: There is now a real possibility that the EU system for border and immigration controls will break down in about 10 days. On March 7, EU leaders will hold a summit in Brussels with Ahmet Davutoglu, the Turkish prime minister.

The idea is to persuade Ankara to do what Greece failed to do: protect the EU’s south-eastern border and halt the flow of immigrants. There is a lot of behind-the-scenes diplomacy going on between Germany and Turkey. The mood in Berlin, however, is not good.

The action taken by Austria, Hungary and other countries to protect their national borders has shut the western Balkan route along which migrants had made their way to Germany.

Refugees now find themselves trapped in Greece. Some may leave for Italy by boat. When those who survive the journey arrive there, I would expect Slovenia, Switzerland and France to close their borders. At that point, we should no longer assume that the European Council of heads of government is a functioning political body.

A refugee crisis that spins out of control could tilt the vote in the British referendum. There is no way the EU will be able to deal with two simultaneous shocks of such size. Coming at a time like this, Brexit has the potential to destroy the EU.

I do not expect such a doomsday scenario, but it is not implausible either. The EU is about to face one of the most difficult moments in its history. Member states have lost the will to find joint solutions for problems that they could solve at the level of the EU but not on their own. The EU’s population of more than 500m can easily absorb 1m refugees a year. No member state can do this alone, even Germany. [Continue reading…]

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Iran’s pragmatic Rouhani wins strong vote of confidence in elections

Reuters reports: Iranian President Hassan Rouhani won a strong vote of confidence and reformist partners secured surprise gains in parliament in early results from elections that could speed up the Islamic Republic’s emergence from years of isolation.

While gains by moderates and reformists in Friday’s polls were most evident in the capital, where they won all Tehran’s 30 seats according to early results, the sheer scale of the advances there suggests a legislature more friendly to the pragmatist Rouhani has emerged as a distinct possibility.

A loosening of control by the anti-Western hardliners who currently dominate the 290-seat parliament could strengthen his hand to open Iran further to foreign trade and investment following last year’s breakthrough nuclear deal.

A reformist-backed list of candidates aligned with Rouhani was on course to win all 30 parliamentary seats in Tehran, initial results released on Sunday showed. Top conservative candidate Gholamali Haddad Adel was set to lose his seat. [Continue reading…]

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After elections, Iranian women’s demands are forgotten

Massoumeh Torfeh writes: Iran’s parliamentary elections this year included the highest number ever of women candidates from the combined reformist-moderate camp. Supporters of President Hassan Rouhani joined forces with the reformists presenting a combined list of 30 candidates for Tehran, eight – less than one-third – of which are women.

More or less, the same pattern was seen across the country. Photos of women candidates were branded around on campaign posters and the reformist media hailed this as a major success.

Despite persistent attempts by women to find a voice in the politics of the Islamic Republic, their presence has been minimal and, for the most part, cosmetic. It is now almost the norm that at important historical junctures, the male-dominated conservative establishment calls upon women to perform their “Islamic duty” and participate in elections. Once the elections are over, however, women’s demands are forgotten.

The encouragement to participate in this year’s elections came first from the spiritual leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei. [Continue reading…]

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Iran executed all adult men in one village for drug offences, official reveals

The Guardian reports: The entire adult male population of a village in southern Iran has been executed for drug offences, according to Iran’s vice-president for women and family affairs.

The matter came to light earlier this week after Shahindokht Molaverdi revealed it during an interview with the semi-official Mehr news agency in rare comments from a senior government official highlighting the country’s high rate of executions of drug traffickers.

“We have a village in Sistan and Baluchestan province where every single man has been executed,” she said, without naming the place or clarifying whether the executions took place at the same time or over a longer period. “Their children are potential drug traffickers as they would want to seek revenge and provide money for their families. There is no support for these people.” [Continue reading…]

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Moktada al-Sadr reemerges at the center of Iraqi politics

The New York Times reports: Once an open client of Iran, Mr. Sadr has in recent years gone his own way, and is widely seen these days as an Iraq-first advocate of cross-sectarian unity. His militia, reconstituted after the extremists of the Islamic State captured Mosul in the summer of 2014, was renamed the Peace Brigades.

Today, as he seeks to redefine himself once again, Mr. Sadr, now 42, has positioned himself as a backer of Mr. Abadi, who is seen as increasingly weak in the face of the growing influence of Iran. Tehran supports Mr. Abadi’s political rivals, who command militias.

“Abadi, as a person, is kindhearted,” said Saad Thamer, 37, a supporter of Mr. Sadr’s who attended the rally. “But he is very weak.”

The militias have become exceedingly popular among the Shiite public, challenging Mr. Abadi’s authority, because they are seen as the protectors of the Shiite majority against the Sunni extremists of the Islamic State.

It has also been a challenge to Mr. Sadr, who has lost of some of his support at the grass-roots level as young men flock to other militias seen as more powerful. His embrace of the Iraqi state has also sometimes worked against him by contradicting his image as a populist figure.

“From an anti-establishment young leader, he compromised his stance by working more with the Iraqi political establishment, which cost him a loss of some popularity among his followers,” said Maria Fantappie, the Iraq analyst for the International Crisis Group.

Iraq is a place where everyone has his enemies, and Mr. Sadr has his share. One of his chief critics is former Prime Minister Nuri Kamal al-Maliki, who once counted on Mr. Sadr’s support to secure a second term after national elections in 2010. [Continue reading…]

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How the White House disregarded mounting evidence of an imminent Russian intervention in Syria

Reuters reports: Last July, Syrian President Bashar al-Assad seemed to be losing his battle against rebel forces. Speaking to supporters in Damascus, he acknowledged his army’s heavy losses.

Western officials said the Syrian leader’s days were numbered and predicted he would soon be forced to the negotiating table.

It did not turn out that way. Secret preparations were already underway for a major deployment of Russian and Iranian forces in support of Assad.

The military intervention, taking many in the West by surprise, would roll back rebel gains. It would also accelerate two shifts in U.S. diplomacy: Washington would welcome Iran to the negotiating table over Syria, and it would no longer insist that Assad step down immediately.

“That involved swallowing some pride, to be honest, in acknowledging that this process would go nowhere unless you got Russia and Iran at the table,” a U.S. official said.

At the heart of the diplomacy shift – which essentially brought Washington closer to Moscow’s position – was a slow-footed realization of the Russian military build-up in Syria and, ultimately, a refusal to intervene militarily.

Russia, Iran and Syria struck their agreement to deploy military forces in June, several weeks before Assad’s July 26 speech, according to a senior official in the Middle East who was familiar with the details.

And Russian sources say large amounts of equipment, and hundreds of troops, were being dispatched over a series of weeks, making it hard to hide the pending operation.

Yet a senior U.S. administration official said it took until mid-September for Western powers to fully recognise Russia’s intentions. One of the final pieces of the puzzle was when Moscow deployed aircraft flown only by the Russian military, eliminating the possibility they were intended for Assad, the official said. [Continue reading…]

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Clear evidence that hospitals and medical workers are deliberate bombing targets in Syria

msf-hospital

The New York Times reports: The hospital in the northern Syrian town of Maarat al-Noaman was not just grazed, or damaged, by the airstrikes last week. It was destroyed, taking a direct hit that pancaked its three stories into one, entombing and killing 25 people, including nine staff members.

It was struck at around 9:02 a.m., just as day-shift workers and patients were arriving; then again at around 9:05. As rescuers swarmed around, another explosion struck at 9:45, and another at 9:48. That same morning, two airstrikes hit the National Hospital on the other side of town, which was treating nurses injured in the attack on the first facility.

This detailed account, provided by the director of the hospital, which was supported by Doctors Without Borders, is one example of why many Syrian medical workers in insurgent-held areas and human rights groups believe medical facilities are not just being hit by stray bombs or indiscriminate attacks, but have long been deliberately targeted by the Syrian government and its Russian allies. It is a measure of the deep mistrust that gravely challenges prospects for a truce set to begin Saturday.

“I had the feeling they were trying to kill me,” said the director, Dr. Mazen al-Saoud, 55, in a telephone interview from Maarat al-Noaman, his hometown. “Wherever I went, there was bombing.”

According to Doctors Without Borders, there were 94 attacks last year alone on 67 hospitals and clinics the group supports in insurgent-held areas from northern to southern Syria, destroying 12 facilities and killing 23 staff members. In 2016, there have already been 17 attacks on health facilities, including six assisted by the group. [Continue reading…]

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UN agency’s hiring of wife of top regime official draws criticism

The New York Times reports: When the World Health Organization wanted to know how the war in Syria was affecting the mental health of those forced to flee their homes, the agency hired someone known less for her expertise than for her connections: The consultant, Shukria Mekdad, is the wife of Faisal Mekdad, the deputy foreign minister of Syria and a powerful defender of the government’s war effort.

Her appointment has led critics to question the aid agency’s impartiality.

Jennifer Leaning, a professor at the Harvard T. H. Chan School of Public Health, questioned what she called the “optics” of hiring a senior Syrian government official’s wife as a consultant on something as sensitive as mental health. Not least, Ms. Leaning said, it would call into question any data Mrs. Mekdad gathers on the mental health of Syrians displaced by a war her husband has helped prosecute.

“At this point it reflects a degree of tone-deafness that is not appropriate,” Ms. Leaning said. [Continue reading…]

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Syrian rebel factions say they will respect two-week truce

The Guardian reports: The main umbrella organisation for Syrian opposition groups backed by the west and Saudi Arabia has said armed groups fighting President Bashar al-Assad will respect a two-week truce beginning at midnight local time (10pm GMT).

The high negotiations committee (HNC) said nearly 100 rebel factions had agreed to the ceasefire, adding that the Syrian government and its allies must not launch attacks on the pretext of fighting terrorism.

The Russian president, Vladimir Putin, welcomed the announcement, saying that though the planned ceasefire was complex, there was no alternative.

Under the terms of the deal, armed groups had to confirm their commitment to the US or Russia no later than midday Damascus time. It was not immediately clear how many factions had refused to join the ceasefire or their military significance.[Continue reading…]

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Kurdish ‘democratic confederalism’ or counter-revolution in Syria?

Robin Yassin-Kassab writes: The first fact is this: the Kurds have suffered a terrible historical injustice. The Arabs were rightly enraged when Britain and France carved bilad al-Sham (the Levant) into mini-states, then gave one of them to Zionism.

But the post-Ottoman dispensation allowed the Kurds no state at all – and this in an age when the Middle East was ill with nationalist fever. Everywhere the Kurds became minorities in hyper-nationalist states.

Over the years an estimated 40,000 people have been killed in Turkish-Kurdish fighting, most of them Kurds.

In the late 1980s, Saddam Hussein’s genocidal Anfal campaign murdered somewhere between 50,000 and 200,000 Iraqi Kurds.

In Syria, where Kurds formed about 10 percent of the population – or around two million people – it was illegal to teach in the Kurdish language.

Approximately 300,000 Kurds (by 2011) were denied citizenship by the state, and were therefore excluded from education and health care, barred from owning land or setting up businesses.

While oppressing Kurds at home, President Hafez al-Assad (Bashar’s father) cultivated good relations with Kurdish groups abroad. This fitted into his regional strategy of backing spoilers and irritants as pawns against his rivals. [Continue reading…]

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Beyond Yarmouk, Palestinians in Syria need aid

Al Jazeera reports: The United Nations has called for immediate and sustained humanitarian access in the Deraa and Damascus areas of war-torn Syria, where more than 20,000 Palestinian refugees live.

In an interview with Al Jazeera, Chris Gunness, spokesperson for the UN agency for Palestinian refugees (UNRWA), said an estimated 17,500 Palestinians remained “inaccessible” in the Deraa province, along with another 5,000 civilians in Khan Eshieh.

“UNRWA is extremely concerned about the safety and liberty of every Palestine refugee and each of its staff,” Gunness said.

Last week, UNRWA was able to deliver aid to neighbouring areas of Yarmouk, the besieged Damascus-area camp home to both Palestinians and Syrians, for the first time in nine months.

Yet the agency has been unable to gain access to Yarmouk’s interior since late March 2015, days before the Islamic State of Iraq and the Levant (ISIL) invaded and took control of most of the camp.

Elsewhere, UNRWA has been unable to reach camps in the Deraa area, as well as the Khan Eshieh camp in southern Damascus, for more than two years.

Al Jazeera spoke to Gunness about recent developments in Palestinian refugee camps across Syria. [Continue reading…]

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