Iran’s pivotal elections could be decided next week — two months before anyone votes

Bobby Ghosh writes: With barely more than two months to go before what may be the Islamic Republic’s most important elections in a generation, there are no visible signs of campaigning in the streets of Tehran. One reason: the Iranian political cycle is, perhaps mercifully, much shorter than the American one. But another reason emerges in my conversations with politicians, clerics, and businessmen. There’s no electioneering, at least not the kind you see in most democracies, because nobody can be entirely certain who is running.

Registration of candidates opens tomorrow, Dec 17. But the fate of many aspirants will be decided within a week — long before the voting begins — by a small group of clerics and jurists, known as the Guardian Council, who are constitutionally tasked to ensure that the Islamic Republic remains true to its religious ideals.

Under the Iranian system, candidates for any election must first be vetted by this 12-member body, which has, since the founding of the Islamic Republic, been controlled by the country’s Supreme Leader—first ayatollah Ruhollah Khomeini, and now ayatollah Ali Khamenei. The Guardians also have veto power over any legislation enacted by parliament, and most of the decisions of the country’s president.

This makes the Council a powerful instrument by which the Supreme Leader can head off political and social reforms at the pass, by preventing reformists from standing for elections, or perform an end-run around any attempted reforms by the legislative or executive branches.

Iran’s February elections are for two powerful institutions: the 290-member Majlis, or parliament, and the highly influential, 86-member Assembly of Experts. The latter is especially important this time around because its mandate is to select, supervise, and, at least in theory, remove the Supreme Leader. It has an eight-year term, twice the duration of parliament, so this particular Assembly will likely play the pivotal role of deciding who gets to succeed Khamenei. [Continue reading…]

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Russia’s goals in Syria

Joseph Bahout writes: it would be premature to assume that there is a grand design behind Russia’s Syrian intervention. It is more realistic to envision what Putin has in mind as a series of incremental endgames, a succession of contingency plans, and a cascade of defense lines, in a Russian nesting doll fashion, that are adaptable and playable as events unfold on the ground and on the diplomatic battlefield.

The first and most highly valued of these objectives would be the restoration, to the greatest extent possible, of the central Syrian state such as it existed before 2011. Putin bets on a revamping of the Syrian army, which relies on cadres trained (and sometimes married) in Russia or the ex-Soviet bloc. This objective does not exclude a whitewashing of the regime’s façade through early elections, the formation of a “national unity government,” and cosmetic revisions of the president’s prerogatives. That is probably what Putin discussed with Assad during his recent and very odd visit to the Kremlin.

If this proves impossible or too costly, a second option is to fall back to the defensible parts of useful Syria after guaranteeing the safety of the Alawi canton. This is perhaps already a consideration, as the majority of Russian airstrikes concentrate on the contours of this area. From there on, Putin, like in Ukraine and Crimea, could freeze the conflict and embark on a long war of attrition. The rest of Syria would fragment and fall into chaos. The central desert would be left for the West and the Gulf States to sort out, fought over by various rebel groups and the Islamic State, which would prosper in such a scenario. Russia’s expectation is that its rivals would ultimately be exhausted and come back to Putin begging for a solution—the one that he always had in mind.

The last contingency scenario is to seek to make the second option quasi-permanent. Useful Syria would be solidified as an enclave into which minorities would progressively flow, seeking protection or shelter from the chaotic rest of the country. This would become the launching pad of a negotiated long-term solution that would consolidate the partition of Syria, granting Moscow influence over a statelet on the coast, where its military bases lie. While the economic viability of such a region would be uncertain, it could potentially be ensured by the exploration and exploitation of undersea gas fields. [Continue reading…]

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Video: Debating Syria’s future

Panel discussion held on November 23, 2015 in Denver at the Annual Meeting of the Middle East Studies Association (MESA), featuring (in order): Sarah Leah Whitson of Human Rights Watch, James Gelvin of UCLA, Joshua Landis of the University of Oklahoma, and Najib Ghadbian of the National Coalition of Syrian Revolution and Opposition Forces, moderated by Danny Postel of the University of Denver.

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The world needs drastic action to meet Paris climate goals

Wired reports: Last week’s UN climate meeting took place inside six massive, climate-controlled warehouses, on the grounds of France’s oldest commercial airport. That airport is in the suburb of Le Bourget, which itself is part of the Paris metropolitan region—home to some 12 million people and their homes, workplaces, commutes, appetites, and pastimes. With the exception of a small but growing slice powered by renewables, the majority of everything that everybody does in Paris and beyond is powered by fossil fuels.

That’s the electricity powering your computer, Xbox, microwave, refrigerator, and heater. Gas goes in your car, into the trucks that deliver your year-round vegetables, into the ship that brought your hoverboard over from China. Coal provides the heat to make the steel in every building, every train track. It’s essential for concrete, too.

The goal of the Paris climate deal is to keep average global temperature increase well below 2 degrees Celsius, and as close to 1.5 degrees Celsius as possible. Let’s assume the best case scenario, compliance-wise. Every nation outdoes their pre-submitted plans (which currently add up to 2.7 degrees above global average by the end of the century). Every five years every nation ratchets up their commitments, and carbon pricing sends a planet-wide price signal to the economy that it is cheaper to do business with renewables. What does all that look like? What exactly needs to happen in order to meet that ambitious goal? [Continue reading…]

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How noise pollution is changing animal behaviour

By Graeme Shannon, Bangor University

Noise pollution, generally an unintended byproduct of urbanisation, transport and industry, is a key characteristic of human development and population growth. In some cases, it is produced intentionally, for example when seismic surveys are being carried out using powerful airgun arrays to explore and map the seafloor, or active sonar, which uses sound waves to detect objects in the ocean.

All of this noise – whether intentional or not – has the ability to alter the acoustic environment of aquatic and terrestrial habitats. This can have a dramatic effect on the animals that live in them, perhaps even driving evolutionary change as species adapt to or avoid noisy environments.

Rising noise levels

The dramatic and comparatively recent rise in noise levels is marked in both magnitude and extent, with an estimated 30% of the European population exposed to road traffic noise levels greater than 55dB (decibels) at night, well above the 40dB target recommended by the World Health Organisation. Even remote natural areas do not escape the reach of anthropogenic, or manmade, noise. One study across 22 US national parks demonstrated that this kind of noise was, on average, audible more than 28% of the time.

Noise is not just irritating; we have known for some time that it can have direct human health impacts. Indeed, chronic exposure to noise levels above 55dB dramatically increases the risks of heart disease and stroke, while aircraft noise has been shown to impact the development of reading skills in children attending schools close to busy airports. The WHO estimates that in Europe at least a million healthy life years are lost every year due to traffic noise.

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6,000 years ago humans upturned 300 million years of evolution

Smithsonian.com reports: It’s hard to imagine a global force strong enough to change natural patterns that have persisted on Earth for more than 300 million years, but a new study shows that human beings have been doing exactly that for about 6,000 years.

The increase in human activity, perhaps tied to population growth and the spread of agriculture, seems to have upended the way plants and animals distribute themselves across the land, so that species today are far more segregated than they’ve been at any other time.

That’s the conclusion of a study appearing this week in the journal Nature, and the ramifications could be huge, heralding a new stage in global evolution as dramatic as the shift from single-celled microbes to complex organisms.

A team of researchers led by S. Kathleen Lyons, a paleobiologist at the Evolution of Terrestrial Ecosystems (ETE) program in the Smithsonian’s National Museum of Natural History, examined the distribution of plants and animals across landscapes in the present and back through the fossil record in search of patterns.

Mostly they found randomness, but throughout time, there was always a small subset of plants and animals that showed up in relationship to one another more often than can be attributed to chance. That relationship either meant that pairs of species occur together, so when you find one, you usually find the other. Or it meant the opposite: when you find one, the other is usually not present, in which case they’re considered segregated. [Continue reading…]

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Mass deaths and torture in Syria’s detention facilities

Human Rights Watch reports: Nine months of research reveals some of the human stories behind the more than 28,000 photos of deaths in government custody that were smuggled out of Syria and first came to public attention in January 2014.

The 86-page report, “If the Dead Could Speak: Mass Deaths and Torture in Syria’s Detention Facilities,” lays out new evidence regarding the authenticity of what are known as the Caesar photographs, identifies a number of the victims, and highlights some of the key causes of death. Human Rights Watch located and interviewed 33 relatives and friends of 27 victims whose cases researchers verified; 37 former detainees who saw people die in detention; and four defectors who worked in Syrian government detention centers or the military hospitals where most of the photographs were taken. Using satellite imagery and geolocation techniques, Human Rights Watch confirmed that some of the photographs of the dead were taken in the courtyard of the 601 Military Hospital in Mezze.

“Just about every detainee in these photographs was someone’s beloved child, husband, father, or friend, and his friends and family spent months or years searching for him,” said Nadim Houry, deputy Middle East director at Human Rights Watch. “We have meticulously verified dozens of stories, and we are confident the Caesar photographs present authentic – and damning – evidence of crimes against humanity in Syria.”

Countries meeting about possible peace negotiations in Syria – including Russia, as the Syrian government’s biggest backer – should make the fate of the thousands of detained people in Syria a priority, Human Rights Watch said. Concerned countries should insist that the Syrian government give international monitors immediate access to all detention centers and that Syria’s intelligence services must stop forcibly disappearing and torturing detainees. [Continue reading…]

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Life in Raqqa: Bombed by the government during the day, then bombed by the coalition at night

A paediatric doctor describes his flight from the ISIS stronghold of Raqqa: One day ISIS came to me and put pressure on me to join the hospital that they controlled in the city. Most doctors had left Syria and they needed me. But I refused. As a result, I received threats. There was nowhere to hide from them – not in the small villages around Raqqa, nor in the city itself. I began to realise that my only way out was to leave Syria. I thought, ‘I’d prefer to go on one of the death boats than risk staying here’.

Life in Raqqa was terrifying. During the day we lived with the government’s airstrikes; at night there were coalition airstrikes. The sound of the jets was so loud it was like an earthquake. A close friend was killed by a government airstrike.

I realised that life had stopped for me, and the one thing I had to do was save my family. I worried that in Syria my children wouldn’t have a life or even get an education. I wanted to protect my life to save my children’s lives.

I started to plan my departure. I planned to travel to Turkey then take the boat to Europe, heading for Holland. My wife was in the final month of her pregnancy with our third child. She was so exhausted by the pregnancy that it was difficult for her to travel. So the idea was that I would go with a friend, and once I had immigration papers, my family would follow me.

I decided to sleep that last night with my children. Although they didn’t know I was leaving, they felt it somehow. I wish I could have brought them with me.

Leaving Raqqa was not easy, with fighting going on between ISIS, Kurdish fighters, Al Nusra and the FSA. I had to pass through three checkpoints between Raqqa and Efreen – it was like passing through three separate countries.

When I reached Turkey, I heard that the government was arresting people going to Izmir [a city on the coast]. Deep inside me, there was a voice hoping that this trip would fail and I’d have to return to Syria. [Continue reading…]

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Assad, thanks to Russia and Iran, is too strong for a political settlement to be made right now in Syria

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Aron Lund writes: Wrapped up on time, on December 10, the event [the Syrian opposition conference held in Riyadh] was met with widespread and unsurprising acclaim from the organizing governments and other nations sympathetic to the Syrian opposition. “We welcome the positive outcome of the gathering of the Syrian opposition in Riyadh,” wrote the U.S. State Department in a congratulatory message, hailing the “broad and representative group of 116 participants.”

At the meeting, a final statement was adopted that laid out the principles for the upcoming negotiations with the government of Syrian President Bashar al-Assad. Among them, according to a widely circulated draft, was “faith in the civilian nature of the Syrian state and its sovereignty over all of Syria’s territory, on the basis of administrative decentralization.” The document also expressed a commitment to “a democratic mechanism through a pluralistic system that represents all segments of the Syrian people, men and women, without discrimination or exclusion on a religious, sectarian, or ethnic basis,” organized by way of “free and fair elections.” The delegates promised to “work to preserve the institutions of the Syrian state, although it will be necessary to reorganize the structure and formation of its military and security institutions.” There would be a state monopoly on armed force. They condemned terrorism and stressed their refusal of “the presence of any foreign fighters.”

Regarding the upcoming talks, the delegates expressed their readiness to engage in a UN-supervised political process such as that described in the November 14 Vienna communiqué, which calls for Syrian-Syrian negotiations by January 2016 and a ceasefire by June of the same year. However, they asked the international community to “force the Syrian regime to perform measures ascertaining its good faith before the start of the negotiating process,” such as an end to death sentences and starvation tactics and a release of prisoners. The start of a ceasefire was linked to the creation of a transitional government, as sketched out in the Geneva Communiqué of 2012. Regarding the most crucial question of all, the conference stated that “Bashar al-Assad and his clique” have to leave power at the start of the transition — not at the end of it.

Last but not least, the delegates also agreed to create a High Negotiations Committee, tasked with electing and overseeing a team of 15 negotiators who will face the government delegation and decide the future of the country. And that, of course, was where it got tricky. [Continue reading…]

Kyle Orton writes: The opposition now has some diplomatic clout because it has a reasonably credible return address, but “as soon as negotiations in Vienna begin they will falter over the central issue: Iran and Russia will insist that Assad stays,” says Thomas Pierret, a lecturer on contemporary Islam at Edinburgh University and author of Religion and State in Syria: The Sunni Ulama from Coup to Revolution. “The United States is unable to change the Iranian and Russian demands,” Pierret adds, “so will face the choice of either accepting the failure of the negotiating process they’ve invested in, or pressuring the opposition — whom the U.S. can effect—into a ‘creative solution,’ which is to say allowing Assad to stay.”

The removal of Assad and his instruments of repression is key to ending the civil war and defeating ISIS, but unless Assad is military checkmated he and his Iranian and Russian supporters will have no reason to negotiate his departure. At the present time Assad is simply too secure and there is little sign of a Western appetite to make him less so. This means the Vienna process offers many more potential costs than benefits for the opposition. [Continue reading…]

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Kerry in Moscow says Syrian opposition should not push for Assad’s immediate departure

The New York Times reports: The United States, Russia, the European Union and Middle Eastern countries had agreed in Vienna last month on a timeline of two years to hold new elections in Syria but left the question of Mr. Assad’s fate unsettled.

Last week, a wide range of Syrian opposition figures formed a new body to oversee peace negotiations and insisted that Mr. Assad step down.

Mr. Kerry appeared, more carefully than on previous occasions, to couch America’s insistence that Mr. Assad leave office as a recondition of any settlement.

The United States, he said, was not seeking Mr. Assad’s ouster per se, but rather considers it unlikely that he could preside over a successful settlement.

“The United States and our partners are not seeking regime change in Syria,” Mr. Kerry said. Syrian opposition groups arriving for talks Friday in New York should not demand as a condition of sitting down that Mr. Assad depart immediately, Mr. Kerry said, a position Russia calls a nonstarter for negotiations.

“We see Syria fundamentally very similarly,” Mr. Kerry said. “We want the same outcomes, we see the same dangers, we understand the same challenges.” He added that the countries are “honest with differences.” [Continue reading…]

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Pakistan learns from news reports that it’s now part of new Saudi ‘coalition’ against ‘terrorism’

The Express Tribune reports: Saudi Arabia’s inclusion of Pakistan in a 34-nation military alliance against terrorism sparked much confusion on Tuesday after officials in Islamabad said they were unaware of any such development.

In a rare news conference in Riyadh, Saudi Crown Prince and Defence Minister Mohammed bin Salman announced the formation of new military alliance of Islamic countries, including Pakistan. He said the alliance will coordinate efforts against terrorism in Iraq, Syria, Libya, Egypt and Afghanistan, but offered few concrete indications of how the military efforts might proceed.

The announcement cited “a duty to protect the Islamic nation from the evils of all terrorist groups and organisations whatever their sect and name which wreak death and corruption on earth and aim to terrorise the innocent.”

Asked if the new alliance would focus just on the Islamic State, the Saudi minister said it will confront “any terrorist organisation that appears in front of us.”

The Saudi state new agency, SPA, mentioned Egypt, Qatar, the United Arab Emirates, Turkey, Malaysia and Pakistan among the 34 Islamic countries which are part of the military alliance – Iran, Syria and Iraq are not part of it. It added the coalition will have a joint operations centre in Riyadh to coordinate and support military operations.

When contacted, a senior official of Pakistan’s Foreign Office said they were gathering details about the newly formed alliance. “We came to know about it (the alliance) through news reports. We have asked our ambassador in Saudi Arabia to get details on it,” he said, suggesting that Pakistan has been caught off guard by the Saudi announcement. [Continue reading…]

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Libya’s rival governments reject delayed UN-brokered national unity deal

The Guardian reports: Libya’s future is on hold ahead of a national unity agreement brokered by the United Nations but rejected by the rival governments that have presided over months of chaos in a country witnessing the growing strength of Islamic State.

The UN said that the signing had been delayed for logistical reasons but would go ahead in Morocco on Thursday. Libya-watchers expressed doubts that it would happen, but warned that if it did it could mean the country had three governments instead of two.

Britain hopes that a unity government, to be run by a nine-strong presidency, will invite western powers to mount air strikes against Isis positions, allowing David Cameron to avoid another Commons vote before dispatching RAF jets. Agreement, hammered out in Rome last weekend, was hailed as “historic” by the US and Italy.

The long-awaited deal was supposed to have been signed on Wednesday after months of wrangling and opposition from hardliners in the opposing administrations that have claimed power since the overthrow of Muammar Gaddafi by Nato-backed rebels in 2011. [Continue reading…]

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Turkey will set up a military base in Qatar to face ‘common enemies’

Reuters reports: Turkey will establish a military base in Qatar as part of a defence agreement aimed at helping them confront “common enemies,” Turkey’s ambassador to Qatar said on Wednesday.

Establishment of the base, part of an agreement signed in 2014 and ratified by Turkey’s parliament in June, intensifies the partnership with Qatar at a time of rising instability and a perceived waning of U.S. interest in the region.

The two countries, both economic heavyweights, have provided support for the Muslim Brotherhood in Egypt, backed rebels fighting to overthrow Syrian President Bashar al-Assad and raised the alarm about creeping Iranian influence in the region. [Continue reading…]

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How does it feel to be told you are welcome in your own country?

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Ever since I became a U.S. citizen, I’ve got a kick out of the fact that when re-entering this country (after visits to the UK), after presenting my passport, the immigration official commonly returns it to me, saying: “welcome back.”

Maybe this happens more often for travelers coming through laid-back Atlanta than somewhere like New York City, but it’s an endearing friendly touch where one otherwise confronts the cold face of bureaucracy and security.

Across the globe, crossing a border tends to be a dehumanizing experience when who we are is so sharply defined by a piece of paper.

As a dual national and British citizen, it’s frankly unimaginable that a representative of the government there would offer any kind of greeting.

Once back in the U.S., however, I would find it a bit disturbing if a fellow citizen wanted to reassure me that I’m welcome here, since, supposedly, we both share equal rights and an equal claim to American identity.

Even so, since I wasn’t born here and since I “have an accent” (to which I like to respond: who doesn’t?), it’s not difficult for me to understand why I might be viewed by some Americans as an outsider. Indeed, the term “naturalization” has always struck me as being an oxymoron. An innate attribute is either there or it isn’t — I don’t see how it can be inserted.

For that reason, I’m inclined to defer moderately to those Americans who feel like an American who was born in this country is in some sense more American than those of us who were born elsewhere.

That shouldn’t imply any discrimination in terms of status or rights — it’s simply an observation about depth of enculturation.

Which brings me to Muslim Americans, a large proportion of whom were indeed born in this country and have never lived anywhere else.

When someone such as Mark Zuckerberg reaches out to Muslims and says, “I want you to know that you are always welcome here,” I realize this kind of message is well-intended, but it isn’t deeply inclusive.

One American should never be so presumptuous as to tell another American that they are welcome here.

What is called for at this time is something much more radical. What is being contested is the meaning of solidarity.

Some Americans are saying that we now need to stand together to protect ourselves from foreign threats. This kind of unity divides humanity into two camps: Americans and non-Americans. And this division undercuts the very notion of humanity.

It becomes clear then, that the actual rift here is between those for whom their experience of being American is subordinate to their experience of being human, and those for whom their identity as Americans, trumps all others.

Is someone who gives such preeminence to national identity, really capable of any genuine expression of solidarity?

If you’re ability to empathize with another person depended on first knowing what kind of citizenship they held or which religion they practiced, how could such empathy be heartfelt?

I have to wonder whether those Americans who are afraid of Muslims are not also, to a lesser degree, afraid of each other?

Empathy is the core human recognition. It is the knowledge that your experience of pain is the same as mine; that love, joy, grief, and anger are universal emotions.

Where this knowledge is lacking, or where it gets buried beneath a rigid national identity, xenophobia and Islamophia are merely symptomatic of a degradation of an underlying sense of humanity.

Americans who do not see themselves as indivisibly part of humanity, should be less concerned about how they protect America than what they think it means to be human.

And since so many American-firsters describe themselves as Christians, they might begin a process of self-inquiry by reminding themselves that according to their own belief system, they are the descendants of a human lineage that traces back to a single source preceding all national identities.

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Iran’s October missile test violated UN ban

Reuters reports: Iran violated a U.N. Security Council resolution in October by test-firing a missile capable of delivering a nuclear warhead, a team of sanctions monitors said, leading to calls in the U.S. Congress on Tuesday for more sanctions on Tehran.

The White House said it would not rule out additional steps against Iran over the test of the medium-range Emad rocket.

The Security Council’s Panel of Experts on Iran said in a confidential report, first reported by Reuters, that the launch showed the rocket met its requirements for considering that a missile could deliver a nuclear weapon.

“On the basis of its analysis and findings the Panel concludes that Emad launch is a violation by Iran of paragraph 9 of Security Council resolution 1929,” the panel said.

Diplomats said the rocket test on Oct. 10 was not technically a violation of the July nuclear deal between Iran and six world powers, but the U.N. report could put U.S. President Barack Obama’s administration in an awkward position. [Continue reading…]

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CNN debate ignores climate change, does not ask GOP candidates about historic Paris agreement

Media Matters reports: Three days before CNN hosted the fifth Republican presidential debate, leaders from every country in the world struck a historic climate change agreement in Paris to reduce fossil fuel emissions and face up to one of the greatest threats facing our country and our planet. The Paris agreement was a front page story in newspapers throughout the U.S. and around the globe. So considering that the Pentagon says climate change “could impact national security” and experts have identified a relationship between global warming and the rise of ISIS, the issue clearly belonged in the December 15 CNN debate, which co-moderator Wolf Blitzer described as a “discussion about the security of this nation.”

CNN’s own Michael Smerconish pointed to the significance of the Paris climate agreement in the cable outlet’s debate preview coverage the night beforehand, yet CNN failed to ask a single question about the agreement or climate change more broadly during the debate itself. While GOP candidates may have their own political reasons for avoiding the issue — and a couple of them dismissively brought climate change up on their own — CNN is a news organization with a responsibility to press the candidates for our nation’s highest office on the most important issues facing the country and the world, particularly when there are major new developments to address. [Continue reading…]

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