Regime Change in Iran?

Sunday's New York Times had an article explaining how the United States has now started to increase its funding of Iranian opposition groups abroad and pro-opposition radio broadcasts within Iran. According to the article

the Voice of America increased the time it broadcasts its government-financed satellite programs into Iran, now repeating its one-hour news program four times a day. Voice of America said a recent telephone survey in Iran, where satellite dishes are widespread though banned, showed that 10 percent of respondents said they watched the program.

Broadcasts this month included interviews with a student leader and a well-known poet and political activist who criticized Iranian clerics for barring hundreds of candidates from the presidential election next month.

According to officials in the State Department and administration, they are taking some of their inspiration from the events of the past year in Ukraine where "the United States gave money to opposition and pro-democracy groups, some of which later supported the peaceful overthrow of the governments in power." Even so, officials acknowledge that the conditions and factors in the two cases are very different.

Conventional wisdom states that a majority of the Iranian public (especially the youth) is fed up with their fundamentalist and theocratic government which is perceived as contributing to underdevelopment and a stagnant economy. This attitude is reflected in the election of perceived reformists (and the subsequent disqualification of many of them by the conservative clerics). The important principle for the United States to remember is that regime change is always more powerful and popular when it comes from a grass-roots movement inside the country. As the United States moves to fund dissident groups abroad it should make sure that these groups have a base of support within the country so that they can avoid a repeat of the mistake they made during the Iraq war of trusting Ahmed Chalabi's Iraqi National Congress, a group composed of Iraqi exiles that were not an accurate reflection of Iraq and that had little support within Iraq. Also, The United States should not assume that a reformist government or one supported by the student dissidents will stop the nuclear program. As a second weekend New York Times article points out, even Iranian opponents of the current regime believe that pursuing Nuclear energy (though not necessarily nuclear weapons) is the right of Iran and attempts to stop it are viewed as imperialistic meddling in the affairs of Iran.

The Right Decision

British academics come to their senses on the question of boycotting Israeli universities.

I'm Off

I'll be taking a break from blogging for the next month or so, as I will be traveling in the Middle East. I will try to send some updates along the way. Etan will still be blogging regularly though.

Anything Can Happen

Haaretz has a long profile on the strange case of Meir Amar, the son of the Chief Sephardic Rabbi of Israel, who is currently on trial. Here's a taste:

Honor. It is the key word in the incredible life story of Meir Amar, who is said to have a heart of gold and a hot-blooded temperament. He ran away from his ultra-Orthodox home when he was around bar mitzvah age, and grew up from then on mostly in a Bedouin encampment in the north. In keeping with the extremes that characterize his life, he married a settler from Tekoa and went to live in the settlement, but they divorced after a short time and then Meir went off to the Far East and disappeared ... Eventually he returned to the sources that he knew so well, to the tradition and the codes of behavior that he acquired in the Bedouin encampment where he matured, and set out to defend his sister's purity, to defend the "family honor."

If a story as unlikely as this one can happen, why not peace?

Former PM Ehud Barak on Israel's Future

Former Labor party Prime Minister Ehud Barak sat down with Haaretz newspaper and gave a candid interview in which he spoke about the upcoming disengagement, Sharon's overall strategy, and his predictions for the future of the State of Israel.

While Barak agrees that the upcoming disengagement is "an important step in the right direction" he also believes that "it is a partial and hesitant step" and that "it will not bring deliverance." In his own words, "Disengagement is the first page in a book that will have a great many chapters, some of them very rough."

Barak's also has absolutely no faith in the way that the disengagement is being carried out and concedes that predictions by some right wing MP's and by some in the security establishment that the disengagement may lead to more terror may prove to be true. Barak's point is simple: Sharon has no strategy. The disengagement will not lead to more Israeli overtures or land concessions and the Palestinians will interpret Sharon's unilateral and incomplete moves as a surrender to terror. Violence will resume and

"The violence will not lead the world to be on our side, but the opposite. At a certain stage we'll lose the support of the international community. Initially the United States will support us, but in time its support will also be eroded. Israel will find itself isolated. Internal cracks will appear within Israeli society. And only then, when there will be no choice, Israel will do what it should have done from the beginning.

That action that Barak believes Israel should have done from the beginning is to draw clear and recognized borders for the state of Israel and plan their diplomatic and security arrangements accordingly. It is then that Israel "can be in the forefront of the world's leading countries. If we carry out a full disengagement and arrive at clear borders, there will be a tremendous outburst of all the energy that is stored up here."

The problem is that Sharon knows that the international community, accepting the right of the Palestinians to self-determination, will not share the same vision of Israeli-Palestinian borders that Sharon has in mind. According to Barak, Sharon knows that the borders of Israel will not go east of the current route of the separation fence so he is simply not completing the fence and in the process, putting the lives of Israelis at risk. In his own words,

The truth is that there's no chance that the border of the country will pass east of the fence line. In the best case, we'll be able to hold the fence line. But Sharon is not capable of admitting this. He does not have the courage to go to the settlers in the isolated settlements and tell them the truth. He does not have the courage to admit that it was folly to establish the isolated settlements. And because of that, because he does not dare speak the truth about the isolated settlements, he is also losing the big blocs.

The interpretation is that by not doing what he needs to do now and making the concessions that will lead to clear borders and a Palestinian state, he will cause Israel to be in a weak position that will ultimately result in having to surrender much more down the line. What course of action would Barak take if he were Prime Minister?

"Five things. First, complete the separation fence in an emergency national project lasting a few months. After that, evacuate the isolated settlements to the east of the fence within the framework of a comprehensive evacuation plan to be implemented within two-three years. Concurrently, Israel wages an all-out war against terrorism across the fence, too. In parallel, Israel keeps the door open for the renewal of the political process. Israel proposes to the international community to give itself a mandate over the Palestinian territories to assist the Palestinian Authority in preparing itself for the establishment of a Palestinian state."

A Great Idea

CNN reports that "Calls build for Saddam's trial" from both the new Iraqi government and the Iranians. Even Saddam's lawyer wants to get the trial started.

Saddam's attorney questioned whether U.S. and Iraqi authorities are violating the deposed Iraqi president's legal rights by keeping him jailed without issuing an indictment.

"Why not charge him with murder, rape, genocide, war crimes? Let's have something," Giovanni di Stefano told CNN.

I doubt this is true of many things, but I agree with Saddam's lawyer on this one. Indict him and try him. Let's get on with it. As I've written before, his current status in Iraq is destabilizing and dangerous. Beginning (and ending) his trial will serve to weaken the insurgency and demonstrate the authority of the new government.

Getting this trial started ASAP is a much more pressing issue than who shot a photo of Saddam folding his clothes in his underwear.

Israeli-Kurdish Relations

Ynet, in a report that was cited by al-bawaba and the Arabic language Radio Sawa, claims that Jalal Talabani, the new Kurdish president of Iraq and leader of the PUK (Patriotic Union of Kurdistan), recently met with an "Israeli military figure" who presented him with a letter from Ariel Sharon. The report goes on to state that

"Talabani responded with a letter addressed to Sharon in which he stressed positive developments in Israeli-Iraqi relations are expected within the next three months, including the exchange of diplomatic representatives between the countries, the sources said."

Six weeks ago, Ynet also reported that

"[the Israeli government's number two Shimon] Peres also had a chance meeting with Kudar Talabani, the Iraqi president's son, at the CNN television studio in Washington. Kudar watched Peres's interview and afterward said it was 'excellent.'" The two later shook hands.

This comes on the heels of an interview with a Jordanian journal where Talabani did not rule out talks with Israel. He said that talks, open to all Arab countries, could not be refused to Israel.

He also mentioned how Shimon Peres saluted him for the formation of the new regime during the international socialist congress in Rome. He also denied any Israeli presence on Iraqi soil and having made a previous visit to Israel (as a report by Seymour Hirsch in the New Yorker alleged.)

Israel made a strategic decision as far back as the 1960's to align itself with non-Arab minorities in the Middle East and hence, the long standing friendly relationship with the Kurds. Even today, the state-owned Israeli communications company Bezek transmits broadcasts on behalf of the Kurdish Democratic Party in northern Iraq every evening.

While the heralding of Iraq-Israel relations seems premature at best given the powerful Shiite Islamist force in government, it will be interesting to see how the Turks, another non-Arab Israeli ally who are also hostile to the idea of Kurdish self-determination (and supply Israel with fresh water), view Israel's relationship with the newly-empowered Kurds. Another question worth pondering is whether Turkish pressure on Israel will force a re-alignment of regional relationships as was alleged when Israel was accused of participating in the capture of Abdullah Ocalan, a Kurdish Guerilla leader in Turkey (a charge Ephraim Levy, then head of the Mossad, vehemently denies).

"Insurgents" or "Terrorists"?

Christopher Hitchens had a somewhat different reaction than Etan to James Bennet's NYT article about the Iraqi "insurgency." Hitchens takes issue with the use of the term "insurgent" itself:

At a time when new mass graves are being filled, and old ones are still being dug up, writer James Bennet practically pleaded with the authors of both to come up with an intelligible (or defensible?) reason for his paper to go on calling them "insurgents."

He also slams Bennet's analysis of the situation:

Having once read in high school that violence is produced by underlying social conditions, the author of this appalling article refers in lenient terms to "the goal of ridding Iraq of an American presence, a goal that may find sympathy among Iraqis angry about poor electricity and water service and high unemployment." Bet you hadn't thought of that: The water and power are intermittent, so let's go and blow up the generating stations and the oil pipelines. No job? Shoot up the people waiting to register for employment. To the insult of flattering the psychopaths, Bennet adds his condescension to the suffering of ordinary Iraqis, who are murdered every day while trying to keep essential services running.

Deciphering the Insurgency

In Sunday's New York Times, Middle East correspondent James Bennet speculates on the motivations of the shadowy insurgency that has caused so much death and destruction throughout Iraq.

In an article titled, "The Mystery of the Insurgency", Bennet points out that in contrast to other guerilla insurgencies such as the Vietcong, the Iraqi insurgents have no desire to win over the hearts and minds of ordinary Iraqis. In fact, anyone who has been following the grim statistics understands that the vast majority of casualties of the violence have been Iraqis, and not American military personnel. In addition, insurgent attacks have not been limited to Iraqi security forces, but have also targeted civilians -- Shiites praying at mosques, Kurdish funeral-goers, and shoppers in the marketplaces.

When the Coalition Provisional Authority and later the unelected transitional government of Iyad Allawi were controlling the country, the insurgency had the pretext of expelling the occupiers so that Iraq could be independent and free of American occupying influence. Even Michael Moore, in a statement you can still find on his official website stated

The Iraqis who have risen up against the occupation are not "insurgents" or "terrorists" or "The Enemy." They are the REVOLUTION, the Minutemen, and their numbers will grow -- and they will win.

The story is different now that Iraq has an elected government. Bennet mentions how even the archetype of a guerilla revolutionary, Che Guevara, wrote,

"Where a government has come to power through some form of popular vote, fraudulent or not, and maintains at least an appearance of constitutional legality, the guerrilla outbreak cannot be promoted, since the possibilities of peaceful struggle have not yet been exhausted."

In contrast to the Communist guerillas of the Cold War era who had the support of a portion of leftist intellectuals, the Iraqi insurgency has no political program and no positive universal goal (such as the establishment of a Communist classless utopia). Perhaps the reason for this difference is that the insurgency is made up of a number of different groups who each have divergent goals. There are the remnants of the Baathist security forces and the Iraqi army who (thanks to Paul Bremer) found themselves without jobs and without futures in the new Iraq. This first group is also funded by Syria which, in addition to being ruled by the Baath party, also has a stake in seeing democracy in Iraq fail, lest the Assad regime come under pressure to institute reforms and give their Kurds equality. There is also the Islamic fundamentalists/Al Qaeda supporters who see Iraq as the new battleground in their jihad against America. This second element consists of large numbers of non-Iraqi Arabs coming from countries such as Saudi Arabia and Syria. The vast majority of suicide bombings are carried out by members of this second group.

The United States and the Secretary of Defense are at least partly to blame for the strength of the insurgency. If the decision to disband the Iraqi army and expel anyone with Baath party membership (even those who were forced to join but did not believe in the ideology) had not been implemented, the insurgency would have lost much of its manpower. If the United States had devoted more manpower and troops to sealing the borders and stopping the looting (especially of weapons) in the immediate post-invasion period, it could have prevented the atmosphere of lawlessness that has contributed to the power of the insurgency. Finally, if Americans had not let every museum in Iraq be looted while guarding the oil ministry with the utmost care, it might have convinced Iraqis who would otherwise be wary of the insurgency to give the coalition and interim government a chance. Nevertheless, as even prominent opponents of the Bush administration such as Hilary Clinton and Chuck Schumer state, it is in the best interests of the world to achieve stability in Iraq and that means doing everything possible to ensure the success and survival or the newly elected Iraqi government.

Forgotten Victims in the Middle East?

KEGALLA, Sri Lanka - The teacher held up an electric cake mixer and told the class of wide-eyed women before her to clean it properly. If it smells, "Mama," as the aspiring maids were instructed to call their female employers, "will be angry and she will hammer and beat you."

This is the introduction to Sunday's article in the New York Times which dealt with the often heartbreaking plight of foreign maids in wealthy Gulf oil countries such as Saudi Arabia. Before the discovery of oil, men in Gulf countries lacking an economic infrastructure such as Saudi Arabia used to venture abroad to places like Egypt, Syria, and Iraq in order to send some capital back to their families.

This situation ended up being reversed with the discovery of oil. With a very small indigenous population and a very large and profitable oil industry, the vast majority of the labor force was now imported. These imported workers included not only American employees of oil companies to keep the oil industry running but also poor South-Asian men and women to serve as drivers and maids for the now opulently wealthy Gulf families.

The problem with this sudden and shocking rise to wealth among a previously tribal and nomadic population was that interests and values that would normally arise in an industrial society, such as civil institutions and laws dealing with worker's rights, were absent. The main ideological driving force for Saudi Arabia was Wahabiism, named after its proponent Muhammad ibn ‘Abd al-Wahhab. The movement, called Wahabiism, is structured around recreating in exact detail the life of the Prophet Muhammad. Wahabiists rejected innovations that grew after the seventh century as Islam was absorbing the cultures of its conquests.

The foreseeable consequence of the combination of such factors was that women from such countries as Sri Lanka were beaten and abused by their employers, with nowhere to turn for re-dress because after all, due legal process did not exist and the only courts that existed were Sharia courts of Islamic law with strictly male judges. As the article points out:

Hundreds of housemaids have become pregnant, often after rapes, producing children who, until Sri Lanka's Constitution was recently amended, were stateless because their fathers were foreigners. More than 100 women come home dead each year, with most deaths labeled "natural" by the host governments, although Sri Lankan officials concede they are powerless to investigate.

Thangarasa Jeyanthi, 20 and emaciated, had arrived at the shelter from Lebanon one morning. She had a face as purple and puffy as a plum, eyes swollen shut, burn marks on her body and dried blood still around her ears.

The husband and wife she worked for had assaulted her daily, she said, speaking in the high, anguished voice of a little girl who cannot understand what she has done wrong. They had cut her with a knife, kicked and stomped on her, tied her hands with rope and denied her food.

With this situation continuing to be a problem, it may come as a surprise to some that Saudi Arabia's religious police spend their time worrying about things such as banning red roses during valentine's day.

The fact that the United States sends billions of dollars in the form of oil payment to a country with institutions that allow for such a grotesque violation of human-rights may seem unconscionable to some. Until as much money and effort has been spent to curb our oil consumption (and hence cease to fund and turn a blind eye to situations such as the abuse in Saudi Arabia) as the money spent (and lives lost) in the Iraq war, we cannot seriously talk of "spreading freedom" and keep a straight face.

Out of Control Iraq

The enemies of the new Shiite- and Kurdish-dominated Iraqi government are taking advantage of its weakness -- reflected in its failure to finalize a cabinet list and its dearth of Sunni Arab representation -- in order to launch a major terrorist offensive that has killed almost 200 people since the government was announced last week, with 21 killed today:

"The scene was like a slaughterhouse with body parts everywhere, heads, hands, eyes," [17 year-old Abdul-Razaq] Sarmab said. "It was terrible. Those who are doing this are animals because it is all against Islam."

If this new government is going to survive, it needs to assert its strength and authority as soon as possible. The first step must be finalizing the composition of the government itself by reaching a compromise with the Sunni Arabs over suitable Sunni candidates for the remaining cabinet posts. Once these posts are filled, the government leaders from all ethnic and religious groups must stand together and call on all Iraqis to support the government and denounce terrorism.

Next, the new government should emphasize its power by beginning the trials of Saddam Hussein and his cronies immediately. The continuing presence of the former Ba'ath party leadership is a destabilizing factor that gives hope to those who wish to restore Ba'ath party rule. Trying Saddam would deflect attention away from the anti-government attacks and signal that the new government has superseded his power. Convicting and executing him will close his chapter in Iraqi history, eliminating any chance that he will one day return to rule Iraq and demoralizing the Ba'athist contingent in the insurgency.

In the face of a strong, inclusive, and assertive government, a terrorist insurgency that slaughters innocent people cannot last. With the people and the government united against it, it will gradually be destroyed. However, if the government remains weak or sectarian, the bloodshed may continue indefinitely.

Another al-Qaida Terrorist Caught

President Bush is hailing the capture of Abu Faraj al-Libbi as a "critical victory in the war on terror." Libbi, who is suspected of orchestrating two failed attempts on the life of Pakistani leader Pervez Musharraf, is described as al-Qaida's number three figure and the leader of the terror network's operations in Pakistan. However, unlike Osama bin Laden and Ayman al-Zawahiri, numbers one and two in al-Qaida, Libbi is probably not an irreplaceable fixture in the terrorist hierarchy; indeed, he apparently seems to have taken over for the old number three, Khalid Sheikh Mohammed, who was previously captured in Pakistan. And since Libbi is largely unknown, the symbolic importance of his capture seems minimal outside of Pakistan, where Musharraf will surely be strengthened after catching his would-be killer. Let's hope Mr. Libbi has lots of interesting information to share about his bosses and their plans.

Strengthening Palestinian Moderates

Ray Hanania has a very insightful and open commentary in Arab News on the challenges facing the Palestinians:

Palestinians suffer under two occupations, the occupation by Israel and the occupation of Palestinian extremists who believe that continued suffering is a better alternative to compromise.

...

But the greater threat to peace is the challenge facing Palestinian moderates from within their own confused and battered community. Palestinians are too defensive and consumed with their suffering and anger. The hatred sometimes produced prevents them from seeing past these emotions. Yet they must see beyond.

Hanania also takes pro-peace Israelis and Jews to task for failing to support moderate Palestinians: "Rather than receiving full support from moderate Israelis and Jews, they [Palestinian moderates] are being challenged, not on issues of larger substance but on smaller issues of vanity." Presumably, he is referring to Israeli complaints about the performance of Mahmoud Abbas, although Abbas curiously remains unnamed in the article.

It's important to realize the true difficulty in determining who is really a moderate in this context, though. In the 1990s, Arafat was accepted by Israel as a peacemaker, even though he never took off his military uniform. After the intifada, in which Arafat and his allies returned to sponsoring terrorism, many Israelis came to doubt the existence of true Palestinian moderates--hence their apprehension about Abbas. Meanwhile, many Arabs still view Sharon as an intolerable extremist based on his past, even though he has been unequivocal about his support for the creation of a Palestinian state and is the only Israeli leader since 1967 to begin a plan of concrete action to evacuate settlements.

The article makes an excellent point about those with vested interests in continuing the conflict indefinitely:

The extremists are exploiting Palestinian suffering. They need that suffering to continue, just as all extremists need the conflict to rage on endlessly.

These rejectionists have a direct stake in the conflict. If it ends, they end, too. They have created an industry of exploitation that thrives on the suffering. They have jobs, salaries, lives and a soapbox from which they can continue to preach uncompromising hatred to their choir of disillusioned, disheartened and lost.

Hanania is right, and there is no easy way to end this situation.

Gaza settlers to move to Nitzanim

The Israeli government has granted the Gaza settlers' request to wholly relocate their communities to Nitzanim, between Ashdod and Ashkelon, according to the latest report. This compromise is supposed to ensure that the Gaza evacuation will be quiet and peaceful, but given the fierce nature of the opposition to the withdrawal plan among the more ideological settlers (including those in the West Bank who are not being evacuated), it seems unlikely that this plan will lead to a completely quiet disengagement. Nevertheless, accepting the "Nitzanim plan" was a shrewd political move because it will satisfy the pragmatic settlers and further isolate the ideological extremists.