mideastislam

From Martyr's Square to Yamama College

2006-12-05T08:14:00.000-08:00

First, the easy story - extremists attacking a play (the actors in the play) at Yamama College.

Part One:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=q8N9fXNhn58

Part Two:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0-UW0UkTNYE&mode=related&search=

This time, I found the Arab Times coverage a little more bland than this footage indicates.

2. What about Lebanon? For the absurd aspects of the story, check As`ad's blog, or just listen to CNN. "Violence feared" - why? Because Hizbullah continues its PEACEFUL protest; although a young Shi`i protester has already been killed.
It's Hizbullah and "its Syrian allies" - well exactly how is Aoun a Syrian ally?
CNN: "Hizbullah threatens to bring down the government." Again, not exactly, Nasrallah and many others are calling for a National Unity government (there is one in Iraq, remember? - not exactly solving the current problems, however)

For outsiders - Lebanon does not have a democracy. It does have a peculiar arrangement of
shared rule by sect. It has not had a census since 1932; consquently, proportional representation is a little off. That is one source of Hizbullah's (and its allies) demand to add
four more ministers to the Cabinet in a National Unity Government.

Personal take: I wish that Nasrallah would acquiese on the point of a tribunal to investigate Hariri's assassination. After all, justice is a key aim of Islam. That might actually forward national unity.

The Angry Arab News Service/وكالة أنباء العربي الغاضب

2006-10-29T10:52:00.000-08:00

The numbers of foreign fighters in Iraq - that number has
been under constant manipulation (and fluctuation). Why
should we believe that phantom foreign fighters are making
it back to Afghanistan, where it seems the Taliban are
energized force?

Sherifa - imeids (http://mideastislam.blogspot.com)

The Angry Arab News Service/وكالة أنباء العربي الغاضب

mideastislam

2006-10-29T10:47:00.000-08:00

Please visit our new website!

http://mideastislam.com

mideastislam

Shu sar (what's happening?)

2006-10-19T07:27:00.000-07:00

News you may not receive in your "official" updates:

– On Israeli cluster bombs littering Lebanon

http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/middle_east/6065574.stm

On the strategy of “starving out” Hamas

http://weekly.ahram.org.eg/2006/816/re51.htm

On American Middle East policy:

http://www.monde-diplomatique.fr/2004/04/ACHCAR/11101

On hints of freedom on Saudi TV

http://www.arabnews.com/?page=7&section=0&article=88465&d=19&m=10&y=2006

Article about Nasrallah and Hizbullah's Future

2006-10-10T13:04:00.000-07:00

http://jamestown.org/terrorism/news/article.php?articleid=2370155

gaza withdrawal and hamas prospects - summer 2005

2006-09-28T09:11:00.000-07:00

From Gaza to the West Bank:
An Interview with Shaykh Hasan Yousef of HAMAS
June 27-28, 2005

Dr. Sherifa Zuhur

The frenzied media coverage of the evacuation of Jewish settlers from Gaza did not present many perspectives from the Palestinian side. When I visited Gaza in July, it was somewhat difficult to feel sympathy with the young protesters who had taken over Palestinian homes and a vacant hotel. There they raised orange flags symbolizing opposition to the withdrawal. That day, orange flags and plastic banners displayed on car antennas were flown all over Israel in protest, but blue flags fluttered as well to signal approval of the withdrawal.
The protesters were grouped atop a building throwing rocks at the roof of the house and small children of the Palestinian family living next to the previously empty building. They had broken the solar heating panel on the roof of the building and aimed at us as well. The father of the family was red-eyed, explaining that he had stayed up all night lest the protesters storm the house, or injure his 11 children in the middle of the night. Israeli soldiers had arrived, but had not yet received orders to remove protesters. His eldest son, a quiet boy of 16, had put on his kafiyya (head cloth) as a sign of resistance, and will no doubt remember this incident for the rest of his life.

Across the street, the Army had bulldozed beach cottages to prevent resistors from using these as similar bases. Further down the coast, a large group of settlers were holed up in an abandoned beach-front hotel. Israeli soldiers were present, but had not yet received orders to remove the young people. They had traveled to Gaza in some instances from New York, or Jerusalem; they were not members of the nearby settlement. An Arabic-speaking Israeli colleague told me ruefully that his son was among the demonstrators, and the two of them had argued strenuously about the issue. He is on the “blue-side,” supporting withdrawal from Gaza.

Settlers stand to lose from the disengagement, and so they and their supporters resisted. Who stands to win? The people of al-Mawasi` might benefit, I thought at the time. Al-Muwasi` is a narrow strip of land, one kilometer wide by fourteen kilometers in length just to the west of the Gush Qatif settlement. Ever since Gush Qatif was founded, the people of the area were subjected to severe restrictions. Many have homes and families in the cities of Khan Yunis or Rafah, but could not travel there The area is agricultural, and the residents used to fish, but were later forbidden to
do so. I photographed their boats lining the sandy beach.

I then interviewed a group of Palestinian truck drivers from al-Mawasi’ who wait for hours in the hot sun for permission to drive through the checkpoint. Some of their trucks were delayed for so long that the tomatoes they carry will be good only for canned sauce. They look forward to the disengagement and to resumption of fishing and use of the coast, but they expressed some cynicism about the Palestinian Authority (PA), which has announced its intentions to provide security to the area. I also interviewed their mukhtar, or town leader, who more formally and cautiously expressed his hopes for the future.

Many questions about the future concern HAMAS, the Islamist party that is more popular in Gaza than the PA.

The next day, I met with Shaykh Hasan Yousef, who heads the political division of the West Bank branch of HAMAS. As a senior leader and spokesperson of the organization, he has survived assassination attempts, imprisonment, exile, and infighting. He, like others, is responding to divisions on each side of the conflict; Israelis divided over disengagment, and Palestinians divided over the future of their own political leadership and proper means of securing sovereignty. Palestinians, particularly in Ramallah, Jenin, Jericho, and Jerusalem, do not see the Gaza withdrawal as a great triumph – it was not, after all, a plan that they were initially party to. Their recent concerns center on the behavior of armed Palestinian groups in Ramallah, and some of the border patrol in Jerusalem (this on the heels of a local scandal). Palestinians were concerned about the intentions of the PA in its crackdown on certain Al-Aqsa brigades, and the possibility that the Authority was implicated in, or unwilling or unable to control armed groups’ shakedowns or harassment of local citizens.

HAMAS had refused to participate in a national unity cabinet earlier in July. Yousef stated that HAMAS had no wish to be part of the PA, known locally as the sulta, just for the sake of presenting a united front to the Israelis, when issues deeply divide these secularly and religiously based organizations. Instead, the HAMAS Party would wait for upcoming elections.[i]

Just prior to the meeting, I visited Yassir Arafat’s grave at the Muqata` in Ramallah, a small enclosure in that windswept hilltop location which symbolizes the end of an era. Yousef’s business offices displayed none of the excessive grandeur, or nouveau chic of the villas of Ramallah; they comprised a small unit, with a waiting room and desk area outside, as Yousef is frequently interviewed. Those staffing Shaykh Yousef’s office were well apprised of local events and sentiments. Yousef’s twenty-eight year old son provided tea, fruit, a fan and biographical details while I waited for the Shaykh to complete his prior appointment. Shaykh Yousef then supplied more background, speaking in beautifully phrased formal Arabic.

Shaykh Yousef joined the Muslim Brotherhood, an Islamist organization originally established in 1929 by Shaykh Hasan al-Banna, in Isma’iliyya, an Egyptian city in the Suez Canal zone. In the 1940s, the organization grew and Muslims from other countries formed branches in the Sudan, Syria, Palestine, and elsewhere. Yousef became a member of the Muslim Brotherhood while at university in Jordan, where he obtained a BA in shari`ah (Islamic law) in the early 1970s. The Jordanian and Palestinian branch of the organization was not large until the Islamist movements in the region as a whole began to expand in the 1970s. In the late 1980s, HAMAS formed from elements of the Muslim Brotherhood. The primary founders of the Party are clerics, and other leaders are intellectuals and professionals..

Yousef is well-known in the West Bank, even in the countryside, because he used to travel from village to village to preach in the mosques, and people remember him from these early days. HAMAS subsequently acquired its own reputation, and he is associated with its growth. His son recalls the first time he was arrested by the Israelis and that his family had no income, or even food while he was incarcerated. He was repeatedly arrested, released, then re-arrested, once after only five hours, for periods lasting years.

The Israelis exiled hundreds of Islamist party members to Marj al-Zuhur in southern Lebanon in 1992, and Yousef was among them. They reasoned that exiling these individuals would diminish the numbers of recruits to HAMAS in the prison population. The exiles became a bargaining chip, and reportedly established closer ties with Hizbullah.

The Shaykh and his son explained that Hamas did not develop a military wing until 1987. After that date, when the Israeli authorities went after the organization, they generally pursued the political leadership, rather than the military wing of the organization because they could not locate, or target the latter. Shaykh Yousef was most recently released from prison in Israel in November of 2004. In March of that year, Shaykh Ahmad Yasin, the director-general of HAMAS was killed by an Israeli missile, as was his successor, `Abd al-Aziz Rantisi.

HAMAS refused to participate in the elections for a Palestinian president after Arafat’s death. HAMAS is now competing with the PA for the “hearts and minds” of Palestinians, and Yousef is hard at work campaigning for the Party, in preparation for the next set of Palestinian elections.[ii]

SHY: Welcome, welcome.

SZ: After introducing myself, explaining my interests, and that I am not visiting in any official capacity, I inquire about HAMAS statements about the war on Islam vs. the war on terror.

SHY: We welcome this opportunity to be permitted to communicate with you. We want to establish better relations with those in the West, and share and explain our views, hoping this will lead to an improved dialogue in the future. But, I want to know whether you think there will be any sort of shift, or is there already any kind of shift in U.S. policy toward the Palestinians?

SZ. Our country is not of one mind. Certainly, there is a high level of popular anxiety that has resulted from the terrible events of 9/11 and that is not improving the prospects for dialogue. But many of us support our government and our Constitution, without agreeing with all aspects of our foreign policy, and we are free to express our concerns in that regard.

Let me ask you, how do you view the situation now? What will the period following the Gaza disengagement bring?

SHY: Now, we are facing a critical situation. We are very hopeful in light of the disengagement from Gaza, however, removal of the settlers still means that all of the key issues that would lead to improved Israeli-Palestinian relations have yet to be discussed. These are, for instance:

*deliberate erosion of Arab (East) Jerusalem;
*the Wall, or security boundary;
*the large number of Palestinian political prisoners, still 8,000 of them. And
remember that in every agreement we have made, the Israelis promised to release
them, but they have only released small numbers, and at the same time, have
arrested many more Palestinians;
*closure of our charitable institutions.

HAMAS reputation is excellent. People trust us and know that we will help them, but now we are not allowed to do so. This is not actually hurting us, or our reputation; but these closures [of charitable institutions] are affecting the most vulnerable and poorest sector of Palestinian society. Of course we are ready to adopt any measures of transparency as required in the provision of charitable assistance, and in fact, we were already one of the most transparent groups. Anyway, our records would be totally open to any kind of scrutiny, but we believe the Palestinian people need assistance.

SZ: If you were able to communicate directly with our government about HAMAS’ aims and opinions, what would you say?

SHY: If I could make a list of items to present to President George Bush, all of the points that I already mentioned above would be on the list, but also most importantly,

*deliver measures of actual freedom to Palestinians; allowing him or her human and political rights.

*please become aware of, and alert your administration to the contradiction inherent in promoting democratization in the Middle East while simultaneously backing a system [Israeli] in which every physical movement, every telephone call, every meeting, every conversation is monitored, and there is no freedom at all.

Besides, there are “wanted” individuals that the Israelis have not been able to apprehend for years. These measures have not helped them do so. Why are they able to remain in hiding? Because they defend the population and the population reciprocates.

SZ: Do you spend time speaking about HAMAS outside of the region?

SHY: This has not been possible because of the political situation here, restrictions of travel and so on.

So do you think there is any opening for HAMAS now?

SZ: I believe there are those who understand this region more thoroughly than others and have witnessed the growth of the Islamic awakening who are realists. They believe that moderates can participate politically in a responsible manner and encourage others to cease violence.

SHY; But why are there objections to HAMAS?

SZ: The Israelis characterize your organization as a violent organization. And people everywhere are afraid of Islamist organizations that utilize violence.

But also there are other problems – some people are not very familiar with all of the range of Islamist groups and they lump them together and do not distinguish between one group and another. They see your organization as being the same as say, the Refah (Welfare) Party in Turkey or extremist salafi (purist) Wahhabis in Saudi Arabia.

Also, Westerners complain about your position on women’s rights. Do you impose Islamic covering as the Gama`at al-Islamiyya did in Egypt? Is there not tension between the secular Palestinian women’s parties (which developed from the four parties of the PLO) and Hamas on particular projects since the Oslo period?

SHY: We are most progressive on women’s issues! It is really irresponsible for people to characterize us in this way. And you can talk to my wife! I have been married more than 30 years. I would never tell her not to work, though she prefers not to, she is free to work or to be politically engaged. We in HAMAS have large numbers of women members who ran for office and were elected. We have never imposed the hijab. And unlike the PLO, we have women as part of our leadership and on our planning committees.

The young male assistant (who has been taking notes on the meeting) repeats that the secular parties of the PLO never included women in the leadership, and explains that women are active at the university level of HAMAS as well.

SZ: But no one has seriously written about the role of women in your organization or your views on gender, so people automatically associate groups who prefer Islamization with the gender attitudes of groups like the Taliban. They don’t know there is any difference.

SHY: We also include Christians on our political [electoral] list. In other words they run as HAMAS. We have protected the Christians of Ramallah. There was an incident a few years ago when people were attacking some of the Christians here, and HAMAS intervened and stopped all of this.

Regarding Iraq:

SHY: The United States is falling deeper and deeper into the Iraqi abyss. It has spent billions of dollars and will go on spending billions at a time when the American economy is not at all healthy at home. The authorities recently spoke of a U.S. presence in Iraq lasting 12 years. 12 years is impossible! The United States should withdraw immediately and allow the Iraqis to manage their own security situation.

The United States should allow for open, free elections in Iraq, not restricting participation as in the last election (he is referring to the exclusion of candidates, and lack of Sunni participation). Indeed, they should just disband this current government and elect another.

SZ: The Iraqi forces are not yet ready to defend their own country without assistance. Perhaps by the end of 2006, the Iraqi border patrol, police, national guard, and military will be in much better shape.

SHY: No, no. In this case, the United States should allow another Arab country to come in to Iraq and defend them.

And in response to a question about HAMAS’ position vis-a-vis the Palestinian Authority in Gaza.

SHY: Yes, there is tension there, but there is also conflict within Israeli society that will be dealt with.

SHY: Thank you very much for the opportunity to share my organization’s views with you and we express all hopes for a much better future.

[i] “Hamas Will Not Join Unity Government,” Al-Jazeera, July 5, 2005, available in English at http://english.aljazeera.net.

[ii] HAMAS provided a strong challenge to Fatah in the last elections. The Party dominated in the polls in Gaza, but is not as strong in the West Bank where, in the last elections, Fatah received 44.4% of the vote (136 seats) to Hamas’ 36% (or 110) seats.

2006-09-26T09:42:00.000-07:00

See Also http://www.cesint.org

AHMADINEJAD: THE ‘PEOPLE’S’ MAN AND THE IRANIAN DILEMMA

Sherifa Zuhur[1]

(Translation)

Is President Ahmadinejad representative of a neoconservative trend in Iran, one that desires heightened conflict with the West? Is there a relationship between the new President’s belligerent statements to the West, his certainty that outsiders can perceive and accept Iran’s worldview, and growing Iranian influence in Iraq, as well as Iran’s determination to develop nuclear capabilities? How has America responded to Ahmadinejad thus far? He has taken a novel approach – writing directly to President Bush and expressed his certainty that Bush is a Believer with a capital “B.”
One response is that Ahmadinejad himself does not matter. The question is essentially one of regional politics, Great Power politics, and the legacy of the Islamic Revolution in Iran, i.e. domestic politics. Whether one approaches policymaking from a personalized or systemic perspective, Western antipathy to the Iranian President concerns his domestic as well as foreign policy as he has become a symbol of intransigence, or stubbornness toward U.S. Middle East policy. Ahmadinejad becomes larger than his office, and is the face behind Iran’s alleged misdeeds in Iraq, namely connections with Shi`a militias and insurgents, or infiltration by Iranian religious officials. [2]
Iran’s decision to pursue the development of nuclear technology further complicates the repute of its President. He rejected earlier European offers of a light-water facility in return for Iran’s cessation of its nuclear program as a deal where they offered candy and took gold. Was this European offer half-hearted or ill conceived? Is it possible to offer Iran more appropriate incentives, or only harsher measures?
In an American vision of a New Middle East, the Taliban are gone, as is Saddam Hussein’s government. Syrian troops have withdrawn from Lebanon. Municipal elections were held in Saudi Arabia, and Egypt did open its electoral system to certain new candidates despite many constraining requirements. The Islamic Republic of Iran, labeled a part of the “Axis of Evil,” by President Bush remains in place. Not only were Iranians unable to promote reformers in their elections, the Majlis has been taken over by conservatives and neoconservatives. Further, Rafsanjani was defeated, and Ahmadinejad, whose victory was unanticipated in the West, assumed the Presidency and has obtained some applause in the Islamic world for standing up to the United States. This Iran simply does not fit in with the American neoconservative vision of a New Middle East.
The exclusion of more than a thousand candidates from the June 2005 elections also encouraged the U.S. administration to emphasize the absence of freedom, democratic practices and censorship in Iran. President Bush said “America believes that freedom is the birthright and deep desire of every human soul. And to the Iranian people, I say: As you stand for your own liberty, the people of America stand with you.”[3] His statement was played all day long on Iranian television, but was interpreted differently than the President had intended, as an insult to national pride. Some 63% of Iranians came out to vote. Since then, Mahmud Ahmadinejad has continued to emphasize national honor and pride in the current struggle over Iran’s “right” to develop its nuclear program. He is more than just a lightening rod for populist sentiment in Iran, or a spokesperson for anti-American and anti-Western grievances. His determination has led him to audacious speech and actions, including his letter to President Bush, which, inconclusive in itself, broke with the Iranian policy of non-communication with Great Satan.
Since the Islamic Revolution, Iran has bureaucratized elements of Iranian Shi`i practice, emphasizing the reformation of public space,[4] and a more rational, rule-bound, and conscious approach to Islamic life. Those who saw hope for a counterrevolution in the Do-e Khordad, or reform movement, also pointed to the unpopularity of enforced religious views, and a youth counterculture in Iran. Instead, it seems that Iran’s older and younger generations represent different trends, and political and religious views. Ahmadinejad projects the image of both a javanmard (new Islamic man), and a mardomyar (a people’s man), ordinary and plain. He appeals to Iranians outside the bases of power, who remain deeply pious, but want to live in better circumstances,
The son of a blacksmith, Ahmadinejad was born in Aradan, Iran in 1956 and raised in a working class neighborhood of east Tehran. He was still a student during the protests against the Shah. He has been falsely charged with being one of the hostage-takers, or of planning the take-over of the U.S. Embassy in Iran in 1979.[5] The actual hostage-takers emphatically denied these rumors, which may have been spread by an opposition group, the Mujahidin al-Khalq. He was an excellent student and a talented soccer player. Childhood and student friends describe him as obstinate and confident of popular support. After graduating to teaching his own classes, he distinguished himself by wearing a Palestinian headscarf while on campus.[6] Ahmadinejad served in the basij (militia) after the Revolution, then in the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps during the Iraq-Iran war. It was during that conflict that many of Iran’s second-wave revolutionaries came of age. Many belong to the Abadgaran,[7] (Builders, or Developers of Islamic Iran) a neo-conservative alliance. The Abadgaran together with the conservatives now form a majority in the Majlis, and have contained the reformers, or what some call the Left in Iran. Ahmadinejad has also acknowledged his role as a leading member of a different party, the Islamic Revolution Devotees Society.[8]
Ahmadinejad earned a doctorate in traffic engineering, became a professor, an advisor in the Ministry of Culture and Islamic Guidance, and a governor. He was appointed the Mayor of Tehran, May 3, 2003, and attained a reputation for quiet efficiency that won him the support of Tehran’s poor in the presidential election and a short-listing in the 2004 Mayor of the Year awards. Critics mention that he redesigned the capital while mayor with Imam Mahdi’s return in mind, broadening the streets for his return,[9] and some in Tehran said he was so conservative that he would have established separate male and female sidewalks, elevators, and graveyards had that been possible. This may be true, but more recently, Ahmadinejad supported women’s attendance of soccer games.[10] Like populist leader, President Gamal abd al-Nasser, his lifestyle reflected his values; he lived in a modest home in his childhood neighborhood and drove a Paykan, Iran’s cheapest car.
He made numerous campaign appearances in mosques and prayer areas where he focused on the needs of the lower classes. He is not a cleric, in fact he is the first non-cleric in the office of the President for a quarter of a century. His speech is easily understood by the Iranian population, unlike the clerics with their references in classical Arabic, and he identifies with their millenarian passions. It is rumored that his list of cabinet members had been dropped into the well at the Jamkaram mosque, the locus of Mahdi-centered worship, according to local custom.[11] Ahmadinejad fired many senior financiers and bankers, senior diplomats replacing them with more junior personnel, frequently with IRG backgrounds, and replaced all governors with his loyalists. These point to the degree of power in his office and connections, though Iran-watchers commented on his naiveté, and novice clumsiness. Nevertheless, the Supreme Guide, Khamene’i had seemingly wrapped his cloak around him, urging patience.
Bases of power in the Iranian government are formally defined in the office of the Supreme Faqih, the Council of Guardians, (the Supreme Faqih directly appoints half its members) the Majlis, or Consultative Council, the Expediency Discernment Council, the High Council of Justice (appointed by the Supreme Faqih), the President, the Cabinet, and the Supreme National Security Council. The Supreme Faqih and the Supreme National Security Council along with the Majlis and the Council of Guardians craft foreign policy. The Supreme National Security Council is currently headed by Ali Larijani[12] who is simultaneously Iran’s chief spokesperson and negotiator on nuclear issues. He like, Ahmadinejad is close to the Supreme Faqih. The membership of the SNSC includes military leaders from the army and Revolutionary Guard, and top ministry officials.
The Presidential office weakened after Bani Sadr challenged Khomeini and had to flee Iran; then, the current Supreme Faqih, Ayatollah Khamene’i served as President for two terms. President Khatami fought to strengthen the Presidency since 1997, differing with Khamene’i about Iran’s ability to survive in isolation.[13] However his challenge was essentially undone by hardliners. Today, Ahmadinejad has strengthened the office of the President, but his power should be thought of as one of several key points in series of interlocking circles. These circles are networks, acknowledged, or informal, that connect the Supreme Faqih and the other offices mentioned, encompass some six hundred persons. [14]
President Ahmadinejad represents the renewal of “Islamic” foreign policy, namely Ayatollah Khomeini’s iteration of Islamic goals as universal. In this revolutionary Shi`i worldview, Iran was to support the oppressed masses elsewhere, meaning the Shi`a of Lebanon, other Shi`i minorities, but also the Palestinians. Khomeini and his Hezbe Jumhuriyye Islami ( IRP) explained that the Shah had betrayed Muslims with his support of Israel. Instead Palestine was a vaqf, a religious endowment that cannot be negotiated away even by the Palestinians themselves. Israel’s nuclear profile and continuing hardnosed approach to the Palestinians continues to disturb Iranians. Ahmadinejad’s July 2006 statements about the Palestinians allude to Muslim unity against Israel, and also to the lack of justice in their treatment.[15] His fall 2005 attacks on Israel as a ''tumor" that should be ''wiped off the map of the world" were not very novel, but just prior to the flurry of media interest in them, Khamene’i had granted more power to Rafsanjani, and the Council of Guardians had agreed on reconvening with the Europeans regarding the nuclear issue. Ahmadijenad might have wanted to reclaim center stage[16] at that time. Shortly thereafter the cartoon incident put a strain on Muslim-Western relations.
In July of 2006, President Bush was asked informally to identify his greatest concern with Iran. It is instructive that he did not name, nor demonize the Iranian President. But he did say that was concerned about “having a nuclear weapon in the midst of the Middle East,” the prospect of “political blackmail” and that “they [Iran] would harm our ally, Israel.” [17]
Experts dispute Iran’s economic situation and the impact that any new sanctions imposed as a result of its failure to end its nuclear program would have on the country. The Islamic revolution has clearly not relieved the misery of the masses. More than 35% of Iran’s families live in poverty and there is a youth bulge. Homeless children sleep in Tehran’s streets. While educational levels are higher than in some other countries, still 23% are illiterate, and Iran has a large HIV/AIDs problem due to the presence of at least 2 million intravenous drug users. The regime has not treated the poor well, denying rations to migrants, attacking squatters,[18] and street vendors because of the visibility they grant to Iran’s poverty. Afghani and Iraqi refugees add further strains. Ken Pollack of the Brookings Institute, points to crippling levels of corruption, frightened investors, spur unemployment and inflation and can’t be solved without major clean-up or high levels of investment. Moreover, Iran can only look to the U.S., Europe, or Japan for markets, China, Russia, and possibly India cannot stand in at this time.[19] However, some Iranians say that the country is not in such bad shape with growth at 5.5% per year, and a doubling of GDP per capita in the last five years. The country possesses $10 billion stabilization fund and other resources. If Iran is not so desperate economically, then Pollock’s proposed “butter for guns” solution, threatening severe sanctions if Iran will not cease its nuclear program, may fail.
Anthony Cordesman and Khalid Al-Rodhan, at the Center for Strategic and International Studies in Washington D.C. suggest that the effects of economic sanctions are far from certain. Some countries lack incentives to comply with them.[20] Italy, France, Germany and the UK, as well as Japan, Russia and China would likely lose a great deal of money if they ceased exporting to Iran and importing oil from it.[21] Other countries, Saudi Arabia and Egypt, are unlikely to support sanctions though strategic rather than economic reasons.[22] We should remember that existing sanctions against Iran in place since the Islamic Revolution failed to accomplish their goals.[23]
Ahmadinejad’s position reflects Iran’s ambivalent situation. The U.S. presence in Iraq, and in Afghanistan on Iran’s other border, places Iran in a strategic sandwich. Even with an eventual American withdrawal from Iraq, that country’s army is going to be a very large one. Iraq’s new government may wish to revive a nuclear program if Iran continues its efforts, but Israel presents a more immediate threat.
Ahmadinejad appealed to reason in his 18 page letter to President Bush, a very unusual diplomatic approach to this issue in which he also attempted to explain Iran’s stance toward Israel, and decried the events of 9/11, but also the American response to 9/11, as well as saying that “liberalism and Western style democracy have not been able to help realize the ideals of humanity,” instead people now await the will of God.[24] According to his logic, the United States should not suppress any nation’s right to develop or defend itself. Iran’s nuclear program grew from Muhammad Reza Shah’s vision of Iran as the prime military power in the Gulf region. He built up a military arsenal via petrodollars and in 1967 a five-megawatt thermal research reactor at the Tehran Research Center was established and supplied by the U.S. The Americans trained Iranian technicians as well. Nuclear power and weapons development continued with the assistance of Germany, and later China and Russia, although the U.S. ended all nuclear agreements with Iran in 1979. Iran signed nuclear cooperation agreements with Pakistan in 1987 and China and the Soviet Union in 1990.[25] As Iran responded to the concerns of the EU and IAEA regarding its nuclear program, it continuously restated its bottom line, that Iran has the right to develop a peaceful nuclear energy program as well as enrichment capacity.[26] The Iranian Majlis approved a bill that would allow Iran to block inspections if the IAEA were to refer the country to the United Nations Security Council for sanctions.[27]
Incidentally, fatwas against use of the nuclear bomb are frequently attributed to the late Ayatollah Khomeini, but he did not oppose the development of nuclear energy. Iran’s Foreign Ministry officials also refer to Khamene’i’s fatwa disallowing nuclear weapons.[28] More recently, cleric, Mohsen Garavian, disciple of Ayatullah Mesbah-Yazdi has stated that it is only “natural” that Iran should have nuclear bombs as a “countermeasure” to other nuclear powers.[29] The principle that extreme measures are permitted in defensive jihad underlies this statement. Has the ascent of Iran’s neoconservatives worsened the issue? Would it have been easier to resolve the nuclear issue if Rafsanjani and not Ahmadinejad were President? Looking at Khatami and Rafsanjani as compared to Ahmadinejad, on this issue shows us that the nuclear issue matters deeply to the regime no matter who is President. President Khatami progressed from statements more open to the West to extremely volatile ones nearer the end of his term, when he too declared Iran’s sovereign rights to pursue its uranium enrichment if it so chose. Had Rafsanjani been elected, he may not have been able to avoid the nationalist bottom line either.[30] In spring of 2006, the Iranians defiantly revealed that they had enriched uranium. The IAEA documented various technical accomplishments, but experts point out that Iran cut corners in its research and development process, and would require more time now for development and testing.[31] David Albright projected about three years toward a single nuclear weapon (2009), whereas John Negroponte, the Director of National Intelligence has suggested a lengthier waiting period.[32] Opponents to negotiations with Iran reminded the world has played for time before. It could be continuing its scientific process over the summer of 2006. An agreement might be unattainable. Or Iran may well agree and then default. Those who argue for some form of negotiation in addition to containment, or “rollback,”[33] and deterrence, also suggest grave implications for Western interests from Iran’s nuclear ambitions. First, Iran might be less vulnerable to U.S. conventional force, and secondly, Iran’s program cannot but encourage proliferation elsewhere.[34] In other words, the most obvious concerns about Iran’s nuclear program have little relationship to the ideological character of the state.[35] There are those who advise expanded negotiations or military action against Iran. The former option would provide political, as well as economic or technical incentives for Iran’s cooperation with Europe and the United States. Such negotiations would prepare a deal that Iranians really desire, including consideration of Iran’s security needs, a guarantee that the U.S. relinquishes the policy of regime change in Iran, unfreezing of Iranian assets and that sanctions be lifted.[36] One definite problem with the idea of broader negotiation is that it ignores the significant human rights violations ongoing in Iran, but perhaps the issue could be worked into the proposal. In any case, expanded negotiations are not on the table now, and the United States has not forgone a goal of regime change in Iran. Taking military action in response to Iran’s nuclear program is also fraught with problems. A ground and air war campaign could secure the country, but an insurgency would ensue. Accurately targeting Iran’s nuclear facilities make the option of limited air strikes more complicated, and less attractive than it might otherwise be. Military strikes are likely to generate some kind of Iranian response to the U.S. in Iraq, and some experts then cite the existing Iranian influence in Shi’a entities there, including militias, as a serious concern.[37] President Ahmadinejad and other neoconservatives would be most probably empowered by this response. Popular support would grow, and they could argue that the United States had acted true to form. Therefore, the current EU-3 track and option of sanctions against Iran, effective or not, has the advantage of uniting Europe and the United States with a more reluctant China and Russia, and isolating Iran should it reject this diplomatic gambit.[38] William O. Beeman of Brown University has suggested that in some ways President Ahmadinejad and President Bush are mirror images, by which, he is surely pointing to the importance of faith politics in both countries. Today’s crisis is larger than the two men, or the question of religious fundamentalism. Dynamics between Iran and the United States are symptomatic of the globalization of foreign policy, the “new world order,” and the ambitions for a New Middle East.

[1] The author is Professor of Islamic and Regional Studies, Strategic Studies Institute, U.S. Army War College and Director, Institute of Middle Eastern, Islamic, and Diasporic Studies. The views expressed in this monograph are those of the author and do not necessarily reflect the official policy or position of the Department of the Army, the Department of Defense or the U.S. government.

[2] Craig Gordon, “Iran Cited as Threat in Iraq,” Newsday.com June 23, 2006; Ivan Eland, et al. “Occupied Iraq: One Country, Many Wars.” Middle East Policy, Vol. 12, Issue 3, Fall 2005; Raymond Tanter, “Iran’s Threat to Coalition Forces in Iraq.” Washington Institute for Near East Policy, January 15, 2004.
[3] The White House, “Statement by the President on Iranian Elections.” June 16, 2005.

[4] Ibid.

[5] Most sources who spread this rumor apparently hoped to discredit Ahmadinejad prior to, or shortly after the June 2005 election. Even non-Western sources repeated these allegations. For example, Wikipedia relies on information from Al Jazeera “Profile,” June 19, 2005. But student leaders from those days, Abbas Abdi and Ibrahim Asgharzadeh, who in no way support Ahmadinejad, in addition to three other student leaders, denied that he took part in the action or played any leading role. New York Times, July 1, 2005; Washington Post July 1 2005; “Iran Victor ‘Kidnap Role’ Probe” BBC News. June 30, 2005.
[6] Iason Athanasiadis, “Ahmadinejad: A Study in Obstinacy,” Asia Times, May 19, 2006.

[7] http://www.abadgaran.ir/
[8] Abbas William Samii, “The Iranian Nuclear Issue and Informal Networks.” Naval War College Review, Vol. 59, No. 1, Winter 2006.
[9] Scott Peterson, “Waiting for the Rapture in Iran.” Christian Science Monitor, December 21, 2005.
[10] Athanasiadis.

[11] Peterson.

[12] Larijani is closely connected with leading clerics as the son of Ayatollah Hashim Amoli and the son-in law of the late Ayatollah Mortaza Motahhari. One of his brothers, Sadegh, is a member of the Council of Guardians, and two others are Iran’s foreign service. He ran for President in the 2005 elections, but was less popular than Ahmadinejad or Mohammad Ghalibaf, receiving only slightly over 5% of the vote despite his centrality to the neoconservatives. His blog diary was posted on Jamjam in preparation to the elections and is quite revealing. http://www.jamejamonline.ir/shownews2.asp?n=65634&t=feet
[13] Shahram Chubin, Whither Iran? Reform, Domestic Politics and National Security. London: International Institute of Strategic Studies, 2002. 24-26.
[14] Abbas William Samii, “The Iranian Nuclear Issue and Informal Networks.” Naval War College Review, Vol. 59, No. 1, Winter 2006.

[15] Associated Press, July 7, 2006; also see “La lettre de Mahmoud Ahmadinejad á George W. Bush.” Le Monde, May 5, 2006.

[16]Karim Sadjapour and Ray Takeyh, “Behind Iran’s Hard-line on Israel.” Boston Globe. December 23, 2005.
[17]Transcript of Larry King with President Bush and Mrs. Bush. Available at www.cnn.com July 6, 2006.
[18] Asef Bayat, Poor People’s Movements in Iran: Street Politics New York: Columbia University Press, 1997, 101-108.
[19] Ken Pollack, “Iran: Three Alternative Futures,” Middle East Review of International Affairs, June 2006.

[20] Anthony Cordesman and Khalid Al-Rodhan, “Iranian Nuclear Weapons? The Options if Diplomacy Fails.” Draft April 7, 2006. Center for Strategic and International Studies. 15-18, 29.
[21] George Perkovitch with Silvia Manzanero, “Iran Gets the Bomb – Then What?” in Henry Sokolski and Patrick Clawson eds., 185-189.
[22] Cordesman and Al-Rodhan, 17.

[23] Ibid, 18.

[24] “La lettre de Mahmoud Ahmadinejad á George W. Bush.” Le Monde, May 5, 2006.
[25] For details on Iran’s military ties to China and purchases of hardware, see Bates Gill, “Two Steps Forward, One Step Back: The Dynamics of Chinese Nonproliferation and Arms Control Policy-Making in an Era of Reform.” in David M. Lampton, ed. The Making of Chinese Foreign and Security Policy in the Era of Reform, 1978-2000, Stanford: Stanford University Press, 2001; and Richard Russell, “China’s WMD Foot in the Greater Middle East’s Door.” Middle East Review of International Affairs, Vol. 9, No. 3, September 2005.
[26] Erich Marquardt, “Iran’s ‘Right to Enrich’ Uranium,” Asia Times, March 12, 2004; Alissa J. Rubin “Iran Builds Support for Right to Nuclear Power.” Los Angeles Times, June 28, 2006
[27] Associated Press, “Iran May Block Nuclear Inspections.” November 20, 2005.

[28] Hamid Reza Assefi, Voice of the Islamic Republic of Iran, September 12, 2004; “Iran, US Nuclear Fears Overblown,” Los Angeles Times, November 5, 2004.
[29] Sunday Telegraph, February 19, 2002.

[30] International Crisis Group, “Iran: What Does Ahmadi-Nejad’s Victory Mean?” Middle East Briefing No. 18, Tehran/Brussels 4 August 2005, 12-13.
[31] Robert Einhorn, “The Iran Nuclear Issue.” Testimony before the Senate Foreign Relations Committee. May 17, 2006. Available at the Center for Strategic and International Studies, Washington D.C., 3.
[32]David Albright and Corey Hinderstein, “The Clock is Ticking, But How Fast?” The Institute for Science and International Security, March 27, 2006; Einhorn, 4.
[33] Judith S. Yaphe and Charles D Lutes, “Reassessing the Implications of a Nuclear-Armed Iran.” McNair Paper 69. Institute for National Strategic Studies, National Defense University, 2005,
[34] Kenneth Pollack, “ A Multilateral Approach to Iran,“ in Ivo Daalder, Nicole Gnesotto and Philip Gordon, eds. Crescent of Crisis: U.S.-European Strategy for the Greater Middle East, Washington, D.C: Brookings Institute, 2006, 16 and Yaphe and Lutes, 30-31. Yaphe and Lutes present various possible scenarios if Iran achieves nuclear weapons, a la Iraq (pre-emptive strike), North Korea (Iran cheats), or India (the world condemns Iran but does nothing).
[35] Bruno Tertrais, “The Iranian Nuclear Crisis,” in Daalder, Gnesotto and Gordon, eds.

[36] Clifford Kupchan, “Iranian Beliefs and Realities,” National Interest, September 22, 2005.
[37] Ibid, 11-38.

[38] Philip Gordon . “Will America Attack Iran?” Prospect Online June 2006

Israel's Second Lebanon War

2006-09-05T11:32:00.000-07:00

Here is Amnesty's report on Israel's targeting of Lebanon
and Lebanese.

The U.S. media and experts should not report this as
"collateral damage" -- 7,000+ strikes on 7,000 plus targets by air
plus 2,500 from the sea and the evidence of the type of attacks
(families in their homes, cars, etc.) shows that these were deliberate,
and follow along a strategy of collective punishment.

http://web.amnesty.org/library/Index/ENGMDE180072006

other places

2006-08-04T09:17:00.000-07:00

See As`ad's comments on Nasrallah -- http://angryarab.blogspot.com

Mazen's drawings are available at http://mazenkerblog.blogspot.com/)

Story from Seige Lebanon blog http://siegeoflebanon.blogspot.com/

Paradise Lost - Robert Fisk

2006-07-27T07:51:00.000-07:00

Paradise Lost: Robert Fisk's elegy for Beirut

Elegant buildings lie in ruins. The heady scent of gardenias gives way to the acrid stench of bombed-out oil installations. And everywhere terrified people are scrambling to get out of a city that seems tragically doomed to chaos and destruction. As Beirut - 'the Paris of the East' - is defiled yet again, Robert Fisk, a resident for 30 years, asks: how much more punishment can it take? Published: 19 July 2006
In the year 551, the magnificent, wealthy city of Berytus - headquarters of the imperial East Mediterranean Roman fleet - was struck by a massive earthquake. In its aftermath, the sea withdrew several miles and the survivors - ancestors of the present-day Lebanese - walked out on the sands to loot the long-sunken merchant ships revealed in front of them. That was when a tidal wall higher than a tsunami returned to swamp the city and kill them all. So savagely was the old Beirut damaged that the Emperor Justinian sent gold from Constantinople as compensation to every family left alive.Some cities seem forever doomed. When the Crusaders arrived at Beirut on their way to Jerusalem in the 11th century, they slaughtered every man, woman and child in the city. In the First World War, Ottoman Beirut suffered a terrible famine; the Turkish army had commandeered all the grain and the Allied powers blockaded the coast. I still have some ancient postcards I bought here 30 years ago of stick-like children standing in an orphanage, naked and abandoned.An American woman living in Beirut in 1916 described how she "passed women and children lying by the roadside with closed eyes and ghastly, pale faces. It was a common thing to find people searching the garbage heaps for orange peel, old bones or other refuse, and eating them greedily when
found. Everywhere women could be seen seeking eatable weeds among the grass along the roads..."How does this happen to Beirut? For 30 years, I've watched this place die and then rise from the grave and then die again, its apartment blocks pitted with so many bullets they looked like Irish lace, its people massacring each other.I lived here through 15 years of civil war that took 150,000 lives, and two Israeli invasions and years of Israeli bombardments that cost the lives of a further 20,000 of its people. I have seen them armless, legless, headless, knifed, bombed and splashed across the walls of houses. Yet they are a fine, educated, moral people whose generosity amazes every foreigner, whose gentleness puts any Westerner to shame, and whose suffering we almost always ignore.They look like us, the people of Beirut. They have light-coloured skin and speak beautiful English and French. They travel the world. Their women are gorgeous and their food exquisite. But what are we saying of their fate today as the Israelis - in some of their cruellest attacks on this city and the surrounding countryside - tear them from their homes, bomb them on river bridges, cut them off from food and water and electricity? We say that they started this latest war, and we compare their appalling casualties - 240 in all of Lebanon by last night - with Israel's 24 dead, as if the figures are the same.And then, most disgraceful of all, we leave the Lebanese to their fate like a diseased people and spend our time evacuating our precious foreigners while tut-tutting about Israel's "disproportionate" response to the capture of its soldiers by Hizbollah.I walked through the deserted city centre of Beirut yesterday and it reminded more than ever of a film lot, a place of dreams too beautiful to last, a phoenix from the ashes of civil war whose plumage was so brightly coloured that it blinded its own people. This part of the city - once a Dresden of ruins - was rebuilt by Rafiq Hariri, the prime minister who was murdered scarcely a mile away on 14 February last year.The wreckage of that bomb blast, an awful precursor to the present war in which his inheritance is being vandalised by the Israelis, still stands beside the Mediterranean, waiting for the last UN investigator to look for clues to the assassination - an investigator who has long ago abandoned this besieged city for the safety of Cyprus.At the empty Etoile restaurant - best snails and cappuccino in Beirut, where Hariri once dined Jacques Chirac - I sat on the pavement and watched the parliamentary guard still patrolling the façade of the French-built emporium that houses what is left of Lebanon's democracy. So many of these streets were built by Parisians under the French mandate and they have been exquisitely restored, their mock Arabian doorways bejewelled with marble Roman columns dug from the ancient Via Maxima a few
metres away.Hariri loved this place and, taking Chirac for a beer one day, he caught sight of me sitting at a table. "Ah Robert, come over here," he roared and then turned to Chirac like a cat that was about to eat a canary. "I want to introduce you, Jacques, to the reporter who said I couldn't rebuild Beirut!"And now it is being un-built. The Martyr Rafiq Hariri International Airport has been attacked three times by the Israelis, its glistening halls and shopping malls vibrating to the missiles that thunder into the runways and fuel depots. Hariri's wonderful transnational highway viaduct has been broken by Israeli bombers. Most of his motorway bridges have been destroyed. The Roman-style lighthouse has been smashed by a missile from an Apache helicopter. Only this small jewel of a restaurant in the centre of Beirut has been spared. So far.It is the slums of Haret Hreik and Ghobeiri and Shiyah that have been levelled and "rubble-ised" and pounded
to dust, sending a quarter of a million Shia Muslims to seek sanctuary in schools and abandoned parks across the city. Here, indeed, was the headquarters of Hizbollah, another of those "centres of world terror" which the West keeps discovering in Muslim lands. Here lived Sayed Hassan Nasrallah, the Party of God's leader, a ruthless, caustic, calculating man; and Sayad Mohamed Fadlallah, among the wisest and most eloquent of clerics; and many of Hizbollah's top military planners - including, no doubt, the men who planned over many months the capture of the two Israeli soldiers last Wednesday.But did the tens of thousands of poor who live here deserve this act of mass punishment? For a country that boasts of its pin-point accuracy - a doubtful notion in any case, but that's not the issue - what does this act of destruction tell us about Israel? Or about ourselves?In a modern building in an undamaged part of Beirut, I come, quite by chance, across a well known
and prominent Hizbollah figure, open-neck white shirt, dark suit, clean shoes. "We will go on if we have to for days or weeks or months or..." And he counts these awful statistics off on the fingers of his left hand. "Believe me, we have bigger surprises still to come for the Israelis - much bigger, you will see. Then we will get our prisoners and it will take just a few small concessions."I walk outside, feeling as if I have been beaten over the head. Over the wall opposite there is purple bougainvillaea and white jasmine and a swamp of gardenias. The Lebanese love flowers, their colour and scent, and Beirut is draped in trees and bushes that smell like paradise.As for the huddled masses from the powder of the bombed-out southern slums of Haret Hreik, I found hundreds of them yesterday, sitting under trees and lying on the parched grass beside an ancient fountain donated to the city of Beirut by the Ottoman Sultan Abdul-Hamid. How empires fall.Far away, across the Mediterranean, two American helicopters from the USS Iwo Jima could be seen, heading through the mist and smoke towards the US embassy bunker complex at Awkar to evacuate more citizens of the American Empire. There was not a word from that same empire to help the people lying in the park, to offer them food or medical aid.And across them all has spread a dark grey smoke that works its way through the entire city, the fires of oil terminals and burning buildings turning into a cocktail of sulphurous air that moves below our doors and through our windows. I smell it when I wake in the morning. Half the people of Beirut are coughing in this filth, breathing their own destruction as they contemplate their dead.The anger that any human soul should feel at such suffering and loss was expressed so well by Lebanon's greatest poet, the mystic Khalil Gibran, when he wrote of the half million Lebanese who died in the 1916 famine, most of them
residents of Beirut:My people died of hunger, and he whoDid not perish from starvation wasButchered with the sword;They perished from hungerIn a land rich with milk and honey.They died because the vipers andSons of vipers spat out poison intoThe space where the Holy Cedars andThe roses and the jasmine breatheTheir fragrance.And the sword continues to cut its way through Beirut. When part of an aircraft - perhaps the wing-tip of an F-16 hit by a missile, although the Israelis deny this - came streaking out of the sky over the eastern suburbs at the weekend, I raced to the scene to find a partly decapitated driver in his car and three Lebanese soldiers from the army's logistics unit. These are the tough, brave non-combat soldiers of Kfar Chim, who have been mending power and water lines these past six days to keep Beirut alive.I knew one of them. "Hello Robert, be quick because I think the Israelis will bomb again but we'll show you everything we can." And they took me through the fires to show me what they could of the wreckage, standing around me to protect me.And a few hours later, the Israelis did come back, as the men of the small logistics unit were going to bed, and they bombed the barracks and killed 10 soldiers, including those three kind men who looked after me amid the fires of Kfar Chim.And why? Be sure - the Israelis know what they are hitting. That's why they killed nine soldiers near Tripoli when they bombed the military radio antennas. But a logistics unit? Men whose sole job was to mend electricity lines? And then it dawns on me. Beirut is to die. It is to be starved of electricity now that the power station in Jiyeh is on fire. No one is to be allowed to keep Beirut alive. So those poor men had to be liquidated.Beirutis are tough people and are not easily moved. But at the end of last week, many of them were overcome by a photograph in their daily papers of a small girl, discarded like a broken flower in a field near Ter Harfa, her feet curled up, her hand resting on her torn blue pyjamas, her eyes - beneath long, soft hair - closed, turned away from the camera. She had been another "terrorist" target of Israel and several people, myself among them, saw a frightening similarity between this picture and the photograph of a Polish girl lying dead in a field beside her weeping sister in 1939.I go home and flick through my files, old pictures of the Israeli invasion of 1982. There are more photographs of dead children, of broken bridges. "Israelis Threaten to Storm Beirut", says one headline. "Israelis Retaliate". "Lebanon At War". "Beirut Under Siege". "Massacre at Sabra and Chatila".Yes, how easily we forget these earlier slaughters. Up to 1,700 Palestinians were butchered at Sabra and Chatila by Israel's proxy Christian militia allies in September of 1982 while Israeli troops - as they later testified to Israel's own court of inquiry - watched the killings. I was there. I stopped counting the corpses when I reached 100. Many of the women had been raped before being knifed or shot.Yet when I was fleeing the bombing of Ghobeiri with my driver Abed last week, we swept right past the entrance of the camp, the very spot where I saw the first murdered Palestinians. And we did not think of them. We did not remember them. They were dead in Beirut and we were trying to stay alive in Beirut, as I have been trying to stay alive here for 30 years.I am back on the sea coast when my mobile phone rings. It is an Israeli woman calling me from the United States, the author of a fine novel about the Palestinians. "Robert, please take care," she says. "I am so, so sorry about what is being done to the Lebanese. It is unforgivable. I pray for the Lebanese people, and the Palestinians, and the Israelis." I thank her for her
thoughtfulness and the graceful, generous way she condemned this slaughter.Then, on my balcony - a glance to check the location of the Israeli gunboat far out in the sea-smog - I find older clippings. This is from an English paper in 1840, when Beirut was a great Ottoman city. "Beyrouth" was the dateline. "Anarchy is now the order of the day, our properties and personal safety are endangered, no satisfaction can be obtained, and crimes are committed with impunity. Several Europeans have quitted their houses and suspended their affairs, in order to find protection in more peaceable countries."On my dining-room wall, I remember, there is a hand-painted lithograph of French troops arriving in Beirut in 1842 to protect the Christian Maronites from the Druze. They are camping in the Jardin des Pins, which will later become the site of the French embassy where, only a few hours ago, I saw French men and women registering for their evacuation. And outside the window, I hear again the whisper of Israeli jets, hidden behind the smoke that now drifts 20 miles out to sea.Fairouz, the most popular of Lebanese singers, was to have performed at this year's Baalbek festival, cancelled now like all Lebanon's festivals of music, dance, theatre and painting. One of her most popular songs is dedicated to her native city:To Beirut - peace to Beirut with all my heartAnd kisses - to the sea and clouds,To the rock of a city that looks like an old sailor's face.From the soul of her people she makes wine,From their sweat, she makes bread and jasmine.So how did it come to taste of smoke and fire?

Israel and Lebanon

2006-07-27T07:22:00.000-07:00

Please post your views in response!

Lebanon's infrastructure is in shreds. Much of the rebuilding since the civil war has been
leveled. No humanitarian aid is getting in -- officials continue to state that at ceasefire is
necessary first, and Condoleeza Rice says that the grand vision -- the new Hizbullah-free
Lebanon - is more important than a ceasefire.

What I see in the Arab response is angry impotence. Anger is fine, but what does it
accomplish for the Lebanese?

On the Israeli side, it seems as if the strategic goals are off! If the point was to prevent border
crossings, and then that goal morphed into using up Hizbullah's missile supply -- well, then both
goals are unlikely to be realized without another long-term occupation. Do Israelis want to re-occupy Lebanon?

2006-04-12T12:46:00.000-07:00

August 22, 2005

The Impact of Arab Satellite Television on the Prospects for Democracy in the Arab World
E-NotesThe Impact of Arab Satellite Television on the Prospects for Democracy in the Arab Worldby S. Abdallah SchleiferMay 12, 2005S. Abdallah Schleifer, an Associate Scholar of FPRI, is director of the Adham Center (for training and research in broadcast journalism) at the American University in Cairo, and publisher of Transnational Broadcasting Studies, an E-journal that the Center publishes in partnership with the Middle East Centre, St. Antony’s College, Oxford. Schleifer is former NBC News bureau chief in Cairo and covered the Middle East for two decades for American and Arab media. This essay is based on a presentation at the FPRI Sponsor Forum, hosted by Pepper Hamilton LLP on April 19, 2005. The views expressed are those of the author alone.Has Arab satellite television had a positive impact on the prospects for democracy in the Arab world? Yes, and in more ways than one might imagine.News in the Arab World Before the Age of Satellite TVLittle more than a decade ago there was no such thing as television journalism in the Arab world. State-owned national television channels had news bulletins, but in the sense of news value—stories covered and transmitted because of some intangible but intrinsic news value about which professionals are almost always in a rough consensus — there was no such thing as “TV journalism.”News bulletins were dominated by footage covering ceremonial occasions of state, and this held true whether the country was a republic or a monarchy: the ruler receiving newly accredited diplomats; the ruler hosting another head of state and, more recently, with his guest addressing the press; the ruler received at the airport upon returning home; the ruler addressing parliament on a significant occasion; the ruler inaugurating a new dam or some other massive facility. But do not imagine that state television was devoted solely to recording ceremonial activities of the ruler; there was also the prime minister — the prime minister convening a meeting of the cabinet; the prime minister or other ministers opening factories.In this sealed universe, there were no television reporters, just a cameraman who recorded the event, editing-in-camera so to speak, in order that his film or tape could be played directly that evening on the news, while a presenter read wire copy from the state or semi-official news agency that had covered the same event. Since the wire copy only approximated the footage being shown—the same event but with nothing written to picture, nor any picture edited to fit the copy— there was always a desultory, oddly detached quality, aside from the basic banality of the events that were covered.Unlike radio there was no comparison effect. Terrestrial television had a range of 50 miles. With boosters the signal could be relayed the length of a country but not beyond its borders. Unlike BBC Arabic Radio Service, which anyone could listen to in the Arab world, no one in the Arab world could see BBC television news, or any other broadcaster (be they American, French, or Italian) covering the news according to international standards.Global television news agencies supplied videos of major international news, which at times included regional events like the civil war in Lebanon. But again, this was footage from the field, not a field report. The television news agencies provided pictures and a written description of the shots, the location, and names of personalities, but it did not include a script which could be translated and read. The national television channels would again take copy from their own state news agency, or even an international news agency— the copy carefully vetted so as not to contradict the official take on the event. But again, this wasn’t a news report, and the copy the anchor read rarely amplified the significance of the picture shown. If it did, the result was purely accidental since the idea of writing to picture was part of the art of a television journalism that simply wasn’t practiced.Regional news —a coup, a civil war, a massacre—might never be broadcast if deemed embarrassing to a friendly fellow Arab state. Or perhaps a report would finally appear a few days late because the channel had waited for the political leadership to decide what its response to the event in a neighboring country might be. Of course this could be ludicrous since short-wave radio — BBC Arabic service, VOA and Monte Carlo Arabic radio—would already be reporting on these events. So at the very least, the “educated classes” —a linguistic flourish I’ve gotten use to, living as I do in the Arab world— were aware of the event. Most notoriously in that vein, was the failure of the Saudi official media to mention the Iraqi invasion of Kuwait for more than 48 hours after the event.President Sadat and MeI must confess that once one understood the system, it had its extra-journalistic uses. Let’s say our bureau (at the time, the NBC News Bureau) was in desperate need of a difficult-to-secure international telephone line. There were very few available in Cairo in the mid-seventies. I knew President Sadat was to inaugurate a new cultural center, so that morning I would show up with my camera crew. Of course NBC News wouldn’t have had the slightest interest in the event, and I had no intention of shipping the film we would shoot. Needless to say, my competition, CBS and ABC, weren’t covering; only an Egypt TV cameraman who would always accompany the President would be doing so. Which was just fine. At the right moment I would approach the President and ask him for his reaction to any seemingly relevant question or two —a rumor from Washington, a report from Tel Aviv. Needless to say, my crew would film the stand-up interview. But more importantly, Egypt TV, not having its own correspondent, would film every second of the interview. Now in those days there was no television to watch outside Egypt TV, and that night 50 million Egyptians would watch the President and me chatting together about reports from Washington and Tel Aviv, just like old friends. The next morning I would rush over to the Ministry of Telecommunications where everybody would recognize me—it was the foreign correspondent friend of the President! I would be ushered into the office of the minister, and within minutes, the phone line was ours.The CNN EffectWhat changed all of this—and here is a pertinent lesson of how benign foreign intervention by force of example can be a motor for change in the Arab world—was CNN coverage of the build-up and the eventual combat between the American-led Alliance and Iraq in 1991. There were very few dishes in the Arab world at the time, but given the need to dispel outrageous Iraqi radio propaganda, Egypt, Saudi Arabia, and other Arab countries in the American-led Alliance pulled down CNN 24/7 coverage of the build-up and then the war, subsequently re-transmitting them via terrestrial television. Suddenly, Arabs could see events in the Arab world significantly covered—CNN reporters out in the field coming back with finished reports. Since the reports were in English, English speakers were suddenly in great demand in millions of Arab households and coffee shops. In Egypt, a new pay TV company, CNE, continued to retransmit CNN terrestrially after the war had ended.Saudi private interests with very close ties to the palace sensed the importance of satellite news and the potential for mischief if placed in the wrong hands. They quickly moved after the war ended to establish a satellite channel with morning and evening news bulletins transmitting real reports— footage from the field edited into meaningful news stories by Arab correspondents in the field with their cameramen. That channel, MBC, was logically based in London where there was already a cadre of expatriate Arab journalists trained to international standards, or trainable by executives brought in from the BBC and ITN. There the ambience in no way resembled that of state television channels, which were literally extensions of the ministries of information, invariably occupying the same building.Again one must acknowledge outside influence, in this case at work as ambience (the ambience of London), where the coverage of political life could be simplified into a schematic which goes, “Here is a problem; here are the contending solutions to that problem.” This contrasts vividly with what had become, after the 1948 defeat in Palestine and the waves of coup d’etats and revolution that followed, the prevailing mode of thought and expression in Arab media. This mode was reflected above all in the commentaries of the state-owned or directed printed press, which were always long on commentaries and short on news. And that mode of thought and expression is that every problem has its roots in a conspiracy, and the contending issues were, or in some cases still are, between rival or shifting conspiracy theories — a political media environment that has been described so well by our colleague Saad ad-Din Ibrahim at a media conference last year in Cambridge. His paper, entitled “Thoughts in Arab Satellite Television, Pan Arabism, and Freedom of Expression” can be found in the Fall/Winter issue of Transnational Broadcasting Studies at www.tbsjournal.comThe Rise of Al Jazeera and Other Satellite ChannelsIn such an environment, real news reports from the field, narrated in Arabic and available on television, was a stunning experience. MBC quickly acquired a large audience particularly in the Gulf and eastern Saudi Arabia because the satellite signal was downloaded in Bahrain and retransmitted terrestrially. In those parts of Arabia and the Gulf, MBC took major audience share.Other channels followed, and after an aborted attempt at 24/7 Arab language TV news coverage produced by BBC in the service of another Saudi group, the newly installed Emir of Qatar provided funds and facility to launch Al Jazeera in 1996, approximating the BBC model of public owned but not state controlled television. The core staff at Al Jazeera had all been trained, and served as broadcasters at BBC.By now, dishes and a number of entertainment satellite channels were proliferating across most of the Arab world. That proliferation of dishes provided Al Jazeera with a rapidly growing mass audience, now estimated at more than 50 million viewers. Because Al Jazeera is a 24/7 news operation, it quickly seized the leadership position in Arab satellite broadcasting; a position that would not be significantly challenged until just before the invasion of Iraq, when the MBC group which had first launched TV news coverage in a limited news bulletin format back in 1992, now gathered together a group of Arab journalists, including the first news director at Al Jazeera and a number of Al Jazeera reporters, and launched Al Arabiya. The competition has had a positive effect. Arab satellite television journalists are less likely to indulge their personal ideological takes on the news when they know a more detached, and thus a more reliable version of the same event is available on the TV screen just one click away on everybody’s remote control.So here we have one of those amazing historic reverses: The most servile, the most state controlled, the least professional of all media in the Arab world, is suddenly refashioned in a satellite format, providing news reports more in accord with international professional standards than any other form of media in the region. And because those reports can be uplinked from Europe to a satellite which can download these reports to dishes anywhere in the Arab world, this becomes an uncensorable format due to the transmission technology and satellite links.For many Arabs, however, the great joy in Al Jazeera was to watch the several “Cross-fire” types of political talk shows that would pit critics of Arab regimes against their defenders: Islamists against either liberal secularists or Arab nationalists. While debates that were unimaginable on the state national television channels flowed back and forth, the audience could join in by telephone, again expressing their own opinions, and doing so in a manner also unimaginable only a decade ago. But as Ibrahim Helal, former chief editor at Al Jazeera, acknowledged at that same Cambridge conference on Arab media last winter, all too often these talk shows degenerated into unproductive shouting matches in which abuse replaced dialogue and analysis. One senses that these talk shows are too often a vehicle for the collective venting of emotion rather than exercises in critical thinking.I would argue that it is informed opinion that is of value—not opinion for its own sake. The Arab world has for too long suffered from the conspiracy mania and political hysteria fostered by uninformed opinion. Reporting from the field, and reporting the facts as they are in the field, informs opinion.When Saad ad-Din Ibrahim was finally released from prison, during which time he had been vilified by nearly the entire Egyptian press, it was Al Jazeera that interviewed Saad ad- Din and allowed him to again raise the very issue—the possibility of hereditary succession to power in Egypt—which had resulted in his imprisonment in the first place. A critical issue for the democratic process had been put into play by a news report; by an interview. This novelty offered great improvement over the previously dominant confrontational talk shows, which at best function after the facts are established, but all too often are oblivious, if not indifferent to facts.News and the Cultivation of a Democratic ConsciousnessBoth Al Jazeera and Al Arabiya responded to widespread concern and anger in the Arab world with America’s deepening involvement in the region—in particular the invasion and occupation of Iraq and what has appeared as continued U.S. support for the Israeli occupation of the Palestinian territories— by increasing coverage of American political life. This involved providing intensive coverage of the 2004 U.S. presidential election campaign. Even if the interest in the campaign was stimulated in part by the fact that several of the contenders for the Democratic Party nomination challenged the wisdom and conduct of the invasion of Iraq, the result was nonetheless extraordinary coverage of the democratic process starting from the time of the primaries.Indeed, Hugh Miles, the author of a recent book about Al Jazeera, observed at a recent media workshop in Doha that Al Jazeera has done more to educate Arabs about democracy than any other broadcaster. He was alluding to Al Jazeera’s regular weekly program, “From Washington,” with guests from both the administration and the opposition, as well as the special weekly show, “US Presidential Race,” which started in January 2004. The latter program took great pains to educate Arab viewers on the American political and electoral process, how delegates to the conventions are chosen, how the modern primary system evolved, and how the Electoral College functions. This show was supplemented by special reports, documentaries, and live coverage of many of the highlights in the primary campaigns, the conventions (with four reporters covering both conventions) and then the election campaign itself.In contrast to the usual confrontational talk shows, Al Jazeera’s programs, “From Washington” and “the American Presidential Face,” produced by the Washington bureau and hosted by Al Jazeera’s veteran correspondent, Hafez Al Mirazi, had a distinctly informative style. These shows, and in particular the latter one, were obviously designed to help viewers newly interested in American politics to easily understand what was happening during the campaign, and to grasp the basic workings of the American democratic system. The coverage deepened the Arab world’s factual, rather than imaginatively preconceived, understanding of America. As an additional side effect, it provided a familiarization course in the operations of a functioning democracy. A similar effect has been underway in the intense reporting on political life in England by the Al Jazeera and Al Arabiya bureaus in London. Again, the stimulus may be issues of particular interest to an Arab audience, such as the debates in parliament related to the Iraqi invasion, but the side-effect has been a protracted education in the democratic process.The importance of this development cannot be exaggerated. Until a few years ago, there was not a single Center for American studies at any Arab university. Now there are two: one is at Cairo university, and the other has just started at the American University in Cairo, funded interestingly enough by the Saudi Prince and global investor, Alwalid bin Talal (who is deeply involved in Arab satellite television). Additionally, the RAND Corporation has launched a regional research center in Qatar, the host country for Al Jazeera.Two other elections have had a profound effect on stimulating the democratic process in the Arab world. I am referring to the Palestinian election for President (which was a contested election), and also the local elections in which Hamas entered the political process and did quite well, suggesting to Fatah’s leadership that there is a price to be paid for the sort of casual corruption that characterized Palestinian Authority’s rule in the territories since Oslo.But the election with the greatest impact of all was the one in Iraq, in which millions of Arabs watched millions of Iraqis braving terrorist threats to vote in a highly competitive election. And the great question those elections pose in the consciousness of every Arab, in every Arab country, is: If free, competitive elections can be held in Iraq, despite a violent insurgency and a foreign occupation, then why not here?

New journal on terrorism

2006-04-10T09:33:00.000-07:00

REad about the New Jihad - and other ideas on terrorism

http://www.wilberforce.edu/cdsp/defense.html

book review IMEIDS

2006-04-06T09:43:00.000-07:00

Banking on Baghdad: Inside Iraq's 7,000-Year History of War, Profit, and Conflictby Edwin Black. John Wiley, 2004, 496 pp. $27.95 (cloth) ISBN: 0-471-67186-X. Reviewed by Dr.
Sherifa Zuhur, Strategic Studies Institute, U.S. Army War College and author of The Middle East:
Politics, History and Neonationalism.
The subtitle of Edwin Black’s book Banking on Baghdad promises a look at “Iraq’s 7,000-year History of War, Profit, and Conflict.” Don’t be fooled. This is not a history of Iraq, nor of its wars, nor a comprehensive view of its oil industry, It is a type of historical writing; selective misuse of facts to construct a horrifying picture of Iraqi society and its past in sections that alternately rant and tediously detail.

The research aims of the book were not without value; for instance, readers unacquainted with the rather fascinating Mr. C.S. Gulbenkian, the founder of Turkish Petroleum will learn something about one of the more colorful personages of that industry. Unfortunately, they will not get to know him as a historical character in any depth, for despite access to his own archives, the book merely repeats the usual stereotypical portrait of Gulbenkian, know as the conniving Mr. Five Percent. This is typical of the volume. What value exists is overshadowed by polemic prose that highlights Arabs’ violent, inhuman attitudes eclectically drawn from mostly secondary sources. The effect is to imprison Iraqis within the classic stereotypes about the Arabs, Muslims and the region.

As I read, I hoped to find a reference to the book’s title, hoping that Black’s interest in finance would lead him to an exposition of Iraq’s economy. Would the author explore the accusations that America intended to profit from the invasion of Iraq and cessation of Saddam Husayn’s rule? Would Black provide a clear antidote to the argument that the Haliburton ventures are the new form of neocolonialism and carpet-bagger. When the phrase of the title finally surfaced at the very end of the book, I discovered to my chagrin that those “banking on Baghdad” meant Iraqis betting on victory against America. In an annoying demonstration of Black’s style we read that “neither Americans nor “Washington policy makers understood that those who are banking on Baghdad have, for multiple millenia, only reaped the dividends of grief. Why? Perhaps it is because in the West, we will not give up the future. And in Iraq, they will not give up the past.” Is this the type of book that future policy-makers should read? Resort, nay, detailed instruction in the facile prejudices that divide the peoples of the world today?

This civilizational-divide argument á la Bernard Lewis via Samuel Huntington is popular with many. It is no substitute for a coherent history of Iraq, at least for modern Iraq. Black’s research team had access to Public Records Office material, to the records of the Gulbenkian Foundation, and was reportedly “checked” by academic experts who must not be very familiar with standard materials on Iraq that should have been referred to in a true history. For instance, books and articles by scholars like Peter Sluglett and the late Marion Farouk-Sluglett, Amatzia Baram, Majid Khadduri, Phebe Marr, Yitzhak Nakash, Faleh Jabar and Ofra Bengio. These are skipped over in favor of other sources. Excellent general histories of the region were ignored in favor of those that emphasize the brutality of the Arabs. In the cases where the author or his research-writing team actually refer to primary sources from the Public Record Office and the Gulbenkian Foundation, they employ them sophomorically to bolster a dramatic line and arguments made in other secondary sources. No new insights are drawn from the primary sources as should take place in an actual history.

Perhaps the book would have been more successful if it stuck to the story of oil in Iraq, which begins in the sixth chapter, after the most offensive account of ancient civilizations on through the Ottomans that I have read in a long time. It could very useful to understand the interrelationships of the great powers and business concerns that formed the oil empires. But again, most of the space and emphasis is on the “greed” of the local rulers, the oil industry founders and foreign governments, though Black does not provide any clear conclusions about Western involvement in the industry, or to detail its fate after World War One.

King Faysal’s era is completely unexplored (for that read Toby Dodge’s book, Inventing Iraq, or better yet, the memoirs of principals of that period). That’s a shame because the founding of the Iraqi national identity took place in the 1920s and 1930s along with an educational system and the modus vivendi for Iraq’s multiple communities. Black’s review of World War Two covers only two main subjects: the 1941 coup by the Golden Square, and the fate of Iraq’s Jews. Regarding the coup of April 1941, there is no explanation of the principals and their motivations -- the colonels led by Rashid `Ali Gaylani, other than the fact that they were pro-Nazi. A simple equation is devised: Nazi = Arab = Iraqis. Readers needed to know something about the pro-British basis of the government that was overthrown. Then, Black segues into a long explanation and descriptive segment on the Jews of Iraq. While their story is interesting and Black does mention their anti-Zionism and determination to stay in the country even after anti-Semitism became a tool of the regime, he suggests that they were mad to try to remain in their homeland. As far as I know, the Iraqi community in Israel was the one group that retained the Arabic language to some degree and continued to revere Arabic music and culture. Does that suggest madness? Further, the persecution and seeds of the Jewish exodus from Iraq are certainly not the only historical or political development of interest at that time in the country. Where is the coverage of Qassim’s era, of Saddam Husayn’s own policies and attitudes, of the Ba`th party and its provision of political structure and pageantry to the country? All of this is absent from this so-called history of Iraq.

Sherifa Zuhur
Strategic Studies Institute

About This Blog

2006-02-07T11:00:00.000-08:00

This blog is part of the Institute of Islamic, Middle Eastern, and Diasporic
Studies. MEIDS. We're working on IMEIDS website and will refer you there
soon.

Purposes of this website: to discuss issues pertaining to the Middle East,
the Islamic World and their peoples - whether they consider themselves
resettled or in diaspora.

Please, strong feelings are OK, but not hate speech!

Today the subject is -- the cartoons!

Here is a link to an editorial on the cartoons -

The Power of Division and Unity, by Dr. Sherifa D. Zuhur - April 2006