Iran’s Election is a Contest

 

Most western pundits portray Iranian elections as a sham orchestrated by the Supreme leader to reach a desired outcome. (See here and here) I, however, find the rough and tumble political contests among Iran’s many factions to be fascinating. Tomorrow’s first round of the Iranian Presidential election is shaping up to be an interesting race; perhaps more interesting than the usual U.S. election which generally boils down to two candidates, selected by the big money donors, who are undifferentiated with respect to their foreign policy.

The most recent polling data that I have seen shows the following:

Prediction of voter turnout:                     71%.

Mohammad Bagher Ghalibaf                  23%

Mohsen Rezaei                                         14%

Hassan Rowhani                                       13%

Saeed Jalili                                                10%

Ali Akbar Velayati                                       8%

Mohammad Reza Aref                               6%

Mohammad Gharazi                                  2%

Gholam Ali Haddad Adel                            2%

Hassan Rowhani, the only cleric in the group, and Mohammad Aref represent the more moderate wing of Iranian politics. Since this polling, Aref has dropped out of the contest in order avoid splitting the “moderate vote”. This change, combined with the endorsement of Rowhani by former presidents Mohammad Khatami and Hashemi Rafsanjani seems to have given the secular liberal population a new dose of enthusiasm. With the remaining candidates splitting the “conservative” vote, it is plausible that Mohammad Ghalibaf and Rowhani could end up in the June 21 runoff election.

Ghalibaf, the pragmatic Mayor of Tehran, is a strong and popular candidate. For a large metropolitan area Tehran is a livable city, if you can get by the life threatening experience of Tehran traffic. Tehranis tend to love their mayors. Mahmoud Ahmadinejad is a former Tehran mayor. While the projected turnout may be overstated, it is certain to be greater than the U.S. 58%.

Whatever the outcome, any change in Iran’s foreign policy is unlikely. A large majority of Iranians support the nuclear program and changing position on this is in the hands of the Supreme Leader and politically is a non-starter. If the outcome results in better management of the Iranian economy it will make a difference for the ordinary Iranian and that’s what counts for them.

(Another commentary on Iran’s election is here)

Technorati Tags: Iran Election

Droning On: Obama’s Targeting Killing Justification

Last month, President Obama delivered a major speech at the National Defense University in which he addressed the U.S. policy on drone attacks. (The full text is here.) The tactic of targeted assassinations of individuals suspected of threatening the U.S. originated during the George W. Bush administration. This tactic has been dramatically expanded under the Obama administration and has become the primary tactic utilized in the “War on Terror”. Not only has the frequency of drone strikes increased, but the geography has also expanded from the war zones of Iraq and Afghanistan to include non-war zones, such as Pakistan, Yemen and Somalia. The potential target list has also expanded to include American citizens suspected of posing a threat.

In describing the source of this threat, Mr. Obama offered the “conflict of civilizations” argument saying, “Most, though not all, of the terrorism we faced is fueled by a common ideology — a belief by some extremists that Islam is in conflict with the United States and the West, and that violence against Western targets, including civilians, is justified in pursuit of a larger cause.” In making this argument, he neglected to mention the U.S. invasions of Muslim lands, overall U.S. Middle East policy and previous targeted killings which tend to create more enemies than they eliminate. (Before the targeted killings began in Yemen there were estimated to be less than 100 al Qaeda sympathizers; today the estimate is over 1200)

In his justification for his use of targeted assassinations Mr. Obama said, “…we act against terrorists who pose a continuing and imminent threat to the American people, and when there are no other governments capable of effectively addressing the threat.” and “…despite our strong preference for the detention and prosecution of terrorists, sometimes this approach is foreclosed.”

These arguments, while nuanced and carefully framed, are arguments that could easily been made by Vladimir Putin when he was accused of orchestrating the assassination of former KGB officer Alexander Litvinenko in 2006 in London or by Chilean dictator Augusto Pinochet after the car bomb assassination of former Chilean Ambassador Orlando Letelier in Washington D.C. in 1976. Letelier’s American assistant, Ronnie Moffit, was simply “collateral damage”.

Right now the U.S. has a technological advantage in the production of drones, but this is unlikely to last long. Legitimizing a policy of extrajudicial execution of suspected threats in non-war zones is setting a precedent for other governments who might not be as inclined to take the precautions that Obama has outlined. As Georgetown University Professor of International Law, Rosa Brooks, pointed out in her testimony before Congress, “…the United States is effectively handing China, Russia, and every other repressive state a playbook for how to foment instability and -literally -- get away with murder."

The law of unintended consequences has not been repealed.

Technorati Tags: Obama,Drones

Tom Friedman’s Pipe Dream

This week NY Times columnist Thomas Friedman published an op-ed piece in which he bemoaned the fact that Israel was increasingly becoming an isolated pariah state. His example of the trend of “international delegitimization closing in on Israel” was the decision by Stephen Hawking, a renowned British physicist, cosmologist and author, to refuse to attend the fifth annual Israeli Presidential Conference “based on advice from Palestinian academics that he should respect the boycott” of Israel because of the West Bank occupation.
His recommended solution was for Israel to partner with the current illegitimate Palestinian government in Ramallah to create a Palestinian state by ceding “most of the West Bank and Arab neighborhoods of East Jerusalem” while “keeping its forces on the Jordan River.
It is ironic that on the same day that Mr. Friedman published his recommendation, the Israeli public expressed their opinion through a Jerusalem Post poll. The Post reported that “74% say they reject the idea of a Palestinian capital in any portion of Jerusalem, with the implication being that they prefer a united Jerusalem. Only 15% say they would support a divided plan for the city, whereby Israel would relinquish sovereignty over some eastern portions of the city to allow for a Palestinian capital there.” From the perspective of the average Israeli citizen, Mt. Friedman’s proposal is dead on arrival. Remember, Israel is a democracy and the voters get to call the shots.
It is also ironic that on the same day a Palestinian friend of mine posted an updated map of the West Bank showing settlements, barriers and closed military zones. If anybody can create a Palestinian state out of this, they are smarter than I am.
Good luck to Secretary of State John Kerry in his quest for a two state solution.

Technorati Tags: Israel,Palestine,Tom Friedman

The Cuban Connection

During my recent trip to Cuba I had the opportunity to meet with Johana Tablada, the Deputy Director of the North American Department of the Cuban Foreign Ministry. Ms. Tablada had served in the Cuban Interest Section in Washington, D.C. for a number of years and with her youth, engaging personality and fluent, slangy American English; she was a popular figure on the lecture circuit around the U.S. and an effective public relations spokesperson for Cuba. The right wing Cuban émigré community testified to her effectiveness by accusing her of being a Cuban spy. (See here)

Ms. Tablada explained that she had had two largely sleepless days as she had tried to unravel the messy case of Joshua and Sharyn Hakken, who had kidnapped their two children from their maternal grandparents in Florida, who had legal custody, and fled on a small sailboat. After encountering bad weather in the Florida Strait, the boat ended up docked at Marina Hemingway outside of Havana. Needless to say, the arrival in Cuba of a boat from the U.S. attracted the attention of Cuban Security who immediately put the couple under surveillance.

In cases like this, the default position for the Cuban government is to respect the rights of the parents. However, as Ms. Tablada explained, for Cubans, the welfare of the children trumps everything. She explained that she understood that American family law is complicated and it took some time to receive the appropriate documents from U.S. authorities in order insure that the grandparents had legal custody. Once this hurdle was crossed arrangements were made to return the family to authorities in Florida. There was, however, one glitch. The children wouldn’t leave without their dog. Ms. Tablada said “I have spent the last six hours looking for the dog. The good news is that we found the dog and everybody parents, kids and dog are on their way back to Miami.”

While the U.S and Cuba have no formal relations, there is a lot of cooperation on issues such as immigration, counter-terrorism, drug interdiction and search and rescue. Hopefully, this episode can be a small step toward normalizing U.S. relations with our neighbor to the south. The odds are slim, however, as demonstrated by Florida Cuban-American Congresswoman, Ileana Ross-Lehtinen who issued her usual helpful statement:

"Unfortunately, these parents and these poor children, these innocent ones, will now be in a country where there are no laws, there is no redress, and that has been a refuge for fugitives and wanted criminals for many years,"

Technorati Tags: Cuba,Joshua Hakken

When Will We Ever Learn

A recent article written by Franklin Lamb, an American journalist and researcher based in Lebanon commenting on the anniversary of the tragic bombing of the U.S Embassy in Beirut. He puts this event in larger perspective.

Beirut -- This observer has no idea if the American Ambassador here in Beirut, Maura Connelly or Secretary of State John Kerry has ever listened to Marlene Dietrich’s classic October 1965 performance of Pete Seeger’s “Where Have All The Flowers Gone,” still stunning, deeply moving and available on the Internet. (here)

But on this 30th anniversary of the bombing of the US Embassy in Beirut I found myself near the old embassy site on the sea front for personal reasons, and stepped down the block below the American University of Beirut to meet a friend at Starbucks. When I entered, maybe the 5th time in my life

I have been to a Starbucks since I don’t drink coffee and for political reasons tend to avoid the chain, I noticed someone was playing Dietrich’s classic.

Having just read reports in the Lebanese media concerning the American Ambassador and Secretary of State’s political comments on the embassy events, three decades on, Marlene’s enchanting, deep voiced, “When will they ever learn,?” numbed me.

Kerry slammed Hezbollah in the Lebanese media, saying “On this 30th anniversary of the bombing of the U.S. Embassy in Beirut, Lebanon, the United States celebrates 30 years of close cooperation with the people of Lebanon that proves the enemies of democracy failed,” he said from

Washington, "especially at the people-to-people level, and this proves the terrorists' goals were not achieved.”

For her part, U.S. Ambassador to Lebanon Maura Connelly said the bombing opened a new chapter in America’s history in the Middle East. Connelly said the explosion taught Americans that “peaceful intentions were not enough to protect us from those who would use terror to achieve their aims in the Middle East.”

What both officials avoid mentioning is the subject of who was committing the terrorism in Lebanon when these events, including the US Marine Barracks and the Embassy again in 1984, occurred.

Regarding Hezbollah, which would not be a formed organization ready to announce itself publicly until 1985, CIA operative Robert Baer and his team assigned to investigate the Embassy bombing concluded there was not enough reliable evidence to support the theory that the Party of God was responsible. Among the more than three dozen militias of various persuasions operating in Beirut alone in the early 1980’s, only Islamic Jihad claimed responsibility.

The American officials also failed to take into consideration the fact, never denied by Washington, that at that time the US Embassy had the largest contingent of CIA agents working out of the Embassy and performing command and control functions for the US Marine base in South Beirut, more in fact than in any other capital city except Moscow. When the US Embassy became a command post, by the terms of the 1961 Vienna Convention on Diplomatic relations it lost its protected status.

The US Marines as a hostile military force in Lebanon never had adequate protection, and by targeting civilians, its base near the airport became a legitimate target. Contrary to the political spin put on the event, there was no terrorism involved in the operation.

The reason is because, despite Reagan administration claims, and this week's assertion by Ambassador Connelly, the US forces were not “a neutral peacekeeping unit” as hyped. Rather, they were enemy combatants fighting and killing on one side of a civil war conflict. When the battleship New Jersey's shells killed hundreds of people, mostly Shiites and Druze, that fact was clear. It's not surprising that in his memoir, General Colin Powell, at the time an assistant to Caspar Weinberger noted that "When the shells started falling on the Shiites, they assumed the American ‘referee’ had taken sides."

Some examples. On 14 December, 1983 the New Jersey fired 11 projectiles from three of her 16 inch (406 mm) guns at the rate of three per minute each at positions inland of Beirut. These were the first 16 inch shells fired for effect anywhere in the world since New Jersey ended her time on the gun line in Vietnam in 1969.

According to news accounts by reporters in Beirut at the time, the New Jersey bombardment sometimes began at 1:25 P.M. and ended at 11 P.M. followed by American fighter-bombers which could be heard flying over Beirut in search of targets.

On September 19, 1983, the New Jersey and other US warships began shelling Druze, Syrian and Palestinian positions in the Chouf Mountains outside Beirut. The battleship New Jersey with its 2,700 pound shells ("flying Volkswagens") led the action. And on 8 February 1984, the New Jersey fired almost 300 shells at Druze and Shi'ite positions in the hills overlooking Beirut. More of the massive projectiles rained down on the Bekaa valley east of Beirut and constituted the heaviest shore bombardment since the Korean War.

The inaccuracy of New Jersey's guns was a scandal in US government circles and was consistently called into question. An investigation, led by Marine colonel Don Price, into New Jersey's gunfire effectiveness in Lebanon found that many of the ship's shells had missed their targets by as much as 10,000 yards (9,144 meters) and therefore may have inadvertently killed civilians. Records and oral hearings of the Senate Foreign Relations Committee on the matter could not be clearer, and Secretary Kerry and Ambassador Connelly know this. Tim McNulty, a correspondent for the Chicago Tribune based in Lebanon at the time wrote: "Everybody loved the New Jersey until she fired her guns. Once she fired, it was obvious she couldn't hit anything,” Well, as the citizens of Lebanon know, it did indeed hit things mainly innocent civilians, their property and Lebanon’s infrastructure.

As Secretary of State Kerrey knows well from his nearly three decades in the US Senate and his four years (2009-2013) as Chairman of the Foreign Relations Committee the actions of the USS New Jersey itself was arguably terrorism and some experts in the International Law Bureau of the Pentagon have said as much.

This observer lived for more than a year in the Chouf village of Choueifat, a beautiful place set high above the remains of the US marine barracks, the Beirut airport and the Mediterranean Sea where the USS Jersey and other US Sixth fleet warships are normally positioned when they come calling on Lebanon.

Neighbors still recall what some here call, “the terror days of USS New Jersey” and its shelling with both 26 inch and 19 inch shells, the former weighing up to 2,700 pounds. Clearly visible around Choueifat and dozens of other smaller towns, are the remains of houses and buildings not yet repaired from the devastation caused by the intense shelling. Also visible at various locations are indications that unexploded shells even now remain imbedded in the ground.

One wonders if as part of the "special enduring friendship between the United States and Lebanon on a people to people level” that the president might order the Pentagon to defuse and remove these huge unexploded bombs. If so he would distinguish his administration from that of the occupiers of Palestine who for more than three decades have targeted various parts of Lebanon with American supplied and US taxpayer-paid weapons, including literally millions of US-made cluster bombs during the 33 day Israeli aggression in 2006.

It is certainly appropriate to honor the victims of the 1983, but it is no less appropriate to honor the other tragedies in Lebanon during this period under review that precipitated it. In her closing remarks this week, Ambassador Connelly noted that in her opinion, “the bombing of the US Embassy taught us the stakes of involvement in this region.”

Has it?

As we contemplate another “neutral peacekeeping presence” being planned in Washington for Syria, we gravely doubt that it has.

When will we ever learn?

Recognizing a New Reality

Having recently returned from three weeks in Israel/Palestine I am struck by the changes on the ground since I last visited. The Jewish settlements have become much more ubiquitous and are now built alongside and between Arab towns. The Jewish settlements that were once only a group of caravans with no services and utilities have now developed into fully functional towns. The major settlement blocs have expanded to the point that they border and surround Palestinian towns. As a result of this development and expansion Jews and Arabs now live alongside each other in separate communities behind walls and barbwire fences. This intermingling of Jewish settlements and Arab towns now means that Israelis and Palestinians use many of the same roads. There are no longer enough bypass roads to completely separate Jews and Arabs. The result has been that many of the roads in the West Bank have been upgraded and many of the checkpoints are no longer manned. In Palestinian cities such as Jenin and Nablus one sees, despite the ominous warnings on the

red signs, a number Arab Israeli shoppers. Some tours are now being offered for Israeli Jews to visit the Ramallah, the seat of government for the Palestinian Authority.

Despite the efforts of the Israeli government to maintain an apartheid state, the reality on the ground may be gradually breaking this down. I found Jews and Arabs on both sides of the wall beginning to recognize that the “two state solution” is no longer possible and that it is now becoming OK to talk about a bi-national state in polite company. Whether this state is “Palreal” or “Isrestine”, it is becoming the way forward. Even western media outlets are beginning to examine this option. (See here)

As usual the politicians are late to recognize the reality on the ground. The first step in addressing any problem is to recognize the brutal reality. Denying this reality will get us nowhere. Government leaders on all sides need to begin to prepare their citizens for the fact that they will need to learn to live alongside their neighbors in peace. Will the Jews who now have a privileged position like this reality? No! Did the whites in South Africa want to give up their privileged position? No! Did the whites in the American South want to give up “Jim Crow”? No! The changes just had to happen.

Currently leaders are prone to say that the “two state solution” is on “life support”. What they fail to recognize is that the patient is already dead. Leaders need to emphasize what brings Palestinians and Jews together, language, culture and religious traditions, rather than what divides them. The brutal reality is that Zionism has to go and be replaced by justice, democracy and equal rights.
Photo by Brooks Cato

Egypt’s Messy Politics Get Worse

Two years ago Tunisia, Egypt and Libya led the way for the so called “Arab Spring” by successfully ousting long entrenched authoritarian regimes. Tunisia accomplished this with a relatively peaceful series of demonstrations that forced President Ali to leave. Egypt’s overthrow of President Mubarak was more violent, but still relatively peaceful. Libya on the other hand endured months of civil war in order to force Muammar Gaddafi from power. I thought at the time that Libya would have the most difficult time in transitioning to a democratic system. Gaddafi had destroyed all of Libya’s civil society institutions and the country had a history of, sometimes violent, tribal rivalries. Despite these problems, Libya has managed a relatively successful transition and the IMF predicts that the economy will grow at a rate of 116% in 2012.

On the other hand, Egypt, the so called “leader of the Arab world”, has allowed its political issues to deteriorate into one big street brawl with opposing political groups shooting at each other. In order to understand how we got into this state of affairs, it is useful to examine the history of the Egyptian electoral process and how the results were read differently by the various parties.

The process began when the Supreme Council of the Armed Forces (SCAF) assumed power following Mubarak’s ouster. SCAF decided to hold elections before drafting a new constitution. The rapid timetable for Parliamentary elections favored the more organized Islamist parties. Following a convoluted series of elections and an even more obscure system of allocating seats, the Islamist parties emerged with 65% of the votes and 70% of the seats. Unsurprisingly, the Constituent Assembly, tasked by Parliament with writing the Constitution, was dominated by Islamists.

The Presidential elections were held in two stages. In the first stage, which determined who would move to the second round, the Muslim Brotherhood (MB) candidate Mohammed Morsi (25%) edged out Ahmed Shafiq, a remnant (falool) of the Mubarak regime (23%). The remaining moderate and secular parties could not agree on a common candidate and split the vote resulting in Morsi and Shafiq facing off in the second round. In this round Morsi won a narrow victory (52% to 48%) with many voters voting against the MB rather than for Shafiq. All this said, however, it should be pointed out that, however convoluted the process, Mohammed Morsi is the most democratically elected president in Egypt’s history.

The MB looked at the parliamentary results and concluded that they had an overwhelming mandate to govern. This conclusion has led to governing overreach. The opposition looked at the presidential results and concluded that a majority of Egyptians oppose the MB. The secularist and falool parties, who couldn’t agree on anything during the elections, have formed an odd coalition, The National Salvation Front (NSF). They have called the “regime” illegitimate, called for its overthrow and vowed that they “will not allow the constitutional referendum to go forward”. The tanks are back in the streets again. As Jason Brownlee points out in a recent article, by banking on military intervention and “courting a coup against Morsi or prolonging Egypt’s transition (the NSF) risks erasing the great strides made toward popular sovereignty and civilian control over the state.” Reza Aslan’s pithy Tweet sums it up, “For God's sake Egypt. The world is watching. Throwing rocks at each other is not politics. Get your shit together!”

Technorati Tags: Egypt Election,Egypt Unrest