#Kissinger on the #MiddleEast: Too much of our public debate deals with tactical expedients. What we need is a strategic concept" @WSJ

Finally some intelligent analysis on the current situation in the Middle East. 

A Path Out of the Middle East Collapse

ENLARGE

Syrians in Damascus thank Vladimir Putin for aiding the Assad regime, Oct. 13. Photo: SANA/Associated Press

By

Henry A. Kissinger

Oct. 16, 2015 7:18 p.m. ET

The debate about whether the Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action with Iran regarding its nuclear program stabilized the Middle East’s strategic framework had barely begun when the region’s geopolitical framework collapsed. Russia’s unilateral military action in Syria is the latest symptom of the disintegration of the American role in stabilizing the Middle East order that emerged from the Arab-Israeli war of 1973.

In the aftermath of that conflict, Egypt abandoned its military ties with the Soviet Union and joined an American-backed negotiating process that produced peace treaties between Israel and Egypt, and Israel and Jordan, a United Nations-supervised disengagement agreement between Israel and Syria, which has been observed for over four decades (even by the parties of the Syrian civil war), and international support of Lebanon’s sovereign territorial integrity. Later, Saddam Hussein’s war to incorporate Kuwait into Iraq was defeated by an international coalition under U.S. leadership. American forces led the war against terror in Iraq and Afghanistan. Egypt, Jordan, Saudi Arabia and the other Gulf States were our allies in all these efforts. The Russian military presence disappeared from the region.

That geopolitical pattern is now in shambles. Four states in the region have ceased to function as sovereign. Libya, Yemen, Syria and Iraq have become targets for nonstate movements seeking to impose their rule. Over large swaths in Iraq and Syria, an ideologically radical religious army has declared itself the Islamic State (also called ISIS or ISIL) as an unrelenting foe of established world order. It seeks to replace the international system’s multiplicity of states with a caliphate, a single Islamic empire governed by Shariah law.

ISIS’ claim has given the millennium-old split between the Shiite and Sunni sects of Islam an apocalyptic dimension. The remaining Sunni states feel threatened by both the religious fervor of ISIS as well as by Shiite Iran, potentially the most powerful state in the region. Iran compounds its menace by presenting itself in a dual capacity. On one level, Iran acts as a legitimate Westphalian state conducting traditional diplomacy, even invoking the safeguards of the international system. At the same time, it organizes and guides nonstate actors seeking regional hegemony based on jihadist principles: Hezbollah in Lebanon and Syria; Hamas in Gaza; the Houthis in Yemen.

Thus the Sunni Middle East risks engulfment by four concurrent sources: Shiite-governed Iran and its legacy of Persian imperialism; ideologically and religiously radical movements striving to overthrow prevalent political structures; conflicts within each state between ethnic and religious groups arbitrarily assembled after World War I into (now collapsing) states; and domestic pressures stemming from detrimental political, social and economic domestic policies.

The fate of Syria provides a vivid illustration: What started as a Sunni revolt against the Alawite (a Shiite offshoot) autocrat Bashar Assad fractured the state into its component religious and ethnic groups, with nonstate militias supporting each warring party, and outside powers pursuing their own strategic interests. Iran supports the Assad regime as the linchpin of an Iranian historic dominance stretching from Tehran to the Mediterranean. The Gulf States insist on the overthrow of Mr. Assad to thwart Shiite Iranian designs, which they fear more than Islamic State. They seek the defeat of ISIS while avoiding an Iranian victory. This ambivalence has been deepened by the nuclear deal, which in the Sunni Middle East is widely interpreted as tacit American acquiescence in Iranian hegemony.

These conflicting trends, compounded by America’s retreat from the region, have enabled Russia to engage in military operations deep in the Middle East, a deployment unprecedented in Russian history. Russia’s principal concern is that the Assad regime’s collapse could reproduce the chaos of Libya, bring ISIS into power in Damascus, and turn all of Syria into a haven for terrorist operations, reaching into Muslim regions inside Russia’s southern border in the Caucasus and elsewhere. 

On the surface, Russia’s intervention serves Iran’s policy of sustaining the Shiite element in Syria. In a deeper sense, Russia’s purposes do not require the indefinite continuation of Mr. Assad’s rule. It is a classic balance-of-power maneuver to divert the Sunni Muslim terrorist threat from Russia’s southern border region. It is a geopolitical, not an ideological, challenge and should be dealt with on that level. Whatever the motivation, Russian forces in the region—and their participation in combat operations—produce a challenge that American Middle East policy has not encountered in at least four decades.

American policy has sought to straddle the motivations of all parties and is therefore on the verge of losing the ability to shape events. The U.S. is now opposed to, or at odds in some way or another with, all parties in the region: with Egypt on human rights; with Saudi Arabia over Yemen; with each of the Syrian parties over different objectives. The U.S. proclaims the determination to remove Mr. Assad but has been unwilling to generate effective leverage—political or military—to achieve that aim. Nor has the U.S. put forward an alternative political structure to replace Mr. Assad should his departure somehow be realized. 

Russia, Iran, ISIS and various terrorist organizations have moved into this vacuum: Russia and Iran to sustain Mr. Assad; Tehran to foster imperial and jihadist designs. The Sunni states of the Persian Gulf, Jordan and Egypt, faced with the absence of an alternative political structure, favor the American objective but fear the consequence of turning Syria into another Libya.

American policy on Iran has moved to the center of its Middle East policy. The administration has insisted that it will take a stand against jihadist and imperialist designs by Iran and that it will deal sternly with violations of the nuclear agreement. But it seems also passionately committed to the quest for bringing about a reversal of the hostile, aggressive dimension of Iranian policy through historic evolution bolstered by negotiation.

The prevailing U.S. policy toward Iran is often compared by its advocates to the Nixon administration’s opening to China, which contributed, despite some domestic opposition, to the ultimate transformation of the Soviet Union and the end of the Cold War. The comparison is not apt. The opening to China in 1971 was based on the mutual recognition by both parties that the prevention of Russian hegemony in Eurasia was in their common interest. And 42 Soviet divisions lining the Sino-Soviet border reinforced that conviction. No comparable strategic agreement exists between Washington and Tehran. On the contrary, in the immediate aftermath of the nuclear accord, Iran’s Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei described the U.S. as the “Great Satan” and rejected negotiations with America about nonnuclear matters. Completing his geopolitical diagnosis, Mr. Khamenei also predicted that Israel would no longer exist in 25 years.

Forty-five years ago, the expectations of China and the U.S. were symmetrical. The expectations underlying the nuclear agreement with Iran are not. Tehran will gain its principal objectives at the beginning of the implementation of the accord. America’s benefits reside in a promise of Iranian conduct over a period of time. The opening to China was based on an immediate and observable adjustment in Chinese policy, not on an expectation of a fundamental change in China’s domestic system. The optimistic hypothesis on Iran postulates that Tehran’s revolutionary fervor will dissipate as its economic and cultural interactions with the outside world increase.

American policy runs the risk of feeding suspicion rather than abating it. Its challenge is that two rigid and apocalyptic blocs are confronting each other: a Sunni bloc consisting of Egypt, Jordan, Saudi Arabia and the Gulf States; and the Shiite bloc comprising Iran, the Shiite sector of Iraq with Baghdad as its capital, the Shiite south of Lebanon under Hezbollah control facing Israel, and the Houthi portion of Yemen, completing the encirclement of the Sunni world. In these circumstances, the traditional adage that the enemy of your enemy can be treated as your friend no longer applies. For in the contemporary Middle East, it is likely that the enemy of your enemy remains your enemy.

A great deal depends on how the parties interpret recent events. Can the disillusionment of some of our Sunni allies be mitigated? How will Iran’s leaders interpret the nuclear accord once implemented—as a near-escape from potential disaster counseling a more moderate course, returning Iran to an international order? Or as a victory in which they have achieved their essential aims against the opposition of the U.N. Security Council, having ignored American threats and, hence, as an incentive to continue Tehran’s dual approach as both a legitimate state and a nonstate movement challenging the international order?

Two-power systems are prone to confrontation, as was demonstrated in Europe in the run-up to World War I. Even with traditional weapons technology, to sustain a balance of power between two rigid blocs requires an extraordinary ability to assess the real and potential balance of forces, to understand the accumulation of nuances that might affect this balance, and to act decisively to restore it whenever it deviates from equilibrium—qualities not heretofore demanded of an America sheltered behind two great oceans.

But the current crisis is taking place in a world of nontraditional nuclear and cyber technology. As competing regional powers strive for comparable threshold capacity, the nonproliferation regime in the Middle East may crumble. If nuclear weapons become established, a catastrophic outcome is nearly inevitable. A strategy of pre-emption is inherent in the nuclear technology. The U.S. must be determined to prevent such an outcome and apply the principle of nonproliferation to all nuclear aspirants in the region.

Too much of our public debate deals with tactical expedients. What we need is a strategic concept and to establish priorities on the following principles:

• So long as ISIS survives and remains in control of a geographically defined territory, it will compound all Middle East tensions. Threatening all sides and projecting its goals beyond the region, it freezes existing positions or tempts outside efforts to achieve imperial jihadist designs. The destruction of ISIS is more urgent than the overthrow of Bashar Assad, who has already lost over half of the area he once controlled. Making sure that this territory does not become a permanent terrorist haven must have precedence. The current inconclusive U.S. military effort risks serving as a recruitment vehicle for ISIS as having stood up to American might. 

• The U.S. has already acquiesced in a Russian military role. Painful as this is to the architects of the 1973 system, attention in the Middle East must remain focused on essentials. And there exist compatible objectives. In a choice among strategies, it is preferable for ISIS-held territory to be reconquered either by moderate Sunni forces or outside powers than by Iranian jihadist or imperial forces. For Russia, limiting its military role to the anti-ISIS campaign may avoid a return to Cold War conditions with the U.S.

• The reconquered territories should be restored to the local Sunni rule that existed there before the disintegration of both Iraqi and Syrian sovereignty. The sovereign states of the Arabian Peninsula, as well as Egypt and Jordan, should play a principal role in that evolution. After the resolution of its constitutional crisis, Turkey could contribute creatively to such a process.

• As the terrorist region is being dismantled and brought under nonradical political control, the future of the Syrian state should be dealt with concurrently. A federal structure could then be built between the Alawite and Sunni portions. If the Alawite regions become part of a Syrian federal system, a context will exist for the role of Mr. Assad, which reduces the risks of genocide or chaos leading to terrorist triumph.

• The U.S. role in such a Middle East would be to implement the military assurances in the traditional Sunni states that the administration promised during the debate on the Iranian nuclear agreement, and which its critics have demanded.

• In this context, Iran’s role can be critical. The U.S. should be prepared for a dialogue with an Iran returning to its role as a Westphalian state within its established borders.

The U.S. must decide for itself the role it will play in the 21st century; the Middle East will be our most immediate—and perhaps most severe—test. At question is not the strength of American arms but rather American resolve in understanding and mastering a new world.

Mr. Kissinger served as national-security adviser and secretary of state under Presidents Nixon and Ford.

A Path Out of the Middle East Collapse - WSJ

Share

-- The MasterFeeds

When #Iran, #Israel, and #Turkey Worked Together @ForeignAffairs

Between 1956 and 1979, Israel shared intelligence with Iran and Turkey on a scale not seen since, was one of Israel’s most far-reaching and comprehensive foreign policy accomplishments.

Trident’s Forgotten Legacy

Yossi Alpher 

May 7, 2015 Foreign Affairs 

The Trident alliance, through which, between 1956 and 1979, Israel shared intelligence with Iran and Turkey on a scale not seen since, was one of Israel’s most far-reaching and comprehensive foreign policy accomplishments. The program represented the vanguard of Israel’s doctrine for dealing with its neighbors and provided the nation with a grand strategy for the first time since its creation. Jerusalem’s relationship with Tehran lasted more than 20 years, until the fall of Iran’s Shah Mohammad Reza Pahlavi in 1979. Israel’s strategic relationship with Turkey continued on and off for several decades, ending with Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan’s acerbic comments at the Davos summit in 2009. Although ambitious, Trident was just one in a series of Israeli attempts to find common ground with non-Arab allies—most of which yielded only fleeting success.

Iran and Turkey voted against the creation of Israel by the United Nations in 1947, and neither supported Israel’s request for UN membership in 1949. Nevertheless, both proceeded to recognize Israel on a de facto basis, establishing low-level or thinly concealed relations through trade missions. Iran and Turkey had a number of motives to enter into relations with Israel and maintain them at low and often deniable levels. For one, those countries’ relations with their Arab neighbors were often tense, and warming or cooling to Israel was useful leverage. Additionally, there was the U.S. dimension: Israeli Prime Minister David Ben-Gurion marketed Trident to Washington as an asset to the West against Soviet inroads into the Middle East and as a force to fight Arab radicalism. Both Iran and Turkey understood Jewish influence in the United States and perceived that a close relationship with Israel would mean that the U.S. Jewish lobby would convey their needs to Washington.

Although ambitious, Trident was just one in a series of Israeli attempts to find common ground with non-Arab allies—most of which yielded only fleeting success.

Trident also wrought regional geostrategic incentives. Israel’s achievements in the 1956 Sinai campaign, Gamal Abdel Nasser’s erratic regime in Egypt, the Iraqi coup in 1958, and growing fears of Soviet incursion all brought Iran, Israel, and Turkey into an intelligence relationship that took form in a series of separate meetings in Europe, Ankara, and Tehran from 1956 to 1958. At the first triangular meeting, heads of each national intelligence organization established an impressive array of cooperative intelligence ventures, some leading to subversion projects directed against Nasserist and Soviet regional influence.

What Really Happened in #Iran in 1953?

Conventional wisdom about the 1953 coup in Iran rests on the myth that the CIA toppled the country's democratically elected prime minister. In reality, the coup was primarily a domestic Iranian affair, and the CIA's impact was ultimately insignificant.

What Really Happened in Iran

Back in 2009, during his heavily promoted Cairo speech on American relations with the Muslim world, U.S. President Barack Obama noted, in passing, that “in the middle of the Cold War, the United States played a role in the overthrow of a democratically elected Iranian government.” Obama was referring to the 1953 coup that toppled Iranian Prime Minister Mohammad Mosaddeq and consolidated the rule of the shah, Mohammad Reza Pahlavi. Obama would go on to remind his audience that Iran had also committed its share of misdeeds against Americans. But he clearly intended his allusion to Washington’s role in the coup as a concession -- a public acknowledgment that the United States shared some of the blame for its long-simmering conflict with the Islamic Republic.

Yet there was a supreme irony to Obama’s concession. The history of the U.S. role in Iran’s 1953 coup may be “well known,” as the president declared in his speech, but it is not well founded. On the contrary, it rests heavily on two related myths: that machinations by the CIA were the most important factor in Mosaddeq’s downfall and that Iran’s brief democratic interlude was spoiled primarily by American and British meddling. For decades, historians, journalists, and pundits have promoted these myths, injecting them not just into the political discourse but also into popular culture: most recently, Argo, a Hollywood thriller that won the 2013 Academy Award for Best Picture, suggested that Iran’s 1979 Islamic Revolution was a belated response to an injustice perpetrated by the United States a quarter century earlier. That version of events has also been promoted by Iran’s theocratic leaders, who have exploited it to stoke anti-Americanism and to obscure the fact that the clergy itself played a major role in toppling Mosaddeq.

In reality, the CIA’s impact on the events of 1953 was ultimately insignificant. Regardless of anything the United States did or did not do, Mosaddeq was bound to fall and the shah was bound to retain his throne and expand his power. Yet the narrative of American culpability has become so entrenched that it now shapes how many Americans understand the history of U.S.-Iranian relations and influences how American leaders think about Iran. In reaching out to the Islamic Republic, the United States has cast itself as a sinner expiating its previous transgressions. This has allowed the Iranian theocracy, which has abused history in a thousand ways, to claim the moral high ground, giving it an unearned advantage over Washington and the West, even in situations that have nothing to do with 1953 and in which Iran’s behavior is the sole cause of the conflict, such as the negotiations over the Iranian nuclear program.

All of this makes developing a better and more accurate understanding of the real U.S. role in Iran’s past critically important. It’s far more than a matter of correcting the history books. Getting things right would help the United States develop a less self-defeating approach to the Islamic Republic today and would encourage Iranians -- especially the country’s clerical elite -- to claim ownership of their past.

Day in court: Mohammad Mosaddeq on trial, November 1953. (Getty / Carl Mydans)

HONEST BROKERS

In the years following World War II, Iran was a devastated country, recovering from famine and poverty brought on by the war. It was also a wealthy country, whose ample oil reserves fueled the engines of the British Empire. But Iran’s government didn’t control that oil: the wheel was held by the Anglo-Iranian Oil Company, whose majority shareholder happened to be the British government. By the early 1950s, as assertive nationalism swept the developing world, many Iranians were beginning to see this colonial-era arrangement as an unjust, undignified anachronism.

So strong was the desire to take back control of Iran’s national resources that it united the country’s liberal reformers, its intelligentsia, elements of its clerical establishment, and its middle-class professionals into a coherent political movement. At the center of that movement stood Mosaddeq, an upper-class lawyer who had been involved in Iranian politics from a young age, serving in various ministries and as a member of parliament. Toward the end of World War II, Mosaddeq reemerged on the political scene as a champion of Iranian anticolonialism and nationalism and managed to draw together many disparate elements into his political party, the National Front. Mosaddeq was not a revolutionary; he was respectful of the traditions of his social class and supported the idea of constitutional monarchy. But he also sought a more modern and more democratic Iran, and in addition to the nationalization of Iran’s oil, his party’s agenda called for improved public education, freedom of the press, judicial reforms, and a more representative government.

In April 1951, the Iranian parliament voted to appoint Mosaddeq prime minister. In a clever move, Mosaddeq insisted that he would not assume the office unless the parliament also approved an act he had proposed that would nationalize the Iranian oil industry. Mosaddeq got his way in a unanimous vote, and the easily intimidated shah capitulated to the parliament’s demands. Iran now entered a new and more dangerous crisis.

Why Anti- #Israel Conspiracy Theories Keep a Foothold in the #Arab #Mideast – Tablet Magazine

Iranians believe that the mastery of [nuclear] science—rather than any other field of science, a bustling economy, and world-renowned industries and export goods, or a first-class educational system—will pave the way for Iran’s triumphant re-entry into the community of nations. Not a new microchip, or the cure for cancer, but a nuclear bomb—a weapon of mass destruction, meant to kill tens of thousands of people.

Turkey Hawks Bird as Israeli Mossad Spy Beacon, Ruffles Feathers

(Photoillustration Tablet Magazine; original photos Shutterstock)

Last week, Turkish authorities released a kestrel after a thorough investigation showed it was not spying for Israel. It’s a good thing the Turks were 100 percent sure because, to hear Israel’s neighbors tell it, the Mossad often employs birds to do its dirty work. One vulture believed to be spying for Israel was detained in Saudi Arabia in 2011, another was apprehended in Sudan in December 2012, and the Turks believed they were also targeted previously, in May 2012, by a European bee-eater.
Like the kestrel, the other birds were all tagged with markers identifying them as research subjects, such as the study of migratory patterns. The very signs then that should have made plain they were part of scientific studies were instead taken as evidence that they had been enchanted by some secret Israeli spell.
The Mossad kestrel is only the latest creature to walk out of the Israeli bestiary, a compendium of God’s creatures lifted from nature and, the story goes, put to work by Jews against Muslims and Arabs. Perhaps the most famous of all Israel’s animal operatives was the shark who attacked German tourists off the coast of Sinai in the winter of 2010, presumably for the purpose of damaging the Egyptian tourism industry—a feat the Egyptians accomplished over the last two and a half years on their own, thanks to the chaos that they’ve unleashed on their now bloody streets, and without any animal collaborators.
If these shaggy dog conspiracy tales are sure to get a laugh from Western readers, it’s worth keeping in mind that magical fantasies seeing Jews as uncanny manipulators of the natural world partake of the same paranoid and sinister narrative structure that authored the blood libel.
There’s nothing funny about it for the Turks, either. Once upon a time, Turkey and Israel enjoyed a strategic relationship. Among other benefits that came from this alliance, Turkey purchased arms from Israel, including drones, of which Israel is the world’s largest exporter. Ankara wanted the unmanned aerial vehicles, among other reasons, to gather intelligence on and then target the Kurdistan Workers’ Party, which has waged a bloody insurgency against Turkey since 1984. After Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdogan cashiered the alliance as well as the defense contracts with Israel, the Turks turned to their own domestic industry for unmanned aerial vehicles. The problem, however, was that Turkish drones were unable to beat the nasty habit of crashing.
To say that Ankara has failed to master the science of flight is an understatement. The fact that Turkish authorities believed the bird last week was effectively a new kind of Israeli drone and only released it back into the wild after an X-ray showed it was carrying no surveillance equipment suggests that some in Turkey are incapable of distinguishing science from magic.
Of course some commentators reason that, even accounting for the appetite many Arabs and Muslims have for pre-scientific conspiracy theories, Israeli spies really do pull off some fantastic stunts. However, it’s useful to remember that if Israel, for instance, blew up Imad Mughniyeh in the middle of Damascus, the Mossad’s assassination of Hamas commander Mahmoud al-Mabhouh was captured on video cameras in Dubai. That is, the Israelis also make mistakes—they’re talented and proficient, but they’re people, not supermen, or warlocks and witches.
Still, hundreds of millions of Middle Eastern, African, and Asian Muslims can only understand the world as a large Harry Potter set in which they will never be among the initiates, the spell-casters. Paradoxically, the reason that this horrifying recognition boils to the surface only occasionally is the stunning success and availability of Western science and technology. It is because cell phones, for instance, are so cheap that even the tens of millions of Egyptians who, without government subsidies and foreign aid, couldn’t afford to put food on their plate can purchase technology designed in Palo Alto and Herzilya. Otherwise, the divide between a society that makes and one that simply consumes would be clear for all to see.
You can say that there is no such thing as Western science and technology, but that’s just a Western perspective based on hard-won Western values, like empiricism—either F=MA or it doesn’t. What is verifiable is true not just for so-called Westerners but is true for all men in all times. But this may not be how the vast majority of the Muslim world understands reality.
The 19th-century Muslim reform movement that arose after Napoleon’s 1798 conquest of Egypt was impressed with Western science—specifically the military technology that allowed French troops to overrun the lands of Islam so easily. The reformers counseled Muslims to make use of the science, medicine, and technology that the Westerners brought—but at all costs to avoid the Western values, like free thought, that had made those technological advances possible. In other words, Muslims were forever condemned to the role of eternal consumer, end-user, and never a producer. Perhaps their consolation is that, like servants, Westerners will make it for them anyway.
Two hundred years later, the United Nations’ 2003 Human Development Report on the Arab World, “Building a Knowledge Society,” delivered the bill. “Despite the presence of significant human capital in the region,” the paper explains, “disabling constraints hamper the acquisition, diffusion, and production of knowledge in Arab societies.”
“Between 1980 and 2000,” writes Hillel Ofek in The New Atlantis, “Korea granted 16,328 patents, while nine Arab countries, including Egypt, Saudi Arabia, and the U.A.E., granted a combined total of only 370, many of them registered by foreigners. A study in 1989 found that in one year, the United States published 10,481 scientific papers that were frequently cited, while the entire Arab world published only four.”
According to Pakistani physics professor Pervez Amirali Hoodbhoy, the 57 Organization of Islamic Congress “countries have 8.5 scientists, engineers, and technicians per 1,000 population, compared with a world average of 40.7, and 139.3 for countries of the Organization for Economic Co-operation and Development. Forty-six Muslim countries contributed 1.17 percent of the world’s science literature, whereas 1.66 percent came from India alone and 1.48 percent from Spain. Twenty Arab countries contributed 0.55 percent, compared with 0.89 percent by Israel alone.”
Typically, commentators note that since the Muslim world used to excel in science and technology, there is no reason that it can’t catch up today. The problem is that it’s slipping further behind—and fast. Fifty years ago the gap was costly, but today the price for not understanding science and innovation has increased exponentially. Consider, for instance, the favorite theme of the 19th-century Muslim reformers and rulers—military might. In June 1967, it took Israel six days to defeat the combined Arab armies, including Egypt’s. Despite more than 30 years and many billions of dollars of U.S. military aid, Egypt has fallen further behind the rest of the world, and even its benighted neighbors. Proof can be found in the country’s decision to buy the defective drones that Turkey can’t keep in the air.
Many commentators explain the popular Arab uprisings over the last two and a half years as a consequence of expectations that exceed conditions. This is what happens, Western journalists and analysts reason, when you have millions of college graduates who can only find jobs driving a taxi or pushing a food cart. The reality is that only the rarest of college graduates in Muslim countries is prepared for a Western-style profession.
Cyber-optimists claim that new information technologies will close the gap. Satellite TV, the Internet, Bluetooth will present Muslims with such a clear alternative to their pre-Copernican worldview that they’ll willingly choose to embrace open societies and free markets and become part of the West. But consider some of the ways in which those technologies are used: The Syrian regime used its cell-phone concession to enrich itself. Jihadis set up Internet websites to disseminate propaganda and plan operations. Gulf monarchies like Saudi Arabia and Qatar use their satellite networks not to promote alternative views of the world but to advance the narrow interests of the ruling family. In Egypt, tele-preachers parse passages of the Quran previously impenetrable to much of a population that has a literacy rate of 60 percent to explain why infidels should be killed.
That is, the technology gap isn’t a problem just for the Muslim world, for as the gap grows so does resentment. Consider the region’s most famous research project—the Iranian nuclear program. For decades now this oil-rich Persian Gulf power has been determined to go nuclear—to have a bomb, or as it claims, to provide nuclear energy for its people. Without taking any credit away from the Western intelligence services that have waged inventive clandestine operations to delay the program, including the alleged assassination of nuclear scientists, the reality is that if Iran hasn’t yet mastered the technology, there is something deeply wrong with the scientific culture of the Islamic Republic.
More important, there’s this: Iranians believe that the mastery of this particular field of science—rather than any other field of science, a bustling economy, and world-renowned industries and export goods, or a first-class educational system—will pave the way for Iran’s triumphant re-entry into the community of nations. Not a new microchip, or the cure for cancer, but a nuclear bomb—a weapon of mass destruction, meant to kill tens of thousands of people. A wise man once said never judge a man by his mistakes, but rather by his dreams. In the case of the Muslim Middle East, it is hard not to shudder.
***
You can help support Tablet’s unique brand of Jewish journalism. Click here to donate today.

Lee Smith is a senior editor at the Weekly Standard and the author of The Strong Horse: Power, Politics, and the Clash of Arab Civilizations.

Why Anti-Israeli Conspiracy Theories Keep a Foothold in the Arab Mideast – Tablet Magazine

Special Report: Hamas In Transition | STRATFOR

Special Report: Hamas In Transition | STRATFOR


After more than five years of existing in political stalemate, Hamas is now trying to manage a worsening relationship with Iran and Syria and exploit the political rise of its Islamist parent organization, the Egyptian Muslim Brotherhood (MB). Without a clear vision on how to proceed, Hamas is likely to undergo serious internal strains that could raise the potential for a splintering of the heretofore most tightly run organization of the Palestinian territories.
Six years ago, Hamas unexpectedly swept parliamentary elections in the Palestinian territories and won the right to form a government. But the idea of a self-professed Islamist militant organization running the Palestinian government did not sit well with Israel and much of the West or with Hamas' rival, Fatah. Sanctions on Hamas immediately intensified, and a civil war broke out between Hamas and Fatah. Hamas was driven into political isolation after it forcibly took over the Gaza Strip in mid-2007.
Hamas then entered a long period of political stagnation. As a heavily sanctioned political pariah, the group's financial stresses rose. This provided Iran an opportunity to deepen its financial links with the Hamas regime. Though weapons and supplies still flowed to Gaza, the Egyptian regime of then-President Hosni Mubarak maintained a tight security grip over the Sinai-Gaza border to keep Hamas under control. When Israel launched Operation Cast Lead in December 2008, Hamas was able to both resist and garner international sympathy, but the two-month operation still dealt a blow to Hamas militarily and did little to ease the group's political constraints. Apart from a rampant smuggling trade via Gaza tunnels, Hamas had little space to exercise its political authority.
But regional events in 2011 brought about large changes in the challenges and opportunities faced by Hamas. Political demonstrations in Egypt led to the fall of Mubarak. After decades of being repressed by the Mubarak regime, the Egyptian MB entered the political mainstream. Though the military, which remains Egypt's ultimate authority, wants to keep Hamas confined in Gaza, the MB's rise has raised international acceptance of Islamists as political players. When Arab unrest reached Syria, Hamas' refusal to publicly support the regime of President Bashar al Assad cost its exiled politburo its footing with the regime in Damascus; Hamas had to start seeking an alternative base. Meanwhile, as demonstrations continued to spread throughout the Arab world, Iran's growing assertiveness in the region put the spotlight on Hamas, a Sunni entity, for its substantial ties with the Shiite Islamic Republic.
The group now finds itself at a turning point. Hamas has to balance deteriorating relationships with longtime patrons Iran and Syria, establish a new political vision, identify proper sources of funding and manage growing internal disagreements.

Picking Sides

When al Assad's Alawite regime began resorting to more violent crackdowns against a growing, Sunni-dominated opposition, Hamas leaders in Damascus, led by politburo chief Khaled Meshaal, had reason to be nervous. Damascus has served as the exiled leadership's main hub of operations since 2001, and it is the main channel for funding to reach Hamas. When unrest in Syria began, Hamas' best option was to try to not appear involved in Syria's internal affairs; the group could not risk its credibility by standing behind an Iranian-backed Alawite regime against Sunni resistance. Because of the overwhelming support in the Arab world for the Sunni-led uprising, Hamas could no longer ignore, as it did in the past, the al Assad regime's intolerance of its comrades in Syria's branch of the MB.
In August and September, Syria and Iran tried to pressure Hamas into organizing pro-Assad demonstrations in the Palestinian refugee camps in Syria. It was time for Hamas to decide whom it would support. Hamas had two choices: It could follow orders and showcase its close alignment with the Iran and Syria, or it could create some distance from the Iranian-led coalition, use that distance to reinforce its relations with its Sunni Arab neighbors and, most critically, seize the opportunity to follow the MB's lead out of political isolation.
Hamas chose the latter and refused to stage the demonstrations. The group could not afford to side against a wave of Sunni opposition without absorbing a hit to its legitimacy. Yet beyond the ideological discomfort it was experiencing, Hamas had a bigger vision in mind.

Hamas' Political Vision

Hamas formally was created in 1987, largely as the result of two factors. First was public dissatisfaction with the secularist and corrupt Fatah-led Palestine Liberation Organization (PLO). The second was an effort by the MB to respond to the first intifada in a way that allowed it to remain politically insulated. The creation of a separate Gaza group that could engage in armed resistance answered the MB's dilemma. However, Hamas' original leadership still viewed militancy as a means to a political end. Hamas founder Sheikh Ahmed Yassin, the leader of the MB and of the Islamic Center in Gaza, argued that Hamas was basically a political movement: It would fight for the rights of Palestinians, with the objective of eliminating Israel. The violent means Hamas has used make it highly controversial as a political player, but it is important to note that Hamas has held political ambitions since its inception.
Hamas' core struggle is over how to proceed along that political path while presiding over a stateless entity -- especially when its reputation has been primarily built on militant resistance, not on political credentials. As the organization learned after the 2006 election, even a sweeping political victory in the Palestinian territories yields limited results for an organization widely recognized as the premier Palestinian militant group. In other words, if Hamas was not prepared to abandon its militant arm and change its charter to recognize Israel, it needed to undergo a serious rebranding effort.
That opportunity came with the fall of Mubarak. The spread of unrest provided an opening for Islamist groups throughout the region to raise their political voice and force a wider acceptance of their growing role in the political affairs of the Arab world. The rise of the Egyptian MB in particular created an opening for Hamas to publicly reassert itself as a legitimate political player operating in the same league as its parent organization.
However, Hamas must make several difficult political decisions to achieve such a transition.

Coping with Finances

Hamas is highly secretive about its finances, but it has been unable to fully conceal the financial stress it has experienced over the past several months. It has been widely rumored that Iran began curtailing its monthly payments to Hamas after the group's refusal to demonstrate on behalf of the Syrian regime. According to multiple sources, Iran had directed $25 million per month to Hamas; to put that in perspective, Hamas' stated annual budget for administering the Gaza Strip is about $700 million.
In addition to the decline in Iranian financing, Hamas may also have reason to be concerned about the status of its investments in Syria. A number of Hamas members have business partnerships with members of the Syrian business community, including those close to the regime. Though the value of these assets is unknown, much of Syrian investment linked to Hamas is in real estate, resorts, food imports and olive oil exports.
Hamas may also be seeing less income from Islamic charities. Though a significant amount of funding is still likely earmarked for Hamas, a Stratfor source linked to the group said the rise of the MB and other regional Islamist opposition groups has attracted a major influx of money from donors looking to sustain the effects of the Arab Spring, making Hamas a lower priority.
These are not the only sources of Hamas funding. Hamas is believed to make about $50 million per year by taxing trade that runs through the Gaza Strip's extensive tunnel system. The group also reaps an unknown amount of profits from local businesses in which it holds a significant stake, including the Gaza Strip's only shopping mall and sea resorts and businesses spread throughout the Middle East, Southeast Asia and Central Asia.
Nonetheless, there are indications that Hamas is experiencing significant financial pain because of its worsening relationship with Iran and Syria. Meshaal and Gaza-based Hamas leader Ismail Haniyeh have been taking tours throughout the region in recent weeks to meet with leaders from Jordan, Qatar, Egypt, Saudi Arabia and Turkey. Hamas has allegedly sought financing from these states to compensate for the drop in Iranian support. Due to the uncertainty faced by the Syrian regime, Meshaal's faction also has reportedly been gauging these states' willingness to provide a new base and office space for the group's exiled leadership.

The Costs and Benefits of a Relationship with Hamas

Hamas can make a compelling offer to these states. With concern growing in the region over how to check Iran's power, Hamas' move to distance itself from Iran and its allies in Syria could significantly undermine Tehran's influence in the Levant region. Additionally, these countries, particularly Egypt and Jordan, see a strategic interest in bringing Hamas closer. They can build leverage with the group -- creating another mechanism to balance Israel's power -- but also use that increased influence to keep Hamas in check. However, the strict condition these states are attaching to any deal are giving Hamas pause.
Jordan, Egypt, Saudi Arabia, Qatar and Turkey share an interest in keeping Hamas hemmed in Gaza. These states frequently express their support of the principle of Palestinian statehood, but Egypt, Jordan and Saudi Arabia in particular are most concerned by the idea of a Palestinian polity emerging that could threaten their national security. Egypt, dealing with an emboldened MB, does not want Hamas to break free of its isolation and meddle in Egyptian affairs. The Egyptian military elite is already on alert for Hamas attempts to instigate a crisis between Egypt and Israel; such a crisis could rally Egyptians and Palestinians alike and provide the Islamist opposition with the means to discredit the military's authority. In Jordan, where Palestinians constitute a majority of the population, the ethnically distinct Hashemite regime is facing a vociferous opposition led by the Jordanian MB and does not want to embolden its Palestinian population. Saudi Arabia has long had a tense relationship with Hamas and remembers well its past brushes with Palestinian militancy.
Building leverage with a militant group comes with risks. If any of these states agreed to start or increase funding for Hamas or host a Hamas office, they would not want to be held accountable for renegade actions by the group, especially by the United States and Israel. At the same time, they know Hamas is not ready to disarm, recognize Israel and make a full political transition.

Sending Mixed Signals to Tehran

These states also understand that Hamas is unlikely to completely sever its ties with Iran. Beyond the money, weapons and training it has received from Iran and its allies, Hamas needs to maintain a decent working relationship with Iran to avoid creating greater complications for itself in the Gaza Strip.
Palestinian Islamic Jihad (PIJ), a much smaller militant outfit than Hamas, has had a tight financial, ideological and logistical relationship with the Islamic Republic since the group's inception in 1980. PIJ is firmly committed to its militant campaign. The group openly rejects building ties with surrounding Arab states due to their perceived hypocrisy toward Palestinian statehood and the Arab states' alleged collusion with Israel. PIJ is thus the most likely Palestinian recipient of Iranian aid no longer destined for Hamas. PIJ and Hamas have long cooperated. Hamas is even suspected of occasionally relying on PIJ to carry out attacks, in an effort for Hamas to maintain plausible deniability in dealing with Israel. However, Hamas may have a decreased ability to control PIJ actions within Gaza if Hamas is no longer cooperating closely with PIJ's main backer, Iran. So long as Hamas controls Gaza, Israel will likely hold Hamas accountable for any attacks that emanate from there. A significant loss of control over militancy in Gaza could thus leave Hamas in a much more precarious position with regard to Israel.
Hamas' leadership seems to have been sending mixed signals to Tehran -- rather than running the risks involved in an outright break -- while waiting for agreements to come through with the Arab states. However, these states first want real assurances that Hamas will behave according to their standards and fundamentally shift away from the Iran-Syria axis. Indeed, according to the Palestinian Al Quds daily, Haniyeh was allegedly strongly advised by the leaders of Qatar, Bahrain and Kuwait to cancel his upcoming visit to Tehran if Hamas is serious about making a deal. Haniyeh's arrival in Tehran on Feb. 10, despite the demands of the Arab states, shows that Hamas still feels the need to keep its options open with Iran.
Hamas knows the opportunity the MB's political elevation presents, but several complications apparently are preventing Hamas from making any clear, hard decisions.
While struggling to balance between Sunni states and Iran, Hamas is also trying to find a way to moderate its political position at home. Ongoing Hamas efforts to reconcile with Fatah and become part of the PLO are designed to insulate Hamas from the drawbacks of ruling Gaza alone. Hamas will not capitulate to Fatah for the sake of reverting to a more comfortable opposition posture. The group wants to share enough power – and present itself in enough of a pragmatic light – to resume financial flows and provide Hamas with some plausible deniability in dealing with Israeli military reprisals against the Gaza Strip.
However, this is placing a lot of pressure on the group. In trying to reintegrate itself with Fatah under the PLO umbrella and reinforce its relations with the surrounding Arab states, Hamas risks developing a crisis in legitimacy among Palestinians. The group already has accomplished little during its time in political office. Should a power-sharing government with Fatah fail to yield results, Hamas could be susceptible to the same criticism levied against its secularist rivals. Money is still sorely lacking in the Gaza Strip, and middle class members of Hamas who are making money are increasingly viewed as corrupt in the Palestinian territories. Hamas does not want to risk being put in the same light as Fatah and thereby seeing its credibility erode among its own supporters.

A Hamas Splintering?

Stresses within Hamas are already beginning to manifest in the form of public spats between the group's Gaza-based leadership and its exiled leadership over which political course to take with Fatah, how to manage the group's finances and what terms Hamas should agree to in dealing with foreign backers. Deep, personal rivalries have long existed within these factions, but the strains appear to be turning more severe. This dynamic was most recently illustrated the week of Feb. 6, when Meshaal signed a power-sharing agreement with Fatah leader and Palestinian National Authority leader Mahmoud Abbas in Doha, Qatar. Haniyeh and his deputy Mahmoud Zahar did not attend the Doha summit, and their parliamentary bloc strongly rejected the deal two days later, citing a clause that said Abbas would remain both president and prime minister in a future government. Haniyeh has since denied any rifts within his movement, but the more Hamas insists on its unity, the more doubts are raised regarding its internal coherence.
Aside from questions about how to reconcile with Fatah, there is also the important question of who will handle Hamas' finances if the exiled leadership moves from its financial base in Damascus. It appears that Hamas is looking to set up multiple offices in countries that agree to host Hamas and help fund the organization. This could see the exiled leadership spread across Cairo, Amman and possibly Doha. Meshaal, who has Jordanian citizenship, is likely to end up in Amman while Mousa Abu Marzouk, deputy head of Hamas' political bureau, has already reportedly moved with his family to Cairo. A scattering of Hamas' exiled leadership to these capitals may serve to enhance the group's ties with each of these states and encourage them to increase their funding to Hamas, but it also leaves the group beholden to the interests of multiple states that share a desire to keep the group contained. Moreover, the wider Hamas' exiled leadership is spread, the more difficult these leaders will find it to coordinate and remain relevant compared to the Gaza-based leadership.


\Special Report: Hamas In Transition | STRATFOR

Share this|

________________________ The MasterBlog

Oman: The world's hostage negotiator | FP Passport

Oman: The world's hostage negotiator

Posted By Uri Friedman Monday, November 14, 2011 - 6:01 PM

Yes, it's Oman to the rescue yet again. Today we're learning that the Omani government helped negotiate the release of three French aid workers held by al-Qaeda militants in Yemen. A Yemeni tribal mediator tells the Associated Press that Oman and a Yemeni businessman paid an unspecified sum to the militants, who had been demanding $12 million in exchange for the hostages.
The state-run Oman News Agency reports that Oman's ruler, Sultan Qaboos bin Said, directed officials to "provide all facilities" to help France in recognition of the "distinguished relations" between the two countries. French President Nicolas Sarkozy, for his part, has "warmly" thanked the sultan for his "decisive help." The aid workers crossed the Yemeni-Omani border by car, flew to Muscat on an Omani military plane, and then left for France.
If this scenario sounds familiar, that's because it is. In 2010, Omani sources paid $500,000 bail to win the release of American hiker Sarah Shourd, who had been detained by Iran along with her fiancé Shane Bauer and Josh Fattal a year earlier for straying across the Iran-Iraq border. This fall, Oman shelled out close to $1 million for the release of Bauer and Fattal. A diplomatic cable released by WikiLeaks indicates that Oman helped secure the release of British sailors captured by Iranian forces in 2007 as well.
How did Oman become the Denzel Washington of Middle East hostage situations? The answer lies in Oman's pragmatic, Switzerland-esque approach to foreign policy. In 1970, Qaboos -- who maintains a tight grip on power and who Robert Kaplan has described as the "most worldly and best-informed leader in the Arab world" -- overthrew his father in a palace coup and set about transforming an isolated and unstable country into a nonaligned regional power. In the 1980s, for example, Oman somehow managed to maintain diplomatic relations with both sides in the Iran-Iraq war while backing U.N. Security Council calls to end the conflict.
This diplomatic balancing act has enabled Oman to enjoy good (but not excessively cozy) relations with both Iran and the U.S. and its Western allies. Qaboos, a supporter of the Shah before the Iranian revolution, has eschewed the hostile stance that Gulf neighbors like Saudi Arabia have adopted toward the Islamic regime. Instead, Oman and Iran cooperate to secure the Strait of Hormuz, which divides the two countries and transports 40 percent of the world's oil and gas.
"Oman views Iran as the strategic threat to the region but has chosen to manage the threat by fostering strong working relations with Tehran," a 2010 U.S. diplomatic cable explained. Iran, for its part, may not view the small sultanate as much of a threat and may value the alliance as it grows increasingly isolated. Oman has pressed Iran to negotiate with the U.S. over its nuclear program and even offered to facilitate secret talks.
America's friendly relationship with Oman, meanwhile, dates back to at least 1841, when Oman became the first Arab nation to recognize the U.S. The sultanate has a free trade agreement with the U.S. and has permitted American forces to use its military bases in the past (in 2010, however, Omani officials strongly denied reports that they had discussed deploying U.S. missile defenses in the country). Oman's role as a key interlocutor between Iran and the U.S. was underscored last month when Secretary of State Hillary Clinton met with Qaboos following the revelation of an alleged Iranian plot to kill the Saudi ambassador to the U.S. "We would expect that Omanis would use their relationship with Iran, as they have in the past, to help the Iranians understand the implications of what they're doing," a U.S. State Department official noted during the visit.
The hostage deals, then, may represent just one more weapon in Oman's arsenal for neutralizing threats to regional stability like the political paralysis in Yemen and deteriorating U.S.-Iranian relations. In a 2009 diplomatic cable, the U.S. ambassador to Oman informed an Omani foreign affairs official that securing the release of the three American hikers in Iran would "remove an unhelpful irritant" between Washington and Tehran. When Bauer and Fattal arrived safely in Muscat two years later, an Omani foreign ministry statement expressed hope that the deal would promote a "rapprochement between both the Americans and the Iranians" and "stability in the region." Oman's millions have yet to accomplish those elusive goals, but they have purchased several people their freedom.
Oman: The world's hostage negotiator | FP Passport

Share

-- The MasterFeeds

Iran is Building a Secret Missile Installation in Venezuela - FoxNews.com

Iran is Building a Secret Missile Installation in Venezuela - Opinion FoxNews.com

AP Photo/Iranian Defense Ministry, Vahid Reza Alaei, HO

This photo released by the Iranian Defense Ministry, alledgedly shows a Nasr1 (Victory) missile in a factory in Tehran, Iran, Sunday, March 7, 2010. Gen. Ahmad Vahidi announced on state TV Sunday a new production line of highly accurate, short range cruise missiles capable of evading radar. The missile named Nasr 1 (Victory) will be capable of destroying targets up to 3,000 tons in size according to Vahidi. Iran frequently makes announcements about new advances in military technology that cannot be independently verified.

In November of last year, the German daily Die Welt reported that a secret agreement between the Venezuelan president, Hugo Chávez, and his Iranian counterpart, Mahmoud Ahmadinejad, had been signed.

The agreement was said to have been signed and finalized on October 19 by both parties, though no details were offered. Hugo Chávez, who had traveled to Iran on what was called expansion of relations between the two countries, acknowledged that the details of the latest accords were not released, and that some agreements went beyond those put on paper.

The leaders of Iran and Venezuela hailed what they called their strong strategic relationship, saying they are united in efforts to establish a “New World Order” that will eliminate Western dominance over global affairs.

Now, the German newspaper, however, confirms that the bilateral agreement signed in October was for a missile installation to be built inside Venezuela. Quoting diplomatic sources, Die Welt reports that, at present, the area earmarked for the missile base is the Paraguaná Peninsula, located 120 kilometers from the Colombian border.

A group of engineers from Khatam Al-Anbia, the construction arm of the Iranian Revolutionary Guard, covertly traveled to this area on the orders of Amir Hajizadeh, the commander of the Revolutionary Guard Air Force.

Die Welt writes that the Iranian delegation had been ordered to focus on the plan for building the necessary foundations for air strikes. The planning and building of command stations, control bases, residential buildings, security towers, bunkers and dugouts, warheads, rocket fuel and other cloaking constructs has been assigned to other members of the Revolutionary Guard Corps of Engineers. The IRGC engineers will also be interfacing with their Venezuelan counterparts in fabricating missile depots that are said to go as deep as 20 meters in the ground.

The report maintains that building such depots is not easy and that they must be built to accommodate a network of special pipes necessary for the transfer of fuel within the installation, while expelling poisonous materials to the outside. At the same time, necessary precautions must be taken to withstand all possible air strikes.

Security sources have stated that the plans for the underground missile depots will be prepared by experts from the chemical engineering department of the Sharif Industrial University and Tehran Polytechnic. Apparently, these experts have produced and presented their first proposal to the Revolutionary Guards’ Khatam Al-Anbia headquarters.

Based on sources inside Iran, reports indicate that the Revolutionary Guards have established many entities and facilities in Venezuela as front companies involved in covert operations, such as exploration of uranium.

Venezuela is said to have significant reserves, something that Iran is desperately in need of for the continuation of their nuclear bomb project. Other activities include housing of the Quds forces, along with Hezbollah cells in these facilities, so they can expand their activities throughout Latin America and form collaborations with drug cartels in Mexico and then enter America.

Many of the Iranian so-called commercial facilities in Venezuela are under strict no-fly zone regulations by the Venezuelan government, and are only accessible by the Iranians in charge of those facilities!

With Iran’s refusal to halt its nuclear program and the progress they’re making with their missile delivery system, this new military alliance with Venezuela is most alarming for our national security here in America.

Based on my sources, I believe the radicals ruling Iran are emboldened by the confusion of the Obama administration in confronting Iran’s nuclear program. The Iranian regime feels that America has exhausted all of its options with its negotiation and sanctions approach and therefore no longer poses a serious threat to Iran’s nuclear drive.

The Iranian officials recently announced that Iran will continue enriching uranium to the 20 percent level (enriching uranium to 20 percent is going 80 percent of the way to nuclear bomb material), and that it also intends to install centrifuges in the previously secret site at the Fardo enrichment plant.

With Iran’s pursuit of the bomb, its collaboration with rogue states, and its continuous support of terrorist groups in the Middle East and around the world, it is time to realize that the Iranian regime poses the gravest danger to world peace, global stability and our national security.

The Obama administration needs to take immediate action to stop the jihadists in Tehran from acquiring the nuclear bomb. Failing to do that means we will face a new brand of terrorism on a scale that will dwarf 9/11 by comparison!

Reza Kahlili is a pseudonym for an ex-CIA spy who requires anonymity for safety reasons. He is the author of "A Time to Betray," a book about his double life as a CIA agent in Iran’s Revolutionary Guards, published by Threshold Editions, Simon & Schuster, April 2010.

Read more: http://www.foxnews.com/latino/news/2011/05/17/iran-building-secret-missile-installation-venezuela/#ixzz1MfT1V268

Opinion: Iran is Building a Secret Missile Installation in Venezuela - FoxNews.com

Bashar al-Assad's inner circle

These are the guys that run the racket and repression in Syria...

Although Bashar al-Assad inherited Syria's presidency on his father's death in 2000, analysts say he does not have Hafez al-Assad's absolute grip on power. He is surrounded by military and intelligence figures, most of whom are either related to the president or are members of his minority Alawite community.

Here are some excerpts on two of, if not THE, main men from Bashar al-Assad's inner circle as reported by the BBC.

Maher al-Assad, Republican Guard chief

The president's youngest brother is said to be Syria's second most powerful man. He heads the Republican Guard, the elite force which protects the regime from domestic threats and is the only one permitted to enter Damascus, and commands the fourth armoured division. [...]

He has a reputation for being excessively violent and emotionally unstable, and allegedly shot [!!] and wounded his brother-in-law, Asef Shawkat. [...]

In 2005, Maher and Shawkat were both mentioned in a preliminary report by UN investigators as one of the people who might have planned the assassination of the former Lebanese Prime Minister, Rafik Hariri.

When mass pro-democracy protests began in the southern city of Deraa in March 2011, Maher's fourth armoured division - which is deployed on Syrian territory bordering the Israeli-occupied Golan Heights, and controls the capital's approaches - was sent in to crush them.

Rumours persist that Maher might challenge his brother's rule - much like his uncle Rifaat attempted to seize power from Hafez in 1983 - but there is no evidence that he has sufficient power to challenge his rule.

Rami Makhlouf

A first cousin of Bashar al-Assad, Mr Makhlouf is arguably the most powerful economic figure in Syria. He has been the subject of persistent accusations of corruption and cronyism, and analysts say no foreign companies can do business in Syria without his consent. [...]

U.S. Reacts to Fears of Rising Iranian Sway - WSJ.com

U.S. Reacts to Fear of Rising Iranian Sway

White House Eyes Islamist State While Strategizing in Libya, Bahrain, Yemen and Syria; But Its Approach Could Backfire

By JAY SOLOMON

• MIDDLE EAST NEWS
• MARCH 21, 2011, 6:59 P.M. ET

WASHINGTON—White House concerns that Iran's hand is being strengthened by recent events in the Middle East is central to its response to the turmoil, say U.S., European, and Arab officials.
President Barack Obama's decision last week to use military force against Libyan leader Moammar Gadhafi's forces was made in part by his administration's fear that Western inaction could further embolden Tehran, these officials say.

Sunni-majority Saudi Arabia and Iran's Shiite government are locked in a battle for regional influence.
U.S. military planners are also concerned Iran could benefit from an overthrow of the monarchy in Bahrain, home to U.S. naval operations that help control the Persian Gulf's oil flow.

In Yemen, too, Washington's closest Arab allies, in particular Saudi Arabia, are worried the potential overthrow of President Ali Abdullah Saleh could strengthen Iran in the region.

"Iran has a long history of attempting to meddle in the affairs of other countries."Riyadh briefly invaded Yemen last year to contain a rebel movement, known as the Houthis, which shares Tehran's Shiite faith and Arab states allege has received funding and arms from Iran.

"Everything the U.S. is doing to respond in the Middle East is colored by how this could hurt or help Iran," said a European official who has met with senior U.S. officials in recent weeks. "This might be an overreaction, but it's how people are viewing things."

Many Middle East analysts warn that Washington's Iran strategy could backfire. Tehran and its allies have been saying the Obama administration's varying approach to each uprising in the region is hypocritical, in particular its lukewarm condemnation of the Bahrain government's recent crackdown on a largely Shiite protest movement.

An overthrow of Bahrain's Sunni monarchy would likely produce a government more aligned with Tehran's interests.

"I ask some in the Arab and Islamic worlds: Why have you remained mum over the tyranny against our people in Bahrain," Hassan Nasrallah, the head of Lebanon's Hezbollah party and a close Iran ally, said on Saturday. "Is it only because they are Shiites?"

Iran's leadership has sought to cast the Middle East's democratic wave as one that targets pro-American governments. But the turmoil has also rekindled a protest movement in Iran—the antithesis of a pro-U.S. government—that flared in 2009 following allegations that national elections were rigged. The White House has sought to cast Tehran as hypocritical—urging on protests in Arab nations, but suppressing them at home.

Over the weekend, Mr. Obama offered his strongest rhetorical support yet for Iran's youthful opposition movement.

"So far, the Iranian government has responded by demonstrating that it cares more about preserving its own power than respecting the rights of the Iranian people," Mr. Obama said in a video message that was beamed into Iran and translated into Persian to commemorate Nowruz, the Persian New Year. "These choices do not demonstrate strength, they show fear."

The U.S. Treasury Department last month for the first time imposed sanctions on Iranian officials solely for their alleged role in human-rights abuses and for playing a role in the crackdown on political dissidents.

The Obama administration is pushing the United Nations' Human Rights Council in Geneva to censure Iran for its alleged abuses and establish the first U.N. human rights investigator for the Islamic republic in a decade.

Gadhafi's Pal In Venezuela

Weekly Standard: Gadhafi's Pal In Venezuela

by VANESSA NEUMANN

EnlargeJuan Barreto /AFP/Getty Images

Libyan leader Moammar Gadhafi and Venezuelan President Hugo Chavez, greeting sympathizers in northwestern Venezuela in 2009. Recently, Chavez offered to mediate the dispute between anti-Gadhafi rebels and the Libyan leader, a proposal that was flatly refused by the rebels.

March 7, 2011

Vanessa Neumann is editor-at-large ofDiplomat magazine and a commentator on Latin American politics for Caracol radio.

If Washington is apt to see the recent uprisings in the Middle East — against U.S. allies like Egyptian president Hosni Mubarak as well as adversaries like the Islamic Republic of Iran — in terms of challenges to and opportunities for U.S. strategic interests, Venezuelan President Hugo Chavez sees nothing but an opening to boost his own Bolivarian brand.

Consider Chavez's stance toward his OPEC colleague Moammar Gadhafi. Early during the fighting in Libya, there were rumors, maybe even floated by Chavez himself, that the Libyan dictator was about to flee to Venezuela. The government-friendly Venezuelan press speculated that when Gadhafi arrived he would be bearing with him the replica of Simon Bolivar's sword that Chavez gave him in 2009 when he bestowed on his "revolutionary brother" the Order of the Liberator, Venezuela's highest civilian honor. "What Simon Bolivar is to the Venezuelan people," said Chavez, "Gadhafi is to the Libyan people."

When Gadhafi started bombing the Libyan people, and showed that he was not going anywhere, the Venezuelan ruler adjusted accordingly, offering to mediate between the colonel and his rivals. Aides to Chavez said Gadhafi accepted the proposal, though his son did not, and, not surprisingly, the rebels rejected his offer, as has the entire international community. But Chavez is hardly finished meddling in the Middle East, for the relationship between that region's state sponsors of terror and the countries under the influence of Chavez's Bolivarian Revolution is more than just a puppet show. The irony is that if the Venezuelan strongman isn't careful, those Middle Eastern revolts might come back to haunt him.

Of course, Libya isn't the only rogue state under internal pressure that Chavez has warmed to. Venezuela has assiduously nurtured its relationship with Iran such that the Caracas-Tehran alliance may now represent the greatest threat to stability in Washington's direct sphere of influence.

Chavez and Ahmadinejad call each other "brothers" and last year signed 11 memorandums of understanding for, among other initiatives, joint oil and gas exploration, as well as the construction of tanker ships and petrochemical plants. Chavez's assistance to the Islamic Republic in circumventing U.N. sanctions has got the attention of the new Republican leadership of the House Foreign Affairs Committee. Ileana Ros-Lehtinen and Connie Mack (both R-FL) have said they intend to launch an investigation into the Venezuelan state oil company Petroleos de Venezuela, S.A. (PDVSA). In July, the EU ordered the seizure of all the assets of the Venezuelan International Development Bank, an affiliate of the Export Development Bank of Iran (EDBI), one of 34 Iranian entities implicated in the development of nuclear or ballistic technology and sanctioned by the Treasury Department. In the meantime, Tehran and Caracas have announced that PDVSA will be investing $780 million in the South Pars gas field in southern Iran.

Another key aspect of the two countries' strategic relationship is uranium exploration. Iran is reportedly helping Venezuela find and refine its estimated 50,000 tons of uranium reserves — a deal modeled after Caracas's arrangement with Moscow, which has already signed agreements to build two 1,200-megawatt reactors in Venezuela.

And then there's terrorism and the role that Hezbollah, Iran's Lebanese-based asset, plays in the relationship. Hezbollah's past work in Latin America includes its alleged involvement in two Buenos Aires bombings — the 1992 attack on the Israeli embassy and the 1994 bombing of a Jewish community center. And now, reports are surfacing that Venezuela has provided Hezbollah operatives with Venezuelan national identity cards — a concern raised in the July 27, 2010, Senate hearing for the recently nominated U.S. ambassador to Venezuela, Larry Palmer.

Elsewhere in Latin America, Iran has developed significant relationships with Chavez's allies and fellow Bolivarian Revolutionaries, Bolivia's Evo Morales, Ecuador's Rafael Correa and Nicaragua's Daniel Ortega. For instance, in December 2008 the EDBI offered to deposit $120 million in the Ecuadorean Central Bank to fund bilateral trade, and Iran and Ecuador have signed a $30 million deal to conduct joint mining projects in Ecuador through the Chemical-Geotechnical-Metallurgical Research Center in Ecuador. Even as that deal carefully avoids mentioning uranium, the IAEA's March 2009 plans to help Ecuador explore its vast uranium reserves were largely intended to highlight and preclude Iranian involvement. In February 2010 the Paris-based Financial Action Task Force, a multilateral organization that combats money laundering and terrorist financing, placed Ecuador on a list of countries that failed to comply with its regulations.

The problem for Chavez and the Bolivarians is that in aligning themselves with Middle Eastern rogue states they may have made a bad bet. To be sure, even if Chavez loses Tripoli and Tehran as allies, instability in the Middle East will raise demand for Venezuela's higher-sulfur heavy crude, and the spike in price will help solidify his hold on power as he approaches the 2012 elections. But insofar as Middle Easterners have been inspired by the examples of their peers — from Tunisia to Bahrain and Libya to Iran — there is no reason that Latin Americans should not be similarly moved to go to the streets to demonstrate against their own repressive regimes. Indeed, the signs do not augur well for the Bolivarians.

Recently, 63 Venezuelan students went on a hunger strike to protest Chavez's human rights record, his repression of the country's opposition parties, and his gutting of independent state institutions. They campaigned for international pressure to support the release of high-profile political prisoners, including judges, opposition officials, and members of the national assembly.

As another representative from Venezuela's National Assembly, Maria Corina Machado, recently told me:

"The building of the society we dream about will be done by us Venezuelans, but we do ask the world not to make it more difficult for us, not to legitimize a regime that consistently violates human rights. Venezuelans have a right to raise their voices in protest and demand that other countries not be complicit. What we want is for the true nature of the Venezuelan regime to be recognized, that they have violated all the pillars of a democratic system: There's no respect for human rights, no separation of powers, and recurrent violation of the constitution."

Chavez and his Bolivarian colleagues are on notice — if an Arab tyrant in exile disdains refuge in Venezuela, there's plenty of space for Latin American despots alongside ousted Arab rulers in the deserts of Saudi Arabia.

Share this |

________________________