Monday, December 20, 2010
Who's In Charge Of Iran's Foreign Policy?
By Tariq Alhomayed
This commentary was published in Asharq al-Awsat on 20/12/2010
Acting Iranian Foreign Minister Ali Akbar Salehi made a nice statement about the necessity of Iran improving its relations with Saudi Arabia, saying "Saudi Arabia deserves to have special political ties with Iran. Iran and Saudi Arabia, as two effective countries in the Islamic world, can resolve many problems together."
However an important question needs to be answered before observers can be certain that what Salehi is saying is true and not a new political ploy by Tehran that aims to neutralize Saudi Arabia in the coming period. This is particularly important as this comes after the [leaked] US cables revealed that the Iranians are well aware of Riyadh's position towards their nuclear ambitions – and this is not through [Tehran] reading the US diplomatic cables that were leaked by WikiLeaks – but rather due to what the highest authority in Saudi Arabia told the Iranians during a face-to-face meeting. It has been revealed that the Saudi monarch King Abdullah Bin Abdulaziz told the Iranians that they have no business meddling in Arab matters. It was also revealed that King Abdullah Bin Abdulaziz gave the Iranians an opportunity to improve mutual relations, however Tehran did nothing in this regard, even after King Abdullah improved his relations with Iran's [Ayatollah Akbar Hashemi] Rafsanjani and [former president Mohammad] Khatami.
So the question that we must ask here is: who is in charge of Iran's foreign policy? Is it the Supreme Leader, the Iranian President, or the Foreign Minister? According to Iranian Foreign Ministry spokesman Ramin Mehmanparast, Iran's major [foreign] policies have a pre-defined framework and principles…and the Foreign Ministry is the only [state] organ that is tasked to implement these." Anybody reading Salehi's statement about the necessity of improving relations with Saudi Arabia, due to Riyadh's Islamic, political, and international position, might view this as a formal Iranian acknowledgement that Tehran's foreign policy towards Riyadh in the past was both incorrect and a failure and that Tehran is therefore trying to repair this relationship today.
However does this mean that Mottaki was stronger than the Supreme Leader and the Iranian President, in being able to enforce this foreign policy since 2005 whilst they were unable to do anything about it? This is not believable or indeed even conceivable. For what power did Manouchehr Mottaki possess, especially as he was not in charge of any armed forces or militia, and the humiliating manner in which he was removed from office only serves to prove that he did not possess any such strength.
Of course we hope that Iran's relations with everybody, not just Saudi Arabia, are good and stable, however politics is more than words, for these must be followed by action. This will continue to be Iran's major problem with all the countries in our region, not just Saudi Arabia, regardless of what embellished diplomatic rhetoric they use, particularly as we have begun to notice today that a more open language is being used publicly by regional states – and Saudi Arabia – towards Iran. This is because we are living in a post-WikiLeaks world. The Iranians should be afraid, and this is for one simple reason, which is that we have not seen any Arab anger or criticism – whether publicly or in the media – towards what WikiLeaks revealed some regional states said about Iran. This is something that the Iranians must pay attention to!
Sunday, December 19, 2010
How Iranians Dodge Sanctions
By Sabah Haider
This article was published in La Monde Diplomatique on December 2010
It’s no secret that the latest round of US sanctions on Iran, set this June, are further affecting the Iranians’ ability to access popular items such as electronics and foodstuffs.
But prohibition breeds ingenuity, and thousands of Iranians have managed to get the everyday goods they need — whether it’s tea, rice, a television or breakfast cereal — from merchants who are able to import goods from Iran’s small but significant neighbour, the United Arab Emirates.
Iran has had strong trade relations with the UAE, whose economy was rooted in trade, and pearl diving off its coast, long before oil was discovered less than 50 years ago. Hundreds of thousands of Iranians now live in the tiny Gulf state across the water from their homeland.
The UAE enjoys excellent trade relations with most of the world, and enterprising Iranian businessmen have set up successful import and export businesses through which they’re able to import goods into the UAE, and from there send them to Iran. That has been happening openly and legally for years through the UAE’s free zones. On a much smaller scale, though, scores of merchants and shopkeepers in Iran have been able to access every items such as rice, cooking oil, home appliances and other foodstuffs – much of which is American – and ship them over from the UAE on small wooden boats, known in Persian as kashtis.
In bustling Dubai, and many other small UAE ports such as in Sharjah and the northeastern emirate of Ras Al Khaimah (only 30 kms from Iran), small, modest wooden boats packed with foodstuffs and household items leave every day for the Iranian port of Bandar Abbas, where the goods are offloaded and transported to merchants across the country. Dubai’s Deira Creek is lined with tens of kashtis on any day of the week and workers mill about as they wait to receive deliveries of goods and load them on board.
The global financial crisis combined with the latest US sanctions on Iran have affected UAE and Iran trade which is forecast at $7-8 bn this year — almost $5bn less than it was in Dubai’s boom years of 2006-07.
The quantities the kashtis collectively transport to Iran are not enough to satisfy the appetite and needs of over 73 million people, but Morteza Masoumzadeh, vice president of the Iranian Business Council in Dubai, says Iranians are doing fine: they can get what they need from countries that, unlike the US, are happy to do business with them.
He says that although sanctions have affected Iranians, it’s mainly the banks that are affected. And the Americans are shooting themselves in their foot as they’re losing out on a very big market: Iran has a population of 73 million. Take as an example, office printers, in particular Hewlett-Packard: “HP’s office in Dubai was based there 10 years ago mainly to supply goods to Iranian users; it was one of the reasons for establishing an office there: the main demand in the region was from Iran. Now because of the sanctions they have lost the business.” Masoumzadeh adds: “If HP don’t ship a consignment of printers to Iran, users there will find a competitor who will sell it to them.”
Back in Dubai, I return to the Deira Creek. Hossein and Farhad, young Iranians from Bandar Abbas, are working on one of the ships that will soon be headed for their hometown. They explain that from Dubai, despite the tens of boats that line the creek, only a handful of kashtis go to Iran each week: most of the boats are docked, in the process of receiving and loading goods, which can take up to one month. Once the boats are ready to leave, they must clear UAE customs before they depart for Iran.
As Hossein and Farhad, unload a truckload of 20kg bags of basmati rice and hoist them into the lower storage of the boats alongside stacks of tins of ghee (clarified butter) and a few flatscreen televisions, they smile and say: “We eat a lot of rice in Iran.”
Obama's Vision Thing
By Shlomo Ben-Ami
This commentary was published in The Jordan Times on 20/12/2010
Humbled by the Republicans’ landslide mid-term election victory, US President Barack Obama will now need to negotiate every minor detail of his domestic agenda with a confrontational Congress - at least until the next elections in 2012. Congress can obstruct Obama’s foreign policy as well, but this remains a domain where any US president “enjoys almost royal prerogatives”, to use Alexis de Tocqueville’s somewhat inflated description.
These prerogatives, however, have so far allowed Obama only to describe the world that he wants, not to bring it about. George W. Bush committed the cardinal sin of all fallen empires - that of overreach. The Obama alternative was supposed to be collective global security sustained by multilateral structures. Rather than containing rising powers such as China and India, they would be drawn into a civilised world order, one based on global governance and “smart diplomacy”.
Yet, instead of building such an order, Obama’s presidency has so far been a mighty struggle to stem the decline in American power. He has fallen desperately short in making real progress towards the Promised Land, in which America lives in peace with the Muslim world, thanks to an Israeli-Palestinian settlement; brings about a nuclear-free planet (a noble, yet entirely delusional pledge); gets Russia’s support in addressing other global problems; contains China’s quest to translate its growing economic power into major strategic gains; ends its two diversionary wars in Muslim countries; and leads a solid international alliance to cut short Iran’s nuclear ambitions.
Foreign policy has almost invariably been the refuge of US presidents hit by mid-term defeats. But foreign policy cannot be detached from its domestic foundations altogether. Can a president shown to be hesitant in the Middle East and Afghanistan even before his mid-term setback muster the authority needed to advance his global vision after such a domestic debacle?
One should hope so, if only because no better alternative to Obama’s vision is in view. And now, with a Republican-controlled House of Representatives, Obama might not be able to fulfil major foreign policy promises, including ratification of the Comprehensive Test Ban Treaty, a key item in the president’s vision for reinvigorating the Non-Proliferation Treaty. Should Congress not ratify the new Strategic Arms Reduction Treaty with Russia, Obama’s most tangible foreign policy achievement so far, the entire inspection system for nuclear arms might collapse.
But, with respect to most other foreign policy issues, the question is one of presidential leadership. Obama’s problem lies not in his vision for America and the world, but in his deficient efforts to move from theory to practice.
Nevertheless, despite the new Congress’ overwhelmingly pro-Israel cast, Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu should not assume that the Republicans will stymie Obama if he pushes resolutely for an Israeli-Palestinian peace deal. After all, it was a Republican who produced the Reagan Plan, calling on Israel to withdraw to the 1967 borders. Thus, however much they despised Bill Clinton, the Republicans were prepared to allow him the glory of being a Middle East peacemaker, believing that any agreement reached with the Palestinians at the 2000 Camp David Summit was in America’s interest.
Obama was recently advised by David Broder, a long-time Washington Post columnist, to launch an attack on Iran. Convinced that history will judge the president by his success in containing the Iranian threat, Broder also assumes that a war with Iran would reignite the American economy. That is a strange idea, given that today’s two ongoing wars have only compounded the US economy’s weaknesses.
An American war against Iran is plausible only as a response to a blatant and immediate Iranian challenge to vital US interests, such as a major terrorist attack, an invasion of an ally in the Gulf, or disruption of the free flow of Middle East oil to the West. The Iranian regime is far too astute to cross any of these red lines.
Iran, like North Korea, will continue to test Obama’s capacity to build international alliances aimed at putting pressure on defiant states. Those, like Netanyahu, who stick to the lunacy of a military operation against Iran, will not find a ready ally in Obama. Such an operation would make America appear to be doing Israel’s bidding - even George W. Bush refused when former Israeli prime minister Ehud Olmert asked the US to attack a Syrian nuclear reactor - and destroy Obama’s strategy of reconciliation with the Muslim world.
Glory in foreign policy is no guarantee of future electoral gains. Conversely, Obama did not lose the mid-term elections because of his foreign policy’s inconsistencies. He lost because US unemployment remains near 10 per cent, with no prospect of rapid improvement. And only one major foreign policy test for Obama has clear implications for the US economy and job creation: the need to recalibrate relations with China in a way that restores balance to bilateral trade.
At the end of the day, Bill Clinton was right: now, as then, “it’s the economy, stupid”. It certainly wasn’t - and isn’t - foreign policy, as George H. W. Bush, one of America’s most proficient presidents in international affairs - can attest.
The writer, a former Israeli foreign minister, now serves as the vice president of the Toledo International Centre for Peace. He is the author of “Scars of War, Wounds of Peace: The Israeli-Arab Tragedy”. ©Project Syndicate, 2010.
Christians In Iraq Lose Faith In State Protection
By Phil Sands
This article was published in The National (UAE) on 20/12/2010
But, last month, he and his family arrived in the Syrian capital Damascus, finally the refugees they had hoped never to be, and part of a growing number of Iraqi Christians fleeing their homes in the face of sectarian violence.
"We didn't leave before. We didn't have the money, and it's hard to walk away from your home," said Mr Hermes, 68, sitting in the small flat he now rents in Dwela, a Damascus suburb. "We had lived in fear for years, but not to this extent. Then the fear started getting worse for us and you cannot live that way, so we had to leave."
The October massacre in Baghdad's Our Lady of Salvation church, when 58 worshippers were killed and 100 others wounded after being taken hostage by al Qa'eda militants was, for Mr Hermes, the turning point. He and his wife, Choni Musa, waited for a few days after the killings to see what the reaction was. Hearing about subsequent attacks on Christians, they concluded the government's security forces were unable to protect them. Winter clothes were quickly packed into suitcases and, together with their sons and three grandchildren - including Omeid, 14 and Media, 10, both wounded by bomb shrapnel back in 2006 - they left Baghdad, heading west to the safety of Syria.
Many have moved to Iraq's northern Kurdish enclave, where the autonomous authorities have offered them a safe haven until stability returns to the south. Another 133 families have registered with the UN in neighbouring Syria, which has its own sizeable Christian community and an open-door policy to Iraq's refugees. The UN in Jordan registered 109 newly arrived Iraqi Christian families in November, double the figure recorded at the same time last year.
Some Iraqi Christians have even fled to Beirut since the church massacre, the UN said, despite Lebanon's own problems with instability and propensity for internecine warfare.
"In Iraq, the strong eat the weak," said Mr Hermes. "We are a small community and there is no one to defend us."
He angrily dismissed calls by Iraqi politicians, Christian and Muslim alike, that Christian families defy threats against them and stay in Baghdad, rather than abandoning their ancestral homeland.
"It's easy for them to say that," he said. "They have bodyguards, they have the money for a security team to protect them and their families. Politicians are rich and they are safe, we are poor, we walk in the street alone. It will take one bullet to kill me."
Formerly residents of Baghdad's Karrada neighbourhood, the Hermes family made a series of moves inside the Iraqi capital, seeking safety, before eventually leaving. As they were packing to come to Syria, their friends and neighbours were contemplating a similar step.
"There are some Christians who will stay in Iraq even if they are cut to pieces," said Peter, another Christian refugee in Dwela who asked to be identified only by his first name. "They are stubborn, they adjust themselves to the situation and I admire them, but it's not something that everyone can do, especially if you have children. Many are now leaving and they do not want to go back."
Iraqi Christian leaders estimate some 400,000 members of their community remain in the country, down from a pre-war figure of 1.4 million.
In the Christian villages on the outskirts of Mosul - long one of Iraq's deadliest cities - more families are preparing to take flight.
"We have about 80 families from Mosul living in the churches here now, they ran from Mosul because it was getting to dangerous," said Abu Zaid, a resident of al Qush. "Most of them are planning to leave to other countries, mainly Turkey. They are finished with trying to live in Iraq, they want a new start."
Abu Zaid said he also hoped to leave the country, but was unable to pay the bribes needed to get travel documents from Iraq's infamously corrupt government bureaucracies.
"The people who can get passports are now asking for US$2,000 [Dh7,346] per person, and there are four of us so I just cannot afford to do it. So, we'll stay here I suppose and hope it's okay," he said.
This article was published in The National (UAE) on 20/12/2010
DAMASCUS // Even when his young grandchildren were injured in a bombing four years ago, at the height of Baghdad's bloodshed, Neysan Jibro Hermes had refused to leave Iraq, preferring to stay in the country of his birth than to exist as just another impoverished refugee elsewhere.
But, last month, he and his family arrived in the Syrian capital Damascus, finally the refugees they had hoped never to be, and part of a growing number of Iraqi Christians fleeing their homes in the face of sectarian violence.
"We didn't leave before. We didn't have the money, and it's hard to walk away from your home," said Mr Hermes, 68, sitting in the small flat he now rents in Dwela, a Damascus suburb. "We had lived in fear for years, but not to this extent. Then the fear started getting worse for us and you cannot live that way, so we had to leave."
The October massacre in Baghdad's Our Lady of Salvation church, when 58 worshippers were killed and 100 others wounded after being taken hostage by al Qa'eda militants was, for Mr Hermes, the turning point. He and his wife, Choni Musa, waited for a few days after the killings to see what the reaction was. Hearing about subsequent attacks on Christians, they concluded the government's security forces were unable to protect them. Winter clothes were quickly packed into suitcases and, together with their sons and three grandchildren - including Omeid, 14 and Media, 10, both wounded by bomb shrapnel back in 2006 - they left Baghdad, heading west to the safety of Syria.
They were not alone in deciding that, after years of war, the time to run had come at last. According to the United Nations High Commission for Refugees, at least 1,000 Christian families have fled the Iraqi capital and the northern city of Mosul since September, in what it described in a UN report last week as a "slow and steady exodus".
Many have moved to Iraq's northern Kurdish enclave, where the autonomous authorities have offered them a safe haven until stability returns to the south. Another 133 families have registered with the UN in neighbouring Syria, which has its own sizeable Christian community and an open-door policy to Iraq's refugees. The UN in Jordan registered 109 newly arrived Iraqi Christian families in November, double the figure recorded at the same time last year.
Some Iraqi Christians have even fled to Beirut since the church massacre, the UN said, despite Lebanon's own problems with instability and propensity for internecine warfare.
"In Iraq, the strong eat the weak," said Mr Hermes. "We are a small community and there is no one to defend us."
He angrily dismissed calls by Iraqi politicians, Christian and Muslim alike, that Christian families defy threats against them and stay in Baghdad, rather than abandoning their ancestral homeland.
"It's easy for them to say that," he said. "They have bodyguards, they have the money for a security team to protect them and their families. Politicians are rich and they are safe, we are poor, we walk in the street alone. It will take one bullet to kill me."
Formerly residents of Baghdad's Karrada neighbourhood, the Hermes family made a series of moves inside the Iraqi capital, seeking safety, before eventually leaving. As they were packing to come to Syria, their friends and neighbours were contemplating a similar step.
"There are some Christians who will stay in Iraq even if they are cut to pieces," said Peter, another Christian refugee in Dwela who asked to be identified only by his first name. "They are stubborn, they adjust themselves to the situation and I admire them, but it's not something that everyone can do, especially if you have children. Many are now leaving and they do not want to go back."
Iraqi Christian leaders estimate some 400,000 members of their community remain in the country, down from a pre-war figure of 1.4 million.
In the Christian villages on the outskirts of Mosul - long one of Iraq's deadliest cities - more families are preparing to take flight.
"We have about 80 families from Mosul living in the churches here now, they ran from Mosul because it was getting to dangerous," said Abu Zaid, a resident of al Qush. "Most of them are planning to leave to other countries, mainly Turkey. They are finished with trying to live in Iraq, they want a new start."
Abu Zaid said he also hoped to leave the country, but was unable to pay the bribes needed to get travel documents from Iraq's infamously corrupt government bureaucracies.
"The people who can get passports are now asking for US$2,000 [Dh7,346] per person, and there are four of us so I just cannot afford to do it. So, we'll stay here I suppose and hope it's okay," he said.
More Whitewash Over Afghanistan
| This Commentary was published in Gulf Times on 19/12/2010 |
Truth is always war’s first victim. After nine years of war in Three reports about First, a political whitewash issued by the Obama White House claiming the war was going well and some US troops might be withdrawn next year. Second, the Red Cross issued a grim report showing that Afghans were suffering widespread malnutrition and serious health problems under Western occupation. So much for US-led nation-building. Third, there were leaks about a new National Intelligence Estimate (NIE), the combined findings of all 16 The NIE reportedly asserts that the $13bn a month Afghan War is at best stalemated; at worse, Western occupation forces are on the defensive and their vulnerable supply lines increasingly threatened. Taliban is expanding its control. Claims by US generals that “progress” is being made in the war are false. Afghan president Hamid Karzai put it bluntly last year, saying the US-led war was “ineffective apart from causing civilian casualties.” The new NIE may also restate a 2007 report that found Frustrated American generals, facing a failing war and ruined careers, are blaming There is no concern in Last week came news that The Pentagon is gripped by the misconception that “safe havens” in By now, 50% of Americans oppose the Afghan War. President Barack Obama is under growing pressure from his Democratic Party to wind down the war. Republicans and right wingers, by contrast, want it continued – and further expanded into Most Americans know less than nothing about CIA, whose role is to supply the president with unbiased information, has become deeply politicised and biased. Thank President Ronald Reagan for this. The yes-men he installed at CIA told him and subsequent presidents what they wanted to hear. This process culminated during the Bush administration when then CIA Director George Tenet validated all the lies about Today, CIA has become a participant in the Afghan War, with its own little army of mercenaries and renegades, and an air force of Predator and Reaper drones. As a result, CIA’s reporting on the war has become seriously tainted by institutional bias and career concerns. Wars are wonderful for career advancement. But you can’t fight a war and remain objective. As a result, Obama is getting a lot of bad information from people with axes to grind. President Obama declared last week that the CIA director Leon Panetta recently said there were no more than 50 Al Qaeda members in The war’s brutality and destruction are growing. Meanwhile, the Pentagon is in something of a panic. How can a bunch of lightly-armed mountain tribesmen fighting only part-time battle the world’s most powerful armed forces to a standstill? |
The Manhasset Breakthrough
This commentary was published in al-Hayat on 19/12/2010
A round of Manhasset negotiations over the Sahara conflict cannot be the final round, despite the increasing possibility that the talks might fail. However, the round might be the first of its kind, according to a new approach by the United Nations envoy for the Sahara conflict, Christopher Ross. The holding of seven direct and indirect rounds of talks poses the question: where do the sources of imbalance in this experience lie?
Does it have to do with a method that has been unable to bridge the differences in stances by the concerned parties? Or is it the negotiators’ inability to formulate the specific goals required by Security Council resolutions? Or, is the regional conflict too big to be contained through negotiations that turn into public relations exercises?
These are urgent questions, but they have not been raised in the past. Many believed that the so-called consensus-based political solution could result in a change in stances. However, the logic that used to prevail in dealing with earlier resolutions, characterized as excessive, is the same that continues today, at least while Morocco and the Polisario Front are being labeled as direct parties to the conflict, while Algeria and Mauritania are described as indirect parties. However, experience has confirmed that resolutions cannot last on the ground without Algeria’s agreement to a cease-fire. In the same way, unless all of the parties cooperate with the UN and with each other, as stipulated by the exhortations of the Security Council, no progress can be made on the negotiations track. Indeed, how can the mobilization of new tendencies in the Sahara conflict’s regional realm secure the cementing of the notion that there is a need for peace, security and stability?
There is a big disparity between what is taking place in Manhasset and the situation on the ground. The negotiators are as far apart as they can be from meeting in the middle field. It is truly ironic that the conditions for regional accord are absent in the relations of the various sides, while negotiators are being asked to achieve something that has no basis for existence. They are subject to divergent viewpoints and are unable to come up with anything positive, no matter how small it may be.
Perhaps it is for this reason, and others, that Ross has the right to reconsider the method and conditions of the negotiations, which were agreed to under the rubric of good intentions, with no preconditions. The utopia of talks has not become a reality; the only thing that is real is the wagers on buying time, which have become a policy that practically exists in and of itself.
The issue has become clear enough. What hundreds of hours of talks in seven previous rounds, whatever their character, were unable to achieve is unlikely to be achieved by an eighth round, surrounded by dangers on all sides. However, the American diplomat, who has come up with new ways to overcome political and psychological obstacles, can always rely on some of the breakthrough that guarantees that the negotiators will come together, and perhaps preserve a minimum of exhibiting the optimal readiness to give up on an issue that will become only more complex in the future.
Ross is not beginning from the point where the fourth round of direct negotiations ended. He could have done this, based on the notion of the continuity of UN efforts. He might have wanted to reach his conclusions based on experience, and not on the results of others. The method is the man, and Ross is not Peter Van Walsum, his predecessor. However, the parties are the same and the issue is not beyond comprehension, except to the degree that is there is interpretation. From his position as envoy, Ross might resort to presenting a pure idea or ideas that help him find a starting point in the minefield of the shifting sands of the Sahara.
There have been no dramatic changes in the area of North Africa concerned with the Sahara negotiations. Nonetheless, it is correct to believe that change might come from Manhasset, and affect Morocco. There is a need to attract the sides to another arena of conflict, since the regional situation is frozen. If the Manhasset negotiations, whether today or tomorrow, become a center of attraction, then Ross will have achieved another breakthrough; at the least, it will be a change in the situation of the region, brought about by the external world. Joining the Manhasset talks requires more speed than the usual cautious steps, which produce only negativities in regional relations that have the possibility of improvement, and set down impossible conditions to produce this improvement.
A round of Manhasset negotiations over the Sahara conflict cannot be the final round, despite the increasing possibility that the talks might fail. However, the round might be the first of its kind, according to a new approach by the United Nations envoy for the Sahara conflict, Christopher Ross. The holding of seven direct and indirect rounds of talks poses the question: where do the sources of imbalance in this experience lie?
Does it have to do with a method that has been unable to bridge the differences in stances by the concerned parties? Or is it the negotiators’ inability to formulate the specific goals required by Security Council resolutions? Or, is the regional conflict too big to be contained through negotiations that turn into public relations exercises?
These are urgent questions, but they have not been raised in the past. Many believed that the so-called consensus-based political solution could result in a change in stances. However, the logic that used to prevail in dealing with earlier resolutions, characterized as excessive, is the same that continues today, at least while Morocco and the Polisario Front are being labeled as direct parties to the conflict, while Algeria and Mauritania are described as indirect parties. However, experience has confirmed that resolutions cannot last on the ground without Algeria’s agreement to a cease-fire. In the same way, unless all of the parties cooperate with the UN and with each other, as stipulated by the exhortations of the Security Council, no progress can be made on the negotiations track. Indeed, how can the mobilization of new tendencies in the Sahara conflict’s regional realm secure the cementing of the notion that there is a need for peace, security and stability?
There is a big disparity between what is taking place in Manhasset and the situation on the ground. The negotiators are as far apart as they can be from meeting in the middle field. It is truly ironic that the conditions for regional accord are absent in the relations of the various sides, while negotiators are being asked to achieve something that has no basis for existence. They are subject to divergent viewpoints and are unable to come up with anything positive, no matter how small it may be.
Perhaps it is for this reason, and others, that Ross has the right to reconsider the method and conditions of the negotiations, which were agreed to under the rubric of good intentions, with no preconditions. The utopia of talks has not become a reality; the only thing that is real is the wagers on buying time, which have become a policy that practically exists in and of itself.
The issue has become clear enough. What hundreds of hours of talks in seven previous rounds, whatever their character, were unable to achieve is unlikely to be achieved by an eighth round, surrounded by dangers on all sides. However, the American diplomat, who has come up with new ways to overcome political and psychological obstacles, can always rely on some of the breakthrough that guarantees that the negotiators will come together, and perhaps preserve a minimum of exhibiting the optimal readiness to give up on an issue that will become only more complex in the future.
Ross is not beginning from the point where the fourth round of direct negotiations ended. He could have done this, based on the notion of the continuity of UN efforts. He might have wanted to reach his conclusions based on experience, and not on the results of others. The method is the man, and Ross is not Peter Van Walsum, his predecessor. However, the parties are the same and the issue is not beyond comprehension, except to the degree that is there is interpretation. From his position as envoy, Ross might resort to presenting a pure idea or ideas that help him find a starting point in the minefield of the shifting sands of the Sahara.
There have been no dramatic changes in the area of North Africa concerned with the Sahara negotiations. Nonetheless, it is correct to believe that change might come from Manhasset, and affect Morocco. There is a need to attract the sides to another arena of conflict, since the regional situation is frozen. If the Manhasset negotiations, whether today or tomorrow, become a center of attraction, then Ross will have achieved another breakthrough; at the least, it will be a change in the situation of the region, brought about by the external world. Joining the Manhasset talks requires more speed than the usual cautious steps, which produce only negativities in regional relations that have the possibility of improvement, and set down impossible conditions to produce this improvement.
Yes, Yemen Is Better!
By Tariq Alhomayed
This commentary was published in Asharq al-Awsat on 19/12/2010
Fahd al-Quso, one of the most prominent Yemeni commanders in the Al Qaeda organization, whose name appears on the FBI's list of ten most wanted terrorists next to that of Osama Bin Laden and Ayman al-Zawahiri, managed to sum up the reason for Al Qaeda's presence and proliferation throughout Yemen in a simple, or let us say spontaneous manner, better than any research study.
Asharq Al-Awsat brought you a wonderful story on Thursday by our colleague Arafat Madabish, in which he revealed that Fahd al-Quso, one of the most prominent terrorists wanted by the US, is still alive and kicking, and was not killed as previously claimed by the Americans. The Asharq Al-Awsat correspondent met with al-Quso – who is under the protection of his own Awlak tribe – in the mountainous regions of Shabwa province in south-eastern Yemen, obtaining photographing evidence of this encounter. When Arafat Madabish asked al-Quso about the reports of his death in Pakistan, al-Quso expressed surprise about reports of his presence in Pakistan, and in a simple manner he revealed that Al Qaeda knows what it wants, saying "on the contrary, my presence in Yemen is better in light of the crisis situation with the Yemeni government."
This is the crux of the manner, for Al Qaeda cannot settle in any country that is stable and not suffering from political or security crises, and if the situation deteriorates in Lebanon, God forbid, you will find an Al Qaeda presence there as well. For the process of funding Al Qaeda is one thing, and the process of recruitment is another. As for training, and carrying out terrorist operations, this is another story and something that Al Qaeda cannot do unless there is land – under tribal or sectarian protection – available for training operations and this is something that was readily available in Afghanistan, then Iraq, and today in Yemen. This is something that we said repeatedly, and it angers our brothers in Yemen who believe that we are disparaging our cherished Yemen, however the opposite is true, for what is required is for Al Qaeda to be confronted, not with arms, but with political and religious reform, and support for [Yemeni] stability; Al Qaeda is a plague that only spreads in areas that are rife with conflict and crises.
The Yemeni most wanted terrorist, Fahd al-Quso, also serves as an example of how Al Qaeda members are provided protection in Yemen, for he lives in security under tribal protection, and it seems that he is very relaxed, for he spoke to the Asharq Al-Awsat correspondent very comfortably about receiving offers from the government to surrender himself in return for certain promises and guarantees, saying explicitly that "this is unlikely."
Therefore, we must be aware that Yemen's problems are not merely financial, and that these problems require intelligence and patience, and creative ideas that unite the Yemeni ranks. Most importantly of all, Yemen is in need of political action to strengthen the concept of citizenship, and putting the interests of the country first, as well as resolving its outstanding issues whether these are tribal or regional. Yemen is in need of political reform, not blaming others for its problems. It is up to the Yemenis to help themselves in order to allow the international community, and most importantly of all, its Arab neighbors, to provide it with help.
This is not an issue of interfering in Yemen's internal affairs, for Yemen's problems have begun to overflow and affect the external world, and this is the major problem today.
This commentary was published in Asharq al-Awsat on 19/12/2010
Fahd al-Quso, one of the most prominent Yemeni commanders in the Al Qaeda organization, whose name appears on the FBI's list of ten most wanted terrorists next to that of Osama Bin Laden and Ayman al-Zawahiri, managed to sum up the reason for Al Qaeda's presence and proliferation throughout Yemen in a simple, or let us say spontaneous manner, better than any research study.
Asharq Al-Awsat brought you a wonderful story on Thursday by our colleague Arafat Madabish, in which he revealed that Fahd al-Quso, one of the most prominent terrorists wanted by the US, is still alive and kicking, and was not killed as previously claimed by the Americans. The Asharq Al-Awsat correspondent met with al-Quso – who is under the protection of his own Awlak tribe – in the mountainous regions of Shabwa province in south-eastern Yemen, obtaining photographing evidence of this encounter. When Arafat Madabish asked al-Quso about the reports of his death in Pakistan, al-Quso expressed surprise about reports of his presence in Pakistan, and in a simple manner he revealed that Al Qaeda knows what it wants, saying "on the contrary, my presence in Yemen is better in light of the crisis situation with the Yemeni government."
This is the crux of the manner, for Al Qaeda cannot settle in any country that is stable and not suffering from political or security crises, and if the situation deteriorates in Lebanon, God forbid, you will find an Al Qaeda presence there as well. For the process of funding Al Qaeda is one thing, and the process of recruitment is another. As for training, and carrying out terrorist operations, this is another story and something that Al Qaeda cannot do unless there is land – under tribal or sectarian protection – available for training operations and this is something that was readily available in Afghanistan, then Iraq, and today in Yemen. This is something that we said repeatedly, and it angers our brothers in Yemen who believe that we are disparaging our cherished Yemen, however the opposite is true, for what is required is for Al Qaeda to be confronted, not with arms, but with political and religious reform, and support for [Yemeni] stability; Al Qaeda is a plague that only spreads in areas that are rife with conflict and crises.
The Yemeni most wanted terrorist, Fahd al-Quso, also serves as an example of how Al Qaeda members are provided protection in Yemen, for he lives in security under tribal protection, and it seems that he is very relaxed, for he spoke to the Asharq Al-Awsat correspondent very comfortably about receiving offers from the government to surrender himself in return for certain promises and guarantees, saying explicitly that "this is unlikely."
Therefore, we must be aware that Yemen's problems are not merely financial, and that these problems require intelligence and patience, and creative ideas that unite the Yemeni ranks. Most importantly of all, Yemen is in need of political action to strengthen the concept of citizenship, and putting the interests of the country first, as well as resolving its outstanding issues whether these are tribal or regional. Yemen is in need of political reform, not blaming others for its problems. It is up to the Yemenis to help themselves in order to allow the international community, and most importantly of all, its Arab neighbors, to provide it with help.
This is not an issue of interfering in Yemen's internal affairs, for Yemen's problems have begun to overflow and affect the external world, and this is the major problem today.
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