McCarthyism Returns To Israel

Open sewer in the Knesset threatens to submerge the entire country

By Uri Avnery
This Commentary was published in the Arab News on 09/01/2011


Good morning, Joe. At home in the US, your name is mud. But here you can really feel at home. In your time, you succeeded in infecting all of the US with hysteria. You detected a Soviet agent under every bed. In a hundred languages around the world — including Hebrew — the name McCarthy, McCarthyism, has become a household word. But you were, after all, only a plagiarist. Before you, the House Anti-American Activities Committee terrorized the country, destroyed careers, hounded people into suicide and tarnished the reputation of the US throughout the democratic world. It "investigated" intellectuals and artists and branded many of them as "anti-American".

This week, the Knesset adopted a bill tabled by Faina Kirschenbaum, a settler who is also the director general of Avigdor Lieberman's party. The bill calls for the appointment of a Parliamentary Commission of Inquiry to investigate whether international funds or foreign countries are financing organizations that "take part in the campaign to de-legitimize IDF soldiers". A parallel bill tabled by Likud member Danny Danon demands that the Inquiry Commission investigate whether foreign governments finance Israeli "activities against the State of Israel".

It is easy to guess what such an investigation by a committee composed of politicians, appointed by the rightist-racist majority of the Knesset, will look like. The infamous Anti-American Activities Committee will look distinctly liberal in comparison.

Among the 41 who voted for the bill, there were not only the usual fascists of the extreme right, headed by the declared Kahanist Michael Ben-Ari, but also the chief Orthodox representative, Jacob Litzman, the former army spokeswoman, Miri Regev, and the former army chief of staff, Moshe Ya'alon. Special mention must go to Matan Vilnai, a leading member of the Labor Party, at present the Deputy Minister of Defense in charge of settlements.

Among the 17 who voted against were, of course, the Arab MKs who were present and all the Meretz members. A pleasant surprise was provided by Yitzhak Herzog, a candidate for the Labor Party chairmanship; the former Likud and present Kadima member Meir Sheetrit; and the Likud member Michael Eitan. All in all, 58 of the 120 members of the Knesset took part in the vote. Where were the other 62? They were in hiding. Netanyahu, Ehud Barak, Tzipi Livni — all disappeared.

THE FIRST thing about this law that stands out is that it does not apply to all political associations in Israel. If such an even-handed law had been enacted, I would have welcomed it. I am very curious about the origin of the money that supports the settlers and the other extreme-rightist organizations. Huge sums, tens and hundreds of millions, are flowing to these bodies. Some of the recipients are devoted to the expulsion of Arabs from East Jerusalem. And one of the well-known donors is a famous billionaire who made his money as an owner of casinos. In Israel, incidentally, owning a casino is a felony.

It is known that the financiers of the extreme right include some of the heads of evangelical sects and born anti-Semites. These adherents of the really-final solution are the main source of the money that finances many rightist associations. This money nurtures openly fascist associations as well as more discreet ones, who advocate the dismissal of "leftist" professors from the universities, organize networks of student-spies who inform on their lecturers. Some organizations monitor the media in order to cleanse them of people suspected of such misdemeanors as striving for peace. There is also a huge apparatus that combs all TV, radio and print media throughout the Arab world and provides our "correspondents for Arab affairs" (almost all of them army intelligence and Shin-Bet alumni) choice pieces, like something about a crazy Muslim preacher in Yemen or a particularly nasty statement in a Cairo salon. They are very successful in poisoning the wells of peace. 

If a serious inquiry committee investigates the financing of the extreme right, it will discover that much of it comes straight from the pocket of the American taxpayer. That is one of the great scandals: The US government is financing many of the settlements. For dozens of years, it has turned a blind eye to the American organizations that are providing funds to the settlements — settlements that are illegal even in the official policy view of the US government. In the US, one can donate tax-free money for humanitarian purposes — but not for political purposes. Almost all the money flowing to the extreme right in Israel is officially marked as devoted to humanitarian purposes.

And what about the Russian mafiosi, who are intimately connected with the Israeli right? What about the various dictators in fragments of the former Soviet Union? Where does Lieberman, whose connections with these countries are well-known, get his money from? Police investigators have been trying for years to unravel this mystery, with no concrete results so far.

All this could keep several inquiry committees busy for years to come — and the initiators of the bills know this perfectly well. They are adamant: Inquiry into leftist associations only. The list includes B'Tselem ("In the Image"), a veteran outfit that monitors events in the occupied territories and is treated with respect even by the army; Shovrim Shtika ("Breaking the Silence"), a group of former soldiers that collects testimonies from soldiers; Yesh Din ("There is a Law"), which is active in matters of land ownership in the occupied territories as well as overseeing the military courts; Yesh Gvul ("There is a Limit"), which defends soldiers who refuse to serve in the occupied territories; Machsom Watch ("Checkpoint Watch"), an organization of female volunteers who oversee what's happening at the roadblocks; "Physicians for Human Rights", who have just been awarded the Alternative Nobel Prize in Stockholm for activities in service of the sick in the occupied territories; the Association for Human Rights, the New Fund, IR Arim ("City of Peoples"), which conducts legal fights against the penetration of settlers into East Jerusalem; and Shalom Achschav ("Peace Now") for its important activities monitoring the building in the settlements.

Especially reprehensible is the pretense of the racists to be acting on behalf of the soldiers. They do not speak about the delegitimization of the settlers, or of the fascist right, or of the racist policies of our government — only about the "delegitimization of the IDF soldiers".
That is a classic tactic of all fascist movements in the world. They wrap themselves in the flag of patriotism and claim to defend "our troops".

The career of Joe McCarthy was suddenly cut short. It was buried under one sentence that made history. Joseph Nye Welch, a respected lawyer representing the US Army, who appeared before the McCarthy committee, was shocked by his tactics and cried out: "Have you no sense of decency, sir, at long last? Have you left no sense of decency?"

The audience in the hall burst out in spontaneous applause. These few words electrified the American public. Suddenly the wheel turned. The McCarthy era ended, the public regained its sanity and since then, McCarthyism is remembered only as something to be ashamed of.

I am waiting now for a decent Israeli citizen to seal the open sewer in the Knesset that is threatening to submerge the entire country. Mr. Benjamin Netanyahu, sir, have you no sense of decency left?

From The Arabian Gulf To The Atlantic Ocean

By Abdullah Iskandar

This commentary was published in al-Hayat on 09/01/2011

From Yemen on the Arabian Gulf to Morocco on the Atlantic Ocean, through Iraq, the Middle East, Sudan and Egypt, major events are emerging. And it seems as if those events that are invading Arab countries all at once are distant and unrelated to each other. Each of them could have its reasons and internal motives, as well as its own dynamic and outward appearances. Yet their coinciding in this manner makes it likely for them to have common factors, one of their major manifestations being the modern Arab state reaching its fated predicament, after undergoing a series of relapses and meeting with failure at every level, thus leading citizens in any of those countries to lose the national bond they had with their state and driving them to regress into pre-state forms of expression, based on shrinking back to their primitive cells and to violence.

There is indeed a common denominator between the Al-Qaeda ambush in Yemen, the infighting in Iraq, the past and postponed civil war in Lebanon, the bombing of a Coptic church in Alexandria, the secession of Southern Sudan, and the popular and violent demonstration in both Tunisia and Algeria, and before that in Morocco.

That common denominator is the breakdown of communication between national states and their citizens. Indeed, neither is power in these countries the power of a state, nor do citizens feel that they are the citizens of such states.

This is due to the fact that the two sides of the equation have both abandoned what the state represents in terms of legislation for equality, equal chances and guarantees of a decent life. Power has shrunk back to the primitive cells of rulers. Such rulers have reduced the state to their region or to their sect, by virtue of holding power. And they have reduced their region and their sect to their family – thus exposing the country to all forms of corruption, favoritism and persecution. A small segment of the population has therefore grown wealthy at the expense of the remaining citizens. And when citizens feel that they hold some kind of strength, they do not hesitate to use it against those who are in power or against other citizens.

Thus matters reach the current predicament, which a temporary resolution may relieve. Yet such a predicament will soon repeat itself, perhaps in a more violent manner.

There are those who wish for the conflicts in every Arab country to be the products of the “conspiracy”, and of the known culprits, international Zionism, Israel, the West and the United States. Those referred to as the “enemies of the nation” may benefit from these conflicts, which allow them to interfere further in order to preserve their interests. But the question remains about the core of the failure of the modern Arab state, making conflicts erupt that are later exploited by “enemies”.

Let us then anger those “enemies” by rethinking the meaning of the fortified state and the fortified citizen. Not like President Omar Al-Bashir has, announcing that he wishes to implement Islamic law in the North in order to anger those who oppose him. Indeed, making use of religion in political matters, as the ruling party in Khartoum has done, has been one of the many major reasons for making unity with the South unattractive. Nor in the way the ruling regime in Algeria has, holding 150 billion dollars as monetary reserves at a time when is unable to resolve the country’s chronic housing problem, not to mention its failure to prepare students for the job market and its inability to create new jobs for college graduates whose numbers are increasing every year. And certainly not in the way the ruling regime in Tunisia has, compensating for its failure to resolve the economic and social crisis by strengthening the grip of security against protesters.

One can expand on the enumeration of models from Yemen, Egypt and others, where the ruling regime’s prime concern has become how to confront instances of domestic opposition with various forms of political and security force. And when rulers want to undertake political reform, the first thing they do is make themselves rulers for life. That is what has happened in Tunisia, before that in Egypt and in Syria, perhaps later in Algeria, and finally in Yemen. All of this being accompanied by further corruption, misuse of state funds, favoritism and persecution.

And with chronic crises erupting in those Arab countries, can one conclude that the current failed state has reached the phase of the beginning of its end? Perhaps, but what is tragic is that the end of this phase does not indicate the beginning of a more radiant one.

The Forgotten Martyrdom Of Algeria's Reporters

By Robert Fisk
This commentary was published in The Independent on 08/01/2011

How quickly we forget the murder of colleagues.

The Algerian press, freer than it has been for years (though that's not saying a lot), now boasts a smart and cynical edge. The Arabic-language Al-Sharq newspaper, with a million copies sold a day, rightly claims the highest circulation in the Arab world. But then there I was, sitting above Bab el-Oued in the winter sunshine, flicking through the pages of Le Soir d'Algérie, when a face glares at me from a book review. Thick-haired, moustache creeping round his cheeks, giant 1990s spectacles, sharp eyes, the features of journalist Tahar Djaout, subject of a new biography by Algerian writer Rachid Mokhtari. Djaout died 2 June 1993. Murdered, of course. Like 94 of his fellow journalists. Ninety-four!

A few years ago, I wouldn't have been sitting here above the Algiers Casbah. A French colleague of mine was murdered less than a mile away on 1 February 1994. In those days, four minutes was all we allowed ourselves in shops – five gave the watchers enough time to call the killers of the Islamic Armed Group – and lingering on the streets to read a newspaper was suicidal. But we could retreat at day's end to the few heavily guarded hotels in this beautiful, morally damaged city. Algiers is safer now. But Tahar Djaout's face brings it all back.

He put his arms round his three daughters on his fatal day, said goodbye to his wife, walked to the street from his fourth-floor apartment, "lost in his thoughts" over the next edition of his paper Ruptures, as a colleague put it later, failing to notice one of three men climbing from a car. The moment he caught sight of the gun, Djaout must have realised he was too late. Three bullets, one in the head, and he collapsed to the ground in a coma. His latest column had appeared that very morning on the Algiers news-stands, a condemnation of the attempted assassination of Omar Belhouchet, the editor of El Watan and a friend of mine. It took Djaout eight days to die.

A few of the almost 100 murdered journalists in Algeria are thought to be the victims of government thugs. But most were undoubtedly slaughtered by the Islamists, not because they were pro-Pouvoir – a lot had been harassed, arrested or detained by the police – but because they did not want to live in the Islamic republic which seemed certain to emerge in Algeria until the regime stopped the second round of elections (to the quiet applause, of course, of America, France and most of the other Western nations who spend their time promoting "democracy" around the Muslim world). The armed groups had even given journalists a warning, a few days' grace to put their pens away, or else.

A sober, black-covered book by journalist Lazhari Labter now records the martyrdom of the reporters of Algeria. It makes terrible reading – not least because we have, all of us outside, forgotten these literal pages of suffering. I reported many of their deaths and I had forgotten them. Youcef Sebti, a bachelor in his fifties, a man deeply learned in Arab and French culture, poet, humanist, nationalist, intellectual; just before midnight, 27 December 1993, three armed men entered his apartment in the Algiers suburb of El Harrach. Sebti's housekeeper found his body in a pool of blood next morning, slumped beneath a framed copy of the executions in Goya's The Third of May, 1808.

Said Mekbel was shot twice in the head on 3 December 1994, as he took his lunch in an Algiers restaurant. They found him sitting at his table, dead, knife and fork still in his hands. Mekbel – perhaps the most popular journalist in the country – ran a wonderful column called "Mesmar J'ha" – "The Rusty Nail" – in which he had written of his work as a journalist. "This thief who slinks along walls in the night to go home, he's the one. This father who warns his children not to talk about the wicked job he does, he's the one... He's the one whose hands know no other skill... He is all of these, and a journalist only." In his office, he left an unfinished article in which he wrote: "I would really like to know who is going to kill me."

Then there was Khadija Dahmani. Twenty-seven years old, she told colleagues that only by working as a journalist could she liberate herself from being cloistered at home as a Muslim woman. "The only way in which she could be free was through her work," a fellow journalist wrote. She was intercepted by armed men just outside her home on 5 December 1995, and shot dead. How do you recognise an Algerian journalist, the cartoonist Dilem asked? "He's the only guy who has a pen in his hand, two dinars in his pocket and three bullets in the head." In El Watan, Boubakeur Hamidechi condemned those reporters who always tried to find a reason for each killing. "Every time a journalist is targeted, the sincerest pens try to explain it," he wrote. "In a way, we work on the logic of proof, something which makes sense of an act of terrorism."

Yes, today may all of us beware... Zouaoui Benamadi, the editor of Algérie Actualité – he survived the war – once explained to me: "Only Islamic movements are capable of breaking the government systems that exist in the Arab world. But who are these people? What are these strange clothes they wear? They have beards and wear white caps and shortened trousers to show their allegiance... But we have beautiful national clothes in Algeria. We have the burnous, a big woollen robe. Where does it come from, this curious dress of theirs?" Well, Saudi Arabia, you might have said. But Afghanistan is where many of the men came from. They were Algerians who fought alongside Osama bin Laden against the Soviet army, another little blowback that soaked Algeria deeper in blood than Afghanistan.

And now, when we drench our pages in sorrow at the death of every Western reporter, why don't we remember these 94 Algerian men and women? Yasmina Drissi, an editor on Le Soir d'Algérie, had her throat cut open in September 1994, after being kidnapped while waiting at a petrol station. Rachida Hammadi, a television station secretary, was shot in the head on 20 March 1995, her sister Houria killed as she tried to protect her. Rachida died a few hours later. Do these poor souls not touch us? And if not, why not? Because they were Arabs? Because they were Muslims, because they were darker skinned than us, had brown rather than blue eyes, spoke French rather than English when they chose not to speak Arabic, because they were – let us speak frankly – Algerians? I fear that all this is true. I wrote about them at the time. And then, until a few days ago – until Tahar Djaout's face stared at me from a newspaper above the Casbah of Algiers – I forgot them too.

WikiLeaks, April Glaspie, And Saddam Hussein

By Stephen M. Walt
This commentary was published in Foreign Policy on 09/01/2011

I'm generally not inclined to take issue with my FP colleagues, but David Kenner's recent posting on the WikiLeaks release of a cable recounting Saddam Hussein's infamous meeting with U.S. ambassador April Glaspie deserves a response.

In an article headlined "Why One U.S. Diplomat Didn't Cause the Gulf War," Kenner argues that the new release shows that Glaspie should not be blamed for the U.S. failure to make a clear deterrent warning to Saddam. And that is what he accuses me and John Mearsheimer (and the Washington Post) of doing. In his words, "the Washington Post described her as ‘the face of American incompetence in Iraq.' Stephen Walt and John Mearsheimer piled on in a 2003 article for Foreign Policy, arguing that Glaspie's remarks unwittingly gave Iraq a green light to invade Kuwait."

I agree that the WikiLeaks release may exonerate Glaspie for being personally responsible for a diplomatic gaffe, but there are two problems with Kenner's version of events.  

First, we never accused Glaspie of diplomatic incompetence, and we certainly didn't "pile on." Here's what we actually said in our 2003 piece:

In a now famous interview with the Iraqi leader, U.S. Ambassador April Glaspie told Saddam, ‘[W]e have no opinion on the Arab-Arab conflicts, like your border disagreement with Kuwait.' The U.S. State Department had earlier told Saddam that Washington had ‘no special defense or security commitments to Kuwait.' The United States may not have intended to give Iraq a green light, but that is effectively what it did."

Notice that we offered no opinion on whether Glaspie was free-lancing, mis-reading Saddam, or simply following orders from Washington. Our article was focused on the issue of whether Saddam was deterrable, and the key issue that concerned us about the Glaspie meeting was whether she had conveyed a clear deterrent threat to Saddam, or whether she might have unintentionally given him reason to think he could go ahead and absorb Kuwait without facing a strong military response from the United States.

Second, a careful reading of the cable suggests that Saddam could have easily interpreted Glaspie's conversation, along with other statements by U.S. officials, as a sign that the United States was not strongly committed to protecting Kuwait. For starters, the cable makes it clear that Saddam is at the end of his rope. He spends much of the conversation reciting a long list of grievances, and though his manner is described as "cordial, reasonable, and even warm," he repeatedly accuses the United States of having malign intentions toward Iraq. For example, the cable refers to one of his "main points" being that the "USG maneuvers with the UAE and Kuwait. . .[and] encouraged them in their ungenerous policies." And he makes it clear that his patience is not unlimited: "Iraqi rights, Saddam emphasized, will be restored one by one, thought it may take a month or much more than a year." He also speaks of the "pride" of Iraqis, whom he says believe in "liberty or death," and he warns that Iraq "will have to respond if the US uses these methods." He adds that "Iraq knows the USG can send planes and rockets and hurt Iraq deeply," but he "asks that the USG not force Iraq to the point of humiliation at which logic must be disregarded."

How does Glaspie respond to Saddam's litany of grievances, complaints, and not-very-veiled threats? 

Her very first point in response is to thank him for the opportunity to discuss these matters directly, and she then says that "President Bush, too, wants friendship." Her next point is to tell Saddam that "the President had instructed her to broaden and deepen our relations with Iraq," and she reminds Saddam that though "some circles" might oppose that policy, "the U.S. administration is instructed by the President." And then she adds that "what is important is that the President has very recently reaffirmed his desire for a better relationship" and he has shown that desire by opposing some sanctions bills.

In short, her initial response to Saddam is to try to reassure him of America's friendly intentions, and to try to convince him that his suspicions are mistaken. It also seems clear that Glaspie is simply following the instructions she had been given.

Having begun by seeking to mollify Saddam, it is only then that Glaspie raises any concerns about what Iraq might be contemplating. Yet even here, she begins by first "stressing President Bush's desire for friendship" and his desire for "for peace and stability in the Middle East. And then -- finally -- she expresses concern about bellicose statements by Saddam and his foreign minister and the movement of Republican Guard units. According to the cable, she asks: "Is it not reasonable for the U.S. to ask, in a spirit of friendship, not confrontation, the simple question: What are your intentions?"

Saddam says it is a reasonable question, and he acknowledges that this is even our "duty" as a superpower. But he quickly returns to his list of grievances, and says he's tried everything to resolve his problem with Kuwait.  He subsequently leaves the room to take a phone call, and returns with the encouraging news (from Egyptian President Mubarak), that the Kuwaitis have agreed to further negotiations.  The meeting then ends on a friendly note, but when Saddam raises the question of his border dispute with Kuwait, Glaspie responds that "she had served in Kuwait 20 years before; then as now, we took no position on these Arab affairs."

What are we to make of all this? As noted, it seems clear that Glaspie didn't bungle her assignment: She was doing what the Bush administration wanted at this crucial meeting. In that sense, the headline on Kenner's piece is correct: She's not to blame for the war. Of course, neither Professor Mearsheimer nor I ever said she was.

The more interesting question -- and the one that concerned us when we wrote our original 2003 article -- was what that meeting tells us about Saddam's calculations. I think the recently released cable describing that meeting is consistent with our interpretation. Saddam is clearly aggrieved, and most of Glaspie's responses are attempts to mollify him. Nowhere in this cable is there evidence of a clear deterrent warning, or an unambiguous statement of an American security guarantee to Kuwait.  She reminds Saddam that we have concerns about his intentions -- which was clearly not news to Saddam -- but there's not even a hint from her of what Washington would do if he seized Kuwait.  

Even Glaspie's statement that President Bush is deeply interested in peace and stability in the Gulf can be read as something of a green light.  If the president says he wants closer relations with Iraq but doesn't want war in the Gulf, might Saddam have seen that as suggesting that the United States wasn't about to fight to preserve Kuwaiti sovereignty? Remember: Saddam wasn't intending to fight a major war against Kuwait; he was just planning a coup de main.  Based on Glaspie's remarks, he might easily has concluded that Washignton would ultimately acquiesce-however reluctantly -- to his fait accompli.

In short, I think it is clear from the cable that the United States did unwittingly give a green light to Saddam, and certainly no more than a barely flickering yellow light.  Glaspie certainly didn't make it clear to him what would happen if he used force against Kuwait.  This is a case of policy failure but not deterrence failure, in short, because deterrence wasn't tried in this case.

Lastly, this incident seems to be a classic illustration of a country applying what IR theorists describe as a "spiral model" remedy to a "deterrence model" situation. (In the "spiral model," states are aggressive solely because they are insecure, and therefore reassuring them is the best way to avoid war.  In the deterrence model, states are aggressive because they are simply greedy or ideologically driven, and the only way to avoid war is to pose a credible deterrent threat.) The Glaspie meeting reveals that U.S. leaders were concerned about about Saddam's intentions, and the U.S. government tried to reassure him that we were friendly so that he won't do something precipitous. What was needed, however, was a clear and explicit statement that an attack on Kuwait would be met with an American military response. Glaspie never uttered such a statement, and we all know what happened next.

Buying Time With Iran

 By David Ignatius
This commentary was published in The Washington Post on 09/01/2011

The Obama administration has concluded that Iran's nuclear program has been slowed by a combination of sanctions, sabotage and Iran's own technical troubles. Because of the delay, U.S. officials see what one describes as "a little bit of space" before any military showdown with Iran.

Israeli officials, too, see more time on the clock. Moshe Yaalon, Israel's deputy prime minister, noted the Iranian slowdown in a Dec. 29 interview with Israel Radio and said the West has up to three years to stop Tehran from making a bomb.

"These [Iranian] difficulties slow the timeline, of course," said Yaalon, a former Israeli defense chief. And last Thursday, outgoing Mossad chief Meir Dagan told Israeli reporters that Iran couldn't build a bomb before 2015 at the earliest, in part because of unspecified "measures that have been deployed against them."

A senior Obama administration official gave me a similar account of Iran's troubles. "They're not moving as fast as we had feared a year ago," he said.

This new assessment of Iran's nuclear setbacks has lowered the temperature on what had been 2010's hottest strategic issue. Last summer, Jerusalem and Washington were talking themselves into a war fever, prompted in part by a powerful article in the Atlantic by Jeffrey Goldberg that starkly described the likelihood of military action. This fever seems to have broken.

What's increasingly clear is that low-key weapons - covert sabotage and economic sanctions - are accomplishing many of the benefits of military action, without the costs. It's a devious approach - all the more so because it's accompanied by near-constant U.S. proposals of diplomatic dialogue - but in that sense, it matches Iran's own operating style of pursuing multiple options at once.

Officials won't discuss the clandestine program of cyberattack and other sabotage being waged against the Iranian nuclear program. Yet we see the effects - in crashing centrifuges and reduced operations of the Iranian enrichment facility at Natanz - but don't understand the causes. That's the way covert action is supposed to work.

The most direct confirmation that sabotage has paid off came from Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad, who said in November that the Stuxnet computer virus had damaged the Natanz operation. "They succeeded in creating problems for a limited number of our centrifuges with the software they had installed in electronic parts," he said.

A fascinating (and remarkably detailed) account of the Stuxnet attack was published Dec. 22 by the Institute for Science and International Security. The study described how the virus was targeted to attack a key electronic control in the centrifuges, known as a "frequency converter," so that the spin of the rotors was increased and slowed in a way that would cause a malfunction.

According to the ISIS report, the virus may have been introduced in early or mid 2009. By late 2009 or early 2010, the study said, Iran decommissioned and replaced about 1,000 centrifuges - far more than normal breakage. The virus hid its electronic tracks, but an analysis by the security firm Symantec showed that the code included the term "DEADFOO7," which could refer to the aviation term for a dead engine and also be a play on James Bond's fictional code name.

Stuxnet was just one of what appeared to have been a series of efforts to disrupt the supply chain of the Iranian nuclear program. "Such overt and covert disruption activities have had significant effect in slowing Iran's centrifuge program," concluded the ISIS.

The delays in the Iranian program are important because they add strategic warning time for the West to respond to any Iranian push for a bomb. U.S. officials estimate that if Iran were to try a "break out" by enriching uranium at Natanz to the 90 percent level needed for a bomb, that move (requiring reconfiguration of the centrifuges) would be detectable - and it would take Iran one to two more years to make a bomb.

The Iranians could try what U.S. officials call a "sneak out" at a secret enrichment facility like the one they constructed near Qom. They would have to use their poorly performing (and perhaps still Stuxnet-infected) old centrifuges or an unproven new model. Alternative enrichment technologies, such as lasers or a heavy-water reactor, don't appear feasible for Iran now, officials say. Foreign technology from Russia and other suppliers has been halted, and the Iranians can't build the complex hardware (such as a "pressure vessel" needed for the heavy-water reactor) on their own.

The Obama administration keeps holding the door open for negotiations, and another round is scheduled this month in Istanbul. But the real news is that Tehran has technical problems - bringing sighs of relief (and a few mischievous smiles) in the West.

The Tariq Bin Ziad Cell

By Mohammad el-Ashab

This commentary was published in al-Hayat on 09/01/2011

The choice of the location here seems more significant than the event itself: The Tariq bin Ziad cell broken up by the Moroccan authorities, becomes an even greater danger when we learn that its advanced weapons, which included machine guns, pistols and rocket launchers, were discovered in the Amgala region of the Sahara, and not anywhere else.

Since the Sahara is closer to the Sahel region, which is being described as the “other Afghanistan,” and the cell members were linked to al-Qaida in the Islamic Maghreb, this is understandable. However, the choice of Amgala in particular, which saw the first military confrontation between Moroccan forces and the Algerian army, seems justified only as a way to draw the two neighbors into an escalation they both say they do not want, no matter how tense their political disputes have become.

With the exception of this confrontation, which took place three decades and a half ago, the Algerians have repeatedly said that they would not enter a war with Morocco over the Sahara. Meanwhile, the Moroccans have, as part of their military strategy, left a buffer zone east of the security wall in order to prevent any violation of Algerian borders in any possible pursuit of Polisario Front fighters.

In this context, Rabat and Algiers adopt the same rhetoric. However, the interpretation differs amid the obvious difference in viewpoints vis-à-vis the Sahara, and even in dealing with the growing phenomenon of terrorism. However, the scenario of storing terror weapons in the Amgala region in particular is both irritating, and serves as a warning bell of the danger looming over the two neighboring countries. Ironically, the resumption of the normalization of Moroccan-Algerian relations at the end of the 1980s took place in the aftermath of a swarm of locusts over the joint border area, just as terror seeks to find save havens in the same places. However, even locusts, which reflect an angry mother nature, are now reeling from indiscriminate terror attacks. Algeria’s battle to cement stability and confront security outbreaks domestically and in surrounding areas has also become Morocco’s battle, as it attempts to curb the growth of terror. However, the two countries are insular, to the point where each measures things in its own way. The petty disputes, which have overshadowed the huge challenges, can be relegated to their original small scope with a bit of wisdom and a lot of determination.

Meanwhile, the Europeans were infuriated and as a result, they forged an immediate alliance when their nationals were being kidnapped near the Sub-Saharan Sahel region. Any disputes over nationalities amongst them – over who is Spanish or French, or German – have faded away. A comprehensive perspective puts all of these nationalities into the category of European citizens, on whose lives a price cannot be put, and the guarantee of whose security and safety has no other consideration. So what has happened to us to make that dangers to the lives of people, whether Moroccan or Algerian, not generate the same level of European anxiety?

If a weapons cache meant to be used in a terror attack, such as the one found in Amgala, had been discovered in Europe, there would have been strong responses, concern and anxiety, which would necessitate coordination and consultation, and giving priority to security concerns that threaten national interests. Morocco is not being targeted alone, as rockets have also struck at prominent Algerian targets. And Mauritania will not be far from the repercussions of attacks already tried on its territory.

Amgala was once a psychological barrier between Morocco and Egypt, before the mediation of Egyptian President Hosni Mubarak. However, today it has been put on the back burner, and its memory should be forgotten, just like a passing event that should not obscure the future. The countries of the Sahel are suffering from poverty, terror and harsh natural conditions, and they are looking toward their northern neighbors, and expect assistance. Most likely, this would see them gather around the table of joint security challenges, which are dominant today, and where European mediation has failed to impose partnership in confronting the dangers that are striking indiscriminately in political terms.

Iran: Foreign Insults Reveal Internal Crisis

By Tariq Alhomayed
This commentary was published on 09/01/2011

One can find fabricated news about rapprochement between Iran and Saudi Arabia, and other regional states, published by the Iranian news agencies, as well as talk about senior Saudi leadership – or other leaders in the region – planning to visit Tehran. However at the same time, you will also find these same news agencies publishing "insulting" and fabricated news items about Saudi Arabia and other regional countries; this is something that has confused many of those monitoring the situation, for how can this be explained?
 
One of those observing this situation asked me: isn't this escalation by the Iranian media against Saudi Arabia strange? To which I replied that no, it isn't! For this is not caused by Saudi Arabia, or the situation in Lebanon or Iraq, or anything else, but rather this is caused by Tehran itself; the problem is an internal Iranian one.
 
The evidence of this can be seen in the timing of Iran's [media] attack against the leader of the Iraqiya bloc, Dr. Iyad Allawi. Many people have not paid attention to the Iranian claims that Allawi previously sent a message to Tehran presenting a package of proposals that he would implement should Iran agree to him becoming Iraqi Prime Minister, which is something comprehensively denied by the Iraqiya bloc. This attack [on Allawi] took place at the same time that Iran's new acting Foreign Minister Ali Akbar Salehi was visiting Iraq, during which he issued a statement saying that Tehran looks forward to turning over a new page in its relations with Iraq! Some people have promoted Salehi as potentially being Iran's Davutoglu [Turkish Foreign Minister] in terms of being able to resolve Tehran's problems with its neighbors, and when he was first appointed acting Iranian Foreign Minister Salehi himself said that one of his priorities would be to improve, or even restore, Iran's relations with Saudi Arabia.
 
So how can we explain the situation today, with a new Iranian foreign minister talking about restoring relations with Saudi Arabia, and this being his priority, whilst at the same time the country he is representing has launched an attack on Riyadh via media agencies affiliated to decision-makers in Tehran? How can we understand this escalation against Allawi, and the Iranian Fars News agency attacking him [in this manner], whilst at the same time the Iranian foreign minister is speaking about turning over a new page in Tehran's relations with Iraq, particularly in light of the fact that we are talking about Iranian news agencies, rather than newspapers or television channels?
 
This means that the cause is not outside of Iran, but rather that this is an internal Iranian problem. This indicates that what is happening in Tehran today is not according to the orders of any single leadership, but rather that there is a major political conflict taking place there over power, authority, and who is in charge of what in Iran. This can also be seen in the news which has yet to be explained with regards to [Iranian president] Ahmadinejad dismissing a number of his advisers, and as is always the case in Iran, the analysis of the news is more important than the news itself.
 
All the information points to the fact that this crisis is taking place within Iran itself, and not abroad; this also means that Salehi is not capable of being Iran's Davutoglu, for there is more than one leadership in Tehran, and so it would be very difficult for Salehi to rebuild or restore any of his country's foreign relations. Therefore, let's not worry about what is being leaked in Iran [about foreign countries], we should instead focus upon what is happening internally there, for when Iran intensifies its attack or insults against foreign parties, all that this means is that there is an internal crisis taking place there.