Syria And Its Supposed Role

By Hassan Haidar
This commentary was published in al-Hayat on 09/06/2011

The citizens who were shown on Syrian state television pleading with the army to intervene and save them from the “armed gangs” in the city of Jisr Al-Shughur provide a carbon copy of the pleas shown by the same state television in 1976, saying that they had been directed by Lebanese mayors to the Syrian army, so that it may intervene to “save the Christians” in Lebanon – before tangible experience showed that the Lebanese of all sects and political parties were in “the same bag” for the regime in Damascus.

Although the difference in time between what is taking place in Syria today and what took place in Lebanon back then is of more than 35 years, the Syrian regime still makes use of the same methods to justify its behavior and present it as a requirement of the “role” it plays in “maintaining stability” in the region, establishing a link between its internal stability and continuing to play such a role, without any evolution in political or media concepts that would be in tune with the change taking place in the world.

Yet in this new situation it faces, the Syrian regime seems unable to realize the limits of the role devised for it by the West. Indeed, when it invaded Lebanon the first time, it put its move forward from the perspective of a trade-off between Western interests and its own interests. “Containing” Lebanon was at the time a strategic goal for the Syrian regime that met with a strategic goal for the West, and especially the US, based on keeping the threat of the Palestine Liberation Organization (PLO) away from Israel and putting a stop to its activities in Lebanon. Western powers at the time thus contributed to exaggerating Syria’s “regional role”, among the conditions of which was keeping the Syrian Golan front quiet and restraining Palestinian factions in South Lebanon. And although Damascus’s partial failure to implement the latter part drove Israel to invade Lebanon in 1982, the margin for maneuvering granted to Syria in the Lebanese interior allowed it to return to Beirut once again to stop the fabricated wars between its allies. And throughout this period, the West turned a blind eye to the violations committed by the Damascus regime in Lebanon as well as in Syria itself, its increasing closeness to Iran, and its military and political support of Hezbollah, preferring diplomatic pressures and calm attempts at convincing, as long as the main part of the agreement was still in effect.

The Syrian regime seems as if it has truly come to believe that it could abandon its undeclared commitments without changing itself. Thus, after making verbal threats, it began to effectively threaten the stability prevailing on the Golan front by sending thousands of Palestinian youths to cross the “border”, incited and organized by Palestinian factions loyal to it. It thus committed two mistakes: the first when it revealed that it was maintaining calm on the Golan front for reasons other than those it spoke of, especially the slogan of “strategic balance” with Israel; and the second when it thought that it could really abandon the burden of its “regional role”, which it had protected throughout the past decades.

Perhaps Syria turning on its commitments in such a way, including in what the West claims about it supplying Hezbollah with long-range missiles and attempting to build a secret nuclear reactor, explains the gradual escalation in the stances of Western countries on what is taking place in Syria, the tough sanctions they have imposed on Damascus, and their efforts to issue a resolution condemning it at the Security Council, after most Western capitals have come to consider that the regime in Damascus has lost its legitimacy, without those capitals harboring any concerns over stability in the region.

Hezbollah And Iran: Who Pays The Price?

By Amir Taheri
This commentary was published in Asharq al-Awsat on 10/06/2011 

For years, the Lebanese branch of Hezbollah has celebrated its "victory against the Zionist enemy." Festivities marking the occasion were held last week in parts of Lebanon controlled by Hezbollah.

What was new was an account given by a senior Hezbollah leader of how the conflict was triggered and who was in charge of the group's operations.

The man in question is Sayyed Hashem Safieddin, The Head of Hezbollah's Executive Council, described by the Iranian newspaper Kayhan as the party's second-in-command. Lebanese sources tell me that Safieddin, a mullah in his 40s, is regarded as Nasrallah's heir-apparent.

In its issue dated 31 May, Kayhan reported a meeting between Safieddin and a delegation of the Baseej, the Iranian paramilitary set up to protect the Khomeinist regime. The group had gone to Lebanon to participate in celebrations.

According to Kayhan, Safieddin told the Iranian paramilitaries that all credit for the "victory" in question went to Iranian "Supreme Guide" Ali Khamenei.

"Without the direct, minute by minute, command and supervision of Grand Ayatollah Khamenei, Hezbollah would not have achieved its great victory against Zionism and America, "Safieddin was quoted as saying.

The Hezbollah leader went on to say: "For us, Ayatollah Khamenei is not a simple leader. He is our model for life, a symbol of steadfastness, and our master."

Safieddin insisted that, from start to finish, the conflict had taken place under Khomeini's "direct command and supervision".

This means that Khamenei also gave the order for the kidnapping of Israeli soldiers that triggered the conflict.

Khomeinist leaders in Tehran have always used kidnapping and hostage-taking as a method for pursuing political aims at home and abroad.

Safieddin's flattery towards Khamenei is neither new nor surprising. Nasrallah himself has praised the Iranian mullah to the skies, running out of superlatives.

Safieddin's account recalls what many have known for long, that Hezbollah is, in fact, a branch of the Khomeinist regime in Lebanon.

Hezbollah was founded in Tehran in 1975, four years before the mullahs seized power in Iran. Two mullahs, Hadi Ghaffari and Ali-Akbar Mohtashami-Pour, and two bazaar "tough guys" Abbas Douzdouzani and Abbas Zamani were among its founders.

After the mullahs had come to power, they decided to open its branches outside Iran.
In 1982, Mohtashami-Pour, appointed Khomeini's Ambassador to Damascus, was ordered to open Hezbollah branches in Syria and Lebanon.

President Hafez al-Assad made it clear that he would not tolerate a Hezbollah branch in Syria. However, he promised to help Iran set up one in Lebanon.

From 1984, the Iranian government budget has included an item for "promoting revolutions abroad", in other words for financing Hezbollah branches in 17 countries alongside other foreign groups working for Tehran. Until 1998, the Iranian Foreign Ministry had an office, headed by a Director-General, for "exporting the Islamic Revolution."

What is new is Safieddin's claim that Khamenei exercised "minute-by-minute" control over Hezbollah, at least during the conflict with Israel.

This means that the leader of a foreign country was able to plunge Lebanon into war, with all the dangers that it entailed, without any consultation with Lebanon's legal government.

The Lebanese mullah's account gives credence to those who claim that the 2006 conflict was, in fact, a proxy war launched by Iran against Israel. Lebanon was used as an operational base, although its people ended up paying the price in blood and treasure.

Lebanon's history is full of examples of political parties whose umbilical cord was linked to foreign powers. Egypt under Nasser, Iraq under Saddam Hussein, Libya under Muammar Gaddafi, and, of course, Israel and Syria are among many foreign powers that have had proxies in Lebanon.

However, in none of those cases was the proxy under "direct, minute-by-minute control" of a foreign power.

For years, Iran under the Shah exercised influence in Lebanon through the Shiite community. A charismatic mullah, Imam Moussa Sadr was dispatched by the Shah's government to organize the Shiite community, stem the tide of the Left sweeping the under - privileged community, and help it resist pressure from Palestinians led by Yasser Arafat.

However, at no time was Sadr, or Harekat al-Mahroomin (Movement of the Dispossessed), the organization he created, under Tehran's direct control. Once he had established himself, Sadr even stopped submitting reports to Tehran. Later, he ended up as an opponent of the Shah and formed an alliance with Libya's Muammar Gaddafi- an alliance that ended in Sadr's tragic assassination by the Libyans.

Lebanon "experts" claim that it is inevitable that Lebanese political parties seek powerful foreign backers. They add that, as a small, weak and vulnerable country surrounded by hostile powers, Lebanon does not have an identity of its own. As a result its "communities" owe their survival to the support of their religious kith-and-kin in larger countries.

I reject that definition.

I have known Lebanon and followed its developments since 1969 when I first interviewed some of its leaders including Moussa Sadr, Charles Hellou, Omar Karame, Pierre Gemayel, Takieddin Solh, Kamal Junblatt and Camille Chamoun.

I was convinced then that a Lebanese identity does exist, and have become more convinced of it since.

My impression is that a majority of Lebanese Shi'ites know that Hezbollah is more reflective of Iran's interests than those of the community, let alone Lebanon as a whole.

The Shiite community accepts Hezbollah for three reasons.

First, Hezbollah has enough guns and money to impose itself and prevent the emergence of alternatives within the Shiite community.

Secondly, channeling funds from Iran, Hezbollah is providing services that the Lebanese government cannot offer.

Finally, Lebanese Shiites have always regarded Iran as the ultimate guarantor of their safety and do not wish to burn their bridges with Tehran, regardless of who is in power there.
Paradoxically, Safieddin may be telling the Lebanese that, if they suffered more than 2000 deaths and billions of dollars of losses for nothing, that was not Hezbollah's fault but a result of Khamenehi's adventurist strategy.

Iran Is Not In Breach Of International Law

There is no evidence that the country is building nuclear weapons. The west's strategy has helped create the standoff

By Richard Dalton
This commentary was published in The Guardian on 09/06/2011

A view of what is believed to be a uranium-enrichment facility near Qom, Iran. Photograph: Digital Globe/Reuters

It has been exactly a year since the last UN security council resolution imposed extra sanctions on Iran. International debate is resuming on the country's continued failure to heed UN decisions, and a new report by the International Atomic Energy Agency rightly draws attention to the questions Iran has not answered about experiments it has made on nuclear bomb technology.

As ambassadors to Iran during the past decade, we have all followed closely the development of this crisis. It is unacceptable that the talks have been deadlocked for such a long time.

The Arab world and the Middle East are entering a new epoch in which no country is immune from change. The Islamic Republic of Iran faces the disaffection of a significant part of its population, and this period of uncertainty offers opportunities to reconsider the west's established position on the nuclear question.

In terms of international law, the position of Europe and the United States may be less assured than is generally believed. Basically, it is embodied in a set of security council resolutions authorising coercive measures in case of "threats to the peace".

But what constitutes the threat? Is it the enrichment of uranium in Iranian centrifuges? This is certainly a sensitive activity, in a highly sensitive region. The international community's concerns are legitimate and Iran has a moral duty to answer them. In principle, however, nothing in international law or in the non-proliferation treaty forbids uranium enrichment. Several other countries, parties or not to the treaty, enrich uranium without being accused of "threatening the peace". And in Iran, this activity is submitted to inspections by the IAEA inspections. These inspections, it's true, are albeit constrained by an agreement on safeguards dating from the 70s. But the IAEA has never uncovered any attempted diversion of nuclear material to military use.

So is Iran attempting to build a nuclear weapon? For at least three years, the US intelligence community has discounted this hypothesis. The US director of national intelligence, James Clapper, testified last February to Congress: "We continue to assess [whether] Iran is keeping open the option to develop nuclear weapons … We do not know, however, if Iran will eventually decide to build nuclear weapons."

Most experts, even in Israel, view Iran as striving to become a "threshold country", technically able to produce a nuclear weapon but abstaining from doing so for now. Again, nothing in international law forbids this ambition. Several other countries are close to, or have already reached, such a threshold, with a commitment not to acquire nuclear weapons. Nobody seems to bother them.

We often hear that Iran's refusal to negotiate seriously left our countries no other choice but to drag it in 2006 to the security council. Here too, things are not quite that clear. In 2005 Iran was ready to discuss an upper limit for the number of its centrifuges and to maintain its rate of enrichment far below the high levels necessary for weapons. Tehran also expressed its readiness to allow intrusive inspections, even in non-declared sites. But at that time Europe and the US wanted to compel Iran to ditch its enrichment programme entirely.

Iranians assume that this is still the European and US goal, and that for this reason the security council insists on suspension of all Iranian enrichment activities. But the goal of "zero centrifuges operating in Iran, permanently or temporarily" is unrealistic, and has contributed greatly to the present standoff.

Some may ask why we should offer the Iranian regime an opening that may help to restore its internal and international legitimacy. Should we not wait for a more palatable successor? It's a legitimate question, but we shouldn't overestimate the influence of nuclear negotiation on internal developments in Iran. Ronald Reagan used to call the USSR the "evil empire", but that did not stop him from negotiating intensely with Mikhail Gorbachev on nuclear disarmament.

The failure of the last round of negotiation in January shows that the current deadlock will be difficult to break. The more discreet and technical negotiations are, the better chance they will have to progress. And we already know that any solution will have to build on the quality of the inspection system. Either we trust the IAEA's ability to supervise all its member states, including Iran, or we do not. And if we do not, we must ask why, if the organisation is effective only with its most virtuous members, we should continue to maintain it.

The next step should be for the two sides in this conflict to ask the IAEA what additional tools it needs to monitor Iran's nuclear programme fully, and to provide credible assurances that all its connected activities are purely peaceful. The agency's answer would offer a basis for the next round of pragmatic negotiations.

• This article was co-written by Richard Dalton and five other former ambassadors to Iran: Paul von Maltzahn (Germany), Steen Hohwü-Christensen (Sweden), Guillaume Metten (Belgium), François Nicoullaud (France) and Roberto Toscano (Italy)

How The Economic Policies Of A Corrupt Elite Caused The Arab Spring

Living standards in the region must rise if the political momentum is to be kept up.

By Matthew Partridge
This commentary was published in The New Statesman on 07/06/2011


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Six months ago a Tunisian street seller started what is now known as the "Arab Spring" by setting himself on fire. However, although the immediate motivation behind his gesture was anger at the confiscation of his market stall, the economic causes of recent events in the Middle East have still received relatively little attention. However, many analysts believe that economic stagnation has been an important driving force behind the demands for political change, and that political and economic reform has to take place simultaneously.

One expert who has extensively studied the interaction between development and politics in the Middle East is Dr Ali Kadri, the former Head of the Economic Analysis Section of the United Nations regional office in Beirut. Dr Kadri sees recent events in the Middle East as the culmination of decades of under development, and in some cases de-development, fuelled by failed economic policies and broken institutions. He points out that between 1971 to 2000 overall economic growth in the Arab world was negative, with the real GDP per capita of Gulf Countries contracting by 2.8% annually.

At the same time inequality has increased, further squeezing the incomes of middle-class and working families. Although most Middle Eastern countries attempt to hide the extent of these problems by refusing to carry out the necessary surveys, unofficial reports suggest that the region is more unequal than even Africa or Latin America. According to the University of Texas Inequality Project, Qatar, Oman and Egypt had Gini coefficients of 55, 52 and 50 respectively in 2002, one of the highest levels in the world.

Kadri believes that these problems have been compounded through patronage. Lacking democratic legitimacy, "regimes in the region have used public sector employment to generate consent via clientelism... shifting the accent away from development". Although he believes that a degree of government ownership may be necessary in the short-run, many of the state-run firms that dominate most Middle Eastern economies are focused on creating make-work jobs rather than productive goods.

These views are increasingly recognised by other organisations. In the case of Egypt, a US State Department document three years ago noted "the military's strong influence in Egypt's economy" and that "military-owned companies, often run by retired generals, are particularly active in the water, olive oil, cement, construction, hotel and gasoline industries". Similarly, a study by the World Bank of the Egyptian financial system found that because a significant portion of bank credit went to state companies, "family owned firms and small and medium enterprises rely heavily on the informal market".

These policies have resulted in high rates of unemployment and under-employment, especially among the young. According to the International Labour Office, less than half those of working age in the Middle East are actually in employment, with youth unemployment over four times the adult rate. Even in oil-rich Saudi Arabia, 30.2% of those between the ages of 20 and 24 are unemployed. Kadri believes that "those protesting want a dignified living and good schools for their children".

Kadri believes that corruption, and regional conflict, which many analysts believe are consequences of dictatorships, have made it hard for firms to think beyond the short-term. Kadri notes that the dearth of domestic investment opportunities has meant that much of the wealth generated by rising commodity prices over the last decade has gone abroad. He also suggests that the growing gap between savings and investment rates has been instrumental in producing financial bubbles, such as the speculative frenzy surrounding property and office construction in Dubai, which came to a dramatic end three years ago.

Kadri is relatively optimistic about the future of the region, suggesting that the collapse of autocrats, like Ben Ali in Tunisia, will allow the population, rather than the elites, to determine the course of development for the first time. His conclusions are supported by World Bank research which found that the existence of an independent civil society was the most important factor in determining whether countries in Central and Eastern Europe were able to make a quick and successful economic transition after the fall of the Berlin Wall.

However, although the long-term prospects of those in countries currently making the transition to democracy may be positive, this is of little comfort where the regime is willing to brutally crush dissent, as in Syria. Even in Egypt, there are signs that Mubarak's machine is silently reconstituting itself, although its creator is now in jail. Although the G-8 has announced $40bn in economic support, much of this will come from Gulf Countries who have little interest in economic and political change. This prompts the question of what else western countries can do to make sure the political momentum generated by the "Arab Spring" continues and is able to result in rising living standards for all those in the region.

Matthew Partridge is a freelance journalist and a PhD student at the London School of Economics.

Syria: Washington Just Watches

By Samer Araabi 
This commentary was published in Foreign Policy In Focus on 9/11/2011

After a decade of policies aimed at marginalizing and ignoring the Syrian regime, U.S. policymakers have come to realize that they have very little leverage to pressure President Bashar Al-Assad.

As protests enter their third month, government troops have systematically sought to crush the opposition movement with draconian tactics, leaving over a thousand dead. Several U.S. officials have strongly condemned the violence and urged President Assad to reform, while President Obama has followed up on the sanctions imposed in 2004 with an additional round of sanctions targeting key regime figures. However, these attempts appear to have had little effect.

As the violence continues, Washington appears to be out of both carrots and sticks.

Dealing with a Pariah

Since the events of September 11, 2001, the general view of the Washington establishment has been to treat Syria as a pariah state, denying it access to U.S. markets and refusing any bilateral dialogue. Though the Obama administration has claimed to promote a more “open” approach based in “dialogue,” little substantive change has actually occurred from the days of the Bush Administration. Sanctions remained in place, and even though the administration began to talk to the Syrian government, they expressed no more willingness to listen than their predecessors had, leaving the U.S.-Syrian relationship in precisely the same position that it was in before.

As a result, Obama has been unable to sufficiently offer either punishments or incentives to bring the Syrian government back in line. The Syrian economy has been surviving under sanctions for seven years, and more sanctions are unlikely to provide a sufficient incentive for change.

Meanwhile, the lack of any long-term political presence in Syria has left the United States utterly blind to the intricacies of the opposition movement, which has developed in ways that Washington policymakers cannot influence.

Lack of Political Capital

Steven Heydemann, a Special Adviser for the Muslim World Initiative at the United States Institute of Peace, has outlined five criteria that Middle East revolutions need to meet before they can win the full backing of the United States:  the presence of forces capable of managing a transitional period; a shared political vision among the opposition of a viable political future; existing leadership that can consolidate a post-authoritarian order;  the possibility for an orderly, negotiated exit for the country’s former ruler; and guarantees that the fall of the regime would not instigate a collapse into social violence.

Washington’s lack of political capital means that it cannot credibly bolster any of these pillars, and worse, is often uninformed or unaware of their true manifestations. The result, of course, is the vague, non-committal, and largely ineffective grandstanding that has typified the present administration’s policies toward the Syrian Spring. In a speech in April, President Obama opposed “the Syrian government’s treatment of its citizens” and its “continued destabilizing behavior,” waiting another month to state that Bashar Al-Assad must “reform or leave.” The threat remains unfulfilled.

It is clearly too late for the United States to influence the course of events in Syria; strong words and weak sanctions will play a marginal role at best. Even so, a lesson can be learned for future foreign policy decisions. Though Washington should certainly be wary of fostering strong relations with dictatorial regimes, it is imperative to maintain broad channels of communication and information, and to never hold a people accountable for the crimes of its unelected leaders. Decades of intransigence toward Syria guaranteed that Obama had insufficient links with the Syrian government. More importantly, it irreparably damaged the legitimacy of U.S. policy in the eyes of most Syrians, including most members of the opposition.

Campaigns for international isolationism and marginalization do have their place, particularly those led by the indigenous civil society of the country in question (consider the Boycott Divestment Sanctions campaign against Israeli apartheid). But, as far as government policy in concerned, there is little to gain from pretending that an enemy does not exist or in ignoring the needs and expectations of the people themselves.

Syrians may yet succeed in their revolution. But if they do, they will have done so alone.

Samer Araabi is a contributor to Foreign Policy in Focus and Right Web.

Lebanon: Our Omnipatriarch, An Early Assessment

By Michael Young
This commentary was published in The Daily Star on 09/06/2011 

Maronite Patriarch Bishara Rai is not a man of few words. Since being elected to office he has issued myriad statements on the events of the day.

And if those are not sufficient, you can still hear his taped interventions on Tele Lumiere from the period when he was a bishop. The patriarch is ubiquitous, which is not always a good thing.

It’s no secret that Rai very much likes his politics. His spirituality notwithstanding, the patriarch arrived in Bkirki when the Maronite Church desperately needed to depoliticize its clergy. Instead, he has been far more vocal on political matters than his predecessor, Patriarch Nasrallah Butros Sfeir, who was criticized at the end, unfairly, for presiding over a divided Maronite political class. If Rai continues in this vein, he, too, may succumb to the Maronites’ ample contradictions.

To Rai’s credit, he has brought Maronite leaders together in what are early steps in a communal reconciliation effort. This is valuable, and the fact that he twice hosted Samir Geagea and Sleiman Franjieh under the same roof is an achievement. What will emerge from the initiative is unclear, but the patriarch’s role is to act as a shepherd; he can’t be blamed if rivalries among his discordant flock endure.

More generally, Rai has injected dynamism into the Church, which Maronites have welcomed. He is everywhere, an omnipatriarch: one day in Rome, another in Bkirki, a third in Jbeil, making this comment or that, pushing for a new government, taking a stance on the Constitution, presiding over the naming of new bishops, and so on.

How very useful, but where Rai has come up short is in placing his endeavors within a cohesive strategy. Is his priority to reform the Maronite Church, which needs to be cleaned out with a large broom? Is it to be a mentor to or promoter of communal politicians? Is it to act as a bridge to the Muslim communities? We don’t know. Rai is so hyperactive that he risks overreaching, in the end getting little done.

An inexperienced new patriarch is entitled to make mistakes. Rai did so early on when he effectively endorsed Ziyad Baroud’s return to the Cabinet before a congratulatory delegation led by the interior minister. This came at a stage when Baroud’s future was a bone of contention between President Michel Sleiman and Free Patriotic Movement leader Michel Aoun in the government formation process. The patriarch was doing Sleiman a favor, but it was tactically unnecessary when one of Rai’s aims, ultimately, should be to rise above Maronite politicians.

Then in March Rai showed poor timing when he declared that he would visit Syria later this year, for religious purposes. The patriarch was hasty. Someone attuned to politics should have better grasped that his visit would be interpreted by the Assad regime as a sign of esteem, one that it had done nothing to earn, just weeks after it had engineered the collapse of the Hariri government, confirming Syrian indifference to a sovereign Lebanon. By so doing, Rai also needlessly dissociated himself from Sfeir, who had, laudably, refused to go to Syria because he disapproved of its behavior on the sovereignty issue.

Rai could not have guessed that at around the same time he announced his plans, the Assad regime would begin its violent repression in Daraa. But it should have been a lesson to him that it’s sometimes better to consolidate one’s position first and wait before wrestling with controversial matters. As Rai surveys the carnage in Syria, he must be wondering why he made a commitment that he cannot possibly want to implement today under Assad rule.

The most egregious of Rai’s assertions has involved Taif. In late May, after meeting with the Aounist parliamentarian Nemetallah Abi Nasr, the patriarch said of Taif that it “is not a holy document that descended from heaven.” He remarked that the accord “has flaws and needs to be reformed,” before adding that the powers of the president had to be expanded. “We are with the equal division of shares between Christians and Muslims but we do not support it when the president has no power to make a decision,” Rai observed.

It’s a pity that even the head of the Maronite Church can still be living under the illusion that Shiites and Sunnis will readily surrender political power to a Maronite president when they spent over a decade of conflict taking that power away, and now consider the Maronites over-represented in Parliament. Taif is not holy, but since Rai is willing to juggle the profane and the divine, he should know that it is reckless to open the door on presidential power from a position of resentment, by boldly doubting the constitutional foundations of our political system. That’s because amending Taif will cut both ways.

What is Rai’s point? If it is to merely return more authority to the president, then what is to prevent the Muslims from responding, quite legitimately, that Taif needs to be implemented fully, which means abolishing political confessionalism? That’s a good idea, but it’s not one the patriarch welcomes. It makes no sense for Rai to selectively focus on Christian interests and shatter the consensus around Taif, then assume that non-Christians will applaud this.

On the other hand, if Rai drew on his disapproval of Taif to gain tactical advantage by currying favor among his coreligionists, then his words were even more embarrassing. Patriarchs are not here to play petty politics, particularly on so essential a matter as constitutional reform. Nothing whatsoever obliged Rai to take a position on Taif at this time. His recommendations were short-sighted and gratuitous.

Lebanon’s bane is that clergymen dream of being politicians and politicians dream of being clergymen. Rai came in at a pivotal moment for Maronites, one of existential importance. The community’s paramount challenges are internal revival and the adoption of a radically new approach in its relations with Muslims. Rai should address these and abandon the more sordid byways of Lebanese politics.

Michael Young is opinion editor of THE DAILY STAR and author of “The Ghosts of Martyrs Square: An Eyewitness Account of Lebanon’s Life Struggle” (Simon & Schuster), listed as one of the 10 notable books of 2010 by The Wall Street Journal.

A President Who Let Many Down In Iraq

By Michael Jansen 
This commentary was published in The Jordan Times on 09/06/2011 

While the Iraqi government is increasingly in disarray, it is held up by US President Barack Obama as a model for Arab countries to emulate.

Obama takes the view: “In Iraq, we see the promise of a multi-ethnic, multi-sectarian democracy. The Iraqi people have rejected the perils of violence in favour of a democratic process, even as they have taken full responsibility for their own security.”

Obama is wrong on all three counts: Iraq’s post-war rulers have not adopted multi-ethnic, multi-sectarian democracy; violence is ever present; and the country’s security and regular armed forces cannot provide safety for the citizenry or protect the country from external aggression or intervention.

Obama’s aim in drawing a false picture of Iraq is to justify the withdrawal of US forces from the country by the end of the year. He is counting on the ignorance of Iraq of the vast majority of US citizens and an eagerness to “get out” and forget a war which most now understand should not have been waged.

Instead of multi-ethnic, multi-sectarian power sharing, Iraq’s rulers have opted for constant power struggle. The latest manifestation is a bid by Iyad Allawi, who heads the secular, nationalist Iraqiya bloc, that won most seats in parliament, to regain purchase in the government. He seems to have discovered that since other members of his bloc have joined the Cabinet of Nouri Al Maliki, being on his own in the opposition has no merit.

Allawi has resumed contacts with Maliki with the aim of establishing the promised Strategic Policy Council, to be headed by Allawi. This body, which is not mentioned in the constitution, would, in theory, be empowered to act as a brake on the prime minister who, in practice, enjoys total control over security.

In addition to the creation of the council, Allawi is calling for “balance in the ministries of state”.

Norwegian expert Reidar Visser observed that Allawi’s meaning is not clear. But Visser suggested that he may be calling for Iraqiya to have additional posts. This, Visser writes, “would be an affront to the limited Iraqi spring and... criticisms [voiced by the public] of a vastly oversized government”.

Visser suggests that expansion of the current bloated Cabinet will produce “more government (and less governance)”.

This issue was highlighted last week when Adel Abdul Mahdi, one of Iraq’s three vice presidents, resigned his post three weeks after being confirmed. He was protesting the government’s failure to address the needs of the public. In particular, he called for cutting down the number of ministers of state who were appointed to keep factions on board. He wrongly believed his resignation would encourage others to follow his example. His departure marginalises the Supreme Iraqi Islamic Council (SIIC), a Shiite grouping close to Iran which was once the main Shiite rival of Maliki’s Dawa party.

The vice presidency had formerly consisted of Sunni and Shiite politicians who were supposed to complement the Kurdish president, Jalal Talabani, and represent power sharing among the three main communities in the country. This arrangement was supposed to end with the election of the new parliament. It was not only revived but expanded.

A third vice president, Khudair Khuzai, a Shiite, was appointed to include Islamic-Dawa Iraq, an influential offshoot of Maliki’s Dawa party. This appointment also tipped the balance in the presidency council in favour of Maliki who counts on Talabani’s backing.

Returning to Allawi: he could undermine Iraqiya’s claim that it is the only secular party because appointees to additional minister of state posts would almost certainly be Sunnis, as Sunnis form the majority of Iraqiya voters.

Obama should not have mentioned “democracy” when speaking of Iraq. Although Iraq had a credible democratic election in March 2010, the government that emerged many months later - and is still forming - is dominated totally by Maliki, head of a Shiite religious faction. He is not only premier and commander-in-chief of the security forces but also holds the key ministries of defence and interior.

During a recent disagreement with parliamentary speaker Usama Al Nujaifi of Iraqiya, Maliki argued that the “Iraqi parliament has no right to legislate”.

Relying on an opinion of the supreme court, Maliki insists that parliament can only debate legislation submitted by the Cabinet or the president. This interpretation severely limits the national assembly’s role. Naturally, Nujaifi argues that the assembly can propose legislation.

During the Arab Spring, Maliki has not displayed democratic tolerance towards critics or opponents. Iraqi security forces routinely arrest and persecute democracy activists staging Friday demonstrations in Baghdad’s Tahrir Square. These rallies, gathering several hundred people protesting corruption and lack of security, electricity, jobs and security, pose no challenge to Maliki or his government. Nevertheless, these demonstrations are encircled by police and heavily armed soldiers in flack jackets and helmets.

By contrast, Maliki did nothing to prevent or halt a march in Baghdad by tens of thousands of unarmed but uniformed supporters of radical Shiite cleric Muqtada Al Sadr. He staged this show of strength to warn the government that there should be no postponement of the end-of-year deadline for the withdrawal of US troops. Sadr is, of course, one of Maliki’s coalition partners.

Sadr’s opposition to any extension puts Maliki in an awkward position. He would like to see some US troops to stay on in order to hold the line between the Kurdish autonomous region and neighbouring provinces where the Kurds seek to annex territory. The Kurds have already deployed large numbers of Peshmerga militiamen in the areas they seek to take. But Arab and Turkmen residents of these provinces object strongly to Kurdish demands and are prepared to fight to prevent a landgrab.

Finally, on the security front, deadly bombings take place on an almost daily basis, although the number of attacks has decreased since the height of sectarian warfare in 2006-07. Iraq’s police, security agencies and armed forces are simply unable to prevent or even curtail such violence. Furthermore, there seems to have been no effort to protect Iraqi Christians, half of whom have fled the country since George W. Bush’s 2003 war.

Obama’s pathetic attempt to tout Iraq as a success is a measure of a man who generated so much hope when he was elected. Furthermore, he has let supporters down on many issues, both domestic and foreign, revealing that he cannot be trusted on Iraq any more than he can on Palestine, where he has capitulated to the Israeli diktat.