(The Guardian) 39,000 soldiers will leave Iraq this year, but US military control will continue in such guises as security and training
Barack Obama has made good on one of his election promises, announcing: "After nearly nine years, America's war in Iraq will be over." The Iraqis' assertion of their sovereignty – meaning no legal immunity for US troops – was the deal-breaker, and 39,000 US soldiers will leave Iraq by the end of the year.
Jonathan Steele wrote that the Iraq war was over and the US had learned "that putting western boots on the ground in a foreign war, particularly in a Muslim country, is madness". Yet this madness may continue in a different guise, as there is a huge gap between rhetoric and reality surrounding the US departure from Iraq. In fact, there are a number of avenues by which the US will be able to exert military influence in the country.
The Guardian - In the shadow of the clampdowns in Syria far too much focus has been placed on the character and intentions of President Bashar al-Assad.
Too often in the past, US congressman and European parliamentary delegations have returned from Damascus after hours spent with Assad convinced that he is a like-minded reformer. Memorable highlights include Peter Mandelson declaring after such a meeting that he liked Assad who was "a decent man doing a difficult job", and Hillary Clinton's recent surprising faith in the "many of the members of Congress of both parties who have gone to Syria in recent months [and] have said they believe he's a reformer".
(Guardian) Lebanon's role in a UN security council resolution against Libya is evidence of unfinished business between the two countries
In the UN security council on Tuesday, Lebanon tabled a resolution backed by Britain and France for a no-fly zone to be imposed over Libya. The Lebanese ambassador, Nawaf Salam, told reporters: "Measures ought to be taken to stop the violence, to put an end to the situation in Libya, to protect the civilians there."
The move followed a meeting in Cairo on Saturday when the Arab League voted to ask the UN for a no-fly zone – and the task of doing so fell to Lebanon as the only Arab member of the security council.
At one level the Arab initiative might be seen, at least in part, as retaliation from some league members and key individuals for Gaddafi's troublemaking at Arab summits over the years. But in Lebanon's case there are other dimensions too.
Without the two main architects of his policy on Afghanistan, the fundamental flaws in Obama's surge are unavoidable
(The Guardian) A flurry of reports indicate how the US has neither the time nor the ability to defeat the Taliban or build an Afghan state that can deliver real justice to the country.
The failures of General Stanley McChrystal, who resigned in June, and Richard Holbrooke, who died suddenly this week, are symbolic of the crumbling of the twin pillars, both military and civilian, of Barack Obama's counterinsurgency strategy (Coin). The US has now outlasted the Soviet presence of the 1980s and the Afghan war has entered a violent stalemate.
(The Guardian) The Lebanese cabinet dodged a bullet on 10 November by postponing a vote about witnesses who allegedly gave investigators false information on the killing of former prime minister Rafik Hariri. The issue has been dominating Lebanese politics amid fears that it could spark an internal conflict similar to that of 2008, when Hezbollah and its supporters took over the streets of Beirut.
The special tribunal for Lebanon (STL), set up to try those suspected of involvement in Hariri's assassination, is supported by western governments but Hezbollah, the Lebanese Shia movement, has condemned it as "biased". Hillary Clinton, the US secretary of state, has warned against attempts to "discredit" the tribunal, while William Hague, the British foreign secretary, announced a further £1m funding in support for the tribunal and declared that "justice is the only way to ensure stability in Lebanon".
(The Guardian) Over the last week in publicity trailing the release of his autobiography, former president George W Bush admitted that when it came to Iraq he felt a "sickening feeling". Sadly for those looking for greater remorse he was only referring to the failure to discover weapons of mass destruction. But as a man of devout Christian faith it would be interesting to discover what Bush's thoughts are on the fact that one of the consequences of his war is that Iraq's Christian community of 1 million pre-war has shrunk by 60% since 2003, as its members have fled abroad or been killed.
As a minority population living in a country whose mode of politics can only be described as a bloody hybrid of democracy and sectarianism, Iraq's Christians have borne an unfair burden of recent tragedy. Their precarious position was highlighted over the past 10 days by the sentencing to death of prominent Christian and former Ace of Spades most-wanted, Tariq Aziz, and the bloody massacre of 46 worshippers in a Baghdad church near the Green Zone.
While for many in the Middle East the sum of all fears is an Iranian-inspired nuclear arms race, this terrifying spectre should not distract from the very real scramble for conventional weapons that is already in play across the region. The visit of the Iranian president to Lebanon will refocus attention on the capabilities of Hezbollah, yet Iraq remains the most contested strategic prize with would-be allies in both Tehran and Washington engaged in a high-stakes tug of war.
One of the legacies of the Afghan adventure is the blurring of lines between humanitarian and military operations
Non-governmental organisations have faced their fair share of criticism for their role in Afghanistan. Linda Polman, in her book War Games, described how Afghans who having lived through Soviet communism and Taliban Islamism, are experiencing the new dynamic of "NGO-ism".
The chaos of a war zone combined with the financial attraction of an invasion led by the world's remaining superpower has proved a potent mix for a multitude of NGOs to flock to the country.
Aid agencies have been accused of chasing contracts – which has resulted in a geographic imbalance of aid with resources focused on those areas suffering from actual conflict while ignoring areas with the security to benefit from sustainable development. This has meant that aid has often failed to adjust to Afghan needs, for example 10-15% of all Afghan land is arable to farming yet despite 80% of Afghans relying upon agriculture only 5% of international aid goes to that sector.
The Syrian president's triumphant return to Lebanon after five years comes at a crucially sensitive time for the country
In the maelstrom of rhetoric that swirls around the Middle East the warnings of Hezbollah should ring alarm bells. Concern that the investigation into the killing of former Lebanese prime minister Rafik Hariri will implicate a "Hezbollah commando unit" brought Hassan Nasrallah out to address a press conference where he ominously warned that the Shia movement "know how to defend themselves".
This month has also seen an intensive Israeli military rehearsal of a war with Lebanon in addition to the release of maps and previously classified aerial photographs of what Israel described as a network of Hezbollah weapons depots and command centres in south Lebanon.
Sheikh Nabil Kaouk, Hezbollah's commander in south Lebanon, responded in kind warning that the group has a list of military targets inside Israel that they could attack. The discovery of large-scale gas deposits in the sea near the two countries' shared border simply provided another accelerant to conflict.
Into this simmering cocktail enters the Syrian president, Bashar al-Assad, returning to Lebanon for the first time since the Hariri assassination in 2005.
Until we prioritise the tracking of Afghanistan's civilian casualties we can never understand the 'everyday squalor' of war
(The Guardian) Human Rights Watch's Rachel Reid is entirely correct when she said that "accountability is not just something you do when you are caught". Yet the leaked US military files have the potential to do just this.
Reading the files, what struck me was the lack of surprises. All the documents did was provide an official narrative to what has already been reported (and often vigorously denied) over the past nine years. High civilian casualties, rampant corruption and incompetency within the Afghan government and security forces, the Janus-nature of Pakistan's involvement in the conflict, Iran's less than helpful role, the tactical impact of advanced drone technology and low-tech IEDs – all of which have been reported on before.
(Huffington Post) It was not Facebook, Twitter or YouTube that brought down Hosni Mubarak. The Egyptian people did that. But this does not mean that social media and internet-based technologies played no role, or that their role was insignificant, as some have alleged. Rather, events in Egypt and countries across the Middle East and North Africa have shown in the 'Arab Spring' that internet platforms and technologies should be seen for what they are: effective tools for the conduct of political campaigns in authoritarian contexts.
This conclusion was reached in a new paper written by Tim Eaton who currently works for BBC Media Action on media development projects in the Middle East. The paper is the product of over a year of research and seeks to analyze the use of online activism in the Egyptian uprisings of January and February 2011, drawing out the lessons learned in addition to applying them to the wider context of the Arab Spring.
(Huffington Post) Four days after the official US troop presence ended, Baghdad has been struck by bombings that are a reminder that for ordinary Iraqis the horror continues.
Soft, unprotected civilian targets were hit by co-ordinated, simultaneous attacks that were likely planned prior to Shi’a Prime Minister Maliki’s Monday decision to order the arrest of Sunni Vice-President Tariq al-Hashimi. The Western press has focused on the potential for larger sectarian bloodletting, the reality is that this bombing fits into a fairly predictable pattern of violence that has been largely ignored by the media. Indeed the average monthly death toll in Iraq exceeds 300 and kidnappings, bombings and shootings are daily occurrences.
The Iraqi security forces are now some 650,000 strong and according to US military trainers becoming more competent by the day. With this in mind a combination of manpower, equipment and checkpoints (in addition to reconciliation efforts that I will come onto) have reduced the frequency of attacks against religious sites and ceremonies, government institutions and in particular against the security forces themselves.
Huffington Post - Bashar al-Assad is the man most likely to bring down his own regime. Why? Because if we trace back both the president's reaction to the protests in addition to his previous ten years in charge, we can see that his attempts at reforms have unwittingly creating the environment in which challenges to the regime continue to flourish.
Assad has undermined the bedrock of his father's coup-proof state by marginalizing the old guard, introducing communications technology and the internet to the country, reducing funding to the military, removing the local power of Baath party committees and the unions, and, in the pursuing his version of the 'Chinese model' of economic reform, exacerbating class differences and forcing large sections of Syrian society to rely on more traditional tribal and sectarian networks.
(Huffington Post) I was recently fortunate enough to visit the sprawling Rocinha favela, one of the largest in Rio, which sits on a stunning hillside in a cove overlooking the Atlantic about a ten minutes drive from Ipanema beach. The Rio Favelas are synonymous in popular fiction with crime and violence, from the epic City of God to the episodes in Modern Warfarethat place the gamer in charge of shooting their way out of the dense and mazelike warren of houses.
As with the slums in Mumbai, the ethics of whether or not to visit the favelas are hotly contested. One of our guides, a friend who has lived and worked in Rocinha for the past year producing a film, spoke of the gaggles of tourists who arrive on organized trips from their hostels to rush through the central street and gawp at the heavily armed traficos that until recently held sovereignty over the population estimated at between 150-300,000 people.
Yet times in Brazil are changing, as the B in the BRIC economies charges up the table of the world's richest countries (it is now 8th) and looks forward to hosting the World Cup in 2014 and the Olympics one year later. The favelas are not immune to this transition and according to the UN study "State of the World Cities 2010/2011" Brazil has reduced its favela shantytown population by 16 percent in the last decade, with "an improvement in the living standards of 10.5 million Brazilians." According to the study, the poor living in favelas went down from 31.5 to 26.4 percent of the population.
(Huffington Post) Regime change in Libya has a number of parallels with Afghanistan and Iraq – but have the proponents of intervention embraced the good and avoided the bad of previous campaigns?
Afghanistan
1)Aerial Intervention
Same, Same
In both Afghanistan and Libya NATO airpower proved decisive.
In Libya rebel forces were in danger of being routed in Benghazi in March before NATO airpower and 20,000 sorties against Gaddafi’s military made the difference.
In Afghanistan airpower broke a stalemate between the Northern Alliance and the Taliban in 2001. The Northern Alliance’s victory was not only down to NATO airpower. Crucially a number of former Taliban allied warlords defected and joined the push to Kabul.
Similarly the Libyan rebels have benefitted from both military and political defections – with the high profile cases of Musa Kosa and the NTC’s leader, the former Gaddafi Justice Minister Mahmoud Jibril.
But Different
NATO was very conscious of the propaganda coup that Gaddafi would win if airstrikes resulted in large scale civilian casualties. With this in mind the rules of aerial engagement were considerably tighter than in Afghanistan where B-52s were in action in comparison to Tornadoes armed with more accurate Brimstone missiles. On more than one occasion British aircraft were called off an attack during an 8-hour roundtrip mission due to concerns over civilian casualties.
(New Statesman) The country, largely ignored by the international media, is about to agree to long-term American "occupation-lite".
"Iraq-fatigue" has meant that a series of critical events in the country have been largely ignored. There is, of course, the continued insecurity. June was the deadliest month for Iraqis this year, with 271 people killed and another 35 massacred in a car bombing in Taji at the start of July. Meanwhile, 14 US soldiers also died in June, making it the deadliest month for the US in three years.
(Huffington Post) The Transformers series can simple be seen as teenage fun, complete with battling robots, gorgeous women and shiny sports cars, however beneath the surface Michael Bay blockbusters are a powerful messaging vehicle for the US military. Transformers 2 was the biggest joint Military operation movie ever made and the narrative develops further with the latest instalment.
Indeed hidden within the clash of metal and the rattle of gunfire, the films central message concerns the dangers of America feeling too secure in the post- Bin Laden era and in particular warns against any significant mothballing of the military. Much of the two and a half hours of action could come straight out of military recruitment films. The Pentagon, one of Hollywood’s biggest players, gave Bay access to a host of boy’s toys allowing a tour de force of US military hardware including tomahawk missiles, surveillance drones, Osprey aircraft and of course heroic Navy Seals.
Assad will hope that it’s not three strikes and out after his latest attempt to halt the momentum of protests.
(Huffington Post) Bashar al-Assad did not apologise for the events of the past few months that have left over 1,500 dead, instead he attempted to reassure Syria’s silent majority that he is the caring paternal figure that can guide the state in the right direction by cleansing the country of ‘germs’, protect against external conspiracy and continue his version of a reform process.
As opposed to the talkative Gaffadi who has made regular appearances or statements over the past months, Assad has only appeared three times to speak to the Syrian public. At each occasion the embattled President has offered concessions including the abolishing of the emergency law, granting citizenship to thousands of stateless Kurds and giving incentives to conservative Islamic groups.
However so far he has proved unable to halt or reverse the gathering momentum of active opposition against his regime.
(Huffington Post)The protests in Syria are entering a new phase, with reports of the resistance taking up arms in parts of the country against the security forces and the government promising a 'decisive' response. The West appears impotent to prevent further slaughter. However high-tech tools could expose Syria's brutal underbelly and bring a halt to the crackdown.
What has been clear since the start of the protests in Syria is that whatever the government is doing, they're not keen for the rest of the world to see. In contrast to the fixed camera positions that looked upon the tens of thousands of protestors and inactive tanks in Egypt's Tahrir Square, the Assad regime quickly cleansed the country of international press and has since embarked on a cat and mouse game against web based communications.
(Huffington Post) Osama Bin Laden once said that he worshipped death, while his enemies worshipped life. Yet Al Qaeda's original Dr. Evil and Global Terror's bête noir did not go out in a blaze of glory at a time of his own choosing, but rather was summarily dispatched by US Navy Seals in his own bedroom.
In the near term and for the next months Western intelligence and security forces will be very concerned by any response to his death. It is highly likely that AQ has been preparing for this eventual scenario, which considering the focus in finding/killing him was always fairly predictable outcome. Governments will be particularly worried that there are potential sleeper cells that have been activated to respond in order to restore the narrative of AQ's potency now that its figurehead rests at the bottom of the sea. A reminder of the continued threat to Europe from AQ came as recently as last Friday, when 3 men were arrested in Germany for posing a "concrete and imminent danger" to the nation.
(Huffington Post) The Syrian protestors, whether they be characterised as 'pro democracy' or 'anti regime', are dangerously isolated and very much in the tank sights of the regime. The promised 'iron fist' is being deployed. Over the past weeks over 400 people have reportedly been killed. Daraa has been quarantined and had its electricity and telephone lines cut, even those with satellite phones are finding it hard to recharge them. The Western press has been barred from the country and joins the rest of the world in depending on amateur YouTube clips to work out what's going on.
Assad's regime, sensitive to the fate of Mubarrak, Ben Ali and Gaddafi, whilst also mindful of their Iranian ally's success in dealing with the Green movements protestors, is attempting to reimpose its monopoly on fear.
Concessions towards the Kurds, the conservative Sunni mercantile elite, abolition of the emergency law and the sacking of parliament have emptied the Syrian political cupboard of all its carrots and all that appears to be left is the trusted stick that saw the regime through the years of internal conflict in the late 1970s and early 1980s.
(Huffington Post) Lebanon, again bereft of a government and with the country split down the middle into pro and anti-Syria camps, now faces the repercussions of instability in Syria.
There is a saying in the Middle East that ‘chaos in Lebanon does not mean chaos in Syria, but chaos in Syria is guaranteed to destabilise Lebanon’.
This Friday all eyes will be on the potential for protests and the government response in Syria. However there is also a flashpoint looming in northern Lebanon where both pro and anti-Syrian regime protests have been planned. Lebanese Security officials in the north have rejected requests for permits to hold the two demonstrations in Tripoli, but their calls have fallen on deaf ears with both protests being advertised widely.
(Huffington Post)The Syrian city of Deraa is rapidly becoming the Tahrir Square of the escalating Syrian revolution, but with the regime promising "no more room for leniency or tolerance", what or who will prevent a repeat of the Hama massacre of 1982?
The Western appetite for intervention, supposedly drained by the fiasco of Iraq and never-ending specter of Afghanistan, came alive at the prospect of the fall of Bengazi and the potential death of thousands. But with momentum in Libya significantly stalled what will the international community be able to do to prevent the Syrian regime from pursuing draconian measures to quell its swelling protests?
This is a very real prospect. Assad Snr biographer Patrick Seale is likely right when he warns that 'the regime has decided to fight back with full force'. Some 200 people have reportedly been killed already, with the death toll from Friday at over 37. Human Rights Activists have said that "the secret police have been rounding up every outspoken figure they can get their hands on" with Fayez Sara, a journalist who was jailed for two-and-a-half years along with 11 Damascus Declaration members and released in 2010, arrested again on Sunday. Reports from Syria suggest that elite Republican Guard snipers have been deployed and Al Jazeera highlighted the closure of roads to Deraa and the construction of earth mounds blocking access to the restive city.
(Huffington Post) Unable to blame foreign powers, Assad's next move is the greatest test of his ability to reform Syria
The modern Syrian republic is a chimera whose mothballed constitution hides the true face of an authoritarian monarchy that legislates through powers granted through a vicious and all consuming emergency law. While Syria appeared initially immune to the revolutionary shockwaves spreading through the region, unrest in Deraa and a cack-handed government response of rotten carrots and bloody sticks has simply served to rally a momentum that has spread across the country.
(Huffington Post) In the shadow of the budget, Libyan assets abroad and captured oil revenues should be used to fund the no fly zone over the country
As Tomahawk missiles costing four libraries a time crash into Colonel Gaddafi’s military infrastructure we should think about new ways to fund our newly empowered responsibility to protect.
According to YouGov Less than half the British public backs military action in Libya. One of the likely reasons for this is not a doubt about the character of Gaddafi and his murderous intentions, but rather whether or not Britain can afford to be the global moral vanguard at this time of austerity.
This week Sweden froze around 10 billion kronor ($1.6 billion) of assets belonging to Muammar Gaddafi's regime in Libya. Last month Barack Obama directed the US Treasury to block $30bn (£18.45bn) in assets held by Gaddafi and his officials, the largest action ever undertaken by the US, said Treasury officials. At the same time Britain froze the assets of Gaddafi and his five children on Sunday evening at an emergency meeting of the Privy Council at Windsor castle presided over by the Queen. The chancellor, George Osborne, acted amid reports that the Libyan leader had moved £3bn to Britain last week. In a separate cloak-and-dagger operation, £900m of Libyan currency was impounded in Britain.
Much of the debate to date has focused on the mechanisms rather than the morality of this intervention. David Cameron has repeatedly said that the Libyan people should be allowed to determine their own future. In order for there to be sustainable British public support for the no-fly zone and its £70,000 an hour Typhoon bills to continue, then the allies should work to convert Gaddafi’s hidden fortune into the fuel that powers action against him.
(Huffington Post) I think the need for action to prevent a routing of the rebels/population of the East is important at a humanitarian level. But considering the location of Gaddafi's forces does this new alliance have assets in place to prevent the fall of Benghazi? Libya's surprise announcement of a ceasefire and a halt to operations suggests that the resolution has succeeded in warning Gaddafi off risking such a move.
I think that the decision does has legitimacy. The Arab League sponsored Lebanon's tabling of the motion and at the Security Council it has received 10 votes in favour with none against.
Arab support and the fact that Arab aircraft will surely play a part in the operations mean that the decision cannot be seen as the West imposing its will on the Middle East. In addition the fact that China and Russia choose not to veto (considering their traditional oil/weapons concerns) is evidence of the regional nature of support for placing a break on Gaddafi's counterattack in what has clearly become a civil war. I don't think that oil/weapon sales is the reason for the Western powers supporting the decision. I thought it was very interesting that the Americans played a supporting rather than leading role at the United Nations (this may have also impacted the Chinese, Russian veto decision), I was equally disappointed that the Germans shattered any sense of European unity by abstaining.
So Cameron is correct when he says that UNSCR 1973 reflects 1) demonstrable need 2) regional support 3) strong legal basis
(Huffington Post) World leaders cringe at archive footage of them embracing Colonel Gaddafi. Staff at the London School of Economics resign or eat humble pie as a consequence of their relations with Libya. Has engagement with authoritarian states and their leaderships been proven to be a fool’s errant?
This week’s battle for Bregga may be one day seen in hindsight as the transitional moment from Libya’s revolution to Libya’s civil war. The evolving physical conflict has meant that the debate will naturally focus on talk of military interventions and sanctions. However, more complex than theories of liberal interventionalism is the question about how the West can be expected to configure its day to day relations with countries which possess few freedoms and poor human rights records.
For example should BP and the other Western oil companies, who are currently hedging their bets as whether or not to leave the Libya, be placed under the same level of scrutiny as the academics of LSE and politicos of Westminster? YouGov polling showed that half the public (51%) actually backed British companies operating in Libya to extract oil, with only 21% thought it was wrong. LSE’s Sir Howard Davies resigned over embarrassment concerning a £2.2m deal to train hundreds of young Libyans, yet YouGov polling on the British public’s view on Libya showed that a large majority (69%) thinks Britain was right to help Libya with education and training.
(Huffington Post) Such is the speed of the rolling revolution across the Arab world that many are struggling to remember how it all came to be. Although political science can offer no guaranteed formulae that can act as a means of predicting future events, it can provide us with a better understanding of the variables that got us to where we are today. Of critical importance is the undefined nature of revolution that the equation comes up with. It is a reminder that although events appear to have fundamentally changed the relationship between governments and their people, they cannot yet be said to be revolutions.
My equation offers an attempt at a stripped down examination of the factors and determinants that have led to such unprecedented events across the region. However, it is simply the tip of the iceberg, for the formula to be truly effective a huge number of variables would have to be plugged into each category:
Denselow’s Revolutionary Theory
(SC + T) × (I + GM) = PA + DP
(I + GM + DP + PA) ÷ (GR + SR × EI) = R?
The logic works as follows: Firstly, the state of the country (SC) will determine the likelihood of it being susceptible to revolution. Factors that have been widely discussed by organisations such as the Economist’s Unrest Indexinclude population demographics, levels of unemployment, a ruler’s time in office (despite the contrast between the three decades of Mubarak and Saleh’s terms compared to the five years of Iraq’s Maliki) and rates of poverty.
(Huffington Post) Two-months after Iraq formed a government following a record breaking period of coalition-building, demonstrators took to the streets in 12 of Iraq’s 18 provinces. In northern Baghdad protestors complained about the government’s inability to mend the roads, provide electricity, as well as overcrowded schools and hospitals. In Diwaniyah some 700 stone throwing protestors were dispersed by shots fired in the air, and in Najaf police broke up what the authorities called an ‘illegal demonstration’.
Prime Minister Maliki’s reaction to the shockwaves emanating from events in Cairo was stunning. For a leader whose personal ambitions were a huge part of logjam around forming a government, the decision to rule himself out of running for further office in addition to cutting his $350,000 salary in half was a bolt from the blue. Maliki is also seeking to make a constitutional change to ensure a two-term limit to the office of the Prime Minister.
There can be little doubt that Maliki’s authoritarian-lite mode of rule is threatened by the unleashing of people power in Cairo. Following the various disturbances the Iraqi government announced that they would be cancelling the planned purchase of 18 US made F-16 fighter planes in favour of allocating the money to improving food rationing for the poor. Maliki would no doubt have seen amongst the enduring images from Egypt the contrast between the frustrated poverty of much of Cairo’s population and the multimillion dollar M1 Abraham tanks that stood impotently by on the margins of Liberation square.
(Huffington Post) Across the Middle East and North Africa the winds of change continue to blow, with the battle between governments and the people continuing, and governments apparently losing.
Yet those hoping to add Syria to the list of countries in transition were as disappointed as last Friday’s ‘Day of Rage’ in Damascus failed to materialise. So what explains Syria’s seeming invulnerability to the most dramatic events to have struck the region for decades?
Arguably a combination of traditional security measures, including tight control of foreign and domestic media and a large number of security and intelligence personnel, twinned with modern techniques regulating the internet and virtual opposition made it almost impossible for protestors to organise.
James Denselow & Sam Hardy, London, Asharq Al-Awsat. Lance Price, a former BBC political journalist and media adviser to then Prime Minister Tony Blair, wrote in 2010 that “Britain boasts one of the oldest democracies on earth. Her political traditions have been admired and copied the world over. Yet today they are in crisis”. Price was unaware at the time that a greater crisis was brewing at the heart of the British political and media establishment that would explode in a frenzy of allegations around phone hacking that would bring down the best-selling English language newspaper on the planet in July 2011 and lead to the creation into an inquiry that would seek to challenge the foundations of how the media in Britain operates.
That paper was the News of the World, a Sunday tabloid with a 168-year old history that was famous for its explosive 'scoops' where it beat its rivals to a story or exposed a high-profile incident or celebrity. It was famous for deploying a 'Fake Sheikh', the undercover journalist Mazher Mahmood, who would conduct sting operations with the assistance of hidden cameras. The paper claimed that his actions led to the arrest of over 250 criminals, his most famous scoop was in August 2010 when he exposed a cricket bookie named Mazhar Majeed who revealed that Pakistani cricketers had committed spot-fixing during Pakistan's 2010 tour of England. The paper was owned by News International, a subsidiary of News Corporation - the world's second-largest media conglomerate - whose chairman is the Australian born media mogul Rupert Murdoch. Murdoch's power and influence over British politics has been an issue of constant speculation. Before he became Prime Minister Tony Blair admitted in 1994 that in the next election “the only thing that matters in this campaign is the media”. In 1995 Blair would lay the groundwork for Murdoch's support of his 1997 election win when, as leader of the opposition, he flew to a small Australian island to speak at one of his conference’s.
Can the Arab League finally live up to its potential?
(The Majalla) After playing a prominent role in the Libyan revolution and taking the lead in scrutinizing events in Syria, many observers are seeing the Arab League in a new light and asking whether the organization can become a more effective forum for multilateral decision making in the wake of the Arab Spring.
Multilateral bodies such as the Arab League have faced tough questions about their effectiveness in recent years. Chatham House Director Dr. Robin Niblett emphasized that “the nation state is being empowered, not disempowered … in terms of global governance we also have a world where power is shifting to the south and the east. This is a critical challenge to the current multilateral system.” Institutionally, the majority of global multilateral agencies are crying out for reform with the UN and its Security Council (UNSC) looking increasingly outdated, yet there are signs of changes in the role and importance of regional multinational organizations such as the Arab League.
(Janes Defence Weekly)As the US prepares to withdraw its military forces from Iraq, the Al-Qaeda franchise still present there prepares to take advantage of the likely vacuum to test the capabilities of Iraq’s security forces and exacerbate sectarian tensions.
KEY POINTS
• Al-Qaeda in Iraq (AQI) has been significantly degraded since 2007, but still remains capable of carrying out lethal attacks as it continues its efforts to incite a sectarian conflict in Iraq.
• Iraq’s security forces will struggle to maintain the pace and quality of counter-terrorism operations when US military forces withdraw at the end of the year.
• The incomplete incorporation of Sunni militias into the state remains a crucial test for an Iraqi government that has been accused of marginalising its Sunni Arab population.
President Barack Obama announced on 21 October that the United States would fully withdraw its remaining soldiers from Iraq by the end of the year. "The last American soldiers will cross the border out of Iraq with their heads held high, proud of their success, and knowing that the American people stand united in our support for our troops. That is how America’s military efforts in Iraq will end," he said.
The US soldiers will leave behind a fragile and deeply contested Iraqi state that is still recovering from decades of war and sanctions. Despite the significant improvement in security since violence peaked in 2007, the country continues to suffer regular militant attacks and heavy casualties.
A plethora of militant groups remain active, the most high profile being Al-Qaeda in Iraq (AQI), which now refers to itself as the Islamic State of Iraq. While Al-Qaeda appears to have been marginalised in many Middle Eastern and North African countries by the ‘Arab Spring’ and counter-terrorism efforts, AQI looks set to maintain a toehold in Iraq by exploiting the fault lines in the country’s deeply divided society and its overstretched security forces.
(CMEC) The death toll continues to rise in Syria where nearly seven months of violence has led to the deaths of over 3,000 civilians. The UN Security Council, hit by a double veto from China and Russia earlier in the month, are divided and powerless. Ban Ki-Moon told reporters in Switzerland this week that ‘this killing must stop. Immediately,’ but has failed in the past even to get hold of Assad on the telephone. Meanwhile the Arab League, famous for providing much needed regional cover for the NATO operations in Libya, is also split between those countries who argue that Assad has lost his legitimacy, led by Saudi Arabia and the GCC, and those such as Yemen and Algeria who believe that the President is the best candidate to lead a reform process in the country.
The embattled Assad has offered a shopping list of ‘carrots’ to appease the protestors ranging from ending the emergency law, citizenship for thousands of stateless Kurds, reformed media and political party laws, replacing the parliament, drafting a new constitution and bizarrely guaranteeing the right to peaceful protest. The use of simultaneous ‘sticks’, including the deployment of tanks and snipers, armed militias, mass arrests and – according to Amnesty International and other human rights organisations – lethal torture, has led many in the country to reject his promises as false intentions, claiming that the regime is willing to do whatever it takes to ensure that its forty-one year rule of the country is maintained.
(The Majalla) Sanctions are a byword for failed diplomatic policy in the Middle East. For decades unfavored regimes have been on the receiving end of a variety of US and UN sanctions, with little positive change evident as a result. In the context of the current diplomatic maelstrom in the region, are sanctions still an option?
Six months after the outbreak of protests in Syria there is little sign of the violence halting any time soon. Over 2,700 people have been killed and tens of thousands have either been arrested or have fled the country. In September, the emergence of the Free Syria Army, the most organized armed resistance group to oppose the regime, has led to real concerns that the last six months of civil strife may transform into civil war in the months to come. Yet with the UN divided there is little chance of the kind of military intervention seen in Libya and sanctions are left as one of the few key mechanisms available for placing pressure on the regime in Damascus.
(Young Fabians) At a recent talk to Young Fabians Shadow Defence Minister, Jim Murphy MP, gave a glimmer into the recommendations that will come out of the soon to be released Labour defence policy review. Murphy bemoaned that in the past while Labour is seen as the natural party of the NHS, that the Conservatives are perceived as the party of the military, however in the era of Osborne’s cuts even the Hawkish Liam Fox isn’t able to truly defend that perception.
One of the key findings that Murphy spoke about is that an in-depth procurement review will allow Labour to set out how they propose to match the correct strategy to Britain’s global ambitions. Before the election last year the Conservatives hammered the government on the issue of helicopter procurement in Afghanistan. The 2010 Conservative Manifesto published a graph highlighting the difference in helicopter numbers between the UK and the US, going on to describe how Labour mismanagement has ‘endangered lives’ partly due to being ‘too slow to provide the equipment, such as helicopters, which our Forces on operations have badly needed’.
(The Majalla) The sheer size of the US Embassy in Baghdad says a lot about Washington’s intentions for the country. It is one of the largest and most expensive embassies on the planet, with 21 buildings fitting into an area that is two and a half times the size of the Vatican City. Yet, when it comes to the subtleties of international diplomacy, size isn’t everything. Indeed despite the US war in Iraq costing $750 billion and 4,470 lives there is a danger that the super embassy could become a white elephant, an enduring testimony to the failure of the US project in the country. As one of the 1.5m US veterans of the Iraqi war recently bemoaned to The Economist; “at a great cost of blood and treasure, we achieved nothing tangible.”
Iraq has become a quasi-ethno-sectarian state, a hyper-version of Lebanon with oil and a restive population of 30 million. Its democracy suffers from corruption and an enduring gridlock; in 2010 it took 249 days for a government to form. Although George W. Bush and Tony Blair regularly appeal to history to vindicate their Iraq adventure, the reality of what was a disastrous experience was highlighted by concerns during the fall of Qadhafi as to whether the lessons from Iraq had been learnt. As Qadhafi’s compound in Tripoli was captured a plethora of articles compared Libya with Iraq with the headlines asking “how can the new authorities stop an Iraq-style slide into chaos?”
(Channel 4 News) The defection of a Syrian Attorney General, who claims to have witnessed the killings of 72 prisoners in Hama, is "an important moment" for the country, a Middle East expert tells Channel 4 News.
Mr al-Bakkour, thought to be one of Syria's leading legal officials, claimed he had witnessed the killing of 72 prisoners in Hama and had been told to lie about the mass graves of protesters. An independent lawyer said the person who appeared in the video is al-Bakkour.
(Open Democracy) Obama wants Assad gone, but can US ‘ally’ Iraq be persuaded to turn on the Syrian regime?
This week the world briefly remembered Iraq when the worst bombings of the year left 70 dead and 300 wounded across the country. With civil war in Libya, civil strife in Syria and Yemen, and partial revolutions in Egypt and Tunisia, Iraq has been largely in the shadows of events elsewhere in 2011. Yet out of the glare of international attention a crucially important transition has been taking place in the country. 2011 is the year in which all US troops leave Iraq despite the continued fragility of the security situation leading to an ongoing debate about whether or not the Iraqi government will ask some to remain. However, despite the US having one of its largest embassy’s on the planet in Baghdad, their ability to influence the often gridlocked Iraqi body-politic is questionable. This has been highlighted in the case of dealing with Syria.
(Voice of America) Thousands of demonstrators are occupying squares in major cities across Spain, protesting high unemployment and lack of opportunities for youth, ahead of municipal elections on Sunday. Many of them say they've been inspired by similar protests across the Arab world.
Protesters have been camping out in the capital's main square for days. Volunteers set up food and medical tents, adorned with homemade revolution posters. Someone pinned an Egyptian flag up overhead.
But this is not Egypt, it is Spain. Educated but unemployed youth who are frustrated by the poor economy and perceived government corruption have taken over Madrid's main square, Puerta del Sol - inspired by similar youth uprisings across the Middle East.
AOL News - In its bloody crackdowns on pro-democracy protesters, Syria may be getting some secret help from an old friend -- Iran.
Iran has long been suspected of aiding its fellow Shiite Muslims in Bahrain and Yemen during anti-government rallies in those countries. Bahrain has a Shiite majority ruled by a Sunni Muslim king, and Shiites have long complained of discrimination. Yemen and Saudi Arabia also have significant Shiite minorities in certain regions. Iran is suspected of secretly supporting those populations as they rise up against Sunni leaders.
Now U.S. officials have said privately that they believe Iran is meddling in Syria as well -- but to bolster the government side instead. They believe Iran may have been providing its most concrete support yet to the Syrian government during that country's crackdown on protesters, who've been inspired by popular uprisings against authoritarian regimes in Tunisia, Egypt and Libya.
The help is said to include crowd control gear and technical assistance in blocking protesters' cellphones and Internet signals. U.S. officials acknowledged that they have no proof of direct Iranian involvement in similar crackdowns in Yemen or Bahrain, but said they believe Iranian support in Syria has been more concrete.
"We believe that Iran is materially assisting the Syrian government in its efforts to suppress their own people," an unnamed Obama administration official told The Wall Street Journal.
Speaking on condition of anonymity, U.S. officials seemed to want to send a message to Iran, through press reports, that Washington is well aware of Tehran's work in Syria. "We're keeping an eye on these activities," another U.S. official told the paper.
Syria's ruling family is part of the minority Shiite Alawite sect, and the country has long been considered Iran's strongest Arab ally. For decades, Iran is known to have shipped weapons back and forth across Syria lines to arm Shiite militant groups like Hezbollah in neighboring Lebanon. In the 1980s, Syria defied its Arab neighbors and took Iran's side in the Iraq-Iran war. Both countries are the most vocal opponents of Israel as well.
"The relationship between Syria and Iran is one of the most enduring relationships between any two states in the Middle East. They have ideological ties in terms of their other foreign policy priorities -- resistance against Israel and involvement in Lebanon and Iraq," James Denselow, a researcher in Mideast security at King's College in London, told AOL News.
"They have a huge number of economic ties in terms of free trade zones in the north, and they have huge cultural ties in terms of various Shiite sites of pilgrimage visited by huge numbers of Iranian tourists," he said.
"So there's every possibility that Iran, at this time of incredible crisis for the Syrian regime, will now be supporting that regime -- Iran's greatest Arab ally," Denselow said. "It cannot consider [the possibility of it] falling."
Iran also has something less concrete to lend to Syria -- previous experience in crushing anti-government rebellion.
After Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad's disputed 2009 election victory, thousands of Iranian citizens took to the streets to protest. The movement, in support of opposition candidate Mir Hossein Mousavi, came to be known as Iran's "Green Revolution," for Mousavi's campaign color. But it was also sometimes dubbed "the Twitter Revolution" because of the role the micro-blogging website played in delivering news of the Iranian unrest to the outside world.
Ahmadinejad's forces raided the offices of foreign TV networks and blocked their transmissions. Iranian secret police put down the protests in bloody crackdowns that left dozens, and perhaps hundreds, dead. Anti-government rallies have continued sporadically since then and have been met with fierce resistance.
The images of Syria's streets in recent weeks, where hundreds of civilians are believed to have been killed, are eerily reminiscent of those two years ago in Iran.
"Iran has of course had its own uprising over the past two years, one that's been put down fairly mercilessly, and therefore has experience in the tools and techniques needed for the kind of crowd suppression that the Syrians will be wanting to conduct," Denselow said.
American officials' wariness of Iranian influence in the Middle East, and their tracking of Tehran's footprints there, is nothing unusual. Iraq is another majority Shiite country that was long ruled by a Sunni Muslim despot. But since Saddam Hussein's 2003 ouster, Iran has wielded an ever-larger influence over its fellow Shiites in Iraq -- something the U.S. has long feared. And in recent years, the U.S. and Iran have fought something of a cold war in Iraq, over influence there.
But Denselow said Iran's current assistance to Syria, if proved, could be the most concrete and direct of all.
"Iran is always going to be playing a far more nuanced game than people accuse it of. But Syria is an Iranian ally, and the relationship between the two is all above board -- they trade, there are weapons deals -- that's very well known," Denselow said. "In other places, it's more nefarious."
It comes just days after deadly clashes in Deraa, with reports that 26 protesters and 19 members of the security forces were killed.
State media reported the death of officers "in an ambush" and described the troops killed as "martyrs".
'Hardening rhetoric'
Middle East analyst James Denselow told Channel 4 News that the regime's "hardening rhetoric" is just as concerning as the increasing body count.
"It seems to be a thinly-veiled threat that if protesters continue to come out on the streets, they'll be met with more blunt tactics in terms of suppression.
It seems to be a thinly-veiled threat that if protesters continue to come out on the streets, they'll be met with more blunt tactics in terms of suppression.James Denselow, Middle East analyst
"It's nothing yet compared to what happened in the '80s when whole cities were virtually destroyed to quell protests. But it's very much a warning to protesters to stay at home."
(Al Jazeera English) Men loyal to Bashar al-Assad, Syria's president, are reported to have opened fire on a group of people in the northern port city of Baniyas, as widespread protests against the country's leadership continue.
Casualties were unconfirmed following the shooting on Sunday but state television said a security official was killed while the Associated Press news agency, quoting witnesses, reported the deaths of four civilians.
Members of the group that came under attack were armed with sticks and guarding the Abu Bakr al-Siddiq mosque when they were confronted by the Assad loyalists, known as shabbiha, who fired at them with automatic rifles from speeding cars, the Reuters news agency reported.
But the official SANA news agency reported quoting a government source that an "armed group" ambushed an army patrol in Baniyas, killing one soldier and wounding others.
Sunday's clashes came as days of protests and violence in Daraa, the southern flash-point city, forced many schools and government offices to close.
"Daraa is 80 per cent paralysed today, the children were sent back home from school and most of the government buildings are not operational," a local witness told Al Jazeera on Sunday.
The city came to a standstill after Friday's crackdown on thousands of protesters by security forces left at least 27 people dead.
Continued protests were also reported in Homs and in the Damascus suburb of Douma.
Tens of thousands of people, meanwhile, attended the funerals of the victims of Friday's violence.
"Hundreds of people took to the streets [in Douma] after a funeral was held there," Al Jazeera's Cal Perry reported from Damascus on Sunday.
"They were calling for an end to the government. This was the first time people had called for an end en masse."
He said graphic video had been running throughout the day on state television purporting to show dead or wounded security officers.
Once-unthinkable mass protests challenging al-Assad's authoritarian rule have spread across Syria despite his attempts to defuse resentment by making reform gestures.
Ban Ki-moon, the UN chief, has told al-Assad he is "greatly disturbed" by the reports of violence.
"There is now a momentum gathering in Syria, a momentum that the Assad regime is desperately trying to dissipate, using a combination of carrots and sticks," James Denselow a security analyst and Syria expert, told Al Jazeera.
"The problem is, while with the carrots [have been] getting rid of a moribund and impotent parliament and replacing it and offering citizenship to tens of thousands of Kurds and reaching out to the more traditional Sunni population of the centre, the traditional Syrian response has been sticks."
"When the Syrians say they are going to reform and they are going to open up things and this is the time, you have to question the intent and the timing. This is a regime that has been in power for decades ... we really have to wonder whether they are just looking to dissipate the protests and the momentum of these protests."
Nancy Youssef (Miami Herald) MANAMA, Bahrain -- Even as mainly Shiite Muslim protesters camp out in Pearl Square demanding major reforms, the deciding factor in the outcome for Bahrain could be neighboring Saudi Arabia.
Behind the scenes and away from the streets, Saudi Arabia, a key U.S. ally and top oil supplier, is seeking to return to the status quo in Bahrain - or at least to slow down calls for change. That Bahrain's Shiite majority could gain more rights and powers from the ruling Sunni Muslims, Saudis think, could lead to unrest among their own Shiites, who live in Saudi Arabia's oil-rich Eastern Province. In that case, reforms and economic incentives might not be enough to stop a movement from spreading there.
Bahrain is the first Persian Gulf country to be hit by the unrest that's sweeping the Middle East, and Saudi Arabia is one of the last U.S. allies in the region since the regimes in Egypt and Tunisia fell. Although Bahrain is a tiny island of less than a million, what happens here could unleash calls for change in the much larger and powerful Saudi Arabia. It's a case of Goliath fearing David's wrath.
At stake are oil prices, which are now at their highest since October 2008, and even relations with the United States, which is walking a fine line between promoting the will of the people and supporting a longstanding ally.
In Saudi Arabia, officials already have quashed several small attempts to launch protests against some government decisions. Three days after the revolt began in Egypt, for example, roughly 50 residents protested the government response to deadly floods in Jeddah. They were promptly arrested.
Protesters in Manama are calling for Bahrain to become a constitutional monarchy, rather than an absolute one. Such a shift probably would give the Shiite majority more power. As the Saudis see it, that represents instability for them; Saudi Arabia's Shiite minority could then rise up and ask for more freedoms its own.
Protesters in Manama threatened Wednesday to lash out at the Saudi regime if it thwarted their efforts, though they refused to give their names.
"If they stop us, we will go there," one protester yelled.
For Saudi Arabia, the best outcome in Bahrain is enough change to pacify protesters but not so much that it risks government structure, said James Denselow, a Middle East writer and former researcher for Chatham House, a policy research center in London.
"Instability could not get more on Saudi's doorstep than Bahrain," Denselow said. "The outcome that Saudi Arabia wants is ... for everybody to leave the streets and that small changes be managed by the elite. They want a slow process."
As with much of what happens in Bahrain, Saudi influence occurs under a veil of secrecy. But there have been some telling signs of the scale of Saudi impact. Bahraini King Hamad bin Isa al Khalifa left the country Wednesday for the first time since the unrest began to meet his Saudi counterpart, King Abdullah, who had just returned home hours earlier after three months of medical treatment in the U.S. and recovery in Morocco. Observers said they think that the Bahraini king consulted with the Saudis over what to do next.
Earlier in the week, the Saudi Council of Ministers said in a statement: "The kingdom will stand by the sisterly state of Bahrain with all its capabilities," which some Shiites in Bahrain interpreted as a threat to send military aid.
(The World Today, February 2011) The election of Barack Obama promised a fresh start between Washington and Damascus - a necessary new beginning, after the deterioration of relations under the administration of George W. Bush.
The United States (US) recalled their ambassador in 2005 following the assassination of former Lebanese Prime Minister Rafik Hariri, but after five years of tense hiatus this January, Syria welcomed the appointment of Robert Ford as the new US Ambassador. The appointment had been planned for 2010, but Congressional stalling led to an important plank of Barack Obama's post-Bus Middle Eastern re-engagement policy being delayed. There are already a number of powerful critics of the decision, including new chair of the House Foreign Affairs Committee Ileana Ros-Lehtinen,who immediately described the move as a 'major concession to the Syrian regime'.
(Al Arabiya) He may still possess the poise of a confident leader and is an eloquent intellectual, but the presidency of Barack Obama is now passing through its most difficult phase to date.
Obama cannot solely be blamed for all the factors that have stifled his country’s chances of recovery from the failures of the Bush era. But the man who promised the moon has now extended the abhorrent and morally unjustifiable tax cuts for America’s wealthiest class. The “sweeping” $858 billion tax bill was signed into law on December 17. It includes an $801 billion package of tax cuts, extending Bush’s tax break for the rich for two more years at a time when the majority of Americans are reeling under the weight of a failing economy and persistently high unemployment.
(AOL News) Iraqi officials are puzzling over what to do with a rare artifact considered to be both a sacred text and a ghoulish relic of days gone by: a copy of the Koran handwritten in Saddam Hussein's blood.
Back in the 1990s, the late Iraqi dictator spent two years donating blood periodically -- more than 7 gallons altogether -- to serve as ink for the holy book. He apparently considered its 605 pages as a homage and sacrifice to his religion.
It was also a "master stroke of PR," reflecting the lengths the secular leader went to to try to win legitimacy among more religious Muslims, James Denselow, a researcher at King's College in London, told AOL News today.
