tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-35575446221117440392023-11-16T10:48:17.318-08:00Manufacturing HegemonyAnonymoushttp://www.blogger.com/profile/03761537507654123124noreply@blogger.comBlogger20125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3557544622111744039.post-243031942773133852014-01-18T06:37:00.000-08:002014-01-18T06:37:06.204-08:00New Blog UpAfter a long delay, the new <i>Warwick Globalist</i> website is up, complete with pages for their bloggers. You can access my page here-<a href="http://thewarwickglobalist.com/columnists/connor-woodman/"> http://thewarwickglobalist.com/columnists/connor-woodman/</a>. I will finally be getting back to regular blogging- the next piece, written up and ready to go, is on the possibilities of a 'Left realism' in international relations. This page will be kept up for reference and may be started up properly again one day, but until then keep an eye on the <i>Globalist</i> blog.Anonymoushttp://www.blogger.com/profile/03761537507654123124noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3557544622111744039.post-20201180131297804972013-11-25T15:24:00.000-08:002013-11-25T15:24:29.052-08:00On the Iranian Nuclear Deal<div class="MsoNormal">
<i><span style="font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 115%; mso-bidi-font-size: 11.0pt;"><span style="font-family: Times, Times New Roman, serif;"><span class="GINGER_SOFTWARE_mark" ginger_software_uiphraseguid="6062f2fe-f6f1-43d3-bff0-3c9c4c5c5878" id="0dc35e97-5bdc-4462-a051-68562c6ccf65">Whilst</span> The
Warwick Globalist has some technical issues with getting the new blog up and running
I <span class="GINGER_SOFTWARE_mark" ginger_software_uiphraseguid="6062f2fe-f6f1-43d3-bff0-3c9c4c5c5878" id="feba9c81-2cbf-41e2-b641-026cc40b714a">am using</span> this one to comment on the Iranian nuclear deal. See <a href="http://warwickglobalist.tumblr.com/gulf-racket">here</a> for an article I
wrote for The Warwick Globalist’s temporary website on the relationship between
the British establishment and the Gulf elites. There is a forthcoming piece on
the relationship between the ‘realist’ international school of thought and international
morality, a first blog on ‘theoretical’ issues in international relations.<o:p></o:p></span></span></i></div>
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<span style="font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 115%; mso-bidi-font-size: 11.0pt;"><span style="font-family: Times, Times New Roman, serif;">Yesterday <span class="GINGER_SOFTWARE_mark" ginger_software_uiphraseguid="b3ac511b-8efb-4c5b-84cd-66d8718a0ed6" id="968c09d9-8218-4e51-b698-0fa7791b51b8">news</span> came through that a preliminary deal had been
struck between Iran and the P5+1 over Iran’s nuclear <span class="GINGER_SOFTWARE_mark" ginger_software_uiphraseguid="b3ac511b-8efb-4c5b-84cd-66d8718a0ed6" id="cde66a24-abe3-4c3a-a569-23d71d1dc4c8">programme</span>. I’ve written
fairly extensively on this blog before about Iran, the West and the nuclear
issue, including a <a href="http://manufacturinghegemony.blogspot.co.uk/2013/03/iranian-western-relations-part-1.html">brief
history</a> of Iranian-Western relations, discussion of <a href="http://manufacturinghegemony.blogspot.co.uk/2013/03/iranian-western-relations-part-2.html">whether
or not</a> Iran’s nuclear <span class="GINGER_SOFTWARE_mark" ginger_software_uiphraseguid="3641c192-4086-42a7-8efb-ac7955fceb59" id="976c81cd-2fa3-44a7-8bcf-9ec4a79fae25">programme</span> actually has military dimensions, <a href="http://manufacturinghegemony.blogspot.co.uk/2013/04/iranian-western-relations-part-3.html">military
options</a> for the prevention of Iran acquiring a weapon, and <a href="http://manufacturinghegemony.blogspot.co.uk/2013/04/iranian-western-relations-part-4_8.html">diplomatic
options</a> for a peaceful resolution to the issue. I stand by what I said in
those posts and they all remain relevant for understanding the background <span class="GINGER_SOFTWARE_mark" ginger_software_uiphraseguid="5b0af1b9-9f38-4cc7-b83f-65d019bd30d5" id="1ffb37ae-8811-4233-862b-0bbed7970277">to</span>
yesterday’s deal. <o:p></o:p></span></span></div>
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<span style="font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 115%; mso-bidi-font-size: 11.0pt;"><span style="font-family: Times, Times New Roman, serif;">There has been a lot of comment on the deal by people who
seem not to have taken the time to actually read it, and seem unaware that this
is only a preliminary deal aimed at creating the needed mutual trust between
the parties with a view to a comprehensive settlement in 6 months time. That
said, the deal is fairly impressive in its own right. The <a href="http://www.whitehouse.gov/the-press-office/2013/11/23/fact-sheet-first-step-understandings-regarding-islamic-republic-iran-s-n">White
House release</a> <span class="GINGER_SOFTWARE_mark" ginger_software_uiphraseguid="33574728-d0a4-4e88-8035-26693c86507f" id="aeb065a4-c06a-4bbc-8343-6c2c5a040ace">on</span> the details shows how Iran is to “[h<span class="GINGER_SOFTWARE_mark" ginger_software_uiphraseguid="33574728-d0a4-4e88-8035-26693c86507f" id="24326bac-1747-488f-b0f9-0d326982b341">]</span><span class="GINGER_SOFTWARE_mark" ginger_software_uiphraseguid="33574728-d0a4-4e88-8035-26693c86507f" id="449ab4b7-3a9c-4bed-95e7-bd7ef1225089">alt</span> all enrichment above 5% and dismantle the technical connections
required to enrich above 5%... Dilute below 5% or convert to a form not
suitable for further enrichment its entire stockpile of near-20% enriched
uranium before the end of the initial phase” (enrichment <span class="GINGER_SOFTWARE_mark" ginger_software_uiphraseguid="9d630bf0-f088-4536-af36-220c10a912aa" id="66ac01ea-0afd-4efd-ab4c-843f91bfb018">to</span> around 3.5%
is the level needed for civilian nuclear energy purposes- 19.5% can be used for
some civilian purposes such as fuelling medical research reactors, but it is
also closer to the around-95% enrichment needed for a bomb). Iran has already
been <span class="GINGER_SOFTWARE_mark" ginger_software_uiphraseguid="e9f69ade-ae54-48c3-b8c6-15de55b954cf" id="e211c9af-fbf1-4b97-bbf4-cba34dc3f411">recognised</span> as keeping its stockpile of 19.5% enriched uranium at below the
level Israel considers necessary to make one nuclear device. <a href="http://www.reuters.com/article/2013/11/14/us-iran-nuclear-iaea-idUSBRE9AD10Z20131114?utm_source=Sailthru&utm_medium=email&utm_term=%2AMorning%20Brief&utm_campaign=MB%2011.15.13">The
latest IAEA report</a> puts its stockpiles at 196 kg, below the 250kg mark
needed for a bomb. Additionally, Iran will “[n<span class="GINGER_SOFTWARE_mark" ginger_software_uiphraseguid="2cc1e0e5-c391-4ae2-9226-b855dd9de5c2" id="b5ad50c5-e0c6-4259-adc7-ccc5ac06924f">]</span><span class="GINGER_SOFTWARE_mark" ginger_software_uiphraseguid="2cc1e0e5-c391-4ae2-9226-b855dd9de5c2" id="a1c3e753-78b6-49dc-81b3-d73e66aaa6b9">ot</span> increase its stockpile of 3.5% low enriched uranium, so that the
amount is not greater at the end of the six months than it is at the beginning,
and any newly enriched 3.5% enriched uranium is converted into oxide”.<o:p></o:p></span></span></div>
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<span style="font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 115%; mso-bidi-font-size: 11.0pt;"><span style="font-family: Times, Times New Roman, serif;">Furthermore, Iran will “[n<span class="GINGER_SOFTWARE_mark" ginger_software_uiphraseguid="d2a6a482-e689-480a-8026-b22053fc144d" id="a6cc6373-6b70-4d51-8edd-03ce1ad1c29a">]</span><span class="GINGER_SOFTWARE_mark" ginger_software_uiphraseguid="d2a6a482-e689-480a-8026-b22053fc144d" id="edc9e8ae-98d2-4aa0-8f9e-ef3a51a452ed">ot</span> commission the Arak reactor. Not fuel the Arak
reactor. Halt the production of fuel for the Arak reactor. No additional
testing of fuel for the Arak reactor. Not install any additional reactor
components at Arak. Not transfer fuel and heavy water to the reactor
site. Not construct a facility capable of reprocessing. Without
reprocessing, Iran cannot separate plutonium from spent fuel”. This stops <span class="GINGER_SOFTWARE_mark" ginger_software_uiphraseguid="65a08a3e-d8b8-43ef-a040-4265cacbc0e9" id="06c09c4d-53a4-4583-9573-e2c8bbb9417f">fears</span>
of Iran taking an alternative, plutonium route to a bomb <span class="GINGER_SOFTWARE_mark" ginger_software_uiphraseguid="65a08a3e-d8b8-43ef-a040-4265cacbc0e9" id="1f54d3ea-ec37-485f-a983-68e4cad2904b">at</span> Arak. When it comes
to inspections, the White House report describes “[u<span class="GINGER_SOFTWARE_mark" ginger_software_uiphraseguid="319e29d3-07e4-463f-aca3-6cedf3e2eb7b" id="c4acecc2-e7fe-4ef8-9992-957121a2cb72">]</span><span class="GINGER_SOFTWARE_mark" ginger_software_uiphraseguid="319e29d3-07e4-463f-aca3-6cedf3e2eb7b" id="e42acb5e-d607-437a-8382-10c63510e717">nprecedented</span> transparency and intrusive monitoring of Iran’s nuclear
program”; Iran will “[p<span class="GINGER_SOFTWARE_mark" ginger_software_uiphraseguid="319e29d3-07e4-463f-aca3-6cedf3e2eb7b" id="dd22ed7b-f6f3-4433-931d-81eb7936d0c3">]</span>rovide daily access by <span class="GINGER_SOFTWARE_mark" ginger_software_uiphraseguid="319e29d3-07e4-463f-aca3-6cedf3e2eb7b" id="7c5469d8-2845-4b5b-bda2-48a1ca499b38">IAEA inspectors</span> at Natanz and
<span class="GINGER_SOFTWARE_mark" ginger_software_uiphraseguid="319e29d3-07e4-463f-aca3-6cedf3e2eb7b" id="95b7f90d-1e62-4cac-a87b-10764b7005f9">Fordow</span>. This daily access will permit inspectors to review surveillance camera
footage to ensure comprehensive monitoring. This access will provide even
greater transparency into enrichment at these sites and shorten <span class="GINGER_SOFTWARE_mark" ginger_software_uiphraseguid="a6c4e8a9-3390-4f93-b08c-ae34b6bab7a6" id="41c34363-2fb9-48e8-a6a4-ad74b83b1c01">detection time</span>
for any non-compliance. Provide IAEA access to centrifuge assembly
facilities. Provide IAEA access to centrifuge rotor component production and
storage facilities. Provide IAEA access to uranium mines and mills. Provide
long-sought design information for the Arak reactor”. This comes off the back of
a <a href="http://online.wsj.com/news/articles/SB10001424052702303914304579191301932290872">deal
Iran recently struck</a> with the IAEA to expand inspections of many nuclear
sites. When it comes to centrifuges, Iran agreed “[n<span class="GINGER_SOFTWARE_mark" ginger_software_uiphraseguid="f0bc428f-9054-4522-be0d-f6d912e19df7" id="62ce9b1d-d986-4e60-acf5-8fd231dffeac">]</span><span class="GINGER_SOFTWARE_mark" ginger_software_uiphraseguid="f0bc428f-9054-4522-be0d-f6d912e19df7" id="6783e0cc-10bb-4656-b06c-46b223fe06f8">ot</span> install additional
centrifuges of any type. Not install or use any next-generation
centrifuges to enrich uranium. Leave inoperable roughly half of installed
centrifuges at Natanz and three-quarters of installed centrifuges at Fordow, so
they cannot be used to enrich uranium”. <o:p></o:p></span></span></div>
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<span style="font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 115%; mso-bidi-font-size: 11.0pt; mso-bidi-font-style: italic; mso-bidi-font-weight: bold;"><span style="font-family: Times, Times New Roman, serif;">Given
the extensive surveillance and “unprecedented intrusive monitoring”, it will be
hard for Iran to break these constraints and get away with it. <a href="http://www.washingtonpost.com/world/national-security/kerry-in-geneva-raising-hopes-for-historic-nuclear-deal-with-iran/2013/11/23/53e7bfe6-5430-11e3-9fe0-fd2ca728e67c_story.html">Officials
familiar with the deal</a> told the <i>Washington Post </i>that “[t<span class="GINGER_SOFTWARE_mark" ginger_software_uiphraseguid="93cf40ef-2f15-447a-8b44-d712dcd6dd73" id="fc849726-42be-449e-8f57-2fabad32aa9b">]</span>he
concessions not only halt Iran’s nuclear advances but also make it virtually
impossible for Tehran to build a nuclear weapon without being detected”. It
should also be noted that it was <a href="http://www.israelnationalnews.com/News/News.aspx/166160">already the
opinion</a> at the beginning of the year of James Clapper, US National Intelligence
Director, that “Iran could not divert safeguarded material and produce a
weapon-worth of WGU (weapons-grade uranium) before this activity is discovered”.<o:p></o:p></span></span></div>
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<span style="font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 115%; mso-bidi-font-size: 11.0pt; mso-bidi-font-style: italic; mso-bidi-font-weight: bold;"><span style="font-family: Times, Times New Roman, serif;"><br /></span></span></div>
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<span style="font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 115%; mso-bidi-font-size: 11.0pt; mso-bidi-font-style: italic; mso-bidi-font-weight: bold;"><span style="font-family: Times, Times New Roman, serif;">It
should also be noted that the relief Iran has received in return is minimal-
maybe $6-7 billion in sanctions reductions (despite what an Israeli
disinformation campaign in Washington tried to claim). The White House release
boasts how it is “<span class="GINGER_SOFTWARE_mark" ginger_software_uiphraseguid="ecb0c9c5-4eed-4ce4-8023-1cbffecb75ab" id="70033e22-e9dc-4e72-a250-3ef0f6bb2a99">maintaining</span> the vast bulk of our sanctions, including the
oil, finance, and banking sanctions architecture”. Iran’s $100 billion in
foreign exchange holdings will also be unavailable to their government. <a href="http://thecable.foreignpolicy.com/posts/2013/11/24/deal_reached_to_halt_irans_nuclear_program">A
US official</a> told <i>Foreign Policy</i> that “Iran will actually be worse
off at the end of this six month deal than it is today”. The sanctions are
already severely affecting Iranian people; a <i>Foreign Policy</i> piece <a href="http://mideast.foreignpolicy.com/posts/2013/10/18/the_human_costs_of_the_iran_sanctions">details</a>
how the “results have been devastating <span class="GINGER_SOFTWARE_mark" ginger_software_uiphraseguid="c8a9475a-e49e-4103-a7da-07537531bd34" id="ceba494b-4012-4c12-82d0-f3bcb66dae3c">for</span> the Iranian population, triggering a
collapse of industry, skyrocketing inflation, and massive unemployment. As the
rich and politically-connected prosper under sanctions, Iran's middle class has
disappeared, and even access to food and medicine has been compromised”. Given that
this is expected to continue and perhaps worsen, it is surprising that Iran has
given in to such stringent demands at all. <o:p></o:p></span></span></div>
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<span style="font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 115%; mso-bidi-font-size: 11.0pt; mso-bidi-font-style: italic; mso-bidi-font-weight: bold;"><span style="font-family: Times, Times New Roman, serif;"><br /></span></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Times, Times New Roman, serif;"><span style="font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 115%; mso-bidi-font-size: 11.0pt; mso-bidi-font-style: italic; mso-bidi-font-weight: bold;">The
reactions to the deal have been <span class="GINGER_SOFTWARE_mark" ginger_software_uiphraseguid="b2abd7c7-5ecb-4766-921d-c153e4b4bd7b" id="375b05f8-2e55-4a59-8f7f-b7afb297f266">revealing</span>. All along Netanyahu slammed the
prospects of a deal, seemingly before he even knew what the final details would
be. After the deal was sealed in the early morning of Sunday, Netanyahu
described it as a “historic failure”, and the Israeli Economics Minister, Naftali
Bennett, <a href="http://www.independent.co.uk/news/world/middle-east/iran-nuclear-deal-israeli-minister-warns-accord-could-end-in-suitcase-bomb-8960856.html">proclaimed
that</a> “[<span class="GINGER_SOFTWARE_mark" ginger_software_uiphraseguid="ff5db9c9-43cf-4861-a1ba-207c98abe2b5" id="e6203015-fb52-4138-a814-4fd45cf060fd">i</span><span class="GINGER_SOFTWARE_mark" ginger_software_uiphraseguid="ff5db9c9-43cf-4861-a1ba-207c98abe2b5" id="f1faebf0-6df4-4275-9a35-14f6bd85787e">]</span>f a nuclear suitcase blows up five years from now in New York or
Madrid it will be because of the deal signed this morning”.</span> <span style="font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 115%; mso-bidi-font-size: 11.0pt; mso-bidi-font-style: italic; mso-bidi-font-weight: bold;">The deputy speaker of parliament, MK Moshe Feiglin,
of a ruling coalition party Likud, <a href="http://www.jpost.com/Iranian-Threat/News/Israel-denounces-Iranian-nuclear-deal-says-it-will-review-options-332800">claimed</a>
the deal was “tantamount to the Munich Agreement of the late 1930s”. These wild
ravings push Israel more and more to the fringes of the international community
and are isolating it even from its allies. It could count on its new friend
France to <a href="http://thecable.foreignpolicy.com/posts/2013/11/10/how-france-scuttled-the-iran-deal-last-minute">do
its best</a> to scupper the deal early on in the process, but now the only
allies Israel seems to have on this issue are the Gulf dictators, <a href="http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/worldnews/middleeast/iran/10472538/Iran-nuclear-deal-Saudi-Arabia-warns-it-will-strike-out-on-its-own.html">chiefly</a>
the totalitarian Saudi Arabia. The <span class="GINGER_SOFTWARE_mark" ginger_software_uiphraseguid="dd51d3e6-724c-471e-a87f-51b250ea259d" id="7a2ad228-15a9-443c-8295-f3576407c218">Defence</span> Minister also reaffirmed that “[a<span class="GINGER_SOFTWARE_mark" ginger_software_uiphraseguid="dd51d3e6-724c-471e-a87f-51b250ea259d" id="900f923c-9a14-489d-9439-53236dbf7085">]</span><span class="GINGER_SOFTWARE_mark" ginger_software_uiphraseguid="dd51d3e6-724c-471e-a87f-51b250ea259d" id="cb9df17d-4f4d-42f4-857a-25e5f0fcd928">ll</span>
options are still on the table”, an illegal threatening of the use of military
force, not that anyone pays any attention to international law.<o:p></o:p></span></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Times, Times New Roman, serif;"><span style="font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 115%; mso-bidi-font-size: 11.0pt; mso-bidi-font-style: italic; mso-bidi-font-weight: bold;">Reading through
the English-language Israeli press has been an interesting experience too- some
more measured reactions from <i><a href="http://www.haaretz.com/opinion/1.559995">Haaretz</a></i> and the US-based
<i><a href="http://forward.com/articles/188243/a-worthy-leap-of-faith/">Forward</a></i>
are <span class="GINGER_SOFTWARE_mark" ginger_software_uiphraseguid="8adfbedd-7a0b-4606-a3bf-cfe3e6a1a367" id="0367e54d-f010-4a7f-a0e8-bd09c8ffff49">counterposed</span> against some more dubious responses. The online <i>Times of
Israel</i>, for instance, <a href="http://www.timesofisrael.com/when-the-us-let-iran-off-the-hook/">explained</a>
that the problem isn’t that the details of the deal are bad, just that Iran is “a
cunning and deceptive adversary”, and that “Iran has never acknowledged that it
is in fact marching to the bomb”. </span><i><span lang="EN" style="font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 115%; mso-ansi-language: EN; mso-bidi-font-size: 11.0pt; mso-bidi-font-weight: bold;">Yedioth Ahronoth, </span></i><span lang="EN" style="font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 115%; mso-ansi-language: EN; mso-bidi-font-size: 11.0pt; mso-bidi-font-style: italic; mso-bidi-font-weight: bold;">one of the biggest
newspapers in Israel, <a href="http://www.ynetnews.com/articles/0,7340,L-4457656,00.html">said</a> that
one of the problems with the deal is that “</span><span style="font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 115%; mso-bidi-font-size: 11.0pt; mso-bidi-font-style: italic; mso-bidi-font-weight: bold;">[t<span class="GINGER_SOFTWARE_mark" ginger_software_uiphraseguid="8a8becb9-2ce1-4ca6-a243-f88696582fdf" id="c93ec42e-45bb-4e75-9a7e-7b3b01dfc81f">]</span>he Treaty on the <span class="GINGER_SOFTWARE_mark" ginger_software_uiphraseguid="8a8becb9-2ce1-4ca6-a243-f88696582fdf" id="3a1d96e1-9d0a-4764-b346-8be6feb21759">Non-Proliferation</span> of Nuclear
Weapons (NPT) will effectively be finished”- not true, but both editorials are
even more odd in light of the fact that Israel itself has refused to admit to
its nuclear arsenal and refused to sign the NPT, seriously damaging its
efficacy. <o:p></o:p></span></span></div>
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<span style="font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 115%; mso-bidi-font-size: 11.0pt; mso-bidi-font-style: italic; mso-bidi-font-weight: bold;"><span style="font-family: Times, Times New Roman, serif;"><br /></span></span></div>
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<span style="font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 115%; mso-bidi-font-size: 11.0pt; mso-bidi-font-style: italic; mso-bidi-font-weight: bold;"><span style="font-family: Times, Times New Roman, serif;">The fact
is that the only thing which would make Netanyahu happy would be a complete
elimination of Iran’s nuclear enrichment capabilities, an absurd position, not
least because Iran has the right to peaceful nuclear enrichment for civilian
purposes under the NPT. He knows this demand is never going to be met, so as Trita
Parsi <a href="http://www.foreignaffairs.com/articles/139981/trita-parsi/pushing-peace?cid=nlc-this_week_on_foreign_affairs-100313-pushing_peace_3-100313&sp_mid=43132992&sp_rid=Y3dvb2RtYW4zNjlAaG90bWFpbC5jby51awS2">put
it</a> in <i>Foreign Affairs</i>, “[t<span class="GINGER_SOFTWARE_mark" ginger_software_uiphraseguid="4b2d197f-6e34-48f9-97d7-46dc0d2b7f98" id="454af7fa-bb20-4362-81b7-c412416c50ba">]</span>here is reason to believe, then, that
Israel’s insistence on zero enrichment is aimed to ensure that no deal is
struck at all”. Even some parts of the Israeli military establishment seem at odds with Netanyahu on this: <i>Christian Science Monitor</i> <a href="http://www.csmonitor.com/World/Security-Watch/2013/1121/Israeli-military-goes-off-message-on-Iran-nuclear-talks-video">reported</a>
that an Israeli military official told them that the “intelligence
branch does not think this demand is realistic”, and that the negotiations
offered prospects for stability in the region. Every state needs to exaggerate the
threat posed by its enemies in order to further its domestic agenda, and Israel
is no different. Whilst Netanyahu asserts that “[<span class="GINGER_SOFTWARE_mark" ginger_software_uiphraseguid="74443b9a-504b-45de-b6d4-b99cd708352a" id="d53822cd-bdad-4cb8-af2a-2d6b6a2ead3b">i</span><span class="GINGER_SOFTWARE_mark" ginger_software_uiphraseguid="74443b9a-504b-45de-b6d4-b99cd708352a" id="8a66d99a-e46e-4fd1-b485-410090456a75">]</span>t’s 1938 and Iran is Germany”,
the vast majority of scholars one should take seriously consider the Iranian
regime to be a ‘rational actor’, not the kind of actor which will fire nuclear
weapons at Israel in what would be the clearest case of state-suicide in history.
Netanyahu wants to eliminate any possibility that Iran could ever challenge
Israel’s monopoly on nuclear weapons in the region. If he were serious about
eliminating the very-real scourge of nuclear weapons he would take seriously the
possibilities for establishing a Nuclear <span class="GINGER_SOFTWARE_mark" ginger_software_uiphraseguid="bb0c8f69-b8f7-4fbc-a099-6c1a68ae21c0" id="ebf3674f-02d5-4313-8bc1-a3b6daded93a"><span class="GINGER_SOFTWARE_mark" ginger_software_uiphraseguid="6641f5ff-7790-49c9-90a8-78bd7a6c578c" id="cc7d028e-3531-450f-86e7-22c8b8a167f6">Weapons</span></span>-Free Zone in the Middle East;
but since that would entail Israel giving up their arsenal, he would prefer to
use illegal force against Iran. <o:p></o:p></span></span></div>
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<br />
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<span style="font-family: Times, Times New Roman, serif;"><span style="font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 115%; mso-bidi-font-size: 11.0pt; mso-bidi-font-style: italic; mso-bidi-font-weight: bold;">The US
has done what it must in putting aside the more extreme of Israel’s demands,
and we can only hope that the reports coming out that Netanyahu is, in private,
willing to give the deal a chance, are true. Let’s hope that <a href="http://www.ynetnews.com/articles/0,7340,L-4457656,00.html">this</a>
editorial from </span><i><span lang="EN" style="font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 115%; mso-ansi-language: EN; mso-bidi-font-size: 11.0pt; mso-bidi-font-weight: bold;">Yedioth
Ahronoth, </span></i><span lang="EN" style="font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 115%; mso-ansi-language: EN; mso-bidi-font-size: 11.0pt; mso-bidi-font-style: italic; mso-bidi-font-weight: bold;">which seems to suggest that Netanyahu is and should
be willing to risk World War 3 over this deal, represents the fringes of
mainstream thought in Israel. </span></span><span style="font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 115%; mso-bidi-font-size: 11.0pt; mso-bidi-font-style: italic; mso-bidi-font-weight: bold;"><o:p></o:p></span></div>
Anonymoushttp://www.blogger.com/profile/03761537507654123124noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3557544622111744039.post-56898211239607312252013-08-29T15:02:00.000-07:002014-05-07T02:31:28.956-07:00Syria and The Fog of War<div class="MsoNormal">
<i>This shall probably be
the last of the posts on this website; I have been asked by the editor-in-chief
of the Warwick Globalist (an international affairs magazine on campus) to begin
blogging for their revamped and rebooted website come the start of term in
October. So after 8,000 hits and lots of positive feedback from people of a
variety of political persuasions (or none at all) I am pleased with how the
experiment has gone, and have enjoyed writing this blog. I will post a link to
the new blog when it is up and running, and hope everyone will continue to read
it over at the Globalist website. <o:p></o:p></i></div>
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<i><br /></i></div>
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<br /></div>
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<span style="font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 115%; mso-bidi-font-size: 11.0pt;"><span style="font-family: Times, Times New Roman, serif;">It had been said that the first casualty of war is truth, and
Syria is a perfect illustration of this fact. Deciphering and <span class="GINGER_SOFTWARE_mark" ginger_software_uiphraseguid="c97ccdbf-b2bf-4f84-8085-21630a63a620" id="c9c660c4-96ae-491e-8493-9bb54aded892">manoeuvring</span> through
the labyrinth of lies, distortions, agendas, secrets, deals, threats, and power
politics that <span class="GINGER_SOFTWARE_mark" ginger_software_uiphraseguid="c97ccdbf-b2bf-4f84-8085-21630a63a620" id="cfad172f-5859-4656-b392-a6f14f63770b">defines</span> the Syrian civil war is no easy task. I have become
somewhat <span class="GINGER_SOFTWARE_mark" ginger_software_uiphraseguid="2cc5923f-c89c-4542-8cc5-35acb50bacf1" id="d15578f8-df00-4bf7-bd48-64fb0f788c87">sceptical</span> of the possibility of achieving a substantial degree of
knowledge about the conflict, at least for now. The historian often has a far
easier task than the political scientist. <o:p></o:p></span></span></div>
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<span style="font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 115%; mso-bidi-font-size: 11.0pt;"><span style="font-family: Times, Times New Roman, serif;">Having said that, it is the responsibility of citizens of
this country, a country which maintains a disproportionate level of power and
influence around the world, to seek to understand the conflict as far as is
possible, since we have found ourselves once more faced with the possibility
that our government will attack a country in the Middle East (correction- for now at least, they won't. Seconds before publishing this Parliament rejected a motion for military action against Syria, an astonishing event).<o:p></o:p></span></span></div>
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<span style="font-size: 14.0pt; line-height: 115%; mso-bidi-font-size: 11.0pt;"><span style="font-family: Times, Times New Roman, serif;">The
Chemical Attack<o:p></o:p></span></span></div>
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<span style="font-size: 14.0pt; line-height: 115%; mso-bidi-font-size: 11.0pt;"><span style="font-family: Times, Times New Roman, serif;"><br /></span></span></div>
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<span style="font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 115%; mso-bidi-font-size: 11.0pt;"><span style="font-family: Times, Times New Roman, serif;">There have been murmurs about the ‘ghost of Iraq’ casting a
shadow over potential intervention in Syria, and quite rightly. We as a nation
are far from coming to terms with and atoning for the devastation we wrought in
that country, a ‘moral obscenity’ (to borrow Mr Hague’s description of the gas
attack in Syria) that far outweighs the particular attack we condemn so
vehemently today. And the uncomfortable fact remains that, despite Obama and
Cameron’s rhetoric, we don’t know exactly what happened near Damascus on the 21<sup><span class="GINGER_SOFTWARE_mark" ginger_software_uiphraseguid="046f7da1-6011-42b8-9ecb-82e85ea431ce" id="45051e96-652d-4e64-bc26-ce002472ebf8">st</span></sup>
<span class="GINGER_SOFTWARE_mark" ginger_software_uiphraseguid="cda9a8e0-01d2-433d-9494-c1f73f6104d8" id="5191a37d-8b53-4e17-93a3-a7b2592ad3cc">of</span> August. We can’t even conclude which side carried out the attack for
certain. If it was the regime, we aren’t sure whether it was merely a rogue
commander or an <span class="GINGER_SOFTWARE_mark" ginger_software_uiphraseguid="53485a07-7536-4864-b71c-2b78d2a842eb" id="b551d228-0d5c-4bb2-ac89-7543217dd3ae">institutionalised</span> policy carried out from the highest levels. <a href="http://abcnews.go.com/Politics/wireStory/ap-sources-intelligence-weapons-slam-dunk-20102965">ABC
News has reported that:</a><o:p></o:p></span></span></div>
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<i><span style="font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 115%; mso-bidi-font-size: 11.0pt;"><span style="font-family: Times, Times New Roman, serif;">‘<span class="GINGER_SOFTWARE_mark" ginger_software_uiphraseguid="4795451e-ed58-46a1-9c3f-577369cc9aa4" id="0d8c7250-a72f-4716-bfc1-10be08e0e443">the</span>
intelligence linking Syrian President Bashar Assad or his inner circle to an
alleged chemical weapons attack that killed at least 100 people is no
"slam dunk," with questions remaining about who actually controls
some of Syria's chemical weapons stores and doubts about whether Assad himself
ordered the strike, U.S. <span class="GINGER_SOFTWARE_mark" ginger_software_uiphraseguid="04f96b49-b0fc-4f85-acac-b700727bbd24" id="e3d37a74-fa47-4c2b-9e99-89116664424b">intelligence</span> officials say<span class="GINGER_SOFTWARE_mark" ginger_software_uiphraseguid="04f96b49-b0fc-4f85-acac-b700727bbd24" id="b4509974-1cf1-4035-a2a3-887da6d718a8">…</span>multiple U.S. <span class="GINGER_SOFTWARE_mark" ginger_software_uiphraseguid="236b8151-c0fd-4514-88fd-420318875f28" id="7cdf9b41-7be9-4a61-ab52-bf8da92f13ea">officials</span>
used the phrase "not a slam dunk" to describe the intelligence
picture’. <o:p></o:p></span></span></i></div>
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<i><span style="font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 115%; mso-bidi-font-size: 11.0pt;"><span style="font-family: Times, Times New Roman, serif;"><br /></span></span></i></div>
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<span style="font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 115%; mso-bidi-font-size: 11.0pt;"><span style="font-family: Times, Times New Roman, serif;">This is highly significant given <a href="http://edition.cnn.com/2013/08/28/world/meast/syria-civil-war/index.html?hpt=hp_t2">Obama’s
assertions</a> that the US ‘concludes’ that the Syrian government carried out
the attack as a matter of government policy. Given the terrible record of botched
and distorted intelligence in the run up to the Iraq War (and throughout
‘<span class="GINGER_SOFTWARE_mark" ginger_software_uiphraseguid="8fb30923-32b6-4d99-867e-67c248c112a6" id="8a1156df-996d-4819-9e6e-65c852b60b85">post-War</span>’ history), we ought to be highly <span class="GINGER_SOFTWARE_mark" ginger_software_uiphraseguid="8fb30923-32b6-4d99-867e-67c248c112a6" id="47699e88-f62b-44eb-8b2d-0f7b3c896292">sceptical</span> of government claims of
this kind.<o:p></o:p></span></span></div>
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<span style="font-size: 14.0pt; line-height: 115%; mso-bidi-font-size: 11.0pt;"><span style="font-family: Times, Times New Roman, serif;">Why
Intervention?<o:p></o:p></span></span></div>
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<span style="font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 115%; mso-bidi-font-size: 11.0pt;"><span style="font-family: Times, Times New Roman, serif;">No one should have any illusions that the proposed
intervention has anything to do with humanitarian impulses or the enforcement
of international law. A brief survey of Western policy and history in the
Middle East should put <span class="GINGER_SOFTWARE_mark" ginger_software_uiphraseguid="6a6fe5e0-42a8-4f22-8566-14240a37a8ec" id="71df7843-7599-414e-b57c-1f89e970cc6f">rest</span> to that idea. America <span class="GINGER_SOFTWARE_mark" ginger_software_uiphraseguid="aa425852-cc67-42c7-b2ed-a8c549e64501" id="48087357-15c1-4ded-b0b3-1d20fa341cac">has frequently
disregarded</span> international law itself, often refusing to sign conventions (<a href="http://killerapps.foreignpolicy.com/posts/2013/08/22/us_shipping_thousands_of_cluster_bombs_to_saudi_arabia_despite_international_ban">such
as</a> the Convention on Cluster Munitions) and ignoring international law even
when it has formally agreed to it. Western politicians only speak of the crimes
of the Syrian regime, and <span class="GINGER_SOFTWARE_mark" ginger_software_uiphraseguid="c30cf047-b412-47aa-8680-02f3bf0d2c88" id="72596bf9-14de-4914-945e-3ef3b76f2fda">rarely if</span> ever about the alleged atrocities carried
out by factions of the rebel forces- for <span class="GINGER_SOFTWARE_mark" ginger_software_uiphraseguid="c30cf047-b412-47aa-8680-02f3bf0d2c88" id="1f3982e2-79a6-42ee-857d-e88aa652c5d0">instance it</span> has been reported <a href="http://www.presstv.ir/detail/2013/08/24/320315/syria-militants-massacre-people-in-lattakia/">in
some foreign media</a> that a massacre of hundreds of civilians was carried out
at Lattakia by rebel Islamists. Little interest has been shown in these allegations. <o:p></o:p></span></span></div>
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<span style="font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 115%; mso-bidi-font-size: 11.0pt;"><span style="font-family: Times, Times New Roman, serif;">Selective empathy should come as no surprise to students of
international affairs, and the reasons underlying the distinction between
‘worthy’ and ‘unworthy’ victims are <span class="GINGER_SOFTWARE_mark" ginger_software_uiphraseguid="a59e60dd-3b2a-4450-91aa-191dbfea9422" id="b5918891-9984-4f40-8fae-4c43e7a1be40">rarely</span> hard to find. In this case the
Syrian government is considered ‘bad’ because it is Iran’s only major ally in
the region, and there is a cold war being waged in the Middle East between two
poles: Saudi Arabia, the Sunni states and the West on one side, and Iran,
Hezbollah, and Syria (and perhaps Russia) on the other. The US, UK and France
have been hand in hand with Saudi Arabia, Turkey, Jordan, and to a lesser
extent Kuwait and Qatar in their attempts to arm and fund the rebels. The CIA
has long been involved in <a href="http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-middle-east-22285555">training <span class="GINGER_SOFTWARE_mark" ginger_software_uiphraseguid="c1ee1352-3cd9-4843-a52a-dfba39a9c473" id="26f255f8-29ba-466b-aae8-70ff21117a36">favoured</span>
rebel forces</a> at bases in Jordan, as well as helping <span class="GINGER_SOFTWARE_mark" ginger_software_uiphraseguid="c1ee1352-3cd9-4843-a52a-dfba39a9c473" id="aba03e00-7608-4260-856a-74eeab5900fd">organising</span> the <a href="http://www.nytimes.com/2013/03/25/world/middleeast/arms-airlift-to-syrian-rebels-expands-with-cia-aid.html?pagewanted=all&_r=4&">flow
of weapons</a> across the Turkish-Syrian border. They all hope to weaken and
isolate Iran by knocking out its major ally; they would then enjoy the patronage
of rebel forces who would partly owe their victory to Gulf and Western backers. That
totalitarian <span class="GINGER_SOFTWARE_mark" ginger_software_uiphraseguid="b6ff7032-e464-4703-8161-45d9466bc311" id="eb58a513-7b12-4e3b-87d3-ee08af83bc37">states</span> like Saudi Arabia are joining the US in backing the rebels
should tell you something about the motives underlying the support given: it
has nothing to do with democracy and freedom, but everything to do with power
and interests, as is always the case with Great Power politics. [1] <o:p></o:p></span></span></div>
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<span style="font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 115%; mso-bidi-font-size: 11.0pt;"><span style="font-family: Times, Times New Roman, serif;">The Syrian story has got weirder and weirder as time has gone
by- <a href="http://www.al-monitor.com/pulse/politics/2013/08/saudi-russia-putin-bandar-meeting-syria-egypt.html#ixzz2d5UVLSNv-">this
article</a> from <i>Al Monitor</i> purported
to record a ‘diplomatic report’ from the Kremlin on a secret meeting between
Russia’s Putin and Saudi Arabia’s head of intelligence, the slimy Prince Bandar
(who used to be the Saudis' ambassador to the US). This is how <i>The Independent</i> described Bandar: <o:p></o:p></span></span></div>
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<span style="font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 115%; mso-bidi-font-size: 11.0pt;"><span style="font-family: Times, Times New Roman, serif;">‘<i>His most recent
travels, rarely advertised, have taken him to both London and Paris for
discussions with senior officials. As ambassador, Prince Bandar left an imprint
that still has not quite faded. His voice was one of the loudest urging the
United States to invade Iraq in 2003. In the 1980s, Prince Bandar became mired
in the Iran-Contra scandal in Nicaragua. Months of applying pressure on the
White House and Congress over Syria have slowly born fruit. The CIA is believed
to have been working with Prince Bandar directly since last year in training
rebels at base in Jordan close to the Syrian border’</i><o:p></o:p></span></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Times, Times New Roman, serif;"><i><span style="font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 115%; mso-bidi-font-size: 11.0pt;">Al Monitor</span></i><span style="font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 115%; mso-bidi-font-size: 11.0pt;">’s article,
which was <a href="http://www.telegraph.co.uk/finance/newsbysector/energy/oilandgas/10266957/Saudis-offer-Russia-secret-oil-deal-if-it-drops-Syria.html">reported
and expanded</a> on in <i>The Telegraph</i>,
claims that Bandar gave a thinly veiled threat to Putin that if he didn’t
withdraw his support for Assad then Chechen Islamic terrorists would attack the
2014 Winter Olympics. He allegedly said to Putin that ‘I can give you a
guarantee to protect the Winter Olympics in the city of Sochi on the Black Sea
next year. The Chechen groups that threaten the security of the games are
controlled by us, and they will not move in the Syrian territory’s direction
without coordinating with us. These groups do not scare us. We use them in the
face of the Syrian regime but they will have no role or influence in Syria’s
political future’. I couldn’t believe what I was reading when I came across this-
if true it’s an open admission from a senior Saudi official that they have a
hand in Chechen terrorism, use Islamic terrorists against Assad’s regime in
Syria, plan to abandon them if they win and most significantly an open threat
to attack Russia if Putin refuses to comply. This was first reported in the
Russian press, and then the Lebanese-based <i>Al
Monitor</i>. Bandar went on to offer a grand deal which included ‘an alliance
between the OPEC cartel and Russia, which together produce over 40m barrels a
day of oil, 45pc of global output. Such a move would alter the strategic
landscape’ according to <i>The Telegraph</i>.
This is like something out of the 16<sup>th</sup> century; indeed the Saudi
state does in many ways operate as if it were still in medieval times. <o:p></o:p></span></span></div>
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<span style="font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 115%; mso-bidi-font-size: 11.0pt;"><span style="font-family: Times, Times New Roman, serif;">Putin was reportedly outraged at the threats and refused to
back down from supporting Syria. Interestingly, <i>The Telegraph </i>claims that Bandar was ‘purporting to speak with the
full backing of the US’. <i>The EU Times</i>
then <a href="http://www.eutimes.net/2013/08/putin-orders-massive-strike-against-saudi-arabia-if-west-attacks-syria/">had
an article</a> about how Putin ‘Orders
Massive Strike Against Saudi Arabia If West Attacks Syria’, but the online
‘newspaper’ has little credibility and the article fails to give substantial
sources for its claims. Thankfully, this final part of the Putin-Bandar story seems to be a highly unlikely dramatization. <o:p></o:p></span></span></div>
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<span style="font-size: 14.0pt; line-height: 115%; mso-bidi-font-size: 11.0pt; mso-bidi-font-weight: bold;"><span style="font-family: Times, Times New Roman, serif;">The Consequences<b><o:p></o:p></b></span></span></div>
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<span style="font-size: 14.0pt; line-height: 115%; mso-bidi-font-size: 11.0pt; mso-bidi-font-weight: bold;"><span style="font-family: Times, Times New Roman, serif;"><br /></span></span></div>
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<span style="font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 115%; mso-bidi-font-size: 11.0pt;"><span style="font-family: Times, Times New Roman, serif;">The repercussions of a strike by the West on Syria are
impossible to predict accurately, but some inferences can be made. The
International Committee of the Red Cross <a href="http://www.reuters.com/article/2013/08/29/us-syria-crisis-redcross-idUSBRE97S0MY20130829">has
claimed</a> that ‘further escalation will likely trigger more displacement and
add to humanitarian needs, which are already immense’, a sentiment echoed by
Christian Aid, which warned of ‘catastrophic effects’ if an attack is
undertaken. Highly respected Middle East journalist Robert Fisk <a href="http://www.independent.co.uk/voices/comment/we-should-have-been-traumatised-into-action-by-this-war-in-2011and-2012but-now-8789506.html">has
said</a> that an attack would be ‘the stupidest Western war in the history of
the modern world’, and <a href="http://www.independent.co.uk/voices/comment/does-obama-know-hes-fighting-on-alqaidas-side-8786680.html">warned
that</a> the US/UK would be on the same side as Al-Qaeda and Al-Qaeda-linked
forces, such as Jabhat Al-Nusra, reminding one of the CIA programmes in Pakistan and Afghanistan in the 80s. In Israel gas masks <a href="http://www.jpost.com/Defense/As-Syria-strike-looms-Israeli-gas-mask-centers-get-extended-opening-hours-324623">are
being horded</a> as fears of a retaliatory strike by Iran or Syria grow. If a
strike goes ahead, the potential for a diplomatic solution will be severely
weakened; already the US has <a href="http://www.cbsnews.com/8301-202_162-57600192/source-u.s-postpones-meeting-with-russia-about-syria/">unilaterally
cancelled</a> a meeting with Russia that was to set out plans for a grand
conference to help end the Syrian crisis. Diplomacy is considered by most sane
observers, <a href="http://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2013/aug/28/chemical-weapons-west-global-policeman">such
as</a> former chief UN Weapons Inspector Hans Blix, to be the only hope for an
end to the violence. <o:p></o:p></span></span></div>
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<span style="font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 115%; mso-bidi-font-size: 11.0pt;"><span style="font-family: Times, Times New Roman, serif;">Furthermore public opinion is largely against ‘intervention’,
<a href="http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2013/08/25/reuters-ipsos-syria-poll_n_3812792.html">with
about 60%</a> in the US opposed. <a href="http://yougov.co.uk/news/2013/08/25/send-medicine-syria-not-guns-or-soldiers/">A
YouGov poll found</a> that ‘77% of the British public support sending “food,
medicine and other humanitarian supplies” to Syria. However, only 9% support
sending British troops, while 74% oppose the action. Support is equally minor
(10%) for sending full-scale military supplies or even small arms (16%) to the
Anti-Assad troops’. One must further factor in the history of the West in Syria
before we seek to appoint ourselves as global policemen. France is a former
colonial master in Syria, and as <a href="http://nationalinterest.org/commentary/washingtons-long-history-syria-8717">this
excellent article</a> in <i>The National Interest </i>detailed, the US has a long record of overthrowing governments and
imposing dictators in Syria. The article noted how a US government report even
found that there is a ‘consensus narrative’ among the Syrian population that
‘foreign conspiracies’ had sought to control Syria in the past and that these
were ‘associated with the United States’. We should bear these facts in mind
when discussing what to do with Syria today- the West has the collective memory
span of a fish, but in regions like the Middle East history holds great
significance. <o:p></o:p></span></span></div>
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<span style="font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 115%; mso-bidi-font-size: 11.0pt;"><span style="font-family: Times, Times New Roman, serif;">Thankfully momentum towards a strike seems to be slowing (as I write this parliament has voted against military action- a stunning, unexpected and happy result),
although I fear that Obama is now too committed to back down. Ed Miliband has
done one of the only decent things of his career so far in <a href="http://www.independent.co.uk/news/uk/politics/war-of-words-overshadows-mps-attempt-to-find-measured-response-over-syria-8788612.html">breaking
the usual cross-party consensus</a> on foreign policy and refusing to
unconditionally back Cameron. He has called upon Cameron to wait for the
results of the UN probe into whether chemical weapons were used, and to
strictly abide by international law, very sensible proposals. The reaction from
Downing Street has been one of outrage- how on earth could Labour be so
reckless and oppose more endless violence and war from Britain?! A government
source <a href="http://www.independent.co.uk/news/uk/politics/government-sources-say-ed-miliband-is-a-copperbottomed-s-who-changed-his-mind-on-syria-8789496.html">was
quoted</a> as calling Miliband a ‘fucking cunt’ over his decision. This
reaction is unsurprising: Labour and the Conservatives usually fight it out over
the most minute of policy differences, but if Labour dares to finally offer a
break from the two-party consensus on fundamentals then he can expect to feel
the wrath of Downing Street. Parliament, it seems, has just voted against military action, and credit needs to go to Miliband for this remarkable result.<o:p></o:p></span></span></div>
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<span style="font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 115%; mso-bidi-font-size: 11.0pt;"><span style="font-family: Times, Times New Roman, serif;">International opinion also appears largely opposed, as one
would expect. <a href="http://www.independent.co.uk/news/world/middle-east/syria-civil-war-pope-and-jordans-king-abdullah-say-dialogue-the-only-option-8789871.html">The
Pope</a>, <a href="http://www.news24.com/SouthAfrica/News/Tutu-Syria-Egypt-need-new-intervention-20130828">Desmond
Tutu</a>, and Egypt have come out strongly against intervention. Even the Western-backed Jordanian state has <a href="http://www.independent.co.uk/news/uk/politics/syria-crisis-britain-to-seek-un-security-council-approval-for-draft-resolution-authorising-use-of-all-necessary-measures-8787236.html">refused
to allow the</a> US and UK to use Jordan as a launching pad for a strike, no
doubt fearing the contempt it will receive from Arab public opinion and its own
population, and perhaps even fearing that it could become the target of
retaliatory terrorist attacks. <a href="http://www.irishtimes.com/news/world/middle-east/arab-league-refuses-to-back-military-strike-on-syria-1.1508030">The
Arab League</a> has refused to back an attack, despite being
comprised mainly of Western-backed governments. <o:p></o:p></span></span></div>
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<span style="font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 115%; mso-bidi-font-size: 11.0pt;"><span style="font-family: Times, Times New Roman, serif;">A protest has been called in London <a href="https://www.facebook.com/events/215085785319747/">this Saturday by Stop
the War Coalition</a> to demonstrate against British involvement in Syria.Given that seconds before I posted this the UK backed out of intervention, it may not be needed, fortunately. Less happily, the US and France could still go for a strike. The last thing we need is another imperialist-driven war in the
Middle East led by the US, particularly in a conflict so complex; the
consequences are difficult to predict but it’s not impossible that this could
flare up into a much wider regional or global confrontation with Russia and the
US facing off. We haven't won this one yet.</span><o:p></o:p></span><br />
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Some have suggested that actual Western policy on Syria is a ‘realist’ strategy
to balance the forces within Syria and let them bleed each other to death-
engage US enemies like Iran and Hezbollah in a protracted battle that saps
their energy and resources whilst not giving enough support to the rebels to
allow them to overthrow Assad, since that could lead to an even more
anti-Western government. This has been suggested by Robert Fisk, Stephen Walt,
Noam Chomsky, Daniel Drezner and Alan Berger, amongst others. It may have some
merit to it, but space precludes the possibility of discussing it here.<o:p></o:p></div>
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Anonymoushttp://www.blogger.com/profile/03761537507654123124noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3557544622111744039.post-37186553823074692302013-08-21T10:06:00.000-07:002013-08-24T14:02:56.457-07:00The War on Whistleblowers (and the population)<div class="MsoNormal">
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<span style="font-family: Times, Times New Roman, serif; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 115%; mso-bidi-font-size: 11.0pt;">Today, a little foray into more domestic issues. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Times, Times New Roman, serif; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 115%; mso-bidi-font-size: 11.0pt;">The US and UK (in particular) are making very little effort
to cover up the fact that they are running a thuggish campaign to intimidate,
imprison, chase and even torture those who are motivated by conscience to
reveal government actions and wrongdoing. It’s reaching levels only seen in
authoritarian states, and observers with their eyes open (a tiny minority) are
starting to say as much. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Times, Times New Roman, serif; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 115%; mso-bidi-font-size: 11.0pt;">Barack Obama, the ‘liberal’ president, has prosecuted more whistleblowers
under the obscure 1917 Espionage Act than all other post-war presidents
combined. Bradley Manning, who leaked the <a href="http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5rXPrfnU3G0">‘Collateral Murder’</a> video
showing war crimes by a US gunship, and thousands of diplomatic documents which
have provided a treasure trove of information for journalists and activists for
the past couple of years, was today sentenced by a military court to 35 years
for his leaks. He’s already been held for around 3 years, spending 11 months in
conditions which the UN said <a href="http://www.theguardian.com/world/2012/mar/12/bradley-manning-cruel-inhuman-treatment-un">amounted
effectively to torture</a>. Amnesty International has already <a href="http://www.amnesty.org.uk/news_details.asp?NewsID=20930&utm_source=Social&utm_medium=Twitter&utm_campaign=SWHR&utm_content=manning">called
on Obama</a> to commute the sentence. In the 70s Richard Nixon pardoned William
Calley, one of the participants in the My Lai massacre during the Vietnam War, after
he had served a tiny amount of his sentence. One highly doubts that Manning
will get the same merciful treatment from the Nobel Peace Prize-winning
president. So this is American justice: reveal the crimes of your government
and army, receive 35 years. Massacre for your flag, and get let off by the
President. One probably shouldn’t be surprised by the Nixon pardon though;
after all, Nixon was himself one of the great mass murderers of the post-war
era.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Times, Times New Roman, serif; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 115%; mso-bidi-font-size: 11.0pt;">It’s not just Manning who has suffered under Obama- <a href="http://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2013/aug/06/obama-abuse-espionage-act-mccarthyism">John
Kiriakou</a> was put in prison for revealing that the CIA had been involved in
the use of water-boarding. Again; reveal the severe international crimes of a
previous administration, and the next government will come for you. <a href="http://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2013/jun/12/snowden-surveillance-subverting-constitution">Thomas
Drake</a>, who tried to reveal the extent of NSA spying operations before
Edward Snowden came on the scene, was also charged under the act. The list goes
on. Now the Obama administration is after Snowden for publicising the
horrendous mass spying that the NSA and GCHQ have been carrying out on millions
of people all over the world, not just in their own countries. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Times, Times New Roman, serif;"><span style="font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 115%; mso-bidi-font-size: 11.0pt; mso-bidi-font-weight: bold;">And it’s not only the US-
terrifying claims by <a href="http://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2013/aug/19/david-miranda-schedule7-danger-reporters">the
editor-in-chief</a> of <i>the Guardian </i>were made yesterday. The newspaper was the main publication to carry the NSA/GCHQ
revelations, excellent journalist Glenn Greenwald having received the documents
from Snowden. Coming shortly after Greenwald’s partner was detained at Heathrow
for 9 hours, given no legal rights, and having all his electronic equipment
stolen from him by ‘security’, Alan Rusbridger, the editor of the newspaper,
revealed that he was ‘co</span><span style="font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 115%; mso-bidi-font-size: 11.0pt;">ntacted by a very senior government official claiming
to represent the views of the prime minister. There followed two meetings in
which he demanded the return or destruction of all the material we were working
on. The tone was steely, if cordial, but there was an implicit threat that
others within government and Whitehall favoured a far more draconian
approach’. He was told that “You've had your debate. There's no need to write
any more”, and then was <a href="http://news.yahoo.com/guardian-says-britain-forced-destroy-snowden-material-000627266.html">made
to destroy</a> the hard drives containing the Snowden documents whilst the
government’s thugs from GCHQ watched. It has <a href="http://www.reuters.com/article/2013/08/21/us-usa-security-snowden-britain-idUSBRE97K0G920130821">since
been claimed</a> that this order came from David Cameron himself, and that the
US was <a href="http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-23761918">given prior notice</a>
that David Miranda, Greenwald’s partner, would be detained at Heathrow.<o:p></o:p></span></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Times, Times New Roman, serif; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 115%; mso-bidi-font-size: 11.0pt;">So in a couple of days the true face of the British state has
revealed itself- one willing to try to enforce censorship on a newspaper
seeking to release information detailing mass spying on citizens of Britain and
the world, and willing to detain a journalist under section 7 of an ‘anti-terrorism’
law and steal all his belongings. Journalists are now apparently terrorist
suspects. The whole story of the NSA/GCHQ leaks would be almost laughable if it
weren’t true. A while ago the President
of Bolivia, Evo Morales, had his plane pulled down over Europe because it was
suspected that Snowden was on board, despite huge objections from Latin
America. John Pilger rightly described this as an <a href="http://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2013/jul/04/forcing-down-morales-plane-air-piracy">act
of ‘air piracy’</a>; can you imagine the reaction if Bolivia hauled down
President Obama’s plane because it was thought that Obama was shielding someone
fleeing persecution? The US would probably go to war with Bolivia if it did
that- or else instigate a murky CIA coup. The imperial arrogance of Europe and
the US is astonishing.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Times, Times New Roman, serif; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 115%; mso-bidi-font-size: 11.0pt;">Jacob Heilbrunn in the conservative <i>National Interest</i> got it about right <a href="http://nationalinterest.org/blog/jacob-heilbrunn/britains-shameful-detention-greenwalds-partner-8911">when
he said</a> that the detention of Miranda signified the day that ‘the UK took a
fateful step toward a meddling government that tells its subjects what they may
read and say’. Juan Cole, respected blogger and former editor of academic
foreign affairs journals, <a href="http://www.juancole.com/2013/08/greenwald-terrorist-dictatorship.html">claimed
that</a> we are moving towards a ‘STASI authoritarian state’. This isn’t merely
unhelpful hyperbole. We are seeing the logical conclusion of the absurd
policies of an elite that is at war with the whole world, including its own
citizens. David Miranda is now considered a terrorist suspect- and one shouldn’t
be too surprised, since the label ‘terrorist’ is generally used for people who
are opposed to the government. The aim of this ultra-rich, ultra-powerful elite
is to keep ‘the herd’ quiet, subdued, passive, and in the dark, whilst those
who know best can go about running the world, as is their natural right. We
need to realise who our real enemies are. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Times, Times New Roman, serif;">Update: The Huffington Post summed up the Manning sentence perfectly- 'The only person going to prison for US war crimes is the guy who revealed them'</span></div>
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Anonymoushttp://www.blogger.com/profile/03761537507654123124noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3557544622111744039.post-23670416248391847202013-08-09T07:46:00.000-07:002013-08-22T03:50:59.473-07:00The US Against the People of Egypt <div class="MsoNormal">
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<i>“We have about 50% of
the world’s wealth but only 6.3% of its population… In this situation, we cannot
help but be the object of envy and resentment. Our real task in the coming
period is to devise a pattern of relationships which will permit us to maintain
this position of disparity”.<o:p></o:p></i></div>
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George Kennan, 1948<a href="file:///C:/Users/Connor/Documents/Warwick%20Work/Non-%20work%20related/Blog/Middle%20East/Eygpt/Egypt%20and%20the%20US%20the%20sequel.docx#_ftn1" name="_ftnref1" title=""><span class="MsoFootnoteReference"><!--[if !supportFootnotes]--><span class="MsoFootnoteReference"><span style="font-family: "Calibri","sans-serif"; font-size: 11.0pt; line-height: 115%; mso-ansi-language: EN-GB; mso-ascii-theme-font: minor-latin; mso-bidi-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-bidi-language: AR-SA; mso-bidi-theme-font: minor-bidi; mso-fareast-font-family: Calibri; mso-fareast-language: EN-US; mso-fareast-theme-font: minor-latin; mso-hansi-theme-font: minor-latin;">[1]</span></span><!--[endif]--></span></a><o:p></o:p></div>
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I’ve just finished reading <i>The Road to Tahrir Square </i>by historian Lloyd Gardner, a decent
account of US-Egyptian relations from around 1945 to the overthrow of Mubarak.
It has helped me understand more clearly the current situation in Egypt, and
has the odd fascinating piece of information about Middle Eastern relations in
general. For Gardner, ‘there is a strong historical thread stretching from the
agreements reached between the CIA and Nasser on Iraq in 1963 to the final days
of Mubarak’s regime in early 2011’ (p.95). <o:p></o:p></div>
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To many, it is hard to contextualise the events of 2011 and
see them relative to the historical ties between the US and Egypt. The US has
invested around $50 billion in military and economic aid in Egypt over the past
few decades, and this has given it no small say in Egyptian politics. During
the 2011 crisis, ‘Secretary of Defence Robert Gates and Admiral Mike Mullen had
made phone calls to their counterparts almost every day’ (p.195). The Pentagon
spokesman claimed that this was ‘just an example of how engaged we are with the
Egyptians’. Gardner notes how <i>the
Guardian </i>reported days before Mubarak’s downfall that the Obama
administration ‘had refused to cut military aid to Egypt “and is instead
working behind the scenes with the commanders of the armed forces on how to
oust President Mubarak”’ (p.189). Indeed, as Kees Van der Pijl pointed out, the
takeover of the Supreme Military Council was an outcome ‘announced to Congress
by Leon Panetta, then head of the CIA, on February 10, the day before it
happened’ (‘Arab Revolts and Nation-State Crisis’, <i>New Left Review</i> (70), p.27), something also commented on by
Gardner. Earlier both Obama and <a href="http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JeAaj5JepbI">Biden</a> had refused to call
Mubarak a dictator, or even authoritarian; despite, as an interviewer pointed
out, the fact that 1000’s of people were tortured and imprisoned under Mubarak
and his feared intelligence chief, Omar Suleiman. Obama even <a href="http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tmLX37f4ZgQ">managed to duck the question</a>
with the astonishing claim that he tends ‘not to use labels for folks’. Indeed,
for Obama, Mubarak was a ‘stalwart ally ... a force for stability and good’, a <a href="http://www.theweek.co.uk/people-news/8129/egypt-mubarak-%E2%80%98-force-good%E2%80%99-says-blair">sentiment
echoed</a> by the laughably pathetic Tony Blair.<o:p></o:p></div>
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As Tariq Ali pointed out, Washington tried desperately to
maintain their influence in Egypt, clinging on to Mubarak until it was clear
the pressure was too great and that the whole edifice upon which US influence
had been devised in Egypt was being threatened. When they finally abandoned
Mubarak, Obama was largely lauded by
liberal commentators as having been on the side of the people all along;
another example of the standard ‘liberal’ contempt for facts. The brutal Omar
Suleiman was even ‘at one stage touted as Mubarak’s successor’ (‘Between Past
and Future’ <i>New Left Review</i> (80),
p.63), before the decision was made that all the hated figureheads needed to be
changed, and the army was considered reliable enough by Washington and popular
enough with the people to be the ones to take over. </div>
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David Wearing, a SOAS researcher and up-and-coming writer, <a href="http://www.newleftproject.org/index.php/site/article_comments/america_versus_democracy_in_egypt">wrote
an excellent summary and review</a> of <i>Democracy Prevention: The Politics of the
US-Egyptian Alliance</i> by
Jason Brownlee in February; Brownlee generally argues the same thing. Wearing
quotes a passage to sum it up perfectly: ‘Official US-Egyptian relations have
been at odds with domestic public opinion in Egypt. Rather than fostering
democracy in an incremental fashion, US and Egyptian officials have promoted an
autocratic security state that supports a US-led regional order built around
Israeli security and US influence over the Persian Gulf. By contrast, public
opinion in Egypt favours a regional security order less dominated by the United
States and Israel, and a government that respects political competition and
civil liberties’. Gardner compares the way the US provided for Sadat’s own
personal security with the way they helped train and create the brutal secret
police in Iran under the Shah. This is of course unremarkable to anyone with
even a passing knowledge of US foreign policy, but it may seem odd to those accustomed
to the standard line in the media and academia- that the US, whilst it may make
the odd mistake, is fundamentally committed to democracy promotion around the
world. This is no more true than the idea that the Soviet Union was fighting
for the poor and oppressed around the world, or that the Roman Empire had any
interest in the wellbeing of its conquered subjects (or the British Empire for
that matter). Every power in history has been concerned with its own interests,
whilst claiming to follow a higher moral cause, and the US is unremarkable in
this respect. Its rhetoric about promoting democracy in Egypt should be
disregarded; the quote from George Kennan at the start of the article is a far
more honest and accurate portrayal of US policy, from the pen of a man who did
so much to shape its direction after World War 2. <o:p></o:p></div>
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As Brownlee points
out, US policy is heavily at odds with Egyptian public opinion. Gardner cites a
Gallup poll which revealed an ‘“overwhelming tsunami of negative opinions” about
the United States’; more than half opposed <i>any</i>
US aid to Egypt, and three-quarters ‘opposed any aid to specific political
groups’ (p.201). He quotes Gallup’s chief analyst of the poll, who believed
that the reason was simply because US aid was perceived as only serving to ‘perpetuate
the condition of the Mubarak years’ (p.202). The recent uprisings had far more
of an anti-US government flavour to them than the 2011 uprisings- it seems the
Egyptian people offered the US a chance to redeem themselves and have now tired
of extending the olive branch. Perhaps there is a recognition that the US isn’t,
and never will be, on their side. <o:p></o:p></div>
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Anti-US government
feeling across the region is quite easily explained for those who are genuinely
interested, and don’t just want to have an <a href="http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5ybqpz-Z2dU">idiotic rant</a> about why
the Muslims ‘hate us because they hate us’. A review article in <i>Foreign Affairs </i>a couple of months ago
detailed a study by Amaney Jamal who found that so-called ‘anti-Americanism’
was the result of a ‘deeper rejection of undemocratic political systems in Arab
countries, which for decades have been underwritten and supported by the United
States’; not to mention more immediate grievances like the CIA and Pentagon’s
global assassination, torture and kidnapping campaigns, and the mass crime
which was the Iraq War (‘The Persistence of Arab Anti-Americanism’, Mark Lynch,
<i>Foreign Affairs</i>, 92(3), p.147).<o:p></o:p></div>
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Most interesting is
Gardner’s claim that the crisis in Egypt has ‘portended far greater long-term
dangers’ for the US government than the debacles in Iraq or Afghanistan,
something he quotes Henry Kissinger (the most powerful National Security
Advisor in US history and former Secretary of State for Gerald Ford) as
agreeing with (p.204). Egypt has been described by US officials as a ‘cornerstone’
of US policy in the Middle East, and that certainly has a lot of truth to it;
today it is second possibly only to Saudi Arabia as a US Arab ally in the
region. The latest upheavals could turn
out to favour or harm the US; it’s too early to tell.<o:p></o:p></div>
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I will continue to write about Egypt in the
weeks to come. <o:p></o:p></div>
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<a href="file:///C:/Users/Connor/Documents/Warwick%20Work/Non-%20work%20related/Blog/Middle%20East/Eygpt/Egypt%20and%20the%20US%20the%20sequel.docx#_ftnref1" name="_ftn1" title=""><span class="MsoFootnoteReference"><!--[if !supportFootnotes]--><span class="MsoFootnoteReference"><span style="font-family: "Calibri","sans-serif"; font-size: 10.0pt; line-height: 115%; mso-ansi-language: EN-GB; mso-ascii-theme-font: minor-latin; mso-bidi-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-bidi-language: AR-SA; mso-bidi-theme-font: minor-bidi; mso-fareast-font-family: Calibri; mso-fareast-language: EN-US; mso-fareast-theme-font: minor-latin; mso-hansi-theme-font: minor-latin;">[1]</span></span><!--[endif]--></span></a>
Quoted in <i>The Road to Tahrir Square</i>
by Lloyd Gardner. George Kennan was one of the major US government planners in
the Post-War period. <o:p></o:p></div>
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Anonymoushttp://www.blogger.com/profile/03761537507654123124noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3557544622111744039.post-59509320414291814402013-07-10T10:42:00.001-07:002013-08-22T03:11:41.896-07:00Egypt: June 30th<div class="MsoNormal">
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I’ve spent a reasonable amount of time in the last week
trying to figure out just what has happened and is happening in Egypt. The
events since June 30th have been fascinating and incredible; the 4 days of
protests to push out former President Mohamed Morsi are claimed to have been
the largest in human history- <a href="http://www.economist.com/news/briefing/21580533-egyptian-army-widespread-popular-support-has-ended-presidency-muhammad-morsi">at
least 10 million people</a> took to the streets (maybe over 14 million) in a
country of 84 million. By contrast Britain’s biggest ever demonstration was in
2003 against the Iraq War, garnering around 1 million people. The uprising was
even greater than that which ousted long-time dictator Hosni Mubarak in 2011.
The events have so many dimensions, and examining differing elements in the
mix- Western media coverage, the role of the US, the power struggle in Egypt,
the causes of the uprisings- provides a microcosm of everything that makes
international politics so interesting. <o:p></o:p></div>
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Informal spokesmen for the military had said in recent
months that they would intervene in civilian politics if the ‘majority’ willed
it- and a petition started by the ‘Tamarod’, or ‘Rebel’ movement claimed to
have gathered around 23 million signatures on a petition calling for Morsi to
step down. Morsi’s approval rating was down to <a href="http://www.aaiusa.org/page/-/Polls/EgyptianAttitudesTowardMB_%20June2013.pdf">around
28%</a>. The huge pressure on Morsi and his Freedom and Justice Party, the
political wing of the Muslim Brotherhood, culminated in the Egyptian Armed
Forces deploying troops and tanks to the streets of Cairo and arresting Morsi
and <a href="http://www.independent.co.uk/news/world/africa/egypt-coup-muslim-brotherhood-calls-for-protests-as-military-arrests-leader-mohammed-badie-8687274.html">several
other Muslim Brotherhood leaders</a>, even those which dealt with non-political
elements of the organisation like the Supreme Guide Mohammed Badie. This
decision was taken after consultation with leaders of several opposition
organisations (like the Salafist Al Nour party and the National Democratic
Front) and representatives of Egypt’s differing social groups (like the Coptic
Christian’s Pope) and an interim civilian government was appointed, led by <span lang="EN">Adly Mansour, recently appointed head of
the Supreme Constitutional Court. However no one should have any doubt that the
real power currently lies with Abdul Fatah al-Sisi, or General Sisi as he is
generally known, the Supreme Commander of the army, and of the Supreme Council
of the Armed Forces, or SCAF, which ruled the country during the transition
from Mubarak to Morsi. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span lang="EN">The military’s
actions were met mainly with jubilation of the streets of Cairo; the scenes
broadcast live on Al Jazeera from the mass crowds in Tahrir Square were
incredible. There was some dissent: </span><a href="http://english.ahram.org.eg/NewsContent/1/64/75437/Egypt/Politics-/Egypt-revolutionary-forces-Army-should-stay-out-of.aspx"><span lang="EN">according to Ahram Online</span></a><span lang="EN"> members of the ‘</span>6 April Youth
Movement , the Revolutionary Socialists, the Egyptian Popular Current and the
Strong Egypt Party issued a statement last week in which they declared their
refusal of both Muslim Brotherhood rule and military rule’. But the military
still commands huge public approval- <a href="http://www.foreignpolicy.com/articles/2013/07/02/the_man_on_horseback_egypt_military">one
poll puts it at 94%,</a> the highest of any institution in Egypt. <a href="http://www.economist.com/blogs/pomegranate/2013/07/egypts-coup?fsrc=scn%2Ffb%2Fwl%2Fbl%2Fdifferenceayearmakes">As
<i>The Economist</i> pointed out</a>, ‘one
might have expected Egyptians to be especially wary of military intervention.
The period of army rule between the fall of Mr Mubarak and Mr Morsi’s election
was marked by hamfisted management, maladroit politics and vicious human-rights
abuses. Before that, Egypt had suffered six decades of increasingly corrupt,
army-dominated government behind a façade of civilian presidents, all of whom
had previously been army officers’. ‘Virginity tests’ on female detainees,
thousands of civilians tried in military courts, their closeness to the US and
hugely entrenched role in civilian politics and the economy should, it seemed,
have rung some alarm bells. The reaction around the world has generally been
negative- the African Union has <a href="http://www.aljazeera.com/news/africa/2013/07/201375113557928109.html">suspended
Egypt’s membership</a>, Tunisia <a href="http://www.egyptindependent.com/news/tunisian-rulers-bemoan-egypt-s-coup-against-legitimacy">has
slammed the Army’s action</a>, as has the governments of <a href="http://www.egyptindependent.com/news/quotes-world-reacts-overthrow-morsy">Turkey
and Germany</a>, to name a few. It’s not difficult to see why a country like
Turkey would be highly suspicious of military intervention in civilian affairs,
given its long record of military coups. But many liberal commentators in the
West have also joined the chorus of condemnation of this ‘military coup’- Rupert
Cornwell <a href="http://www.independent.co.uk/voices/comment/democracy-is-saying-goodbye-without-the-gunfire-8692530.html">writing
in <i>The Independent</i></a> probably sumed
up the feelings best when he contrasted the ousting of Nixon in the 70’s to the
way Morsi was overthrown. Most good Western liberals believe that the best way
to remove someone you don’t like from power is through the ballot box or a
constitutional process, as Nixon was; the Egyptian people should have waited
patiently another 3 years or so until the next presidential elections came
around, rather than engaging in messy direct action to remove an official.
However if you are one of the 25% of Egyptians living in poverty, or a member
of the liberal middle class seeing a slow stripping of your hard-won freedoms
by the Muslim Brotherhood, then you don’t have 3 years to spare, and there are
no constitutional mechanism for removing a president before their term has
finished in Egypt. The stakes are so much higher than they are in elections in
the West, and so millions felt it was necessary to remove Morsi now, not in the
future. Besides, most of the liberal commentators flocking to defend ‘democracy’
now had nothing to say during the decades of Western-backed dictatorship in
Egypt, so their sincerity is in serious doubt. <o:p></o:p></div>
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The Brotherhood itself echoed the Western commentators by
claiming that Morsi was the ‘legitimate’ government of Egypt, thereby painting
the uprising’s demands as ‘illegitimate’. However this assumes that once a
leader is chosen by the people they are bound to that choice until the term is
up; as political scientist David Beetham has argued, the protests constituted
an act of delegitimisation in themselves. The withdrawal of consent and demand
for Morsi’s removal was in itself removing the legitimacy of the government.
Furthermore, there are questions to be raised about how ‘democratically’ Morsi
was elected. The West usually focuses solely on whether elections are formally
‘free and fair’- that is the absence of voting fraud or physical coercion.
However a richer conception of the democratic process requires a relatively
level playing field upon which candidates can compete. In 2012 the Brotherhood
and the Mubarak-camp candidate, Ahmed Shafiq, had prior organisational capacity
and vastly superior funding to all other candidates and parties. And not only
that, but the Brotherhood was well known for going in to rural areas and
providing social services to effectively bribe the poor to vote for them. In an
interview with the BBC’s Shaima Khalil, the spokesman for the Brotherhood’s
Freedom and Justice Party, Mohamad Zidan, responded to these accusations as
follows: ‘that’s fine then… this is democracy. Let the others provide more
services… then they will win the race. Let them do it, it’s a race’. This is a
stunning admission from a senior FJP figure that the Brotherhood has a strategy
of providing social services in return, effectively, for votes. Other parties
and candidates lack the ability and money to do this (they don’t have wealthy
backers in the Gulf) and so find themselves at a disadvantage. <o:p></o:p></div>
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As to the fact that the military took over; the unfortunate
fact of Egyptian politics is that the Egyptian Armed Forces are still the real
power brokers behind the scenes, and they were the vehicle that the protesters
chose to use to remove the Brotherhood from power. What matters now is how the
army uses their new found power, and how the protests monitor and keep checks
on the army’s power until a new civilian government can fully take over. The
early signs are worrying- what appears to be a relatively <a href="http://www.usatoday.com/story/news/world/2013/07/08/egypt-morsi-muslim-brotherhood/2497755/">unprovoked
massacre</a> of 51 Morsi supporters in Cairo by the army has got events off to
a terrible start. Evidence has emerged suggesting that many were shot <a href="http://www.independent.co.uk/news/world/africa/cairo-massacre-eyewitness-report-at-least-51-dead-and-more-than-440-injured-as-army-hits-back-at-muslim-brotherhood-supporters-8694785.html">as
they were kneeling in prayer</a>, including some children. It would take some
stunning prejudice against the Brotherhood to think that the protesters could
have been violent enough to warrant turning the area into a free-fire zone,
injuring over 440 people. <i>The Guardian</i>
reported that ‘the killings are being reported by state media as a legitimate action by the Egyptian
Armed Forces in defence of the revolution’; words which can’t fail to remind
everyone of the waves of terror that were unleashed ‘in defence of the revolution’
in post-revolutionary France, Russia and China. However, as Sheri Berman wrote
in <i>Foreign Affairs</i> the other month,
these problems <a href="http://www.foreignaffairs.com/articles/138479/sheri-berman/the-promise-of-the-arab-spring">often
stem from the legacy of dictatorship</a>- decades of oppression and divide and
rule tactics means that deeply entrenched fault lines in society start to
emerge, and the ‘deep state’ and old institutions remain more than a residue of
influence upon the political behaviour. It’s not generally the revolution that
causes the issues, but rather removing the hand of oppression freezing society
allows the deeply infested poison of dictatorship to be drawn out, often with
messy results. That said, the army is itself part of the old ‘deep state’, and
so handing them the reins of power willingly is a risky strategy at best.<o:p></o:p></div>
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An interesting quirk of these events is that the urban
revolutionaries have found themselves unwittingly allied with the United States
government in one facet of the debate. Egyptian Streets declared that ‘<i>THIS IS NOT A COUP D'ETAT’</i>, arguing
instead that the army was merely implementing the revolutionary wishes of the
people. The US too, is reluctant to call it a coup, though for entirely
different reasons. As chief foreign affairs columnist for the <i>Financial Times</i>, <a href="http://blogs.ft.com/the-world/2013/07/when-is-a-coup-not-a-coup/">Gideon
Rachman wrote</a>, ‘as soon as the United States declares that the Egyptian
government has been overthrown by a coup, it is legally bound to cut off aid to
Egypt’, something it doesn’t want to do given its close relationship with the
Egyptian military. In Western commentary, one of the few voices cheering on the
coup came from the conservative <i>Wall
Street Journal</i>, <a href="http://online.wsj.com/article/SB10001424127887324399404578583932317286550.html#articleTabs=article">which
came out with this gem</a>: ‘Egyptians would be lucky if their new ruling
generals turn out to be in the mold of Chile's Augusto Pinochet, who took power
amid chaos but hired free-market reformers and midwifed a transition to
democracy’. Wishing the Pinochet treatment on Egyptians is a throwback to the
old Cold War days, when US papers would openly praise neo-Nazi and genocidal
dictators in their columns (example: <i>Time</i>
described the takeover of General Suharto in Indonesia in the 60’s, who took
power in a bloodbath of over 500,000 people, as the West’s ‘best news in
Asia’). It is slightly disconcerting that the Egyptian revolution finds friends
in such quarters. There are also other slightly dubious aspects about certain parts of the opposition, which I will write about in another post. <o:p></o:p></div>
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A question needs to be asked about how everyone in the West
failed to predict this (again). In fact, a close look back at pre-June 30<sup>th</sup>
reporting shows some tentative signs of things to come. Mohamed ElBaradei, the
respected figure-head of the opposition, former UN weapons inspector, and Nobel
Peace laureate, was writing in <i>Foreign
Policy</i> a month ago about how ‘people are now saying something that we never
thought was possible before: that they want the Army to come back to stabilize
the situation… Egypt is teetering on the brink’ (‘Case Study: Egypt’, <i>Foreign Policy</i>, 201). The afore
mentioned Shaima Khalil of the <i>BBC</i>,
who recorded an excellent 5-part documentary series for the <i>BBC World Service</i> covering all major
aspects of Egyptian politics, found many protesters gearing up for a huge
change in the country. Cairo has experienced protests nearly weekly since
Morsi’s takeover, and she found demonstrators holding banners saying things
like ‘the people want a military coup right now’. In the programme, a professor
from the American university in Cairo said that ‘if we continue with this
chaos, either on the economic or the political side, I expect that we are maybe
going to see something of the magnitude of the revolution in the coming year or
two’. The Tamarod movement was in fact already claiming that this was going to
be a second revolution prior to the June 30<sup>th</sup> protests- so close
observers of the country may have had a rough idea of things to come. However
no one can really be blamed for missing it- political events, especially those
as messy as revolutions, are nearly impossible to predict, because there are so
many variables involved; ‘theorising’ in political science does us little good
here. More worryingly, Khalil also reported that she heard two chilling words being uttered with
disconcerting frequency in recent months: ‘Civil War’. <o:p></o:p></div>
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<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhcLkRvVY4H4BARcvZ3Ps9fez-71vpHoV29FRfJg8pVdrlP71z8YdTz8-EYEBINo8uGai2krPorWiw2cc1ONC7hQ0kLOmSxUL9eyQDR8T1pNoByCVRnbW2ubtXgJtpfLfCCN8sD2JJxNDk/s1600/Egypt+Protests.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="426" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhcLkRvVY4H4BARcvZ3Ps9fez-71vpHoV29FRfJg8pVdrlP71z8YdTz8-EYEBINo8uGai2krPorWiw2cc1ONC7hQ0kLOmSxUL9eyQDR8T1pNoByCVRnbW2ubtXgJtpfLfCCN8sD2JJxNDk/s640/Egypt+Protests.jpg" width="640" /></a></div>
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The next post will examine causes of the revolution and
where the future of Egypt lies. <o:p></o:p></div>
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Anonymoushttp://www.blogger.com/profile/03761537507654123124noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3557544622111744039.post-9022131015804068692013-07-02T14:00:00.000-07:002013-08-22T03:52:04.981-07:00Egypt, the Arab Spring, and the US<div class="MsoNormal">
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Establishment international relations analysts in the West
view the justification for their existence in terms of the utility their work
has for decision makers. They often end their articles in academic journals
with policy prescriptions for government officials. This partly helps explain
the wide disparities in coverage and analysis of comparable conflicts and
political events around the world: protests in Turkey are discussed in great detail, those in
Bulgaria ignored; a war where millions die in the Congo is side-lined, but
conflict in Syria has thousands of pages of analysis dedicated to it. This
reflects, in part, the relative strategic priority assigned to different events
and nations by the government of the state the analysts call their home. Most
IR work is carried out in the US, and so they spend their time studying and
coming up with policy prescriptions for areas the US considers to house its
vital strategic interests; the Middle East is far more important to the US than
Central Africa, and so the corresponding volume of academic analysis dedicated
to the two regions reflects the incongruity in importance US planners and policy
makers assign to the two areas. <o:p></o:p></div>
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I write this because recent events betray this fact in its
entirety. Since the June 30<sup>th</sup> protests in Egypt several articles about the situation have already appeared on <i>Foreign Affairs</i>,
the journal published by the Council on Foreign Relations (probably the largest
establishment institution for IR analysis). Having several articles published
on the website of possibly <i>the</i> main
IR journal two days after a political event is notable. It signifies that
analysts believe urgent policy advice is needed for US governmental planners
for the Middle East; it signifies that the US considers Egypt to be a country
of major importance to US interests. <o:p></o:p></div>
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There is ample evidence to suggest that this is the case and
ample reason why it would be. Egypt, the most populous Arab country, is located right
at the heart of the Arab world in an incredibly important geo-political
location. The Suez Canal is the connection between the Mediterranean and the
Red Sea, the sea route between East and West. The Sinai Peninsula connects
Africa to the Arabian Peninsula, and is a historic locus of political strife
involving Israel, Egypt and outside powers. Egypt is known as the ‘heartland of
Arab discontent’, with a tradition of revolution and uprising; Nasser was once
one of the biggest enemies of the West for his anti-imperialism and attempted
moves towards Arab independence. What happens in Egypt effects the rest of the
region, and what happens in the region effects the rest of the world. <o:p></o:p></div>
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It then comes as little surprise that the Egyptian military
receives more military aid from the US- around $1.3 billion a year- than any
other country in the world, bar Israel. US troops are stationed in the Sinai
(more are being <a href="http://www.thenewamerican.com/usnews/foreign-policy/item/15831-obama-sending-u-s-troops-to-egypt">moved
there currently</a>), and close relations between the US and Egyptian
governments have been entrenched since the days of Sadat. <o:p></o:p></div>
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The Arab Spring is a complex phenomenon that has been
subject to many competing interpretations. The situation in Egypt is in many
ways evidence of a true revolution taking place; democratic transformations
don’t happen overnight. Sheri Berman detailed in <i>Foreign Affairs</i> <a href="http://www.foreignaffairs.com/articles/138479/sheri-berman/the-promise-of-the-arab-spring">the
other month</a> how most modern democracies had years long, sometimes
generational struggles to achieve the gains they have today, on occasion even
descending into civil war before coming out the other end (the US is a prime
example). Those upheavals which we uncontroversially describe as ‘revolutions’
today often took years, and smaller events which were at the time described as
revolutions, like those in the 2000s in Eastern Europe and Central Asia, will
probably not be judged as such by history. <o:p></o:p></div>
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The struggle in Egypt has been characterised as taking on
three parts- against the Mubarak government in 2011, against the SCAF (Supreme
Council of the Armed Forces) regime in 2012, and against the new Morsi
government in 2013. But there is another underlying and pervasive struggle against counter-revolutionary forces present which is often missed. As Tariq Ali claimed in <i>New Left Review</i> a couple of months ago, ‘any adequate analysis of
the outcomes of the Arab Spring must reckon with Washington’s tight defence of
its interests in the region’ (‘Between Past and Future’; <i>New Left Review</i>; 2013 (80)) . This isn’t merely leftist dogmatism;
a careful reading of the establishment journals and a close look at US policy
reveals as much. Writing in the same issue as Sheri Berman, Seth Jones of the
conservative RAND Corporation gave a realistic assessment of US policy during
the Arab Spring. According to him, the US and its allies ‘need to protect their
strategic interests in the region- balancing against rogue states such as Iran,
ensuring access to energy resources, and countering violent extremists.
Achieving these goals will require working with some authoritarian governments’
(‘The Mirage of the Arab Spring’; <i>Foreign
Affairs</i>; 2013; 92(1)). This is more or less what the US <i>is</i> doing and <i>should</i> be
doing, according to him. He is honest when he states that ‘a number of authoritarian
Arab countries… are essential partners in protecting [US] interests’. However
the key piece of analysis comes at the end of the article, where he states that
the reality is ‘that some democratic governments in the Arab world would almost
certainly be more hostile to the United States than their authoritarian
predecessors, because they would be more responsive to the populations of their
own countries’, which he goes on to show are highly unsupportive of the US role
in the region (i.e. in 2012 19% of Egyptians had a favourable view of the US,
according to a Pew Research poll).</div>
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<o:p></o:p>Jones inadvertently hit the nail on the head. He recognises that democracy is actually one of the biggest threats the US faces in the Arab world, something to be combated at all costs, at least for as long as the US defines its interests in a way counter to the wishes of the majority of the population. As Jones realises, any move towards democracy would make Arab governments ‘more responsive to the populations of their countries’, and since the vast majority of the populations want the US out of their country, to have domestic control over their country’s resources and foreign policies, and to have an economy run in the interests of the majority of the population, then almost by definition the US must be opposed to democracy in the region, Egypt included. And indeed US actions have shown this to be the case. Jones, for his part, concludes from this that it is quite proper for the US to be opposing democracy in the Middle East- and using his warped logic that is a rational course to take. For the sane majority, however, we should conclude the opposite: that the US should leave the region in accordance with the wishes of the population.</div>
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<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgbD5Ly1uycurDNnzq1bCB8CPyTOMuMj5j2AGrk5QB_sglwD10exARJfC2bowCaaKkNqe0yTko0_N3hwZUW3aGQomQljqK-JDwX4mnH3-0v4futaylo9WvoSWGEQMIg2cCt_lD6eJ9Fpwg/s1600/Egypt.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="240" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgbD5Ly1uycurDNnzq1bCB8CPyTOMuMj5j2AGrk5QB_sglwD10exARJfC2bowCaaKkNqe0yTko0_N3hwZUW3aGQomQljqK-JDwX4mnH3-0v4futaylo9WvoSWGEQMIg2cCt_lD6eJ9Fpwg/s400/Egypt.jpg" width="400" /></a></div>
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More to come on Egypt as events unfold. <o:p></o:p><br />
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Anonymoushttp://www.blogger.com/profile/03761537507654123124noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3557544622111744039.post-53147208193098622582013-06-26T11:47:00.000-07:002013-08-24T13:52:29.905-07:00The Economist and Media Bias<div class="MsoNormal">
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I’ve read <i>The
Economist</i> every week for years now, and every so often an article comes
along which reminds me never to underestimate the newspaper’s ability to
infuriate me with its incredible reserve of pro-Western war mongering. The July
22<sup>nd</sup>-28<sup>th</sup> issue featured a front cover with ‘Can Iran Be
Stopped?’ plastered across it, the name of the <a href="http://www.economist.com/news/leaders/21579835-west-should-intervene-syria-many-reasons-one-stem-rise-persian-power-can">main
leader</a> in the paper this week. It also contained a <a href="http://www.economist.com/news/briefing/21579815-neither-irans-election-nor-sanctions-nor-military-threats-are-likely-divert-it-path">3
page briefing</a> on Iran’s nuclear programme.</div>
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<i>The Economist </i>has
a proven track record at advocating every intervention and Western war our
elites cook up, including the Iraq and Afghanistan Wars, and intervention in
Libya and Syria. The language it regularly uses about the need to ‘punish’ nations
which ‘misbehave’ economically or politically often has more than a slight
undertone of good-old British imperialism. This week’s leading story was
another case study in the art of omission and distortion that the newspaper has
mastered.<o:p></o:p></div>
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The main leader started with an effort to claim that the
West should disregard the recent victory of Hassan Rohani in the Iranian
presidential elections; Rohani was considered the moderate in the contest. We
shouldn’t laud the new President’s calls for serious negotiation with the West
according to the paper, as apparently ‘Iran’s regional assertiveness and its
nuclear capacity mean that it is a more dangerous place than it ever was before’.
By ‘regional’ they mean the Middle East, and a glance at Arab public opinion,
the majority of citizens in the Middle East, shows that they actually consider
the <i>United States</i> to be the biggest
threat in the region, not Iran. <a href="http://www.wilsoncenter.org/sites/default/files/arab_perspectives_irans_role_changing_middle_east.pdf">According
to a study</a> by the Wilson Center and the United States Institute of Peace
carried out in 2011, ‘Iran remained far behind… the United States: 59 percent identified
the United States, and 18 percent identified Iran as one of the two greatest threats’
in the region. Other studies show similar, or even more pronounced results. Of
course, <i>The Economist</i> has little
regard for the ignorant opinions of the natives. That they consider the US to
possess far more ‘regional assertiveness’ than Iran is irrelevant. That Israel
is the only country with ‘nuclear capacity’- actually nuclear weapons- is also
presumably irrelevant. Note also the construction of Iran as a ‘dangerous place’,
not merely a dangerous state or government. The portrayal of enemies and far-away
lands as mysterious and dangerous has a long tradition in Western journalism
and writing. <o:p></o:p></div>
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The paper<a href="http://www.economist.com/news/briefing/21579815-neither-irans-election-nor-sanctions-nor-military-threats-are-likely-divert-it-path">
notes</a> with implicit approval that Western-imposed sanctions have inflicted ‘severe
economic pain… on Iran’s people’, ‘with 40% of Iranians thought to be living
below the poverty line’; there is no comment on the fact that our actions are
seriously harming the lives of millions of innocent Iranians. <o:p></o:p></div>
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It then provides a sober analysis of Obama’s <a href="http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/2013/jun/13/syria-chemical-weapons-us-confirm">recent
decision to arm</a> the rebels in Syria: ‘many believe the greater reason was
[Obama’s] reluctance to see Mr Assad hold on to power as a client of Iran’s’.
This cynical ‘real politic’ is actually applauded by the paper, which claims
that a major reason to not only arm the rebels but to establish a no-fly zone
over Syria is to ‘stem the rise of Persian power’. Apparently it is ‘not in the
West’s interest that a state that sponsors terrorism and rejects Israel’s right
to exist should become the regional hegemon’. That one of the West’s major allies
in the region (Saudi Arabia) is probably a far greater sponsor of terrorism
than Iran is of little importance to the paper. So presumably is the fact that
Israel and the US have carried out terrorist assassinations of civilian
scientists in Iran and sponsored exiled Iranian terrorist groups like MEK, something
I wrote about briefly <a href="http://manufacturinghegemony.blogspot.co.uk/2013/04/iranian-western-relations-part-3.html">here</a>.
The historical context is utterly stripped from the article, and Iran is
portrayed as the aggressive would-be hegemon in the region, a fantasy which
ignores the elementary facts available to anyone who cares to look: namely that
the US and Britain have sought to control the Middle East for their own interests,
often with extreme aggression and terrorism, for decades. The piece ends with
the battle cry: ‘When Persian power is on the rise, it is not the time to back
away from the Middle East’; suggesting that there is some voluntary retreat
from the Middle East by the Western powers, a fabrication unsurprisingly not
elaborated on by the paper. <o:p></o:p></div>
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The briefing on Iran’s nuclear programme is somewhat more
subtle, revealing in what it excludes rather than what it asserts. It follows
the tradition of nearly every Western politician and journalist of the last
decade and a half in hysterically asserting that the time is near when Iran will
be able to acquire nuclear weapons- maybe true, but the humble reminder that
people have been making that charge- falsely- for years, is again unsurprisingly
missing from the paper’s piece. It presents Iran as making an ‘impossible
demand’ in negotiations, ignoring the US role in scuppering potential deals and
negotiations, something I wrote about <a href="http://manufacturinghegemony.blogspot.co.uk/2013/04/iranian-western-relations-part-4_8.html">here</a>.
It claims that ‘British and American intelligence sources think [Iran] is about
a year away from having enough fissile material to make a bomb’, ignoring that
it is the intelligence agency’s assessments (and the IAEA’s) that Iran hasn’t
made the decision to attempt to get a bomb. Jacques Hymans <a href="http://www.foreignaffairs.com/articles/139013/jacques-e-c-hymans/iran-is-still-botching-the-bomb?page=show">wrote</a>
in <i>Foreign Affairs</i> the other month that
‘at the end of January, Israeli intelligence officials quietly indicated that
they have downgraded their assessments of Iran's ability to build a nuclear
bomb… Now, Israel believes that <a href="http://www.mcclatchydc.com/2013/01/28/181276/israel-iran-slowing-nuclear-program.html">Iran
will not have its first nuclear device before 2015 or 2016</a>.’ That will
probably be pushed back even further in the future. <o:p></o:p></div>
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It quotes a
researcher at the highly establishment RAND Corporation, Greg Jones, and a more
respectable source, David Albright, a former UN weapons inspector, to back up
its arguments. It also references the oft-mentioned 2011 IAEA report that I
discussed <a href="http://manufacturinghegemony.blogspot.co.uk/2013/03/iranian-western-relations-part-2.html">here</a>.
Left out of the picture are those such as former Director of the IAEA’s Iraq
Action Team, Robert Kelly, who argues that the report proves nothing, and
former head of the IAEA, Hans Blix, <a href="http://gulfnews.com/news/gulf/uae/environment/iran-s-nuke-threat-is-overhyped-un-official-1.1154727">who
has claimed</a> that the hysteria about Iran is over-hyped. Even Jack Straw has
<a href="http://audioboo.fm/boos/1450188-straw-no-smoking-gun-in-iran#t=3m36s">come
out recently</a> to say that there isn’t sufficient evidence to prove Iran is
moving towards a nuclear weapon- far from it. <o:p></o:p></div>
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Ultimately,
thankfully, the paper doesn’t advocate a military attack on Iran, though for
strictly <i>practical</i> reasons, as is the
usual in the media. The (il)legality, or the (im)morality of a strike, isn’t
even discussed. They do have the sense to recognise the danger that an attack upon
Iran could end with a ‘full-scale invasion’ of the country, something even <i>The Economist</i> doesn’t want. <o:p></o:p></div>
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This is an example
of the endless systemic bias inherent in the media, often represented most
clearly in liberal papers like <i>The
Economist</i>. A source of information they may be, but one needs to know how
to read the media: a task I am still learning. <o:p></o:p></div>
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Anonymoushttp://www.blogger.com/profile/03761537507654123124noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3557544622111744039.post-11522259040088299422013-06-12T15:48:00.001-07:002013-08-22T03:12:28.813-07:00A Few Words on Barack Obama<div class="MsoNormal">
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<span style="font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 115%; mso-bidi-font-size: 11.0pt;">It’s been a while, but exams are now over for me (bar the unfortunate
fact that I have to retype my world politics exam because my handwriting is so
terrible), and so regular blog posts will now return. To get back into it, and
kick off the summer, a few comments on President Obama.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 115%; mso-bidi-font-size: 11.0pt;">Barack Obama remains surprisingly popular among Europeans in
general, particularly young Europeans. At Warwick’s election night event last
year, cheers rang through the building every time Obama won a state, and
choruses of boos were to be heard whenever Mitt Romney’s face appeared on the
big screen. </span><span style="font-size: 12pt; line-height: 115%;">I’ve long found this bizarre- I could perhaps understand why
the casual observer may have once been taken in by the sweeping rhetoric of the
first black President, but it seemed to me that anyone who took even a passing
dispassionate look at policies and practice, rather than just rhetoric, would
see the sharp continuities between the hated Bush administration and the adored
Obama successor.</span></div>
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<span style="font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 115%; mso-bidi-font-size: 11.0pt;">Reading through a 2010 article by Pakistani-English writer
Tariq Ali, I was struck by the comparison he drew between Obama and Woodrow
Wilson, ‘whose every second word was peace, democracy or self-determination,
while his armies invaded Mexico, occupied Haiti and attacked Russia, and his
treaties handed one colony after another to his partners in war’ (‘President of
Cant’, <i>New Left Review</i>, 2010, 61,
p.116). It seems an apt comparison indeed, since for all the fine words from Obama,
his administration has more or less carried on the major policies of the Bush administration,
and in some instances even upped the intensity. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 115%; mso-bidi-font-size: 11.0pt;">Drone strikes are an obvious example. Obama has increased
their frequency <a href="http://www.thebureauinvestigates.com/2012/12/03/the-reaper-presidency-obamas-300th-drone-strike-in-pakistan/">by
around 6 times</a> that of Bush, including expanding their use in Pakistan,
Somalia, Afghanistan, and Yemen. I won’t deal with this topic here- it will be
saved for a later blog post- but suffice to say this represents a massive
expansion of an unregulated, most probably illegal (Professor David Luban of Georgetown University said in a lecture at
Warwick earlier this year that the memo justifying the strikes was ‘terrible
legal reasoning’), global assassination campaign, waged in any country Obama
and his advisors deem to be housing enemies of the US. The destabilising effects in
Pakistan are well known; those in Yemen less so, revealed most fully by
excellent independent journalist Jeremy Scahill in his new <a href="http://stream.aljazeera.com/story/201304292343-0022708">book</a> about US
foreign policy ‘Dirty Wars’.<o:p></o:p></span><span style="font-size: 12pt; line-height: 115%;">See this short documentary by him
</span><a href="http://www.aljazeera.com/programmes/peopleandpower/2012/03/201231105957403222.html" style="font-size: 12pt; line-height: 115%;">here</a><span style="font-size: 12pt; line-height: 115%;">
for a window into the impact on Yemen.</span></div>
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<span style="font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 115%; mso-bidi-font-size: 11.0pt; mso-bidi-font-weight: bold;">Connected to this is Obama’s
expansion of the war in Afghanistan. His
‘surge’ in Afghanistan has probably left the US in a worse military shape than
before, with the Afghani troops the US army is training turning their weapons on
their mentors more often than in any other US war in history (so-called <a href="http://www.tomdispatch.com/blog/175576/tomgram%3A_engelhardt%2C_death-by-ally">green-on-blue
violence</a>). The Afghan population has seemingly turned completely against
the US, Afghanistan is now constantly in the top two <a href="http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/2011/jun/15/worst-place-women-afghanistan-india">worst
places in the world to be a woman</a> (along with the DRC), Afghanistan is the <a href="http://www.economist.com/news/international/21572753-refugees-plight-worsening-their-numbers-grow-and-their-nature-changes-flight">number
one source of refugees</a> in the world (over 2.5 million), unknown 10’s of
1000’s of civilians are dead, the CIA is fuelling corruption by funnelling <a href="http://www.nytimes.com/2013/04/29/world/asia/cia-delivers-cash-to-afghan-leaders-office.html?pagewanted=all&_r=0">millions
of dollars of ‘ghost money’</a> into the Afghani leadership… and so on.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 115%; mso-bidi-font-size: 11.0pt; mso-bidi-font-weight: bold;">Recently it has been revealed that
the global kidnapping campaign started by the Bush administration (often referred
to as ‘rendition’) has actually <a href="http://www.washingtonpost.com/world/national-security/renditions-continue-under-obama-despite-due-process-concerns/2013/01/01/4e593aa0-5102-11e2-984e-f1de82a7c98a_story.html">carried
on under Obama</a>. So-called ‘black sites’, legal black holes that the CIA set
up after 9/11 to imprison and torture people they didn’t like without any
semblance of due process (given a relatively easy ride in the Hollywood blockbuster
‘Zero Dark Thirty’) have carried on under Obama, at the least <a href="http://www.washingtonpost.com/world/national-security/renditions-continue-under-obama-despite-due-process-concerns/2013/01/01/4e593aa0-5102-11e2-984e-f1de82a7c98a_story.html">in
Somalia</a>. Scahill, the afore-mentioned independent journalist who also
revealed the Somalian black site, has documented the continuation of and
increase in so-called ‘Special Operations’: secret operations carried out all
over the globe with no transparency or legitimacy, little oversight, no public
knowledge, and often murky consequences. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 115%; mso-bidi-font-size: 11.0pt; mso-bidi-font-weight: bold;"><a href="http://manufacturinghegemony.blogspot.co.uk/2013/04/iranian-western-relations-part-4_8.html">I’ve
written about</a> how the Obama administration has continued the absurd Bush
policies (and policies of more or less every President of the US) towards Iran,
and we can only hope that Obama doesn’t make his Presidency remembered for
starting a disastrous war with Iran before 2016. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 115%; mso-bidi-font-size: 11.0pt; mso-bidi-font-weight: bold;">That doesn’t even scratch the
surface of foreign policy- domestically, on civil liberties in particular, he
has been no better.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 115%; mso-bidi-font-size: 11.0pt; mso-bidi-font-weight: bold;">The Bush administration was
notorious for hauling people into off-shore prisons like Guantanamo Bay,
without the possibility of a trial or release. However under Obama, the
National Defense Authorization Act (NDAA) of 2012 has <a href="http://www.aclu.org/blog/national-security/indefinite-detention-un-american">actually
made it <i>legal</i> for the government</a>
to detain any US citizen or foreign national <i>indefinitely without charge or trial</i>, if the executive branch deems
them ‘suspected of terrorism’. Signed in to law quietly on New Year’s Day 2012,
it marked the codification of what Bush had always done anyway and damn the law:
the destruction of the right to a fair and speedy trial, </span><span lang="EN" style="font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 115%; mso-ansi-language: EN; mso-bidi-font-size: 11.0pt; mso-bidi-font-style: italic;">habeas corpus. The act is <a href="http://www.democracynow.org/2012/1/17/journalist_chris_hedges_sues_obama_admin">currently
under challenge</a> in court by a group of academics, activists and
journalists- the part of the act relating to indefinite detention was struck
down, but the Obama administration has appealed (the case continues). Most
interestingly, the administration <i>refused</i> in court to promise that the
plaintiffs in the case (such as Chris Hedges and Noam Chomsky) wouldn’t ever
find themselves being held indefinitely under the NDAA for their work. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span lang="EN" style="font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 115%; mso-ansi-language: EN; mso-bidi-font-size: 11.0pt; mso-bidi-font-style: italic;">Another
aspect of Obama’s attack on civil liberties is the ‘War on Whistleblowers’. In
1917 Woodrow Wilson passed the Espionage Act, designed to put foreign spies in
prison (and almost certainly crush dissent domestically) during WW1. Obama has
blown the dust off the act and charged <a href="http://blog.foreignpolicy.com/posts/2012/02/27/is_the_obama_administration_abusing_the_espionage_act">more
people under it</a> than all other post-war Presidents combined. The people
charged include Bradley Manning, who leaked the ‘<a href="http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5rXPrfnU3G0">collateral murder</a>’ video
of a US helicopter opening fire on unarmed civilians, and thousands of
low-level classified diplomatic documents to Wikileaks. He was kept for over
1,000 days without trial in conditions the UN’s special rapporteur on torture <a href="http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/2012/mar/12/bradley-manning-cruel-inhuman-treatment-un">described
as amounting to</a> ‘</span><span style="font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 115%; mso-bidi-font-size: 11.0pt; mso-bidi-font-style: italic;">cruel, inhuman and
degrading treatment’. NSA whistleblower Thomas Drake was also charged. There is
<a href="http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2013/06/05/julian-assange-attorney-indictment_n_3386793.html">some
evidence</a> to suggest that a secret indictment has been issued under the
Espionage Act to charge Wikileaks founder and head Julian Assange. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 115%; mso-bidi-font-size: 11.0pt; mso-bidi-font-style: italic;">Lastly for this blog is the vast
domestic surveillance that has carried on under Obama. In the last week or so
it has come out that the National Security Agency (NSA) <a href="http://blog.foreignpolicy.com/posts/2013/06/10/prism_isn_t_the_scariest_part_of_the_nsa_revelations_phone_metadata">has
been monitoring</a> between 150 - 300 million American's phone calls, and the ‘PRISM’
programme taking mass amounts of data on users <a href="http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/2013/jun/06/us-tech-giants-nsa-data">from
internet service providers</a> like Google and Facebook. Those who follow these
issues closely would have been more or less aware that this kind of thing was
going on already, and whistleblowers like William Binney had <a href="http://www.democracynow.org/2012/4/20/exclusive_national_security_agency_whistleblower_william">revealed
it long before the latest story</a>. However this time we have documents fully
confirming it, leaked by (now former) NSA official Edward Snowden, who has now <a href="http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2013/06/12/edward-snowden-south-china-morning-post-hong-kong-_n_3430082.html">fled
to Hong Kong</a>. The Snowden leak has also revealed a glimpse into the Obama administration’s
plans to wage <a href="http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/2013/jun/07/obama-china-targets-cyber-overseas">global
offensive cyber war</a>- but that’s for another blog. Glenn Greenwald, one of
the journalists at <i>the Guardian</i> who received the documents from Snowden,
<a href="http://news.yahoo.com/journalist-us-surveillance-case-more-come-050921834.html;_ylt=A2KJ2UZkTrdRJCsAdSrQtDMD">has
hinted</a> that far more devastating revelations will follow in the near-future.
<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 115%; mso-bidi-font-size: 11.0pt; mso-bidi-font-style: italic;">This blog has barely touched on
the ways Obama has not been the ‘change we can believe in’. Tariq Ali pointed
out in the article I quoted earlier that disenchanted former Obama-supporters
tend ‘to blame structural constraints rather than the incumbent himself’,
seemingly unwilling to accept that Obama is little different to George Bush in
the face of his apparently progressive and inspiring speeches. But one’s elocution is no measure of one's moral fibre; we should assess Obama without reference to his speeches, skin colour, looks or
charms. Policies are what matters. It is true that there are deep power
structures in the US which prevent any President from enacting real change, and
the fundamentals of US Empire go far deeper than any one man. But the gusto
with which he has furthered the cause of US hegemony overseas and domestic
state control should give us all strong pause for thought when cheering on the
next tall, handsome, ‘liberal’ Democrat. </span><span lang="EN" style="font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 115%; mso-ansi-language: EN; mso-bidi-font-size: 11.0pt; mso-bidi-font-style: italic;"><o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjYfnjhOgeuwLCJyjc2jMWcB7ZnqTYibA2K2oWBwvD_RQVnwSznzXltq4qC6TA9RliJ6R4bbIclO6f5oO1xlMK_mhCT-aFH-2dr2JsrGtvL3HX_xcNik0hBF4uPpJzSBjo7Qk-ttGw6DBk/s1600/bushbama33.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="400" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjYfnjhOgeuwLCJyjc2jMWcB7ZnqTYibA2K2oWBwvD_RQVnwSznzXltq4qC6TA9RliJ6R4bbIclO6f5oO1xlMK_mhCT-aFH-2dr2JsrGtvL3HX_xcNik0hBF4uPpJzSBjo7Qk-ttGw6DBk/s400/bushbama33.jpg" width="332" /></a></div>
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UPDATE: A day or two after writing this, Mehdi Hasan at the Huffington Post wrote a good new piece arguing the same thing: worth a read <a href="http://www.huffingtonpost.co.uk/mehdi-hasan/barack-obama-worse-than-bush_b_3439999.html">here</a>.</div>
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Anonymoushttp://www.blogger.com/profile/03761537507654123124noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3557544622111744039.post-64562467953579895082013-04-25T15:48:00.000-07:002013-08-22T03:13:21.061-07:00An Elementary Thought Experiment <br />
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<span style="font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 115%; mso-bidi-font-size: 11.0pt;">A short summation of the 4-piece series on Iran, from the perspective of an alternative world:</span></div>
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<span style="font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 115%; mso-bidi-font-size: 11.0pt;">Imagine, if you will, that in 1953 Iran <a href="http://manufacturinghegemony.blogspot.co.uk/2013/03/iranian-western-relations-part-1.html">overthrew
the elected government</a> of the United States and installed a puppet dictator
who would rule for 26 years, keeping US natural resources firmly under the
control of Iranian companies. Imagine that in 1979 this Iranian-backed ruler
was overthrown in a popular revolution, and US national independence restored. In
time, Iran would invade both Mexico and Canada, building at least <a href="http://www.aljazeera.com/indepth/interactive/2012/04/2012417131242767298.html">42
military bases</a> in the surrounding region, replete with a naval fleet to
patrol the Gulf of Mexico. Iran then utilises <a href="http://manufacturinghegemony.blogspot.co.uk/2013/03/iranian-western-relations-part-2.html">politically
distorted</a> intelligence estimates to demand that the US surrender its rights
under the Non-Proliferation Treaty to enrich uranium, in return for a vague
promise not to pursue ‘regime change’ in the US. Any pretence of negotiations
is undermined by the threat of an attack upon the US, in violation of the UN
Charter. Imagine American scientists are assassinated, infrastructure decimated
by ‘cyber-bugs’, and devastating sanctions imposed, causing a <a href="http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/2013/jan/13/iran-lifesaving-drugs-international-sanctions">pharmaceutical
crisis</a> for the US people. Iran’s major regional ally, Venezuela, works with
US Christian <a href="http://manufacturinghegemony.blogspot.co.uk/2013/04/iranian-western-relations-part-3.html">terrorist
groups</a> who seek to overthrow the US government. A conference on
establishing a Nuclear-Weapons-Free Zone in the Americas, to be attended by the
US, is <a href="http://manufacturinghegemony.blogspot.co.uk/2013/04/iranian-western-relations-part-4_8.html">whimsically
cancelled</a> by Iran to ensure that their ally Venezuela be allowed to
unilaterally retain the only nuclear weapons in the region.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 115%; mso-bidi-font-size: 11.0pt;">Rhetorical musings aside, everything written here has
manifested itself in reality, with one key difference: the official ‘enemy’ is
not the perpetrator of the crimes. We are.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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Anonymoushttp://www.blogger.com/profile/03761537507654123124noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3557544622111744039.post-6110005502361602272013-04-20T08:07:00.000-07:002013-09-01T05:55:27.700-07:00The Bloody Formula<br />
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<span style="font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 115%; mso-bidi-font-size: 11.0pt;">Having previously been an avid Formula 1 watcher,
I find myself compelled to write a piece on one of the factors that contributed
to my stopping watching the sport I love a couple of years ago: namely, the utter
disregard for the political implications of the sport’s refusal to cancel the Grand
Prix in Bahrain. The sport has collectively contributed to legitimising the
regime in Bahrain, despite a vast human rights crisis in the country. The
reasons are not hard to find. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 115%; mso-bidi-font-size: 11.0pt;">The Bahrain Grand Prix takes place this weekend. Since the
Arab Spring erupted in 2011 Bahrain has been largely off the news agenda and
off the lips of Western officials, but the importance of the small Sheikdom is
not negligible. Located in the most important strategic energy location in the
world, the Gulf Peninsula, it forms a vital part of the system of global energy
supplies. All 6 Gulf Cooperation Council (GCC) members, Saudi Arabia, Kuwait,
Qatar, Bahrain, Oman and the United Arab Emirates, are ruled as dictatorships with severe levels
of repression, and if one were to fall to democracy, the others could follow. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 115%; mso-bidi-font-size: 11.0pt;">Bahrain has seen the most unrest
of the GCC states since 2011, as the Shia majority has attempted to rise up
against the minority Sunni rulers. Around 90 protesters have been shot dead in
the streets. Incarceration without trial and torture is rampant, as confirmed in
an <a href="http://files.bici.org.bh/BICIreportEN.pdf">official report</a> set
up by the Bahraini government as part of a ‘reform’ process. The report <a href="http://www.csmonitor.com/World/Middle-East/2011/1123/Bahrain-commission-issues-brutal-critique-of-Arab-Spring-crackdown?cmpid=ema:nws:Daily%20Custom%202%20%2811232011%29&cmpid=ema:nws:NzQ4MDU5MzY0OQS2">even
stated</a> that the torture and repression ‘could not have happened without the
knowledge of higher echelons of the command structure’. The Bahraini government
then went on a tour de force to whitewash its record, employing <a href="http://www.aljazeera.com/indepth/features/2012/02/201229153055296176.html">Western
PR firms</a> to use an <a href="http://bahrainwatch.org/press/press-release-8.php">array of techniques</a>
to make it seem like a progressive, reformist regime. The ostensive
reform-agenda has failed to fool human rights groups, who have continued to
document how doctors have been trialled for <a href="http://www.amnesty.org/en/news-and-updates/bahrain-military-court-finds-medics-guilty-2011-09-29">helping
wounded protesters</a>, activists have been <a href="http://www.hrw.org/news/2013/04/10/bahrain-targeted-raids-and-arbitrary-detentions">taken
from their homes</a> in raids, and objectors to brutal police treatment have
been <a href="http://www.amnesty.org/en/library/info/MDE11/006/2013/en">thrown
in prison</a>. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEigWF06rcUskQppubZkQHlrcG04bM96QsmkRYQNuc7iNcASiershbwzyez_SrtvrzzY0XkNrR-1sA4Eu7h1Xs2Y6b-Gq9d9rtfnTMmw-GZMKg5pRd25rgzqm75mIhNbg8sN86-e_095fAY/s1600/Bahrain+Saudi.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: left; float: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-right: 1em; text-align: justify;"><img border="0" height="240" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEigWF06rcUskQppubZkQHlrcG04bM96QsmkRYQNuc7iNcASiershbwzyez_SrtvrzzY0XkNrR-1sA4Eu7h1Xs2Y6b-Gq9d9rtfnTMmw-GZMKg5pRd25rgzqm75mIhNbg8sN86-e_095fAY/s400/Bahrain+Saudi.jpg" width="400" /></a><span style="font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 115%; mso-bidi-font-size: 11.0pt;"></span><br />
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<span style="font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 115%; mso-bidi-font-size: 11.0pt;">In March 2011 Saudi Arabia <a href="http://www.nytimes.com/2011/03/15/world/middleeast/15bahrain.html?pagewanted=all&_r=0">‘intervened’
in Bahrain</a> (at the ‘request’ of the Bahraini government) to help put down
the uprising, with little Western protest. Former British Ambassador to
Uzbekistan, Craig Murray, <a href="http://www.voltairenet.org/article168944.html">wrote how</a> a senior
Western diplomat at the UN assured him that Hillary Clinton (then-US Secretary
of State) gave an explicit green light to Saudi Arabia to carry out the
invasion in return for Saudi support at the Arab League for the Western intervention
in Libya. These claims were also reportedly given to the <i>Asia Times Online</i> <a href="http://www.atimes.com/atimes/Middle_East/MD02Ak01.html">which claims that</a>
‘two different diplomats, a European and a member of the BRIC group’ stated
that this US-Saudi deal had been struck. It is impossible to confirm these
claims, but they seem plausible given the interests the US has in Bahrain, the
close relationship between the Saudi’s and the US, and similar US actions in
the past (more on that in later weeks).</span></div>
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<span style="font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 115%; mso-bidi-font-size: 11.0pt;">Bahrain is home to the <a href="http://www.nytimes.com/2011/03/15/world/middleeast/15bahrain.html?pagewanted=all&_r=0">US
Navy’s Fifth Fleet</a>, and along with the other Gulf states, buys millions of
dollars (and pounds) worth of military equipment off the US and UK every year. The
Saudi National Guard, which was the main force used to crush the protests in Bahrain,
has long been <a href="http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/2011/may/28/uk-training-saudi-troops">trained
by British forces</a>, including in ‘public order and sniper training’. In
September 2011, <a href="http://www.foreign.senate.gov/imo/media/doc/74603.pdf">the
US moved to</a><a href="http://www.foreign.senate.gov/imo/media/doc/74603.pdf">
sell</a> ‘armored vehicles and optically-tracked wire-guided missiles to
Bahrain for an estimated cost of $53 million’. <a href="http://www.independent.co.uk/news/uk/home-news/britain-accused-of-hypocrisy-over-arab-arms-sales-6289847.html">In
2012</a>, ‘licenses were granted for £2.2m-worth of UK weapons to be exported’
to Bahrain. Bahrain is designated by the US as a ‘<a href="http://www.foreign.senate.gov/imo/media/doc/74603.pdf">major non-NATO
ally</a>’.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 115%; mso-bidi-font-size: 11.0pt;">A report by the US Senate’s Committee on Foreign Relations,
headed by the now-US Secretary of State John Kerry, explicitly states why the
US has made no effort to help the democracy protesters in Bahrain. The major
goals for the US in the region, <a href="http://www.foreign.senate.gov/imo/media/doc/74603.pdf">it explains</a>,
are for ‘The United States [to] carefully shape its military presence so as not
to create a popular backlash, while retaining the capability to protect the
free flow of critical natural resources and to provide a counterbalance to Iran’
(page 4). A passing mention to democracy is made, with no real recommendations
on how this is to be achieved. The main focus for the US and UK is on
preserving the dictatorial, bloody regime in Bahrain, a compliant, pro-Western
government that does its best to serve Western interests and keep the
population subdued. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 115%; mso-bidi-font-size: 11.0pt;">Against this backdrop, Formula 1 has done its best to keep in
line with elite opinion in the West. After the race was called off for a while
in 2011, it has gone ahead the following two years despite <a href="http://www.ft.com/cms/s/0/a4692e68-a810-11e2-8e5d-00144feabdc0.html#axzz2QnQdaPdD">mass
protests</a> by the Bahraini people calling for it to be cancelled. The wilful
ignorance amongst the F1 elite is astounding- racing legend Jackie Stewart <a href="http://www.independent.co.uk/news/world/middle-east/bahrains-f1-protest-its-just-like-the-old-firm-derby-says-jackie-stewart-8580816.html">claimed
that</a> the unrest was ‘no different to the Glasgow Rangers and the Glasgow
Celtics’, and that Bahrain has ‘already started a move towards democracy’. The
ever-principled Bernie Ecclestone (head of F1) has <a href="http://www.independent.co.uk/sport/motor-racing/f1-tear-gas-used-to-quell-bahrain-grand-prix-protests-8575618.html">compared
the protests</a> to those at Thatcher’s funeral in Britain, and last year
called all controversy ‘a lot of nonsense’. He claimed he <a href="http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-2132473/Bahrain-Grand-Prix-2012-Protesters-flood-streets-Bernie-Ecclestone-REFUSES-cancel.html">wanted
an earthquake to occur</a> so the media would start writing about that instead.
In 2012, three-time World Champion Sebastian Vettel felt that it was ‘all a lot
of hype’, and wished it would blow over so ‘then we can start worrying about
the stuff that really matters like tyre temperatures, cars’. Clearly <a href="http://www.independent.co.uk/sport/motor-racing/f1-tear-gas-used-to-quell-bahrain-grand-prix-protests-8575618.html">tear
gas being fired</a> at protesters, ITN film crew being <a href="http://www.independent.co.uk/news/world/middle-east/bahrains-f1-protest-its-just-like-the-old-firm-derby-says-jackie-stewart-8580816.html">forced
to leave the country</a> for filming protests, and <a href="http://www.hrw.org/news/2013/04/17/bahrain-f1-ignores-rights-abuses-ahead-race">detention
of leading activists</a> is of little concern to teams, drivers, and Formula 1
bosses. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
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Conservative MP David Davis last year called it an ‘example of where big money
is over-ruling serious ethical concerns’, and his analysis is surely partly
correct. To F1, the money is far more important than the principle. However, the
race acts not only as a large source of revenue for F1 and the Bahraini
government, but it also helps legitimise the ruling class in Bahrain, the
favoured Western allies. That there should be little concern for human rights
and democracy is of little surprise, when the people who run F1 are no doubt
immersed in the norms and values of the elite class to which they belong. Commercial
incentives are important, but not necessarily the entire story. As Robert Fisk <a href="http://www.independent.co.uk/voices/commentators/fisk/robert-fisk-this-is-politics-not-sport-if-drivers-cant-see-that-they-are-the-pits-7665994.html">pointed
out last year</a>, would Bernie Ecclestone host a race in Iran or Syria,
Western enemies, even if they were prepared to pay $40m to do so? The answer is
likely no- F1 will host races in countries which are ruled by governments the
West likes, no matter how oppressive they are. But when the government is an ‘official
enemy’ of the West, suddenly the human rights issues, and the legitimacy which
the race would lend the ‘enemy’ government, become important (China is a
special case). That is why the Western client-regime of Bahrain will continue
to be allowed to host races as it guns down and tortures its citizens- and why
we won’t be hearing about the Tehran Grand Prix any time soon. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="line-height: 115%;"><span style="font-size: xx-small;">Another post on Bahrain and the Gulf states will follow in the coming weeks.</span></span></div>
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Anonymoushttp://www.blogger.com/profile/03761537507654123124noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3557544622111744039.post-68995332565190947292013-04-16T11:03:00.001-07:002013-08-22T03:13:49.783-07:00The Boston Bombings<div style="text-align: justify;">
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<span style="font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 115%; mso-bidi-font-size: 11.0pt;">On the 15<sup>th</sup> April two bombs exploded at Boston
marathon killing at least 3 people and injuring over 100. On the same day,
around 30 <a href="http://www.aljazeera.com/news/middleeast/2013/04/201341562946963175.html">were
killed in Iraq</a> in bomb blasts and 160 wounded. On the same day, at least 16
workers <a href="http://www.aljazeera.com/news/africa/2013/04/201341610298742116.html">were
killed in Ghana</a> in a mine collapse. The week before, 15 people were killed
and nearly 50 injured in a <a href="http://news.sky.com/story/1075246/syria-car-bomb-explodes-in-damascus">bomb
blast in Syria</a>. Today, an <a href="http://www.reuters.com/article/2013/04/16/us-iran-quake-idUSBRE93F0E120130416">earthquake
hit the Iranian- Pakistani border</a> killing at least 13 people, injuring around
20 and destroying ‘hundreds of houses’. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 115%; mso-bidi-font-size: 11.0pt;">The media coverage of the above events couldn’t have been
mor</span><span style="font-size: 12pt; line-height: 115%;">e distorted. The Boston bombing, which in terms of numbers was probably the
least severe of the events, dominated the news. The mine collapse appeared to
be barely news-worthy in the UK, despite over 5 times as many people dying- I
only read about it on international news sites. One can understand why domestic
events may be at the forefront of British news, given that in a world of
strictly divided nation-states, events that happen within ‘British’ borders are
likely to affect ‘British’ people politically, socially and culturally in a
more immediate way than those events which happen overseas. Clearly, however, such
arguments don’t apply in this case. Proximity fails to function as a reason
too; as was pointed out to me, Syria is around 1,000 miles closer to the UK
than Boston, Iraq 500 miles closer, and Ghana is roughly the same distance
away.</span></div>
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<span style="font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 115%; mso-bidi-font-size: 11.0pt;">The Boston bombing has led to some predictable and laughable
reactions. One Fox News contributor <a href="http://www.independent.co.uk/news/world/americas/muslims-are-evil-lets-kill-them-all-fox-news-pundit-erik-rush-provokes-furious-reaction-with-twitter-rant-after-boston-marathon-bombs-8575176.html">reacted
by claiming</a> that all Muslims are ‘evil’ and that we should ‘kill them all’.
Despite the obvious genocidal nature to the tweet it also ignores the fact that
no one knows who carried out the bombing: statistically, <a href="http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YTlc1votipM">more attacks are carried</a>
out in the US by right-wing terrorists than by Islamic ones. <a href="http://publicshaming.tumblr.com/post/48093470152/two-explosives-went-off-at-the-boston-marathon-on">One
blog</a> records a few of the more extreme reactions from US citizens on
Twitter- one of my personal favourites was this gem: ‘I swear to god I’ll
murder the Korean moms, kids, dogs, dads, elders, everyone’. <a href="http://www.thecouscousdiaries.com/2013/04/faith-in-humanity.html">Another
blog</a> points out that some have chosen to blame Jews or even the US
government itself (happily, these are offset by some fine responses from <a href="http://www.guardian.co.uk/commentisfree/2013/apr/16/boston-marathon-explosions-notes-reactions?CMP=twt_gu">Glenn
Greenwald</a> and <a href="http://walt.foreignpolicy.com/posts/2013/04/16/on_the_boston_marathon_attacks">Stephen
Walt</a>, amongst others).<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 115%; mso-bidi-font-size: 11.0pt;">More concerning is the way the mainstream British media is
placing so much emphasis on the event over everything else. Taking a quick
survey of the main media’s internet front pages this morning, <i>the Guardian</i>’s looked like this, and was
fairly representative of all British outlets- <o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEidcfzK8JrMywrOs6CQqZeKNjPkgO4V1nfu6tU1akLKBcW6bu8rZ-Hdf2-NYuZymUdobLmjxQ11qpneI6zSsx8bmp8Y79UjxvQzUOH5uSFy-1VgKoXfhepxHavnhKXbNgifgex5bl8rvqE/s1600/guardian.png" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="354" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEidcfzK8JrMywrOs6CQqZeKNjPkgO4V1nfu6tU1akLKBcW6bu8rZ-Hdf2-NYuZymUdobLmjxQ11qpneI6zSsx8bmp8Y79UjxvQzUOH5uSFy-1VgKoXfhepxHavnhKXbNgifgex5bl8rvqE/s640/guardian.png" width="640" /></a></div>
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<span style="font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 115%; mso-bidi-font-size: 11.0pt;">The ‘latest’
updates from the FBI on the bombing were considered more important news than an
earthquake which has killed far more people. <i>The Telegraph</i> and <i>BBC</i>
were much the same. <i>The Independent</i>
had 7 stories listed on the Boston bombing before the earthquake was even
mentioned. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 115%; mso-bidi-font-size: 11.0pt;">This apparent devaluing of the lives of those of different colour,
or perhaps culture, is made even more concerning when one considers the fact
that ‘we’ <a href="http://manufacturinghegemony.blogspot.co.uk/2013/04/iraq-10-years-on.html">are
responsible</a> for creating the conditions which led to the wave of bombings
in Iraq yesterday. Furthermore, I came across <a href="http://earthfirstnews.wordpress.com/2013/04/15/the-boston-marathon-and-u-s-drone-attacks-a-tale-of-two-terrorisms/">another
blog</a> pointing out that 175 children killed by US drone strikes in Pakistan
and beyond is barely treated as news in the US or UK, despite the bombings
being comparable to the Boston attack (for those doubting that statement, I
will give a detailed post on drones and why they constitute terrorism in the
future). <o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 115%; mso-bidi-font-size: 11.0pt;">So why the focus on Boston and the neglect of every other
tragic story, horrendous as they all are? Is it racism? Cultural affinity? Pandering to
readers who are more interested in America than Africa and the Middle East? Or
a manifestation of the fact that much of our culture, politics, and media
landscape is shaped in the image of the US, and naturally follows US events far
more closely than that of ‘less important’ countries? The truth probably
contains all those elements. For you and I though, we should extend the sense
of compassion we feel for the 8-year boy killed in Boston to the Yemeni child
killed in a US attack, the Ghanaian miner crushed to death, the family losing their
house in an earthquake in Iran, and all those killed as bombs rip through crowds
of innocent people in Iraq. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
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Anonymoushttp://www.blogger.com/profile/03761537507654123124noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3557544622111744039.post-1828952421004444152013-04-15T06:16:00.000-07:002013-04-15T07:03:29.612-07:00Update<br />
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The blog has been going far better than expected: now clocking
over 1,500 views in total, with the most recent <a href="http://manufacturinghegemony.blogspot.co.uk/2013/04/iraq-10-years-on.html">post on Iraq</a> by far the most
popular. I have found it far more enjoyable than working on maths or economics,
probably to the detriment of my grades. I have to apologise for the length of posts but given the subject matter I find it hard to get them down to a reasonable word count; furthermore, as I said in the <o:p></o:p>introductory post, the blog is as much a place for me to record my thoughts as an audience-seeking enterprise. The blog also seems to be riling some people up, since I received an email from Google saying I was subject to an attack located in the US. </div>
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Coming up I have arranged for a guest blog post from fellow
course member Jamie Sims, who writes a blog (<a href="http://annoyingpeasant.blogspot.co.uk/">http://annoyingpeasant.blogspot.co.uk/</a>)
on political issues from gay marriage to atheism to libertarian socialism. It’s
far more nicely laid out than mine and a good read; I believe he will write
something to be put on here about domestic issues or economics, to give a
balance to the dense international relations that characterises the majority of
my own writing. In return I will contribute a post to his blog about international
politics, most probably something on West Papua. Also in the pipeline for the near-future are posts on the current crisis on the Korean Peninsula and drone
warfare. <o:p></o:p></div>
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For anyone interested, another friend of mine writes a blog
on European and British issues: he wrote a post ‘In Thatcher’s Defense’ (<a href="http://europeandfriends.wordpress.com/2013/04/09/in-thatchers-defense/">http://europeandfriends.wordpress.com/2013/04/09/in-thatchers-defense/</a>),
which was followed by an amusing 11-comment exchange between the two of us on
the legacy of the late-Thatcher. <o:p></o:p></div>
Anonymoushttp://www.blogger.com/profile/03761537507654123124noreply@blogger.com5tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3557544622111744039.post-46798823328159055812013-04-12T06:49:00.000-07:002013-08-22T03:14:09.366-07:00Iraq 10 Years On<div style="text-align: justify;">
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<span style="font-size: 12pt; line-height: 115%;">The 10 year anniversary of the Iraq War past us by last month,
replete with a reasonably large media discussion. This blog will look at the
results of the war, the motives behind it, and give a little analysis of the
media discussion. Apologies again for the length, but this is an issue so
central to the international post-war perception of Britain that it needs a
thorough treatment.</span></div>
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<span style="font-size: 14.0pt; line-height: 115%; mso-bidi-font-size: 11.0pt;">The Legacy<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 115%; mso-bidi-font-size: 11.0pt;">Civilian deaths are hard to ascertain (General Tommy Franks
claimed that <a href="http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/8405894.stm">‘we don’t do body
counts’</a>) and vary widely, but are <i>at
least</i> <a href="http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/worldnews/middleeast/iraq/9932214/Iraq-war-10-years-on-at-least-116000-civilians-killed.html">111,903</a>
according to the <a href="http://www.iraqbodycount.org/">Iraq Body Count</a>. <i>Opinion Research Business</i> put it at <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/ORB_survey_of_Iraq_War_casualties">1,033,000</a>,
and <i>Just Foreign Policy</i> estimates <a href="http://www.justforeignpolicy.org/iraq">1,455,590</a>. One of the most
respected studies comes from <i>Lancet</i>,
a peer-reviewed scientific journal, which put the total number of deaths at
around <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lancet_surveys_of_Iraq_War_casualties">650,000</a>
in 2006. Iraq is the <a href="http://www.economist.com/news/international/21572753-refugees-plight-worsening-their-numbers-grow-and-their-nature-changes-flight">second
largest source</a> of refugees in the world (second only to Afghanistan), with
nearly 1.5 million even today. In 2007, <a href="http://www.aljazeera.com/humanrights/2013/03/201339112229227469.html">the
UNHCR estimated</a> there were over 4 million externally and internally
displaced Iraqis. Nearly 5,000 coalition troops have died. A U.S military
veteran <a href="http://www.nydailynews.com/news/national/u-s-vets-commit-suicide-alarming-rate-study-article-1.1253900">commits
suicide</a> every 65 minutes, many from Iraq. The war was the deadliest of any
war in history for journalists: <i>Al
Jazeera</i>’s headquarters were bombed by the US military, <a href="http://www.aljazeera.com/humanrights/2013/04/2013481202781452.html">despite
the fact</a> that they ‘supplied the Pentagon with their headquarter’s coordinates
in Baghdad in February 2003’, and two Reuters journalists were infamously mown
down by a US gunship in 2007 (a family who tried to help the victims were then
open fired upon, killing the father and injuring his two children), <a href="http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5rXPrfnU3G0">revealed in a video</a> given
to Wikileaks by Bradley Manning. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 115%; mso-bidi-font-size: 11.0pt;">The <i>BBC</i>, perhaps
trying to atone for its poor reporting in the run up to the war, has done some
good work on Iraq recently. A joint <a href="http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/video/2013/mar/06/james-steele-america-iraq-video"><i>BBC Arabic- Guardian</i> documentary</a>
revealed how the US appointed a man who headed Reagan’s near-genocidal wars in
El Salvador and Nicaragua, Colonel James Steele, to fund and recruit Shia death
squads in the early years of the Iraq War. It partly blames this US
counter-insurgency policy for starting the civil war which left 3,000 dead
bodies a month on the streets of Iraq at its height in 2006-7. Hugh Sykes <a href="http://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/p01503b2">returned to Iraq</a> for the <i>BBC World Service</i> to interview Iraqis.
Their feelings were clear: as one put it in a message to George Bush, ‘on
judgement day, Jesus will be on my side, not yours’. Another was asked if Iraq
would have been better off without the invasion, to which she replied: ‘I don’t
care about Saddam, I care about my family. Without the invasion I wouldn’t have
lost my family’. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 115%; mso-bidi-font-size: 11.0pt;">The city of Fallujah was assaulted twice by the US for being
a hub for insurgents. Depleted uranium and white phosphorus were used, contrary
to international law. The results have been almost too much for one to
emotionally contemplate- the legacy of the chemical warfare was described by
one study as <a href="http://www.independent.co.uk/news/world/middle-east/toxic-legacy-of-us-assault-on-fallujah-worse-than-hiroshima-2034065.html">‘worse
than Hiroshima’</a>. One of the authors <a href="http://www.aljazeera.com/indepth/features/2013/03/2013315171951838638.html">claimed</a>
it was ‘the highest rate of genetic damage in any population ever studied’. It
recorded a ‘38-fold increase in leukaemia, a ten-fold increase in female breast
cancer’, and ‘infant mortality was found to be 80 per 1,000 births compared to
19 in Egypt, 17 in Jordan and 9.7 in Kuwait’. There is little doubt that this
is the result of the US assaults. Recent <a href="http://www.guardian.co.uk/uk/2013/jan/19/british-troops-accused-iraq-torture">court
cases</a> have revealed that the practice of torture, <a href="http://www.torturingdemocracy.org/">which we know</a> to have been
institutionalised by the US, <a href="http://www.guardian.co.uk/uk/2013/jan/19/britain-guilty-systemic-torture-iraq">was
almost as wide-spread</a> and as systematised in UK forces.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 115%; mso-bidi-font-size: 11.0pt;">Today, Nouri al-Maliki, Iraq’s Prime Minister, is widely
considered dictatorial, and has been slammed by groups like Amnesty and Human
Right Watch for running a state responsible for <a href="http://www.aljazeera.com/humanrights/2013/03/201331883513244683.html">‘rape,
executions and torture’</a>. Saddam-era prisons operate as torture cells much
as <a href="http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/2013/apr/01/camp-nama-iraq-human-rights-abuses">they
did under the US-UK occupation</a>, and Iraq now executes more people than it
has for almost a decade, <a href="http://www.independent.co.uk/news/world/middle-east/iraq-executing-more-people-than-it-has-for-almost-a-decade-says-amnesty-report-8563177.html">according
to Amnesty</a>. <a href="http://uk.reuters.com/article/2013/01/16/uk-iraq-violence-idUKBRE90F0CF20130116">Waves
of bombings</a> from groups which didn’t exist in Iraq prior to 2003 (such as
Al Qaeda in Iraq) still regularly hit the country, and <a href="http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/2013/mar/13/iraq-sectarian-war-political-dimension">some</a>
fear a return to full-blown sectarian warfare. <a href="http://www.economist.com/news/briefing/21572777-decade-after-american-led-invasion-iraq-place-patchy-progress-and-dysfunctional">According
to the Economist</a>, ‘less than 40% of Iraqi adults have a job, and… a quarter
of families live below the World Bank’s poverty line’. It is well understood
that the war increased the threat of terrorism hugely, through the fomentation
of hatred towards the West. Finally, Nobel Prize winner in Economics Joseph
Stiglitz has put the cost of the war at <a href="http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2010/09/03/AR2010090302200.html">over
$3 trillion dollars</a>.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-size: 14.0pt; line-height: 115%; mso-bidi-font-size: 11.0pt;">Why?<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<div style="text-align: justify;">
<span style="font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 115%; mso-bidi-font-size: 11.0pt;">It barely needs pointing out that the reasons for the war had
no correlation to their professed aims, which were to dismantle Iraq’s
(imaginary) Weapons of Mass Destruction (WMD), and to bring democracy to Iraq.
No one except the most deluded thinks it was for any noble reason; <a href="http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/2007/sep/16/iraq.iraqtimeline">as Alan
Greenspan</a>, former chairman of the Federal Reserve said, ‘the Iraq war
[was] largely about oil’. <a href="http://manufacturinghegemony.blogspot.co.uk/2013/03/iranian-western-relations-part-1.html">As
noted</a> in an earlier blog of mine, the objective wasn’t access, rather
control. They could achieve access if they wanted, but control requires a
puppet regime, something Saddam was too unreliable to be. In the 80’s when he
was fighting against the enemy (Iran) and using chemical weapons ‘on his own people’,
the US and UK was happy to arm and support him (interestingly, the late
Baroness Thatcher’s government <a href="http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/2003/feb/28/iraq.politics1">lost £1
billion of tax-payer money</a> funding Saddam at the time). <o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<div style="text-align: justify;">
<span style="font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 115%; mso-bidi-font-size: 11.0pt;">Tony Blair has
since admitted that he would have invaded Iraq even without the reason of WMD. <a href="http://www.guardian.co.uk/uk/2009/dec/12/tony-blair-iraq-chilcot-inquiry">He
explained how</a> ‘obviously you would have had to use and deploy different
arguments about the nature of the threat’. Secret intelligence briefings were leaked
days ago which revealed how <a href="http://www.independent.co.uk/news/uk/politics/tony-blair-and-iraq-the-damning-evidence-8563133.html">Blair
was told in 2002</a> that ‘Iraq had no nuclear weapons and any actual WMD
would be “very, very small” and would fit on to the “back of a petrol lorry”’.
But after his famous visit to Bush in 2002, ‘Blair appeared to be a changed man’,
and started pressuring the intelligence services to find evidence that showed
Iraq had WMD. An <a href="http://www.bbc.co.uk/iplayer/episode/b01rh8hd/Panorama_The_Spies_Who_Fooled_the_World/">excellent
documentary</a> by Panorama shows the intelligence officers who peddled the
lies in the lead up to the war and the willingness of top officials to hear the
faulty intelligence. For instance, it reveals how Saddam’s Foreign Minister and
intelligence chief approached French intelligence services and the CIA six months
prior to the war to tell them that Saddam had no WMD- but this intelligence was
completely ignored. Informants who were assessed as ‘fabricators’ by the CIA
and MI6 were used as vital sources of information, and evidently-forged
documents were used as authentic. What is clear is that these apparent
intelligence failings weren’t mistakes as such, but an intentional bending of
the truth, or outright lies.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 115%; mso-bidi-font-size: 11.0pt;">Top-secret documents have allegedly been given to the Chilcot
Inquiry showing that Blair and Bush made a pact in 2002 to go to war with Iraq
no matter what; this is contrary to claims by the pair that they were
waiting until the last minute to see if Iraq would ‘disarm’, and wanted to go
through the UN, as international law requires. It is clear that they were set
on invading, with or without the UN and with or without WMD. British combat
troops <a href="http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-2283450/SAS-secret-mission-kill-Iraq--BEFORE-MPs-voted-invade.html">started
operations</a> in Iraq before the House of Commons even voted for war,
apparently showing that they were prepared to invade even with or without
parliament. Sir William Ehrman, a senior member of the Foreign Office,<a href="http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/worldnews/middleeast/iraq/6652310/Iraq-inquiry-Tony-Blair-told-days-before-invasion-WMD-had-been-dismantled.html">
told the Chilcot Inquiry</a> that they were receiving intelligence ‘in the very
final days before military action’ that WMD had been dismantled in Iraq. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
</div>
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<div style="text-align: justify;">
<span style="font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 115%; mso-bidi-font-size: 11.0pt;">Oil-industry executives and government ministers met in the
run up to the war <a href="http://www.independent.co.uk/news/uk/politics/iraqi-oil-supply-was-considered-to-be-vital-to-british-interests-2270072.html">to
discuss the future of Iraq’s oil</a>, which was described as ‘vital’ to British
interests in documents from the inter-departmental Oil Sector Liaison Group, an
arm of the British state. The oil industry was considered the ‘first main
target’ in Iraq. The Chilcot Inquiry into the Iraq War has been repeatedly delayed as the Coalition government has <a href="http://www.guardian.co.uk/uk/2012/mar/28/order-disclose-call-bush-blair-iraq">sought
to delay</a> the release of documents <a href="http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/worldnews/middleeast/iraq/9758314/Families-of-Iraq-war-dead-dismayed-as-Chilcot-Inquiry-hit-by-further-delays.html">from
the New Labour era</a> (this is partly to cover up from their establishment
friends, in the same way that Obama <a href="http://www.nytimes.com/2012/08/31/us/holder-rules-out-prosecutions-in-cia-interrogations.html?_r=2&pagewanted=1&">refuses
to prosecute</a> any Bush or CIA officials for torture, and partly because of
the Conservatives’ <a href="http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/uk_politics/5108584.stm">overwhelming
support</a> for the war). History will judge this in the same way it does
nearly every other war- as a criminal act of aggression launched on the back of
lies spread by self-serving elites. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-size: 14.0pt; line-height: 115%; mso-bidi-font-size: 11.0pt;">Media
Coverage<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<div style="text-align: justify;">
<span style="font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 115%; mso-bidi-font-size: 11.0pt;">One of the most interesting contributions to the debate has
been from John Bolton, former Ambassador to the UN for George W Bush, <a href="http://www.guardian.co.uk/commentisfree/2013/feb/26/iraq-war-was-justified">who
explained</a> in the<i> Guardian</i> how
‘the issue was never about making life better for Iraqis’, and that ‘while
President George W Bush and others sought to justify military action… as
helping to spread democracy, such arguments played no measurable role in the
decision to end Saddam's regime…that was not the motive, should not have been,
and will not be in future interventions’. During his incredible piece of
propaganda, the former senior Bush official inadvertently accused his old boss
of making up the reasons for going into Iraq. His analysis of the ‘mistakes’ is
that what the US should’ve done was overthrow Saddam in 1991, and then have
moved to overthrow the Iranian and Syrian governments in 2003. Only a depraved
individual like Bolton, who thinks the afore-mentioned Bradley Manning <a href="http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=41THqMGCkkU">should be put to death</a>,
could draw the conclusion from the Iraq disaster that what was really needed
was more war, earlier, and in more countries. It certainly reveals something
about the mentality of members of the Bush administration. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 115%; mso-bidi-font-size: 11.0pt;">A no-less revealing contribution from a far more respectable
source came in the form of <a href="http://www.ft.com/cms/s/0/e5476a22-8276-11e2-8404-00144feabdc0.html#axzz2QCFOKyjO">a<i> Financial Times </i>editorial</a> on the
‘lessons from Iraq’. According to the newspaper, which is the major business
publication in the country, the main negative consequence of the war is that
Western governments now adhere to an ‘unofficial rule that military
intervention requires UN Security Council backing’. Last time I checked there
was a well-established <i>official</i> rule
that military intervention requires UNSC backing- it’s called <a href="http://www.un.org/en/documents/charter/chapter7.shtml">international law</a>.
Furthermore the FT laments that the ‘reticence to intervene’ has prevented the
West from arming rebels in Syria; in the FT’s eyes, the real issue with Iraq is
that is has caused Western governments to become less war-like. Lastly, the war has
left ‘western publics too sceptical about intelligence’- namely, they are less
likely to swallow the lies next time around. That the worst results of the Iraq
War are considered to be these, and not the destruction of an entire country,
tells you something about the media. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<div style="text-align: justify;">
<span style="font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 115%; mso-bidi-font-size: 11.0pt;">An article in <i>Foreign</i>
<i>Policy</i> <a href="http://www.foreignpolicy.com/articles/2013/03/13/learning_curve">explains
how</a> ‘the war in Iraq is regarded by most Americans as a costly mistake’:
this constant emphasis on the ‘mistake’ clouds the truth about what the war
was: a calculated crime that should be punished through existing institutions
like the International Criminal Court (which the US refuses to sign up to, for
obvious reasons; the UK on the other hand, is part of the court). The
parameters of debate are often bounded between those who think that the war was
too costly and unwinnable, and those who think that it was winnable and a
correct choice. The large part of the public who think the war was <i>wrong</i> (as in immoral) aren’t represented
in the debate. <a href="http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/2013/mar/14/britons-iraq-invasion-wrong-poll">Polls
show</a> 22-37% of the population think Blair should be tried as a war
criminal- that side of the debate certainly doesn’t get a fair hearing in the
media. There are exceptions- the highly-respected Desmond Tutu recently <a href="http://www.guardian.co.uk/commentisfree/2012/sep/02/desmond-tutu-tony-blair-iraq">refused
to meet</a> with Blair on principled grounds, and coverage is far better than
it was at the time of Vietnam- but the debate is still far too narrowly framed (for
a more in-depth analysis of the media’s role in the Iraq War, I can’t recommend
John Pilger’s documentary <a href="http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=33drnfzFbHk">‘The
War You Don’t See’</a> highly enough).<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 115%; mso-bidi-font-size: 11.0pt;">Britain is yet to come to terms with the ruin it has left in
Iraq- the public seems not to fully appreciate the misery and damage that has
been caused by our government. Iraq is a country of similar size to Britain,
and has been utterly decimated by the invasion, on the basis of lies. Until we
as a nation fully realise what we have wrought in Iraq, we have little chance
of stopping this from happening again.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgrKaPl6zcAGXdnmoWurgFDirojwPBqoqyJNe7uhbgDtE8udUhcvMOGGF05OH_1HXdS2v_omEXlbM8rXDgtWRUbotvxCSzT1UbMXJCRO_0gT2daCum72eGB78i9rMba2T16Lqli7jjhNbg/s1600/IRAQ.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="456" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgrKaPl6zcAGXdnmoWurgFDirojwPBqoqyJNe7uhbgDtE8udUhcvMOGGF05OH_1HXdS2v_omEXlbM8rXDgtWRUbotvxCSzT1UbMXJCRO_0gT2daCum72eGB78i9rMba2T16Lqli7jjhNbg/s640/IRAQ.jpg" width="640" /></a></div>
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Anonymoushttp://www.blogger.com/profile/03761537507654123124noreply@blogger.com2tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3557544622111744039.post-30135731548501557112013-04-08T12:35:00.004-07:002013-04-12T07:29:46.773-07:00Iranian-Western Relations Part 4<br />
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<span style="font-size: 16.0pt; line-height: 115%; mso-bidi-font-size: 11.0pt;">Diplomacy<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 115%; mso-bidi-font-size: 11.0pt;">The final full piece on Iran; reviewing perhaps the only hope
for eliminating the spectre of WMDs from the Middle East: diplomacy. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 115%; mso-bidi-font-size: 11.0pt;">Given the apparent repeated failure of the talks between Iran
and the P5+1 (the permanent 5 on the Security Council plus Germany) at
Kazakhstan recently (</span><a href="http://tinyurl.com/bow2gzg"><b><span style="font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 115%; mso-bidi-font-size: 11.0pt;">http://tinyurl.com/bow2gzg</span></b></a><span style="font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 115%; mso-bidi-font-size: 11.0pt; mso-bidi-font-weight: bold;">), this option would seem to be a proven failure. However the Western
media have failed to give the full story on diplomatic efforts. There are two
avenues in particular which should be pursued urgently.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-size: 14.0pt; line-height: 115%; mso-bidi-font-size: 11.0pt; mso-bidi-font-weight: bold;">Nuclear Weapons-Free Zone<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 115%; mso-bidi-font-size: 11.0pt; mso-bidi-font-weight: bold;">The first is the possibility of a
Nuclear Weapons-Free Zone in the Middle East; a treaty, governed by the UN,
which would place obligations upon all states in the region to forgo any
current nuclear weapons, or nuclear-ambitions, and submit to a wide-ranging
regime of inspections and verification, either through the IAEA,
Non-Proliferation Treaty (NPT) and the Additional Protocol, or a new body set
up to monitor compliance. Such verification wouldn’t be 100% accurate but it
would be pretty close- the capacities of institutions like the IAEA are
generally respected. Such zones already exist in Africa, Central Asia, South
East Asia and Latin America (</span><a href="http://www.armscontrol.org/factsheets/nwfz"><span style="font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 115%; mso-bidi-font-size: 11.0pt; mso-bidi-font-weight: bold;">http://www.armscontrol.org/factsheets/nwfz</span></a><span style="font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 115%; mso-bidi-font-size: 11.0pt; mso-bidi-font-weight: bold;">), and have so far been more or less successful. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 115%; mso-bidi-font-size: 11.0pt; mso-bidi-font-weight: bold;">Efforts to achieve such a zone in
the Middle East have been on-going for decades, headed historically by Egypt in
particular. Patricia Lewis recently
wrote an article in <i>International Affairs</i> documenting the history of
such efforts. It is recorded how ‘In 1974… Iran and Egypt formally
tabled a joint UN General Assembly resolution calling for the establishment of
an NWFZ in the Middle East. The resolution was adopted by a majority of 138
votes, with only Israel and Burma abstaining’ (</span><a href="http://tinyurl.com/cvpf3ej"><b><span style="font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 115%; mso-bidi-font-size: 11.0pt;">http://tinyurl.com/cvpf3ej</span></b></a><span style="font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 115%; mso-bidi-font-size: 11.0pt; mso-bidi-font-weight: bold;">). Furthermore, a 1995 resolution passed at the NPT Review Conference
calling ‘upon all States in the Middle East to take practical steps… aimed at
making progress towards… the establishment of an effectively verifiable Middle
East zone free of weapons of mass destruction, nuclear, chemical and
biological, and their delivery systems, and to refrain from taking any measures
that preclude the achievement of this objective’, and was accepted and voted
for by all relevant states, including the US. Subsequent efforts culminated in
an agreement to hold a conference on the establishment of a zone in Helsinki in
December 2012. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 115%; mso-bidi-font-size: 11.0pt; mso-bidi-font-weight: bold;">Several months before the
conference Iran announced it would attend (Jerusalem Post- </span><a href="http://tinyurl.com/c73jmdb"><b><span style="font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 115%; mso-bidi-font-size: 11.0pt;">http://tinyurl.com/c73jmdb</span></b></a><span style="font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 115%; mso-bidi-font-size: 11.0pt; mso-bidi-font-weight: bold;">). Shortly after that announcement, the US cancelled the conference, a
decision slammed by Iran’s Ambassador to the IAEA as a ‘flagrant violation of
the NPT’ (</span><a href="http://tinyurl.com/cd9dakg"><b><span style="font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 115%; mso-bidi-font-size: 11.0pt;">http://tinyurl.com/cd9dakg</span></b></a><span style="font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 115%; mso-bidi-font-size: 11.0pt; mso-bidi-font-weight: bold;">). The suspected reason for Washington’s sudden cancelation is Israel’s
refusal to attend. Israel has a policy of ‘nuclear ambiguity’, refusing to
admit or deny its possession of nuclear weapons, but it is widely believed by
all respected observers to be the only state in the Middle East to have nuclear
weapons. Given that this was a chance for an international effort to eliminate
a danger to humanity in one of the most volatile regions in the world, one
would have expected the United States to seize the opportunity with both hands.
Instead, even the possibility of such an achievement was blocked. In a
statement, the State Department claimed that ‘the United States will continue
to work with our partners to support an outcome in which states in the region
approach this issue on the basis of mutual respect and understanding’ (</span><a href="http://tinyurl.com/c3gdgrx"><b><span style="font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 115%; mso-bidi-font-size: 11.0pt;">http://tinyurl.com/c3gdgrx</span></b></a><span style="font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 115%; mso-bidi-font-size: 11.0pt; mso-bidi-font-weight: bold;">), reminding me of a talk by Channel 4 news presenter Jon Snow in which
he called for negotiations to be undertaken with respect for Iran’s history and
desire to be accepted into the international community (</span><a href="http://www.chathamhouse.org/events/view/182925"><span style="font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 115%; mso-bidi-font-size: 11.0pt; mso-bidi-font-weight: bold;">http://www.chathamhouse.org/events/view/182925</span></a><span style="font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 115%; mso-bidi-font-size: 11.0pt; mso-bidi-font-weight: bold;">); precisely the opposite of how diplomacy has been conducted so far. We
have come a long way from the times when British diplomats wrote how ‘we
English have hundreds of years of experience on how to treat the natives’ in
Iran; but an air of superiority and arrogance remains in the US’ approach to
negotiations. Take for instance one of their bargaining chips: a promise not to
pursue ‘regime change’ in Iran in return for certain Iranian concessions. I
wonder how the US would respond if Iran gave a vague promise not to pursue
‘regime change’ in the US in return for giving up certain aspects of its
nuclear programme. When the precursor to negotiations is vast cyber-attacks and
threats of an attack (even the very threat is actually against international
law), it is unsurprising that negotiation often fail to get anywhere. It
increases distrust and willingness to defy the opponent who comes across as an
arrogant, aggressive bully. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 115%; mso-bidi-font-size: 11.0pt; mso-bidi-font-weight: bold;">Interestingly, I couldn’t find a
single article on the conference for a nuclear-free Middle East in the
mainstream British or American media. Such silence is stunning when the threats
of nuclear proliferation are considered. Such a conference may come to nothing,
but unless we at least try we can never know.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 115%; mso-bidi-font-size: 11.0pt; mso-bidi-font-weight: bold;"><br /></span></div>
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<span style="font-size: 14.0pt; line-height: 115%; mso-bidi-font-size: 11.0pt; mso-bidi-font-weight: bold;">The Brazil-Turkey Deal<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-size: 14.0pt; line-height: 115%; mso-bidi-font-size: 11.0pt; mso-bidi-font-weight: bold;"><br /></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 115%; mso-bidi-font-size: 11.0pt; mso-bidi-font-weight: bold;">There are other avenues, and
diplomacy has worked to some extent. Iran have recently diverted ‘a third of
their enriched uranium fuel rods to medical research’ (Foreign Affairs- </span><a href="http://tinyurl.com/c4c3fmj"><b><span style="font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 115%; mso-bidi-font-size: 11.0pt;">http://tinyurl.com/c4c3fmj</span></b></a><span style="font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 115%; mso-bidi-font-size: 11.0pt; mso-bidi-font-weight: bold;">), and Iran has been ‘careful to stay well below the 240kg mark’ of 20%
enriched uranium which would be necessary for a bomb (Economist- </span><a href="http://tinyurl.com/c68gbt5"><b><span style="font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 115%; mso-bidi-font-size: 11.0pt;">http://tinyurl.com/c68gbt5</span></b></a><span style="font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 115%; mso-bidi-font-size: 11.0pt; mso-bidi-font-weight: bold;">). Furthermore, in 2009 the Obama administration approached Brazil asking
them to broker a deal whereby Iran would ship out around 1,200kg of 5% enriched
uranium, in return for a research reactor and 20% enriched uranium fuel rods
usable for medical reactors only. Iran initially opposed the idea, but by 2010
Brazil and Turkey managed to get signatures on paper to achieve such an end
(see here- </span><a href="http://www.armscontrol.org/act/2010_06/FuelSwap"><span style="font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 115%; mso-bidi-font-size: 11.0pt; mso-bidi-font-weight: bold;">http://www.armscontrol.org/act/2010_06/FuelSwap</span></a><span style="font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 115%; mso-bidi-font-size: 11.0pt; mso-bidi-font-weight: bold;"> and here- </span><a href="http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/8685846.stm"><span style="font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 115%; mso-bidi-font-size: 11.0pt; mso-bidi-font-weight: bold;">http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/8685846.stm</span></a><span style="font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 115%; mso-bidi-font-size: 11.0pt; mso-bidi-font-weight: bold;">).
However the US and UK then did a complete U-turn, refusing to back the deal (</span><a href="http://tinyurl.com/cuunbmn"><b><span style="font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 115%; mso-bidi-font-size: 11.0pt;">http://tinyurl.com/cuunbmn</span></b></a><span style="font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 115%; mso-bidi-font-size: 11.0pt; mso-bidi-font-weight: bold;">) which they had tried to foment previously. A common refrain has become
that ‘the US doesn’t know how to take yes for an answer’. After Iran gave way
to diplomacy, potentially opening up avenues for further agreements, the US
humiliated the Iranian concession by destroying the deal. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 115%; mso-bidi-font-size: 11.0pt; mso-bidi-font-weight: bold;"><br /></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 115%; mso-bidi-font-size: 11.0pt; mso-bidi-font-weight: bold;">This record of botched diplomacy
could show one of many things. It could just be an unfortunate consequence of
the challenges and complexities of international diplomacy, or it could be the
result of a lack of respect for Iran and a certain arrogance on the part of
Western powers. It may even betray a lack of sincerity on the part of the US to
actually engage in serious negotiations. There is part of the US establishment
that still hasn’t forgiven Iran for freeing itself from US dominance in 1979,
and wants to re-establish control. Iran is one of the most important countries
in one of the most important regions in the world, and the imperial mentality
of the US is such that there is still a lingering feeling that they have a
right to own Iran. In order to do that you need a war and regime change,
something which has long been desired by the more hard-right elements of the US
establishment. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 115%; mso-bidi-font-size: 11.0pt; mso-bidi-font-weight: bold;"><br /></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 115%; mso-bidi-font-size: 11.0pt; mso-bidi-font-weight: bold;">There <i>is </i>certainly a wish on the part of the US to stop Iran getting
weapons (although this certainly has more to do with the fact that a nuclear
Iran would endanger US and Israeli power in the region rather than any concern
for nuclear proliferation- Ehud Barak was quoted in <i>Foreign Affairs</i> as saying that the reason a nuclear Iran is so
feared is that it would ‘undermine Israel's strategic monopoly in the Middle
East’- </span><a href="http://tinyurl.com/c4c3fmj"><b><span style="font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 115%; mso-bidi-font-size: 11.0pt;">http://tinyurl.com/c4c3fmj</span></b></a><span style="font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 115%; mso-bidi-font-size: 11.0pt; mso-bidi-font-weight: bold;">), but the mentality of the US state is one culturally prone towards war
and violence rather than diplomacy. There are also more sinister motives
underlying their aggressiveness towards Iran. The US is the world’s only
empire, and ever since the 1953 CIA-MI6 coup the US has tried to dominate and
control Iran in its interests. Disobedience to The Empire is often considered
the greatest crime; one Iran is unlikely to be forgiven for whatever it does,
short of complete submission to the iron will of the United States of America. <o:p></o:p></span><br />
<span style="font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 115%; mso-bidi-font-size: 11.0pt; mso-bidi-font-weight: bold;"><br /></span>
<br />
A short summation of the 4-part series will follow.</div>
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Anonymoushttp://www.blogger.com/profile/03761537507654123124noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3557544622111744039.post-90055190419902047562013-04-07T06:07:00.000-07:002013-04-12T07:30:45.020-07:00Iranian-Western Relations Part 3<br />
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<span style="font-size: 16.0pt; line-height: 115%; mso-bidi-font-size: 11.0pt;">Iran Part 3-
what to do</span></div>
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<span style="font-size: 16.0pt; line-height: 115%; mso-bidi-font-size: 11.0pt;"><br /></span></div>
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<span style="font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 115%; mso-bidi-font-size: 11.0pt;">I clearly miscalculated when I said that there would be a
2-part series on Iran; it is now a 4-part series. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-size: small;"><span style="line-height: 115%;">Given that Iran may well be attempting to move towards
nuclear capability or weaponisation, it is sensible to review the options
available to Western governments and the international community regarding
Iran’s nuclear programme. Apologies for length and the occasional slightly
technical passages, but this is a complicated and important issue which needs a
thorough examination. This post will review letting Iran have a bomb, attacking their nuclear </span></span><span style="line-height: 18px;">facilities</span><span style="font-size: small;"><span style="line-height: 115%;">, and waging low level warfare (the current policy). The next post will look at diplomatic options.<o:p></o:p></span></span></div>
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<span style="font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 115%; mso-bidi-font-size: 11.0pt;"><br /></span></div>
<div align="center" class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: center;">
<span style="font-size: 14.0pt; line-height: 115%; mso-bidi-font-size: 11.0pt;">Let them
get a bomb<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-size: 14.0pt; line-height: 115%; mso-bidi-font-size: 11.0pt;"><br /></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 115%; mso-bidi-font-size: 11.0pt;">There are some in academic circles who believe that nuclear
proliferation is a force for stability in the world- notably Kenneth Waltz, the
giant amongst international relations scholars, who wrote an article in <i>Foreign Affairs</i> recently entitled ‘Why
Iran Should Get the Bomb’ (<b><a href="http://tinyurl.com/7mwgp9v">http://tinyurl.com/7mwgp9v</a></b>). They argue that the destructive power of
nuclear weapons is so vast that no regime would ever be the first to use them,
as they require ‘Mutually Assured Destruction’ (MAD). Simplifying somewhat,
their argument rests more or less upon historically precedent; we have had 70
years of the nuclear age and, so far, no two nuclear powers have ever gone
directly to war with each other. They claim that this shows that nuclear
weapons prevent leaders from going to war with other nuclear powers, lest they
start a nuclear war and are both obliterated. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 115%; mso-bidi-font-size: 11.0pt; mso-bidi-font-weight: bold;">There are many reasons to be
sceptical of this argument in any situation; it ignores the millions killed in
proxy wars during the Cold War between the US and the USSR, and ignores how, in
the words of the then-US Secretary of Defence Robert McNamara, ‘it was luck
that prevented nuclear war’ (<a href="http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3lrH7RtiobQ">http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3lrH7RtiobQ</a>)
between the US and USSR in the 1962 Cuban Missile crisis. Try to apply the
argument to the modern day Middle East and things get shakier. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 115%; mso-bidi-font-size: 11.0pt; mso-bidi-font-weight: bold;"><br /></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 115%; mso-bidi-font-size: 11.0pt; mso-bidi-font-weight: bold;">It’s not that Iran or any other
state would be reckless enough to launch a nuclear missile at an enemy,
unprovoked (as Richard Betts wrote in <i>Foreign
Affairs </i>recently, ‘there is no evidence… that the Iranian leadership has
any interest in national suicide, the likely consequence of an Iranian first
nuclear strike’- <b><a href="http://tinyurl.com/bo74n4u">http://tinyurl.com/bo74n4u</a></b>);
rather, wars often start from miscalculation and accident. As political
scientist Scott Sagan has pointed out, accidents are a statistically inevitable
part of any system (<a href="http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Xupuaqu_ruk">http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Xupuaqu_ruk</a>).
<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 115%; mso-bidi-font-size: 11.0pt; mso-bidi-font-weight: bold;"><br /></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 115%; mso-bidi-font-size: 11.0pt; mso-bidi-font-weight: bold;">Whilst Iran has ‘never launched a
regular war against its enemies’ (Betts), the power and arrogance that can flow
from having the world’s most powerful deterrent could embolden it to engage in
more destabilising behaviour in the region. Waltz himself even admits that new
nuclear states will ‘feel freer to make minor incursions, deploy terrorism, and
engage in generally annoying behavior’ (<b><a href="http://tinyurl.com/bggroaj">http://tinyurl.com/bggroaj</a></b>)<b>
</b>, and given Iran’s apparent support for the Syrian regime, Hezbollah and
Hamas, this is hardly something to welcome. The respected Geoffrey Robertson QC
has documented the Iranian regime’s regional and domestic human rights abuses
in </span><i><span style="font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 115%; mso-bidi-font-size: 11.0pt;">Mullahs Without Mercy: Human Rights
and Nuclear Weapons</span></i><span style="font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 115%; mso-bidi-font-size: 11.0pt;">, and points out that a nuclear Iran would be disastrous
for the region. Miscalculation between Iran and the US and Israel could cause a
nuclear war. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<br /></div>
<div align="center" class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: center;">
<span style="font-size: 14.0pt; line-height: 115%; mso-bidi-font-size: 11.0pt;">Military
Strike<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-size: 14.0pt; line-height: 115%; mso-bidi-font-size: 11.0pt;"><br /></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 115%; mso-bidi-font-size: 11.0pt;">Interestingly, some polls of Arab opinion have shown a
majority in favour of Iran having a nuclear bomb in order to deter Israel and
the US, who are considered to be the greatest threats to peace in the region by
far (The Wilson Center and USIP- <b><a href="http://tinyurl.com/al48lzl">http://tinyurl.com/al48lzl</a></b>). However it seems no one seriously
interested in peace and stability could be in favour of a further extension of
weapons capable of destroying humanity, regardless of the fact that Iran is
generally considered to be what international relations scholars call a
‘rational actor’ in the world system (that is, a regime that won’t willingly
undertake activity which it knows will lead to its self-destruction). <o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 115%; mso-bidi-font-size: 11.0pt;"><br /></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 115%; mso-bidi-font-size: 11.0pt; mso-bidi-font-weight: bold;">The other extreme is a military
strike on Iran’s nuclear facilities, in order to forcibly halt Iran’s nuclear
progress. Israeli PM Benjamin Netanyahu and (until recently) Defence Minister
Ehud Barak are said to favour such an action, and there are certain sectors of
the US government who are also in line with such thinking. Articles such as
‘Time to Attack Iran’ have appeared in major journals like <i>Foreign Affairs</i>. An article recommending a regime-toppling attack
was even considered mainstream enough to be published (<b><a href="http://tinyurl.com/ckofvhx">http://tinyurl.com/ckofvhx</a></b>).<b> </b> Such an attack would have to take out Iran’s
considerable air defences, and heavily bomb dozens of facilities all over the
country, perhaps even using M.O.B’s (<b><a href="http://tinyurl.com/324j56">http://tinyurl.com/324j56</a></b>)
or M.O.P’s (<b><a href="http://tinyurl.com/c6f7q6x">http://tinyurl.com/c6f7q6x</a></b>)<b>
</b>on underground facilities like </span><span style="font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 115%; mso-bidi-font-size: 11.0pt;">Natanz and Fordow. Consequences are
hard to predict, but civilian casualties from the bombing campaign would run at
least into the hundreds; the best case scenario is that the nuclear programme
is set back several years and Iran fails to retaliate to the attack on its sovereignty.
<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 115%; mso-bidi-font-size: 11.0pt;"><br /></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 115%; mso-bidi-font-size: 11.0pt;">A realistic assessment of possible outcomes leaves us with
dire scenarios. As Robert Jervis in <i>Foreign
Affairs </i>points out, ‘Washington knows that the likely results include at
least a small war in the region, deepening hostility to the United States
around the world, increased domestic support for the Iranian regime,
legitimation of the Iranian nuclear weapons program, and the need to strike
again if Iran reconstitutes [the programme]’ (<b><a href="http://tinyurl.com/c6dcqms">http://tinyurl.com/c6dcqms</a></b>). Iran has repeatedly threatened to close
the Strait of Hormuz (Reuters- <b><a href="http://tinyurl.com/cr5h83f">http://tinyurl.com/cr5h83f</a></b>),
through which around 20% of the world’s oil supplies travel. A closure would
rack the global markets and possibly send the world back into recession.
Furthermore Iran is likely to respond, as any nation with substantial military
capability would when attacked; Colin Kahl writes that such a retaliation would
probably take the form of ‘proxy attacks against U.S. civilian personnel in
Lebanon or Iraq, the transfer of lethal rocket and portable air defense systems
to Taliban fighters in Afghanistan, or missile strikes against U.S. facilities
in the Gulf [which] could cause significant U.S. casualties, creating
irresistible political pressure in Washington to respond’ (<b><a href="http://tinyurl.com/6p2f5pu">http://tinyurl.com/6p2f5pu</a></b>). If
Israel were involved in the strike, the Iranian-backed Lebanon-based Hezbollah
and Gaza-based Hamas could fire masses of rockets into Israel, leading to a
swift response from the government there, and potentially a new conflict in the
Gaza Strip and Lebanon. The Gulf States (Saudi Arabia, Qatar etc.) are
extremely hostile to Iran, and any retaliatory attack upon them from Iran (many
of them host US bases which could be a launching point for an air attack) could
draw them into a huge region-wide conflict, unseen in decades. It is little
surprise then, that former head of Mossad (Israel’s intelligence services) Meir
Dagan has called an attack on Iran the ‘stupidest idea [he’s] ever heard’ (<b><a href="http://tinyurl.com/94w4xnt">http://tinyurl.com/94w4xnt</a></b>). <o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 115%; mso-bidi-font-size: 11.0pt;"><br /></span></div>
<div align="center" class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: center;">
<span style="font-size: 14.0pt; line-height: 115%; mso-bidi-font-size: 11.0pt; mso-bidi-font-weight: bold;">Low level warfare<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div align="center" class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: center;">
<span style="font-size: 14.0pt; line-height: 115%; mso-bidi-font-size: 11.0pt; mso-bidi-font-weight: bold;"><br /></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 115%; mso-bidi-font-size: 11.0pt; mso-bidi-font-weight: bold;">We are now 10 years on from the Iraq
War and it would take incredible amnesia to repeat the disaster which has unfolded
there; whilst the above passage was committed to the practical consequences of
an attack on Iran, there is also a very strong moral and legal case to be made
against a strike (this perspective on the debate is nearly invariably left out
of mainstream journals and media); the afore mentioned Geoffrey Robertson QC is
against an attack ‘because it’s wrong’ (<a href="http://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/b01p3hnl">http://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/b01p3hnl</a>).
Recently a legal memo was leaked from the British government declining US
requests to use British bases as a launching pad for an attack upon Iran; the
memo stated that such an attack would be in violation of international law,
since Iran does not yet pose a ‘clear and present threat’ (Guardian- <b><a href="http://tinyurl.com/8gzhatj">http://tinyurl.com/8gzhatj</a></b>).<b> </b> <o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 115%; mso-bidi-font-size: 11.0pt; mso-bidi-font-weight: bold;"><br /></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 115%; mso-bidi-font-size: 11.0pt; mso-bidi-font-weight: bold;">A step down from a full blown
strike would be low level warfare: sabotage attempts, sanctions, cyber warfare,
funding opposition within Iran etc. This resembles the United States’ and Israel’s
current policy. Vast sanctions have been placed upon Iran, causing the value of
its currency to plummet by up to 80% in value (<a href="http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/business-19786662">http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/business-19786662</a>),
and allegedly causing a pharmaceutical crisis for the population, as the
sanction are so broad that civilian goods get caught up in them (Guardian- <b><a href="http://tinyurl.com/cwo5q3d">http://tinyurl.com/cwo5q3d</a></b>). <b> </b>Scientists working on Iran’s nuclear
programme have been assassinated (BBC- <b><a href="http://tinyurl.com/7xn4plk">http://tinyurl.com/7xn4plk</a></b>),
and the famous ‘Stuxnet’ cyber virus was thought to have originated from the US
(described by some legal experts as an ‘illegal act of force’- <b><a href="http://tinyurl.com/crxyocb">http://tinyurl.com/crxyocb</a></b>). <o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 115%; mso-bidi-font-size: 11.0pt; mso-bidi-font-weight: bold;">The murky underground war against
Iran goes further; an Iranian opposition group called the People’s Mujahedeen
of Iran (MEK) has the public support of a number of US citizens high up in the
US establishment, including</span><span style="background-color: white; background-position: initial initial; background-repeat: initial initial; font-family: Arial, sans-serif; font-size: 10.5pt; line-height: 115%;"> </span><span style="font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 115%; mso-bidi-font-size: 11.0pt; mso-bidi-font-weight: bold;">James Woolsey, the former CIA director, and the former US ambassador to
the UN John Bolton, who has campaigned to have the group removed from the US
list of terrorist organisations (<b><a href="http://tinyurl.com/btyecg4">http://tinyurl.com/btyecg4</a></b>).
The group has been previously involved in Marxist terrorist activity (testament
to the fact that many sectors of the US government will work with anyone if it
furthers their strategic and economic interests- Al Jazeera <b><a href="http://tinyurl.com/c7fsqp6">http://tinyurl.com/c7fsqp6</a></b>). Senior
US officials allegedly told NBC news that the MEK has been involved in
assassinations of Iranian scientists, carried out with the support of Israel (<b><a href="http://tinyurl.com/clhojjl">http://tinyurl.com/clhojjl</a></b>). <b> </b><o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 115%; mso-bidi-font-size: 11.0pt; mso-bidi-font-weight: bold;"><b><br /></b></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 115%; mso-bidi-font-size: 11.0pt; mso-bidi-font-weight: bold;">Israel has a seemingly strange
relationship with another terrorist organisation: the Sunni </span><span style="font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 115%; mso-bidi-font-size: 11.0pt;">Jundallah. <i>Foreign Policy </i>reported last year on how
Mossad agents posed as CIA operatives and attempted to recruit members of Jundallah
to help fight the covert war against Iran (<b><a href="http://tinyurl.com/6rz9jab">http://tinyurl.com/6rz9jab</a></b>). The idea of Israel working with
Pakistani-based Sunni terrorists against a Shia government would be amusing if
it weren’t so troubling. There is a long history of our government and our
allies working with extremist groups and Islamists to further their own
interests, most famously in the 80's when they funded Bin Laden and the groups
which would later become the Taliban and Al Qaeda in their fight against the USSR in
Afghanistan. The consequences of that policy are well known to all. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 115%; mso-bidi-font-size: 11.0pt;"><br /></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 115%; mso-bidi-font-size: 11.0pt;">There is of course a similar argument to be made against such
a policy in Iran- not only will these actions likely backfire, as it allows the
government in Iran to muster up domestic support by using the threat of hostile
powers as an excuse to expand its power and control- but these activities are
most probably mostly illegal and certainly immoral. We can imagine what the US
response would be if Iran were assassinating its scientists and launching huge
cyber-attacks on its nuclear infrastructure (indeed we know what the Israeli
response would be- when the Iranian-backed Hamas or Hezbollah launch any kind
of attack against Israel, Israeli officials claim that they have a ‘right to
defend their country’ and respond with huge force). The murder of civilian
scientists for political aims and in order to scare away graduates from
pursuing such a career is the very definition of state (or state-backed)
terrorism. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
Anonymoushttp://www.blogger.com/profile/03761537507654123124noreply@blogger.com4tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3557544622111744039.post-15587214243612190982013-04-06T15:58:00.000-07:002013-04-12T08:44:19.336-07:00Asia's Hidden Genocide<br />
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The blog is an early copy of an article I had published in the Warwick Globalist, before it was cut down to size and slightly changed by the editor. This was more or less how I intended the article to be. Given the style of the magazine, there are no references and it reads more like an emotive opinion piece than my usual blog posts do/will. Enjoy:</div>
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<br /></div>
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<br /></div>
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In 1969, 1,022 native tribesmen of West Papua were summoned
by the UN to vote on the so-called ‘Act of Free Choice’; a referendum to decide
if their land should be incorporated into Indonesia. The tribesman, supposedly
representative of all 1m native inhabitants, voted under the gaze of the
Indonesian army’s guns. Unsurprisingly, they voted to surrender independence.
The beginning of a brutal subjugation of one of the world’s oldest
civilisations had begun. <o:p></o:p></div>
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In 1962 West Papua- the western half of Earth’s second
largest island and recently freed from Dutch imperialism- was pressured to
incorporated with Indonesia. After Dutch protests, the UN agreed to
‘participate in and supervise’ a vote on potential Indonesian rule by the
tribal elders of Papua, to be held by 1969. Given that, according to the then-US
ambassador to Indonesia, ‘85-90% of the native population [were] in sympathy
with the Free Papuan cause’, Indonesia had to rely on a campaign of terror to
get the desired result from handpicked ‘representatives’. An officer assigned
to intimidate the Papuans into voting for annexation told a group of tribal
leaders that he would “shoot anyone who is against [Indonesia] and all his
followers”. According to some estimates, the Indonesian army killed around
30,000 Papuans over the 7 year period whilst the UN ‘observed’. In some parts
of the country Catholic missionary schools were forced to close following
disappearances of entire families. <o:p></o:p></div>
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Thankfully for Indonesia, the world’s major western powers
did their utmost to ensure the unimpeded perpetration of this injustice. The result of the vote required approval from
the UN General Assembly; the US pressured Latin American leaders to vote for
its acceptance, and the French pressured former colonies to follow suit. <o:p></o:p></div>
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<br /></div>
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44 years later, the nascent ‘Free Papua cause’, alluded to
by the ambassador in 1969, has developed into a fully grown independence
movement. The OMP (Free Papua Movement) is a ‘broad based social movement,
which almost everyone in West Papua, if you get them alone, will admit to belonging’,
according to Paul Kingsnorth, an investigative writer who travelled across West
Papua in the early 2000’s. It does have an armed wing- maybe a thousand men armed
mainly with bows and arrows- who for decades have sought to regain their
homeland from the occupying Indonesians. Unfortunately for them, Indonesia is
armed by the most advanced military machines in the world- the US and UK- and
is willing to use this equipment in the most brutal manner imaginable.
According to Human Rights Watch, the International Centre for Transitional
Justice, and local Papuan human rights groups, torture, assassination,
detention without trial, rape and massacres of peaceful protesters are common
place. In 2003 a group of Yale Law School academics released a report making a
strong case that the Indonesian government was liable for prosecution under the
1948 Genocide Convention. According to official estimates, around 100,000 West
Papuans have been killed since 1969. Unofficially, the number approaches
800,000. The truth is unknown, and the destruction of ‘the forgotten bird of
paradise’, as it is known, is invisible to the rest of the world. <o:p></o:p></div>
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The tale of West Papua is mirrored in another island in the
region: East Timor. In 1975 Kissinger and Nixon travelled to Jakarta to authorise
an Indonesian invasion of the peaceful land. What followed was possibly the
closest anyone has come to the eradication of an entire ethnic group in the
post-war period. 90% of the weapons used for the genocide came from the US and
UK, and the then-US ambassador to the UN later wrote that ‘The United States
wished things to turn out as they did, and worked to bring this about’. This
story, however, had something of a happy ending; at the end of the 20<sup>th</sup>
century a worldwide protest movement grew, and Clinton was forced to withdraw
support from the brutal Indonesian dictator, General Suharto. Consequently
Suharto fell swiftly from power, and the Indonesian army withdrew from East
Timor- a
lesson in the life and death power the West wields. The harrowing occupation of
West Papua continues to this day.<o:p></o:p></div>
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In 2010 Obama reauthorised US training and
arming of Kopassus- the Indonesian Special Forces group responsible for much of
the East Timorese genocide- despite leaked Kopassus documents detailing an
assassination campaign against West Papuan independence leaders and civilians,
described in the documents as ‘the enemy’. Filep Karma, a celebrated member of
the liberation movement, warned that this US support would lead to Kopassus being
“even better equipped to commit their murders”.<o:p></o:p></div>
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Compounding the misery in 2012, part time arms salesman
David Cameron – ignoring mass demonstrations from the West Papuans imploring
him to help end colonisation and genocide - ‘toured Asia’ with UK arms
companies promoting sales to Indonesia. British ‘Hawk’ jets have been used to
bomb villages and British surveillance equipment helps monitor peaceful
protesters. So whilst Cameron talks of ‘freeing’ the Libyan people, he supplies
the Indonesians with the equipment and logistical support needed to carry out
ethnic cleansing of Papuans, who lived in harmony with their land for around
40,000 years. As privileged students and members of this state, we must demand
the British government cease this horror story – in which we are all complicit
by association. Visit <a href="http://www.freewestpapua.org/">www.freewestpapua.org</a>
to learn more and help promote groups working to end our government’s
diplomatic and military support for ‘Asia’s hidden genocide’.<o:p></o:p><br />
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjJR0igOGvHSqdL458yL05p1Rf_a5fp4ii5IgrdsgtMCaaLFP0mHw6cv_N6UiuB0ArOtGIno0lXSyvdNY_iApUKBbiIyz4FtDfRsUoxDOxn5KFv-fG6lA4gE4LoZgY3oWLKWyLvPU-bni8/s1600/west+papua.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="300" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjJR0igOGvHSqdL458yL05p1Rf_a5fp4ii5IgrdsgtMCaaLFP0mHw6cv_N6UiuB0ArOtGIno0lXSyvdNY_iApUKBbiIyz4FtDfRsUoxDOxn5KFv-fG6lA4gE4LoZgY3oWLKWyLvPU-bni8/s400/west+papua.jpg" width="400" /></a></div>
<br /></div>
Anonymoushttp://www.blogger.com/profile/03761537507654123124noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3557544622111744039.post-73081617651337643772013-03-17T17:08:00.000-07:002013-04-12T07:32:27.416-07:00Iranian-Western Relations Part 2<br />
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<span style="font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 115%; mso-bidi-font-size: 11.0pt;">This is part 2 of a 4 part series on Iranian-Western
relations. In part 1 we documented some of the background to the modern day
crisis, and in part 2 we look at the events up until the modern day, with
particular focus on Iran’s nuclear programme, and whether Iran is attempting to
move towards nuclear weapons.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 115%; mso-bidi-font-size: 11.0pt;">After the overthrow of Mohammed Mossadegh and the
installation of the Shah in his place, Iran was ruled as a dictatorship and a
western client state for the next 26 years. As noted before, suppressing
legitimate demands for democracy tends to empower extremist elements, and the
situation in Iran was no different. In 1979 Shiite radicals rose up and
overthrew the Shah, taking over the nuclear programme that had been started
under the Shah and infamously invading the US embassy, leading to the hostage
crisis dramatised in the 2012 film ‘Argo’. The tragedy of the Iranian revolution
is that Iran had come close to a semblance of national independence and
democracy in 1953, but radical measures were taken by the West to cripple this
possibility. Independence was eventually achieved in 1979; at the price of living
under one of the harshest theocratic regimes in the Middle East.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 115%; mso-bidi-font-size: 11.0pt;"><br /></span></div>
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<span style="font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 115%; mso-bidi-font-size: 11.0pt;">The ayatollahs have ruled Iran from 1979 to the modern day:
the current Supreme Leader of Iran is Grand Ayatollah Khamenei, and the
President is Mahmoud Ahmadinejad. The current focus on Iran concerns its
alleged nuclear weapons programme, and anyone who follows the news will no
doubt have come across the debate over whether or not the US, Israel (and
possibly Britain) should launch a military strike on Iran’s nuclear facilities
in order to prevent them getting a bomb. The immediate question to be asked is:
is Iran moving towards nuclear weapons?<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 115%; mso-bidi-font-size: 11.0pt;">This question is oft ignored in the mainstream discussion; it
is taken for granted that Iran is moving towards nuclear weapons, or nuclear
weapons <i>capability</i> (the capacity to
quickly build nuclear weapons if need be), and that its peaceful nuclear
programme is a façade for this darker motive. However given what we know about
the lead-up to the Iraq war, the distortions, half-truths and lies (to name one
of many, the claim that Saddam had bought uranium from Niger turned out to be
false- </span><a href="http://tinyurl.com/cx3qqoc"><b><span style="font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 115%; mso-bidi-font-size: 11.0pt;">http://tinyurl.com/cx3qqoc</span></b></a><span style="font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 115%; mso-bidi-font-size: 11.0pt; mso-bidi-font-weight: bold;">)<b> </b></span><span style="font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 115%; mso-bidi-font-size: 11.0pt;">, it would take great amnesia to uncritically accept Mr
Romney and Mr Obama’s assertions that Iran is moving towards weapons. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="line-height: 115%;">The International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA), the UN’s body
for monitoring nuclear sites and ensuring enriched uranium and plutonium </span><span style="line-height: 18px;">isn't</span><span style="line-height: 115%;"> transferred to military uses, publishes regular reports on Iran’s nuclear
programme. In 2011 and 2012 the Western media have jumped on the agency’s
reports, claiming they document ‘damning evidence’ against Iran (see for
example this </span><i style="font-size: 12pt; line-height: 115%;">Telegraph</i><span style="font-size: small;"><span style="line-height: 115%;"> article- </span></span><a href="http://tinyurl.com/5wey66v"><b><span style="font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 115%; mso-bidi-font-size: 11.0pt;">http://tinyurl.com/5wey66v</span></b></a><span style="font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 115%; mso-bidi-font-size: 11.0pt; mso-bidi-font-weight: bold;">). However a look under the headlines leads us to be a little more
sceptical. Robert Kelley, Director of the IAEA’s Iraq Action Team in the run up
to the Iraq War and with 30 years of experience in nuclear studies, wrote an
article published by the respected Stockholm International Peace Research
Institute at the beginning of last year (</span><a href="http://tinyurl.com/bvgrb9u"><b><span style="font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 115%; mso-bidi-font-size: 11.0pt;">http://tinyurl.com/bvgrb9u</span></b></a><span style="font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 115%; mso-bidi-font-size: 11.0pt; mso-bidi-font-weight: bold;">) writing that whilst it is accepted that Iran was attempting to acquire
nuclear weapons up until 2003, by the 2007 'US
[intelligence] agencies concluded ‘with high confidence’ that Iran had halted
its nuclear weapons programme in late 2003 under international pressure’. He
described the ‘new’ evidence in the 2011 report as ‘sketchy’, and claimed that
‘all but three of the items that were offered as proof of a possible nuclear
weapons programme are either undated or refer to events before 2004’.
Furthermore the evidence the report relies upon for claims that Iran is trying
to create a ‘device to produce a burst of neutrons that could initiate a
fission chain reaction’ comes from a 2-page document passed to the IAEA in
2009, which was dismissed by the then-head Mohamed ElBaradei as a forgery. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 115%; mso-bidi-font-size: 11.0pt; mso-bidi-font-weight: bold;">The new IAEA stance towards Iran
coincides with the arrival of a head of the agency, Yukiya Amano. Amano was
supported by the US in the election process and has been accused by several
former IAEA officials of a pro-Western bias in his judgments (</span><a href="http://tinyurl.com/ce3o297"><b><span style="font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 115%; mso-bidi-font-size: 11.0pt;">http://tinyurl.com/ce3o297</span></b></a><span style="font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 115%; mso-bidi-font-size: 11.0pt; mso-bidi-font-weight: bold;">). Wikileaks have released cables from US diplomats who claim that Amano is ‘solidly in the US court on every key strategic
decision, from high-level personnel appointments to the handling of Iran's
alleged nuclear weapons program’ (document available here- </span><a href="http://tinyurl.com/7qk4gwn"><b><span style="font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 115%; mso-bidi-font-size: 11.0pt;">http://tinyurl.com/7qk4gwn</span></b></a><span style="font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 115%; mso-bidi-font-size: 11.0pt; mso-bidi-font-weight: bold;">). Hans Blix, who was head of the IAEA in the run up to the Iraq War and
warned at the time that Iraq probably didn’t have nuclear weapons, has claimed recently that ‘there is no evidence right now that suggests that Iran is
producing nuclear weapons’ (</span><a href="http://tinyurl.com/dyeodsa"><b><span style="font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 115%; mso-bidi-font-size: 11.0pt;">http://tinyurl.com/dyeodsa</span></b></a><span style="font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 115%; mso-bidi-font-size: 11.0pt; mso-bidi-font-weight: bold;">). This all gives us reason to be sceptical of the IAEA’s new stance on
Iran. Indeed, the IAEA continues to monitor most Iranian nuclear facilities,
Iran seems to be keeping its stockpile of 20% enriched uranium below the level
needed for a bomb (</span><a href="http://tinyurl.com/cvp2p35"><b><span style="font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 115%; mso-bidi-font-size: 11.0pt;">http://tinyurl.com/cvp2p35</span></b></a><span style="font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 115%; mso-bidi-font-size: 11.0pt; mso-bidi-font-weight: bold;">), and the US’ National Intelligence Director said recently that if Iran
were to attempt to move towards a bomb then the US and/or IAEA would pick up on
it (</span><a href="http://tinyurl.com/d5ayhfa"><b><span style="font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 115%; mso-bidi-font-size: 11.0pt;">http://tinyurl.com/d5ayhfa</span></b></a><span style="font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 115%; mso-bidi-font-size: 11.0pt; mso-bidi-font-weight: bold;">). Israel’s intelligence services recently put back the date that they
think Iran could achieve a bomb by to 2015/16 (</span><a href="http://tinyurl.com/csphp4o"><b><span style="font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 115%; mso-bidi-font-size: 11.0pt;">http://tinyurl.com/csphp4o</span></b></a><span style="font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 115%; mso-bidi-font-size: 11.0pt; mso-bidi-font-weight: bold;">); interestingly, Israel has been claiming Iran are a few years away from
a bomb nearly every year since 1992 (</span><a href="http://tinyurl.com/ajslo8t"><b><span style="font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 115%; mso-bidi-font-size: 11.0pt;">http://tinyurl.com/ajslo8t</span></b></a><span style="font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 115%; mso-bidi-font-size: 11.0pt; mso-bidi-font-weight: bold;">).<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 115%; mso-bidi-font-size: 11.0pt; mso-bidi-font-weight: bold;"><br /></span></div>
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<span style="font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 115%; mso-bidi-font-size: 11.0pt; mso-bidi-font-weight: bold;">All of this is <i>not</i> to say that Iran
certainly <i>is not</i> attempting to move towards nuclear weapons capability; they may well be. Indeed, assuming the Iranian regime is what international
relations scholars call a ‘rational actor’ in the world system, it would in
many ways be rational for Iran to attain a bomb. A hostile power, the US, has
42+ military bases surrounding Iran (<b><a href="http://tinyurl.com/7ko22c3">http://tinyurl.com/7ko22c3</a></b>),
has recently invaded two neighbouring countries (Iraq and Afghanistan), and
Iran have their facilities attacked with cyber bugs and scientists killed in
the streets (<b><a href="http://tinyurl.com/bd6z67g">http://tinyurl.com/bd6z67g</a></b>).
As noted in the major establishment journal <i>Foreign
Affairs</i>, Qaddafi was overthrown by the US a while after he agreed to
abandon his nuclear programme, and North Korea is now more or less safe from
invasion after achieving nuclear weapons status (<b><a href="http://tinyurl.com/ck6oa2t">http://tinyurl.com/ck6oa2t</a></b>). But there doesn’t appear to be sufficient
evidence to prove Iran are moving towards weapons yet, contrary to the dominant narrative in mainstream
discourse.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 115%; mso-bidi-font-size: 11.0pt;">The next post (which will be up in around 10 days) will
examine the options for engaging Iran, and assuming it is moving towards a
nuclear weapon, how to avoid that eventuality.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
Anonymoushttp://www.blogger.com/profile/03761537507654123124noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3557544622111744039.post-60107208251581184372013-03-14T16:35:00.000-07:002013-04-12T07:33:38.763-07:00Iranian-Western Relations Part 1<br />
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<span style="font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 115%; mso-bidi-font-size: 11.0pt;">This blog is derived from two things: a friend’s radio show
that I appeared on to talk about the history of Western-Iranian relations up to
the modern day (</span><a href="http://tinyurl.com/bnamccd"><b><span style="font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 115%; mso-bidi-font-size: 11.0pt;">http://tinyurl.com/bnamccd</span></b></a><span style="font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 115%; mso-bidi-font-size: 11.0pt;">), and
something I wrote a week ago in an attempt to get an interview for an editorial
position at the Warwick Globalist. It is part 1 of a 3-part series on Iran, the
first giving the background to today’s headlines, and the second discussing the
modern day Western-Iranian predicament. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 115%; mso-bidi-font-size: 11.0pt; mso-bidi-font-weight: bold;">In 1953 Mohammed Mossadegh was the
democratically elected Prime Minister of Iran, a popular left-of-centre figure
who wanted to nationalise the vast oil reserves of Iran, and distribute the
riches amongst the Iranian people (today Iran is estimated to possess the 4<sup>th</sup>
largest proven reserves of oil- </span><a href="http://tinyurl.com/5fc4yj-"><b><span style="font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 115%; mso-bidi-font-size: 11.0pt;">http://tinyurl.com/5fc4yj</span></b><span style="font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 115%; mso-bidi-font-size: 11.0pt; mso-bidi-font-weight: bold;">-</span></a><span style="font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 115%; mso-bidi-font-size: 11.0pt; mso-bidi-font-weight: bold;"> and the second largest reserves of
natural gas- </span><a href="http://tinyurl.com/yao4gbj-"><b><span style="font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 115%; mso-bidi-font-size: 11.0pt;">http://tinyurl.com/yao4gbj</span></b><span style="font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 115%; mso-bidi-font-size: 11.0pt; mso-bidi-font-weight: bold;">-</span></a><span style="font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 115%; mso-bidi-font-size: 11.0pt; mso-bidi-font-weight: bold;"> according to the CIA). At the time
Western oil companies, most prominently the Anglo-Persian Oil Company (later
the Anglo-Iranian Oil Company, later British Petroleum, or BP), had majority
control over Iranian oil, and reaped most of the profits. Award winning
journalist and former writer for the New York Times Stephen Kinzer writes that
‘just 16% of the money it earned selling the country’s oil’ (Stephen Kinzer
‘Overthrow’, 2006, pp. 117) went to Iran. At the time, Iran was undergoing a
shift in the political landscape, with growing demands for national control
over the resources the country was resting upon. The UK’s reaction to this was
illustrated strikingly by a British diplomat: ‘We English have hundreds of
years of experience on how to treat the natives. Socialism is all right back
home, but out here you have to be the master’ (Kinzer pp.118).<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 115%; mso-bidi-font-size: 11.0pt; mso-bidi-font-weight: bold;">The British- at the time under the
premiership of Winston Churchill- considered ‘bribing Mossadegh, assassinating him,
and launching a military invasion of Iran’ (Kinzer pp.119), but settled on overthrowing him instead,
documented in detail by historian Ervand Abrahamian (see his article ‘The 1953 Coup in Iran’ in <i>Science and Society</i>, 2001, 65 (2), pp. 182-215 for an overview).
When propaganda, inciting demonstrations by Shia fundamentalists (see Mark
Curtis ‘Secret Affairs’, 2012, pp. 45-54), and economic leverage failed to
topple the Mossadegh government, MI6 turned to the United States, and the CIA.
From then on, it was only a matter of time before Mossadegh fell; ‘economic
shocks’, working ‘through local Nazis’ and having a ‘direct role in
kidnappings, assassinations, torture and mass street killings’ (Abrahamian pp.
184) eventually forced him out, and the Western-friendly Shah was installed in
his place. After the coup, 54% of the shares of the resulting oil consortium
went to British companies, 40% to American, and 6% to the French. The British
and Americans had directly orchestrated a coup to overthrow an elected leader, Mohammed
Mossadegh; a leader who was described by President Truman’s ambassador to Iran as
having ‘the backing of 95 to 98 percent of the population’ (Kinzer pp.123). The
repressive monarch, the Shah, was installed in Mossadegh’s place, to act as a
pliant puppet regime.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 115%; mso-bidi-font-size: 11.0pt; mso-bidi-font-weight: bold;">Throughout the Foreign Office
documents from the time, emphasis is placed on ‘control’ of the oil reserves,
and this illustrates an essential point in International Relations: the key
geo-political aim is not <i>access</i> to
resources, but <i>control</i> over them.
More or less anyone can secure access to resources (Russia trades oil and
natural gas with Europe and America), but <i>control</i>
is where the real power lies. Only then do you reap the profits yourself, and
gain the political power that comes from having control over the flow of the
resources. Abrahamian references a Foreign Office document where the British
Ambassador to the US said that ‘it is necessary for the UK to maintain control’
(FO 371/Persia 1951/91470 in Abrahamian); a theme common in the documents. Also
worth noting is the role the American press played in the coup; newspapers ran
a campaign of propaganda against Mossadegh, regularly describing him as a
dictator, and contributing to a climate of hatred which helped legitimise his
overthrow (although at the time it was unknown that it was carried out by the
US and UK).<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 115%; mso-bidi-font-size: 11.0pt; mso-bidi-font-weight: bold;">After the coup, the Shah ruled Iran
as an oppressive dictatorship for 26 years, until the Iranian revolution of
1979 overthrew the dictator and replaced him with a new breed of theocratic
Shia fundamentalists. Another lesson in international politics is that stifling
of people’s legitimate demands for democracy and national independence has a
tendency to foster fundamentalism as people become more desperate and incensed
by their situation. One of the unique aspects of this particular coup is that
it is possible to at least mention it in the mainstream (though not nearly
enough). Barack Obama, for instance, acknowledged in his famous 2009 Cairo
speech that “the United States played a role in the overthrow of a
democratically elected Iranian government” (</span><a href="http://tinyurl.com/3yh3u6s"><b><span style="font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 115%; mso-bidi-font-size: 11.0pt;">http://tinyurl.com/3yh3u6s</span></b></a><span style="font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 115%; mso-bidi-font-size: 11.0pt; mso-bidi-font-weight: bold;">). Today, Mossadegh is a hero in Iran- akin to what Churchill is to the
British. Ironically, Churchill’s government overthrew the democratic government
in Iran, not the other way around; a more or less secret history that may sound
bizarre to many of us. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
Anonymoushttp://www.blogger.com/profile/03761537507654123124noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3557544622111744039.post-18228724632814041042013-03-12T09:05:00.001-07:002013-03-12T09:05:07.848-07:00Introduction<br />
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I have decided to embark on a journey into the dark and, for
me, little-understood world of blogging. The decision to delve into this
crowded arena was taken for two reasons: mainly so that my thoughts,
research and discoveries in the universe of international politics could be
recorded, and act as an 'extended mind' for myself, as philosopher David
Chalmers called it (see him give a Ted Talk on this particular
thesis here- <a href="http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ksasPjrYFTg">http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ksasPjrYFTg</a>).<o:p></o:p></div>
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The second, lesser reason, is that I felt some people may be
interested in hearing my thoughts and examining the evidence and sources behind
some of my claims. Those of you who have had the misfortune of being
around me for an extended period of time will have no doubt been exposed
to a lengthy tirade on international politics, or at the least
the occasional comment with an odd-sounding opinion. This blog is to
try to give those who are interested a small window into my frame of reference
and world-view in International Relations, and hopefully provide some
interesting view-points and information.<o:p></o:p></div>
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Having recently been elected president of the Warwick
International Relations society (FB Page here- <b><a href="http://tinyurl.com/cbychb7">http://tinyurl.com/cbychb7</a></b>), and
having the good fortune of getting an article published in the major
campus magazine on International Relations, the Warwick Globalist (can be found
online here- <b><a href="http://tinyurl.com/axowkf2">http://tinyurl.com/axowkf2</a></b>- all the articles are worth a read;
mine is on page 33-4, on the topic of West Papua, something I will post a
'blog' about at a later date), I felt that a blog on International Relations
would be an enjoyable (?) activity. If it goes anything like I hope
it will then there will be some space for constructive debate and sharing of ideas
and information.<o:p></o:p></div>
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I am terrible with technology and have little idea what a
blog is beyond a place where people 'write stuff and put it online' (maybe that
really is all there is to it), so this could go horrendously. My hope is that:
I will stick to a regular blog of reasonable length on varying topics around
International Relations; with a place to comment (not sure if that's standard
on a blog); and Google will make it easy for me. Some thoughts for upcoming
blogs include: The Iraq War ten years on, the Iranian 'threat', West Papua, the
global arms trade and Western Sahara.<o:p></o:p></div>
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I will attempt to reference all my sources
in accessible online form using TinyURL, and give full names of
articles, books and page numbers when my sources are only available in this
form.<o:p></o:p></div>
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Now to figure out how to publish this.<o:p></o:p></div>
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Anonymoushttp://www.blogger.com/profile/03761537507654123124noreply@blogger.com2