http://www.thedailybeast.com/articles/2012/03/26/show-don-t-tell-why-the-apartheid-analogy-falls-flat.html

http://www.thedailybeast.com/articles/2012/03/21/three-cheers-for-a-settlement-boycott.html

The backlash against Peter Beinart’s principled call for Jewish Americans to boycott Israeli settlement goods mirrors a debate that has been raging within the pro-Palestinian community. While many Jewish Americans, including those who are highly critical of the settlements, have reacted angrily to Beinart’s idea and reject the notion of any boycott of any Israelis whatsoever, in pro-Palestinian circles the debate has been whether or not to boycott all of Israel or to focus on the occupation and the settlements.

http://www.thedailybeast.com/articles/2012/03/14/match-spark.html

http://www.nowlebanon.com/NewsArticleDetails.aspx?ID=375483

Last week, I argued that the United States was not doing enough to engage proactively with the unfolding struggle in Syria, and that this inaction was ceding the field to others in an unwise, unnecessary and avoidable manner. The response from many friends and colleagues was, “What would you have us do?”

Opponents of a more robust US policy toward Syria pointed to statements by unnamed senior US intelligence officials quoted by The Washington Post that President Bashar al-Assad is still “is very much in charge” of the country. They generally ignored the second part of the quote in which the official said that even though “the odds are against them,” Syria’s leaders “are going to fight very hard.”

President Barack Obama and other senior administration officials have implicitly defended a policy of inaction by arguing that “the regime’s days are numbered” and that “it is not a matter of whether but when” the Syrian government is overthrown. If that is the case, then why feel impelled to act?

Although it is difficult indeed to sketch a long-term scenario in which the Syrian regime survives in anything like its present form, nothing is inevitable, and that includes Assad’s downfall. This “inevitability” argument serves as stopgap logic for the United States to continue to do very little to influence events in Syria—a policy, or absence of policy, that may have a great deal of appeal during an election year. Of course, if 8,000 Israelis had died in the past year, its relevance to the American national interest would not be debated.

Obama has said that he would not “act unilaterally” in Syria. This is a shot aimed between the eyes of a straw man. Not even the most vocal proponents of robust American action, such as Senator John McCain, have suggested that Washington do anything unilaterally.

Many close allies and supporters of the administration, including the Center for American Progress in a recent report, have beenemphasizing the alleged lack of good options the United States has regarding Syria. A former State Department official, Aaron David Miller, laid out the case for inaction the Foreign Policy website a few days ago. Surveying what he suggested were the options facing American policy, he warned against “reckless ideas of how to make the Syrian tragedy ours.” Miller did admit, however, that “the longer the killing goes on, the more likely we be will dragged into doing more.”

We can be certain that in fact the war will intensify. Miller, the Center for American Progress and others have warned of the difficulties and dangers of creating safe havens or arming rebel groups. No one denies that giving weapons to the rebels carries risks. But critics have yet to answer the point that others will go ahead and arm Syria’s opposition, and by doing so will gain influence, empower their own Syrian allies, and therefore help to define the very nature of the opposition.

It’s a red herring to suggest that because the situation is complex, American leverage is limited and coordination with allies is essential, therefore little can be done. It may be that the diplomatic groundwork and the level of the crisis on the ground, particularly with regard to Turkish policy, is not yet sufficient to establish safe havens or buffer zones. However, that does not preclude developing a policy that anticipates and begins to prepare for limited intervention when it becomes necessary, as even Miller acknowledges it probably will.

In the meantime, there are some clear steps the Obama administration can take to enhance its policies and behave proactively rather than reactively. First, it should stop talking about the “inevitable” fall of the Syrian regime and clearly announce that regime change in Damascus is a goal of US policy. Having determined and announced that, a great deal of clarity should follow.

Second, the United States should, like the European Union and others, formally recognize the Syrian National Council as “a legitimate representative of the Syrian people.”

Third, the administration should publish a series of benchmarks that the Syrian National Council, or any other opposition group seeking this role, must accomplish in order to gain eventual recognition as, in effect, a government in exile. These should include, but not be limited to, developing well-structured relations with the Free Syrian Army and other armed rebel groups, and doing much more to reach out to Syrian confessional and ethnic minorities, as well as offering far-reaching, ironclad guarantees about their status in a post-Assad future.

Fourth, Washington should begin identifying those in the political opposition as well as armed groups on the ground that it believes can represent a better future for Syria. And then it must do everything possible, within the bounds of prudence, to strengthen their hands against both the regime and other opposition forces.

None of these are wild-eyed ideas or flights of fancy. Nor are they reckless or ill-advised. In fact, they are the minimum conceivable corrective to a policy of inaction that is both reckless and ill-advised.

http://www.nowlebanon.com/NewsArticleDetails.aspx?ID=375483

Last week, I argued that the United States was not doing enough to engage proactively with the unfolding struggle in Syria, and that this inaction was ceding the field to others in an unwise, unnecessary and avoidable manner. The response from many friends and colleagues was, “What would you have us do?”

Opponents of a more robust US policy toward Syria pointed to statements by unnamed senior US intelligence officials quoted by The Washington Post that President Bashar al-Assad is still “is very much in charge” of the country. They generally ignored the second part of the quote in which the official said that even though “the odds are against them,” Syria’s leaders “are going to fight very hard.”

President Barack Obama and other senior administration officials have implicitly defended a policy of inaction by arguing that “the regime’s days are numbered” and that “it is not a matter of whether but when” the Syrian government is overthrown. If that is the case, then why feel impelled to act?

Although it is difficult indeed to sketch a long-term scenario in which the Syrian regime survives in anything like its present form, nothing is inevitable, and that includes Assad’s downfall. This “inevitability” argument serves as stopgap logic for the United States to continue to do very little to influence events in Syria—a policy, or absence of policy, that may have a great deal of appeal during an election year. Of course, if 8,000 Israelis had died in the past year, its relevance to the American national interest would not be debated.

Obama has said that he would not “act unilaterally” in Syria. This is a shot aimed between the eyes of a straw man. Not even the most vocal proponents of robust American action, such as Senator John McCain, have suggested that Washington do anything unilaterally.

Many close allies and supporters of the administration, including the Center for American Progress in a recent report, have been emphasizing the alleged lack of good options the United States has regarding Syria. A former State Department official, Aaron David Miller, laid out the case for inaction the Foreign Policy website a few days ago. Surveying what he suggested were the options facing American policy, he warned against “reckless ideas of how to make the Syrian tragedy ours.” Miller did admit, however, that “the longer the killing goes on, the more likely we be will dragged into doing more.”

We can be certain that in fact the war will intensify. Miller, the Center for American Progress and others have warned of the difficulties and dangers of creating safe havens or arming rebel groups. No one denies that giving weapons to the rebels carries risks. But critics have yet to answer the point that others will go ahead and arm Syria’s opposition, and by doing so will gain influence, empower their own Syrian allies, and therefore help to define the very nature of the opposition.

It’s a red herring to suggest that because the situation is complex, American leverage is limited and coordination with allies is essential, therefore little can be done. It may be that the diplomatic groundwork and the level of the crisis on the ground, particularly with regard to Turkish policy, is not yet sufficient to establish safe havens or buffer zones. However, that does not preclude developing a policy that anticipates and begins to prepare for limited intervention when it becomes necessary, as even Miller acknowledges it probably will.

In the meantime, there are some clear steps the Obama administration can take to enhance its policies and behave proactively rather than reactively. First, it should stop talking about the “inevitable” fall of the Syrian regime and clearly announce that regime change in Damascus is a goal of US policy. Having determined and announced that, a great deal of clarity should follow.

Second, the United States should, like the European Union and others, formally recognize the Syrian National Council as “a legitimate representative of the Syrian people.”

Third, the administration should publish a series of benchmarks that the Syrian National Council, or any other opposition group seeking this role, must accomplish in order to gain eventual recognition as, in effect, a government in exile. These should include, but not be limited to, developing well-structured relations with the Free Syrian Army and other armed rebel groups, and doing much more to reach out to Syrian confessional and ethnic minorities, as well as offering far-reaching, ironclad guarantees about their status in a post-Assad future.

Fourth, Washington should begin identifying those in the political opposition as well as armed groups on the ground that it believes can represent a better future for Syria. And then it must do everything possible, within the bounds of prudence, to strengthen their hands against both the regime and other opposition forces.

None of these are wild-eyed ideas or flights of fancy. Nor are they reckless or ill-advised. In fact, they are the minimum conceivable corrective to a policy of inaction that is both reckless and ill-advised.

http://www.democracyjournal.org/24/arabian-fights.php

How does one evaluate or even describe the nature and effects of a tornado when it’s still swirling? This is the conundrum facing anyone writing about the tumultuous changes taking place in the Arab world. These qualities of extreme flux and fluidity—what Frantz Fanon termed an “occult zone of instability”—are what have given rise to the dizzying plethora of terms coined to try to describe the unrest: “Arab Spring,” “Arab uprisings,” “Arab revolution(s),” “Arab awakening,” and Iran’s particularly misguided phrase, “Islamic awakening,” are just a few. Since concerted popular protests began in Tunisia on December 18, 2010, anti-government unrest has spread to many Arab countries. Several dictators have fallen, and others appear to be on their way out. But the outcomes in different Arab states undergoing these radical changes, and for strategic relations in the region as a whole, remain undetermined and, to some extent, unreadable.

The reshaping of the political and strategic landscape of one of the most important regions on earth properly commands the attention of the entire world. There are profound implications for U.S. foreign policy given that virtually everything most Americans, including policy-makers, thought they knew about Arab societies and political culture turns out to be incorrect or no longer applies. The uprisings clearly require a thorough reconceptualization of American and other Western attitudes toward Arab peoples, culture, and societies, and the casting aside of moldy orientalist stereotypes and anachronistic assumptions.

Because everything is changing so quickly and in so many places at the same time, following the trajectory of developments is daunting enough, let alone trying to analyze and understand exactly what they mean or where they’re going. The most obvious and persistent questions are almost impossible to answer. Are we seeing the emergence of liberal Arab democracies, Islamist systems, or entirely new hybrid post-Islamist political orders? Will the new Arab world be more pluralistic or embolden sectarianism? Will the changes bring greater stability or more conflict? Will they be the basis for economic revival or the chaos underwriting economic collapse? Developments are shifting so dramatically that it is difficult even to formulate the right questions, let alone to investigate possible answers.

Under such circumstances, reporters and journalists who limit themselves to narratives describing and contextualizing events have it a little easier than analysts and academics, who are supposed to produce “big picture” evaluations. Two new books, Liberation Square by Ashraf Khalil and The Arab Uprising by Marc Lynch, are excellent illustrations of the strengths and limitations of both approaches. Khalil focuses primarily on telling the story of the days between the outbreak of the protest movement in Egypt on January 25, 2011, and the ouster of President Hosni Mubarak 18 days later. Lynch, on the other hand, tries to provide a broad-based analysis of the unprecedented events in the region, and to posit a comprehensive methodological framework for understanding them.

Having set himself a much more limited, manageable, and straightforward task, Khalil, a reporter who has covered the Middle East for several major Western publications including The Los Angeles Times, succeeds admirably. But his book doesn’t offer any guide to what happened after Mubarak fell in Egypt, or what is likely to happen in that country or anywhere else in the future. Lynch’s project is infinitely more complex and, ultimately, unrealizable, at least at this stage. He certainly deserves a lot of credit for trying, and I’m not sure anyone else could have done any better than Lynch, a professor of political science at George Washington University. As a consequence of being both impossibly broad and clearly premature, Lynch’s book suffers from serious flaws. In many passages it feels rushed, at times even becoming a hodgepodge of incongruous arguments, and Lynch is fixated on the influence of the Qatar-based Al Jazeera television network. But unlike Liberation Square, The Arab Uprising does offer a broad framework for understanding not only what has happened, but what may well happen in the Arab world, and some sober suggestions about what this implies for the United States.

For a detailed, day-by-day account of exactly what happened in Tahrir Square, one need look no further than Liberation Square. This is exemplary reportage: fair, serious, dynamic, and engaging. It is at its most vivid in Chapter Nine, “The Fall of the Police State,” in which Khalil describes in detail the process by which protesters finally overwhelmed the Egyptian security units and forced the military into making a final decision whether or not to intervene to crush the rebellion. He is clear, and correct, that this was the decisive turning point: “Egypt’s nonviolent revolution wouldn’t have happened without some people who were willing to be extremely violent at times. Over a four-day period, a hardcore cadre of protesters confronted and physically shattered the Egyptian police state.” Khalil brings to life a “full-blown rock war” on the crucial day of confrontation, January 28, pitting stone-throwing protesters against tear gas and baton charges from security forces. He explains how “the protesters worked in organized shifts; those returning from the front lines of the conflict were treated for tear-gas exposure and buckshot wounds by makeshift triage units,” while others “dragged a blanket loaded with hundreds of rocks and concrete chunks toward the front to be thrown at the police.”

But Khalil’s three-word final paragraph, after describing the removal of Mubarak by the military, is profoundly misleading: “It was over.” As subsequent events in Egypt have conclusively shown, if by “it” one means the tumultuous changes transforming the Egyptian political scene and system, then “it” had only just begun. The overthrow of Mubarak was, in fact, not a revolution at all, but a regime decapitation by elements of the existing power structure seeking to preserve as much of their supremacy, privileges, and wealth as possible in the face of a popular rebellion. As this essay goes to press, Egypt is still firmly in the grip of the Mubarak-era military. A year after Mubarak’s downfall it would still be possible, and probably accurate, to argue that the fundamental transformation of that country, if that is indeed what is taking place, remains in its infancy.

The greatest strength of Liberation Square is Khalil’s masterful contextualization of the genesis of the Egyptian uprising. He grounds it in the plight of what University of Illinois sociology professor Asef Bayat has perfectly described as the “middle-class poor” in the Arab world, mainly educated and primarily young people who simply cannot find jobs commensurate with their education and expectations. Khalil’s most revealing passages vividly describe the “palpable sense of despair and helplessness…taking hold” in much of Egyptian middle-class poor society in the last decade of Mubarak’s rule. Through an insightful reading ofCultural Film, a superficially lightweight comedy released in 2000, Khalil describes how, because “[t]here are no jobs out there—at least none that pay enough” for young professionals and couples to get their own apartments, their lives are placed on hold for years if not decades. Both careers and romantic relationships fall apart under such strains. Khalil suggestively wonders “just how much pure sexual frustration fed into Egypt’s revolutionary rage.” While the film ends on a contrived happy note, he aptly points out that its main characters in fact “would have no true options other than to start a revolution, join a fundamentalist cell, or kill themselves.”

It’s hard to overstate the centrality to these uprisings of the economic, social, personal, and, indeed, often sexual frustrations faced by the young middle-class poor that make up such a huge percentage of so many Arab societies. One of the most serious problems with Lynch’s book is that it occasionally acknowledges but ultimately pays very little attention to this vital class and materialist element. Instead, Lynch grounds his analysis in the subject of his last book, 2005’s Voices of the New Arab Public, which was mainly about Al Jazeera. He therefore reads the uprisings, which he thinks of as a unified movement or phenomenon, as primarily driven by “the rise of the ‘new Arab public sphere.’” He mainly attributes this to Al Jazeera, and also to some extent social media and the Internet, as well as cheap mobile phones.

There’s no doubt that the phenomenon that Lynch returns to time and again of a technologically driven and relatively new “Arab public sphere” is essential to understanding the uprisings. Lynch is correct in noting that because of this development, “the ability to credibly align with the Arab public on its core issues and to shape those convictions will become an ever greater source of power and influence,” and that “the unified political space will increase the linkage between issues across the region.” He also correctly identifies this as a significant challenge to American foreign policy, particularly regarding the question of Palestine.

But Lynch ultimately is too focused on the media. One could make a drinking game based on every time he mentions Al Jazeera. You’d be in real trouble on page 90, in which Al Jazeera is mentioned no fewer than nine times, as well as credited with having “owned the revolution.” This fixation occasionally draws Lynch into indefensible hyperbole such as “Al Jazeera now found itself in a position to make or break uprisings,” as if Arab public opinion were simply a marionette dancing on the strings of the puppet masters in Doha.

Lynch acknowledges that Arab politics in the past decade were dominated by competition between a “resistance axis” and a “moderate axis,” and that this “came to define all regional interactions in classic bipolar fashion, giving regional strategic meaning to local events and bringing together unlikely coalitions.” But he doesn’t explain what those unlikely coalitions were, how they have broken down and, most importantly, what they have been replaced with. The primary narrative promoted by Al Jazeera and some other influential Arab media in the past decade was that the Arab world was the scene of a historic confrontation between a “culture of resistance” (mainly the Islamist groups and the Iranian-led alliance) and a “culture of accommodation” (most of the Arab governments). This narrative informed and rationalized extremely strong and sincere Arab Sunni support for Hezbollah in its war with Israel and, more emphatically, the combined Sunni Islamist and Iranian-alliance support for Hamas.

But Lynch misreads Al Jazeera’s role in promoting the “culture of resistance” as merely a symptom of “its refusal to sign on to the Saudi-led campaigns.” He is likewise wrong to say that the network’s “sympathetic coverage of Hezbollah” simply “reflected the views of the vast majority of the Arab public with which it identified.” Both assertions elide the domination within Al Jazeera’s on-air talent and management of Islamists and pro-Islamist anti-imperialists and left-nationalists with a strong ideological tilt toward the “culture of resistance.” (They also elide the usefulness of such rhetoric to Qatari foreign policy.) The narrative spread by Al Jazeera and other like-minded Arab media in fact created the ideological space for these trans-sectarian alliances, based on the mythology of the “resistance axis.” This “accommodation versus resistance” story line threatened to give the various protest movements that Lynch describes in detail a prescriptive character—that “accommodationist” governments needed to be replaced by “resistance” movements—but in the event it did not.

Al Jazeera no doubt did help create a new Arab public sphere and consciousness. But its rhetoric over the past decade did not, in fact, anticipate or set the stage for the uprisings in Tunisia or Egypt. Had it done so, those uprisings would have been far more Islamist in character and oriented toward anti-imperialism regionally rather than mainly focusing on social justice, accountability, and democracy at home. A very different emancipatory spirit took hold on the streets of Arab capitals. Like the Islamist parties it generally promoted, the station and its analysts were also largely taken aback by the protests and essentially had to play catch-up with movements they neither informed nor fully understood. Both rushed to try to benefit from the unexpected uprisings, and to some extent they have, but neither were the authors of them.

While developments in each individual Arab state are shaped mainly by local contingencies, the effect of the uprisings regionally has been the emergence of a new strategic landscape based mainly on sectarian identification that has been increasingly pitting Arab Sunnis against all confessional minorities and vice versa. Lynch incorrectly implies that sectarianism in the Middle East was much stronger in the middle part of the last decade than it is now. In fact, the sectarianism that has been emerging in recent months is far starker than what was circulating then. The space for trans-sectarian alliances is now foreclosed. Hamas, for example, can no longer be aligned with the Syrian regime, Iran, or Hezbollah because it has been forced to choose between its Sunni Islamist ideology and its alliance with Damascus and Tehran. It has an identity and a branding crisis of unprecedented proportions, and is hoping to avoid paying a major price in having to readjust its policies in a manner that would severely undermine its ability to challenge the mainstream Palestinian nationalists. The identities of both the pro- and anti-regime camps in the Syrian struggle have changed. This is not a reflection or extension of the old dichotomy, but a new and largely sectarian one. It doesn’t fit well with Lynch’s model of a new, unified, empowered Arab public brought together by Al Jazeera and the Internet, but in fact it’s defining how regional actors are lining up on issue of the legitimacy and survival of the Bashar al-Assad regime and, indeed, how Syrian society itself seems to be dividing internally.

Lynch argues that because Al Jazeera shone the spotlight on the regime’s violence, “both Syrians and other Arabs consciously placed the unfolding events within the broader Arab story. In that story, Assad was the villain, regardless of his ‘resistance’ foreign policy.” That’s an accurate reflection of how almost all Sunni Arab public opinion has shifted regarding the Syrian regime and its allies, but it doesn’t reflect the completely different understanding of events embraced by most Arab Shiites, many if not most Levantine Christians, and others. Yet Lynch manages to write almost 20 pages entirely devoted to the uprising in Syria without ever delving into its increasingly sectarian character, or the nature of its minority Alawite government and all that this implies given the new regional realities.

He briefly acknowledges that the conflict in Syria seems to be giving rise to “a sectarian narrative” in “troubling ways,” but it’s a momentary flash of recognition. Lynch suffers from a similar blind spot regarding Bahrain, which is a mirror image of Syria: an oppressive minority Sunni regime almost unanimously supported by Arab Sunni governments, Islamist groups, and most prominent organizations. He is convinced that “the Arab public saw the Bahraini protesters as part of its shared struggle, and the regime as equivalent to its own hated regimes,” until a Saudi-led “steady barrage of sectarian accusations” undid this solidarity. But it was difficult to ever detect any particular Arab Sunni sympathy for the Bahraini protesters outside of narrow circles of liberal youth and online activists.

Lynch is at his strongest when discussing the American policy debate on how to respond to the Arab uprisings, and he provides a powerful and convincing intervention. He makes the case, which I agree with strongly, that the Obama Administration has done a reasonably good job in reacting to the immediate challenges of the unanticipated uprisings, but that the United States needs to develop a much more coherent approach to Middle Eastern change, because “if it continues to act as a status quo power…it will fail” to promote either its interests or its values. Lynch is absolutely right that the more empowered Arab publics and the highly significant emergence of “the new Arab public sphere” will make the issue of Palestine more, not less, important and that as long as the United States is mainly perceived as “playing defense on Israel’s behalf…this will no longer work.” He offers powerful and effective critiques of the realist and neoconservative approaches, and sensibly puts little faith in “a left-leaning academic tradition” that “likely does not want to offer useful advice” for the United States to advance its interests in the region.

He clearly outlines the challenges facing the United States: It must engage more fully with the Arab publics and position itself on the right side of history and Middle Eastern transformations; undertake “a serious rethinking of America’s relationship with Israel”; “respond rationally to the public participation of Islamist movements” by accepting they are an unavoidable and important part of the new Arab political scene; combat Islamophobia in the United States; and “accept the limits of its ability to control the Middle East.” This is an excellent summary of the challenges facing the development of a new, more effective American policy toward the Arab world, which will be urgently required in the coming months and years. I don’t think Lynch can be faulted for very ably laying out the challenges rather than suggesting any solutions.

Khalil’s book describes the economic and class bases that are central to the uprisings, as well as their liberationist passion. Lynch’s book foregrounds the crucial development of a “new Arab public sphere.” Above, I have described the rise of a dangerous new sectarianism in the emerging regional order. Many others have noted that while their rhetoric and organizations did not dominate the protests, Islamist parties are proving to be the primary and immediate beneficiaries of newly opened political space in Tunisia, Egypt, and elsewhere. Others point out that the process of rebellion and of participating in new systems is itself transforming the Arab Islamists and forcing them to adopt a more pragmatic and less dogmatic worldview. Still others note the regional rise in influence of Turkey and the precipitous decline of Iran. Yet all of these dramatic changes are but strands in a complicated weave, the broad patterns of which we cannot yet fully discern.

The causes and the symptoms of the uprisings are identifiable, but not their ultimate nature or outcomes. Both Lynch and Khalil have written significant books that should help the American public and policy-makers alike comprehend the complexity and the magnitude of the challenge facing the American role in the Middle East. A little bit of humility under such circumstances, not only for commentators and analysts, but also for the country, goes a very long way indeed.

http://www.nowlebanon.com/NewsArticleDetails.aspx?ID=372758

The brutality that the regime of Syrian President Bashar al-Assad has employed in crushing rebel forces and attacking civilians in Homs is yet another crucial indicator of the extent to which civil conflict in Syria has developed its own inexorable momentum. In the United States, however, the debate continues to focus on ways of avoiding facing this ugly reality and dealing with it proactively.

The policy of the Obama administration and much of the discourse within the American foreign policy establishment reflect symptoms of neurotic denial. The reality that hasn’t been fully accepted in Washington yet is that the Rubicon of civil conflict has long since been crossed and there’s no going back.

The stark choice facing the United States, and all external actors, is whether or not they care to be involved in shaping the nature and the outcome of that conflict, or prefer to remain largely passive observers and then deal with the consequences.

The loudest voices in the American conversation are still those counseling the need for a political solution to the crisis. This idea is rooted in two indefensible fantasies: first, that the present regime might be willing to cut a deal rather than pursue a military solution; and second, that there is a way to avoid the further intensification of conflict on the ground.

Built into this wishful thinking is a paradox. In theory, it might be possible to shift the calculations of some elements in the present regime toward cutting a deal with the opposition. However, the only way to achieve such a radical shift is by transforming the equation on the ground. And the only way to do that is to proactively engage in the conflict that already exists and is going to intensify—whether or not outside parties intervene directly or indirectly.

Most aspects of the American policy conversation that acknowledge the need to engage with events on the ground in Syria have focused on the humanitarian calamity and the principle of Responsibility to Protect. A respected former US official, Anne-Marie Slaughter, has proposed creating “no-kill zones” and safe havens for refugees, and even supplying arms to rebel groups “for defensive purposes” only.

Even when packaged as a humanitarian intervention, such measures would have clear strategic implications, and the idea that arms could function only in a “defensive” manner in such a conflict is, frankly, inconceivable. Meanwhile, Republican Senators John McCain and Lindsey Graham have simply advocated arming rebels, and this sentiment is growing.

Even though most in the Obama administration continue to maintain a risk-averse attitude toward Syria, it’s becoming ever clearer that entirely opting out of an ongoing conflict that cannot be reversed simply leaves the field to others. Over the weekend, US officials said they hadevidence that Iran was more heavily involved in the repression than had been previously believed. They also said that the increased use of improvised explosive devices by rebels suggested “outside support” and that the conflict was therefore likely to expand.

While the capabilities of the Syrian rebel forces have been much derided, New York Times photographer Tyler Hicks, who also covered the Libya conflict, recently wrote that his strong impression was that “The Free Syrian Army is much more organized than the rebel fighters in Libya. Because of the growing number of defectors, there’s a stock of able, trained soldiers and officers mounting in Syria… but they don’t yet have the weapons to put up a realistic fight.”

Changing the equation on the ground to help create that “realistic fight” and force the regime to begin to deploy its largely Sunni military rank-and-file rather than its largely Alawite elite forces could prove a crucial turning point. It could unleash mass defections, with at least some heavy weapons presumably.

Hicks had been traveling in Syria with the late New York Timescorrespondent Anthony Shadid. In an interview with local activists taped a few hours before his death, Shadid opined that he thought the regime would eventually fall, but that it would take a long time. This evaluation seems entirely justified and has two vital implications.

First, the less foreign intervention there is, of whatever kind, on the side of the opposition, the longer it will take, the messier it will be, and the more people will die. Second, there is a huge opportunity for outside forces to help shape the nature and even the identity of the opposition that will eventually depose the regime. If the United States wants to leave that role to others such as Turkey, Saudi Arabia, Qatar or Islamist groups, it can hardly complain about the outcome.

The Obama administration, which seeks to reconcile American values and interests, has a major opportunity to do so in this case. Persisting with policies based on wishing things in Syria weren’t as they are fails both humanitarian values and strategic interests.

http://www.nowlebanon.com/NewsArticleDetails.aspx?ID=372758

http://www.nowlebanon.com/NewsArticleDetails.aspx?ID=378119

Has any other maxim led to greater error and remorse than the twisted logic that “the enemy of my enemy is my friend?” Yet the irony is that this malevolent cliché is actually the most charitable interpretation for why a large and bipartisan group of prominent Americans is currently lobbying on behalf of the bizarre Iranian terrorist cult the Mujahedeen e-Khalq, or MEK.

This unlikely coalition is pressuring the US government to change its policies towards the main MEK base, “Camp Ashraf,” in Iraq and thwart American and Iraqi plans for resolving that issue. More ominously, the group is pressuring to have the MEK removed from the list of designated foreign terrorist organizations.

The somewhat less charitable explanation is that many of the American MEK supporters have been paid tens of thousands of dollars for speeches and other services. Because all material dealings with the MEK are serious felonies, the Treasury Department has recently issued subpoenas to some of its key US supporters, including former Pennsylvania Governor Ed Rendell, former Department of Homeland Security chief Tom Ridge, former FBI Director Louis Freeh, and former Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff Gen. Hugh Shelton. Rendell’s office, for example, admits he has received $160,000 for such efforts over the past year.

Other prominent MEK supporters include Republican notables such as the former Attorney General Michael Mukasey, former Homeland Security Advisor Fran Townsend, former White House Chief of Staff Andrew Card, and former New York City Mayor Rudolph Giuliani, many of whom are self-styled anti-terrorism crusaders. On the Democratic side, MEK backers include former Vermont Governor Howard Dean, former New Mexico Governor Bill Richardson, and former Senior Allied Commander of NATO Wesley Clark.

The MEK is on the terrorism list for good reason. According to a State Department report published in 1997, the organization “assassinated at least six American citizens, supported the takeover of the US Embassy [in Tehran], and opposed the release of the American hostages.” Since then, the organization has been implicated in numerous terrorist attacks inside Iran and elsewhere, and for many years its main sponsor was Iraqi dictator Saddam Hussein.

A further, and more disturbing, motivation for this indefensible championing of the MEK was recently revealed by NBC News. It reported that US officials said “deadly attacks on Iranian nuclear scientists are being carried out by an Iranian dissident group [the MEK] that is financed, trained and armed by Israel’s secret service.”

For some, it seems, although the MEK may be a terrorist group, it has the “right targets,” and therefore should be supported rather than banned.

But the MEK is not simply a run-of-the-mill dissident group employing terrorist tactics. It is a bizarre and dangerous cult run by a strange and fanatical couple, Massoud and Maryam Rajavi, that reportedly keeps its members in total isolation, forbids marriages and imposes divorces, and engages in disturbing “self-criticism” sessions. Its ideology is a twisted syncretism of Shia fundamentalism, Marxism and feminism run amok. Numerous observers have aptly compared its mindset to that of the Khmer Rouge.

While the MEK opposes the foul dictatorship in Tehran, its own structure and practices reveal disturbingly similar undemocratic practices, and indeed far worse. For a simple primer on how the MEK conducts itself, readers should consult Elizabeth Rubin’s 2003 New York Times report, “The Cult of Rajavi.”

The Treasury Department is to be commended for launching a long-overdue investigation into the MEK’s well-funded US lobby, as well as its large payments to exceptionally prominent Americans who certainly ought to know better. Some have claimed ignorance about the MEK’s history and practices. However, any 10-year-old with an Internet connection could discover the truth about this nefarious organization within minutes of casual browsing.

Were the State Department to de-list the organization as a terrorist group, the official American approach to international terrorism would be shorn of any pretense of principle. Moral clarity on terrorism would be abandoned in favor of the logic of “they’re our terrorists, so they’re acceptable,” simply on the basis that their targets are the repulsive regime in Tehran and its nuclear program, possibly under Israeli state sponsorship.

For far too long, MEK front organizations have operated with impunity in the United States. Prominent Americans have accepted cash payments that with regard to other designated terrorist groups would have long since led to major prosecutions. Rather than de-listing the MEK from the terrorism list, the United States government should vigorously pursue its investigation into those Americans who have accepted payments from its front organizations.

By legitimizing the MEK, Washington would lose almost all credibility when it comes to opposing terrorism. The enemy of my enemy is by no means necessarily my friend. That way madness lies.

http://www.nowlebanon.com/NewsArticleDetails.aspx?ID=370070

Is a third Palestinian intifada coming in the foreseeable future? An Israeli Foreign Ministry intelligence report circulated in the government last week and leaked over the weekend to Ha’aretz suggests it could well be. The report is right, and its assessment should make sobering reading for Israeli officials and citizens alike.

The report holds that there is little appetite on behalf of the mainstream Palestinian leadership in Ramallah, or among the majority of Palestinians, for “a violent escalation with Israel.” All the evidence points in that direction. However, the report allegedly continues, “The continuing freeze of the diplomatic process, combined with any drastic Israeli moves in the military and/or economic realm and the continuing stormy situation in the Middle East, could bring about a change in this approach.”

What the report implicitly recognizes is that the situation on the ground is simply untenable. Despite the intentions of the Ramallah leadership or the Palestinian majority, the situation is building to such a state of tension that even a small spark could unleash waves of protest. Such protests could well begin nonviolently, but sooner rather than later would, as they always do, elicit a violent response from occupation forces.

The occupation, after all, is in essence a system of discipline and control over millions of subjugated noncitizens by a foreign army. Israeli forces ultimately have little recourse other than violence to suppress Palestinian protests—whether these are non-violent, symbolically violent (as in stone throwing against heavily armored troops) or genuinely resemble riots. The bottom line is that no people in the world will continue to sit idly by as their country is colonized before their very eyes and they continue to endure decades of foreign occupation with no end in sight.

Israel’s government has proven remarkably shortsighted in recent months, assuming it wants to avoid another escalation on the ground. Settlement activity has increased, including plans for building in sensitive areas, such as the E-1 corridor and other strategic locations that threaten the viability of any future Palestinian state. Leaving aside for a moment international law, under which all settlement activity is illegal, the Israeli government has proven incapable or unwilling to enforce its own laws about settlement-building and court orders to dismantle “unauthorized outposts.” It has even been retroactively recognizing hundreds of settlement housing units built without permission.

The latest illustration of the core of the problem is an Israeli plan to build a 475-kilometer rail system throughout the occupied territories. It even says it intends to demolish Palestinian solar energy installations because they were built “without the permission” of occupation authorities.

What this yet again demonstrates is that the Israeli government, for all intents and purposes and no matter what it says in public, continues to treat the occupied territories as Israeli property. Through its actions, it is sending a clear message that it has no interest in the eventual creation of a real Palestinian state. Its conduct makes it very difficult to argue that Israel does not eventually intend to either annex large chunks of the West Bank, making Palestinian statehood impossible, or to maintain the status quo that is radically separate and unequal in every respect along ethnic lines and which denies Palestinians their basic human and national rights.

A number of recent incidents have illustrated the kind of tension points that could provide the spark for another uprising, even if the Ramallah-based leadership and the Palestinian majority don’t want one. The hunger strike of Islamic Jihad activist Khader Adnan, whose death was averted by a last-minute deal with the Israeli authorities stipulating that he will be either released or charged by mid-April, conceivably had that potential. So have planned provocations by Jewish extremists at holy sites in occupied East Jerusalem and the killing of an unarmed Palestinian protester at an Israeli checkpoint.

The Palestinian leadership in Ramallah has three simultaneous initiatives at the moment: talks with Israel that no one believes will bear fruit in the foreseeable future, potential further action at the United Nations, and national reconciliation with Hamas. None of these seem to offer the prospect of much progress, and reconciliation with Hamas, so long as the organization does not change its policies, comes at a huge price internationally and diplomatically.

Israel, on the other hand, seems to have no initiative at all, and no realistic vision of the future except continuing to expand and entrench the occupation. But underlying the new intelligence report is the understanding that the status quo is simply untenable. If it continues, sooner or later something will trigger another confrontation on the ground that is almost certain to spiral quickly into violence.

If that happens, there will be plenty of blame to go around. But if the Israelis find themselves caught up in another spasm of bloodshed, they need only look in the mirror to discover who bears the greatest responsibility.