http://www.thenational.ae/opinion/comment/settlements-sabotaged-talks-not-palestinians#full

For both politicians and commentators, spin is an occupational hazard. Politicians cannot function without “spinning” realities to suit their purposes thereby putting the most favourable possible interpretation on events for their own interests. Commentators may be tempted to do the same, but their proper role is to react to political spin coming at them from officials, candidates and activists.

The duty of analysts, at least theoretically, is to guide their readers towards a balanced interpretation of reality, as best they understand it. Sometimes, though, even experienced veterans can let their guard down and find themselves totally suspending disbelief and presenting spin in an uncritical manner, especially if they think it’s all in a good cause.

Roger Cohen of The New York Times seems to have fallen into precisely this trap in his most recent op-ed, in which he essentially serves as the stenographer for Israel’s former negotiator Tzipi Livni.

Ms Livni has joined forces with Labor Party leader Isaac Herzog in an effort to unseat the incumbent prime minister Benjamin Netanyahu. The bulk of Mr Cohen’s article is given over to Ms Livni’s account of how and why the American-brokered negotiations with the Palestinians collapsed earlier this year.

It’s no surprise that Ms Livni places the blame squarely on Palestinian president Mahmoud Abbas. Indeed, her account, as recounted by Mr Cohen, draws heavily on the liberal Israeli mantra that the lack of peace is best explained by the Palestinians’ inexplicable refusal to “miss any opportunity to miss an opportunity,” which dates back to the era of Israeli diplomat and politician Abba Eban. He first made the comment after the December 1973 Geneva peace talks.

According to Ms Livni, Mr Abbas essentially turned down a constructive and far-reaching American proposal presented on March 17, and refined on April 1. All of a sudden, Ms Livni claims, she watched Mr Abbas on television signing papers to join a number of multilateral agencies, which she says almost killed the talks. The coup de grace, she insists, actually came when Mr Abbas’s Fatah party announced an agreement with Hamas on April 23.

“A long season of negotiation gave way to recrimination,” Mr Cohen writes, “and, soon enough, the Gaza war.” He adds that thus, “another opportunity in the Holy Land has been lost. The waste is unconscionable, tragedy indeed”. By this point in the narrative it’s not clear whose voice – Mr Cohen’s or Ms Livni’s – is channelling the spirit of Mr Eban. Not only is this heavy duty Israeli political spin, it is designed to counter not a Palestinian, but an American, understanding of the primary causes for the breakdown of the talks.

In testimony before the US Senate on April 7, secretary of state John Kerry clearly stated that two Israeli actions – the failure to release Palestinian prisoners on schedule and the announcement of 700 new settlement housing units – crashed down on the process: “And poof! That was sort of the moment.” The moment, of course, in which the talks became non-viable. A state department spokesperson later clarified that Mr Kerry thinks there are faults on both sides and isn’t playing “the blame game.”

This American account was subsequently confirmed by two unnamed senior Obama administration officials. One, generally assumed to be the outgoing Middle East special envoy Martin Indyk, told veteran Israeli journalist Nahum Barnea on May 2, “the primary sabotage came from the settlements.”

He explained that, “continuing construction allowed ministers in his [Mr Netanyahu’s] government to very effectively sabotage the success of the talks”. He added that “the claim on your side that Abbas was avoiding making decisions is not true,” and listed a series of Palestinian concessions on demilitarisation, land swaps, security and, crucially, refugees.

On May 15, The New York Times quoted another senior American official as saying, “At every juncture, there was a settlement announcement. It was the thing that kept throwing a wrench in the gears”.

Indeed, last May, Ms Livni told Israel’s Army Radio that the settlers “are preventing us from reaching a resolution” and that “settlement construction makes it impossible to defend Israel around the world.”

It’s perfectly obvious why, in the midst of a heated election campaign, Ms Livni feels the urgent need to provide a self-serving narrative about the breakdown of her negotiations with the Palestinians. And it’s also easy to understand why Mr Cohen, an avowed supporter of peace, would want to give her a platform. Presumably, it’s to help unseat Mr Netanyahu in favour of a more constructive Israeli government led by the Livni-Herzog coalition. It’s fair to say that most people interested in peace would welcome such an electoral outcome.

But the path to peace isn’t laid by narratives aimed at blaming the other side when all parties have their fair share of responsibility for the continuing conflict. And Mr Cohen did his readers a disservice by not even mentioning the well-established and almost certainly accurate American account, cited above, that Ms Livni is challenging.

This spin might be good Israeli electoral politics, but it’s very bad diplomacy and even worse journalism. And, given the facts painstakingly related not by Palestinian but by American officials, it’s totally unconvincing.

https://now.mmedia.me/lb/en/commentaryanalysis/564586-after-dramatic-victories-nida-tunis-faces-daunting-challenges

Beji Caid Essebsi, leader of the non-Islamist Nida Tunis coalition, which he founded in 2012 as an umbrella for secular groups who had previously been splintered into over a dozen formations, has been decisively elected Tunisia’s next president in the country’s first free and open presidential election. His margin over incumbent Moncef Marzouki is huge: almost 11%. If that isn’t a landslide, it’s very close. The usual threshold for a landslide is calculated at about 15 percentage points, but the American magazine Politico calculates it at 10 points. Either way, Essebsi’s victory is dramatic and unmistakable. But his problems begin now.

For the Islamist Ennahda party, Marzouki’s defeat comes as another bitter blow. They had supported the incumbent because he wasn’t Essebsi, and because they thought he would cooperate with them. Ennahda, early on, had pledged not to run a candidate or officially support anyone standing for president. They stuck with that pledge, perhaps learning a lesson from Egypt’s Muslim Brotherhood, which reneged on a similar promise regarding the presidency in that country. And officially they didn’t support anyone. But unofficially there was no doubt they were pushing strongly for Marzouki, and, just as in the recent parliamentary elections in which they were soundly defeated by Nida Tunis, the ability of Ennahda to command majorities or bring out massive numbers of votes is again called into question.

But having lost the parliamentary election, perhaps it’s counterintuitively better for Ennahda that their preferred candidate didn’t win the presidency. Tunisia faces an enormous, perhaps overwhelming, set of challenges. The economy continues to struggle. And there is a serious and growing problem with extremist violence. No country provides more foreign fighters to the Islamic State (ISIS) in Iraq and Syria than Tunisia does. And the country faces a more local, homegrown, radical terrorist movement in Ansar al-Sharia, which operates regionally in the hinterlands of Libya, Algeria and other areas in the Sahara and Sahel.

Having won both the biggest number of seats in parliament and the presidency, Nida Tunis now faces the daunting prospect of being responsible for dealing with all of this, and more. The situation has developed in such a way that Nida Tunis probably needs a coalition with Ennahda more than Ennahda does.

The Islamist group now faces a win-win scenario in defeat. If it is brought into government in a coalition with Nida Tunis, it will have demonstrated that even though it loses elections, its constituency is so powerful and important that it cannot wisely or practicably be excluded from government. It will remain close to the levers of power and important and influential. On the other hand, if Nida Tunis forms a coalition without Ennahda, all the Islamists have to do is kick back and criticize the government’s performance, with increasing vehemence over time, as the loyal opposition.

There wouldn’t even be a need for Ennahda to sabotage the new government’s policies on crucial and perhaps irresolvable challenges such as the economy and security. A rising chorus of criticism would probably be sufficient to set the stage for a major comeback for Ennahda in future parliamentary and presidential elections. Indeed, if it were seen as acting as a kind of disloyal opposition or obstructionist group, that could, and probably would, backfire. Much wiser, therefore, for Ennahda, if it finds itself out of government in the coming months, to strike a pose as cooperative and sincere, but increasingly disappointed on behalf of the whole country with the administration’s failures on economic and security matters, and possibly more.

As for Essebsi, he faces not only a daunting series of policy challenges, but also a new situation for his Nida Tunis coalition. Since it was founded in 2012, Nida Tunis has been a motley and incongruous assemblage of political forces, entities and personalities that share little in common except one thing: they are either non- or anti-Islamist. They came together to push back the wave of support that brought Ennahda to power in the parliamentary elections following the overthrow of former dictator Ben Ali.

The groups that came together in the Nida Tunis coalition realized that, even in the immediate aftermath of the fall of the dictatorship, Ennahda was not a majority party. It gained power, instead, because non-Islamist or secular groups were so numerous, contentious and badly divided. The non-Islamist majority existed, but it had no ability to govern or form coherent coalitions, because it was so fractured. This delivered power to a coherent, united and large Islamist minority.

The challenge became increasingly urgent as Ennahda’s performance in government in the troika coalition it led was increasingly vulnerable to severe criticism on both security and the economy. Moreover, two crucial developments in constitutional negotiations opened the door for Nida Tunis’ bid for power even further.

First, the defeat of the political exclusion initiative demonstrated that experience in governance under the former dictatorship, which in the immediate aftermath of the uprising was seen as a taint or black mark against politicians and technocrats, was now being re-conceptualized by the Tunisian public as potentially desirable. Experience and technical ability were not necessarily bad things, and not everyone associated with the former regime could be reasonably seen as a remnant of the dictatorship. Indeed, technical competence was now increasingly seen as desirable, especially given the failures of the inexperienced troika coalition, and the relatively better performance of the technocratic interim administration over the past year or so.

Second, given that Ennahda was forced to compromise on the nature of the emerging Tunisian political system, accepting a major role for the presidency, Nida Tunis was given another major national power. Ennahda naturally strongly favored a parliamentary system, given that they could rely on their base to produce something between at least 20-30% of any given national vote. So they were poised to always be a significant, if not dominant, force in parliament. But that same base would require a great deal of external support to secure the presidency, particularly in a one-on-one runoff against a powerful and popular non-Islamist candidate who could call on the secular majority.

In the event, Ennahda had to accept a mixed system in the new constitution, allocating major powers to parliament on domestic issues, but establishing a strong presidency on national security and defense matters. The powerful chief executive position was almost tailor-made for Nida Tunis in general and Essebsi in particular. Even though Tunisia’s new president is 88 years old, and served in the government of former dictatorships before breaking with them many years ago, he does seem to have galvanized strong support among the national non-Islamist majority.

But now that Essebsi and Nida Tunis have won both the parliamentary and presidential elections, they will find that being exclusively responsible for Tunisia’s challenges may be a crown of thorns. They won’t regret their victory. But, if they exclude Ennahda from the next coalition in parliament, they may find themselves facing an increasingly powerful and popular opposition as Tunisia’s problems fester (which seems very likely, no matter what policies are adopted by whatever government). Ennahda has avoided the trap that the Egyptian Muslim Brotherhood fell into of overreaching. In so doing, they have retained their political viability and the potential for a major comeback.

So, ironically, in victory Nida Tunis is looking at a lose-lose scenario, while Ennahda in defeat faces a win-win one. It would probably be better for the country, and for Nida Tunis, if they invite Ennahda into the parliamentary coalition and the Islamists accept. But there are arguments against taking that step, and Nida Tunis doesn’t seem keen on embracing their Islamist rivals. It’s likely that they will avoid including Ennahda in the next government if they can. But if they do, they may be setting Ennahda up for a major comeback in a few years, particularly if the Islamists create the impression of being loyal, cooperative and sincere, even in opposition.

http://www.thenational.ae/opinion/comment/agreement-on-un-text-is-in-everyones-interest

Palestinians have let it be known that they are open to negotiation on a proposed UN Security Council resolution that imposes a deadline for ending the Israeli occupation. They are right to seek further talks. It has been suggested that the US will threaten to veto the existing draft, as submitted by Jordan on behalf of the Palestinians. Such an eventuality wouldn’t benefit either side or the cause of peace. But a compromise is also strongly in the interests of the Americans.

In the absence of a viable political or diplomatic process for resolving the conflict and ending the occupation, the Palestinians are quite naturally frustrated. The Palestine Liberation Organisation (PLO) and Palestinian Authority (PA), in particular, need to find a way to demonstrate to their domestic constituency that their non-violent, diplomacy-led approach provides a viable framework for national liberation.

With the collapse of the peace talks earlier this year, and with Hamas having taken the battle to Israel last summer, the PA leadership is hard-pressed to demonstrate that its commitment to seeking a negotiated peace agreement with Israel remains viable. Hamas’s actions meant devastating results for Gaza but gave the undeniable impression of initiative.

The Palestinians have no doubt concluded that there is nothing left to lose in a return to the United Nations. The West and the United States cannot punish them by withdrawing from a helpful diplomatic process, because there isn’t one in place. And they may have calculated that the ability of the West and Israel to further constrict the PA budget in retaliation for UN initiatives can’t be taken very far. That would mortally hurt the PA and only benefit Hamas.

But they shouldn’t be overconfident. There is still a potentially serious price to be paid, even as there is a psychological and political benefit from driving the agenda at the UN.

The Palestinians have an unusual opportunity to negotiate something meaningful with the Americans, who are clearly exasperated with Israel over its intransigence on the peace process in general and settlement activity in particular. Some key Arab states have been counselling caution, for good reason. Brinkmanship that leads to a positive agreement with the Americans on language would be useful, but will require great skill.

The UN, after all, has been the scene of several recent quixotic diplomatic charges by the Palestinians, which have done more harm than good. Strained relations between Washington and Ramallah date back to a UN Security Council draft resolution on settlements in February 2011. Even though the language of that resolution was drawn largely from disparate statements made by Obama administration officials, and previous administrations, the US wasn’t willing to back the use of the word “illegal” to describe the status of Israeli settlement activity under international law. This was an accurate description but the US was only prepared to accept the term “illegitimate.” When the Palestinians insisted that settlement activity be deemed illegal, the American veto was used, to the great annoyance of both sides.

Relations were not improved with the subsequent Palestinian statehood initiatives, first at the UN Security Council at the end of 2011, and then at the General Assembly in 2012. The first was mitigated by the fact that it was a failure, and the Palestinians could not even muster sufficient Security Council votes to require the US to cast its veto. But the second initiative, at the General Assembly for upgraded status for the PLO mission to that of “non-member observer state,” produced a significant financial and diplomatic backlash.

The western and Israeli retaliation affected the PA’s budget and greatly disrupted governance in the occupied West Bank, ultimately leading to the ousting of former prime minister Salam Fayyad.

Fatah cadres at home put him under tremendous pressure to go, while US secretary of state John Kerry wanted him to stay in office. So when he finally resigned, there was a powerful sense in same quarters both in the US and Israel that a terrible mistake had been made. It had. But it was too late.

Since Mr Fayyad’s departure, the crucial state and institution building project that he led has atrophied, and the reforms he championed have, in several important sectors, frayed.

The experience has been extremely damaging for Palestinians, for American policy towards Israel and the Palestinians, and for US-Palestinian relations. Any repetition of such a mutually damaging confrontation isn’t in the interests of either party now.

It’s clear that an early UN vote on the draft Palestinian resolution isn’t likely in the coming days, and that the process will be drawn out at least until January.

All parties have a clear interest in reaching an agreement over a text that can advance the prospects for peace, and reiterate the international community’s commitment to a two-state outcome between Israel and the Palestinians, but without further pointless damage to US-Palestinian relations. It’s never too late to begin to learn the lessons of history.

https://now.mmedia.me/lb/en/commentaryanalysis/564476-unreadable-egypt

The Mubarak acquittal illustrates how murky Egypt’s political scene has become

On Saturday, an Egyptian judge dismissed all remaining charges against former Egyptian dictator Hosni Mubarak, his two sons and a wealthy associate. Although he was sentenced to three years in prison on corruption charges last May, his erstwhile imprisonment all counts as time served, and Mubarak is, for the time being anyway, at least theoretically (he seems almost permanently stuck to a stretcher and has been in hospital for most of his confinement) a free man.

The Mubarak acquittal, and all of the murky questions that surround it, is a perfect barometer of how opaque contemporary Egypt has become.

The court’s ruling is, without doubt, fundamentally an appalling betrayal of the uprising that unseated the 30-year dictator in early 2011. Mubarak sought to use the power of the state to crush the popular rebellion, until finally the Army refused to turn on the public and insisted the president had to go. In the process, well over 800 people were killed, the overwhelming majority of them precisely because Mubarak refused to succumb to popular pressure and go.

The charges against him were narrowly drawn and limited to the events of the rebellion itself. This is frequently interpreted as reflecting an unwillingness to interrogate his entire 30 years in power, and the police brutality and state security repression, with no accountability, that characterized it. These charges allowed Mubarak to be tried, along with a small group of others, but they also served to protect large numbers of other officials, and the system itself, from his decades of misrule from being put in the dock alongside the former president.

But it’s precisely those limited, narrowly-drawn charges that are now directly in question. The court did not rule on the merits of the indictment. Instead, it acquitted Mubarak on a technicality involving the process by which the charges were brought against him (as admirably explained by Hossam Bahgat). The court, many observers who are well informed about Egyptian criminal law suggest, may actually have been on fairly solid procedural grounds.

But, as Bahgat notes, “The public prosecutor can, and most likely will, appeal today’s verdict before the Court of Cassation.” And if that court overturns the acquittal, it will preside over a retrial, which would be final.

The vanishing crowd

Naturally the acquittal outraged many Egyptians, especially those who had been at the progressive cutting-edge of the original Tahrir Square protests that led to Mubarak’s ouster three years ago. They took to the streets, with two protesters being killed by security forces, 15 injured, and about 80 arrested, of whom four are reportedly still in custody.

The government claimed that the Muslim Brotherhood had “infiltrated” the protests, and were attempting to use them for their own purposes. The authorities claim that the protests were peaceful until the Brotherhood intervened at about 6 PM and instigated stone-throwing and rioting.

For many, the acquittal carries with it the worst specters of the bad old days: impunity and lack of accountability for officials, a judicial system rigged in favor of power, and the sense that the remnants of the old regime are becoming much bolder in reasserting their authority and rolling back the “revolution.” It is as if, these voices say, the Arab Spring had never happened at all.

The Egyptian Initiative for Personal Rights summed up such sentiments in their reaction, saying that the verdict “further reinforces concerns about the alarmingly selective justice system in Egypt, which appears more intent on settling political scores and punishing dissent than establishing justice.” Amr Ali, of the April 6 movement, completed the thought by noting: “This verdict confirms that Mr Sisi is part of Mr Mubarak’s regime.” This view is not exclusive to many Egyptian activists, rights groups, progressives and dissidents; it’s also the way these developments will be generally viewed in Washington and other key Western capitals.

But it’s noteworthy that the demonstrations following Mubarak’s acquittal were tiny compared to those calling for his ouster three years ago, and even smaller still than the overwhelming demonstrations in the summer of 2013 demanding an end to the Muslim Brotherhood presidency of Mohamed Morsi. Estimates generally range in the 1,000-3,000-person tally, with most closer to the lower figure, as opposed to the hundreds of thousands and even millions who took to the streets against Mubarak in 2011 and Morsi in 2013.

It’s very hard to read this reality. Are Egyptians exhausted and, after years of protesting, simply unable to muster yet another street-level rebellion? Are they apathetic and cynical, their once incandescent idealism having dwindled into a faint spark because they’ve seen their efforts time and again result in failure?

Or are Egyptians, instead, largely either supportive of, or neutral about, the new government and disinclined to disrupt it? Is President Abdel-Fattah el-Sisi still enjoying that much of a honeymoon, with people yearning for stability and looking to the government to provide economic improvements and law and order? Is the general public in Egypt according the separation of powers a much greater credibility than the protesters, and therefore declining to blame the entire system or the presidency for the actions of one court? Or are they looking forward rather than backward, and so aren’t particularly worked up about the fate of this decrepit, ailing, 86-year-old former dictator, and are focused instead on what lies ahead for the country?

For many observers outside Egypt, the questions laid out in the previous paragraph sound ridiculous. But it’s clear that a significant constituency inside the country would identify with some sentiments along those lines. It’s impossible to tell precisely how large a group that is. But some combination of factors has to explain why a people that have shown themselves perfectly ready to take to the streets to express their outrage in 2011 and again in 2013 would not have responded to the latest calls en masse, but instead allowed the protests against the Mubarak acquittal to be so relatively small.

Is it the economy, stupid?

One reason Egyptians might be defying local and international expectations with their apparent patience for the government, even given actions such as the acquittal of Mubarak which in the past would undoubtedly have been received as an unbearable provocation, is the growing sense that the Egyptian economy is on a sudden and unexpected uptick.

The 2011 rebellion and its aftermath sent the Egyptian economy into a terrifying tailspin and many of the fundamentals remain deeply worrying. Foreign currency reserves are grossly depleted. Budget deficits and national debt are still out of control. Fuel and food subsidies are dragging the economy down at the national level, and chronic unemployment is wrecking the finances of many at the family level. Many observers were on record as doubting that Egypt could possibly move forward at all economically given these challenges, let alone resolve what Stephen Cook in April aptly described as a full-blown “solvency crisis.”

By late October, however, CNBC and other financial news outlets were able to begin seriously and soberly writing about “a surprisingly quick—and in the West, largely unnoticed—recovery.” Sectors such as energy, healthcare, infrastructure and high-tech were all experiencing unexpected expansions. In an astonishing demonstration of investor confidence, patriotic solidarity and social commitment, the Egyptian government was able to finance its $8.5 billion Suez canal expansion project in a mere eight days, mainly through the sale of non-tradable five-year certificates sold to Egyptian citizens at a 12% interest rate.

Moreover, the Sisi-led government is using its ongoing honeymoon to take what would otherwise be politically-risky but economically-necessary actions. In June it cut energy subsidies — a long-standing proverbial third rail in Egyptian politics — by one third. The central bank raised interest rates in July in order to curb inflation after the fuel subsidy cuts sent prices soaring. The government has also moved to raise taxes in certain sectors.

Although Egypt’s relationship with the International Monetary Fund (IMF) has been decidedly rocky in recent years, relations are at last being restored, and in November the Fund finally completed an evaluation of the Egyptian economy, including a visit to the country by a high-level delegation. The IMF generally approved the Egyptian government’s economic approach, predicting a fairly robust 3.8% growth rate in the 2014-15 fiscal year.

IMF delegation chief Chris Jarvis said that the Egyptian government has “set appropriate economic objectives” for the country’s recovery. The IMF added that “they have begun bold subsidy and tax reforms, are pursuing a disciplined monetary policy, expanding social policies, and have initiated wide-ranging regulatory and administrative reform efforts to improve the business environment and boost investment.”

There are a couple of key caveats, however, to bear in mind with regard to this apparent economic recovery.

The first is that it could simply prove to be a dreadful bubble. A series of factors including an infusion of capital from supportive Gulf states, an economic dimension to the sense of national urgency prompting patriotic but risky private investments in public schemes, and other forces might be pushing the economy forward in a palpable but unsustainable way. Indeed, dependency on the Gulf could reach $9 billion for the second half of 2014 alone. The bottom line is that the fundamentals of Egypt’s economy are still the cause for serious concern.

Second, the Egyptian economic recovery — such as it is — is closely linked to investor confidence, both domestic and international, which in turn is closely linked to the security situation in the country. The Egyptian public seems largely united in the battle against what is undoubtedly a real terrorist threat, particularly in Sinai and remote and border areas, including increasingly on the Libyan border. The government maintains that it is making significant progress in fighting extremists.

However, critics note that the scale and intensity of terrorist violence, primarily aimed at Egyptian troops in remote areas, has only been increasing. It’s very difficult to assess counterfactual arguments such as the idea that the problem would have been even worse if the government hadn’t pursued its war on terrorism as it has. It’s plausible to argue that instability in border regions is more closely linked to events on the other side of those borders, such as in Gaza or in Libya. Or that the policies of groups like Hamas and Ansar al-Sharia or Ansar Beit al-Maqdis are more decisive in shaping unrest in those border areas than in Egyptian government policies.

However, it’s also plausible to argue that Egypt’s current approach — particularly its wholesale crackdown on the Muslim Brotherhood along with various aspects of its military counterterrorism strategy — has actually exacerbated rather than ameliorated the terrorist threat from violent extremists. As long as there is a domestic and international sense that Egypt is moving effectively to secure law and order, particularly in its cities and with regard to key infrastructure, investor confidence is likely to remain strong. Certainly the lack of major unrest as a consequence of the Mubarak verdict will be taken as an indicator that calm is being restored to a society that, in recent years, has been prone to bouts of chronic unrest. However, should that sense of confidence, whether justified or unjustified, begin to atrophy, it could undermine the influx and movement of capital that is underwriting Egypt’s current spurt of economic growth.

Moreover, what happens when the social and political honeymoon for the new government — which cannot go on forever — finally really is over? Might Egypt be sitting on top of a powder keg of its own making with the long and slow fuse inexorably getting shorter and shorter as the spark relentlessly burns its way towards an explosion of some sort? Or is the country defying all regional and international expectations and coming together to move forward, however slowly? Even if, eventually, the tensions, heavy handedness and populist authoritarianism of the current political atmosphere in Egypt proves to be the price of stability and economic progress — assuming neither of those prove to be illusory — the difficult and painful question will almost certainly be: was it worth this? The answer, either way, won’t be simple or obvious.

http://www.thenational.ae/opinion/comment/is-it-any-wonder-no-one-wants-chuck-hagels-job

https://now.mmedia.me/lb/en/commentaryanalysis/564456-hagel-ian-dialectic

Hagel’s dismissal won’t make Obama’s Syria conundrum go away.

The dismissal of Barack Obama’s Defense Secretary, Chuck Hagel, marks yet another instance in which the President and his closest aides find themselves at odds with senior colleagues primarily on the issue of Syria. Hagel’s departure is openly acknowledged in Washington to have been more of a sacking than a resignation, and directly linked to disputes regarding Syria policy. Specifically, Hagel’s departure is linked directly to a highly critical two-page memo on Syria policy he addressed to National Security Advisor Susan Rice that was leaked last month.
At the time it was assumed that even though it was obvious that Hagel was addressing Obama indirectly by seeming to address Rice — the closeness of the two both personally and on policy issues being an administration byword — the memo fell into the category of permissible dissent because Syria policy was under construction. Over the medium term, however, it appears that Hagel went too far, and has been perceived as directly challenging the President. The memo is typically described as “sharply critical.”

The nature of the dispute is highly significant.

According to the leaked memo, Hagel had two main concerns about the administration’s approach to Syria policy. First, he argued strongly that the United States needs to be much clearer about its position on the future of Syrian dictator Bashar al-Assad. The studied ambiguity of the current policy regarding Assad, he argued, stands to “unravel” the American effort to “degrade and ultimately destroy” the Islamic State group (ISIS) in Iraq and Syria.

Hagel reportedly strongly urged the administration to clarify that it isn’t simply going to refuse to get into an open alliance with Assad, but that it is prepared to begin to take actions, as well as introducing much more rhetorical clarity, that leave no doubt that the US is both seeking and pursuing regime change in Syria. Without that, Hagel apparently argued, the campaign against the Islamist extremists would run up against unsurmountable obstacles because it would be perceived as benefiting the dictatorship and, therefore, being fundamentally inimical to the core interests of the Sunni Arab populations that ISIS both rules and claims to represent, particularly in Syria.

In ongoing administration disputes beyond his highly critical memo, Hagel has also strongly urged a greatly expanded campaign to arm, train and finance moderate opposition forces that could simultaneously serve as an alternative to ISIS and press the battle in Syria against the dictatorship. On both counts its efforts would be essential.

If there is no alternative to ISIS’ fighters, they will continue to be able to command unwarranted and unearned support from angry and desperate Sunni communities that have faced a regime that has had no compunction in using all forms of conventional firepower, as well as chemical weapons, to dispense with at least 200,000 of its own citizens in the past three years.

And if those same communities conclude that the anti-ISIS coalition effort either wittingly or unwittingly benefits that regime, rather than stands as a new challenge against it, there is no way for them to embrace the effort. To the contrary, as Obama himself recently noted, such an impression would serve to drive Sunni Arabs in Syria toward ISIS, however reluctantly, and away from any support for the coalition’s efforts.

Hagel therefore joins the distinguished and growing list of former administration officials deeply connected to Syria policy who have openly expressed their frustration at the Obama approach. Numerous former officials including former Secretary of State Hillary Clinton, former CIA director David Petraeus, former Defense Secretary Leon Panetta, former special advisor for transition in Syria Frederic Hof, and many others are on record as not only disagreeing with administration policy on Syria, but identifying some of it as part of the problem.

In August 2012, Petraeus presented a plan to the administration for greatly intensified arming and training of moderate rebel forces in Syria. The plan was supported by Clinton and Panetta, as well as the chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, Martin Dempsey. But it was strongly opposed by Rice and others, and ultimately rejected by Obama.

Given that she almost certainly has ongoing political ambitions of her own, Hillary Clinton has, perhaps, been notably forthright. In August, she observed that, “The failure to help build up a credible fighting force of the people who were the originators of the protests against Assad — there were Islamists, there were secularists, there was everything in the middle — the failure to do that left a big vacuum, which the jihadists have now filled.”

In October at Harvard University, Vice President Joe Biden offered an alternate, although somewhat incoherent, theory explaining the rise of ISIS: “Our allies in the region were our largest problem in Syria. The Turks were great friends and I have a great relationship with Erdogan, which I just spent a lot of time with. The Saudis, the Emirates, etc. What were they doing? They were so determined to take down Assad and essentially have a… Sunni/Shia war. What did they do? They poured hundreds of millions of dollars and tens of thousands of tons of weapons into anyone who would fight against Assad. Except that the people who were being supplied were Al-Nusra, and Al-Qaeda and the extremist elements of jihadis coming from other parts of the world.”

Even if Biden is correct that some US allies, such as Turkey, were involved in the rise of ISIS through either acts of omission or commission, or both, Clinton’s indictment of administration policy still stands. The former Secretary of State was describing the vacuum that policy created. The Vice President was presenting an interpretation of who and what filled the vacuum once it opened. It’s noteworthy that Biden had to apologize to Turkey, Saudi Arabia and the UAE for those remarks, while Clinton hasn’t apologized to anybody and isn’t going to.

Was Hagel offering a kind of policy synthesis resolving this thesis and antithesis regarding the rise of ISIS? If so, it wasn’t appreciated and it certainly hasn’t been accepted. To the contrary, it has resulted in his dismissal. But the fundamental contradiction that Hagel has identified — that the battle against ISIS cannot be won as long as US policy towards Assad remains ambiguous and ambivalent — remains unavoidable.

As I’ve written many times in the past, the inescapable bottom line is that the administration will ultimately have to choose between presiding over a campaign against ISIS that achieves much less than the stated “degrade and ultimately destroy” goal, or finally biting the bullet and making regime change in Syria an inextricable part of the American project. Getting rid of people who irksomely point this out isn’t going to alter an equation, like this one, that is hardwired into the reality of the problem.

http://www.thenational.ae/opinion/comment/israels-bid-to-arafat-ise-mahmoud-abbas-will-fail

The dynamics between Israelis and Palestinians – each side hopelessly set in its ways and bereft of new ideas – increasingly seem like a tiresome rerun of an old horror flick. It’s not just the war in Gaza that feels like Groundhog Day. The script in East Jerusalem also seems uncannily familiar.

The cyclical aspect is underscored by the leading role assumed by a new cadre of Palestinian protesters, who are too young to remember the trauma of the second intifada and the damage it did to Palestinian society, institutions, economics and prospects for independence. Even the focus on holy places in Jerusalem is reminiscent of past tragedies.

In recent days, however, an element of sinister farce has been introduced into what is an otherwise dark drama. A raft of right-wing Israeli politicians attempted to “Arafat-ise” Palestinian president Mahmoud Abbas. They wanted to subject Mr Abbas (Abu Mazen) to the same stigmatisation, opprobrium and isolation suffered by his predecessor, the late Yasser Arafat (Abu Ammar), during the second intifada.

Israel was partially successful in turning Arafat from respected statesman and Nobel Prize-winning peacemaker into a diplomatically, politically and even physically isolated pariah. It accomplished this by means of a cooperative Bush administration and because it was able to keep Arafat under virtual house arrest. Many believe that the difficult, even squalid, conditions Arafat faced due to Israel’s treatment of him contributed to his death.

To recast Mr Abbas as the “new Arafat”, these two very different characters have to be portrayed as virtually indistinguishable. Prime minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s talking points have been duly internalised all the way down the political hierarchy. A particularly useful opportunity arose on the tenth anniversary of Arafat’s death earlier this month.

Mr Netanyahu has led the attack, but without making an explicit link. He said the violence in Jerusalem was “the direct result of the incitement being led by Hamas and Abu Mazen”. Years ago, the Israeli government laid full responsibility for the second intifada, including actions by Hamas, at Arafat’s door.

Others have been more explicit. Earlier this year, Likud politician and deputy minister Ofir Akunis declared: “Abbas is Arafat in disguise”. Never one to allow himself to be outbid, foreign minister Avigdor Lieberman not only endorsed the analogy but insisted that “the only difference [between the two] is that Abu Mazen is more dangerous because he knows how to mask his true face more effectively”. But this remake isn’t entirely faithful to the original production because this time the effort is failing.

Among other things, not all the cast are reading their assigned parts, especially Israel’s national security establishment. Yoram Cohen, the hawkish head of Israel’s Shin Bet security service told the Knesset last week that “Abu Mazen isn’t interested in terror and isn’t pushing for terror, not even under the table”.

Mr Cohen did express concerns that some of Mr Abbas’ comments had, probably unwittingly, contributed to an atmosphere of religious tension in Jerusalem. But he effectively squashed claims such as those by economy minister Naftali Bennett that “Abu Mazen is the driver of death cars in Jerusalem, and the terrorists are his emissaries”.

Though there’s been political confrontation at the United Nations, the Israeli security establishment recognises that Mr Abbas is continuing security coordination with Israel and the West Bank and cracking down on Hamas cadres in the areas under his control. Moreover, the violence is concentrated in Jerusalem, which is under Israel’s control. Parts of the West Bank controlled by the Palestinian Authority (PA) have remained largely peaceful. This is despite several dramatic attacks on Palestinians by Israeli settlers deep into the West Bank in recent days, as well as provocations such as the announcement of major new Israeli settlement expansions.

Mr Abbas was largely silent about the violence in Jerusalem, but strongly denounced the recent murderous attack on a Jerusalem synagogue. This makes it even more difficult to argue that his rhetoric is the primary cause of the present unrest. Moreover, a few weeks ago, Israel announced that it had discovered a Hamas plot to overthrow Mr Abbas and the PA precisely by means of an outbreak of destabilising violence in the West Bank and Jerusalem. They really cannot have it both ways.

The campaign to “Arafat-ise” Abu Mazen was a flop before it began. But it’s a troubling reminder of how deeply all sides, including Israeli political leaders, are trapped in their own failed policies and self-deluding rhetoric. Mr Abbas, for his part, doesn’t seem to have any new ideas either.

With ineffectual or weak leadership at the top, and extremists or hot-heads shaping the plot unfolding on the ground, Israel and the Palestinians once again find themselves drifting towards yet another confrontation that neither side can win and few want.

No one wants to watch this ghastly movie yet again. But, no one, it seems, is able to change the channel either.

https://now.mmedia.me/lb/en/commentaryanalysis/564416-the-right-to-revenge

Israel and the Palestinians need international help to avoid another explosion.

Today’s appalling attack on worshipers at a Jerusalem synagogue that killed at least four people should serve as an urgent wake-up call to all those who take a nonchalant attitude toward the Israeli-Palestinian conflict. There are many different ways in which a wide variety of people are blasé about it, but a shrugging of the shoulders in response to the conflict has become unfortunately widespread. And it’s profoundly dangerous.

Some, especially friends of Israel, suggest that the problem of the occupation is just not that big a deal. They argue that even if it once was a decisive factor in the Middle Eastern regional strategic equation, the Israeli-Palestinian conflict clearly isn’t now. They point to the war in Syria, the rise of the Islamic State group (ISIS) in Iraq, the meltdown in Libya and other dramatic and urgent crises and note that the question of Palestine just doesn’t have the cachet it used to in the Arab world, even two or three years ago. They say that the United States should not waste its limited and valuable resources on a fool’s errand of seeking peace where the parties are not ready, willing or able to compromise and it is simply not achievable, at least for the foreseeable future.

Others, including some in the Arab world, insist that Palestinian issues remain vital to other Arab societies and states, but that there are, perhaps, more urgent, although not necessarily more important, issues. The threat of violent extremism, as represented by but not limited to, ISIS, is most frequently cited as temporarily trumping the need for Israeli-Palestinian peace. But terrorism is not the only issue that has gobbled up political oxygen that otherwise automatically defaulted to the Israeli-Palestinian problem.

Concerns about Iranian hegemony and Turkish meddling in the Arab world, Qatar’s efforts to extend its sphere of influence by using soft power in support of Islamists across the region, instability in the most important Arab country: Egypt, and other dramatic developments are commanding the lion’s share of the Arab political imagination at the present moment. State policies are more focused on them. Political commentary, both print and broadcast, considers them more deeply and with a much more sustained attention than issues involving Palestine. It takes something as dramatic as the Gaza conflict this summer to return Palestine and the Palestinians to Arab headlines and daily examination in commentary forums.

So both Israelis and Arabs, and (their sometimes self-appointed) friends in the West, are just not as focused on Israel and the Palestinians as they used to be, even quite recently. As his term in office was winding down, former Palestinian Prime Minister Salam Fayyad frequently noted this troubling trend, which he correctly identified as downright disastrous for the Palestinians. Whether implicitly or explicitly, the present approach of many important external actors to the conflict has been “management,” rather than resolution.

Secretary of State John Kerry is mocked by some for his dedication to seeking peace negotiations, and even a potential agreement. It’s not just his “personalized,” and arguably self-centered or self-aggrandizing, approach that is the target for sneering. It’s the notion that attempting to resolve rather than manage the conflict that comes in for derision as naïve, quixotic or even absurd. Israeli Defense Minister Moshe Ya’alon notoriously described Kerry as “obsessed,” and, worse, “messianic,” not for his approach but rather merely for his commitment to seeking a peace agreement. “Messianic,” by the way, to all those who are not enthusiastically messianic or at least millenarian themselves, is, perforce, synonymous not merely with “ridiculous” but actually with “insane.”

No one doubts that the Israeli-Palestinian conflict is going to be very difficult to resolve, that this process will take time and is unlikely to yield results in the short term. But no one should doubt, either, that the political vacuum left by the absence of any kind of diplomatic process or other horizon ending the conflict and the occupation produces a decidedly unmanageable and inescapably violent reality on the ground.

In my subjective and personal experience, Palestinians are angrier today than any time since at least the height of the second Intifada, and possibly all the way back to the 1980s. This rage is expressing itself on the ground in the form of violent attacks against Israelis, many of which appear to be spontaneous.

To be sure, many of these violent acts are being conducted by members or supporters of extremist groups like Hamas and Islamic Jihad. But a great deal of the street-level unrest is being driven by youths who do not remember the extraordinarily negative impact of the second Intifada, which ended nine years ago. A 14, 15 or even 16-year-old — and especially those younger — Palestinian lacks a framework for remembering that experience, which otherwise serves as a major disincentive from seeking violent confrontation with the occupying power, Israel, and ordinary Jewish Israelis.

But the violence is not only a two-way street. Israel, and even its antecedent Jewish settler communities in British mandatory Palestine have ensured that there has never been a period of sustained violence in which more Jews have been killed then Palestinians. Indeed, the ratio of Palestinian civilians killed is usually very high in comparison to Jews. And it is not just the Israeli occupation forces that are involved. Increasingly radical Jewish Israeli terrorists, vigilantes and “price tag” fanatics, operating out of the extreme right wing and pro-settler constituencies, are taking matters into their own hands, and attacking and, indeed, killing Palestinian civilians, including children.

Moreover, the occupation itself is inherently violent. It’s not just that by definition it involves a small group of people — the Israeli military — attempting to exercise discipline and control over a huge group of disenfranchised noncitizens — the Palestinians living under occupation. It’s that one of the most important defining features of the occupation is the settlement project that it facilitates and, indeed, that has come to serve as its raison d’être.

It’s no surprise, therefore, that in the absence of a diplomatic process or any other horizon for independence and freedom, Palestinian youths who are too young to recall the lessons of the second Intifada would quickly become restive. Agitation can also be expected from extremist groups that are drawn to reckless, and even reprehensible, activity, particularly in areas they do not control. Hamas has long been accused of seeking to undermine the Palestinian Authority by promoting violence in the West Bank.

And it’s no surprise, either, then, that extremist groups have welcomed the terrorist attack against the Jerusalem synagogue. Indeed, a Hamas spokesman, Mushir al-Masri, not only welcomed the attack, he coined a new version of “RoR” — which traditionally has stood for the Palestinian Right of Return. He wrote on his Facebook feed, “We have the full right to revenge for the blood of our martyrs in all possible means.”

This is precisely what can be expected in the absence of a political and diplomatic process, and in the face of not only ongoing occupation, but expanding settlement activity: aspirational dreams of the Right of Return give way to nightmarish fantasies about a supposed “Right of Revenge.” What’s taking hold in Jerusalem is a vicious circle of violence based on the logic of a “Right of Revenge,” embraced by both sides and expressed in many different forms of brutality.

This conflict cannot be managed, for it will continue to metastasize and smolder. Cyclically it will erupt into violence, whether of the more organized form such as the Gaza war this summer, or free-for-all’s such as the second intifada, because people cannot live with this degree of repression and tension. It cannot be sidelined because it will, forever, reassert its disproportionate, and indeed irrational, power to move people across the region and globe.

If it is a fantasy, and it probably is, to believe that the conflict can be resolved in the near-term of the next two or three years, then it is certainly also a fantasy — and a much more dangerous one at that — to believe that it can be successfully defused, contained and controlled. At the very least maintaining a level of calm, that is assuming it can be restored in short order, will require significant improvements to realities on the ground in order to break the cycle of violence, anger and incitement that is currently driving the vicious circle of “revenge” we have been witnessing in recent weeks.

When he launched his renewed peace initiative after he was appointed secretary of state, Kerry spoke in terms of a major project of investment in the West Bank. That never materialized, but there is no logical basis for it to be simply a reward or incentive for Palestinians regarding negotiations with Israel. To the contrary, such a project can and must stand alone as a positive initiative in its own right. The international community has a major obligation to ensure that Israel does not go forward with recently announced major new settlement expansions that would significantly alter the strategic situation in the occupied territories and make a peace agreement substantially more difficult to achieve under the best of circumstances. And the Palestinian Authority can and should do much more with international pressure and support to curb extremist activity in the West Bank. President Mahmoud Abbas’ condemnation of the synagogue attack was a positive but belated statement of opposition to the present wave of violence. The PA can and should be incentivized to do more to promote calm and enforce law and order in the areas under its control.

This isn’t asking for the world. Instead, these are modest, reasonable measures that are pursuant to the international community’s professed commitment to achieving a two-state outcome. And they are precisely the kind of serious, proactive measures by external, third parties that may well be necessary to break the current cycle of violence in which the parties themselves appear absolutely trapped. One could even frame it as a “conflict management” agenda, if you like, although they should be seen as immediate, emergency measures designed to calm the situation, before more ambitious measures are undertaken to develop, over the medium-term, a new horizon for hope and, ultimately, peace.

http://www.thenational.ae/opinion/comment/coalition-faces-a-series-of-difficult-choices-over-isil#full

Despite its brutal murder of American aid worker Peter Kassig, there is mounting evidence that, as I noted on these pages last month, “slowly but surely, the tide is beginning to turn against ISIL”.

ISIL is finally being defeated in the Syrian border town of Kobani. Its advances in Iraq have been halted and are starting to be rolled back. The terrorist group lost control of the country’s biggest oil refinery at Beiji. The relatively poor production values of the latest ISIL murder video suggests a group in distress. Some reports even suggest that several key ISIL leaders, possibly including its “caliph”, Abu Bakr Al Baghdadi, may have been injured and others, including the notorious Chechen extremist Abu Abdul Rahman Al Shishani, killed in coalition airstrikes.

American Joint Chiefs of Staff chairman, General Martin Dempsey, confirmed last weekend that in his view the battle against ISIL is “starting to turn”, at least in Iraq.

However, as things stand, neither the strategic posture nor the existing resources of the US-led coalition are fully commensurate with the stated goal of “degrading and ultimately destroying” ISIL.

Therefore, the coalition faces a series of crucial choices. Either the ultimate goals of the mission will have to be downsized to conform with what can be accomplished by the present level of investment, or the degree of commitment and resources will have to be significantly increased.

The anti-ISIL campaign will almost certainly be expanded, particularly since Barack Obama can tap into considerable bipartisan and public support for that, and because not doing so would essentially mean pulling back from the “degrade and destroy” objective in favour of an indefensible policy of containment that can essentially live with a weakened ISIL.

But it’s not just a matter of increased airstrikes against a much wider array of targets, significantly expanded covert operations, or the carefully calibrated expansion of “boots on the ground” activities by special forces, trainers and advisers, or other coalition troops. There is a fundamental political conundrum that must be resolved.

On September 16, American defense secretary Chuck Hagel told a Senate committee that “destroying ISIL will require … effective partners on the ground in Iraq and Syria”, and that these do not presently exist.

Identifying or creating, and greatly empowering, such partners will be the single greatest determinant of the success of the broader mission to “destroy” ISIL.

In Iraq, Syria and some other parts of the Middle East, the traditionally empowered Sunni Arab regional majority now feels besieged, abused and attacked. ISIL’s rise to power has occurred in precisely those places where this is most deeply felt, as the organisation poses as a champion of the Sunnis.

Any local ground force that will be effective in truly demolishing ISIL, especially in northern Syria, will have to credibly challenge those claims. They will have to be seen as not just friendly, but as saviours of those very Sunni communities, and certainly cannot be perceived as representing hostile sectarian or ethnic interests.

This is going to be difficult enough in Iraq, where the betrayal of the “awakening” against ISIL’s predecessor, Al Qaeda in Iraq, has left a vast chasm of mistrust between Sunni communities and the Baghdad government. Moreover, ISIL is aware of the danger surrounding them and has moved swiftly and brutally to crush any hint of dissent or opposition in Iraqi areas under their control such as Al Alam.

But it’s going to be even more difficult in Syria, where years of neglect for moderate opposition groups have left them hamstrung against both the Bashar Al Assad dictatorship and ISIL (which is moving ever closer to its former rivals, the official Al Qaeda affiliate in Syria, Jabhat Al Nusra).

In both countries any sense that the anti-ISIL intervention either wittingly or unwittingly aids the central governments at the expense of Sunni communities will be disastrous.

And in Syria, the United States as leader of the coalition is going to have to work hard to overcome the impression that it is either ambivalent about the future of Mr Assad, or even reluctantly in favour of him staying in power.

Whether the impression of American ambivalence about Mr Assad is attributed to fears about the practical consequences of Syrian state disintegration, or is seen as emerging from a tacit respect for Iran’s sphere of influence and allies in the context of a potential nuclear agreement – and even if such perceptions are completely erroneous – the American-led coalition will not be able to dislodge ISIL in Syria if it is perceived as benefiting the dictatorship.

Mr Obama himself appeared to recognise this problem on Sunday when he said cooperation with Mr Assad was out of the question and noted: “For us to then make common cause with him against ISIL would only turn more Sunnis in Syria in the direction of supporting ISIL and would weaken our coalition.”

Mr Obama should follow this impeccable logic to its conclusion. In fact, the project to destroy ISIL, if it is to succeed, must be linked to a categorical and practical rejection of the Assad dictatorship and a policy, reflected on the ground, that explicitly and unequivocally seeks regime change in Damascus as well.

Without that, Mr Hagel’s indispensable “partners on the ground” – the eventual key to the entire campaign against ISIL – either won’t emerge at all or won’t stand a chance of prevailing.

http://www.thenational.ae/opinion/comment/master-of-surrealism-belatedly-returns-to-his-greatest-triumph#full

The recent announcement by the American broadcaster Showtime that it has secured a contract with the surrealist film director David Lynch for a third series of his landmark 1990-91 TV programme Twin Peaks will be seen by cynics as another instance of the “nostalgia factor” that dominates the entertainment industry in the US. But with the nearly 70-year-old Lynch slated to direct all nine episodes, unlike most tiresome TV and movie remakes, unpredictability is the only plausible expectation.

In 1990, when I was beginning to work on my PhD in comparative literature at the University of Massachusetts, Amherst, season one of Twin Peaks took American popular culture, including those of us who professionally studied art and culture, by storm.

The apparently idyllic town it depicted was populated by seemingly lovable, quirky characters, but beneath it all lurked an irrepressible darkness. As with Blue Velvet, his 1986 neo-noir thriller, Lynch seemed to be tapping into a fundamental aspect of Reagan-era America in Twin Peaks.

After Vietnam, Watergate, the energy crisis, stagflation and an atmosphere of national “malaise”, Ronald Reagan’s invocation of a carefully crafted “nonchalant” optimism and “small-town values” – as beautifully unpacked in Rick Perlstein’s new book The Invisible Bridge: The Fall of Nixon and the Rise of Reagan – promised to somehow magically roll the clock back to a supposedly earlier, simpler American era.

“I really like Ronald Reagan,” Lynch frankly admitted about the first Hollywood president. But undoubtedly this attraction was heavily ambivalent since both Blue Velvet and Twin Peaks focus on uncovering the dark realities beyond the white picket fence. Both deftly echoed how the early optimism of the Reagan era gave way to scandals and the sinister intrigue of the Iran-Contra affair, contrasting a crafty and conscious faux-naïveté with the grim secrets that lurked beneath.

In 1990, the United States reverberated with the programme’s central mystery: “Who killed Laura Palmer?” The girl, murdered and wrapped in plastic, was a seemingly perfect all-American teenager who turns out to be filled with secrets. Lynch adores conspiracy theories, both extant and imaginary. As the programme’s protagonist, FBI special agent Dale Cooper muses idly to himself: “What really went on between Marilyn Monroe and the Kennedys and who really pulled the trigger on JFK?”

The public was also gripped by the all-American iconography of the programme – “damn good” apple or cherry pie, washed down by endless mugs of piping hot coffee that were “black as midnight on a moonless night” – while only slowly realising it was being seduced by a hideous tale of not just murder, but incest as well.

Perhaps even more astounding at the time was the unprecedented artistry of the programme, particularly the Lynch-directed pilot, a beautiful and haunting film in its own right.

For the first time, cinematic techniques and standards were being applied to an American network programme, filled with still unsurpassed meta-televisual references. In the bizarre, surrealistic “red room” scenes, and the terrifying killing of Laura’s cousin Maddy, Twin Peaks still contains some of the most creative and harrowing television yet produced.

After a spectacular beginning, things started going badly wrong. The turning point came early in the second season when Lynch succumbed to pressure from the programme’s network, ABC, to reveal the identity of Laura’s killer (her father, who had also been abusing her for years). Lynch was using the Laura “mystery” as an elaborate ruse around which the rest of the narrative was constructed. Predictably, with its cornerstone kicked aside, the narrative meandered aimlessly and the programme soon folded.

But Lynch remained haunted by the story. He clearly felt that neither he nor the Twin Peaks programme had done justice to the central characters, particularly Laura, or to the depth of her tragedy.

He attempted to correct this in his 1992 prequel film Twin Peaks: Fire Walk with Me. Among other things, it depicts the last week of Laura’s life, but without the sly whimsy that made Twin Peaks so charming.

Indeed, Fire Walk with Me systematically repudiates everything that made Twin Peaks so popular, in favour of a much darker sensibility that is perhaps more suitable to the grimness of the basic story. Audiences and critics were outraged. Only in recent years has its terrible brilliance won more widespread recognition.

Lynch’s rage at television deepened when his 1999 pilot of Mulholland Dr, again for ABC, was rejected out of hand. After a period of intense bitterness, Lynch rejigged and expanded this pilot into what is now regarded by many critics as one of the greatest films of all time. Yet the avant-garde artist and usually lowest common denominator medium seem irresistibly, however incongruously, drawn to each other.

The return of Twin Peaks is the unlikely fulfilment of an old promise. In 1991, an angered and alienated Lynch returned to rewrite and direct the final episode. In it, the spectre of Laura tells Cooper: “I’ll see you again in 25 years.” The forthcoming Showtime episodes will be broadcast in 2016, exactly 25 years on.

Since then, Lynch’s love-hate relationship with the entertainment industry, including television, has only intensified, as Mulholland Dr and Inland Empire unmistakably demonstrate.

It’s risky for all concerned, since it’s almost impossible that the new episodes could have the impact of the first season. But Lynch and television have unfinished business. As the dialogue in Inland Empire keeps insisting, there is “an unpaid bill” to be settled.

And the Twin Peaks of the new millennium won’t be post-Reagan. It will be post-9/11, Iraq, Afghanistan, Hurricane Katrina and the calamitous fiscal meltdown of 2008. Even if the familiar quirky, charming town of Twin Peaks reemerges in the coming episodes, today’s nightmares are decidedly grimmer than those of a quarter-century back. It is, perhaps, high time for the ageing master of American surrealism to once again dive into the collective conscience and take a good, hard look at what lurks beneath the surface.