Week in Review Part III: Foreign Affairs

Iran: President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad, who has been largely silent lately when it comes to the latest nuclear standoff with the West, owing in part to his travels to Latin America, said on Thursday that he was ready to restart talks with the Group of Five plus one (the five permanent members of the U.N. Security Council plus Germany), but this is all part of Iran’s four corners offense, or stall game. Iran will never give up uranium enrichment so any talks, like the first two rounds, would go nowhere. Given Iran’s increasingly desperate situation with its economy in collapse, however, Iran needs to lower the heat if at all possible. On Sunday, the International Atomic Energy Agency is to launch a mission to Tehran and the key here will be just how much the Iranians want to reveal and whether the IAEA will be able to announce conclusively that Iran is determined to build the bomb. Iran will speak volumes by its actions, or inaction. Will it grant the IAEA access to suspected sites, for example?

On the issue of the increased sanctions being levied by the United States and the European Union, they are indeed having a serious impact. There is a currency crisis in Iran with the citizenry rightfully concerned its wages and savings are becoming worthless, the rial having declined at least 50% in just a few weeks vs. the dollar.

 Many Iranians are converting what funds they have into gold, or even crossing the border into Iraq to obtain dollars. The U.S. and the EU want to bring Iran’s economy to its knees in the hopes of toppling the regime, while Iran is threatening to preempt the EU’s oil embargo (the EU imports 450,000 barrels of Iranian oil a day, or 20% of Iran’s total exports), slated for six months from now, by refusing to sell to the likes of Greece, Spain, Italy and Portugal any Iranian oil before these countries can find alternatives, the purpose of the six-month EU delay. Iran has also said it still intends to retaliate for the recent assassination of one of its nuclear scientists. And they continue to threaten to close the Strait of Hormuz, through which 20% of the world’s oil flows every day; this as the United States, France and Britain moved six warships thru the Strait in a rather impressive show of force. One U.S. aircraft carrier has more striking power than the entire Iranian air force.

So I just listed a mouthful. But there’s more. Washington extended sanctions to Iran’s 3rd-largest bank, while the EU froze assets of Iran’s Central Bank. Russia, on the other hand, is against sanctions and wants talks, while China, which currently receives 557,000 barrels of oil a day from Iran, is also against sanctions but, significantly, is urging Iran not to build nukes.

It all boils down to this. Is Iran close to a “break out,” where it becomes clear they are enriching uranium from the current 20% to the 90% needed for weapons grade material, a process that could take only weeks; would Iran take this risk today and hope over time the sanctions’ impact on the economy is lessened; will Israel, and/or the United States, run out of patience and decide to act because of intelligence they are receiving that Iran is too close for comfort; and does the U.S. election cycle impact President Obama’s decision-making?

Of course regarding this last point, the November election is critical to any decision Obama makes. You have seen in the past few weeks all manner of reports that Washington is urging Israel to let sanctions play out in the hopes of toppling the regime without the U.S. having to act in tandem with the Israelis.  

But how much longer can Israel stand pat? Israel’s envoy to the United Nations on Tuesday called for further international action.

“Never has it been so clear Iran is seeking to build a nuclear weapon,” Ambassador Ron Prosor said. “Now is the time to act. Tomorrow is too late. The stakes are too high. The price of inaction is too great.”

David Sanger / New York Times

“(Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin) Netanyahu’s government may calculate that if Israel is going to attempt a strike, doing so during the presidential campaign, when it would have the sympathy of many American voters, is the only way to avoid a major backlash from Mr. Obama, with whom Mr. Netanyahu has a tense relationship. Elliot Abrams, President George W. Bush’s hawkish Middle East adviser, wrote recently that if Israel attacked, “Mr. Obama would be forced to back it and help Israel cope with the consequences. It might even help the president get re-elected if he ends up using force to keep the Strait of Hormuz open and Israel safe.”

And in the Sunday Times Magazine, Ronen Bergman, an Israeli analyst and author of “The Secret War With Iran,” has an extensive piece titled “Will Israel Attack Iran?”
A few snippets:

“Netanyahu and (Defense Minister Ehud) Barak have both repeatedly stressed that a decision has not yet been made and that a deadline for making one has not been set.
 

As we spoke, however, Barak laid out three categories of questions, which he characterized as ‘Israel’s ability to act,’ ‘international legitimacy’ and ‘necessity,’

all of which require affirmative responses before a decision is made to attack:

“1. Does Israel have the ability to cause severe damage to Iran’s nuclear sites and bring about a major delay in the Iranian nuclear project? And can the military and the Israeli people withstand the inevitable counterattack?

“2. Does Israel have overt or tacit support, particularly from America, for carrying out an attack?

“3. Have all other possibilities for the containment of Iran’s nuclear threat been exhausted, bringing Israel to the point of last resort? If so, is this the last opportunity for an attack?

“For the first time since the Iranian nuclear threat emerged in the mid-1990s, at least some of Israel’s most powerful leaders believe that the response to all of these questions is yes.

“At various points in our conversation, Barak underscored that if Israel or the rest of the world waits too long, the moment will arrive – sometime in the coming year, he says – beyond which it will no longer be possible to act. ‘It will not be possible to use any surgical means to bring about a significant delay,’ he said. ‘Not for us, not for Europe and not for the United States. After that, the question will remain very important, but it will become purely theoretical and pass out of our hands – the statesmen and decision-makers – and into yours – the journalists and historians.’…

“For their part, the Israelis suspect that the Obama administration has abandoned any aggressive strategy that would ensure the prevention of a nuclear Iran and is merely playing a game of words to appease them. The Israelis find evidence of this in the shift in language used by the administration, from ‘threshold prevention’ – meaning American resolve to stop Iran from having a nuclear-energy program that could allow for the ability to create weapons – to ‘weapons prevention,’ which means the conditions can exist, but there is an American commitment to stop Iran from assembling an actual bomb….

“Matthew Kroenig (of the Council on Foreign Relations and special adviser to the Pentagon, worked on) defense policy and strategy on Iran. When I spoke with Kroenig last week, he said: ‘My understanding is that the United States has asked Israel not to attack Iran and to provide Washington with notice if it intends to strike.

Israel responded negatively to both requests. It refused to guarantee that it will not attack or to provide prior notice if it does.’ Kroenig went on, ‘My hunch is that Israel would choose to give warning of an hour or two, just enough to maintain good relations between the countries but not quite enough to allow Washington to prevent the attack.’ Kroenig said Israel was correct in its timeline of Iran’s nuclear development and that the next year will be critical. ‘The future can evolve in three ways,’ he said. ‘Iran and the international community could agree to a negotiated settlement; Israel and the United States could acquiesce to a nuclear-armed Iran; or Israel or the United States could attack. Nobody wants to go in the direction of a military strike,’ he added, ‘but unfortunately this is the most likely scenario. The more interesting question is not whether it happens but how. The Untied States should treat this option more seriously and begin gathering international support and building the case for the use of force under international law.’”

I may refer back to other aspects of the Ronen Bergman article in future weeks, but for now, Mr. Bergman concludes:

“After speaking with many senior Israeli leaders and chiefs of the military and the intelligence, I have come to believe that Israel will indeed strike Iran in 2012. Perhaps in the small and ever-diminishing window that is left, the United States will choose to intervene after all, but here, from the Israeli perspective, there is not much hope for that. Instead there is that peculiar Israeli mixture of fear – rooted in the sense that Israel is dependent on the tacit support of other nations to survive – and tenacity, the fierce conviction, right or wrong, that only the Israelis can ultimately defend themselves.”

Since last fall, you’ve known where I stood. The U.S. will be part of an attack this spring. It’s as much about the political timetable as anything else.

For now, we’ll learn a lot more with the IAEA delegation next week in Tehran.

Syria: The uprising has reached Damascus’ suburbs as the Syrian government dismissed out of hand a demand by the Arab League for President Bashar Assad to step down in favor of a unity government. Foreign Minister Walid al-Mouallem said Syria was “like a mountain that never shakes in the wind.” But the Free Syrian Army is making advances, if haltingly. The death toll is increasing by 30 to 50 every day; a reported 74+ for Thurs. and Friday.

This week the head of the Syrian Arab Red Crescent was gunned down as he was on his way to Damascus, riding in a vehicle clearly marked with the Red Crescent symbol, according to reports. State-run media blamed “terrorists.” Many of the Gulf states, led by Saudi Arabia, have pulled out of the Arab League’s observer mission, asking the U.N. Security Council to intervene. Actually, it’s hard to tell if anyone is really participating in the mission these days.

As for the Security Council, a Western-Arab draft resolution endorses the Arab League’s call for Assad to relinquish power, but if it comes up for a vote this coming week, it would seem Russia will veto it. Russia, after all, just signed a contract to sell 36 combat jets to Syria, in open defiance of international condemnation of Assad’s crackdown. Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov said no explanation was necessary and that Russia was acting in full respect of international law and wouldn’t be guided by unilateral sanctions others impose. Yet another example of Obama’s ‘reset’ with Russia that he conveniently left out of the State of the Union when going through his foreign policy successes, which can be counted on one hand. To wit:

Egypt: Final results show that Islamists have captured close to 75% of the seats in the new parliament, though some say the Muslim Brotherhood (47% in the lower house) won’t align itself with the ultraconservative Al-Nour (Salafist) party (25%). A Brotherhood leader told an Arab daily in London that his group will not have dialogue with Israel. Another representative said, “We do not recognize Israel at all. It’s an occupying criminal enemy.”

So to those who say the Brotherhood is moderate, you’re nuts. Others say the Brotherhood will divvy up governmental responsibilities with the ruling military council, with the army getting the foreign policy portfolio. The council still maintains a presidential election will be held in June (I continue to be skeptical on this unless the co-governance arrangement has already been worked out in secret).

One thing is clear. The ruling council is peopled with flat-out idiots. Six Americans working for U.S.-based democracy organizations have been prohibited from leaving the country, including a son of U.S. Transportation Secretary Ray LaHood. A State Department spokesman said, “We are urging the government of Egypt to lift these restrictions immediately and allow these folks to come home as soon as possible.”

I mean we give the Egyptians $1.3 billion in annual aid their military badly needs and of course that was already being reviewed. I’m biting my tongue on this one. Time to invoke my “24-hour rule” to see what transpires the next few days.

Libya: The National Transitional Council now operates in name only. Amnesty International was among the groups this week that said detainees, such as Gaddafi’s loyalists, are being tortured and killed in prison. “Limbs are being crushed and victims scorched with cattle prods.”

As reported by the London Times, “In Misrata, a commercial hub that withstood months of devastating siege by Colonel Gaddafi’s forces, the systematic torture has become so bad that (Medicins Sans Frontieres) said it would no longer treat detainees, arguing that they were only patching up abused inmates so that they could be tortured again.”

More than 8,000 pro-Gaddafi supporters are being held by militia groups, according to the U.N.

This week, protesters stormed the Benghazi headquarters of the NTC, and this was the birthplace of the revolt. The people demand the ouster of what they claim are Gaddafi-era officials. The NTC, you’ll recall, is internationally recognized.

Separately, Gaddafi loyalists seized control of Bani Walid. Bani Walid was the home of Gaddafi’s son, Seif, who was captured in November but is still being held by militia forces, even though the NTC is demanding Seif be turned over to them. So it’s civil war all over again, and as much a hellhole as you’ll find in the world these days.

Oh, and officials at Cairo’s international airport found a bomb planted in a Libyan Airlines plane that arrived from Tripoli. Explosives experts defused it after a steward found the bomb in a bathroom cabinet.

You only need the cooperation of 2 or 3 others in this part of the world to take down a commercial airliner or two. One thing never far from my mind is just where are the hundreds and hundreds of shoulder-fired missiles that disappeared into thin air following Gaddafi’s fall?

Iraq: Many Iraqis are not happy with the U.S. military judge’s decision to accept Marine Staff Sgt. Frank Wuterich’s guilty plea of negligent dereliction of duty in the killing of 24 unarmed Iraqi civilians in Haditha back in 2005. Charges were previously dropped against six others; a seventh Marine was acquitted amid the “fog of war.” Official reaction in Iraq, however, has been muted.

Meanwhile, Iraqi security forces raided the homes of two prominent Sunni politicians in another sign that Shiite Prime Minister Maliki is targeting Sunnis.

Afghanistan: IED (improvised explosive device) attacks rose to a record 16,554 in 2011 from 15,225 the year before. In 2009, there were 9,304. The number of Afghan civilians killed rose by 10% last year. Mullah Omar supposedly ordered his Taliban forces to stop targeting civilians, which, if true, is then worrisome in that he is being ignored by an even more vicious element (if that’s possible). But fret not. President Obama would have you believe Afghanistan is in his ‘success’ column. [See France below.]

Pakistan: No coup yet, maybe next week. But don’t worry, Stage One will be bloodless.

Knock knock!
“Who’s there?”
“Gen. Kayani. Time for you and Prime Minister Gilani to go, President Zardari.”
“OK…Saudi Arabia?”
“Yes…you’ll be happy there.”
“No problemo.”
Ah, but then a little while later comes Stage Two….Gen. Kayani’s office.
Knock, knock!

“Who’s there?”

BOOM!!!! [That would be the Taliban.]

Yemen: President Ali Abdullah Saleh is due in the U.S. for medical treatment this weekend, as far as I can ascertain after Saleh left Yemen during the week. The State Department approved Saleh’s request. This has the makings of a “24” episode. You know, an “insider” that is part of Saleh’s security detail at the hospital; a fellow aligned with al-Qaeda, which has been making inroads in Yemen’s south. At least the White House can now convince Saleh to give up power for good (he handed it over before leaving, but you never about this guy), while the State Department desperately tries to find another home for him.

Russia: According to the latest poll, Prime Minister Vladimir Putin gets 49% of the vote for the March 4 presidential election. He needs 50 to avoid a run-off. Another survey has him at 44%. The opposition is staging a big rally in Moscow on Feb. 4, but a pro-Kremlin counter-rally has been scheduled for the same time.   Probable temperatures below zero, however, may limit the crowds in both.

Liberal leader Grigory Yavlinsky is supposedly going to be kept off the March 4 presidential ballot because many of the signatures his people submitted were ruled inadmissible by the Central Elections Commission. How conveeenient. Yavlinsky posed no threat whatsoever to Putin, but it’s seen as revenge for the role his Yabloko party played in exposing December’s fraudulent Duma vote. The Election Commission did say, however, that billionaire Mikhail Prokhorov was on his way to qualifying for the election. Many view him as Putin’s puppet.

Putin himself lashed out against what he called nationalists who threaten the nation’s collapse.

“Nationalism, religious intolerance are becoming a base for radical groups and movements,” he wrote in a newspaper article, though a recent poll found that 43% of Russians support the notion of “Russia for Russians” and that a xenophobic sentiment is on the rise. Opposition forces from both the right and left have blamed uncontrolled immigration, especially from the Northern Caucasus and Central Asia. Sound familiar? Putin counters that migrants wanting to work in the country should pass exams on Russian language and culture.

Yulia Latynina, a political talk show host in Moscow, had an opinion piece in the Moscow Times and I learned this:

“Under Putin’s decade-long rule, Russia earned 1.6 trillion petrodollars and yet failed to build a single modern highway while reportedly having 26 personal palaces built for Putin’s use. Meanwhile, Putin refuses to debate other presidential candidates and believes that anyone who opposes him is a condom, a monkey and a Georgian.” [Putin’s recent description of some of the protesters, including what their ribbons look like. He’s a daffy guy, that Vlad the Great.]

In other matters:

An anonymous source told Interfax that “Russia intends to field short-range missiles in territory that borders multiple NATO states in the latter half of 2012.”

The U.S. Defense Department rejected claims that radar waves caused the malfunctioning of a Russian Mars probe that never made it into orbit and crashed back to Earth. Pentagon spokesman George Little dismissed Deputy Prime Minister Rogozin’s claim that there was evidence to this effect, saying, “I’ve heard of full-mooner theories and this is one of them.”

And for those of you wondering if you can risk flying on a Russian commercial airliner, the answer is an emphatic Nyet. From the Moscow Times:

“A Moscow-bound Boeing 737 operated by the Donavia airline was forced to execute a terrifying emergency landing in Rostov-on-Don on Monday after the cabin lost pressure, causing some passengers to pass out and others to get bloody noses, Interfax reported.”
20 minutes into the flight there was a technical problem in the cabin so the crew did an about face and headed back. One passenger wrote on his Facebook page.
“On the falling airplane everyone was screaming, the oxygen masks fell but weren’t working, blood was flowing from many people’s ears and noses, some have already lost consciousness.”

The extent of any injuries wasn’t known.

China: Mike McConnell, Michael Chertoff and William Lynn / Wall Street Journal

“Only three months ago, we would have violated U.S. secrecy laws by sharing what we write here – even though, as a former director of national intelligence, secretary of homeland security, and deputy secretary of defense, we have long known it to be true. The Chinese government has a national policy of economic espionage in cyberspace. In fact, the Chinese are the world’s most active and persistent practitioners of cyber espionage today.

“Evidence of China’s economically devastating theft of proprietary technologies and other intellectual property from U.S. companies is growing. Only in October 2011 were details declassified in a report to Congress by the Office of the National Counterintelligence Executive. Each of us has been speaking publicly for years about the ability of cyber terrorists to cripple our critical infrastructure, including financial networks and the power grid. Now this report finally reveals what we couldn’t say before: The threat of economic cyber espionage looms even more ominously.

“The report is a summation of the catastrophic impact cyber espionage could have on the U.S. economy and global competitiveness over the next decade. Evidence indicates that China intends to help build its economy by intellectual-property theft rather than by innovation and investment in research and development (two strong suits of the U.S. economy)….

“In this election year, our economy will take center stage, as will China and its role in issues such as monetary policy. If we are to protect ourselves against irreversible long-term damage, the economic issues behind cyber espionage must share some of that spotlight.”

The above could easily be a topic of discussion when Vice President Xi Jinping visits the White House on Feb. 14, Xi the president-to-be in 2013. He will meet with President Obama, and also visit California and Iowa.

Xi may have a few questions for Obama concerning security in the Pacific as the administration is negotiating with the Philippines over a renewed presence there to go along with our forces in Japan, South Korea and on Guam.

Nigeria: Further attacks by Islamist terror group Boko Haram killed at least 160 last weekend as the scale of their bombings continues to grow with sophistication.

They were always viewed as an al-Qaeda offshoot. Just call them al-Qaeda at this point. The helpless Nigerian government asks one simple question of the group. ‘What the heck do you want?’ [The imposition of Sharia rule, of course.] Imagine, a day after this latest wave, Nigerian police discovered another 10 bomb-laden cars and hundreds of other unexploded devices in the northern city of Kano.

France: This is truly a fascinating time here as the people gear up for the April 22 presidential election. Socialist Party candidate Francois Hollande continues to lead by sizable margins in the polls, but this is a guy who promises if elected to reverse President Sarkozy’s policies by raising taxes on corporations, banks and the wealthy and bringing the retirement age back down from 62 to 60. He’s also promising to create 150,000 subsidized jobs in some of the distressed urban areas. Among his package of 60 measures released this week, Hollande would raise the income tax on those earning about $200,000 a year to 45% from 40%, while maintaining Sarkozy’s plan for a financial-transaction tax.

For his part, Sarkozy is slated to do a “60 Minutes” style interview, Sunday night. He has yet to formally announce his candidacy and is being criticized within his own party for his increasingly somber and dour tone; what some say is a suicidal approach to the election, assuming he does run as everyone expects him to.

France also has problems with Turkey after the French parliament voted to approve a bill making it illegal to deny the genocide that took place with the mass killing of Armenians by Ottoman Turks, with Ankara saying they will take some steps against the French in retaliation. The Holocaust is the only other mass killing recognized as genocide in France and to deny either one would be punishable by up to a year in prison.

On the issue of French troops in Afghanistan following the death of four French soldiers and the wounding of 15 at the hands of an Afghan that was being trained by the French, Sarkozy just announced he has opted to withdraw all French forces one year early, by the end of 2013 instead of end of 2014. 1,000 of 4,000 will leave this year. Far more on this next time.

Hungary: Prime Minister Viktor Orban has acquiesced to pressure by the European Union and IMF and has committed to change laws and adjust policies the two bodies find objectionable, namely restrictions on the independence of the National Bank of Hungary. The IMF issued a review of Hungary’s economy and fiscal situation and said the government’s budget-deficit projections were “broadly appropriate.”

Australia: Prime Minister Julia Gillard had a scary moment during an Australia Day function when opposition leader Tony Abbott questioned an Aboriginal tent city, or “embassy,” as they call it, which has been in place since 1972 in a call for recognition of Aboriginal land rights.

Abbott said, “I think the Indigenous people of Australia can be very proud of the respect in which they are held with every Australian. Yes, I think a lot has changed and I think it’s probably time to move on from that.”

Uh-oh! A co-founder of the makeshift embassy said Mr. Abbott’s remarks were “madness” and “amounts to inciting racial riots.”

So the 100 to 200 protesters on the scene, listening to the comments on radio next door, rushed the restaurant where the two leaders were speaking and riot police had to be called in to whisk Gillard and Abbott away.

Many have made fun of Gillard for her scared look as she was dragged by security into her vehicle, but that’s unfair. As for Abbott, he is already in line for “Idiot of the Year.”