Week in Review Part III: Foreign Affairs

Libya: Comments on the death of dictator Muammar Gaddafi, killed by rebels on Thursday in his hometown of Sirte after French fighter jets went after a convoy containing the leader that was attempting to break out of the siege.

Republican Sen. John McCain: “It is a great day. I think the administration deserves great credit.” McCain had repeatedly pressed the Obama administration to take a more aggressive tack. “Obviously, I had different ideas on the tactical side but…the world is a better place.”

McCain, who was the first American political leader to meet with the rebel leaders during the initial action is convinced they have what it takes to steer the country in the right direction.

Also, as Republican Sen. Marco Rubio commented after traveling to Libya:

“Ultimately, this is about the freedom and liberty of the Libyan people. But let’s give credit where credit is due: it’s the French and British that led on this fight and probably even led on the strike that led to Gaddafi’s capture, or, death. (Obama) did the right things, he just took too long to do it and didn’t do enough of it.”
Hugo Rifkind / London Times

“High up on one of the walls around St. Paul’s Cathedral, where anti-capitalist protesters are camping out next to a quite fortuitously placed branch of the camping shop Blacks, somebody has stuck a sign. It’s a good sign, very well done, in the manner of street markings across the City. ‘Tahrir Square, EC1’ it says. As I hopped past on my bike the other day, I found myself wondering exactly what it was about Tahrir Square, Cairo, that somebody was so keen to emulate.

“Was it, do you think, the brutal sexual assault of a CBS news reporter, which lasted 25 minutes and involved several hundred freedom-loving people? Or was it, maybe, the pitched battles between protesters and newly impoverished tour guides, the latter of whom charged the crowd on camels?   Or maybe it’s the less-remembered, second round of demonstrations in Tahrir Square a few months later, in the new, free Egypt, which were tear-gassed. One of those? Which?....

“I appreciate that this may seem an odd observation to turn up in tandem with Colonel Gaddafi’s corpse. But amid the euphoria maybe it’s worth a reality check on the big picture. Egypt plans parliamentary elections next month and a presidential one early next year. [Ed. unlikely on this latter point…try much later in 2012.] Despite the odd burst of sectarian slaughter, this has to be good news. It’s all happening, though, under the watchful eye of a military regime that throws people in jail for calling it dictatorial. Which seems an odd way, all in all, to prove that you aren’t.

“Tunisia is about to hold elections [Ed. this weekend], but it is likely they’ll be won by the Islamist party. Everybody seems surprisingly sanguine about this. Europe has Christian Democrats, the thinking seems to go, and the Middle East has Islamists. Works in Turkey. Which seems reasonable enough, but also a bit…hmmm, sudden. Didn’t Islamism used to be a problem? Wasn’t that why we propped up these dictators in the first place? I’m sure I have a distinct recollection of that being the case. So were we wrong, then? Or are we just not talking about it?....

“If Libya really was so united in wanting Gaddafi gone, who was still supporting him until the bitter end? [Ed. from a purely military standpoint, you have to admit the loyalists put on an amazing fight the last month in particular, on a smaller scale similar to the fall of Berlin.] What’s going to happen to them? On our screens, in our papers, we’ve seen a lot of Libyans these past months. Why, apart from those fruity bodyguards and the occasional Reader’s Wives-style photograph of various Gaddafi spouses, does the country not appear to contain any women? Are we allowed to talk about that?

“In war, we can get away with not doing so. In peace, if that’s what this is, we’re going to have to. Bluntly, what sort of country is Libya going to be?

“History may well group the demonstrations of Tahrir Square with the fall of the Berlin Wall, but we are far from ready to do so now. The Middle East is not Eastern Europe, and a yearning for democracy is not the same thing as having a culture that is going to make it work. I appreciate that that’s bound to sound offensive to some, but if it sounds racist then you haven’t been paying attention. Before the Arab Spring, the Middle East had become a shrill, irrational place; oppressive to women, paranoid about Jews and the West, and entirely inexperienced in the everyday customs that make a free society work.

“Everybody knows this, and for an extended, glorious spring, everybody pretended not to. But it’s not spring any more, and I think we’re kidding ourselves if we think that it’s about to be summer. I reckon they’ve got a pretty nasty winter to get through first.”
Editorial / Washington Post

“What remains (of Libya) is a shattered country piled high with dangerous weapons, lacking legitimate institutions or civil society, and vulnerable to tribal, regional, sectarian and even racial rivalries.

“The good news is that, in the time it took to depose Mr. Gaddafi, the Libyan opposition created a Transitional National Council recognized by 80 governments and prepared an ambitious but reasonable transition plan….

“The threats begin with the more than two dozen rebel militias that participated in the fighting and that now coexist uneasily in Tripoli and other cities. Not all have been integrated into the chain of command under the transitional council; some commanded by Islamists have received their own weapons and funding from the Persian Gulf emirate of Qatar, according to a report by the Wall Street Journal. The often-undisciplined militias have abused and even tortured prisoners and suspected Gaddafi supporters, Human Rights Watch reported. Mr. Gaddafi (was killed) after having been captured. [Ed. look what they did to his body on Friday.]

“Added to this volatile mix are huge stockpiles of weapons, including thousands of surface-to-air missiles and chemical arms, acquired by the Gaddafi regime. Many have been unsecured for weeks, and some have already been smuggled across Libya’s borders….

“The administration should respond positively (to the transitional council that is seeking a more active American role): Libya’s stabilization under a democratic government could help tip the broader wave of change in the Arab Middle East toward those favoring freedom. ‘Would you see the U.S. taking the lead in terms of rebuilding this country and helping?’ a Libyan student asked Ms. Clinton. The answer should be ‘yes.’”
John Podhoretz / New York Post

“Barack Obama didn’t want to become a war president, but – as his triumphalist talk yesterday following the death of Muammar Gaddafi made clear – a war president is what he has become.

“The man who began his presidency with an inaugural address saying, ‘Our security emanates from…the tempering qualities of humility and restraint,’ prematurely declared the Libyan revolution ‘won,’ and gave the United States and NATO credit for having made that victory possible.

“With these remarks, and the ones he made after the assassination of Osama bin Laden, Obama has continued to follow the same path charted by George W. Bush – one of whose key messages during his 2000 campaign was that he would pursue a foreign policy of ‘humility’ and forgo ‘nation building.’

“Like Obama, Bush was promising to do things differently from his predecessor.

“Talk of humility, said Time magazine in 2001, ‘was Bush’s way of criticizing Bill Clinton’s interventionist foreign policy.’

“But Clinton had come to office with absolutely no intention of being an interventionist.

“Indeed, he pulled U.S. forces ignominiously from Somalia during his first year in office after 18 Rangers were massacred in Mogadishu.

“And yet, by 1999, Clinton was unilaterally ordering a relentless 48-day aerial campaign to force Serbia to release Kosovo from its tyranny in 1999….

“Whatever one can say about presidents, love or loathe them, they are men of action, and they lead a country that gives them the tools to act – even when they never thought they would.”
Editorial / Wall Street Journal

“President Obama, Britain’s David Cameron, France’s Nicolas Sarkozy and even the Arab League deserve credit…The Europeans pushed for an intervention to help the rebels, who by March were besieged in western Libya. An initially reluctant White House came around just in time to save Benghazi from a Gaddafi onslaught. The U.S. military led the targeted bombing that turned the tide. Thousands of innocent lives were saved. Gaddafi also wanted to derail the democratic transitions in Tunisia and Egypt, and had he crushed the rebellion he would have been a dangerous rogue.

“There’s a lesson here about America’s global role. U.S. military leadership and stealth bombers, refueling tankers, drones and satellites were indispensable over Libya. But Mr. Obama’s decision to keep a political low profile during the war – to ‘lead from behind’ – hurt the cause. NATO was left without a political general, and at times it wobbled. The U.S. was late in recognizing the Benghazi government, and Mr. Obama’s calculated reticence invited a backlash in Congress over war powers.

“Yet the president was a statesman compared with some GOP pretenders to the Commander-in-Chief’s chair. Michele Bachmann, Jon Huntsman and Newt Gingrich opposed U.S. participation as a high-risk intervention, a claim that now looks strategically mistaken and politically opportunistic. John McCain, a Republican who never wavered on Libya, yesterday offered adult advice for the U.S. now ‘to deepen our support’ for Libya’s coming move from dictatorship to something new….

“Gaddafi’s fate will also echo for Syria’s Bashar Assad and Yemen’s Ali Abdulah Saleh….Gaddafi declared war on his people and ended up dead. Mr. Assad has taken the Gaddafi route in response to Syria’s popular uprising, and Mr. Saleh refuses to step aside and is moving that way.

“The U.S. can’t dictate events, but a superpower – and America remains the world’s sole such power, no matter the current declinist vogue – can still shape events for the better. Libya’s successful revolution is the latest proof that liberating the world of a dictator can serve America’s strategic interests and its moral principles.”

Iran: As I alluded to last time, the key for any retaliatory strike against Tehran for its alleged plot to kill the Saudi Ambassador to the U.S. in Washington could be contained in an upcoming report by the International Atomic Energy Agency (mid-November). For its part, Saudi Arabia’s Prince Turki Al-Faisal said, “Somebody in Iran will have to pay the price. The burden of proof and the amount of evidence in the case is overwhelming and clearly shows official Iranian responsibility for it.”

Iran and Saudi Arabia have every reason to be enemies. Saudi Arabia is the standard bearer of Sunni Islam and the defender of the Muslim world’s status quo, while Iran, leader of the Shiites, views itself as the vanguard of Islamic revolution.

The U.S. has been pressing the IAEA to supply more details on Iran’s suspected nuclear weapons program and if the IAEA talks of Iran pursuing nuclear-armed missiles, you might consider that the beginning of the clock ticking down towards action, a strike of some kind…certainly something more powerful than the sanctions regimes that have largely failed thus far. My guess is any military action takes place in the spring. Again, as I noted last week, Obama can’t risk Iran exploding a device at the height of the campaign next fall.

Separately, Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamaenei, who hasn’t been getting along with President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad, warned that the post of elected president could one day be scrapped. Parliamentary elections are being held in March and Ahmadinejad’s supporters will be further marginalized.

I commented awhile back, when it appeared Ahmadinejad might not last until the UN General Assembly in September, that hard as it may be to believe, he is preferable to being removed by the clerics with their own hand-picked selection and that is more true than ever (though never discussed in the mainstream media). Khamenei’s not so veiled threat, understand, also has the backing of the Iranian Revolutionary Guard, whose Quds force was responsible for the assassination plot against the Saudi ambassador. Ayatollah Khamenei sees what’s happening in Syria and elsewhere and he’s scared, but this is not Libya or Tunisia. Oh, far from it, sports fans. The United States and Iran are on a collision course.

Iraq / Turkey: Early in the week, we learned that the U.S. was abandoning plans to keep U.S. troops in Iraq past a year-end withdrawal deadline, so it was zero surprise that President Obama then confirmed this on Friday with his announcement that all U.S. troops would be out of the country by Dec. 31. Just 160 active-duty soldiers attached to the U.S. Embassy will remain, not a few thousand trainers as originally hoped by some.

As I noted the other day, it came down to immunity for the trainers. Prime Minister Nouri al-Maliki said he didn’t have the votes in parliament to get it through.

So score one for Shia firebrand Moqtada al-Sadr, who warned Maliki that if all U.S. troops weren’t removed by the deadline, his Mahdi Army would wreak havoc.

Meanwhile, as many as 10,000 Turkish forces may now be involved in an offensive against Kurdish militants in northern Iraq and southeastern Turkey; this after the PKK (Kurdistan Workers’ Party) killed 24 Turkish soldiers earlier in the week. At least 1,000 Turks crossed into Iraq, where the PKK has many of its sanctuaries. Turkey launched airstrikes on the area as well. The leadership in Ankara has vowed revenge after one of the worst losses of life suffered by the army since the insurgency began in 1984. More than 40,000 people have died on both sides in the conflict and Prime Minister Erdogan is under immense pressure to appear decisive.

Supposedly, the leader of the PKK’s military wing these days is a Syrian, both Syria and Iran also having their own problems with Kurdish minorities.

Syria: At least 41 were killed on Monday alone, 27 in Homs, according to the Syrian Observatory for Human Rights, most civilians, as the unrest edged closer to an all-out war. Army defectors appear to be organizing rapidly and in one case on Monday, detonated a bomb by remote control as an army vehicle passed, killing four soldiers. Last Saturday, government troops killed a leading activist who had been organizing peaceful demonstrations.

Israel: Sgt. First Class Gilad Shalit was released by Hamas after being held by the terrorists for five years. In return more than 1,000 Palestinian prisoners are being released, the first 400+ this week in a highly-choreographed series of steps.

I have long said Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu is the smartest man in the room, frankly, the smartest leader in the world.

But Netanyahu also has a history of being incredibly sleazy and slimy. This, friends, was simply a politically expedient move by a man desperately trying to hold onto his coalition, knowing that one poll after another showed the Israeli people, owing in no small part to a massive P.R. campaign by Shalit’s parents over the past five years, favored the release, even in this format.

Israel will pay a heavy price for compromising with Hamas. This was one stupid move.
Various opinions…

Editorial / New York Times

“We share the joy of Israelis over the release of (Shalit)…We will leave it to the Israeli people to debate whether the deal – which includes the release of more than 1,000 Palestinian prisoners – will make their country safer or lead to more violence or more abductions of Israeli soldiers or other citizens….

“Mr. Netanyahu twisted himself in an ideological knot to get this deal. Only five months ago, he wanted to cut off tax remittances to the Palestinian Authority and urged the United States to halt aid because Mr. Abbas tried to forge a unity government with Hamas, which controls Gaza.

“One has to ask: If Mr. Netanyahu can negotiate with Hamas – which shoots rockets at Israel, refuses to recognize Israel’s existence and, on Tuesday, vowed to take even more hostages – why won’t he negotiate seriously with the Palestinian Authority, which Israel relies on to help keep the peace in the West Bank?

“Mr. Netanyahu’s backers claim that his coalition is so fragile that he can’t make the compromises needed to help revive peace negotiations. But he was strong enough to go against the grief-stricken families of those Israelis killed by the Palestinian prisoners he just freed. ‘I know that the price is very heavy for you,’ he wrote to them. Why can’t he make a similarly impassioned appeal for a settlement freeze for the sake of Israel’s security?”
Editorial / Wall Street Journal

“The Jewish state’s repeated willingness to pay an exorbitant price for its citizens is a testament to its national and religious values, which stress the obligation to redeem captives….

“But virtues often have their defects, and the line between moral values and moral hazard can be a thin one. The negotiations to return Sgt. Shalit dragged on as long as they did largely because Hamas had reason to believe it could drive the hardest possible bargain. The same logic explains why Israelis will continue to be tempting targets for hostage taking.

“Sooner or later, Israel will learn the name of its next Gilad Shalit. Sooner or later, too, it will learn that the better course is to give its enemies reasons to think twice before taking hostages in the first place.”
Robert Mnookin / Wall Street Journal

“It’s hard to think straight when negotiating with an adversary you claim is evil, and Israel proved it last week. The usual problem is a refusal to negotiate at all. Here the Israelis made what seems to be a crazy deal….

“Israel has always claimed it will not negotiate with what it considers terrorist organizations. Chief among those groups is Hamas, which has repeatedly expressed its commitment to the destruction of the Jewish state….Israel may claim that no one in the government ever met face-to-face with representatives of Hamas, and it is possible that the two adversaries worked out the details by exchanging offers and counteroffers through Egyptian intermediaries. But this fig leaf hardly hides the fact that a deal was negotiated….

“(One) Israeli soldier has regained his freedom. But to free 1,000 prisoners in exchange? Israeli parents may on some unthinking level feel better about their government’s concern for each individual soldier. But the deal jeopardizes the freedom and safety of many Israelis in the future….

“Gilad Shalit is a known individual: what psychologists would call an ‘identifiable being.’ His picture has been plastered throughout Israel. The Israeli press has written hundreds of articles speculating about his well-being. By contrast, the Israelis who are endangered by this deal are mere statistics – an unidentifiable group of people who may die in the future. Psychologists call these ‘statistical lives.’…

“While no expense will be spared to save an identifiable miner trapped in a coal mine, there is often great political reluctance to spend an equal amount on mine safety. Such a response is entirely human, but it is not rational.”

Last week I quoted an Israeli poll showing 69-26 support for Netanyahu’s move. Another one that came out afterwards shows support by a 79-14 margin. I have some readers in Israel. Enjoy the good feeling while you can. As the first 477 Palestinians were being released, there were cries of “We want a new Gilad!” A Gaza woman just freed, a would-be suicide bomber, told cheering schoolchildren in the Gaza Strip the day after her release, “I hope you will walk the same path we took and God willing, we will see some of you as martyrs.” [Jerusalem Post]

Lastly, the Palestinian bid for UN membership is expected to come to a head in about three weeks, when Security Council ambassadors meet to decide their response, possibly Nov. 11. Palestinian President Abbas needs nine of 15 votes of support, which would then oblige the U.S. to use its veto. So it’s nine votes, no veto. Evidently, it is currently 8 ‘for,’ 6 ‘against,’ with everyone waiting on Bosnia.

Now this is classic. Bosnia has a collective presidency – Muslim, Serb and Croat – and they disagree over which way to vote.

Lebanon: A Lebanese daily, Al-Joumhouria, reported on Wednesday that Hizbullah “is in a state of alert and it anticipates an Israeli attack on Lebanon at any moment,” security sources told the paper. Last spring, Israel’s Haaretz newspaper, citing documents released by WikiLeaks, said Israel expected the next war to last two months during which Hizbullah would likely fire between 24,000 to 36,000 missiles into Israel, about 6,000 aimed at Tel Aviv. According to Al-Joumhouria’s sources, “Israel finds in the deteriorating situation in Syria and other Arab countries an opportunity to wage its third war against Lebanon as counties in the region are occupied with resolving domestic affairs. ‘Israel’s military is preparing a sudden war to protect Israel from Hizbullah’s missiles, which threaten the heart of Israel and its vital institutions,’ the paper quoted a source as saying.” [Daily Star]
Hizbullah supposedly has recruited thousands of suicide bombers since the last war with Israel in 2006.
Pakistan: Secretary of State Hillary Clinton warned Pakistan’s leadership that if they don’t crack down on insurgents staging attacks from Pakistan into Afghanistan, Pakistan will pay a “very big price.” A senior official said the message being conveyed to Pakistan is: “You need to deal with it or we will.”

But this is disturbing. On Thursday the Times of India reported that the head of Pakistan’s army, Gen. Ashfaq Kayani, reportedly offered a warning that the United States better carefully think through the consequences of sending any troops into Pakistan. Kayani said this in a closed-door meeting with a legislative defense committee. While Kayani didn’t say specifically what Pakistan would do in response, the implication was clear. Pakistan has nukes. What would Pakistan target? U.S. personnel in Afghanistan. Or India, which continues to grow closer to Afghanistan. A former CIA official and South Asia specialist, Bruce Riedel, wrote this week that “The generals who run Pakistan have not abandoned their obsession with challenging India.”

Afghanistan: Sec. Clinton, on her trip to Kabul to visit with President Karzai, urged him to restart negotiations with the Taliban after the assassination of former President Rabbani forced Karzai to pull back.

China / Taiwan: Taiwan’s President Ma said his country’s aim is to sign a peace agreement with the mainland within 10 years, provided there is a high level of consensus on the island and sufficient trust on both sides of the Taiwan Strait. Ma made this statement three months before the Jan. 14 presidential election and it could provide ammunition to the opposition pro-independence camp. When the opposition then blasted the idea, more than Ma expected, by week’s end he backtracked and said “We will consider a referendum for the peace treaty” as opposed to simple parliamentary approval.

Meanwhile, China is undergoing some national soul-searching over a Kitty Genovese type moment (the 1964 murder of Genovese in Queens, New York, when neighbors did nothing to help) as a two-year-old girl was struck by a vehicle in a hit-and-run accident, and then as she lay critically injured, some 18 people went by and offered zero assistance until a female street cleaner finally picked up the girl and called for help, with the mother finally tracked down. The girl died on Friday in the hospital.

The video of those who walked or rode by, some staring at the bleeding body, is unbelievably sad and sick. A second van approached and drove over the girl’s legs. A motorcyclist applies the brakes and clearly looks at the girl, lying in the pool of blood, and drives off. It took seven minutes before the street cleaner discovered the girl.

The drivers of both vehicles were found and arrested. The bystanders were also tracked down and claimed they didn’t see the victim. [She had been outside playing with her brother when she ran out in the traffic.]

The street cleaner was given a $3,800 award by the government. She said she only did what was right and did not think she deserved it. However, she also believed people would accuse her of seeking fame if she rejected the reward, so she planned to donate some of it to help with the girl’s expenses (the girl then dying three days later).

Thailand: The new government of Prime Minister Yingluck Shinawatra is under immense pressure as rising flood waters threaten Bangkok, which would lead to a huge economic catastrophe, on top of the already significant impact as many industrial parks are now underwater. Yingluck took the controversial step on Thursday of opening floodgates to speed the flow of water to the sea but this also means parts of the capital could be overrun. Water is already knee-deep in outlying areas.

Yingluck, who had zero political experience before being elected three months ago, totally botched the early handling of the flooding and when it comes to information going out to the people, it’s been a disaster.

Thus far, at least 10% of the rice fields have been damaged or destroyed, while companies from Apple to Toyota face supply disruptions similar to those from the March earthquake that crippled Japan. Western Digital Corp., the world’s largest maker of hard-disk drives, said production won’t return to normal for months.

France:  The Socialist Party selected Francois Hollande to be its standard-bearer in next year’s presidential election, Hollande winning a convincing runoff against Martine Aubry. The latest poll in France shows 63% disapprove of President Sarkozy’s performance.

Spain: The Basque separatist group Eta said it has called for a “definitive cessation” to its decades-long campaign of bombings and shootings that has killed more than 800 in over 40 years of operation. Spain’s government said the move was “a victory for democracy, law and reason.” I’d say we’ve heard this before from Eta.

Japan: The government anticipates spending a minimum of $13 billion to rehabilitate all of the territory exposed to radioactive contaminants from the disabled Fukushima Daiichi nuclear complex, according to Reuters. The final cost is bound to be much greater.