US begins review of Nvidia AI chip sales to China, Reuters reports; shares rise
Iran: According to the London Times, “Saudi Arabia could acquire nuclear warheads within weeks of Iran developing atomic weapons as the threat from Tehran triggers an arms race across the Middle East.
“In the event of a successful Iranian nuclear test, Riyadh would immediately launch a twin-track nuclear weapons program, The Times has learnt.
“Warheads would be purchased off the shelf from abroad, with work on a new ballistic missile platform getting under way to build an immediate deterrent, according to Saudi sources.”
That’s the nightmare scenario in the aftermath of Iran testing its first device. Pakistan would be the vendor of choice for warheads, the Saudis having fronted the cost of Pakistan’s nuclear program.
In a bizarre twist to the story concerning the assassination of Iranian nuclear scientists, NBC News reported Thursday that the hits have been carried out by an Iranian opposition group, MEK, with logistical and financial support from the Mossad. The report was based on an interview with one of Supreme Leader Ayatollah Khamenei’s senior advisers, who detailed the relationship between the opposition group and Israel, which “two senior U.S. officials” confirmed as accurate.
What’s bizarre is the disturbing source of the story; leaks out of the White House. MEK is a designated terrorist organization by the United States.
So imagine the debate in Israel these days. Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu is receiving advice and information from all sides and in the end it’s his call. As Chuck Freilich of the Los Angeles Times simply sums it up, “Neither side can afford to be wrong. Netanyahu, by all indications of the existentialist mind-set, certainly cannot.”
Israel is also faced with hundreds of Iranian Shahab missiles capable of striking Israel, plus Hizbullah’s arsenal of 50,000 rockets, a far greater force than Israel faced in the 2006 Lebanon war when Hizbullah fired 4,000 rockets at Israel out of 13,000 available.
For his part, President Obama said in an interview on Super Bowl Sunday that the aim was to resolve the crisis diplomatically, but no option was off the table. He added Washington was working “in lockstep” with Israel, which was right to be very concerned about Iran’s activities.
Bret Stephens / Wall Street Journal
“Can Israel attack Iran? If it can, will it? If it will, when? If when, how?
“And what happens after that?
“On Sunday…President Obama said ‘I don’t think that Israel has made a decision on what they need to do.’ That didn’t square with the view of Defense Secretary Leon Panetta, who’s been reported as saying he expects an Israeli attack this spring. Nor does it square with public warnings from Israeli Defense Minister Ehud Barak that the Iranians would soon enter a ‘zone of immunity’ from foreign military attack if nothing is done to stop them.
“Yes, these war drums have been beaten before. But this time it’s different.
“Diplomacy has run its course: Even UN diplomats now say Iran uses negotiations as a tactic to buy time. The sanctions are too late: Israel can’t afford to wait a year or two to see if Europe’s embargo on Iranian oil or the administration’s squeeze on Iran’s financial institutions will alter Tehran’s nuclear calculations….
“Two additional points. Washington and Jerusalem are at last operating from a common timetable – Iran is within a year of getting to the point when it will be able to assemble a bomb essentially at will. And speaking of timetables, Jerusalem knows that Mr. Obama will be hard-pressed to oppose an Israeli strike – the way Dwight Eisenhower did during the Suez crisis – before Election Day. A re-elected President Obama is a different story.”
Meanwhile, reports this week have Iran bolstering its uranium refinement efforts at its subterranean Qom complex.
Speaking of uranium efforts, the International Atomic Energy Agency’s recent three-day mission to Iran failed to address the concerns of U.S. and European officials. So fill in that box on your “Bomb Iran” checklist.
Syria: Last Saturday, Russia and China exercised their Security Council vetoes and squelched a Western- and Arab-backed resolution at the United Nations that would have condemned Syrian President Bashar Assad and his regime’s crackdown while calling on him to relinquish some of his powers to his deputy. It was a heavily watered-down version at that.
Turkish Prime Minister Erdogan called the Security Council veto a “fiasco” and said his country wouldn’t remain silent. U.S. Ambassador to the UN, Susan Rice, condemned the vetoes as “shameful.” She said it showed how Russia and China aimed to “sell out the Syrian people and shield a craven tyrant. Any further bloodshed that flows will be on their hands.”
U.S. Secretary of State Hillary Clinton said, “To block this resolution is to bear the responsibility for the horrors on the ground in Syria.”
French Ambassador Gerard Araud said: “It is a sad day for this council, a sad day for all Syrians, and a sad day for democracy.”
Russian Ambassador Vitaly Churkin insisted the draft resolution lacked balance.
“Some influential members of the international community unfortunately…have been undermining the opportunity for political settlement, calling for regime change, pushing the oppositionists to power.”
Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov then went to Damascus and received a hero’s welcome. He urged Assad to negotiate with the opposition and adopt some reforms. As soon as he left, Assad stepped up the violence.
Editorial / Wall Street Journal
“Moscow had been signaling for weeks that it would protect its client in Damascus even as Mr. Assad added to his death toll, now at more than 5,000. [Ed. Well over 6,000] Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov has defended Russian arms sales to Syria and ruled out any new UN moves….
“This is what happens when a U.S. administration sees the world as it would like it to be, not the way it is. The White House apparently believed its own spin that last year’s Libyan operation signaled a brave new multilateral era. But Russia abstained on that UN resolution, and strongman Vladimir Putin raged that he had been duped when NATO used the resolution to claim the authority to oust Moammar Gaddafi. The Libyan mission succeeded after much needless delay only because the U.S. military provided most of the firepower behind a NATO and Arab façade....
“Moscow has played this game at the UN with special relish in the post-Cold War era. Russia has little other leverage in global affairs, and by any economic, political or military standard deserves even less of a say….
“Most of the world – nearly all the Arab states, neighboring Turkey, the U.S. and Europe – say the killings must stop. The dictator’s ‘veto’ at the Security Council need not veto action. On their own, all these countries can arm and fund the opposition, and further tighten the noose of sanctions around Mr. Assad and his cronies. A ‘no fly zone’ above Syria can’t be ruled out either.
“The U.S. (a.k.a. the sole superpower) would in most circumstances be best placed to corral them together. By throwing its ‘killing machine,’ to use President Obama’s phrase, into a higher gear in recent weeks, the Syrian regime must figure that this White House lacks the stomach to lead a ‘coalition of the willing’…After all, the administration has made the Security Council the final say in matters of ‘collective security,’ and it said no.
“Americans are preoccupied by domestic issues, but Syria is a good test of President Obama’s foreign policy. He has put the credibility of his office on the line by declaring that Syria’s tyrant must leave. With each week of Mr. Assad’s brutality, the cost in lives and the odds of civil war will continue to rise unless Mr. Obama does more than bow before the false moral authority of the UN.”
Egypt: The Muslim Brotherhood demanded the military council cede control of the government, calling for a new coalition government formed by Parliament. Previously the Brotherhood had said it was willing to let the generals remain in charge until June and a presidential election. I have to admit this might ruin my theory the two will reach a power-sharing agreement, with the military being given the foreign policy/military portfolio, but now the ruling council has been beset by all manner of issues, including the soccer riot and the probable loss of aid from the United States. [In the aftermath of the soccer riot, at least another 15 have been killed in the violence.]
But liberals in opposition don’t want the Brotherhood to assume immediate control, which would place them in charge of drafting the new constitution.
And then you have the military rulers trumping up charges for crimes-against-the-state against 19 Americans representing nongovernmental organizations (NGOs), most of whom have fled the country but six are holed up for protection in the U.S. embassy. Egypt is threatening show trials…pure idiocy if the rulers want to keep the $1.5 billion in annual aid Washington supplies it.
Editorial / Wall Street Journal
“The sad irony is that these groups (NGOs) are the good guys – people trying to encourage a free press, freedom to worship and political tolerance. Yet the military government can’t seem to understand its own interest in allowing the development of political voices other than the Muslim Brotherhood and Salafists.
“The government is trying to court public support by trumping up a case against ‘foreign influence,’ especially Americans. This is the oldest ruse in authoritarian politics. If it stays on this path, the military leadership will lose U.S. money and support and find itself weaker against the rise of political Islam.”
Israel: No one seems to know what the Doha agreement between the Palestinian Authority (Fatah) and Hamas actually means, but one thing is clear. Israel does not want the international community accepting a coalition government that contains an unreformed Hamas. The Quartet (UN, U.S., EU and Russia) established three criteria for engaging with Hamas: that it give up terrorism, recognize Israel and accept previous Israeli-Palestinian agreements. But the agreement signed in Doha on Monday calls for the establishment of an interim unity government.
Until the picture becomes clearer, Israel is withholding any further aid to the Palestinians. Prime Minister Netanyahu has said the PA has to choose: peace with Israel or peace with Hamas. Hamas head Khaled Mashaal, after all, said the PA-Hamas deal would create greater unity “in order to be free for confronting the enemy.”
As for the United States, since it designates Hamas a terrorist organization, it’s not known yet just what the State Department will do in terms of the military assistance currently being granted Palestinian security forces. The aid has been critical in improving security in the Palestinian territories, as Israel itself admits.
[I just saw Hamas leader Mashaal is in Iran this weekend.]
Libya: So you know how I’ve said for months that one thing that keeps me up at night is all the missing shoulder-fired missiles from Libya? This week, in the Feb. 6 issue of Defense News, we have the headline:
“U.S. Still Hunting for Missing Libyan Missiles”
As reported by Kate Brannen:
“The U.S. State Department believes the majority of anti-aircraft missiles that went missing when Moammar Gaddafi’s regime was defeated are still in Libya.
“However, while there is no definitive evidence that any of the weapons left the country, the U.S. government is not ruling out that possibility, according to Andrew Shapiro, assistant secretary of state for political-military affairs.”
It’s believed Gaddafi had about 20,000 of the man-portable air defense systems, or MANPADS, which Shapiro admits pose a “major proliferation challenge.” He says 5,000 MANPADS have been identified, recovered and secured.
USA TODAY also had a story on the topic.
Republican Senator Susan Collins of Maine, the ranking Republican on the Homeland Security Committee, said she is concerned that the White House was late in trying to get an accounting of the missiles.
Reminder…a coordinated attack on two commercial aircraft, anywhere in the Western world, would send the global economy spiraling into Depression. [One sends us back into recession.]
Separately, the New York Times had a story that the militias are sowing chaos, not that you didn’t already know that from reading this space.
Anthony Shadid:
“The country that witnessed the Arab world’s most sweeping revolution is foundering. So is its capital, where a semblance of normality has returned after the chaotic days of the fall of Tripoli last August. But no one would consider a city ordinary where militiamen tortured to death an urbane former diplomat two weeks ago, where hundreds of refugees deemed loyal to Col. Gaddafi waited hopelessly in a camp and where a government official acknowledged that ‘freedom is a problem.’”
Afghanistan: Recall how President Obama said just the other day that we were winning in Afghanistan (and it was mission accomplished in Iraq). Well a UN report revealed that the number of civilians killed and injured in the Afghan war has risen for the fifth year in a row. 3,021 civilian deaths in 2011 compared with 2,790 in 2010 and 2,412 in 2009.
And from Army Times’ Lance M. Bacon:
“An Army officer is fed up with ‘rosy official statements’ that paint Afghanistan as a picture of progress, and he is demanding military leaders come clean about the ‘absence of success on virtually every level.’
“ ‘How many more men must die in support of a mission that is not succeeding and behind an array of more than seven years of optimistic statements by U.S. senior leaders in Afghanistan?’ Lt. Col. Daniel Davis asked in a four-page essay titled ‘Truth, Lies & Afghanistan: How military leaders have let us down.’
“ ‘No one expects our leaders to always have a successful plan. But we do expect – and the men who do the living, fighting and dying deserve – to have our leaders tell us the truth about what’s going on,’ Davis wrote.”
[Davis’ essay is part of an 82-page report he wrote for the January/February issue of Armed Forces Journal, though it’s a complicated situation as the Army’s Public Affairs bureau ordered the journal to hold publication.]
Davis covered 9,000 miles during a year-long tour and said he conducted interviews with more than 250 soldiers.
“ ‘What I saw bore no resemblance to rosy official statements by U.S. military leaders about conditions on the ground,’ Davis wrote in the essay. He goes on to say conditions are not improving, local governments and military are not progressing toward self-sufficiency, insurgents control virtually every piece of land beyond eyesight of allied bases and local governments are unable to provide basic needs.”
And get this, as reported by Lance Bacon, “Six percent of overall NATO deaths in Afghanistan have been attributed to attacks by Afghan security forces, according to a confidential alliance report leaked to the media last month….
“In his report, Davis said that ‘to a man, the U.S. officers in that unit told me they had nothing but contempt for the Afghan troops in their area.”
Lt. Col. Davis’ career could be over because of these comments.
Pakistan: The Supreme Court rejected Prime Minister Gilani’s appeal against a contempt charge, which will no doubt plunge the country into further political turmoil when the case begins, shortly. Recall, Gilani is refusing to reopen corruption proceedings against President Zardari, with Gilani arguing that Zardari has immunity from prosecution while in office.
And as far as I know, former President Musharraf is still slated to return to Pakistan this month, where he faces arrest. His return is not a welcome development in terms of the nation’s stability.
Christians Under Attack: Ayaan Hirsi Ali had a piece in Newsweek on Christians being murdered for their faith from one end of the Muslim world to the other. In part:
“(A) fair-minded assessment of recent events and trends leads to the conclusion that the scale and severity of Islamophobia pales in comparison with the bloody Christophobia currently coursing through Muslim-majority nations from one end of the globe to the other. The conspiracy of silence surrounding this violent expression of religious intolerance has to stop. Nothing less than the fate of Christianity – and ultimately of all religious minorities – in the Islamic world is at stake.
“From blasphemy laws to brutal murders to bombings to mutilations and the burning of holy sites, Christians in so many nations live in fear. In Nigeria many have suffered all of these forms of persecution. The nation has the largest Christian minority (40%) in proportion to its population (160 million) of any majority-Muslim country. For years, Muslims and Christians in Nigeria have lived on the edge of civil war. Islamist radicals provoke much if not most of the tension. The newest such organization is an outfit that calls itself Boko Haram, which means ‘Western education is sacrilege.’ Its aim is to establish Sharia in Nigeria. To this end it has stated that it will kill all Christians in the country.”
The same Ayaan Hirsi Ali in an op-ed this week for the Financial Times:
“A year ago many western commentators were celebrating an Arab spring. [Ed. not yours truly.] The internet generation personified by Wael Ghonim, the Google marketing executive, would take over power from military dictators and absolute monarchs in democratic elections. Those of us who warned that political Islam would be the principal beneficiary of elections in North Africa and the Middle East were dismissed as scaremongers…
“To compare Islamists of today with the Christian democrats of postwar Europe is absurd. To take them at their word that they will govern like the Islamists of Turkey is not much better. Europe’s Christian democrats may claim to be inspired by the Bible but they would not dream of proposing legislation straight from the book of Leviticus. By contrast, the Islamists of North Africa and the Middle East have for decades promoted the agenda that legislation should come from the suras of the Koran and other Islamic scripture.
“The leaders of the political parties of the Brotherhood movement in Egypt, Morocco and Tunisia have insisted they are no different from Turkey’s ruling Justice and Development Party (AKP). They say they will adopt the same economic policies as the AKP. Surveys by Pew and others show that, all over North Africa, the government in Ankara is seen as a role model.
“Yet the circumstances of Turkey are radically different from these North African states. In the 1920s, under Kemal Ataturk, Turkey embarked on a sustained policy of westernization. Ataturk’s reforms, more than anything the AKP has done, help explain why the Turkish economy is among the most dynamic in the Muslim world. The AKP’s Islamist zeal is checked by the military, judiciary and press – though for how much longer remains to be seen.
“These checks and balances are largely absent in the Arab world, as are the basic institutions conducive to economic prosperity. What is the likelihood then that Islamist parties will discard the project to impose Sharia law that they have been promoting for decades? I think it is very low. My expectation is that Islamist parties will sweet-talk their voters and the west until their power is well established and then govern like Iran’s regime or Hamas in Gaza.
“The transition from closed to open societies will be slow and painful for the Arab-Muslim world. Given that, it would be better for the west to invest in the future by offering more support to the secular groups that brought about this revolution. Cairo is not Ankara post-Ataturk, much less Bonn post-Adenauer. It is time to abandon the overconfident assumption that there is a moderate mainstream in the Arab world.”
Russia: Despite temperatures below zero, tens of thousands (estimates ranged from 50,000 to 120,000) braved the elements in Moscow last Saturday to demand fair elections next month, March 4, as demonstrators carried anti-Vladimir Putin banners. Putin, in turn, has accused the United States of inciting mass protests. He also wrote an op-ed in the Washington Post this week that was such a bunch of garbage, I didn’t find one line worth citing in this column.
Gideon Rachman / Financial Times
“No one is yet talking of a ‘Moscow spring.’…But there is definitely a Moscow thaw. After a long period of close political control in Russia, the ice is cracking. The intoxicating sense that taboos are being broken is reminiscent of the outbreak of glasnost under Mikhail Gorbachev, which signaled the beginning of the end of the Soviet era….
“One possibility is that Mr. Putin heeds the calls for a rerun of the parliamentary elections of last December. Genuinely free elections would lead to a Duma with a real opposition that would be able to challenge the Kremlin rather than simply acting as its echo chamber.
“Another possibility is to repeat the procedure that ended the presidency of Boris Yeltsin at the end of 1999. Mr. Yeltsin was persuaded to step down, in favor of Mr.
Putin, in return for guarantees that he, his family and his business cronies would not be pursued for corrupt practices. Many of the people who made fortunes in the Putin era will be worrying about what the future might hold for them. They might be amenable to some kind of amnesty deal – if the offer were made.
“These scenarios may sound far-fetched. [Ed. yours truly has been predicting a similar one.] But in Moscow at the moment, the most far-fetched idea of all is the notion that President Putin will still be running Russia in 2024. The Moscow River was frozen over last week but listen carefully and you could hear the sound of the ice cracking beneath the surface.”
Thomas L. Friedman / New York Times
“Putin’s Russia is at a crossroads. It has become a ‘sort-of-but-not-really-country.’ Russia today is sort of a democracy, but not really. It’s sort of a free market, but not really. It’s sort of got the rule of law to protect businesses, but not really. It’s sort of a European country, but not really. It has sort of a free press, but not really. It’s cold war with America is sort of over, but not really. It’s sort of trying to become something more than a petro-state, but not really….
“Real reform will require a huge re-set on Putin’s part. Could it happen? Does he get it? On the evidence available now, I’d say: sort of, but not really.”
China: Vice President (soon to be president) Xi Jinping arrives in Washington this week in what will be a clear attempt to deal with the existing “trust deficit” between our two nations. There are certainly some big issues for Xi to discuss with President Obama and Vice President Biden, whether its trade disputes, North Korea, territorial issues in the South China Sea, or China’s veto, along with Russia’s, of a UN Resolution condemning Syria’s Assad.
France: I’m on record as saying National Front candidate Marine Le Pen will finish second ahead of President Sarkozy in the first round of voting in the French presidential election April 22. Some analysts there say she’s near 25% and that might do it. Of course she’d then get her butt kicked by the Socialist candidate, Francois Hollande. But one poll published Feb. 6 had Hollande at 34% and Sarkozy at 26%, with Le Pen just at 16%, after which Hollande would defeat Sarkozy in round two, 58-42.
[I also just saw where Le Pen has yet to formally qualify for the presidential ballot due to France’s crazy qualification requirement – gaining the signature of 500 parliamentarians or council leaders. Boy, that would suck.]
Mexico: Working with the Mexican government, the U.S. State Department has issued an updated travel warning for tourists visiting the country, adding more specificity, which Mexican tourism officials agree with. The number of U.S. citizens reported to the Department of State as murdered in Mexico jumped from 35 in 2007 to 120 in 2011. If you’re traveling there, go to the State Department web site.
“In the event of a successful Iranian nuclear test, Riyadh would immediately launch a twin-track nuclear weapons program, The Times has learnt.
“Warheads would be purchased off the shelf from abroad, with work on a new ballistic missile platform getting under way to build an immediate deterrent, according to Saudi sources.”
That’s the nightmare scenario in the aftermath of Iran testing its first device. Pakistan would be the vendor of choice for warheads, the Saudis having fronted the cost of Pakistan’s nuclear program.
In a bizarre twist to the story concerning the assassination of Iranian nuclear scientists, NBC News reported Thursday that the hits have been carried out by an Iranian opposition group, MEK, with logistical and financial support from the Mossad. The report was based on an interview with one of Supreme Leader Ayatollah Khamenei’s senior advisers, who detailed the relationship between the opposition group and Israel, which “two senior U.S. officials” confirmed as accurate.
What’s bizarre is the disturbing source of the story; leaks out of the White House. MEK is a designated terrorist organization by the United States.
So imagine the debate in Israel these days. Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu is receiving advice and information from all sides and in the end it’s his call. As Chuck Freilich of the Los Angeles Times simply sums it up, “Neither side can afford to be wrong. Netanyahu, by all indications of the existentialist mind-set, certainly cannot.”
Israel is also faced with hundreds of Iranian Shahab missiles capable of striking Israel, plus Hizbullah’s arsenal of 50,000 rockets, a far greater force than Israel faced in the 2006 Lebanon war when Hizbullah fired 4,000 rockets at Israel out of 13,000 available.
For his part, President Obama said in an interview on Super Bowl Sunday that the aim was to resolve the crisis diplomatically, but no option was off the table. He added Washington was working “in lockstep” with Israel, which was right to be very concerned about Iran’s activities.
Bret Stephens / Wall Street Journal
“Can Israel attack Iran? If it can, will it? If it will, when? If when, how?
“And what happens after that?
“On Sunday…President Obama said ‘I don’t think that Israel has made a decision on what they need to do.’ That didn’t square with the view of Defense Secretary Leon Panetta, who’s been reported as saying he expects an Israeli attack this spring. Nor does it square with public warnings from Israeli Defense Minister Ehud Barak that the Iranians would soon enter a ‘zone of immunity’ from foreign military attack if nothing is done to stop them.
“Yes, these war drums have been beaten before. But this time it’s different.
“Diplomacy has run its course: Even UN diplomats now say Iran uses negotiations as a tactic to buy time. The sanctions are too late: Israel can’t afford to wait a year or two to see if Europe’s embargo on Iranian oil or the administration’s squeeze on Iran’s financial institutions will alter Tehran’s nuclear calculations….
“Two additional points. Washington and Jerusalem are at last operating from a common timetable – Iran is within a year of getting to the point when it will be able to assemble a bomb essentially at will. And speaking of timetables, Jerusalem knows that Mr. Obama will be hard-pressed to oppose an Israeli strike – the way Dwight Eisenhower did during the Suez crisis – before Election Day. A re-elected President Obama is a different story.”
Meanwhile, reports this week have Iran bolstering its uranium refinement efforts at its subterranean Qom complex.
Speaking of uranium efforts, the International Atomic Energy Agency’s recent three-day mission to Iran failed to address the concerns of U.S. and European officials. So fill in that box on your “Bomb Iran” checklist.
Syria: Last Saturday, Russia and China exercised their Security Council vetoes and squelched a Western- and Arab-backed resolution at the United Nations that would have condemned Syrian President Bashar Assad and his regime’s crackdown while calling on him to relinquish some of his powers to his deputy. It was a heavily watered-down version at that.
Turkish Prime Minister Erdogan called the Security Council veto a “fiasco” and said his country wouldn’t remain silent. U.S. Ambassador to the UN, Susan Rice, condemned the vetoes as “shameful.” She said it showed how Russia and China aimed to “sell out the Syrian people and shield a craven tyrant. Any further bloodshed that flows will be on their hands.”
U.S. Secretary of State Hillary Clinton said, “To block this resolution is to bear the responsibility for the horrors on the ground in Syria.”
French Ambassador Gerard Araud said: “It is a sad day for this council, a sad day for all Syrians, and a sad day for democracy.”
Russian Ambassador Vitaly Churkin insisted the draft resolution lacked balance.
“Some influential members of the international community unfortunately…have been undermining the opportunity for political settlement, calling for regime change, pushing the oppositionists to power.”
Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov then went to Damascus and received a hero’s welcome. He urged Assad to negotiate with the opposition and adopt some reforms. As soon as he left, Assad stepped up the violence.
Editorial / Wall Street Journal
“Moscow had been signaling for weeks that it would protect its client in Damascus even as Mr. Assad added to his death toll, now at more than 5,000. [Ed. Well over 6,000] Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov has defended Russian arms sales to Syria and ruled out any new UN moves….
“This is what happens when a U.S. administration sees the world as it would like it to be, not the way it is. The White House apparently believed its own spin that last year’s Libyan operation signaled a brave new multilateral era. But Russia abstained on that UN resolution, and strongman Vladimir Putin raged that he had been duped when NATO used the resolution to claim the authority to oust Moammar Gaddafi. The Libyan mission succeeded after much needless delay only because the U.S. military provided most of the firepower behind a NATO and Arab façade....
“Moscow has played this game at the UN with special relish in the post-Cold War era. Russia has little other leverage in global affairs, and by any economic, political or military standard deserves even less of a say….
“Most of the world – nearly all the Arab states, neighboring Turkey, the U.S. and Europe – say the killings must stop. The dictator’s ‘veto’ at the Security Council need not veto action. On their own, all these countries can arm and fund the opposition, and further tighten the noose of sanctions around Mr. Assad and his cronies. A ‘no fly zone’ above Syria can’t be ruled out either.
“The U.S. (a.k.a. the sole superpower) would in most circumstances be best placed to corral them together. By throwing its ‘killing machine,’ to use President Obama’s phrase, into a higher gear in recent weeks, the Syrian regime must figure that this White House lacks the stomach to lead a ‘coalition of the willing’…After all, the administration has made the Security Council the final say in matters of ‘collective security,’ and it said no.
“Americans are preoccupied by domestic issues, but Syria is a good test of President Obama’s foreign policy. He has put the credibility of his office on the line by declaring that Syria’s tyrant must leave. With each week of Mr. Assad’s brutality, the cost in lives and the odds of civil war will continue to rise unless Mr. Obama does more than bow before the false moral authority of the UN.”
Egypt: The Muslim Brotherhood demanded the military council cede control of the government, calling for a new coalition government formed by Parliament. Previously the Brotherhood had said it was willing to let the generals remain in charge until June and a presidential election. I have to admit this might ruin my theory the two will reach a power-sharing agreement, with the military being given the foreign policy/military portfolio, but now the ruling council has been beset by all manner of issues, including the soccer riot and the probable loss of aid from the United States. [In the aftermath of the soccer riot, at least another 15 have been killed in the violence.]
But liberals in opposition don’t want the Brotherhood to assume immediate control, which would place them in charge of drafting the new constitution.
And then you have the military rulers trumping up charges for crimes-against-the-state against 19 Americans representing nongovernmental organizations (NGOs), most of whom have fled the country but six are holed up for protection in the U.S. embassy. Egypt is threatening show trials…pure idiocy if the rulers want to keep the $1.5 billion in annual aid Washington supplies it.
Editorial / Wall Street Journal
“The sad irony is that these groups (NGOs) are the good guys – people trying to encourage a free press, freedom to worship and political tolerance. Yet the military government can’t seem to understand its own interest in allowing the development of political voices other than the Muslim Brotherhood and Salafists.
“The government is trying to court public support by trumping up a case against ‘foreign influence,’ especially Americans. This is the oldest ruse in authoritarian politics. If it stays on this path, the military leadership will lose U.S. money and support and find itself weaker against the rise of political Islam.”
Israel: No one seems to know what the Doha agreement between the Palestinian Authority (Fatah) and Hamas actually means, but one thing is clear. Israel does not want the international community accepting a coalition government that contains an unreformed Hamas. The Quartet (UN, U.S., EU and Russia) established three criteria for engaging with Hamas: that it give up terrorism, recognize Israel and accept previous Israeli-Palestinian agreements. But the agreement signed in Doha on Monday calls for the establishment of an interim unity government.
Until the picture becomes clearer, Israel is withholding any further aid to the Palestinians. Prime Minister Netanyahu has said the PA has to choose: peace with Israel or peace with Hamas. Hamas head Khaled Mashaal, after all, said the PA-Hamas deal would create greater unity “in order to be free for confronting the enemy.”
As for the United States, since it designates Hamas a terrorist organization, it’s not known yet just what the State Department will do in terms of the military assistance currently being granted Palestinian security forces. The aid has been critical in improving security in the Palestinian territories, as Israel itself admits.
[I just saw Hamas leader Mashaal is in Iran this weekend.]
Libya: So you know how I’ve said for months that one thing that keeps me up at night is all the missing shoulder-fired missiles from Libya? This week, in the Feb. 6 issue of Defense News, we have the headline:
“U.S. Still Hunting for Missing Libyan Missiles”
As reported by Kate Brannen:
“The U.S. State Department believes the majority of anti-aircraft missiles that went missing when Moammar Gaddafi’s regime was defeated are still in Libya.
“However, while there is no definitive evidence that any of the weapons left the country, the U.S. government is not ruling out that possibility, according to Andrew Shapiro, assistant secretary of state for political-military affairs.”
It’s believed Gaddafi had about 20,000 of the man-portable air defense systems, or MANPADS, which Shapiro admits pose a “major proliferation challenge.” He says 5,000 MANPADS have been identified, recovered and secured.
USA TODAY also had a story on the topic.
Republican Senator Susan Collins of Maine, the ranking Republican on the Homeland Security Committee, said she is concerned that the White House was late in trying to get an accounting of the missiles.
Reminder…a coordinated attack on two commercial aircraft, anywhere in the Western world, would send the global economy spiraling into Depression. [One sends us back into recession.]
Separately, the New York Times had a story that the militias are sowing chaos, not that you didn’t already know that from reading this space.
Anthony Shadid:
“The country that witnessed the Arab world’s most sweeping revolution is foundering. So is its capital, where a semblance of normality has returned after the chaotic days of the fall of Tripoli last August. But no one would consider a city ordinary where militiamen tortured to death an urbane former diplomat two weeks ago, where hundreds of refugees deemed loyal to Col. Gaddafi waited hopelessly in a camp and where a government official acknowledged that ‘freedom is a problem.’”
Afghanistan: Recall how President Obama said just the other day that we were winning in Afghanistan (and it was mission accomplished in Iraq). Well a UN report revealed that the number of civilians killed and injured in the Afghan war has risen for the fifth year in a row. 3,021 civilian deaths in 2011 compared with 2,790 in 2010 and 2,412 in 2009.
And from Army Times’ Lance M. Bacon:
“An Army officer is fed up with ‘rosy official statements’ that paint Afghanistan as a picture of progress, and he is demanding military leaders come clean about the ‘absence of success on virtually every level.’
“ ‘How many more men must die in support of a mission that is not succeeding and behind an array of more than seven years of optimistic statements by U.S. senior leaders in Afghanistan?’ Lt. Col. Daniel Davis asked in a four-page essay titled ‘Truth, Lies & Afghanistan: How military leaders have let us down.’
“ ‘No one expects our leaders to always have a successful plan. But we do expect – and the men who do the living, fighting and dying deserve – to have our leaders tell us the truth about what’s going on,’ Davis wrote.”
[Davis’ essay is part of an 82-page report he wrote for the January/February issue of Armed Forces Journal, though it’s a complicated situation as the Army’s Public Affairs bureau ordered the journal to hold publication.]
Davis covered 9,000 miles during a year-long tour and said he conducted interviews with more than 250 soldiers.
“ ‘What I saw bore no resemblance to rosy official statements by U.S. military leaders about conditions on the ground,’ Davis wrote in the essay. He goes on to say conditions are not improving, local governments and military are not progressing toward self-sufficiency, insurgents control virtually every piece of land beyond eyesight of allied bases and local governments are unable to provide basic needs.”
And get this, as reported by Lance Bacon, “Six percent of overall NATO deaths in Afghanistan have been attributed to attacks by Afghan security forces, according to a confidential alliance report leaked to the media last month….
“In his report, Davis said that ‘to a man, the U.S. officers in that unit told me they had nothing but contempt for the Afghan troops in their area.”
Lt. Col. Davis’ career could be over because of these comments.
Pakistan: The Supreme Court rejected Prime Minister Gilani’s appeal against a contempt charge, which will no doubt plunge the country into further political turmoil when the case begins, shortly. Recall, Gilani is refusing to reopen corruption proceedings against President Zardari, with Gilani arguing that Zardari has immunity from prosecution while in office.
And as far as I know, former President Musharraf is still slated to return to Pakistan this month, where he faces arrest. His return is not a welcome development in terms of the nation’s stability.
Christians Under Attack: Ayaan Hirsi Ali had a piece in Newsweek on Christians being murdered for their faith from one end of the Muslim world to the other. In part:
“(A) fair-minded assessment of recent events and trends leads to the conclusion that the scale and severity of Islamophobia pales in comparison with the bloody Christophobia currently coursing through Muslim-majority nations from one end of the globe to the other. The conspiracy of silence surrounding this violent expression of religious intolerance has to stop. Nothing less than the fate of Christianity – and ultimately of all religious minorities – in the Islamic world is at stake.
“From blasphemy laws to brutal murders to bombings to mutilations and the burning of holy sites, Christians in so many nations live in fear. In Nigeria many have suffered all of these forms of persecution. The nation has the largest Christian minority (40%) in proportion to its population (160 million) of any majority-Muslim country. For years, Muslims and Christians in Nigeria have lived on the edge of civil war. Islamist radicals provoke much if not most of the tension. The newest such organization is an outfit that calls itself Boko Haram, which means ‘Western education is sacrilege.’ Its aim is to establish Sharia in Nigeria. To this end it has stated that it will kill all Christians in the country.”
The same Ayaan Hirsi Ali in an op-ed this week for the Financial Times:
“A year ago many western commentators were celebrating an Arab spring. [Ed. not yours truly.] The internet generation personified by Wael Ghonim, the Google marketing executive, would take over power from military dictators and absolute monarchs in democratic elections. Those of us who warned that political Islam would be the principal beneficiary of elections in North Africa and the Middle East were dismissed as scaremongers…
“To compare Islamists of today with the Christian democrats of postwar Europe is absurd. To take them at their word that they will govern like the Islamists of Turkey is not much better. Europe’s Christian democrats may claim to be inspired by the Bible but they would not dream of proposing legislation straight from the book of Leviticus. By contrast, the Islamists of North Africa and the Middle East have for decades promoted the agenda that legislation should come from the suras of the Koran and other Islamic scripture.
“The leaders of the political parties of the Brotherhood movement in Egypt, Morocco and Tunisia have insisted they are no different from Turkey’s ruling Justice and Development Party (AKP). They say they will adopt the same economic policies as the AKP. Surveys by Pew and others show that, all over North Africa, the government in Ankara is seen as a role model.
“Yet the circumstances of Turkey are radically different from these North African states. In the 1920s, under Kemal Ataturk, Turkey embarked on a sustained policy of westernization. Ataturk’s reforms, more than anything the AKP has done, help explain why the Turkish economy is among the most dynamic in the Muslim world. The AKP’s Islamist zeal is checked by the military, judiciary and press – though for how much longer remains to be seen.
“These checks and balances are largely absent in the Arab world, as are the basic institutions conducive to economic prosperity. What is the likelihood then that Islamist parties will discard the project to impose Sharia law that they have been promoting for decades? I think it is very low. My expectation is that Islamist parties will sweet-talk their voters and the west until their power is well established and then govern like Iran’s regime or Hamas in Gaza.
“The transition from closed to open societies will be slow and painful for the Arab-Muslim world. Given that, it would be better for the west to invest in the future by offering more support to the secular groups that brought about this revolution. Cairo is not Ankara post-Ataturk, much less Bonn post-Adenauer. It is time to abandon the overconfident assumption that there is a moderate mainstream in the Arab world.”
Russia: Despite temperatures below zero, tens of thousands (estimates ranged from 50,000 to 120,000) braved the elements in Moscow last Saturday to demand fair elections next month, March 4, as demonstrators carried anti-Vladimir Putin banners. Putin, in turn, has accused the United States of inciting mass protests. He also wrote an op-ed in the Washington Post this week that was such a bunch of garbage, I didn’t find one line worth citing in this column.
Gideon Rachman / Financial Times
“No one is yet talking of a ‘Moscow spring.’…But there is definitely a Moscow thaw. After a long period of close political control in Russia, the ice is cracking. The intoxicating sense that taboos are being broken is reminiscent of the outbreak of glasnost under Mikhail Gorbachev, which signaled the beginning of the end of the Soviet era….
“One possibility is that Mr. Putin heeds the calls for a rerun of the parliamentary elections of last December. Genuinely free elections would lead to a Duma with a real opposition that would be able to challenge the Kremlin rather than simply acting as its echo chamber.
“Another possibility is to repeat the procedure that ended the presidency of Boris Yeltsin at the end of 1999. Mr. Yeltsin was persuaded to step down, in favor of Mr.
Putin, in return for guarantees that he, his family and his business cronies would not be pursued for corrupt practices. Many of the people who made fortunes in the Putin era will be worrying about what the future might hold for them. They might be amenable to some kind of amnesty deal – if the offer were made.
“These scenarios may sound far-fetched. [Ed. yours truly has been predicting a similar one.] But in Moscow at the moment, the most far-fetched idea of all is the notion that President Putin will still be running Russia in 2024. The Moscow River was frozen over last week but listen carefully and you could hear the sound of the ice cracking beneath the surface.”
Thomas L. Friedman / New York Times
“Putin’s Russia is at a crossroads. It has become a ‘sort-of-but-not-really-country.’ Russia today is sort of a democracy, but not really. It’s sort of a free market, but not really. It’s sort of got the rule of law to protect businesses, but not really. It’s sort of a European country, but not really. It has sort of a free press, but not really. It’s cold war with America is sort of over, but not really. It’s sort of trying to become something more than a petro-state, but not really….
“Real reform will require a huge re-set on Putin’s part. Could it happen? Does he get it? On the evidence available now, I’d say: sort of, but not really.”
China: Vice President (soon to be president) Xi Jinping arrives in Washington this week in what will be a clear attempt to deal with the existing “trust deficit” between our two nations. There are certainly some big issues for Xi to discuss with President Obama and Vice President Biden, whether its trade disputes, North Korea, territorial issues in the South China Sea, or China’s veto, along with Russia’s, of a UN Resolution condemning Syria’s Assad.
France: I’m on record as saying National Front candidate Marine Le Pen will finish second ahead of President Sarkozy in the first round of voting in the French presidential election April 22. Some analysts there say she’s near 25% and that might do it. Of course she’d then get her butt kicked by the Socialist candidate, Francois Hollande. But one poll published Feb. 6 had Hollande at 34% and Sarkozy at 26%, with Le Pen just at 16%, after which Hollande would defeat Sarkozy in round two, 58-42.
[I also just saw where Le Pen has yet to formally qualify for the presidential ballot due to France’s crazy qualification requirement – gaining the signature of 500 parliamentarians or council leaders. Boy, that would suck.]
Mexico: Working with the Mexican government, the U.S. State Department has issued an updated travel warning for tourists visiting the country, adding more specificity, which Mexican tourism officials agree with. The number of U.S. citizens reported to the Department of State as murdered in Mexico jumped from 35 in 2007 to 120 in 2011. If you’re traveling there, go to the State Department web site.