The Highly Dubious Arab League Vote on Syria Tuesday, Dec 6 2011 

Arab Awakening and Middle East and Syria , , , , , , , , , , Sandboxer 12:08 am

By Sharmine Narwani

The ongoing diplomatic tug of war between Syria and the Arab League took an unexpected turn Monday with rumors of a potential breakthrough. A positive outcome would signal a major political – not procedural – change of heart at the Arab League, whose earlier dealings with Syria showed little room for compromise.

Last week, the Arab League broke with its own Charter for the second time this year, voting to impose far-reaching economic sanctions on member-state Syria – eight months after backing a no-fly zone over member-state Libya.

The Charter, which was written in the early post-colonial period, placed great stock in the inviolability of a “a state’s independence, sovereignty, or territorial integrity.”

Article V of the League’s Charter clearly stipulates:

“Any resort to force in order to resolve disputes between two or more member-states of the League is prohibited. If there should arise among them a difference which does not concern a state’s independence, sovereignty, or territorial integrity, and if the parties to the dispute have recourse to the Council for the settlement of this difference, the decision of the Council shall then be enforceable and obligatory.”

A recently-departed senior Arab League official told me: “We have taken strong measures before only in relation to foreign policy issues or disputes between Arab countries. But on these last two occasions, this is a historic departure in relation to the practice of the Arab League. For the first time measures were taken against an Arab country because of its internal situation – the way a government is treating its own people.”

He continued: “When people are dying I don’t care about reconciling this with the Charter – that’s my priority. If there are legal issues that contravene, I’m happy to bend them.”

So sweet. But then I snap out of my reverie and think instead of the tens of thousands of civilians slaughtered in member-state Somalia this year alone, with nary a peep from the Arab League. Or of the League’s non-intervention in member-states Yemen and Bahrain, where protests continue to this day.

The official admitted: “I think the position taken by the Arab countries in relation with Bahrain is a very sad one – we should have been more firm.” On Yemen however, his response was curious: “Yemen – it is being handled by the GCC, and doesn’t need the Arab League’s help right now.” (more…)

 

Rats, Roaches and Shiites Friday, Apr 22 2011 

Foreign Affairs and Foreign Policy and Hezbollah and Human Rights and Middle East and US Foreign Policy , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , Sandboxer 8:19 pm

By Sharmine Narwani

A Shiite martyr being washed for burial

I’m not arguing that Shiites have a lot in common with rodents and insects. But you wouldn’t know it by watching Bahrainis and Saudis snuff them out with barely a peep from Western and majority-Sunni Arab nations, both.

Shia-majority Iran, Iraq and the Lebanese resistance group Hezbollah have been the most vocal in condemning the outrageous killings, arrests and beatings of Shiites in the Persian Gulf — but they have had to do so with a muffled voice. Each objection from Iran or Hezbollah unleashes a barrage of opportunistic rants by Saudi Arabia, Bahrain and the U.S. about “Iranian interference” and expansionism.

Which means as long as we can successfully infer a nefarious connection between these groups, one can simply yell “Iran” or “Hezbollah” and kill, torture and imprison Shiites with impunity — in much the same way that we yelled “al Qaeda” and buried hundreds of Sunni Muslims in Guantanamo for years. No matter that we have never ever proven a connection of significance between these coreligionists.

It’s the equivalent of saying all Irish Catholics have a connection to the Irish Republican Army. Or that all Jews take marching orders from Israel.

The Sectarian Bogeyman
To be fair, this isn’t really a sectarian battle — although some would like to spin it that way. This is about autocratic regimes stifling protest, and it just so happens that the largest disenfranchised populations in these places are Shiites.

At the very heart of the matter lies the growing battle for influence in the greater Middle East. These domestic Arab uprisings — while highly desired by their national populations — on a geopolitical level threaten to fundamentally alter the balance of power in the region toward the “Resistance Bloc” — state and non-state actors that reject U.S. and Israeli hegemony in the Mideast.

Shiite-majority Iran is a major influencer in this bloc, which is why it has been so important for Washington and Riyadh to keep the pressure on the Islamic Republic and deprive it of any opportunity to gain further footholds or popular support from non-Shia populations in the region.

When mass protests kicked off in Bahrain on February 14, the peaceful demonstrations in Pearl Square were decidedly non-sectarian. Sunni and Shia came together to demand reform across the board. Yes, the majority of protesters were Shia, but that number falls along demographic lines in a country of around 70% Shiites who have been marginalized politically, economically and socially.

When a brutal, regime-led clampdown ensued with killings and beatings, the mood changed and protesters called for the downfall of the Al Khalifa ruling family. Suddenly “Iran” was being invoked as an instigator for regime change and Saudi troops were “invited in” to quell the protests.

The past month has seen a violent clampdown of a different kind. Bahraini troops — many imported from other Sunni countries — and Saudi forces troll largely-impoverished Shia neighborhoods and villages, arresting activists and violently suppressing any signs of protest — or even normal Shia religious activity.

Hundreds of activists have “disappeared” in the small Persian Gulf nation of 600,000 citizens – one in every 1,000 Bahraini, by one count — and masked men storm into private homes regularly in the middle of the night to detain Shia human rights workers, bloggers and opposition members. (more…)

 

Hillary Dusts off Iranian Bogeyman…Again Wednesday, Mar 9 2011 

Foreign Affairs and Foreign Policy and Iran and Middle East and US Foreign Policy and US Politics , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , Sandboxer 2:30 pm

By Sharmine Narwani

US Secretary of State Hillary Clinton seems to have a tough time grasping what kids on the streets of Cairo and Manama understand with ease. Politicians – elected and otherwise – have no place to hide. Their every turn of phrase, their every move, is digested in real-time across the planet. And there is no such thing as an unsophisticated populace any longer.

When Clinton dusted off the Iran Bogeyman and paraded him around the Senate Appropriations Committee hearings last Wednesday, the transparency of her actions was almost embarrassing – especially in light of a new Mideast strategy unveiled by the Wall Street Journal a few days later: “Regime Alteration,” as opposed to Regime Change.

The plan? To “help keep longtime allies who are willing to reform in power, even if that means the full democratic demands of their newly emboldened citizens might have to wait.”

After some heavy duty lobbying by Arab autocrats and Israel, US policymakers are trying a different tack: “Starting with Bahrain, the administration has moved a few notches toward emphasizing stability over majority rule,” said a U.S. official. “Everybody realized that Bahrain was just too important to fail.”

That means Saudi Arabia, Kuwait, Yemen, Morocco, Jordan and Algeria too. It is worth noting that had this policy been enacted prior to January 25, 2011 we would now be tuning in to Hosni Mubarak’s 16th I-am-not-resigning speech.

But how to silence the angry populations of key allies in the Persian Gulf, namely Bahrain, Saudi Arabia and Yemen? Rallying for more representation in government, a fair distribution of national wealth, freedom to congregate and speak freely – these are all legitimate concerns that we surely defend as a matter of principle?

Drag out the “Evil Iran” card, apparently.

Conceding that “Iran has no relations with the opposition, and in some cases are in an adversary relationship with Sunni Muslim Brotherhood groups,” Secretary Clinton told the Senate Appropriations Committee on Wednesday that the Islamic Republic is nonetheless “doing everything they can to influence the outcomes in these places.”

And this is the convoluted reasoning we are to follow:

“We know that, through their proxy, Hezbollah in Lebanon, they are using Hezbollah – which is a political party with an armed wing – to communicate with counterparts in Egypt, in Hamas, who then, in turn, communicate with counterparts in Egypt. We know that they are reaching out to the opposition in Bahrain. We know that they – the Iranians are very much involved in the opposition movements in Yemen. So, either directly or through proxies, they are constantly trying to influence events. They have a very active diplomatic foreign policy outreach.”

Pot Calling the Kettle Black
Clinton’s statements were made on the same day that the The USS Ponce and USS Kearsarge warships entered the Mediterranean Sea on their way to Libya, laden with military equipment and hundreds of marines.

All this within a year of the news that the US would deploy Patriot Missiles in five of the six Arab nations of the Persian Gulf “to counter Iran (and) assuage Israel,” a country that threatens to bomb the Islamic Republic at regular intervals.

Given our provocations in Iran’s neighborhood, it is extraordinary that we charge Tehran with trying to influence regional events. But despite Clinton’s allegations of Iranian intervention in the affairs of neighboring states, the WikiLeaks Cables tell an entirely different story: (more…)

 

Follow

Get every new post delivered to your Inbox.

Join 3,759 other followers