Russia and China: Arms Around the Middle East Sunday, Jan 20 2013 

Arab Awakening and BRICS and Foreign Affairs and Iran and Middle East and Syria and United Nations and US Foreign Policy , , , , , , , , , , Sandboxer 11:40 pm

china-russia-veto

By Sharmine Narwani

Russia and China have drawn a great deal of censure this past year for resisting UN Security Council resolutions to intervene in the domestic affairs of Syria and Iran. Why, many ask, would this duo leverage their growing global political clout for two Mideast states so actively marginalized by their fellow UNSC members – the US, UK and France?

And do these new Russian and Chinese positions place them on a collision course with Washington – in the Middle East and elsewhere?

While the US has typically viewed this activism as a direct challenge to its global hegemonic interests, neither Moscow nor Beijing have any specific strategy to slay the American behemoth. On the contrary, the non-confrontational positions they take in the Middle East are “reactive” ones, designed to slow down, halt or counter US economic, political and military aggressions heading in their direction.

Russia and China have good reason to be concerned about US initiatives in the international arena in the past few years: (more…)

 

Going Rogue: America’s Unconventional Warfare in the Mideast Saturday, May 26 2012 

Arab Awakening and Iran and Middle East and Syria and US Foreign Policy , , , , , , , , , , , Sandboxer 5:57 pm

By Sharmine Narwani

The intent of U.S. [Unconventional Warfare] UW efforts is to exploit a hostile power’s political, military, economic, and psychological vulnerabilities by developing and sustaining resistance forces to accomplish U.S. strategic objectives…For the foreseeable future, U.S. forces will predominantly engage in irregular warfare (IW) operations.

So begins the 2010 Unconventional Warfare (UW) Manual of the US Military’s Special Forces. The manual attached here (TC 18-01) is an interim publication, developed to address the definition of Unconventional Warfare and some other inconsistencies in UW Doctrine. The new UW document (ATP 3-05.1) is in the initial draft and not yet available, though sources tell me it is unlikely to differ much from TC 18-01.

But most of us have not had the pleasure of leafing through this truly revelatory blueprint that shows how America wages its dirty wars. These are the secret wars that have neither been approved by Congress, nor by the inhabitants of nations whose lives – if not bodies – are mauled by the directives on these pages.

A quote from President John F. Kennedy in 1962 opens the document. These few lines illustrate a core Washington belief that US forces have the right to destabilize, infiltrate, assassinate, subvert – all in service of questionable foreign policy objectives, with no evident consideration of a sovereign state’s preparedness or desire for change:

There is another type of warfare—new in its intensity, ancient in its origin—war by guerrillas, subversives, insurgents, assassins; war by ambush instead of by combat, by infiltration instead of aggression, seeking victory by eroding and exhausting the enemy instead of engaging him. It preys on unrest. (more…)

 

Pentagon Game to Divide Iranians and Arabs Wednesday, Oct 26 2011 

Arab Awakening and Foreign Affairs and Iran and Middle East and US Foreign Policy and US Politics , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , Sandboxer 8:18 pm

By Sharmine Narwani

Analysts and pundits have spent the past two weeks puzzling over the alleged Iranian plot to assassinate a Saudi diplomat in Washington – in part because of a complete lack of either motive or benefit for the Islamic Republic. Iran, reputed to place much stock in cost-benefit analyses in its geopolitical calculations, clearly fails to gain materially or politically from any part of the allegations thus far. So what gives?

Instead of scrutinizing the “whys” of Iran’s involvement, it may be more illuminating to examine Washington’s motivation in advancing this bit of political theater. The criminal charges were followed by high-profile statements and sanctioned leaks from the White House, the US Departments of State, Justice, Treasury, Defense, the FBI and CIA, all well orchestrated for maximum impact. The U.S. government then sought to persuade the global community via the UN Security Council and “phone calls to many capitals” of the gravity of the charges.

Such fanfare went beyond the service of prosecuting a single crime. More likely, the charges being leveled at Iran came in the service of “public diplomacy” – an attempt to establish a broad narrative that serves a policy decision.

While pushing the narrative of an Iranian “bogeyman” is not unusual in US policy circles, what may be new is the urgent emphasis on this storyline in the aftermath of Arab uprisings throughout the Middle East.

Bring in the “Red Team”

In March, as the Arab Revolts swept through the Middle East and North Africa, the US military’s combatant command center (CENTCOM) for military operations in twenty countries – including Iran, Saudi Arabia, Iraq, Egypt, Yemen, Bahrain and Jordan – held a “Red Team” exercise to examine a narrative that perpetually pits Arabs and Iranians against each other.

CENTCOM’s Red Team was formed in 2006 to “think outside the box, offer contrarian thinking…sharpen the reasoning and force intellectual rigor” on critical issues for the benefit of senior military officials, a spokesman explained to me last year.

According to a source involved in the March drill, these are some of the specific premises and questions included in CENTCOM’s “Arabs versus Iran” exercise: (Note: The Red Team refers to Iranians as “Persians”)

  • Premise: “The Arab-Persian dynamic is a divide.  History, religion, language and culture simply pose too many obstacles to overcome.”
  • Premise: “A general Arab inferiority complex relative to Persians means that many Arabs are fearful of Persian expansion and hegemony throughout the Middle East.  In their minds, the Persian Empire has never gone away and it is more self-sufficient than most Arab states.” (more…)

 

The Iran-Saudi Assassination “Hoax?” Wednesday, Oct 12 2011 

Arab Awakening and Foreign Affairs and Hezbollah and Iran and Media and Middle East and US Foreign Policy and US Politics , , , , , , , , , , , , Sandboxer 1:13 pm

By Sharmine Narwani

I have been staring incredulously at my TV screen these past few hours as the story of Iran’s alleged assassination attempt of a Saudi diplomat in Washington unfolds in dramatic increments.

Reporters keep repeating the theme “like out of a Hollywood script” as they eke out increasingly unlikely details about this “terror” plot.

My immediate thoughts? Ah. So this is how Washington intends to overrule objections to its $120 billion in arms sales to Saudi Arabia and other Arab dictatorships of the Persian Gulf.

Forget Hollywood. If I channeled the worst of Washington’s Mideast policymakers, past and present – say, a John Bolton and a Dennis Ross – I could have written this story myself. A modern-day Wag the Dog if you will – the 1997 Dustin Hoffman/Robert De Niro black comedy in which a Hollywood producer helps Washington fabricate a war-on-celluloid in order to divert attention from a presidential sex scandal.

It so happens that I am in the midst of writing a revealing piece about a US military effort to test narratives about what unites and divides Arabs and Iranians. (Watch my blog for this in the next few days)

The most interesting aspect of this military-sponsored exercise is the timing – it took place less than three months after the onset of the Arab revolts that swept the Mideast.

Very quickly after the uprisings began, it became obvious that Iran stood to gain a geopolitical advantage if pro-US despots fell and Arab populations turned against the status quo which has long favored Washington goals: Israeli regional hegemony, unfettered access to cheap oil, the marginalization of political Islam…and now, the sale of hundreds of billions of dollars of weapons to the US’s remaining autocratic allies.

It also very quickly became apparent that selling the $120 billion worth of armaments – half of which are intended for the Saudis (Saudi Arabia: $67 billion, UAE: $35-40 billion, Oman: $12 billion, Kuwait: $7 billion) – to repressive regimes was going to be extremely difficult in the face of our public stances on democracy and human rights.

Weapons sales would be particularly hard to defend in the case of Saudi Arabia, by far the most repressive regime in the wider Middle East and North Africa, and ironically, America’s closest Arab ally. (more…)

 

Feeding The Beast: When Journalists Fuel Harmful Narratives Monday, Sep 12 2011 

Arab Awakening and Foreign Affairs and Iran and Israel and Media and Middle East and Turkey and US Foreign Policy and US Politics , , , , , , , , , , , , , Sandboxer 8:57 pm

By Sharmine Narwani

Typing away the truth?

I recently spoke with a friend who has been in and around Washington’s Mideast foreign policy establishment for three decades. “I have never seen policymakers so confused,” this political insider told me in regard to US plans in the region.

The old paradigms of supporting Israel unconditionally, marginalizing political Islam and propping up dictators we whitewash as “moderates” do not hold when the region is experiencing such fundamental shifts. Especially when our policies were such dismal failures before the Arab Awakening even hit our television screens.

So it is disheartening to see so many analysts, reporters and commentators still transfixed with old narratives – none of which serve to encourage the innovative policy reassessments needed to deal with this spanking new world.

Two recent examples:

Plumbing New Depths in Support of Israel
“In 2003, France and Germany’s decision not to allow coalition troops to use their territory in the effort to depose Saddam Hussein in Iraq not only was a blow to their alliance with the US, but set in motion circumstances that ultimately helped create the insurgency.”

For the record, I don’t blame France and Germany for jumpstarting a legitimate insurgency against occupying US forces. But Jonathan S. Tobin, writing in Commentary last week, did just that. Except, instead of invoking France and Germany – also close US allies who refused to participate in our misguided Iraqi adventure – Tobin was writing about “Turkey.”

Sounds just as stupid with “Turkey” in there, now doesn’t it?

The backdrop to Tobin’s bizarre conclusion is the recent emergence of a more assertive Turkey on the global stage, which – like other emerging powers – gently nudged aside the United States from its post-Cold War role as the sole arbiter of All Things. While Washington remained cautiously watchful of Turkey’s new direction, all attempts at diplomatic neutrality came to a screeching halt when Ankara dared to criticize Israel for its brutal assault on the Gaza Strip in 2009 and for its 2010 killing of nine activists on the Turkish-origin Mavi Marmara flotilla ship headed for Gaza.

As the war of words escalated between the two countries, our no-space-between-us-and-Israel clause in The Contract kicked in and we got nasty. Washington pundits began to question Turkey’s strategic importance to the US and started dropping the dreaded “Islamist” moniker in all references to Turkish Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdogan’s AKP-led government. Punishing Turkey took many forms – including approving in committee a contentious congressional resolution declaring the 1915 Armenian massacre a “genocide” and boycotting the 2010 Anatolian Eagle military exercises with the longtime NATO ally.

Turkey gained a brief reprieve when the Arab Awakening swept through the Middle East and Ankara became an important Muslim ally in ushering through support for NATO air cover of Libya and challenging the Syrian government’s treatment of protestors. Turkey threw its NATO allies a further bone by agreeing to host a US-allocated early warning radar on its soil as part of a plan to deter ballistic missile threats.

But new hostilities between Turkey and an ever-intractable Israel threaten to once again light a fire under the Jewish state’s supporters in the United States. Ignoring Ankara’s vast strategic value to Washington, commentators like Tobin are grasping at straws to once more strike some blows against Israel’s latest nemesis.

A NATO member since 1952; the world’s 16th largest economy; second largest standing armed force in NATO with over one million soldiers; a founding member of the United Nations, OECD and the G-20 major economies…

Just imagine – Turkey being blamed for Iraq’s insurgency. Wow…just wow.

Sadly, this is the kind of extrapolation in political reasoning that has made this truly a mad, mad, mad world. Welcome to punditry in Washington, DC. (more…)

 

“Irhal Amreeka” Monday, Aug 29 2011 

Arab Awakening and Foreign Affairs and Israel and Middle East and US Foreign Policy , , , , , , , , , Sandboxer 3:52 pm

By Sharmine Narwani

Note: The Arabic “Irhal,” which means “Leave” or “Go away,” is the most powerful slogan of the Arab Awakening that has emerged through much of the Middle East and North Africa since January 2011. It has been chanted against dictators in street protests in every Arab nation facing popular discontent.

The Islamic Republic’s Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei yesterday demanded the immediate departure of Bahrain’s King Hamad bin Isa Al Khalifa amidst growing international criticism of mass human rights violations in Bahrain.

Iran announced it is taking the lead in pushing through a binding resolution by the 118-member state Non Allied Movement (NAM) to sanction the import of oil products and pearls from the Bahraini island state and has leveraged its web of global relationships to sanction members of the Khalifa family and their closest financial and political allies in order to squeeze the nation’s economy and hasten the demise of the ruling clan.

For his part, Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad revealed a joint initiative by the Islamic Republic’s Revolutionary Guard (IRRG) and the country’s armed forces to position Shahab and Fajr missiles in Iraq and Syria, and to train opposition forces in all six Gulf Cooperation Council (GCC) states to mount defensive and offensive strategies to undermine the Bahraini regime.

Sounds familiar? Hint: Yee-haw.

Irhal Amreeka
As popular, street-based movements to force domestic reforms sweep through the Arab world, the only fixed criteria in this widespread social “experiment” is the dogged interventions of the United States and its allies.

From Tunisia to Bahrain to Syria to Yemen to Egypt to Libya, US footprints mar the otherwise indigenous Arab political sandstorms hurling through the region.

Noble initiatives to hasten much-needed political reform and economic stimulus would be welcomed with open arms by most Arabs. But the United States has shown little interest in these developmental essentials, instead focusing entirely on a strategic holy trinity:

1) Unfettered access to cheap oil
2) Advancing Israeli hegemony over its Arab neighbors
3) Regime-change in the Islamic Republic of Iran.

Why is this ham-fisted shortlist the only driver of our Mideast foreign policy? The core of our problem is that the halls of policymaking in Washington are filled with ideologues, not area specialists. Our decision makers therefore follow political agendas — usually attached with an umbilical cord to pro-Israel interest groups – and not nuanced diplomatic imperatives that could foster positive relations based on universal values and respect for national sovereignty. (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…)

 

Justice, or a Death Blow for Lebanon? Thursday, Dec 2 2010 

Foreign Affairs and Government and Hezbollah and Lebanon and Middle East and United Nations and US Foreign Policy , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , Sandboxer 11:54 am

STL Prosecutor Daniel Bellemare

Lebanon expects to hear the UN-backed Special Tribunal for Lebanon (STL) deliver indictments in the investigation of ex-Prime Minister Rafiq Hariri’s 2005 murder imminently. Tension is rife as speculators ply their trade, and the country has split into predictable camps – those who believe the STL is an “Israeli Project” bent on destroying its biggest regional foe the Lebanese resistance group Hezbollah, and those who back the Tribunal, possibly also in hopes that it will neuter the ever-growing strength of Hezbollah and its regional allies.

Nobody seems to focus much attention on the actual murder victim and the 22 others who died alongside him in the massive truck bomb five years ago.

Perhaps that is because Lebanon has seen oh so many assassinations in its decades of civil war, invasions and occupations. So what is one more? And why should this one count more than another?

Quite right. The murder of this Lebanese man has come to symbolize so much more – it is often said that Hariri became “greater” in death than in life.

In identifying through anonymous sources in a May 2009 Der Spiegel article Hezbollah members as the main culprits in the assassination, the STL investigation has drawn the two “blocs” in the Middle East to the political – and potentially military – battleground.

Three years of investigations that appeared wholly focused on Syria were thrown by the wayside in early 2009 and the STL’s laser beam shifted to Hezbollah. Opportunistically, many say, as Syria began to be courted at the highest levels of government by the West – away from its regional friends Iran, Hezbollah and Hamas.

In the interim, it appeared that those three years of investigations had been embarrassingly unproductive, as the Syria-focus seemed to be borne entirely from the false testimony of discredited witnesses. Not one. Not two. Over a dozen such “false witnesses.”

“A Western/American/Israeli plot,” yelled half of Lebanon’s body politic, demanding a halt to the STL’s machinations. Suddenly, the docile, plodding-along cooperation of Syrian and Lebanese authorities with the STL’s investigations came to an abrupt halt as questions, suspicions and accusations rose hard and fast to the surface.

What about those false witnesses? What about the one who was spirited away to France under protection? What about the imprisoned Al Qaeda operatives who had already confessed to the crime?

The twists and turns in this plot are astounding. Some examples:

General Jamil el Sayyed - STL victim?

The General
Just before the UN Security Council-backed investigation/Commission moved into its “Tribunal” phase in 2009, it ordered the release of four Lebanese generals who had been arrested shortly after Hariri’s assassination under suspicion. They were never charged – or provided with evidence of their involvement. One of them, General Jamil el-Sayyed, the head of General Security and a Syrian ally, was allegedly contacted by senior Commission official Gerhard Lehman and asked to approach Syrian President Bashar al Assad with a deal:

“The offer,” which Sayyed alleges Lehman made on behalf of Commission head Detlev Mehlis, specifically demanded that Assad pony up “a valuable Syrian ‘victim’ who will confess to the crime for personal or financial reasons – a victim who will conveniently be found dead later – and the Commission will strike a deal with the Syrian regime, similar to the one struck with Libya’s Qaddafi over Lockerbie.”

In a subsequent conversation, Sayyed was warned that non-compliance with this request would result in Sayyed becoming the “victim.”

Sayyed had the foresight to tape some of his subsequent phone conversations with Lehman. He sent three of these to the investigative Commission. He never heard back on this issue, nor did the Commission ever request further information or original copies of the taping. But Lehman and his entire team were replaced shortly thereafter, supposedly because of the “false witnesses” fiasco. The players changed, but Sayyed still sat in prison.

Now out of prison and raging with the injustice of it all, Sayyed has launched a one-man legal tsunami against the STL, demanding his “file” so that he may bring to trial false witnesses and others who provided evidence against him in 2005. STL Prosecutor Daniel Bellemare has fought him all the way, although recent legal wrangling between both parties looks to ensure that Sayyed gets his file shortly.

This case has split the Lebanese Cabinet in the past few weeks. Sayyed wants to take the false witnesses, some Lebanese judges and a few former STL officials to court right now. The pro-STL side of the Cabinet wants to wait for the Tribunal’s findings first. The other side says “why wait?” (more…)

 

Jon Stewart and Middle East Resistance – Two Sides of the Same Coin Thursday, Dec 2 2010 

Foreign Affairs and Hamas and Middle East and US Foreign Policy , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , Sandboxer 11:40 am

What do US comedian Jon Stewart and Hamas Chief Khaled Meshaal have in common? What does Stewart have in common with Syrian President Bashar al Assad or outgoing Brazilian President Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva or Turkish Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdoğan for that matter?

For starters, they’re all sick of waiting for the American government to do something useful. And just as critically, they are pretty tired of the “you’re either with us or against us” theme too.

Watching Jon Stewart speaking to more than 200,000 Americans who had traveled far and wide to attend Stewart and Stephen Colbert’s “Rally to Restore Sanity and/or Fear” two weeks ago, I was struck by some themes that I repeatedly heard throughout the Middle East this summer.

In August during an <a href=”http://www.huffingtonpost.com/sharmine-narwani/khaled-meshaal-on-hamas-a_b_738758.html&#8221; target=”_hplink”>interview</a> in Damascus, Hamas Chief Meshaal described a new trend in the Middle East where certain leaders and states were rejecting the notion of being stuck in “blocs” or political camps, always warring with the other side:

<blockquote>Why should we be dividing ourselves into two blocs — either being against America and the West, or acquiescing 100% to them? We do not want to wage a war against the world. Or to sever relations with countries. So the nations and the people of the region want a state model based on self respect — without any enmity with the world.</blockquote>

Not that we would know this back home. The divisive media that Stewart and Colbert rail against for partisan politicking in Washington is on hyper-drive when it comes to the Middle East — creating more fear, more hate than is good for us. It paralyzes our ability to act and ensures that we will have zero policy breakthroughs.

I am fairly sure that Stewart was not thinking about Meshaal when he said “we can have animus, and not be enemies,” but I am equally certain the core of his sentiment — the promotion of the kind of political maturity we used to see in politics where foes could sit around a table, break bread and try to find common ground — is absolutely relevant to our foreign policy breakdown, too. (more…)

 

Israel vs Turkey: Which Serves US Interests Better? Wednesday, Oct 27 2010 

Israel and Turkey and US Foreign Policy , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , Sandboxer 2:06 pm

In light of Turkey’s reaction to the Israeli attack on the Gaza-bound flotilla last week, media pundits and policy wonks are already underlining the demise of the US-Turkish special relationship. The growing chorus of critics miss one vital point. Turkey was criticizing Tel Aviv’s military overkill off the Gaza coastline, not Washington’s.

So closely aligned have we become to Israel since the Reagan era, we now find ourselves reacting on behalf of the government of Israel. Instead of basing our policy determinations and official statements on the US’s national security interests, we find ourselves uniquely defending the indefensible over and over again — expending precious global political capital on Israel and attracting the whispered derision of even our allies.

In their book The Israel Lobby and US Foreign Policy, John Mearsheimer and Stephen Walt claim that “since 1982, the US has vetoed 32 Security Council resolutions critical of Israel more than the total number of vetoes cast by all the other Security Council members.”

By another count, between 1984 and 2006, the US has used its UN Security Council veto privilege 27 times on resolutions criticizing illegal Israeli actions or demanding Israel’s adherence to international law – even when the resolutions were consistent with our own official policy. In all 27 instances, we were the solitary veto in the Security Council.

Correct me if I’m wrong, but the last time a permanent member cast a lone veto was France, which refused in 1976 to recognize its former colony Mayotte as part of newly-independent Comoros.  (more…)

 

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