House Foreign Affairs chief Ileana Ros-Lehtinen (R-FL) was wondering about the “nefarious ends” of some “elements” there, and Jeffrey Goldberg, who, with shifting views, expressed apprehension about the Muslim Brotherhood (giving space to FDD’s Reuel Marc Gerecht, who [...]]]>
House Foreign Affairs chief Ileana Ros-Lehtinen (R-FL) was wondering about the “nefarious ends” of some “elements” there, and Jeffrey Goldberg, who, with shifting views, expressed apprehension about the Muslim Brotherhood (giving space to FDD’s Reuel Marc Gerecht, who seems open to Islamism, apparently, and Eli Lake, who doesn’t think Egypt’s peace deal with Israel will collapse).
Goldberg, to his credit, is asking big questions. And one of the biggest right now is about Islamism, and it’s role in the future of the Middle East. It’s playing out most acutely today in Tunisia and Egypt, but has been simmering all over the region, from Gaza to Qom.
Opinion makers in the U.S. seem to be divided along the lines that define what M.J. Rosenberg has called the “status quo lobby” (SQL), those whose actions — or key inactions — have thwarted a robust role for the U.S. in Middle East peacemaking. Goldberg and Ros-Lehtinen fit the paradigm: Both unflinching SQLers, they wear their hesitance for the long-awaited Arab democratic uprising on their sleeves.
The tepid support for Egyptians is about fear of Islamists, and no totalitarian strain, but one that has transitioned to seeking democratic legitimacy and inclusion. Yet events unfold in Egypt that drown out that narrative of what Phil Weiss, in an eloquent, must-read essay, called the “false choice of secular dictator-or-crazy Islamists.”
A bearded, angry young Arab shouted into a camera that “whether you’re Muslim, whether you’re a Christian, whether you’re an atheist, you will demand your goddamn rights.” Police held their fire, and protesters their stones, to break for prayers. On Twitter, Marc Lynch, a professor at George Washington University, wrote that a key day of demonstrations went forward even without the internet because people already knew where to meet up: “[O]n Friday everybody knew mosques would be focal points, didn’t need to coordinate.”
But the “false choice” clings to life among adherents of the SQL, where it is considered infallible wisdom.
The New York Times gave us a pretty even handed account a few weeks back about Tunisia’s relatively moderate Islamist party, then hauled out WINEP‘s Martin Kramer to unthinkingly denounce Islamism. (The Times also carried a pro-inclusion analyst.) Kramer, you see, hasn’t honestly answered or asked this question for decades.
Even Ben Birnbaum, a young reporter with the right-wing Washington Times, where he works with Lake, was asking himself some serious questions, too, on Twitter:
Do my mixed feelings about democracy in #Egypt make me a bad person? #Jan25
You get the feeling that Steve Coll had just the SQL in mind when he wrote, in the New Yorker, that the Tunisian Islamist party — the one that’s cool with “tourists sipping French wine in their bikinis” – is “raising anxieties in some quarters.”
In other quarters, however, questions are being asked. Take Coll himself:
[T]he corrosive effects of political and economic exclusion in the region cannot be sustained—among them the legions of pent-up, angry young men, Islamist and otherwise.
Yes, he calls for Obama to “thwart” Islamists in Tunisia. But the New Yorker‘s Comment is a column that important people read, and they’re reading about important questions.
]]>Here’s the Times report, by Ben Birnbaum (my emphasis throughout), minus the article’s last two [...]]]>
Here’s the Times report, by Ben Birnbaum (my emphasis throughout), minus the article’s last two paragraphs about an Iranian air defense war game:
Secretary of Defense Robert M. Gates said Tuesday that there were indicators that international sanctions on Iran had caused a rift between President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad and Supreme LeaderAyatollah Ali Khamenei.
“I personally believe they’re still intent on acquiring nuclear weapons, but also the information that we have is that they have been surprised by the impact of the sanctions,” he said. “Those measures have really bitten much harder than they anticipated, and we even have some evidence that Khamenei now is beginning to wonder if Ahmadinejad is lying to him about the impact of the sanctions on the economy and whether he’s getting the straight scoop in terms of how much trouble the economy really is in.”
Mr. Gates said “the only long-term solution in avoiding an Iranian nuclear weapons capability is for the Iranians to decide it’s not in their interest” and “everything else is a short-term solution.”
On Nov. 8, Mr. Gates cited the success of the sanctions to push back against comments from Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu that “a credible threat of a military operation” is the only way to prevent a nuclear-armed Iran.
Speculation continues to run wild over whether Israel will launch air strikes against Iranian nuclear facilities if Western diplomatic and economic measures are seen as failing.
Not a word on Gates’ warning about an attack, a warning that echoes the concerns of a wide array of former top Pentagon brass and diplomats and prominent Iranian dissidents — namely, that an attack would unify Iran against the United States and destroy the nascent opposition.
Birnbaum simply doesn’t report this aspect of the talk.
Compare his story with Reuters’s lede:
Sanctions against Iran are biting hard and triggering divisions among its leadership, Defense Secretary Robert Gates said on Tuesday, as he argued against a military strike over Tehran’s nuclear program.
And the Washington Post‘s Glenn Kessler:
Defense Secretary Robert M. Gates, reiterating his long-standing opposition to a military attack on Iran, said Tuesday that new sanctions led by the Obama administration are causing divisions within the Iranian leadership.
Kessler, a mere two paragraphs later, adds:
Gates, who has repeatedly warned against military strikes on Tehran’s nuclear facilities, said, “I personally believe they are intent on acquiring nuclear weapons…”
Lest Reuters and the Washington Post be accused of some sort of liberal bias, here’s the right-wing Israeli Jerusalem Post‘s third paragraph:
Additionally, Gates told the [audience] that a military strike would not succeed at halting Iran’s nuclear program. He said it would only result in it becoming more secretive than it already is, and strengthen the country’s unity.
While most of those pieces were longer than Birnbaum’s, it’s clear these other publications reported what was a central thrust of Gates’s answer to the question he was asked about Iranian nukes — that attacking Iran is a bad idea. Birnbaum leaves this out entirely, instead juxtaposing Gates’s recent PR work for sanctions with Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s call for a “credible military threat” against Iran. Given that Birnbaum had enough “white space” to tack on two paragraphs about Iranian wargames, it seems that brevity was not the issue, either.
The Washington Times, which until recently faced some financial problems, has a decidedly hawkish bent. Their opinion section regularly publishes some of the most belligerent voices in U.S. foreign policy. That does not necessarily reflect poorly on the newsroom; the Times has featured Eli Lake’s informative national security reporting.
I’m not as familiar with much of Birnbaum’s work, but it seems good enough. Eli Clifton, on this blog, reported an instance when the Bahraini government took issue with a diplomat’s comments to Birnbaum, but it seems to have been a standard walk-back. Our colleague Daniel Luban also took a little issue with Birnbaum’s New Republic hit piece on Human Rights Watch, but said from the get-go that Birnbaum’s piece “actually isn’t terrible, at least by the (admittedly low) standards of TNR hit pieces.” That’s pretty much how I feel about what little I’ve read.
Nonetheless, in this instance, Birnbaum’s omission raises serious questions his reporting.
]]>On Friday, I wrote about Birnbaum’s highly selectively excerpted interview with Houda Nonoo, Bahrain’s [...]]]>
Ben Birnbaum’s Washington Times article, which attempted to rehash the tired argument that Arab states want the U.S. and/or Israel to attack Iran’s nuclear sites, took another hit today with a statement from Bahrain’s Ministry of Foreign Affairs (MOFA).
On Friday, I wrote about Birnbaum’s highly selectively excerpted interview with Houda Nonoo, Bahrain’s ambassador to the U.S.. He portrayed her as deeply worried about the possibility of a nuclear armed Iran and, at the very least, ambivalent about a U.S. or Israeli military strike.
Nonoo expressed concern that Bahrain is only 26 miles from Bushehr and “If Iran has [a nuclear] capability, nobody is going to be able to stop them.” But Nonoo fell short of endorsing a military strike and told Birnbaum that “she declined to express a preference.”
Birnbaum attempted to clarify Nonoo’s unclear position by talking to a number of Washington and Israel based Iran-hawks, who apparently told him that Arab countries would welcome a military strike on Iran.
Yesterday, Bahrain’s Ministry of Foreign Affairs walked back Nonoo’s statement and made the kingdom’s position on military action again Iran’s nuclear program crystal clear.
The statement read:
The Ministry of Foreign Affairs of the Kingdom of Bahrain welcomes this opportunity to clarify the recent statement by Her Excellency Mrs Houda Nonoo, Ambassador to the United States of America, as set out in the Washington Times. It appears that the Ambassador’s remarks may have been inaccurately reported, or have been misinterpreted or misunderstood, and the Ministry is pleased to further develop and place in context the said statement.
The Kingdom of Bahrain has consistently made clear its support for the right of all states to the peaceful civilian use of nuclear energy, transparently and in accordance with the relevant international framework and safeguards. Bahrain has made clear on a number of occasions that the Islamic Republic of Iran is no exception to this right. At the same time, Bahrain has also called on Iran to demonstrate full transparency and cooperation with the international community, including the IAEA, to address any concerns over its nuclear programme.
The Ambassador’s remarks were not intended to, and did not, deviate or detract from this consistently established position, which remains the position of the Kingdom of Bahrain.
Birnbaum acknowledged the MOFA’s clarification in an article today.
]]>Birnbaum interviews Bahrain’s ambassador to the U.S., Houda Nonoo, who tells [...]]]>
Birnbaum interviews Bahrain’s ambassador to the U.S., Houda Nonoo, who tells him that:
Iran has had claims in the past on Bahrain[...]
The latest was on their 30th anniversary in February 2009, where they mentioned Bahrain as the 14th province. Very similar to [Saddam Hussein's] Iraq mentioning Kuwait as their 19th province.
Nonoo, whose country is home to the U.S. Navy’s 5th Fleet, pointed out that Bahrain is just 26 miles from Bushehr and “If Iran has [a nuclear] capability, nobody is going to be able to stop them.”
What exactly Nonoo thinks will be unstoppable is unclear, but Birnbaum attempts to lead her into endorsing a military strike.
According to Birnbaum she “declined to express a preference” and only said “That’s the million-dollar question.”
But that wasn’t direct enough for Birnbaum, who was doing his best to breathe life back into a story from July when the United Arab Emirate’s ambassador to the U.S. may or may not have endorsed a military strike.
What is known is that the UAE rejected the ambassador’s comments is the strongest language possible.
The Wall Street Journal wrote on July 7th:
The U.A.E.’s assistant foreign minister for political affairs, Tareq al-Haidan, meanwhile, said Mr. Otaiba’s comments were taken out of context and “are not precise,” according to a statement by the country’s official news service released Wednesday.
“The U.A.E. totally rejects the use of force as a solution to the Iranian nuclear issue,” Mr. Haidan said, adding: “The U.A.E., at the same time, believes in the need of keeping the Gulf region free of nuclear weapons.”
Birnbaum, failing to get an Arab endorsement for the military option cobbles together quotes from U.S. and Israeli-based Iran-hawks.
He interviews the Washington Institute for Near East Policy’s Simon Henderson who makes the following unverifiable claims:
I’ve visited Bahrain and spoken to senior Bahraini officials, and although in public they are cautious not to inflame their delicate relations with Iran, they say in private that Iran is a malevolent force against the region in general and Bahrain in particular.[...]
At the very least, they fear instability in their own country but also Iranian-supported insurrection and, in a worst-case scenario, an Iranian takeover.[...]
If they woke up tomorrow and there was smoke emerging from Natanz after a bombing raid, they would be very happy.
Shmuel Bar, director of studies at the Israel-based Institute of Policy Strategy, told Birnbaum:
They’d be very relieved despite the fallout… This is not speculation.
Birnbaum rounded out his set of interviews with a comment from John McCain. While known for his hawkish views on Iran, McCain surprisingly comes well short of endorsing a military strike.
He says:
The reality is that it may be too late to prevent the Iranians from acquiring nuclear weapons.
Now, I’m not saying we should quit trying. I’m not saying we shouldn’t try to take every measure that we can. But some of these measures, I think, could have been far more effective if we’d have taken them some years ago — and I think that’s the opinion of most experts.
An article which includes claims that unnamed Arab diplomats would welcome a strike on Iranian nuclear facilities offers no verifiable evidence that this is actually the case.
Only two individuals with serious policy-shaping roles are interviewed by Birnbaum. The most he can get is an unclear statement from Nonoo that “If Iran has [a nuclear] capability, nobody is going to be able to stop them.” John McCain seemingly accepts the possibility that “the reality is that it may be too late to prevent the Iranians from acquiring nuclear weapons.”
While Birnbaum is eager to suggest that countries in the Arab world would welcome a military strike on Iranian nuclear facilities, his dependence on second-hand interviews–via U.S. and Israel based Iran-hawks–with unnamed officials may indicate how far Birnbaum must stretch to support his thesis.
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