by Jasmin Ramsey

Almost 1,000 Egyptians have died, according to the official count, since Aug. 14 when Egypt’s armed forces began clamping down on Muslim Brotherhood-led protests against the military ouster of President Mohamed Morsi. That number well exceeds the 846 people who officials say died during the 18 days of protest [...]]]> via LobeLog

by Jasmin Ramsey

Almost 1,000 Egyptians have died, according to the official count, since Aug. 14 when Egypt’s armed forces began clamping down on Muslim Brotherhood-led protests against the military ouster of President Mohamed Morsi. That number well exceeds the 846 people who officials say died during the 18 days of protest that ended Hosni Mubarak’s 30-year rule in Jan. 2011.

The democratically elected Morsi, a leading member of the MB, has not been seen in public since Jul. 3. But Mubarak has been released from prison into house arrest while he faces retrial. Egyptian media has for the most part adopted the language of the army in framing the unrest — Muslim brotherhood members are alleged “terrorists” who are trying to destroy the country.

While the US, who the Egyptian media claims conspired with the Brotherhood, has cancelled military exercises with Egypt and urged both sides to halt violence, it has so far resisted calls for halting military aid to its strategically positioned ally.

The rapid turn of events in Egypt, from a revolution to perhaps a “counterrevolution”, has left US President Barack Obama in quandary. Having eventually supported the fall of Mubarak, the US looks hypocritical in continuing its relationship with the military as authoritarian rule is restored.

In an interview with IPS, Emile Nakhleh, the former director of the Central Intelligence Agency’s (CIA) Islamic Strategic Analysis Program, explained why repression will not prevent the Muslim Brotherhood from continuing its existence as a rooted, cultural and political force. Continued repression could also push the Brotherhood’s younger members to embrace violence as a political tool.

The US should pursue its own interests in Egypt, which “do not necessarily equate with dictatorial repressive regimes,” the Middle East expert told IPS. “In the long run, democratically elected governments will be more stable than these autocratic regimes.”

Q: There are different accounts circulating, especially in the Egyptian media, about what the Muslim Brotherhood (MB) actually is. Can you provide some background?

A: The Muslim Brotherhood was founded in 1928 as a social, religious, educational, political and partly military movement. It was founded against British colonialism and with it came the fight for Palestine, starting in the early 30s. Its main ideology is as follows: Islam is the solution. And the 3 D’s in Arabic, which translate to Islam is faith, state and society. There is to be no separation between the mosque and state in any of these.

The Muslim Brotherhood spread more than any other party in the Middle East in the last 85 years. It focused heavily on Islam, but took all those other things into consideration. And then of course they got involved in politics. That put them in conflict with the monarchy at the time. In 1948 this conflict became violent. Muslim Brotherhood members assassinated the Egyptian Prime Minister and in turn, the regime assassinated the founder of the MB in 1949.

By the mid-90′s, the Brotherhood decided to forgo violence and move toward their original mission, Da’wa, to proselytize their doctrine by Islamizing society from below. They wouldn’t allow themselves to be removed by force; they saw what happened in Algeria in 1991 and redirected their ideology to society itself, modeled after that American baseball-feed ideology, you know, you build it and they will come. So you Islamicize society from below and once society becomes Islamicized, you can establish a position in government and become a Shari’a-friendly government.

This process started in the late 80s, when the MB entered 4 or 5 parliamentary elections as independents or in alliance with other parties, such as the Wafd Party and the Labor Socialist party. Why? Because the government passed Law 100, which prohibited religious parties from participating in politics.

In the 2005 election, the MB won 88 seats in parliament, the largest ever for the MB. But they ran as independents. They emerged as the largest opposition party in parliament after Mubarak’s ruling party. In their 85-year history, the MB has been banned and repressed by regimes — from King Faruk to Mubarak; that’s why they’re not going away. They’re part and parcel of the religious foundation of Egyptian society.

With every regime Egypt has had since 1948, the relationship with the MB has always initially been good and then soured toward the end. Gamal Abdel Nasser was the same. He reached out to the Muslim Brotherhood in 1954 and by 1955-6, when a plot to assassinate him was uncovered, the Muslim Brotherhood was repressed and exiled. Then in 1966 Nasser’s government hanged one of the MB’s conservative thinkers, Sayyid Qutb.

Q: Is that what’s happening now, with the army’s arrest of the Muslim Brotherhood’s Supreme Guide, Mohamed Badie?

A: Qutb was actually more of a radical thinker than the mainstream MB. It’s also very interesting to note that a number of MB activists were exiled to Saudi Arabia where they established a more radical view of Islam. That view led Saudi Arabia to oppose Nasser’s actions in Yemen and other Arab nationalist projects.

Q: The Saudis welcomed the MB because they were Salafis?

A: The Saudis welcomed the MB with open arms because they were Salafis and because they were opposed to the secular Arab nation ideology that was preached by Nasser. The MB’s relationship with Nasser soured until 1970 when Nasser died and Anwar Sadat came to power. Sadat also began to court the MB as a countervailing force against leftist and Nasserist nationalist ideology.

The MB’s influence really began in the 1970s when they reconstituted themselves as a religious party that underpinned society. The constitution reflected Islam and allowed them freedom to preach and participate in associations, so much so that by the 1980s, the MB, through elections, controlled almost every professional association and university student council.

That scared the hell out of Hosni Mubarak, who also tried to court the MB in the beginning. It was, by the way, Mubarak who approved a change in the constitution to say Sharia is the source of legislation.

General Abdel Fattah el-Sisi’s game is thus very dangerous. It will fail because the MB is the most organized and the most disciplined in Egypt and because they have been used to repression from Farouk to Nasser to Sadat and to Mubarak. Sadat allowed the MB to reconstitute itself and invited MB exiles to return home, but by the late 1970s, the MB broke with Sadat because of his trip to Jerusalem and the peace treaty with Israel. At that time, the entire Arab world broke with Sadat.

Although Sadat warmed up to the MB, he never recognized them as a political party, only as a social religious element, which was great for the MB. This gave them freedom to penetrate the soft ministries, education and welfare, and establish all kinds of religious schools, alongside al-Azhar University. Because of that, religious education under their guidance began to expand tremendously.

Q: Should military aid to Egypt be stopped?

Aid should be cut off. We supported the removal of Mubarak so we can’t support the resurrection of a military dictatorship. The cut-off by itself is not enough. It should be accompanied by a high-level conversation about Egypt’s future in accordance with the ideas of Egypt’s January 2011 revolution. In Bahrain, we should make it very clear to the al-Khalifas that repression and exclusion of the Shia majority cannot continue.

Q: How much does Egypt need the US and how much does Egypt — especially the Egyptian army — need the US?

A: Don’t forget that most of Egypt’s military aid is spent in this country for weapons systems. But that’s not the main reason for the aid. U.S. military aid to Egypt has been a tool of American national interests, which are to maintain the peace treaty with Israel, give us priority over the Suez Canal and flights over Egypt, etc, and to help us with the war on terror, especially since 9/11.

There’s a side interest, too: Egypt’s role with the Palestinians and Hamas and the push for negotiations. The main interlocutor with Hamas over the years has been Egyptian intelligence folks like Omar Suleiman.

Q: Does the Egyptian military truly fear the US stopping aid?

A: The military would be devastated if the US stopped aid because of the training the US provides and also because of the prestige. All the statements by Egyptian officials contradicting this notion is just talk.

Q: What if Saudi Arabia steps in to support the military more than it is already supporting them, as it has offered to do?

A: The Egyptian military doesn’t want to be beholden to Saudi Arabia. One of Sadat’s primary goals in reaching out to the US was to reestablish relations with the US after the October 1973 War, specifically so Egypt could acquire that training and prestige. Threatening to halt aid will be met with tremendous consternation by the Egyptian army.

Q: So the US stops the aid. Then what?

A: It’s a 2-way street. Consider our national interests, but it’s also in Egypt’s interest to maintain the peace treaty, by the way. Even Morsi wasn’t going to touch it. And when there was terrorism in the Sinai, he worked with the Israelis in fighting it.

The president’s speech in Cairo in 2009 was important because, at least rhetorically, it reflected the belief that the Islamic world is diverse and there is a distinction between the majority and the minority who are the radicals. We need to engage mainstream Muslims. He believed in that and has been interested in engaging mainstream parties that have been elected through peaceful and fair processes. That’s why he accepted to work with the MB and the Freedom and Justice Party.

Q: There was an article article in the New York Times on July 10 suggesting that the ouster of Morsi was actually planned from early on. What’s your take?

A: Morsi appointed el-Sisi himself and el-Sisi turned against him. Elements of the old regime and the so-called Egyptian liberals, who never accepted the election results, plotted from day one to undo Morsi. That’s not to say that Morsi did not make mistakes. He reneged on most of his promises. He promised to include women and Egyptian minorities in the country’s decision-making processes and he did not. But the old guard and the military never forgave Morsi for finally removing Field Marshal Mohamed Hussein Tantawi. So even after Morsi’s hard work, he brought in el-Sisi. Well, el-Sisi pretended that he supported Morsi but in fact he didn’t. There’s an unholy alliance between the military, the old regime and Egypt’s so-called liberals against Morsi. It’s also a fact that the revolution removed Mubarak but it did not remove the regime. So after Morsi came to power, the ministries and their bureaucrats began to torpedo his program. There were lines in Cairo after the flow of oil was restricted and somehow they disappeared shortly after Morsi was toppled.

And then el-Sisi called on people to go to the streets and give him a “mandate” to act in the national interest and remove Morsi. In January 2011, people went into the streets to remove Mubarak, and in 2013, by el-Sisi’s request, they removed Morsi. Very soon they are going to discover that this is a military dictatorship and they’re going to go into the streets again.

Q: Why is the military so revered in Egypt?

A: In addition to everything else, they have a first-rate propaganda machine. They have a tremendous public relations operation. They are masters at what we call strategic communication with the public. They probably control more than 30% of the Egyptian economy, much like China, Pakistan and Iran

The military claimed during the Nasser regime and then under Sadat that it did a great job in its wars with Israel and it was the politicians who actually undermined their missions. They are always blaming someone else. So it has emerged as symbol of national sovereignty. Nasser gave that impression when he took over the Suez Canal in 1956.

Every president since the end of the monarchy in Egypt has come from the ranks of the military. So they remove their military uniform, don a suit and become president. Morsi was the first president since 1954 who didn’t come from the military and the military didn’t trust him. I’m not a defender of Morsi, he made many mistakes, but this was the first freely, fairly, democratically elected leader since Egyptian independence. All the others were selected through sham elections with a lack of viable political opposition.

Q: What do Saudi Arabia’s explicit calls to back up the Egyptian military financially in battling the Muslim Brotherhood say about US-Saudi relations?

A: The Saudis are terrified of the MB as a reform movement. Now Saudi Arabia is also playing a dangerous game. A coalition of Arab autocrats is trying to stifle democracy because they do not like these revolutionary movements and are terrified of seeing them in their own countries. That’s why the Saudis sent troops to Bahrain to control the Shia, they said. When no one bought this argument, they said they were battling terrorism. And they say they are trying to kill it in Egypt, which is the main Arab country. If it’s killed there, they will feel more comfortable in their rule.

But this is not about the MB in Egypt or the Shia in Bahrain. Its about reform movements and opposition to repressive regimes in those countries.

Q: What options does President Obama have at this point?

A: The president had to face a new reality with the Arab Spring. He decided on going with the pro-democracy movements and that’s why he supported the removal of dictators in Tunisia, Libya and Egypt. Now, he has been a bit silent on Bahrain, even though the American ambassador has spoken out. I think the United States has got to create a clear balance between national security and our democratic values and it has to communicate such a balance to the American people and to peoples in the region clearly.

We should still pursue our own interests, but they do not necessarily equate with dictatorial repressive regimes. In the long run, democratically elected governments will be more stable than these autocratic regimes.

Q: Which means the US should be willing to make some sacrifices in the short-term?

A: I think so, yes. You can’t have a cookie-cutter approach to the whole region. For Bahrain, you should emphasize that if the ruling family wants to maintain its rule, they should seriously engage in dialogue with the opposition, should stop human rights abuses, release political prisoners from jail and provide the Shia majority equal access to employment in government sectors, including the military and security services.

Q: Won’t these autocratic regimes worry that implementing reforms will present more challenges to their rule?

A: They believe that they can maintain power through repression, but they should know by now that staying in power can’t be guaranteed without popular support. Look at what we’re seeing in Egypt, in Syria, in Libya…

What concerns me is that in Bahrain and Egypt, our personnel are being threatened; our ambassadors are being vilified in the media, which in Egypt and in Bahrain are the mouthpieces of the regime. The autocratic regimes in both countries run sophisticated PR campaigns. The al-Khalifa in Bahrain believe the US supports Bahrain’s Shia! The Egyptian military and some liberals believe the US supports the MB and Morsi.

So this lack of clarity in our positions is generating personal threats to our diplomatic personnel, journalists and private citizens in those countries.

Q: Is Egypt becoming a military state?

The military regime is making it clearly so. Arresting the General Guide of the MB, at el-Sisi’s instructions, which no previous regime has done, signals that the military regime is here to stay.

I worry about Egypt. I really think by moving to reinstate military rule, the el-Sisi regime is inviting more violence.

Something worries me more. In the last 20 years, the MB and other mainstream Islamic political parties have supported man-made democracy and rejected al-Qaeda’s calls, including its calls against participating in this election. And now, with democracy being torpedoed by the military, this is something that the younger generation is going to tell the older leadership within the MB — that we tried democracy and it failed and the only alternative is violence.

We might see the rise of a youthful generation in the MB that no longer believes in democracy as a viable political system.

Q: Where is the Egyptian revolution heading?

A: El-Sisi has presented himself as a guardian of national sovereignty, not a new Mubarak. It’s going to be a while before the so-called liberal and mainstream Egyptians begin to see the reality of the new military regime in Egypt. And in the meantime, the youthful members of the Muslim Brotherhood are going to turn to violence if their peaceful protests continue to be violently repressed.

Q: So far the only country where the so-called Arab Spring has had seemingly stable results is Tunisia, where a moderate Islamic government remains in place. What do you see in Egypt’s future?

The toppling of Morsi in Egypt doesn’t mean the failure of Islam or Islamic politics. It represents the failure of a particular leader in a particular country at a particular time. In Tunisia, Moncef Marzouki and Rachid Ghannouchi avoided the mistakes that Morsi made. The ruling party, Ennahda, has tried to be more inclusive and consult with other groups and parties and be more open. That’s why by comparison, Tunisia has succeeded despite the killing of two senior opposition members.

To be fair, the MB and Morsi inherited a very dysfunctional economy. The economy in Tunisia was much better by comparison. And frankly, there’s no way in hell that any party in Egypt would have been able to address Egypt’s economic issues in 1 year. If the military stays in government in the next year and they also don’t address Egypt’s severe economic problems, including unemployment and tourism, people are going to ask again, what have you done for us? That’s why I argued earlier this year that if they had just waited for Morsi to finish his term, he would have never been re-elected. We should never worry about the first election; we always should look at the 2nd and 3rd elections.

Photo Credit: Charles Roffey

Many Americans, shocked by the appalling casualties from the crackdown ordered by Armed Forces Commander Abdel Fattah al-Sisi, understandably have reacted by calling for a cut-off of US aid to Egypt. Yet, doing so probably would be ineffective, further reducing Washington’s already limited influence [...]]]> via LobeLog

by Wayne White

Many Americans, shocked by the appalling casualties from the crackdown ordered by Armed Forces Commander Abdel Fattah al-Sisi, understandably have reacted by calling for a cut-off of US aid to Egypt. Yet, doing so probably would be ineffective, further reducing Washington’s already limited influence over the Egyptian military. And since there are no genuine “good guys” amidst the confrontation between the Egyptian military and the Muslim Brotherhood, the options are less clear than simply meting out one-sided punitive measures. The dynamics of the situation on the ground in Egypt mostly will determine the outcome, but still the US must join with the rest of the international community in trying to convince the Egyptian military that attempts to violently quell pro-Morsi supporters are self-defeating.

Since the early years of President Hosni Mubarak’s tenure, US aid to Egypt has declined in both real terms and as a percentage of Egypt’s annual budget. It was once as high as $3 billion; now it amounts to only $1.3 billion in military assistance. Already the Obama Administration has halted the delivery of four F-16 fighter aircraft and, yesterday, cancelled the joint US-Egyptian bi-annual “Bright Star” military exercises.  Neither measure, however, will have much of an adverse impact on the Egyptian military — especially the ability of the military and police to use force to end demonstrations and sit-ins that had disrupted a return to some measure of order and normalcy.

In fact, $1.3 billion amounts to only a little over one-tenth the aid Saudi Arabia, the UAE and Kuwait have pumped into Egypt since Mr. Morsi’s ouster. Indeed, should the US take its $1.3 billion off the table, Saudi Arabia and other wealthy Gulf Arab governments (more worried about the threat from the Muslim Brotherhood than al-Sisi’s behavior) could more than compensate the Egyptian government.

Also, the policies of most US regional allies, whether in a position to materially assist Egypt’s current government or not, are hostile toward the Brotherhood.  And none of these governments are themselves democratic. The sole exception in the region, in both respects, is moderate Islamist NATO-ally, Turkey.

It is difficult to gauge accurately the overall reaction of most Egyptians to the events of the past 24 hours. Within the population there is so much polarization and mistrust that many of the millions who took to the streets to push the military into taking action against President Morsi have mixed feelings.  Indeed, among many Christians, liberals and relatively secular Egyptians, Muslim Brotherhood attacks upon or the torching of 20 to 30 Coptic Christian churches during August 14-15 could be more chilling than the terrible loss of life in the streets at the hands of the security forces. Even the statement made by resigning liberal vice president Mohamed ElBaradei yesterday seemed to focus almost as much on his concern that “the beneficiaries” of the military crackdown are “those who call for…terrorism and the most extreme groups” as the bloodshed itself.

Al-Sisi would have been wise to have tolerated ongoing Brotherhood demonstrations and gone about the business of arranging a return to civilian rule on schedule.  Instead, the military-dominated interim government has shown imprudence, impatience and a dangerous penchant for ultimately self-destructive bouts of violent intimidation driven by its frustration over sit-ins disrupting a number of Egyptian urban centers.

There are extremist elements within the Brotherhood probably hoping to goad the military into just such bloody shows of force in order to sully the government, score points on the international scene and inflame their own ranks — as has now happened. Sensing this, French foreign minister Laurent Fabius today urged Egyptian authorities to exercise “maximum restraint” lest “extremist groups take advantage of the situation.”

By late Thursday, however, many Brotherhood demonstrators already were chanting: “End to peace,” so more violence is likely during the Brotherhood’s “Friday of Anger” today as masses of pro-Brotherhood protestors move toward and fill the planned demonstration site at Cairo’s Ramses Square. The authorities appear ready to use gunfire if there are more attacks on government buildings (quite possibly including the city’s main railway station adjacent to that square).

And with the Brotherhood now in a vengeful mood, a dangerous pattern of cyclical violence could set in.  If such a situation takes hold with round after round of tit for tat violence, neither the US and the West nor the UN would likely be able to have much success in bringing matters back under control anytime soon.  Hopefully, it is not already too late to avoid such a self-perpetuating scenario.

Thus it is urgent that Washington and other governments use whatever limited clout they still have with the Egyptian military to hammer home the message that lashing out only will provoke the Muslim Brotherhood to respond likewise. Convincing al-Sisi and other senior officers that they are acting against their own best interests is more important than high-profile gestures of disapproval that have far more resonance with domestic audiences back home than in the halls of government or the streets of Egypt.

Photo Credit: Credit: Khaled Moussa al-Omrani/IPS.

by Jasmin Ramsey

It’s hard to imagine anyone outside of Egypt watching this footage of Cairo burning last night (Mosa’ab El Shamy’s photographs are also stunning) without saying WTF in one way or another. For those who have been following the events that led to the killing of at least [...]]]> via LobeLog

by Jasmin Ramsey

It’s hard to imagine anyone outside of Egypt watching this footage of Cairo burning last night (Mosa’ab El Shamy’s photographs are also stunning) without saying WTF in one way or another. For those who have been following the events that led to the killing of at least 525 Egyptians yesterday – according to the government, who put the count of the 18-day Egyptian revolution at 843 — this post by the erudite Issandr El Amrani is a must-read:

You could ask a thousand questions about the violence that has shaken Egypt, from why police decided to move now against Islamist sit-ins and with such brutality after making so much of its careful planning in the last week, to whether the attacks on churches and Christians more generally that erupted in reaction are part of a pre-planned reaction or the uncontrollable sectarian direction political tensions take in moments of crisis. But the question that really bothers me is whether this escalation is planned to create a situation that will inevitably trigger more violence – that this is the desired goal.

The fundamental flaw of the July 3 coup, and the reason those demonstrators that came out on June 30 against the Morsi administration were wrong to welcome it, is that it was based on an illusion. That illusion, at least among the liberal camp which is getting so much flak these days, was that even a partial return of the old army-led order could offer a chance to reboot the transition that took such a wrong turn after the fall of Hosni Mubarak on February 11, 2011. This camp believed that gradual reform, even of a much less ambitious nature than they desired in 2011, would be more likely to come by accommodating the old order than by allowing what they perceived as an arrangement between the military and the Islamists to continue. Better to focus on fixing the country, notably its economy, and preventing Morsi from sinking it altogether, and take the risk that part of the old order could come back.

Update: I only saw Paul Pillar’s “Cultivating Extremists in Egypt” now, in which he writes:

Wouldn’t the breeding of more Egyptian terrorists be a bad thing from the viewpoint of Egyptian military leaders? Not if they wish to present themselves as a bastion against terrorism and to lay claim as such to American support. The brass may be more comfortable with this sort of claim than with one based on shepherding the introduction of true democracy—given all the uncertainties democracy is apt to pose for the highly privileged position of the Egyptian military and its officer corps.

Photo Credit: Mohammad Omer/IPS

by Peter Jenkins

In defence of his 2003-05 record, Iran’s president-elect Hassan Rouhani writes, “While we were talking with the Europeans in Tehran, we were installing equipment in parts of the facility in Isfahan. In fact, by creating a calm environment, we were able to complete the work in Isfahan.”

Some claim [...]]]> via LobeLog

by Peter Jenkins

In defence of his 2003-05 record, Iran’s president-elect Hassan Rouhani writes, “While we were talking with the Europeans in Tehran, we were installing equipment in parts of the facility in Isfahan. In fact, by creating a calm environment, we were able to complete the work in Isfahan.”

Some claim this as evidence that Rouhani duped and tricked his European counterparts in the negotiations that took place in Tehran in October 2003.

That interpretation is wrong. I will explain why.

The agreement that British Foreign Secretary Jack Straw and his French and German counterparts (the E3) reached with Rouhani on 21 October 2003 specified that Iran would suspend “all uranium enrichment and reprocessing activities as defined by the IAEA [International Atomic Energy Agency]”.

The E3 hoped that Mohamed ElBaradei, Director General of the IAEA, would produce a definition of enrichment that would stop work at the Uranium Conversion Facility (UCF) at Isfahan, which was due to start converting uranium ore (yellowcake) into uranium hexafluoride, the feed material for centrifuge enrichment, in the course of 2004.

Instead, ElBaradei defined enrichment as the operation and/or testing of centrifuges; the installation of centrifuges; the introduction or use of material in any facility capable of isotopic separation; and the construction, testing or operation of any isotopic separation facility.

In doing so, ElBaradei opened the way for Iran to complete, hot test and start up production at the UCF without breaching the Tehran agreement with the E3. Iran also continued to manufacture, assemble and test centrifuge machines — while honouring its commitment to suspend the activities specified by ElBaradei…

As soon as the E3 could, they set about trying to renegotiate the Tehran agreement to close these loop-holes; but it was only in November 2004, in Paris, that they finally got Iranian agreement to extend the suspension to “all enrichment related activities, and specifically the manufacture and import of gas centrifuges and their components; the assembly, installation, testing or operation of gas centrifuges; and all tests or production of any uranium conversion installation”.

It follows that Rouhani is entitled to claim that the agreement he negotiated in October 2003 allowed Iran to complete and start up the UCF. This achievement, however, stemmed from ElBaradei’s judgement that a narrow definition of enrichment would be more accurate than a broad definition. The achievement was not the result of trickery or deceit.

Let me also deal with the breakdown of the Tehran and Paris agreements in the course of 2005.

Trickery and deceit played no part in that breakdown. The essential cause of the breakdown was the E3’s rejection of an Iranian proposal, in March 2005, that Iran resume enrichment to a limited extent and under rigorous IAEA monitoring. The rejection led Ayatollah Ali Khamenei to think that the E3 sought an indefinite suspension of enrichment, which he had never intended to concede (as the E3 knew full well). The proximate cause was a resumption of activity at the UCF in August 2005, on the Supreme Leader’s orders.

The E3 took the view that Iran had gone back on its side of the Tehran and Paris bargains, but did not consider that reversal treacherous or dishonest, because Rouhani had never undertaken to maintain suspension indefinitely.

Instead, seeing the reversal as releasing them from their side of the Tehran bargain, the E3 set about arranging for the IAEA to forward to the UN the Director General’s 2003 report of Iranian safeguards non-compliance. They hoped that the UN Security Council would turn suspension from a voluntary measure into a binding requirement, and that Iran would feel obliged to comply. The Security Council delivered; Iran’s lack of compunction in ignoring the Council’s diktat was plain for all to see.

As I have written before, the big misfortune in October 2003 was that no one insisted on linking Iranian suspension to the completion of IAEA investigations under the Additional Protocol. The justification for suspension was a (palpable and widespread) loss of confidence in Iran’s nuclear intentions. An IAEA assurance — under the Additional Protocol — that all nuclear material and plants in Iran had been declared, would have re-built confidence and led all but a handful of IAEA members to conclude that Iran should be allowed to enrich uranium for civil purposes under IAEA safeguards. The hold-outs would have been unable to persuade the Security Council to make suspension mandatory and impose sanctions.

Anyway, the lesson to be drawn from Europe’s experience nearly a decade ago is that Iran’s president-elect is not some wily Oriental who cannot be trusted; he is rather a defender of Iranian interests who drives a hard but honest bargain and is true to his word.

Photo Credit: Abdolvahed Mirzazadeh

Now, however, both explicit statements on the issue by the Iranian Ambassador to [...]]]> News media reported last week that Iran had flatly refused the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) access to its Parchin military test facility, based on a statement to reporters by IAEA Deputy Director General, Herman Nackaerts, that “We could not get access”.

Now, however, both explicit statements on the issue by the Iranian Ambassador to the IAEA and the language of the new IAEA report indicate that Iran did not reject an IAEA visit to the base per se but was only refusing access as long as no agreement had been reached with the IAEA governing the modalities of cooperation.

That new and clarifying information confirms what I reported February 23. Based on the history of Iranian negotiations with the IAEA and its agreement to allow two separate IAEA visits to Parchin in 2005, the Parchin access issue is a bargaining chip that Iran is using to get the IAEA to moderate its demands on Iran in forging an agreement on how to resolve the years-long IAEA investigation into the “Possible Military Dimensions” of the Iranian nuclear program.

In an email to me and in interviews with Russia Today, Reuters, and the Fars News Agency, the Iranian Permanent Representative to the IAEA, Ali Asghar Soltanieh, said Iran told the high-level IAEA mission that it would allow access to Parchin once modalities of Iran-IAEA cooperation had been agreed on.

“We declared that, upon finalization of the modality, we will give access [to Parchin],” Soltanieh wrote in an email to me.

In the Russia Today interview on February 27, reported by Israel’s Haaretz and The Hindu in India but not by western news media, Soltanieh referred to two IAEA inspection visits to Parchin in January and November 2005 and said Iran needs to have “assurances” that it would not “repeat the same bitter experience, when they just come and ask for the access.” There should be a “modality” and a “frame of reference, of what exactly they are looking for, they have to provide the documents and exactly where they want [to go],” he said.

But Soltanieh also indicated that such an inspection visit is conditional on agreement on the broader framework for cooperation on clearing up suspicions of a past nuclear weapons program. “[I]n principle we have already accepted that when this text is concluded we will take these steps,” Soltanieh said.

The actual text of the IAEA report, dated February 24, provides crucial information about the Iranian position in the talks that is consistent with what Soltanieh is saying.

In its account of the first round of talks in late January on what the IAEA is calling a “structured approach to the clarification of all outstanding issues”, the report states: “The Agency requested access to the Parchin site, but Iran did not grant access to the site at that time [emphasis added].” That wording obviously implies that Iran was willing to grant access to Parchin if certain conditions were met.

On the February 20-21 meetings, the agency said that Iran “stated that it was still not able to grant access to that site.” There was likely a more complex negotiating situation behind the lack of agreement on a Parchin visit than had been suggested by Nackaerts and reported in western news media.

But not a single major news media report has reported the significant difference between initial media coverage on the Parchin access issue and the information now available from the initial IAEA report and Soltanieh. None have reported the language of the report indicating that Iran’s refusal to approve a Parchin visit in January was qualified by “at that time”.

Only AFP and Reuters quoted Soltanieh at all. Reuters, which actually interviewed Soltanieh, quoted him saying, “It was assumed that after we agreed on the modality, then access would be given.” But that quote only appears in the very last sentence of the article, several paragraphs after the reiteration of the charge that Iran “refused to grant [the IAEA] access” to Parchin.

The day after that story was published, Reuters ran another story focusing on the IAEA report without referring either to its language on Parchin or to Soltanieh’s clarification.

The Los Angeles Times ignored the new information and simply repeated the charge that Iran “refused to allow IAEA inspectors to visit Parchin military base”.  Then it added its own broad interpretation that Iran “has refused to answer key questions about its nuclear development program”. Iran’s repeated assertions that the documents used to pose questions to it are fabricated were thus dismissed as non-qualified answers.

The Parchin access story entered a new phase today with a Reuters story quoting Deputy Director General Nackaerts in a briefing for diplomats as saying that there “may be some ongoing activities at Parchin which add urgency to why we want to go”. Nackaerts attributed that idea to an unnamed “Member State”, which is apparently suggesting that the site in question is being “cleaned up”.

The identity of that “Member State”, which the IAEA continues to go out of its way to conceal, is important, because if it is Israel, it reflects an obvious interest in convincing the world that Iran is working on nuclear weapons. As former IAEA Director-General Mohamed ElBaradei recounts on p. 291 of his memoirs, “In the late summer of 2009, the Israelis provided the IAEA with documents of their own, purportedly showing that Iran had continued with nuclear weapon studies until at least 2007.”

The news media should be including cautionary language any time information from an unnamed “Member State” is cited as the source for allegations of covert Iran nuclear weapons work. It is very likely to be from a State with a political agenda. But the unwritten guidelines for news media coverage of the IAEA and Iran, as we have seen in recent days, are obviously very different.

Instead of highlighting the differences between some neocons and the Israeli right, Ross focuses [...]]]> Jack Ross, the American Conservative blogger, has an enlightening essay on Right Web about the neoconservative split over the current events unfolding in Egypt. Ross’s tack is somewhat different than the one offered here by Daniel Luban (see below).

Instead of highlighting the differences between some neocons and the Israeli right, Ross focuses on the way neoconservatives try to have it both ways: promoting democracy (taking credit for Egypt as a after-effect of George W. Bush’s invasion of Iraq) and staunchly opposing figures like Mohammed ElBaradei and the Muslim Brotherhood. The contrast is between the “freedom crowd” and the “Islamophobes.”

Ross:

What accounts for this divide in neoconservative discourse? Nuances abound to be sure. For instance, while the case of Leon Wieseltier seems to be a horrified response to the fear that the Egyptian revolution bodes ill for Israel, a deeper pathology seems to be at work with the doctrinaire neoconservatives clustered around Commentary magazine. In a curious legacy of neoconservatism’s roots in Trotskyism, the neocon core seems to be characterized by a pathological insistence upon its internationalism, which leads them to their insistence that they are in fact witnessing the birth of a global democratic revolution. This also, it should be noted, seems to supersede any petty scores to be settled in defense of the Bush administration. Dana Perino amply covered that ground on Fox News, even to the point of embracing the Muslim Brotherhood.

On the other hand, the Anti-Islamist Scare that has gained full steam since the election of Obama appears to be a completely distinct phenomenon from historic neoconservatism, notwithstanding how opportunistically it has been embraced by figures like Bill Kristol and the Liz Cheney-led Keep America Safe. It is a phenomenon straight from the pages of Richard Hofstadter’s The Paranoid Style In American Politics. Whereas Hofstadter famously pointed to projection in the anti-Catholic Ku Klux Klan who “donned priestly vestments and constructed an elaborate hierarchy and ritual,” the backlash against the so-called Ground Zero Mosque—with its frank talk of “sacred ground”—reflected the desire to construct an American holy of holies.

Examining this same divergence, Daniel Luban has a similar article up at IPS. He explores the evolution of neoconservatism on democracy promotion, which brings the current divide into focus and hints at some disingenuousness among the ‘pro-democracy’ crowd. (Elliott Abrams, Dan notes, supported undemocratic regimes in Latin America when the region was in his portfolio during the Reagan administration.)

Luban (with my links):

“The U.S. should make clear in an unambiguous way that a Muslim Brotherhood takeover of Egypt is a danger to American interests and could even lead to American intervention,” David Wurmser, former Vice President Dick Cheney‘s senior Middle East [adviser], told the “Forward”, the largest-circulation Jewish weekly, Thursday.

This ambivalence among neo-conservatives over Egypt may reflect a deeper ambivalence over democracy promotion. Both neo-conservatives and their critics often portray democracy promotion as the central tenet of the movement, but the historical record undercuts this portrayal.

The early tone of the movement regarding foreign policy was set by Jeane Kirkpatrick’s 1979 essay “Dictatorships and Double Standards,” which argued for supporting “friendly” authoritarian governments against their left-wing enemies. Kirkpatrick’s vision helped guide neo-conservative foreign policy throughout the 1980s, when neo-conservatives – notably including Elliott Abrams – helped prop up or defend military dictatorships throughout Latin America, and even apartheid South Africa, as Cold War allies against the Soviet Union.

While the movement became more explicitly committed to democracy promotion in recent decades, its democratisation efforts have unsurprisingly been far more focused on hostile, rather than friendly, regimes – left-wing governments during the Cold War; more recently, governments that are seen as antagonistic to either the U.S. or Israel.

When elections have brought enemies rather than allies into power – as occurred in 2006 when Hamas won Palestinian parliamentary elections – neo-conservatives have been among the first to call for punitive actions.

Thus, when John Bolton, the hawkish former U.S. ambassador to the UN, cited Jeane Kirkpatrick in a Thursday interview with Politico to argue that the U.S. should support Mubarak, he could stake a claim to being as much the legitimate heir of neo-conservatism as the anti-Mubarak neo-conservatives themselves.

I’m still figuring this all out for myself, but these two commentaries are certainly helpful. (I’m traveling next week, but hopefully will have time to blog some of my developing ideas.)

But I will note that on the point of Dan’s original post — the split between Israel and the neocons — I do view with skepticism some commentaries (most of which come from neocons) that tout the narrative of: ‘Look! Neocons are not in the thrall of the Likud.’ (As a rule, because of his history of dissembling, I take anything Abrams writes with a grain of salt.)

This line, from the horse’s mouth, is attacking a straw man. We neocon-watchers at this site, at least, have never said that U.S. neoconservatives take marching orders from Likud, but rather that neocons are closely aligned with the rightist Israeli party.

Furthermore, if a Democrat criticizes something done by the Democratic Party (as happens quite regularly), it would be specious to say, ‘Look! She is not a Democrat at all!’

Likewise, I don’t think that neocons are a monolith, and this split between them reveals so much because it is public, whereas neocons, a politically adept group, have usually displayed great messaging discipline.

Nonetheless, the neoconservative disagreements on this issue (both among themselves and with Likud) seem to show that the upheaval in Egypt is coming home to the U.S. discourse on Middle East policy. Here’s hoping the shift is productive.