The “Sheldon Primary” is how casino mogul Sheldon Adelson showcases his political clout in the United States. As Jim Lobe reports, Israel was the main issue on the table for the line of Republican hopefuls who came to Las Vegas this weekend to curry favor with the pro-Israel billionaire [...]]]>
The “Sheldon Primary” is how casino mogul Sheldon Adelson showcases his political clout in the United States. As Jim Lobe reports, Israel was the main issue on the table for the line of Republican hopefuls who came to Las Vegas this weekend to curry favor with the pro-Israel billionaire and fervent supporter of Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu.
The influence Adelson has over the GOP on Israel was underlined by an embarrassing moment for New Jersey governor Chris Christie at the gala. In an attempt to impress his audience with pro-Israel bromides, he uttered the words “occupied territories” — a grievous mistake in front of someone like Adelson, who rejects a two-state solution and considers the West Bank to be part of Israel, indivisible. Christie, not known for making fulsome apologies or backing down from a controversy, nonetheless apologized to Adelson in private, according to Politico, trying to make clear that it was only a poor choice of words. For the record, “occupied territories” is correct according to the official US government position, which takes it cue from the United Nations.
Adelson is also in Israeli headlines this week, and not just because of his moment with Christie. Not satisfied with Israel Today (Israel Hayom), the free, pro-Netanyahu tabloid he set up in 2007, Adelson has now bought two other Israeli outlets, the national-religious daily Makor Rishon and the online version of the insolvent center-right daily Maariv, NRG, for $5 million from its parent media group. NRG, which reflects Maariv’s center-right editorial line, reaches a large online audience. Makor Rishon, printed only in Hebrew, has low circulation but is very well-read among the national-religious settler establishment. The purchase indicates further consolidation of media ownership in Israel, but the politics of it is another matter entirely.
Israel Today, founded in 2007, evokes memories of the hyper-partisan dailies of 1950s Israel. Since 2010, it has been the highest circulated daily in the country. Critics and supporters of Likud — even Netanyahu himself — say that the paper’s editorials helped him triumph in the 2009 Knesset (parliamentary) elections.
After seven years in print and two national elections, Israel Today (nicknamed “Bibiton”) has transformed the face of Israeli media. Economically, its free distribution upset the models for the other main dailies (Haaretz, Maariv, and Yediot Aharonot). Israeli media watcher Tal Schneider estimates that it currently costs Adelson $3 million a month to keep it afloat. Adelson’s print competitors simply cannot match this level of capital. Shlomo Ben-Zvi, owner of the national-religious daily Makor Rishin who took over Maariv and NRG in 2012, once hoped that he would be able to compete with Adelson directly. But his attempt never had a real chance given the financial distance between the two men.
Israeli legal efforts to undercut Adelson have also failed. A 2009 Knesset bill (quietly applauded by some of Israel Today’s competitors) would have barred foreigners from owning Israeli newspapers; it was clearly aimed at undercutting Adelson’s influence. Though that bill failed, Knesset members have now introduced legislation that would limit free newspaper distribution and fix prices for print sales. Israel Today will lose its competitive advantage if this becomes law.
Ambitious Israeli right-wing politicians seem to agree that the casino mogul has gone too far with his purchase of Maariv‘s properties — Israel Today, NRG (due to its relationship with Maariv), and Makor Rishon all have a reputation of being very close to the Prime Minister’s Office under Netanyahu.
Netanyahu’s nominal allies cannot stand the advantage Adelson’s tabloid gives him. Naftali Bennett and Avigdor Lieberman, Netanyahu’s Minister of the Economy and his Minister of Foreign Affairs, respectively, have both belittled Israel Today as the country’s own Soviet Pravda. They would also would jump at a chance to become the prime minister of Israel.
Netanyahu’s leadership rivals thus fear that if Adelson has his way, he will bless “Bibi” in perpetuity, while they scrape and shuffle outside the door for editorial blessings…not unlike the search by the 2016 Republican hopefuls in Las Vegas for Adelson’s largesse.
– Paul Mutter is a foreign policy blogger on leave from the NYU Arthur L. Carter Institute of Journalism. He contributes to PBS Tehran Bureau, The Arabist, Mondoweiss, Truthout, Salon and Foreign Policy in Focus. He primarily writes about US foreign relations, Israeli politics and the Persian Gulf region.
Photo: Jewish American billionaire Sheldon Adelson, left, Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, center, and Adelson’s wife, Miriam. Credit: Eyal Warshavsky
]]>President Barack Obama will nominate former Nebraska Sen. Chuck Hagel for Defense Secretary to replace Leon Panetta, according to Democratic officials.
Politico predicts that “is likely to ignite a raucous confirmation battle.”
The AP meanwhile reports that Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell will be taking a wait and see [...]]]>
President Barack Obama will nominate former Nebraska Sen. Chuck Hagel for Defense Secretary to replace Leon Panetta, according to Democratic officials.
Politico predicts that “is likely to ignite a raucous confirmation battle.”
The AP meanwhile reports that Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell will be taking a wait and see approach to the nomination:
Sen. Mitch McConnell says that the next Pentagon chief must have a complete understanding of the U.S. relationship with ally Israel and the threat from Iran.
Some of Hagel’s former Senate colleagues have questioned his pronouncements on Iraq, Israel and the Middle East. McConnell tells ABC’s “This Week” that Hagel “has certainly been outspoken” on certain foreign policy matters.
McConnell says that if Hagel is nominated, he wants to see if the former Nebraska senator’s views “make sense for that particular job.”
But in May 2007, McConnell headlined two fundraisers for Hagel in downtown Omaha, praising him as “one of the premier foreign policy voices” and as “a man of extraordinary principle” who tells people what he really believes. McConnell lauded Hagel as a “solid, thoughtful, conservative Republican” whose voice is invaluable to the nation. Don Walton of the Nebraska Journal Star reported:
The tribute served as a vigorous response to Hagel critics who, as the Senate GOP leader phrased it, say that “somehow (Hagel) is not much of a Republican.”….
Hagel is “an indispensable member of the Republican team,” McConnell said. McConnell also “described Hagel as ‘a man of extraordinary principle’ who tells people what he really believes.
“It’s not spin,” he said. “It’s not calculated.” Hagel, he said, is “one of the premier foreign policy voices (and) one of the giants in the United States Senate.”
During an interview after the fundraiser, McConnell stated that many of Hagel’s warnings about the Iraq war had been vindicated:
“Many of the predictions Chuck Hagel made about the war came true,” the Kentucky senator said in a brief interview after his remarks at a fundraising reception. “They have proven to be accurate.”
Hagel’s views on the war “have not diminished his effectiveness,” McConnell said, and may, in fact, increase his effectiveness over time.
Walton explained that “Hagel warned against a U.S. attack against Iraq without broad international support and careful planning for the aftermath. Most recently, he has opposed President Bush’s increase in U.S. troops while supporting changes in the U.S. military mission and gradual withdrawal of most combat troops.”
Hagel ultimately decided not to run in 2008. Josh Rogin of Foreign Policy points out that Hagel’s Republican colleagues had only good things to say about him as they bade him farewell when he retired from the Senate, including McConnell:
“In two terms in the Senate, Chuck has earned the respect of his colleagues and risen to national prominence as a clear voice on foreign policy and national security,” said Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell (R-KY). “He has consistently fought to expand free trade, particularly with Vietnam. Chuck’s stature as a leading voice in foreign affairs has earned him a reputation, in just 12 years in the Senate, as one of Nebraska’s great statesmen. This is a tribute to his intelligence, hard work, and devotion to a country that he has served his entire adult life.”
Rogin identifies other Republican senators who were for Chuck Hagel before they were against him, including John McCain, John Kyl and Lamar Alexander:
“When Senator Hagel came to the Senate, his actions often reflected his experience as a combat veteran. He did what he believed was best for the men and women in uniform, and he defended his positions forcefully,” said Senate Minority Whip Jon Kyl (R-AZ). ”Senator Hagel has continued to protect and defend the country, notably through his work on the Foreign Relations and Intelligence Committees. He had strong opinions, and he was never shy about letting them be known.”
“Senator Hagel’s heroism and service serving side by side with his brother in Vietnam is one of the most fascinating, heroic stories of any member of the Senate,” said Sen. Lamar Alexander (R-TN). “With that sort of independent background, you can imagine he brought to this body a sense of independence, a great knowledge of the world… [H]e understands the world better than almost anyone, and he works hard at it. He has been independent in his views, willing to criticize those he thought were wrong, including those in his own party. … We will miss Senator Hagel.”
“To those who worked with Hagel in the Senate, the GOP’s turn against their former boss is a betrayal of the comity and mutual respect the Nebraska lawmaker and his GOP colleagues shared for so many years,” Rogin adds.
“Hagel and his former GOP colleagues may have differed strongly on some issues, but there was no disputing his deep credibility on matters of foreign policy or national security,” one former Hagel staffer said. “These recent attacks amount to a mix of revisionist history and political gamesmanship, not a substantive examination of his record. And I think most of his former colleagues know that. This whole dynamic is a product of the trial-balloon method; it will change dramatically if he is actually the nominee.”
Photo: Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell speaking at CPAC 2011 in Washington, DC. Gage Skidmore/Flickr.
]]>Politico has the scoop on an expensive advertisement funded by a mideast-focused hawkish advocacy group featuring an aggressive speech that Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu made on Sept. 11. The ad is scheduled to air in several cities in Florida tomorrow, where the Jewish vote [...]]]>
Politico has the scoop on an expensive advertisement funded by a mideast-focused hawkish advocacy group featuring an aggressive speech that Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu made on Sept. 11. The ad is scheduled to air in several cities in Florida tomorrow, where the Jewish vote could determine who wins the key state if it’s a close presidential election. Chilling music plays in the background as the Israeli leader proclaims: ”The fact is that every day that passes, Iran gets closer and closer to nuclear bombs. The world tells Israel wait, there’s still time. And I say wait, for what? Wait until when?”
The $1 million slot was paid for by Secure America Now (SAN), which conceals the identity of its donors with its 501(c)4 status. SAN claims it operates in a “non-partisan” manner but doesn’t publish a list of its board or members. Nevertheless, one high-profile member is Frank Gaffney’s sister and fellow neoconservative activist, Devon Cross, who said in a SAN press release (now removed) about a 2011 poll showing American views of Iran as a top national security threat that:
Though both the Bush and Obama administrations have been reticent to consider military options to address the threat posed by Iranian nukes, the American people are prepared to support such action should sanctions fail. Americans across the political spectrum are focused on security, even though these issues get far less attention from politicians than these polling numbers indicate they should.
SAN has been accused of using flawed techniques for its polling. The Washington Post’s Adam Serwer described one such poll showing that Obama had lost Jewish support for the Democrat party because of his dealings with Israel “laughably bogus” because
Not only does their sample skew conservative, (only 64 percent of respondents voted for Obama, as opposed to the 77 percent of Jewish votes he actually got) but many questions in the poll are phrased in as leading a manner as possible. Indeed, given the wording of the questions, it’s actually surprising that 63 percent of respondents overall approved of Obama.
SAN’s media productions also repeat neoconservative talking points about the Obama administration’s mideast foreign policy, including a 2012 SAN ad claiming that in his first interview as president, “Obama chose Arab TV for an apology.” The ad goes on to show Obama saying that it is “important for us to be willing to talk to Iran,” with a voiceover in the ad claiming that “Iran answered with terror, attacks on our troops and nuclear weapons development. … Tell President Obama: no apologies, no weakness. It’s time to stop Iran.”
In its assessment of this ad Politifact.com concluded:
Obama’s first television interview after taking office was with the Al Arabiya network at the White House. But the ad gets nothing right beyond that. By saying ‘all too often the United States starts by dictating,’ Obama was not apologizing but being diplomatic about past strategies that failed to yield results. What’s more, the ad criticizes Obama’s approach to Iran, but his quote actually referred to the Israelis and the Palestinians.
Another ad features a suburban mother complaining that Obama has made the US less secure in many ways, including by ceasing the use of “enhanced interrogation” techniques, “all but abandoning Israel,” “apologizing for America,” failing to stop Iran from allegedly trying to develop a nuclear weapon, and “making clear the era of American exceptionalism is over.”
As Politico’s Maggie Haberman notes, “Bibi Netanyahu is not running a campaign in the US – it just looks that way in this new ad.”
]]>So one thing to be heartened by is just the fact that Iran and the P5+1 countries, including the U.S., are sitting [...]]]>
So one thing to be heartened by is just the fact that Iran and the P5+1 countries, including the U.S., are sitting down at the table in Turkey at all. It’s a crucial step in creating a process and, without a process, the two countries will continue on a long-term path toward confrontation. The technical difficulties of Iran’s nuclear program are merely a delay.
Here’s a piece I did with Jim Lobe at IPS on how there is a glimmer of hope, even if the talks only yield more talks, that something positive could eventually materialize. The point is that without talking, the hope can never be realized. Here’s to the slow, laborious process:
The most realistic hope among those who favour enhanced efforts to engage Tehran is that Iran and the so-called P5+1 – the five permanent members of the U.N. Security Council and Germany – will agree at this session to continue negotiations, possibly to broker a confidence-building measure, such as the aborted nuclear fuel swap deal that was first put forward in October 2009.
“Given the level of distrust between the sides and the problems we have had in the past with diplomatic engagement, I would regard the commitment to have another meeting to constitute success,” said Greg Thielmann, a former senior State Department intelligence analyst, currently with the Arms Control Association (ACA).
“I wish for other outcomes as well, including bilateral discussions between the U.S. and Iranian delegates,” he added, “but a commitment to continuing diplomatic engagement is sufficient for now.”
The U.S. delegation will be led by the undersecretary for political affairs, William Burns, who has taken part in all three previous meetings between the P5+1 and Iran dating back to the last months of the administration of President George W. Bush.
“We’re not expecting any big breakthroughs, but we want to see a constructive process emerge that leads to Iran engaging with the international community in a credible process and engaging and addressing the international community’s concerns about its nuclear programme,” said State Department spokesman Mark Toner Thursday.
While he ruled out the possible lifting of existing sanctions against Iran, he also stressed that Washington was open to reviving the October 2009 proposal to swap most of Iran’s low-enriched uranium (LEU) stockpile in exchange for more highly enriched rods that are needed to fuel the Tehran Research Reactor (TRR), which produces medical isotopes.
See other good curtain raisers at the L.A. Times and McClatchy. And here’s Laura Rozen’s take on the first day at Politico.
]]>Others have [...]]]>
Others have also described Ross as more skeptical [than Mitchell] about the chances of peace, based on his decades-long experience with trying to bring together the parties.
I don’t want to get all new-agey, but if you think something is difficult or impossible to do, the chances of being able to do it are greatly diminished from the get-go.
So why does this Ross guy keep getting jobs that he doesn’t think are possible? I picked up Ross’ book off of my shelf here in D.C., and it amazed me how many times he says you cannot make any kind of deal with the Iranians. Then, Obama put him in charge of making a deal with the Iranians. Ross, we now learn, doubts that a peace deal can be reached in Israel-Palestine, and Obama gives him a job making peace in Israel-Palestine.
On the Middle Eastern conflict, Ross’s credentials for the job are impeccable. After all, he’s been involved in decades — decades! — of failed peace processes. Ross has worked at the Washington Institute (WINEP), an AIPAC-formed think tank, and also chaired the Jewish People Policy Institute (JPPI), an Israeli organization dedicated to “ensur(ing) the thriving of the Jewish People and the Jewish civilization.” (The organization seems to oppose intermarriage with racist-sounding statements like “cultural collectivity cannot survive in the long term without primary biological foundations of family and children.”)
Ross was thought responsible for crafting Obama’s presidential campaign AIPAC speech — yes, the one with the line about an “undivided” Jerusalem that would spike a peace deal if implemented. Ross later reiterated the notion of an undivided Jerusalem as a “fact” in an interview with the Jerusalem Post.
Ross was recently in the news following a secret but not-so-secret visit to the Middle East, which was fleshed out on Politico by Laura Rozen. Rozen was the reporter who carried a rather shocking anonymous allegation about Ross:
“[Ross] seems to be far more sensitive to [Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin] Netanyahu’s coalition politics than to U.S. interests,” one U.S. official told POLITICO Saturday. “And he doesn’t seem to understand that this has become bigger than Jerusalem but is rather about the credibility of this administration.”
In an update, Rozen carried NSC CoS Denis McDonough’s defense of Ross:
“The assertion is as false as it is offensive,” McDonough said Sunday by e-mail. ”Whoever said it has no idea what they are talking about. Dennis Ross’s many decades of service speak volumes about his commitment to this country and to our vital interests, and he is a critical part of the president’s team.”
But the new Forward article, as MJ Rosenberg points out, backs up the notion that Ross was extremely concerned with “advocat[ing]” for Israel. The source is none other than Israel-advocate extraordinaire Abe Foxman (who doesn’t negotiate on behalf of the U.S. government):
“Dennis is the closest thing you’ll find to a melitz yosher, as far as Israel is concerned,” said the Anti-Defamation League’s national director, Abraham Foxman, who used the ancient Hebrew term for ‘advocate.’”
Do you get the feeling that Ross advocated for Iran? Or, as the Forward article put it (with my strikethrough), has “strong ties to Israel” Iran? Guttman writes that Ross is considered to have a “reputation of being pro-Israeli.” As for Iran? Not quite: Ross’s Iran experience seems to boil down to heading United Against Nuclear Iran (UANI), a group that pushes for harsher, broad-based sanctions against Iran (despite a stated goal to not hurt ordinary Iranians) and that has criticized Obama’s policy of engagement. Ross left the gig, as with JPPI, when he took the job with the administration.
The group also launched an error-filled fear-mongering video (while Ross was still there; he appears in the video) and a campaign to get New York hotels to refuse to host Iranian president Mahmoud Ahmadinejad when he comes to town each year for the U.N. General Assembly, which hardly lays the groundwork for good diplomacy.
Oh, and about the Iran engagement designed by Ross: The administration’s approach has been questioned by several leading Iran experts. “It is unlikely that the resources and dedication needed for success was given to a policy that the administration expected to fail,” National Iranian American Council (NIAC) president Trita Parsi observed. In December, Ross publicly defended the administration against charges that engagement was less than sincere from the U.S. side. But it is Ross himself who has apparently long held a pessimistic outlook on engagement.
Ross’s 2007 book, “Statecraft: And How to Restore America’s Standing in the World“, is fascinating in light of where Ross has come from, and where he’s taken Iran policy. I was struck at a five-page section of the first chapter called “Neoconservatism vs. Neoliberalism,” in which Ross writes, “[Neoconservatism's] current standard-bearers — such as Richard Perle, David Frum, William Kristol, and Robert Kagan — are serious thinkers with a clear worldview,” (with my links).
Later, in several long sections about the run-up to George W. Bush’s Iraq war, Ross notes that Paul Wolfowitz was highly focused on Iraq before and after 9/11. He also mentions “political difficulties” in the push for war: “Once [Bush] realized there might be a domestic problem in acting against Iraq, his administration focused a great deal of energy and effort on mobilizing domestic support for military action.”
But Ross never acknowledges that some of his neoconservative “serious thinkers” — such as Kristol and his Weekly Standard magazine — were involved in the concerted campaign to mislead Americans in an effort to push the war… just as the same figures are pushing for an attack on Iran. Frum, who does seem capable of serious thinking, was the author of the “axis of evil” phrasing of Bush’s 2002 State of the Union address. The moniker included both Iraq and Iran, despite the fact that the latter was, until the speech, considered a potential ally in the fight against Al Qaeda. (Marsha Cohen chronicled an Israeli effort to squash the alliance, culminating in Frum’s contribution to the Bush speech.)
Ross never mentions that neocon Douglas Feith, a political appointee in the Pentagon’s Office of Special Plans (OSP), was responsible for cherry-picking intelligence about Iraq within the administration, and whose office was feeding cooked information to the public via Scooter Libby in Vice President Dick Cheney‘s office. Through Libby, the distorted information made its way into the hands of the Standard and sympathetic journalists like ideologue Judith Miller at the New York Times. In August of 2003, Jim Lobe wrote (with my links):
[K]ey personnel who worked in both NESA [the Pentagon's Near East and South Asia bureau] and OSP were part of a broader network of neo-conservative ideologues and activists who worked with other Bush political appointees scattered around the national-security bureaucracy to move the country to war, according to retired Lt Col Karen Kwiatkowski, who was assigned to NESA from May 2002 through February 2003. …
Other appointees who worked with… both offices included Michael Rubin, a Middle East specialist previously with the neo-conservative American Enterprise Institute (AEI); David Schenker, previously with the Washington Institute for Near East Policy (WINEP); Michael Makovsky; an expert on neo-con icon Winston Churchill and the younger brother of David Makovsky, a senior WINEP fellow and former executive editor of pro-Likud ‘Jerusalem Post’; and Chris Lehman, the brother of the John Lehman, a prominent neo-conservative who served as secretary of the navy under Ronald Reagan, according to Kwiatkowski.
Ross has personal experience with many OSP veterans, working with them at WINEP and signing hawkish reports on Iran authored by them.
During the 2008 presidential campaign, Ross was a member of a task force that delivered a hawkish report apparently co-authored by two veterans of OSP, Rubin and Michael Makovsky. (Ross reportedly recused himself as the presidential campaign came into full swing.) Lobe, noting Ross’s curious involvement, called the report a “roadmap to war with Iran,” and added, a year later, that the group that put out the report was accelerating the plan, calling for a military build-up and a naval blockade against Iran.
After taking his position within the Obama administration, Ross released a book, co-authored with David Makovsky, that was skeptical of the notion that engagement could work. Nathan Guttman, in a review of the book for the Forward, wrote:
The success of diplomatic engagement, according to Ross, is not guaranteed and could be unlikely. Still, he and Makovsky believe that negotiations will serve a purpose even if results are not satisfying. “By not trying, the U.S. and its refusal to talk become the issue,” said Makovsky in a June 1 interview with the Forward. “What we are saying is that if the U.S. chooses engagement, even if it fails, every other option will be more legitimate.”
The attitude of Ross and Makovsky seems closer to that of the Israeli government then to that of the Obama administration.
OSP, Feith, the Makovsky brothers, and Rubin are not listed in the index of “Statecraft,” nor have they appeared in the many sections that I’ve read in full.
In his book, Ross does have many revealing passages about concepts that have been worked into the Obama administration’s Iran policy. One such ploy, which has not been acknowledged or revealed publicly, is using Israel as the crazy ‘bad cop’ — a potentially dangerous game. Ross also writes that international pressure (through sanctions) must be made in order to cause Iran “pain.” Only then, thinks Ross, can concessions such as “economic, technological and security benefits” from the U.S. be offered:
Orchestrating this combination of sticks and carrots requires at this point some obviously adverse consequences for the Iranians first.
This view does not comport with the Obama plan for a simultaneous dual-track policy toward Iran — which holds that engagement and pressure should occur simultaneously — and serves to bolster critics who say that engagement has not been serious because meaningful concessions have not been offered. But it does hint at another tactic that Ross references at least twice in the book: the difference between “style” and “substance.” With regard to Iran, he presents this dichotomy in relation to public professions about the “military option” — a euphemism for launching a war. But publicly suppressing rhetoric is only used as a way to build international support for pressure — not also, as one might expect, a way to assuage the security fears of Iran.
But those aren’t the only ideas from the 2007 book that seem to have made their way into U.S. policy toward Iran. In “Statecraft,” Ross endorses the use of “more overt and inherently deniable alternatives to the use of force” for slowing Iran’s nuclear progress. In particular, he mentions the “fragility of centrifuges,” which is exactly what is being targeted by the Stuxnet virus, a powerful computer worm thought to be created by a state, likely Israel, and perhaps with help from the U.S., according to the latest revelations.
Some critics of this website complain that the level of attention given to neoconservatives is too great, but they should consider this: Look at Dennis Ross. He works extensively with this clique, and no doubt has the occasional drink or meeting with them. And, most importantly, he writes approvingly about neoconservatives, noting that their viewpoint affects political considerations of “any political leader.” Because of these neocon “considerations,” he writes, this is how we should view the Islamic Republic: “With Iran, there is a profound mistrust of the mullahs, and of their perceived deceit, their support for terror, and their enduring hostility to America and its friends in the Middle East. … No one will be keen to be portrayed as soft on the Iranian mullahs.”
This from the man that formulated a policy that has offered “adverse consequences” but so far no “carrots.” Ross’s predictions are a self-fulfilling prophecy — and since he gets the big appointments, he gets to fulfill them. Taking reviews of his book with Makovsky, the Bipartisan Policy Committee report, and “Statecraft” as a whole, I’m not at all surprised that little progress has been made with Iran.
But, at least, that was his first try. He’s a three-time-loser on Israeli-Palestinian peace-making. With Iran, I had to put the pieces together, whereas with the Israeli-Palestinian issue, his record is right there for all to see. Putting Ross in charge of peace-making between the two seems to perfectly fit Einstein’s definition of insanity.
]]>Arch-Islamophobe Frank Gaffney was booted from the Conservative Political Action Conference agenda. At Religion Dispatches, Sarah Posner spoke with Suhail Khan, a Muslim conservative and board member of the group that hosts the annual CPAC, who said:
“Frank has been [...]]]>
Arch-Islamophobe Frank Gaffney was booted from the Conservative Political Action Conference agenda. At Religion Dispatches, Sarah Posner spoke with Suhail Khan, a Muslim conservative and board member of the group that hosts the annual CPAC, who said:
“Frank has been frozen out of CPAC by his own hand, because of his antics. We need people who are credible on national security . . . but because of Frank’s just completely irresponsible assertions over the years, the organizers have decided to keep him out.” That, Khan added, is similar reaction to current and former members of Congress, including Bobby Jindal, Sen. Jon Kyl (R-AZ), and the late Henry Hyde, who distanced themselves from Gaffney.
The conservative shunning of Gaffney, said Khan, is not “because of any pressure from Muslim activists but because they didn’t want to be associated with a crazy bigot.”
Naturally, Gaffney, the president of the defense industry-funded Center for Security Policy (CSP), said it was all the doing of the Muslim Brotherhood. Posner:
Frank Gaffney, the Islamophobic activist bent on getting Congress to investigate “creeping shari’ah,” talked to the conspiracy web site World Net Daily, claiming “that CPAC has come under the influence of the Muslim Brotherhood, which is working to bring America under Saudi-style Shariah law.”
Gaffney has played this game of demagoguery about his critics before: When PBS delayed the airing of a documentary put together by Gaffney and requested editorial changes, he took the creative dispute public, charging that the Nation of Islam was taking over public broadcasting. (Don’t worry, the doc aired on Fox News.) He’s now, of course, brought his filmmaking prowess to the Clarion Fund, the well-funded producers of “Obsession,” and a forthcoming movie on Iran.
Gaffney’s CSP is involved in many efforts Islamophobic. The center’s COO, Christine Brim, has spoken at European far-right conferences as well as those of Pamela Geller.
CSP also released a report last year about ‘creeping sharia.’ But, as Matt Duss demonstrated at the Wonk Room, the authors didn’t bother to speak to any Muslims or Islamic scholars who might actually know something about Sharia. (Duss also noted the long, public record of Islamophobia from one of the report’s co-authors. One sample: “Islam was born in violence; it will die that way.”)
What substantiates Gaffney’s charge about ‘creeping sharia’ at CPAC is that CPAC is still hosting a panel on — you guessed it — ‘creeping sharia’! Ben Smith reports for Politico:
“The fact is that we will have a panel tentatively titled ‘Defining and Debating Shariah in America’ at this year’s CPAC moderated by Cliff May of the Foundation for Defense of Democracies,” emailed the American Conservative Union’s CPAC director Lisa DePasquale.
So the conservative fête retains its anti-Sharia credentials after all (despite, perhaps, Muslim Brotherhood infiltration). And FDD‘s Cliff May quietly takes a step up — and brings Gaffney down a notch — in the ongoing race to be America’s number one counter-Jihadi.
]]>Let’s get caught up with [...]]]>
Let’s get caught up with Iran: Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad sacked Manoucher Mottaki — widely seen as a political figure — on Monday in a surprise move. The outgoing FM, who had long been known to be at odds with Ahmadinejad, was quickly replaced in the interim by the now-former head of Iran’s nuclear agency, Ali Akbar Salehi. Salehi, who was partly educated at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT), is known as a technocrat.
Laura Rozen at Politico does Iranian “Kremlinology” with analysis from experts in D.C.. Trita Parsi told Rozen:
“The fact that Salehi, a longtime hand in the nuclear program, replaces [Mottaki] may indicate the nuclearization of Iranian foreign policy,” Iranian analyst Trita Parsi said. “While Mottaki was never central to the nuclear program, the person replacing him and taking over the entire foreign policy machine is a person that for decades has been instrumental to the program.”
“This may indicate, if not renewed seriousness on the part of the Iranians, at least a recognition that the parties recognize that they are close to crunch time and they are fielding their best players as a result,” he said.
I reached out to Iran expert and University of Hawaii professor Farideh Farhi, an expert on Iran’s byzantine politics, who told me both the sacking and the new hire remain a mystery to her. She emphasized that the appointment is an interim one, so Ahmadinejad could have simply put off a more controversial pick that would have aroused opposition in the Majles, or Iranian parliament. We don’t yet know, however, what the pick means for Ahmadinejad’s relationship with the Supreme Leader. Farhi (the links are mine):
Some people are speculating that it may have something to do with [this month's Iran-P5+1 talks in] Geneva and the portrayal of success by the negotiating team inside Iran, giving Ahamdinejad the confidence to do this. One other analyst in Tehran suggested that the presidential advisor [Esfandiar Rahim] Mashaie’s visit this week to Jordan and King Abdullah’s positive response to Ahamdinejad’s personal letter might have given Ahmadinejad motivation to do this. There is indeed a possibility that Ahmadinejad sacked Mottaki the same way he sacked Ali Larijani as nuclear negotiator, without prior approval from [Supreme Leader Ali] Khamenei. If this is the case then it bespeaks a confident Ahmadinejad since, as I mentioned above, it was merely a month or so ago that Khamenei supported Mottaki by name. If indeed Ahmadinejad did this without Khamenei’s prior approval, it means the game is not yet over.
It sounds like, once again, with Iran and the U.S. inching closer together, uncertainty will hang over the proceedings. If the U.S. comes through on hints, a confidence-building measure could be in the works, so the U.S. will likely be busy no matter what.
“Between now and January,” wrote Robert Dreyfuss on his Nation blog, “the United States is going to have to engage in some spirited, behind-the-scenes talks with Iran to make the negotiations work.” Dreyfuss noted, and focused on, that amid all the the action in Tehran, the U.S. seems to be ready to offer up a fuel swap agreement that, for the meantime, would allow centrifuges to keep spinning in Iran. It’s just the sort of “first step” deal, as Rozen noted, that Salehi hammered out with the Brazilians and Turks in the run-up to the last round of U.S. led UN Security Council sanctions.
Julian Border, at the Guardian, has a good piece covering the optimistic take on Salehi. Just after he pulls a few WikiLeaks docs to show several takes of Western diplomats on Salehi — he speaks good English and is a preferred interlocutor, but seems to not wield much influence in the halls of power — Border summed up the ever-ambiguous “Western diplomat” reaction:
Western diplomats, however, are generally cheered by the appointment because it might mean that their contacts with the foreign ministry will now have more substance. During the prolonged sparring between Mottaki and Ahmadinejad, the ministry increasingly became an empty shell, bypassed over major decisions, and irrelevant on the nuclear dossier.
Rozen, again, has a great observation, via Suzanne Maloney from the Brookings Institution, that Salehi is subject to an EU travel ban. Earlier, it had been reported that Salehi was named in the UN Security Council (UNSC) resolution, but apparently this was not right (though the agency which he formerly headed was). Had the UNSC bit turned out to be true, my reaction was that the move could be a provocation. Given that it’s only an EU ban and, as Rozen points out, it gets waived for higher-ups in foreign governments, I don’t really think so.
As I said, could it mean something for nuclear negotiations? Looks like we’ll have to wait for next month’s talks to find out.
Late-breaking: Inside Iran‘s Arash Aramesh has the take of a recent Iranian diplomatic defector. It’s worth checking out for the opinions of someone who was very recently, indeed, on the inside.
]]>Laura Rozen at Politico reports:
“We have had nearly two days of detailed substantive talks focusing on the Iranian nuclear program and the need for Iran to comply with its international obligations,” European Union High Representative for Foreign Policy Catherine Ashton said in a statement Tuesday at the conclusion of the talks between diplomats from the United States, Britain, France, Germany, China, Russia and Iran.
“We and Iran agreed to a continuation of these talks in late January in Istanbul, where we plan to discuss practical ideas and ways of cooperating towards a resolution of our core concerns about the nuclear issue,” Ashton concluded, walking out without taking any questions from journalists.
Bob Dreyfuss of the Nation offers a good analysis of the talks so far and what to expect going forward. He also comments on a letter sent to President Obama by five Senators (Casey, Gillibrand, Kirk, Kyle and Lieberman), insisting the United States must not negotiate any agreement that would result in uranium enrichment on Iranian soil. The Iranians are sure to reject such a pre-condition.
Dreyfuss writes:
Although the first two days of talks this week didn’t accomplish much, it’s critically important that the talks are happening, and both Iran and the United States are making positive noises about them. Iran, for its part, after saying all along that it wouldn’t even discuss its nuclear program, did exactly that, and the two sides have agreed to continue talking and to meet again, possibly as soon as January, in Turkey. The choice of Turkey is a particulary good sign, since the Turks had repeatedly offered their good offices as mediators in the dispute, and last spring Brazil and Turkey tried to restart the talks by working out an updated version of the October 2009 deal that later fell apart.
As for what’s next, Dreyfuss reports that “insiders” tell him a fuel swap deal might be in the works as a “confidence-building measure.” The deal could allow Iran to maintain enrichment, with the fuel shipped off to Russia for reprocessing. Perhaps this is what inspired the Senators’ ‘zero enrichment’ letter.
All this comports with Secretary of State Hillary Clinton’s recent comments in Bahrain (in the presence of Iran’s foreign minister, no less) that the U.S. recognizes Iran’s “right to a peaceful nuclear program,” and an interview just ahead of those conference remarks where she said, “They can enrich uranium at some future date once they have demonstrated that they can do so in a responsible manner in accordance with international obligations.” (Note that the BBC version of this comment has Clinton using slightly different language.)
Stay tuned…
]]>ECI, the partisan “pro-Israel” group set up by Bill Kristol, Gary Bauer and Rachel Abrams (wife of Elliott), [...]]]>
ECI, the partisan “pro-Israel” group set up by Bill Kristol, Gary Bauer and Rachel Abrams (wife of Elliott), sent a letter to Senators Chuck Schumer (D-NY) and Carl Levin (D-MI), slapping them on the wrists for asking AIPAC to take a public stance on the New START treaty (for it).
Several Jewish groups recently came out in favor of New START because they think a rocky U.S.-Russia relationship is bad for putting pressure on Iran. According to Laura Rozen at Politico, AIPAC has even reportedly been pushing for the treaty behind closed doors (with Republicans, and maybe even successfully).
But ECI, which was birthed at Sarah Palin advisor Randy Scheunemann‘s shop, says that for Schumer and Levin to ask AIPAC to go public with their support of New START is “unSenator-like conduct” — “public bullying,” as the ECI directors put it in the letter.
Jennifer Rubin, the neoconservative blogger who just moved from Commentary — where she worked with now-ECI director Noah Pollak — to the Washington Post, wrote from her new perch that Kristol, Bauer and Abrams “would no doubt claim, the actions of these two senators…would set a dangerous precedent.”
First of all, I’m not exactly sure it’s even sure it’s “unSenator-like conduct.” Aren’t politicians supposed to play politics to make what they think is good public policy?
Secondly, don’t you wonder what a pro-Israel group is doing defending its turf against the evils of the New START if it’s “a matter far outside its expertise and area of concern,” as ECI put it?
Well, the letter has a hedge that says, “needless to say, the Emergency Committee for Israel takes no position” on New START. But, hey, why is the Emergency Committee for Israel weighing in on Senate ethics?
Furthermore, the notion that AIPAC — or other Jewish or Israel lobby groups — shouldn’t support Congressional action (in this case, Senate ratification of a treaty) is ridiculous. For years, groups like the Anti-Defamation League (ADL) and the American Jewish Committee (AJC) worked against Congressional resolutions recognizing the Armenian genocide because Turkey was considered a strategic ally of Israel (the support ended when the relationship went icy over the Gaza War of Winter 2008/09).
It’s not as if the legitimacy of the Armenian genocide is exactly within the scope of “pro-Israel” activity. But, before the Israeli-Turkish alliance fell apart, a happy Turkey was good for Israel. Just like how the Anti-Defamation League (ADL) supports New START because a happy Russia makes it easier to confront the “Iranian nuclear threat.”
AIPAC and other Jewish groups also joined the Greek lobby to support a Congressional resolution about Cyprus (also to stick it to Turkey). So this really is business as usual for Israel lobby groups — they play geopolitics in ways they think will be good for Israel.
The mysterious part is why ECI felt compelled to jump into this at all. Was it to protect the purity of “pro-Israel” advocacy? A partisan shot against two powerful Democrats to pry AIPAC away from them? Or could it be because the faltering opposition to New START (which the, needless to say, don’t oppose)? Or was it just to weaken Obama to make room for anti-START Sarah Palin (who was pushed onto the national stage by Kristol)?
What’s funny — though predictable — is the charge of “public bullying” from a group that employs the likes of Kristol, Bauer, Abrams, Pollak and another Scheunemann employee, Michael Goldfarb.
]]>In our IPS piece, Jim Lobe and I quoted much of this portion of Sick’s blogged reactions to the lastest WikiLeaks document dump:
[...]]]>In our IPS piece, Jim Lobe and I quoted much of this portion of Sick’s blogged reactions to the lastest WikiLeaks document dump:
The US undertook its engagement strategy with Iran with the clear conviction that it would fail. At the same time, it was preparing (and disseminating in private) an alternative pressure strategy. This is the most serious indictment of all.
According to the record, the Obama administration was briefing allies almost from the start — and before Iran had even had a chance to respond to offers of engagement — that we expected this initiative to fail and that we were actively preparing the pressure track that would immediately follow.
Iran could hardly have been unaware of all this, so the chance that they would respond favorably — even before the contested election in June 2009 and the brutal crackdown that followed — was essentially zero. The only conclusion I can draw from this is that Obama was never sincere about his engagement strategy. It has yet to be tried.
We also drew on comments by Trita Parsi e-mailed to Politico reporter Laura Rozen, whose entire post of reactions to the document dump is worth checking out. Parsi, the National Iranian American Council president who’s currently at D.C.’s Woodrow Wilson Center, says the fall-out from the dump, particularly the revelations about some Arab leaders’ over-heated rhetoric “doesn’t significantly change realities on the ground, [but] does exacerbate an already dire situation.”
Parsi sees stark choices ahead for the Obama administration in dealing with Iran:
]]>Finally, Washington has some tough decisions to make. The cables reveal that even though Obama came in with a strong vision for engagement, that vision has since inauguration day 2009 been compromised for several reasons, including opposition from some Arab states, France and Israel as well as the actions of Tehran. In the end engagement was pursued, but with the expectation it would fail. It is unlikely that the resources and dedication needed for success was given to a policy that the administration expected to fail. The choice now is between trying diplomacy in earnest or prepare for the confrontation that inevitably will come if the current trajectory of tensions prevail.