One Person, One Vote, One Time

An interesting thing I've noticed is that with Erdogan and Turkey's AK party, with Maliki's electoral list in Iraq and with Hamas and Hezbollah is that Islamists actually make pretty effective participants in democratic electoral systems when they are allowed to compete on more or less fair terms.

I repeatedly read and hear that Islamists want one person, one vote, one time. That supposedly means Islamists will overturn democratic institutions if they ever come to power. But now an actual track record is being established. Islamists have a far better record than pro-Western anti-Islamist political groups.

I can think of several elections cancelled by Western or pro-Western groups to prevent Islamists from coming to power but I cannot think of an election that has been cancelled by Islamists anywhere to prevent pro-Western groups from coming to power.

One recent example is that Juan Cole reported last summer that the US postponed provincial elections in Iraq for fear that Sadr would do too well there.

I was told by an American official who had been in Baghdad that Iraqi provincial elections had been postponed because there are indications that Muqtada al-Sadr's movement is growing in popularity in the Shiite south and his lists might sweep to power.

I guess "one person, one vote, one time" has been the West projecting its own disdain for democracy onto the Islamists all along.

Veneer of Constitutionality

Do I get angry, do I just shake my head at this from the Financial Times?

Gen Musharraf insisted on Saturday that he would not impose a state of emergency, a move that would further undermine the veneer of constitutionality that Washington and London require from him.

The anger eventually subsides at the matter-of-factness with with the Financial Times describes the colonial relationship Musharaff has with Washington and London. Then I'm left with the question of whether or not Washington has calculated that Musharraf ruling under a state of emergency is tangibly worse for US interests than his removal from power.

My best guess is that this is a dance. Of course the US would rather see Musharraf impose a state of emergency than lose power. We are not yet at the point where those are the exclusive alternatives and it is not clear that imposing a state of emergency would effectively prevent Musharraf's removal from power, but if it was a choice either/or, the US would certainly pressure Musharraf to impose the state of emergency.

So who is the dance for?

Who is impressed by this claim that Washington and London "require" a "veneer of constitutionality" from Pakistan's dictator?

My guess for that is this is part of the willful self-delusion of a lot of Westerners in dealings with the post-colonized world. It is particularly striking in issues involving the Middle East but it is present elsewhere as well.

Edit: I hope I was clear that reading that Washington and London require "a veneer of constitutionality" but not fair elections from a pro-Western (I won't say puppet because the term is overused, but ... ) dictator - especially when this tidbit was presented in such an off-hand way, was shocking to me and made me wonder for a second if the year was 1807 or 2007. I'm angry that Washington and London are in a position to require anything from Pakistan's dictator. Fortunately, as is pointed out in a comment, the imperial prerogative of Washington and London has been substantially weakened, while not ended by the last five years or so of really counter-productive policies (from Washington and London's point of view).

Arguments against Western Hostility Towards Iran

Article in Znet
PDF at CampaignIran.org

Here, we examine and debunk the common myths and charges against Iran and provide a list of twenty reasons to oppose sanctions and military intervention in Iran. The Campaign Against Sanctions and Military Intervention in Iran (CASMII) calls for immediate and direct negotiations between the US and Iran without any pre-conditions in order to avert a new even more horrifying catastrophe in the Middle East.

This is an excellent article. When I find an article that looks like I could have written it, if I had the time or inclination, I have to link to it so that I can find it later.

I'll add a tiny bit about what is on offer with regard to negotiations. The US position is that it cannot begin negotiations until Iran commits to suspend enrichment. From the US point of view, this precondition could serve only one purpose: It has to be the case that the US does not believe Iran would willingly trade enrichment for what the US is willing to offer in terms of trade incentives or security guarantees.

If the US believed it had an offer that either Iranians could accept or that any constituency of Iranians would consider good, the US would release details of that offer and either the Iranians would accept the offer and stop enrichment or those in Iran's government that reject the offer would face pressure from the Iranian people, for example in the next elections.

It has been a year since the US has offered to come to the table to negotiate after Iran suspends enrichment. If there was an offer to be made, it would have been made a year or maybe six months ago, and Iran would have suspended then.

An illustration might be if I was to walk into a clothing store and ask for a suit, but I won't tell exactly what I am willing to pay for it now, but if I wear it out, I'll call from home to negotiate a price. Of course, once the store has made a commitment to sell me the suit without knowing what I'm willing to offer, when I do make an offer it will be minimal.

Recently US diplomats have said the US is willing to suspend sanctions while Iran suspends enrichment and after six months, Iran would be able to resume enrichment and sanctions would resume. Iran already knows what is on offer is minimal, the only impact of a six month suspension would be six months of delayed progress on its program plus the costs of stopping and restarting.

The US is only willing to make limited concessions over the enrichment issue because the US concessions are the only leverage the US has to pressure Iran to be more accepting of Israel. If the US was to normalize trade with Iran in exchange for a suspension of enrichment, Iran would have more resources to use to support Hamas and Hezbollah. Iran's support for Hamas, Hezbollah, and anti-Israel Palestinians and Muslims generally, is the core of the US dispute with Iran.

Where we are left is that the US has been much more successful than I expected in expanding its sanctions against Iran slightly beyond Iran's nuclear program but no where near successful enough to persuade any segment of Iran's political leadership or society to abandon enrichment.

This equilibrium will continue until Iraq becomes unbearably expensive for the US and Iran offers to turn down the temperature in Iraq in exchange for relaxing US pressure on European and Asian countries' trade with Iran.

I still consider military strikes on Iran - outside of support for terrorist operations on Iran's periphery which are happening now - to be vanishingly unlikely.

Interesting Article About Europe and Iran

From the National Interest (found via Google News)

Some Europeans that I have spoken with privately feel that, for the next two years or so, Europe can afford to continue to support Iran’s economic isolation, but that, starting in the next decade, growing pressures to secure new supplies of energy will lead more European firms to begin investing in Iran to ensure that, by the 2020s, the infrastructure is in place for large-scale Iranian shipments of gas to Europe.

I pressed my interlocutors further—was this is a case of advising, "Whatever you do, do it quickly"—meaning that if the United States were to pursue forcible regime change the preference would be to do it sooner? They demurred. But the underlying impression I received was that, say, by 2011 or 2013, large-scale European investment in Iran will begin no matter whether it is still the Islamic Republic or some other form of government—and that Washington is faced with two clocks counting down with regard to its freedom of action vis-à-vis Tehran.

Iran is in a fairly strong position right now. If sanctions are increased, they will hurt the Iranian people, but they will not hurt the regime in Tehran, they are much more likely to strengthen it. A military attack can accomplish military aims, but they will have the political consequence of strengthening the Iranian regime and weakening the US' regional position.

If this article is correct, and pressure on Europe to deal with Iran will increase dramatically in the medium term, then Iran is likely to wait the US out until that time.

Three Mistakes

Three of my predictions on this site have been proven wrong. I want to look at them more closely.

1 - I predicted that in Lebanon, the government would lurch against the US without any attempt by Hezbollah to overturn it.

2 - I predicted that sanctions against Iran would stay limited to enrichment

3 - I expected Iran to hold the British sailors for a long period of confrontation, maybe turning them over to a post-Blair government after negotiations

As to the first prediction, polls show that the population certainly did lurch against the West after the 2006 summer war. The politicians didn't follow the population. This mistake is the result of a lack of understanding on my part, at the time, that politicians in small countries can be and often really are more beholden to the embassies of rich countries like the US than they are to their own constituents. My political instincts are not set for politics in countries like Lebanon, or at least they were not.

On the second prediction, Condoleeza Rice outperformed my expectations. A lot of pressure has been put onto China and Russia and they have gone along. Colin Powell said last year that the amount of pressure the Security Council would be willing to put on Iran is something Iran is willing to tolerate rather than give up on enrichment. I still think Powell was right but the amount of pressure the Security Council is willing to bring is more than I thought - though it is still far less than what would be required to get a suspension. I actually don't think Hussein/Iraq-level sanctions would get a suspension. But my prediction had been wrong. I think China was told that this vote was necessary for Korea's assets to be unfrozen and Russia is told that this vote is tied to missile defense in Europe. Both of these are higher priorities for their respective countries than the principle that the NPT is to be applied in a non-discriminatory manner.

The third prediction, Iran released the sailors. I think this is a reflection of current Iranian thinking on the first hostage crisis in 1979-80. If that crisis had ended this way, the US would still be hostile to Iran, but the trauma the US faced has been used to rally Americans against Iran where otherwise some of those Americans wouldn't have really cared. The US would still be hostile, because Iran is hostile to Israel, but the US would be less hostile because Israel's proponents would not have the crisis as a talking point.

While the first hostage crisis was an extreme statement against the US, it really didn't help Iran in the long run. I think Iran's leadership changed its view of that crisis before I did. Leading to a wrong prediction on my part.

Maybe I've made other predictions that have turned out wrong. So far the one prediction I am most proud of is that in October 2006, reading a speech by the Saudi Ambassador to the US, I predicted that by October 2007 the Saudis would sound and act a lot more like the Iranians with respect to Israel and the United States.

US-Turkey Alliance on the Way Out

When asked by a local reporter about Mr Barzani and Turkey’s alliance with the US, the general said: "He [Mr Barzani] is at a very low level and I look to the one who enables him to speak so, who enables the division of Iraq, which is the greatest threat to the region."

Do the Americans not understand how serious this is?

For the long term, the key situation in Iraq is the quasi-separatist movements of the Kurds and Badr/Shiites.

The only way the US can keep bases in Iraq is by allying with parties that want to split the country. Even the US expert class does not seem to acknowledge what everyone else in the region sees: The US either actively wants to break up the country or is unwilling to take steps to prevent it.

Turkey does not want this. Iran does not want this. Saudi Arabia does not want this. Iraq's nationalists, who probably are a majority in Iraq - Sadr's Shiites and other nationalist Shiites plus the Sunnis - do not want this.

Nobody in the US, including the experts, is willing to make the following statement:

"We would prefer a unified Iraq that is hostile to the US to a divided Iraq where the US can get temporary advantages by playing behind rivalries".

Everybody in the region except the US is emphatically eager to make that statement.

The US refusal to issue a withdrawal schedule or to commit to a full evacuation of US troops from the country is related to the US not being willing to accept a united Iraq that is hostile to the US.

That makes sense. The United States didn't invade Iraq because of personal animus against Hussein, it invaded because it did not want to tolerate a hostile Iraq.

The problem is that the costs of a non-hostile Iraq are clearer now and the cost is very high. The costs are, at minimum, civil war and increased sectarian violence between Shiites and Sunnis (and not just in Iraq) as well as Kurdish independence and support for Kurdish secessionists in Turkey, Iran and Syria.

The United States, by its actions demonstrates that it is willing to pay those costs. Nobody else in the region except Israel thinks it is worth it.

The US alliance with Saudi Arabia has, as far as I can see, been broken over this issue. Recently there have been none of the anti-Iranian official statements or actions from the Saudis that were routine one or two years ago.

The US alliance with Turkey has reached the point where it has not yet broken but it is not sustainable unless the US changes priorities in Iraq.

By changing priorities I mean the US must admit defeat in its project of attempting to make Iraq non-hostile to US interests by force. The longer the US waits to admit defeat, the more hostile Iraq will be toward US interests when it eventually stabilizes.

As things are going, the alliance with Turkey will not survive until the end of the Bush presidency.

Saudis Go Wild

Earlier I wrote that Iran calculated that either the Saudis, Egypt or Jordan would flip and join the anti-American grouping.

The Saudis are now officially outside of the pro-US regional axis.

When the Saudis pressured Abbas to give in to Hamas on forming a unity government without Hamas making the concessions the US wanted, I thought that was a clear step away from US influence but not yet conclusive.

When the Saudi King held hands with Ahmadinejad at the airport in Riyadh, I chuckled to myself about how much has been made about supposed secret meetings between Olmert and some unnamed Saudi royal - that the Saudi deny, and how much less is made about the King of Saudi Arabia taking pictures with Ahmadinejad on a state visit. But still not conclusive.

Yesterday the Saudis both invited Iran to the Arab league and called the US occupation of Iraq illegitimate. Clear step but not yet conclusive.

Today I read:

Saudi Arabia endorses Iran's AL observer membership

Saudi Arabia's Foreign Minister Prince Saud al-Faisal has voiced his country's support for approving Iran's request for observer status in the Arab League.

Faisal made the remark Thursday in a meeting with his Iranian counterpart Manuchehr Mottaki on the sidelines of an Arab summit in the Saudi capital, Riyadh, where the two sides discussed the latest developments in the region and the Islamic world.

"Given the importance and key role of the Islamic Republic of Iran and in order to further strengthen cooperation between Tehran and the Arab League, we voice our full support for Iran's membership in the League with observer status," he said.

That's it. The Saudis are no longer a US ally in the Middle East.

I still don't like the Saudis. I still wish they would hold elections and be representative of the wishes of their people. On the other hand, I'm sure cutting the US off aligns Saudi foreign policy closer to what it would be under a democracy.

The mysterious Indian vessel

Sailing under an Indian flag?

Iranian forces seized the Britons, 14 men and Seaman Turney, last Friday, claiming they were operating in Iran’s territorial waters when they boarded a vessel sailing under an Indian flag to check for smuggling. British officials vehemently denied that their forces had strayed from Iraqi waters, and demanded the immediate return of the crew members.

I've read this a half dozen times - sailing under an Indian flag.

That is the only information about the vessel that the British are releasing. The important information was not whose flag the vessel was flying under, but whether it was going to Iran or to Iraq.

I'm assuming it was either going to or coming from Iran because otherwise it would be referred to as a vessel sailing to or from Iraq under an Indian flag.

Stopping a vessel trading with Iran in disputed waters is a lot more provocative than stopping one trading with Iraq.

The Enrichment Conflict from Iran's Point of View

Here are a couple of points Iran has made and maybe some points Iran has not said but that I figure Iran believes.

1 - The West's offer of technology and negotiations if Iran suspends enrichment is not a good deal.

First, there is almost no offer of technology. The technology Iran would get for suspending enrichment is civilian airline spare parts. Iran currently buys these used but would have access to new parts if it suspends enrichment.

The other technology, the power plants and the reduced restrictions on technology transfers would not come from suspension. If Iran suspends enrichment it would be entitled to enter talks about these other things. Would the terms be concessionary, market or above-market? Europe won't say. That means above market. If they were concessionary Iran would not consider that a fair trade for giving up domestic uranium enrichment. But an offer of talks about technology is not an offer of technology.

Second, once Iran suspends enrichment, Europe and the US have gotten what they want. There is no reason for talks to ever end at that point. If Iran suspends enrichment for talks, and talks cannot end until the US agrees, then the US has a permanent effective veto on Iranian enrichment.

The terms of the talks the UN is trying to impose on Iran explicitly give the US a permanent veto on Iranian enrichment. Even if they did not, if enrichment must be suspended for the duration of talks there is a de-facto veto anyway. As explained earlier, the compensation Iran gets for permanently allowing the US to prevent enrichment is spare parts for civilian aircraft.

Talks could then begin about other trades, but any further concessions from the West would not be compensation for giving up enrichment but for Iran accepting further demands from Europe and the US.

2 - Iran cannot trust foreign fuel suppliers.

The United States has pressured both Russia and China expand sanctions beyond enrichment. It has pressured Russia to stop construction at Bushehr and cancel fuel delivery. Other than fuel under Iran's control, there is no way Iran can have a guaranteed supply in the face of US pressure.

I think the most likely explanation is that Russia's fuel was tied to the missile defense system in Europe and cooperation with Korea was tied to Iran in China's case. Either way while there were no Iranian voices that advocated giving the US a veto over enrichment before, there are even fewer now.

3 - There is no silent anti-clerical majority in Iran.

The Iranian regime is relatively popular and relatively stable. You can find Iranian expatriots in the US who speak negatively about Ahmadinejad, you will even find them if you travel to Tehran. That is analogous to the Americans in Europe, or the Middle East who have nothing good to say about Bush - and you can even find them in Washington and New York.

According to the one poll I have seen that has addressed this question, more Iranians think their government is not religious enough than think it is too religious.

All of the foreign policies that the US dislikes in Iran are popular policies. The vast majority of Iranians believe Israel is not legitimate, and that Hamas and Hezbollah deserve support. The vast majority of Iranians believe Iran should have a military and economy that would make it at least a powerful as its neighbors. The majority of Iranians believe Iran should have a full domestic fuel cycle and even that Iran should be nuclear-weapons capable.

4 - Iran can win a confrontation with the West.

Iran sees its regime as infinitely more stable, and more structurally sound than Hussein's regime. Hussein's regime survived the most extensive bombing campaign ever launched and was only removed by a full scale invasion.

A full scale invasion of Iran is widely acknowledged to be impossible for the US to even consider. If Iraq had gone much better and was now able to play the role for the invasion of Iran that Kuwait played for the invasion of Iraq, a full scale invasion of Iran would still be beyond the capabilities of the US.

What is left is airstrikes, which will enrage Iran's population, and drive them to support their leaders, and sanctions which force the government to take a more central role in distribution of basic survival needs, thereby again strengthening the regime.

The cost of these is that Iran will retaliate against and destabilize US and European assets in the Middle East, at least.

Iran believes that Europe will decide that the cost of confrontation is greater than the gain of Iran giving up enrichment, given that Iran is willing to accept all of the safeguards Brazil, Taiwan, South Korea and Romania accept - each country named has been proven to have had an extensive nuclear weapons program, and is now theoretically nuclear capable, but now not pursuing nuclear weapons even though they all could if they were to perceive an emergency.

5 - Confrontation may be good for Iran.

Iran looks at the 8-year war with Iraq as a harsh test that Iran survived. Even if a new confrontation is harsher on Iran than the 8-year war was, Iran is stronger now than it was when the war started.

The war also radicalized Iran's population. It created the Ahmadinejad generation. Ahmadinejad is not a cleric, but an engineer who was radicalized in college and who stayed radical at least partly because of the war.

A confrontation will radicalize Iran's current young generation and keep them radical. A confrontation, though Iran's government must appear to be making at least token efforts to avoid it, is the best guarantee that there will be a new Ahmadinejad generation. This is as true for sanctions is it is for an invasion.

Hezbollah's survival of the summer war of 2006 is another source of pressure on Iran. Iran perceives itself as the parent of Hezbollah. If Hezbollah survived a month of bombing and a blockade and unlimited security council resolutions and sanctions, it would be a humiliation for Hezbollah's father, the regime of Iran, to succumb to those same tactics.

7 - In the end, Iran will be nuclear capable.

Iran will continue working on centrifuges and enrichment in protected parts of the country, still unknown to the West and will amass the knowledge of designing parts and coordinating their use over the next ten or fifteen years even after Natanz and Bushehr are bombed.

Iran is willing to hunker down and become a country whose only products are subsistance goods and services and its nuclear program. After it becomes nuclear capable, Iran will "surrender" and end any sanctions and confrontation as an irreversibly nuclear-capable power - the way North Korea can give up its weapons but can never again be nuclear-incapable. Then with its population, geography and resources it will catch up economically.

Regime change will be less likely then than it is now, Iran's government will be as stable and popular as it is now. Hussein's government did not become less popular because of the sanctions.


To conclude, stopping Iran from actually building a weapon is easy. Stopping Iran from becoming capable of building a weapon is hard. Slowing Iran's program by five years, pushing the day Iran reaches Brazil's level of nuclear capability to 15 years instead of 10 is possible, at a high cost to the US and to the Iranian people, but low cost to the Iranian regime.

The next generation of Iranian leaders - the generation that grows up through the confrontation that they will inevitably blame, correctly, on the US, Europe and Israel - will have nuclear capability, a decent economy and a major grudge whose consequences will have to be faced by the next generation of Americans, Europeans and Israelis.

The cost of Israel

Americans really have a difficult time getting their heads around the cost of Israel. Americans are people of the book. anti-Americanism in the Middle East is nearly entirely built from first and second order anti-Zionism.

First order in that anti-Americanism is fueled by the spectacle of America starving Palestinians because they didn't vote to accept Israel's right to exist - which in the Middle East means Israel's right to deny justice to the refugees and by Rice claiming Israel's bombing civilians are birth pangs for something good.

Second order in that anti-Americanism is fueled by US support for some of the most vicious dictatorships on Earth. Why would the US not support democratic movements in Egypt, Saudi Arabia and Jordan? Because democratic governments in those states would not accept Israel's right to deny what their populations see as justice to the Palestinian refugees. (By the way, the myth of a pro-US silent majority in Iran is belied by polls that say most Iranian agree that Israel is not a legitimate state and that Iran should be a major regional power.)

Other than Israel the US does not have any major dispute with any Middle East power or population. The United States does not like the idea of women being forced to wear veils, but female genital mutilation in other places has never risen to the level of geo-strategic competition. The dispute that sets the West against the Middle East has one and only one source: Israel.

Cheney could have a pro-US government in Iraq in twenty seconds, but he would have to abandon Israel. The US abandoning Israel would leave the Saudis and even Bin Laden with no compunction against hosting US troops.

As it is, a stable pro-US government in Iraq or anywhere in the Middle East with even a hint of democracy is impossible regardless of the amount of force applied because and only because of the US relationship with Israel.

Interestingly, it does not seem to be the case that Americans acknowledge the cost of Israel and believe it is worth it. Americans seem to block from their minds the idea that Israel is as expensive to US interests as it is.

Paragraphs I Feel Like Writing

Not every thought on the Middle East merits an entire post.

***

As'ad AbuKhalil of Angry Arab once said that the summer 2006 war in Lebanon is better thought of as a continuation of Israel's continuous state of war with the Arab world since its inception in 1948 than as an isolated conflict. Fighting became more continuous in 1948, but the war was actually declared in 1895 when Herzl, and the European Jews Herzl represented, declared that a territory that they knew at the time to be over 95% Arab would be a Jewish homeland regardless of the wishes of the inhabitants. The Zionist War was declared in 1895 and low level fighting had begun by at latest 1935. AbuKhalil is right that the 2006 conflict is part of the Zionist War, but the starting date of that war was not really 1948. [Note: If I ever expand this to an entire post, I'll make sure Herzl's declaration was really 1895 and not 1894 or 1896.]

***

I am really annoyed that Abbas of Palestine is rejecting Hamas proposals himself. Why should he not present these proposals to Europe and have them reject them officially, then go back to Hamas? Why should he not force the leaders of Egypt, Saudi Arabia and Jordan to publicly say, for example, that a Hudna is not acceptable, instead of Abbas saying it for them. I am happy that Abbas does not seem inclined to militarily confront Hamas at least for now. I am disappointed that he would rather be a spokesperson for Israel confronting Hamas than be a spokesperson for Hamas confronting Israel.

I mean Hamas, you know, won the election. I should say Abbas is a spokesperson for Israel confronting the Palestinian people rather than a spokeperson for the Palestinian people confronting Israel. Abbas could be worse, and throughout history traitors worse than Abbas are far from unusual, but I still find him very disapointing in this issue.

***

Guerillas, insurgents and militias in Iraq could have a lot more shoulder fired ground to air missiles than they do. Iran produces these missiles domestically. I can think of three helicopter downings since 2003. If the US really wants a confrontation with Iran, we will certainly be seeing three downings a month by summer 2008. US voters would not tolerate that and the US would be out Saigon style by March 2009. From the US point of view, it would be much better to talk it out.

***

In 2003, I thought it was immoral for the US to invade Iraq, and cause the damage to civilians that is inevitable in such an invasion when the aim of the invasion was indirectly to make the Middle East more safe for Zionism. Today, I still think it was immoral. I still think the purpose of the war was to directly eliminate a threat to Israel and indirectly to ensure that Iraq does not threaten the pro-US authoritarian governments that are relatively non-hostile to Israel.

Specifically in the case of Saudi Arabia, a nationalist government could still sell oil to the US, and could well still have closer ties with the US than anyone else. But it could not refrain from funding Hamas and other Palestinian groups and could not even tacitly ally with Israel.

But now I see that the best reason not to invade was that it can't work. I didn't realize that then. A hostile population is very difficult to put under a friendly government by force. It becomes impossible if the country has neighbors like Iran and Syria that are willing to help the population fight back. If I had known in 2003 that defeat for the US in Iraq was inevitable, I still would have opposed the invasion.

***

A major reason democracy is an advance is that a group that becomes more powerful than its rivals has a non-violent way of attaining control of government - and does not have to wage a war that it probably could win.

When pro-Iran elements won the elections - even though Iraq was under direct US occupation and the US was flooding Iraq's electoral system with money, free television and other resources - the whole point of democracy is that now the pro-Iran elements don't have wage the war they probably could win.

America is now saying it wants to fight the pro-Iran elements even after the pro-Iran elements won the elections. That defeats the entire purpose of elections, and the pro-Iran elements are probably (definitely) going to win anyway, just like they won the elections.

Somebody should teach the United States about democracy. It sounds ironic but it is not a joke. US ideals about democracy are consistently put to the test in the Middle East and the US consistently, not just Bush but consistently for over 50 years, demonstrates that it does not understand or accept the theoretical underpinnings or consequences of democracy.

Middle East Goings On, and the Honesty of Robert Gates

There is not much new happening in the Middle East right now.

Lebanon is at a stalemate until the next elections, whenever those are. There will be no governmental moves until then against either Syria through the Hariri tribunal or against Hezbollah through a disarmament policy. Hezbollah apparently feels comfortable waiting for elections if it has to. If Israel is smart it will not launch a new war this summer that would certainly immediately topple Saniora. There also will not be sonic booms over Lebanese territories. The cluster bombs were a mistake that are going to give Hezbollah a constant stream of martyrs from now until the elections, whenever they are.

Palestine is at a stalemate. I am very pleased that Abbas has not escalated a civil war. Dahlan talks as if he would have done so by now. I never thought much of Abbas but as obsequious as he is, there are limits. The presidential elections are scheduled for before the next parliamentary elections. Israel needs for the elections to be at least at the same time. We'll see how he handles that later, but for now things are essentially quiet.

Syria is also at a stalemate. All the pressure the US can bring to bear on the country has already been brought. The recent release of terms for peace with Israel was designed to embarrass both sides and did so.

Pro-US Arabs are trying desperately for at least the appearance of movement on the Palestinian issue. They are not getting it. Abbas isn't playing along as well as they wanted him to.

Internally Iran has moved against Ahmadinejad - and may actually be preparing to sacrifice him to tone down tensions with Europe. Iran has so far acted very cleverly, and while it will not give up enrichment or Iraq (more later) if Ahmadinejad the personality is important to Europe, Iran will sack him in exchange for concessions on trade relations.

Iraq - right now is quiet, but the US looks like its planning fireworks there. Here is where Robert Gates comes closer to brutal honesty than any American leader speaking on Iraq has done publicly so far.

In meetings late Wednesday with King Abdullah of Saudi Arabia, Mr. Gates said the United States viewed Iraq, despite the close ties between some in its Shiite-dominated government and Shiite Iran, as a bulwark against Tehran, said a senior Defense Department official.

“Our Arab friends tend to see Iraq in the context of the new challenge from Iran,” the official said. “That’s clearly the Saudi perspective. So the secretary was able to reassure them that we want an Iraq that is a barrier against Iranian expansionism.”

Another quote.

So the opportunity is there for engagement, but I would say that the initiative needs to rest with the Iranians and we are simply trying to communicate to the region that we're going to be there for a long time.

Of course the problem is that Iraq's citizens voted directly, all of its leaders speak. It is crystal clear that Iraq does not want to be either a barrier against Iran or for US to have a strong military position there for a long time.

The Saudis do want the US there for a long time. The reason is that the Saudis nearly completely deny political power to the millions of Shiites who live in Saudi Arabia in its oil producing region. A direct link of Saudi Shiites to Iraq's pro-Iranian Shiites is the biggest possible risk that country can face. It is a risk comparable to the risk of an independent Kurdistan to Turkey.

Jordan is in a similar situation that its powerless and oppressed citizens would be aided by Iraq if the US was not there and would constitute a grave, eventually fatal threat to the authoritarian monarchy.

So the people of Iraq, who are far less anti-Iranian than anti-US have to be overruled, permanently - which means that any pretense of democracy is now of the past.

Of course the US never invaded Iraq to bring democracy but when speaking publicly, the story has always been that the sovereign Iraq would hopefully choose good relations with the US and may need a US military presence at its own discretion for some indefinite period.

The official story has now changed to the US will maintain a military presence for its own reasons for the foreseeable future, regardless of the wishes of any Iraqis.

Can the US pull this off? I doubt it. We can be sure that by summer 2008, Iran will ensure that US deaths in Iraq increase to an intolerable level for US voters even if otherwise that level would have stablized. Then the majority of Americans who want the US out will both increase in size and punish the Republicans in the election. It may reach the point that even Barack Obama could win.

What happens when the US leaves?

President Bush gravely warned House Democrats yesterday that America's credibility would be shattered if the United States pulled its troops from Iraq, forcing close ally Saudi Arabia to look elsewhere for protection and potentially destabilizing Egypt, the region's most populous country, according to participants in the meeting.
...
Bush did not say during the half-hour meeting with Democrats where else he thought Saudi Arabia would seek "protection," but he made it clear that he was simply informing Democrats of his decisions on Iraq, not consulting with them.

Where would the Saudis find protection? Iran. Iran's proposal to the Saudis is that if the Saudis go along with getting rid of the Americans we'll negotiate directly with you about your Shiites and come up with a compromise that leaves you in power, at least for a substantial amount of time. A long-term hudna similar to what Hamas offers Israel with the understanding that it can be done peacefully but eventually the situation has to change. Iran will also ensure that the Saudis become nuclear capable. There is no question that Saudi Arabia can sell its oil without the Americans.

The Saudis will not accept Iran's offer until there is no chance that America will remain in Iraq to help the Saudis stay in power with no concessions to the Shiites. Why is America on the Saudi side against the Shiites? Because a legitimate Saudi government would be much more hostile to Israel. It would sell the same oil for the same price, but it would fund Hamas and take other actions of that nature.

So now we are set for the fireworks. The Americans have to make sure Iran is not capable of pushing up US casualties by summer 2008. That has to fail because there are many, many parties in Iraq that would like nothing more than a spike in casualties that gets the US to leave. But in the process, the US has to declare all-out war with Iran over Iraq or the Saudis will leave the US camp immediately.

Sanctions on Iran

The press outlet of the National Council of Resistance of Iran wins the prize for first news source on Google to produce the entire text of UN Security Council Resolution 1737 which imposes sanctions on Iran. Later it will get to the UNSC website.

No surprises. Every country is to create its own laws to prevent Iran from getting enrichment, heavy water reactor and nuclear missile technology. No authorization for US interdiction of Iranian shipping. No travel bans. Asset freezes that are the responsibility of each individual country and relatively easy to get around. The first draft had been just a propaganda tool from the start. Of course, the US could have gotten this resolution in September.

The Western press during the summer would say that a Chapter 41 resolution had been committed to, and that Chapter 41 resolutions could include things like travel bans and asset freezes. Chapter 41 resolutions also can exclude travels bans and asset freezes and include sentences such as "we call on every country to impose voluntary sanctions". As I predicted, we got the second kind of resolution.

There is also a provision that IAEA will report in 60 days that Iran has not suspended its program. I have not seen any indication that Russia has made a commitment to new sanctions or to tighten current sanctions. If the price for this resolution was the US promise to come to the table, the price for the next resolution may be that the US has to offer to suspend part of its unilateral sanctions for the duration of talks.

Actually there is one surprise to me. The resolution is more emphatic than I expected on the bans of Iranian exports of technology. It seems to me the targets are Syria, Saudi Arabia and Egypt - two of them Sunni countries that the US press somehow believes are in a life and death struggle against Iran, but that Iran has offered to supply its fuel cycle knowledge to.

I don't think export bans will have any effect on the political situation. The countries would not buy magnets or centrifuges from Iran, they would buy them from Pakistan, China or Europe. There are some people named who, by this resolution, these countries should inform the sanctions committee of personal visits that could help a nuclear program, but these days they can videoconference. Before they could have sent deputies.

When Iran offers the fuel cycle to, for example, Egypt or Saudi Arabia it puts those countries in a bind. The only reason to turn such an offer down is pressure from Israel through the US. Now Iran's mission has been accomplished - a free increase in the cost Egypt and the Saudis bear to maintain their relationships with the US.

Syria on the other hand, will probably take Iran up on this offer next time it has a little cash to work with. The sanctions resolution will have little effect in preventing that.

Explaining Ahmadinejad and the Holocaust conference

To understand the Holocaust conference, most Westerners have to understand one or two other things first.

1- Iran makes Israel nervous. Iran does not border Israel, but is able to establish relations with groups that do. What that means is that Israel cannot seize land from Iran and really does not have a good way to pressure the country. Iran, compared to Israel's neighbors, therefore has an advantage in an assymetrical struggle with Israel. This means that as long as Iran is not ruled by the Shah, or by an unpopular pro-Western dictator, supporters of Israel want to see Iran isolated and contained to whatever degree is possible under any available pretext.

2- Iran is ruled by true believers. There is a cousin to fatalism, which is the belief that all you have to do is tell the truth as you believe it and God will take care of everything else. Ahmadinejad knows that there will be negative press about the conference, but for a religious true believer, in the long term, God will ensure that following this course benefits Ahmadinejad and Iran.

Ahmadinejad's speeches and actions are consistently skewed by supporters of Israel to provide a pretext for increasing Iran's isolation. On the other hand, Iran philosophically cannot retract or hesitate to make statements it sees as true out of fear of the reaction.

Ahmadinejad's basic thesis is that the story of the Holocaust is wrongly used to justify the oppression of the Palestinians. Further, there is a general atmosphere of political intimidation has arisen around discussions of the Holocaust. This atmosphere -- in which there are places where you can legally write a book directly encouraging people to join the Nazi party, but you cannot write a book questioning the number of Jews who were killed in the Holocaust -- victimizes the Palestinians, the Arabs and the Muslim world for whom a main basis for their oppression is a taboo subject.

In true believer thinking, there will initially be a lot of screaming as these taboos are faced head on, but the taboos will break and Iran will be stronger in the end. Belief in this is related to faith in God.

Ahmadinejad has not publically expressed any theory about how many Jews were killed by Germany in WWII. There is a magic number of 6 million that Ahmadinejad has not explicitly endorsed but he has also never said that the actual number was less.

Ahmadinejad made a statement that the West has elevated the story of the Holocaust above the story of God and the prophets so that it is possible to actually be imprisoned in the West for denying the first story. Maybe Ahmadinejad used a term in Farsi that corresponds to "myth", maybe the folks at MEMRI chose the most provocative possible translation. The point of the sentence in any event is not that the story of the Holocaust is not true. The point of that statement is that the West is hypocritical in assigning the questioning of the story of the Holocaust, and only that story, a status other cultures assign only to blasphemy against God.

So now when we read the word Ahmadinejad in the Western press, we read "myth, myth, myth, myth, myth". From that word we are told that Ahmadinejad claims no Jews were killed. He never made that claim. Then we are told that Ahmadinejad believes that if Jews had been killed it would have been a good thing. Ahmadinejad has consistently said the opposite. We are told that Ahmadinejad intends to use nuclear weapons to wipe Israel off the map. He has said many, many times that Israel will be wiped off the map by refugees returning and voting for a non-Zionist state. He has compared his expected dissolution of Israel more than once to the dissolution of the USSR and of the Shah's government of Iran.

But we never read a response to Ahmadinejad's real points. Is there, and should there be a special status for the story of the Jewish Holocaust that does not extend to, for example the story of slavery, the stories of other genocidal events, the stories of other victims during World War II or the stories of victims of other political movements, for example those victimized by the Zionist political project? Secondly, does the Holocaust justify the position that Palestinian refugees should never be able to return to Israel, and if so, how?

The point of the Holocaust conference to true believers is that the West may avoid Ahmadinejad's real points for as long as it can. But eventually, through Iran's steadfast faith in God and the truth, the West will be forced face his real points. When the actual points Ahmadinejad is trying to make are addressed, Ahmadinejad's position on those points will then win, making Iran stronger than ever.

Selected Poll data from Lebanon

Parts of a poll were released recently. The poll is entitled:

Lebanese Public Opinion Amidst a New Cycle of Violence

First, a word about the questions that do not appear in the summary posted on the web. Obvious ones are missing such as: Do you support Hezbollah? Which domestic leader do you most admire Nasrallah, Seniora, Aoun, etc. Polls are not being made available in English that directly ask Lebanese the most important questions about Lebanon's future. I believe that pollsters at least have an idea of the results these polls would yield and have made a decision to protect their customers from some realities.

Second, I predicted that Nasrallah would not attempt to bring down the government but instead the government in place would support Nasrallah's program. My prediction has turned out wrong. I underestimated the capacity of Lebanon's government to ignore public opinion in favor of pressure from the US.

But now here are some results that are approximations based on bar charts in the linked pdf. Hopefully Brookings will release the entire poll at some point with actual numbers, and hopefully Lebanese answers to the most relevant questions will be on that poll.

After the war, your view on Hezbollah is
More Positive: 40%
More Negative: 28%
Not Changed: 25%

There is international pressure for Iran to curtail its nuclear program.
Iran has a right to its program: 56%
Iran should be pressured to stop its program: 38%

Opinion towards the US:
Very Unfavorable: 53%
Unfavorable: 13%
Favorable: 18%
Very Favorable: 9%

Confidence in the US
No Confidence: 60%
Some Confidence: 27%
A Lot of Confidence: 10%

Democracy as US objective
Not Real Objective: 64%
Real Objective Pursued the Wrong Way: 23%
Important Objective - Will Make a Difference: 12%

Leader you admire most
Chirac: 23%
Chavez: 17%
Ahmadinejad: 10%

One of two countries named that are biggest threat to you:
Israel: 82%
US: 60%
Syria: 37%
Iran: 22%

What party do you support in Palestine:
Hamas: 15%
Fatah/Abbas: 8%
A Unity Government: 56%

While we are at it, pollsters have to have informed estimates of the populations of various groups. It would be nice to release what proportion of Lebanon's population is Shiite, Sunni, Christian and etc. It is a pre-Internet mentality that they choose to protect their readers from that information.