What's going on with Putin?

A mechanic from Siberia asks Russia's president Putin about Madeleine Albright's complaint that Siberia has too many resources to belong only to Russia.

A 'Sort of Political Erotica'

The most internationally resonating remarks might have come when a mechanic from the Siberian city of Novosibirsk asked Mr. Putin about comments he said were made some years ago by former U.S. Secretary of State Madeleine Albright, who suggested that Siberia had too many natural resources to belong to one country.

"I know that some politicians play with such ideas in their heads. This, in my view, is the sort of political erotica that might satisfy a person but hardly leads to a positive result," Mr. Putin responded. "The best example of that are the events in Iraq -- a small country that can hardly defend itself and which possesses huge oil reserves. And we see what's going on there. They've learned to shoot there, but they are not managing to bring order."

"One can wipe off a political map some tyrannical regime … but it's absolutely pointless to fight with a people," he said. "Russia, thank God, isn't Iraq. It has enough strength and power to defend itself and its interests, both on its territory and in other parts of the world."

Mr. Putin went on to say he believes one of the U.S. "goals is to establish control of the country's oil reserves," and that a concrete date must be set for the withdrawal of U.S. troops. Unless such a date is set, he added in an echo of some U.S. war critics, "the Iraqi leadership, feeling [safe] under the reliable American umbrella, will not hurry to develop its own armed and law enforcement forces."

Since we're here, the claim that the US wants to control Iraq's oil is not a claim that the US wants to confiscate the oil with proceeds from the sales going to the US treasury. It is also not primarily that the US want to ensure US oil companies have privileged access. The US wants to ensure that Iraq's oil is not under the control of people who would use the money from oil sales to oppose US priorities in the Middle East. Generally, every population group in the Middle East outside of Israel's Jews opposes US priorities in the Middle East.

I understand Putin to be making the correct assertion that the US works to deny control of oil to any government that is popularly accountable and capable of an independent foreign policy. The US can tolerate a somewhat democratic Iraq controlling its own oil as long as this Iraq has no independent way to project military power beyond its borders or defend its airspace or land independently of the US. In other words, unlike under Hussein, Iraq can have popular anti-Zionist leaders because the US occupation ensures that Iraq is no threat to Israel. If that was not the case, the US would not tolerate independent Iraqi control of Iraqi oil. OK, that's out of the way.

This is a very striking exchange with Putin. The first thing that strikes me is this statement attributed to Albright is one I've never read until today. But it is spoken of as if it is common knowledge in Russia. The question was asked by a mechanic, and the premise, as far as I can tell, was not corrected by Putin. I assume Putin would have made note of the fact that he was not familiar with the claim if that had been the case.

I've found a link from 2005 to the claim in an English translation of a Russian source.

Meanwhile, ex-secretary of state, Madeline Albright, recently called Siberia too vast and wealthy a region to belong to Russia alone. Albright said it was not fair. It stands to reason to assume that Albright was of the same mind when she had held a senior position in civil service and had merely been too diplomatic to speak her mind. It certainly seems that all US leaders are of the same frame of mind. No wonder the White House is out to secure its positions in the Persian Gulf, in the Caspian region, and other strategic oil and gas bearing areas. That is why the Western democrats are so worried by ethnic strife in the oil bearing Darfur in Sudan and do not give a damn about genocide in Rwanda or Burundi.

The weakness of Russia immediately following the fall of the USSR seems to be a painful memory for many Russians, including Putin. Putin's response seems angry. In this atmosphere, it looks like a statement by Albright that was not noted at all in the US has spread though Russia's informed popular culture.

In this spirit of anger Putin mocks the US effort in Iraq, which had nothing to do with the original question. Putin steered his answer there to, in his own mind, compensate for the reminder of Russia's weakness relative to the US in the early 1990s.

Then the "wipe a political regime off the map" statement. Putin has come across the Ahmadinejad statement and the controversy around that. I can't imagine this statement had any direct meaning, that Putin was sending a message by using those words. But the statement does relate Bush to the charges made against Ahmadinejad. My take is it is just what came to mind when Putin experienced a little anger.

The anger at the US for making Russians feel weak when the USSR felt seems from here to be substantial and pervasive in the segments of Russian society that care about foreign policy. I don't have a transcript, even translated, of the entire session but from the clues available, it seems that this anger will influence Russian decision making at least to some degree.

Ray Close on the Saudis - Then Me on the Saudis

An interesting post at Juan Cole's Informed Comment.

I recall in the period right after the 1973 Yom Kippur War, when I was in liaison with the Saudis, that the Israeli Air Force used to make frequent very low level runs over the Saudi airbase at Tobuk, in the northern part of the country. As they skimmed the "deck", they would drop empty fuel tanks on the runways, near where the Saudi fighter planes were lined up, just to remind those on the ground that the empty tanks could very easily have been 500-pound bombs. It was nothing more than an arrogant demonstration of contempt for Saudi impotence. It worked. The RSAF never fired a shot, and never scrambled a single interceptor. They would complain to me, and I would duly forward their protests to CIA HQS. We never got even a polite acknowledgement back from the Israelis, who, in their arrogance, were no doubt cynically amused. So I can easily imagine Bashar al-Asad's decision to play this current incident in a very low key! It is not a mark of cowardice, but of realism and prudence.

Similarly, I recall when Prince Fahd bin Abdal Aziz called me to a meeting very late one evening in the early days of the 1973 war and asked me to send an urgent personal message from him to Richard Nixon informing the president that he had felt obliged to contribute a brigade of Saudi troops to the Golan front to support the Syrian offensive there, but that he had personally instructed the commander of the unit not to fire a single shot. That, Fahd told me with considerable emotion and obvious sincerity, was his solemn promise to his American friend. Again, prudence, wisdom, and desire to maintain a traditional and mutually valuable relationship --- motives that were not, I regret to say, received in Washington with the respect and appreciation that they deserved.

Instructed the commander not to fire a shot? These things could never be written about a democratic Saudi Arabia, or a Saudi Arabia whose leadership was selected in a competitive process. It is uncomfortable to say that Saudi Arabia is a terrible reflection of Islam.

Apartheid South Africa had the technological and industrial advantages Israel has over its neighbors, including a regional nuclear monopoly. It also had gold and diamonds. Tanzania, one of South Africa's most active rivals had a main export crop of sisal, which is a fiberous plant that can be used to make rope. But Tanzania, along with almost every other African state, supported the Black South Africans. The ANC and PAC, even as they were labeled terrorists by the West and the US, were trained, funded and supported significantly by the poor countries of Africa. Now there is no European settler state in Africa. A one state solution, no bantustans. Anyone who wants an Afrikaaner state will have to go somewhere that an Afrikaaner majority can be produced without expelling or disenfranchising Black people.

Saudi Arabia has the greatest concentration of natural resource wealth in the world. Tanzania exports sisal, a crop few people have ever heard of. Apartheid is over. Zionism is still here twenty years after Apartheid. There is something defective about the Saudis. They have an ineffective political system, and they are encouraged to maintain that system by the Americans, who do so to protect Israel's interests. But the fact that they have tolerated this situation as long as they have points to a defective belief system. It is not objectively possible that they have the same belief system that traveled west to Spain and East to Indonesia.

Nuclear Weapons vs Nuclear Capability: Time Magazine Explains

It is rare and noteworthy when a Western news source explains the dispute regarding Iran's nuclear program relatively clearly. Here is Time Magazine in an article published on the web on October 15.

At the same time, Putin insisted after talks last week with French President Nikolas Sarkozy — the most energetic European supporter of the U.S. position — that there is no evidence to suggest Iran is trying to build a nuclear weapon. That assessment may put him at odds with Washington, but it is, in fact, consistent with the findings of the IAEA. The difference hinges over what defines a nuclear weapons program. Last week, French foreign minister Bernard Kouchner wrote to his European colleagues urging support for tougher sanctions. "Time is against us," Kouchner warned, "because each day Iran gets closer to mastering enrichment technology, in other words to having a de facto military nuclear capacity."

What Kouchner makes clear is that the U.S. and its allies have defined mastering the technology of uranium-enrichment as a red line that Iran cannot be allowed to cross. But Kouchner exaggerates when he claims that this technology would give Tehran "de facto military nuclear capacity"; it simply gives Iran an important piece of nuclear infrastructure that is allowed under the NPT but could, if Iran pulled out of the NPT, be used to create weapons-grade materiel. While the demand that Iran suspend enrichment until it has answered the IAEA's questions enjoys broad support, the demand that Iran be denied the right to enrichment because it is a regime not trusted by the West is a much tougher sell. And Russia isn't necessarily buying.

This had never been a particularly difficult concept to grasp or explain. Most media reports fail to make the distinction either out of naivety or possibly out of a belief that presenting Iran's nuclear program in exaggerated terms is somehow a moral thing to do given Iran's opposition to Zionism.

Now we just have to buy a subscription to Time Magazine for every other news outlet.

Poor Leadership, Poor Leadership Selection and Consistent National Humiliation

From the title, this can only be an essay about the state of the Arab world.

Some countries in the world have leadership selection processes that elevate the most effective political leaders in their society to the highest leadership positions. Putin, for example, before he became Russia's president, had independently demonstrated that he is one of the most effective leaders in Russia. China's leadership is chosen by a competitive process that elevates the winner of a national contest in political effectiveness.

Democracy, or direct elections, is one way to create a competitive process for leadership. The important element is not the direct elections though, the important element is the competitive process.

The United States currently has a president more or less chosen by direct elections, but he was not one of the Americans before becoming president who had demonstrated the most political effectiveness in the country. The political machinery assembled by his father, largely at least at first on the strength of continued loyalty to the father, coalesced around the son and gave the son a tremendous advantage in the US competition for political leadership.

There were still direct elections, more or less, but factors other than demonstrated individual political effectiveness became decisive. The competitive process in this case was compromised and the United States, for 8 years of its history, had leadership comparable to that of the Arab world. Fortunately for the rest of the world, unfortunately for the United States, rivals of the US have been able to consistently outplay the US during this period.

One example is that the attacks of September 11, 2001 likely would have been detected and prevented by any of the previous US presidents at least since Franklin Roosevelt. More generally, a cascade of bad decisions, including but not nearly limited to the invasion of Iraq has seen nearly every significant rival of the US improve its position relative to the US during this presidency.

Fortunately for the United States, unfortunately for the rest of the world, the United States has a limited term for its presidency and will return to a competitive process based more on demonstrated individual political effectiveness. Unless Hillary Clinton is elected as the next US president.

Hillary Clinton is certainly more intelligent than George W. Bush and somewhat more notable for her abilities outside of her connection with a previous presidency. But she also certainly has a pre-assembled political machine based largely at first on the strength of continued loyalty to her husband without which she would not be mentionable in any contest for the US presidency.

But this essay now returns to the Arab world, which can be thought of as a collection of local George W. Bush's without the term limits.

There are two problems with leadership selection mechanisms in the Arab world, the first is hereditary leadership. Assuming somewhere in the past that a person reached the top leadership position in his country by winning a contest of political effectiveness, the children of the winner of that contest are nearly guaranteed not to be the people who would win fair contests among their contemporaries throughout their societies.

It is very unlikely that Bashar Assad is his country's Putin. He is likely, in terms of political talent, closer to some guy chosen at random from Russia's educated class. Maybe closer to some of Stalin or Kruschev's relatives who are now unknown somewhere in Russia.

If Russia chose as its leader a random guy from its educated class as leader, it would consistently make bad decisions, and would consistently be outcompeted by the talented political leaders elevated by its rivals, say China and Germany.

Saudi Arabia, Kuwait, the Emirates, Jordan and Syria suffer from hereditary leadership. It is an objective if uncomfortable fact that these countries would consistently make better political decisions, and consistently perform better at at advancing their national interests if they had leadership selection processes that were competitive.

The second problem is the influence of rivals in the leadership selection process. Mubarak is not the son of a previous leader. Abbas of Palestine and Seniora of Lebanon are also not hereditary leaders, but they were aided into power by the political machinery of the United States, whose primary loyalty in the Middle East is to Israel.

These two problems, for as long as they last, will ensure that the Arab world will permanently suffer from poor leadership. The national interests these leaders are tasked to advance will be at a permanent disadvantage to those of the competitively selected leaderships of Israel and eventually the United States.

Turkey's effective leadership, before Gul, was more pro-Western than its population, but it was Turkish and its was competitively selected from within the ranks of the military. The population has begun the process in Turkey of regaining its influence over policy. Turkey, by its people's identification with Muslims, will eventually, unless there are reforms in the Arab world, be a more effective advocate of Arab interests than the leaders of Arab countries.

Iran's clerical leadership and its directly elected president are the winners of competitive leadership selection processes. Iran's supreme leader was elected by his peers after winning an individual contest of political effectiveness that had little or no non-Iranian influence. In Iran's competition with Israel, the less politically talented leaders of the Arab would are, even if they are well intentioned, a hindrance compared to what competitively selected leaders would be.

Libya still has its first-generation post colonial leader. Libya may be more effective if there was more of an active contest for leadership, for example if either there was time limit to his term or there otherwise were regular opportunities for leadership change decided by a contest without outside influence.

The reform of Arab leadership, which can expect vehement opposition from Israel and the United States which are strategic rivals of the Arab world, is the only alternative to continued poor international performance of the Arab world as a group.

Turkey: Armenian Resolutions and PKK attacks

What's going on?

Is now really the time for a resolution condemning the Armenian genocide?

There are times when I'm really just flabbergasted by how poorly the US is equipped to play the role of colonialist power. A resolution condemning the Armenian genocide is passed the same week 15 Turkish soldiers are killed by Kurdish factions based in US-occupied Iraq. There are no words for how self-defeating this is to US interests.

Bush might as well go ahead and sign it into law. Turkey isn't going to immediately ban US use of Turkish airspace or leave NATO. There is little short-term damage that can be done that hasn't been done. Turkey isn't going to launch a full-scale invasion Kurdistan.

The damage is that the parties in Turkey's military establishment, political establishment and society that favor cooperation with the United States (and those are the parties that favor cooperation with the West generally) have been permanently weakened.

In the future, decisions that can go either way are going to consistently go against the US. Wink or strenuously enforce sanctions against Iran? Turkey will wink. Cooperate with the US to help isolate anti-US (also anti-Kurdish) factions in Iraq. Maybe in words, not in action. Maybe not in words.

Turkey's relations with Israel are not over today, but close calls are going to consistently go against Israel from now on. The election of the quasi-Islamists was the true turning point, but this slap in the face by the US slightly accelerated the process.

Nuclear Weapons vs Nuclear Capability: How Middle East Nuclear Deterrence Works

Yesterday, there were several articles quoting France's president Sarkozy as saying Russia has come closer to France's view on Iran, among other issues. But no specifics were offered. My rule on the Western reporting on the Middle East is becoming if there are no specifics, it didn't happen. Especially if what is being reported is another party's views or position on any issue.

So of course today we read Putin actually discussing the issue of Iran's nuclear program:

"We do not have data that says Iran is trying to produce nuclear weapons. We do not have such objective data Therefore we proceed from a position that Iran has no such plans but we share the concern of our partners that all programmes should be as transparent as possible."

Sarkozy has not said that Iran having domestic enrichment of uranium is the same thing as Iran having a nuclear weapon. It is a very basic question to ask, but the press that covers this issue is astoundingly clueless and Sarkozy likely has never stood in front of a well informed reporter who would ask even basic questions such as that.

So we can only assume from Sarkozy's formulation that the alternative to Iran having a weapon is war that Sarkozy does consider domestic enrichment on Iran's part "a weapon". Bush and Condoleeza Rice have said explicitly that technology that could be used to make a weapon is in itself intolerable for Iran. Sarkozy has not been asked to confirm that he agrees with Bush on that issue. He hasn't volunteered that he holds the Bush position because the Bush position is very difficult to defend legally.

Here is Flynt Leverett on the legal difficulties of the Bush position.

I think the administration tried earlier basically to redefine the non-proliferation treaty on this issue and say that somehow Iran no longer had a right to develop fuel cycle technologies. This was a kind of interesting legal argument which I don’t think got very far. I noticed in November of last year, when the president was in Moscow, Stephen Hadley, the White House national security adviser, expressed the administration’s public support for the Russian compromise initiative for getting Iran to process uranium in Russia instead of in Iran. He actually said that Iran did have the right to develop enrichment capabilities, but in the interest of international security, stability, and so forth, we would ask the Iranians to agree not to exercise that right. So I think even the administration is acknowledging now that there isn’t a purely legal basis on which to say Iran can’t have enrichment capabilities.

Several Israeli strategists have publicly given clues as to why the US and Israel hold the view that domestic enrichment is a weapon. The US foreign policy community, using Gary Samore as a representative of that community, essentially consider Iran having domestic enrichment as the same thing as it having a weapon making a pretty weak argument that one necessarily will lead to the other.

Essentially, today's situation in which Israel is the only country in the region with a nuclear arsenal puts Israel in a position where it can get the last word in any escalation. If Egypt were to support Hamas, first Israel would get the US to cut Egyptian aid. But Egypt might then increase its aid to Hamas. Then Israel might strike targets in Egypt where arms for Hamas are being staged, with some collateral civilian deaths. Then Egypt might strike targets in Israel, also with civilian deaths. Then Israel can intentionally target Egyptian civilians - but tell Egypt that intentionally targeting Israeli civilians would lead to the nuclear destruction of Cairo and more of Egypt.

Israel does not have to actually use its nuclear weapon on Cairo, but the threat impacts Egypt's calculations all the way back to whether or not to support Hamas. Substitute "support Hamas" for any number of potential Egyptian policies that Israel might consider detrimental if you don't like the example I just made up. And substitute Egypt for Lebanon, Syria or any other nation in Israel's region.

Iran having a nuclear option begins to change that, and Iran's vision of a Middle East where nuclear technology is widespread drastically changes that.

If Egypt believes Iran would leave the NPT after seeing Cairo bombed and two years later be able to destroy the population centers of Israel, Israel no longer has the last word. Again that impacts the strategic calculations back down to actually plausible policy decisions Egypt could make.

Would Iran actually retaliate for Cairo? Here is a situation where probably not is drastically different from definitely not. Probably not, means that if it happens, Israel is over. If Iran has domestic uranium enrichment, the best Israeli strategists can give Israel's leaders to the question of Iranian retaliation if a situation spirals to nuking Cairo is probably or maybe not.

Here is the thing. If the question "will Iran retaliate, ending Israel, if a situation escalates to the point of the nuclear destruction of Egypt", the answer is the same if Iran has an actual weapon or if Iran has the potential to create a weapon. Either "probably not" or "maybe not" but not "certainly not".

Iran also goes further, saying that it has the right to nuclear technology and will break the prohibition of the acquisition of that technology by other Muslim nations. This presents the prospect of not only Iran being nuclear capable, but also every nation on the region, either directly through Iran or because the US will be forced to offer the technology to allies who can threaten to get it from Iran otherwise.

That would change the earlier question from "would Iran retaliate" to "would any of Iran, Saudi Arabia, Syria, Lebanon, Jordan or the remnants of Egypt retaliate". Probably not turns to maybe not and the option of nuking an Arab target becomes too dangerous for Israel for Israel's strategists to contemplate. At that point, Israel's nuclear arsenal, which was expensive to acquire, has absolutely no strategic value. That is the opposite of the situation today.

The United States, across the Atlantic, does not seriously consider a situation that could escalate to an Egyptian strike on the US. The US, for internal political reasons sees the protection of Israel as part of its strategic mission. Actual US interests are not directly threatened by an Iranian nuclear capability. Even an Iranian weapon, while threatening to Israel would not pose a similar threat to direct US interests.

Russia, like everyone other than Israel, is also not threatened by an Iranian nuclear capability - which is why Putin draws his red line at an actual weapon, though Iran's program should be "as transparent as possible".

It is commonly said that the Saudis have a rivalry with Iran that exceeds the intensity of Iran's rivalry with Israel. The Saudis have never claimed an Iranian nuclear capability is intolerable, or that Iranian domestic enrichment is the same thing as a weapon. Like Russia and nearly everyone else, the Saudis are fine with Iran having domestic enrichment that is under IAEA inspection.

So as of today Iran is coasting. It is answering the IAEA questions, assured that they are not a fishing or stalling expedition. There is no support for oil-for-food-level sanctions which are the only thing that even imaginably could force Iran to end its program. Sanctions outside of the UN will hurt the countries that impose them nearly as much as they hurt Iran.

It is difficult to see how Iran's vision of first Iran, and then other Muslim countries having the capability to produce weapons, even if they never make them, coming to pass. In practical terms, this vision means the end of Israel's strategic nuclear advantage and some Israelis, maybe rightly, see that strategic nuclear advantage as crucial for Israel's survival as a Jewish state.

US Support for Israel before 1967

I've seen it argued that before the 1973 war, or before the 1967 war the United States was neutral on the issue of Zionism and did not begin really supporting Israel until after whichever event is being claimed.

The point of this argument when it is made is that Egypt mysteriously but spontaneously joined with the communist USSR, and US support for Israel was a response to that - meaning US support for Israel had nothing to do with Egypt, leaning towards the Soviets but after Egypt leaned in that direction, Israel was a valuable ally in holding Egypt in check.

Kind of like coming across someone arguing that two plus two is five, my response is do you really believe that? Is it even worth it to argue? You believe it because you want to believe it. You're still going to want to believe it regardless of anything I say. Just in case though.

The Jewish Virtual Library has a speech by Nasser written before the 1967 war. Notable, in this speech to Egyptian trade unionists, his justification for partnering with the USSR mentions nothing about workers or proletariat. Speaking before Egyptian trade unionists before the 1967 war, Nasser has one and only one good thing to say about the Soviet Union, it supported the Arabs against aggression from Israel, France and Britain.

The United States, according to Nasser, was already synonymous with Israel as was the West.

We must know and learn a big lesson today. We must actually see that, in its hypocrisy and in its talks with the Arabs, the United States sides with Israel 100 per cent and is partial in favour of Israel. Why is Britain biased towards Israel? The West is on Israel's side. General de Gaulle's personality caused him to remain impartial on this question and not to toe the US or the British line; France therefore did not take sides with Israel.

The Soviet Union's attitude was great and splendid. It supported the Arabs and the Arab nation. It went to the extent of stating that, together with the Arabs and the Arab nation, it would resist any interference or aggression.

Today every Arab knows foes and friends. If we do not learn who our enemies and our friends are, Israel will always be able to benefit from this behaviour. It is clear that the United States is an enemy of the Arabs because it is completely biased in favour of Israel. It is also clear that Britain is an enemy of the Arabs because she, too, is completely biased in favour of Israel. On this basis we must treat our enemies and those who side with our enemies as actual enemies. We can accord them such treatment. In fact we are not States without status. We are States of status occupying an important place in the world. Our States have thousands of years of civilization behind them -7,000 years of civilization. Indeed, we can do much; we can expose the hypocrisy - the hypocrisy of our enemies if they try to persuade us that they wish to serve our interest. The United States seeks to serve only Israel's interests. Britain also seeks to serve only Israel's interests.

I've seen a poll that in 1947 or 48, 28 or so percent of US respondents favored the Jewish side of the conflict over Zionism and about half that supported the Arabs.

US support for Israel has been consistent since Israel's foundation, and it that support has made non-Jews in the region more prone to oppose the US since then. US support has increased but there is no date before which it is honest to say the US was neutral or that the US did not pay a cost for its support of Israel in the form of either antagonism or weaker alliances with everyone else in the region.

Right of Return and the Conference

The US is planning a conference to be held in November in Annapolis to advance a settlement of issues between Palestinians and Israel.

One issue that I find interesting is how the right of return will be handled before, during and after this conference. Condoleeza Rice a few months ago said that the US was considering making public the US position of what a fair settlement would look like. Peres' office in Israel said a little before that it his office was considering a counter-proposal to the Arab proposal.

Neither has happened because a detailed US or Israeli position would either say no refugees can return or some amount of refugees can return. To say no refugees can return would be a tremendous propaganda victory for Hamas and Iran. To say some can return, an amount determined by what Rice or Peres perceives as the need for there to be a cap on the amount of non-Jews in Israel, would also hurt the pro-Zionist Arabs and help the anti-Zionist Arabs.

(Pro-Zionist is not, in some sense, a fair way to describe the Saudi or even the Egyptian or Jordanian leadership, but it is probably more accurate than "moderate" since their position is only shared with an extreme fringe in their own societies. Even though Abbas for example is not pro-Zionist in an absolute sense, not like Olmert, he can fairly be called relatively pro-Zionist compared to Hamas. The Saudi, Egyptian and Jordanian leaderships can also be fairly called relatively pro-Zionist.)

The other issues: water, Jerusalem and borders are similar to the refugee issue, the same dynamic is present but they are not as emotionally potent as the refugee issue.

So the US and Israel have not, can not and will not commit themselves to a publicly known policy on refugees, while the Saudi position is that a conference that does not include a commitment to a policy is worthless and should not be attended or supported.

Why did Rice and Peres make public that they were considering making their positions public? I chalk that up to the same lack of strategic judgment that led to the Hamas elections in Palestine and the UIA elections in Iraq. They really believe their own propaganda and sometimes it hurts them.

The Saudis and other relatively pro-Zionist elements of the Muslim world are really saying, and this is easy to miss, that they expect to see the US and Israel begin to publicly stand down from positions they have historically held. The pro-Zionist Muslims believe they have more leverage than before and that a peaceful stand-down is better for Israel and the US than the alternative.

Enter Iran, otherwise known as leverage.

The idea that time is on the anti-Zionist side is closely associated with the perception now that it will not be possible to get serious (oil-for-food-level) sanctions, Iraq-level bombing or much less an Iraq-style invasion of Iran. Given this, the anti-Zionist Palestinians now have more strategic depth than they have had since at least Nasser, but in some ways more than they had then because Egypt is within Israel's reach and Iran is not.

If Iran cannot be dealt with the way Iraq was, and either remains as powerful as it is now or more likely becomes more powerful, the help it will be able to give anti-Zionist Muslims throughout the region will increase as will the strategic threat Iran's support for anti-Zionists poses to Israel. The pro-Zionist Muslims are saying that the US and Israel must accept an accommodation now, (and truth be told, this accommodation will not have the guarantees of a permanent Jewish majority in Israel that the US and Israel want) or they'll accept a worse accommodation later.

There is a new dynamic in the post-Iraq Middle East. For the US and Israel to begin to stand down, the pro-Zionist Muslims need the US and Israel to have a public position to stand down from. The current US and Israeli position of wanting a "just" "negotiated" settlement of especially the refugee issue but not detailing what such a settlement would be, is the best position for the US and Israel. But in the post-Iraq world, it is unacceptable for the pro-Zionist Muslims.

Presentation by Gary Samore on Iranian Nuclear Issue

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qSMUBrlMthk

I found this link through Arms Control Wonk. A blog that strikes me as generally connected with and reflective of the US foreign policy community on the issue of proliferation of non-conventional weapons. The presentation is by Gary Samore, who has held various high positions in the foreign policy establishment and is as connected as it is possible to be while still able to speak publicly.

Watching the presentation on youtube, several things strike me.

1 - This guy uses "nuclear weapon" and "nuclear weapon option" also "nuclear armed" and having a "nuclear weapon capability" interchangeably. Outside of the US foreign policy establishment, they really are very different concepts. Different in the same way "sexually active" is different from "pregnant". I've seen this described as groupthink. Being in a community that has trained itself to conflate the terms until I have doubts that he is aware of when he goes from one term to the other.

2 - He says that a consensus is forming that Iran will end up with domestic enrichment. Umm. If Condoleeza Rice was to say that Iran would accept whatever safeguards Samore says would be necessary and this "crisis" such as it is would be over. But sanctions actually are the point. The US has found an issue that Iran won't back down on that it can use to get other countries to join the sanctions the US had been imposing unilaterally since the revolution, and that really is the point of this exercise.

3 - He says Russia's view is that once Iran answers the questions, it is entitled to nuclear technology like everyone else, but he says Russia agrees with the US that Iran should not have a nuclear weapon. Russia is not part of the US establishment that has turned "nuclear armed" and "nuclear capable" into the same term and Samore's failure to see the contradiction comes from the blurring of terms that Samore has accepted.

4 - He also says the US is betting that Iran will not answer the questions. I expect there to be a difference of opinion, meaning I expect the US to say whatever Iran said is not enough, but since the issue at hand is capability, not an actual weapon, Iran really has nothing to hide. Now, Iran will balk before giving coordinates to any p2 research facilities so they won't be bombed. Other than that, Iran has no reason to be anything but open. Again this comes from not making a distinction between weapons option and weapon. Iran doesn't have to hide a program just because it could give it a weapons option.

5 - I've never seen this point made but Israel cannot attack Iran without flying over US controlled airspace. It is just not possible so the US has a veto over an Israeli attack, and everyone in the region knows it. So regardless of how dire Israel perceives the situation, the most it can do is ask the US for permission to attack, and if that permission is denied, Israel has to wait. Samore, like most US commentators on this issue seems to view Israel as more distinct from the US than it is in practical terms when it comes to bombing or threatening to bomb Iran.

6 - Samore says that for the Europeans, the aim of the sanctions was to separate Rafsanjani from Ahmadinejad. How silly is that? To split the two, the West would have to make a demand that Rafsanjani might accept that Ahmadinejad might not accept. The demand for a suspension of enrichment is rejected equally by both. How could sanctions for failing to suspend create a split? Samore is speaking of it as if it makes sense. He must realize that makes no sense.

7 - Answering a question about carrots, Samore says that Iran knows what incentives are on offer but does not want what is on offer. I've posted earlier to explain my belief that the Iranian perception is that literally nothing is on offer. If that belief is wrong, and sanctions are not the whole point of the exercise, then putting a specific deal on the table, as opposed to an offer for talks, would be productive.

8 - The case Samore makes for suspension as a basis for negotations is "negotiations without a suspension wouldn't work, from North Korea we see that unless the program is suspended the West would have very little leverage." That's not a strong case unless you are already convinced. In North Korea's case would a requirement for a verified suspension before negotiations have gotten a verified suspension or would it have just prevented negotiations? North Korea would be poorer, with more people starving but with more nuclear devices today if an Iranian strategy had been followed. In other words, a lot more dangerous and threatening to US interests in that region.

Escalation Dominance and Strategic Dominance

In July a report by Michael Gerson was published in the Washington Post and reprinted in other locations. It was the first place I had seen the idea advanced that, in the eyes of US military planners, Iran has achieved escalation dominance over the US.

Beyond Iraq's borders, the options become difficult: engaging in hot pursuit against weapon supply lines over the Iranian border, or striking explosive factories and staging areas within Iran. This sort of escalation is opposed both by the Iraqi government and by American military leaders. The Department of Defense fears what is called “escalation dominance” – meaning that in a broadened conflict, the Iranians could complicate our lives in Iraq and the region more than we complicate theirs.

"Escalation dominance" was a new term to me, but the argument that the US ability to strike Iran was limited by the fact that Iran would win the following war was old. I took mental note of the article though, because it quietly said that the US military establishment does have enough sense to understand that attacking Iran would hurt the US strategically - and over the medium to long term it would hurt the US more than it would hurt Iran.

If the US understands this, it becomes really difficult to imagine the US knowingly taking counterproductive step of bombing Iran either over arms to the militias or over the nuclear program. The use of that term means the US understands the concept. I took it as that, but nothing more.

Gareth Porter though, has brought the term into public view for the second time with an interesting connection that I've seen hinted about but never made explicitly.

The Bush administration now believes that Iran's "larger strategic aim" in allegedly providing modern weapons such as 240mm rockets to Shi'ite militias targeting US and coalition forces in Iraq is "to attempt to establish escalation dominance in Iraq and strategic dominance outside", according to the official.

The official said, "Escalation dominance means you can control the pace of escalation." That term has always been used to refer to the ability of the US to threaten another state with overwhelming retaliation to deter it from responding to US force. The official defined "strategic dominance" as meaning that "you are perceived as the dominant center in the region".

Here "escalation dominance", a term I read in public in July, can be converted to Iran being "perceived as the dominant center in the region". And this perception is one that the US is scrambling to find a way to counter.

Today the team of the US and Israel are perceived as the dominant power in the region. I always laugh when US commentators, advocates or diplomats speak of the fear the Arab countries have of the Iran achieving this perception of dominance. Firstly because there has never been a direct quote to support the idea, and second it does not make sense. The Arabs like the US and Israel more?

Condoleeza Rice (among many others) consistently says this from one venue to another with a straight face. As far as I've seen, she's never been challenged on it. I'm always puzzled about the boundary between the US' naive lack of understanding of the region and cynical US attempts to deceive others. The US naivety though, is the result of years of compounded self-deception. There is now a reflexive tendency of US commentators, advocates and diplomats to divert attention away from the basic unpopularity in the Middle East, even among the elite who tolerate it for various corrupt reasons, of the Zionist project.

Escalation dominance in Iraq which can lead to strategic dominance in the region. The story of the Middle East right now is the story of the US scramble to avert or deal with these realities.

Ahmadinejad never denied the Holocaust either

I've written about this before, but its been a while and we are seeing this claim made so often recently that I am revisiting it.

It is now well known that Iran's president Mahmoud Ahmadinejad never said Israel should be wiped off the map. His real statement was that the Zionist regime should be removed from history as were his examples the USSR, the Shah's regime in Iran and Hussein's regime. His real statement is just as offensive to supporters of Israel, but not as demonizing.

But I often see formulations such as "I can't support Ahmadinejad because he is a Holocaust denier but he never called for the physical destruction of Israel". The second part is true. The first part, not so much.

The origin is a statement Ahmadinejad made, if my memory serves, in December 2006 about Western Holocaust-denial laws: They have taken this myth and elevated it even over the word of God. A person can be imprisoned for questioning it. [Edit: My memory didn't serve, it was December 2005, thanks Ziad.]

The word here being translated as myth is likely more neutrally translated as "story". But even the word myth in this context would not be used as an assertion of untruth. He is talking about the status given to the story itself. His point does not require an assertion that the story is not true and he didn't make an assertion that the story, or even myth, is not true.

The assertion of the sentence is not that the Holocaust story is false, but that it has been put into a sacred category of stories whose questioning can lead to physical punishment at the hands of the state. His point is that the West is more crass than the Muslim world, because while the Muslim world will punish people for blaspheming God or what they consider the word of God, the West ignores blasphemy against God but punishes public doubters of the Holocaust story.

Ahmadinejad has been asked about this essentially in every interview of any length since. He has consistently made the following points in response:

• He does not support Hitler, whom he considers a criminal.
• He is against Hitler's or any killing of innocents, including Jews and also including Muslims killed by Israel and the United States more recently.
• He opposes giving Jews a special place in what, according to him, is the nearly 60 million civilian victims of World War II.
• He opposes using the story of the Holocaust to support the dispossession and continuing oppresion of the Palestinians.
• He believes the protected status of the Holocaust story is illogical and connected to the story's use as justification for crimes against the Palestinians
• He considers Zionism an evil, non-religious, political movement that he opposes though he does not oppose Judaism, which is separate, as a religion.

In these interviews and other speeches that have mentioned the Holocaust, he has never expressed sympathy for Hitler, the Nazis or their beliefs. He has never presented any number of victims of the Holocaust as true or untrue. He has never expressed any doubt in the story. His only points have been that it should be possible to study and to revise the story without government censure, as every other story in the West can be studied and revised, and the story should not be used to punish the Palestinians.

Ahmadinejad has only brought up the story of the Holocaust to protest its use to harm Palestinians and to criticize what he sees as Western hypocrisy in disputing the status Iran gives the story of God, while extending a similar status to the story of the Holocaust.

An actual denial of the Holocaust made by Ahmadinejad does not exist. There has been no statement of the form: "the Holocaust did not happen", "only x million Jews were killed by Hitler" or "the amount of Jews commonly claimed to have been killed is false."

Ahmadinejad does oppose Zionism though, and that puts him onto unstable emotional terrain in the West. Supporters of Israel feel a strong emotional need to demonize him as much as they can. As hard as it has been to relent on the claim that he called for the physical destruction of Israel it will be just as hard and take just as long for supporters of Israel to admit Ahmadinejad has not actually denied the Holocaust.

Lebanon bombing

The big Middle East story today is all the talk, with France joining in, about bombing Iran. Except that bombing won't happen for the next couple of years, I don't have much to say.

The conflict though is usually misleadingly (deliberately misleadingly) characterized as the US attempting to prevent Iran from getting nuclear weapons. What is at issue here is Iran having the technological capability, in theory, to build a weapon. I've read it described as a "weapons option".

Many NPT non-weapons states have a "weapons option", including some that have been caught with advanced weapons programs. Weapons-option states include Taiwan, South Korea, Romania, Brazil, the Netherlands and Japan. Having a weapons option is in no way inconsistent with the non-proliferation treaty Iran ratified, or with the additional protocols to that treaty that Iran has offered to ratify after having its right to enrich uranium is reaffirmed.

The US position that Iran does not have a right to have the technology that would make it a weapons-option state is so unreasonable that I've never seen it defended by any of its supporters. It violently contradicts the technology with discrimination clause of the NPT.

Anyway, Iran is likely to pass 3000 centrifuges over the next year and the US is not likely to bomb Iran in response. Just because bombing Iran would bring Iran closer to a weapon, would strengthen Iran's leadership's standing with its population and accelerate the forced withdrawal of the US from Iraq at least and maybe Afganistan also.

But Lebanon is at least equally interesting right now.

Lebanon's population lurched in the anti-Western direction after last year's war and I expected Lebanon's government to reflect that by now.

Slightly unfortunately for my record as a predictor, but very unfortunately for the people of Lebanon, the US, with Saudi help, has managed to keep political power in Lebanon in the hands of pro-Western forces that are dramatically unrepresentative of the population of the country.

People, democracy is a good thing. And not just when the side you want is winning. This goes for Lebanon and also for US efforts to isolate Sadr and Iraqi nationalists in Iraq and for Hamas.

Keeping the side that wins or that would win out of power is always a bad idea because the same resources that side could use to win the elections, it can use to win a non-electoral struggle that is much more destructive.

Is this a matter of naivety or is it that in all cases, Israel and the US would rather see destructive conflicts than a peaceful process that puts anti-Israel/US/West forces in power? I'm not sure there's a practical difference, meaning I'm not sure the answer matters in real life, but I tend to take cynicism over stupidity as an explanation for US actions in the Middle East maybe too often.

Stupidity and naivety are random. They would cause the US to randomly allow elections in Palestine, not realizing their side would lose. Or giving in to Sistani on elections in 2003, before the Shiites began systematically consolidating their power, and watching their leverage decrease steadily ever since.

But not only does it make sense that Israel would rather its rivals be divided and debilitated by internal conflict than stable, Israeli strategists have explicitly stated this preference. So in this situation it is very difficult to imagine a string of coincidences that have lead in Israel's preferred direction consistently whenever there has been US involvement in the Middle East.

But another pro-Western politician was killed recently in Lebanon. How much better it would have been for one-person one-vote elections to have sent him or other people in his side to retirement.

At this point I'm curious, is the plan really to kill three or four more politicians and call a vote? The pro-Western Lebanese really wouldn't rather just call a vote now? Or does the West have some leverage over them that their own preferences don't matter?

The Threat of Iran's Nuclear Program

I read today again that Iran having a nuclear weapons capability - which spelled out means the technology to build a weapon inside its borders - would lead to an arms race. Like a lot of analysis of the Middle East, that statement is more deliberately misleading than true, yet not an outright lie.

The type of rivalry that would lead, say Saudi Arabia to arm itself for a nuclear attack against Iran or to contemplate a nuclear retaliation against any kind of attack by Iran does not exist. And any rivalry with Egypt or Turkey is even less consequential.

The phrase "arms race" as used in this context by western commentators, deliberately draws this false picture. Iran would in no plausible context race against any of the other Muslim nations to create MAD, or second strike capabilities or any of the concepts that characterized the famous arms race between the US and USSR.

Actually though, Iran having a nuclear capability would spur the other Muslim nations to do the same. An arms race between Iran and Turkey? No. An arms race between the Muslim world and Israel.

Planners in US allies - and the most shameful aspect of US global policy is these pro-Israel corrupt dictatorships the US counts as allies in the Middle East - today are able to say to themselves primarily and also to their colleagues and lastly to their populations whose opinions they value lightly that the US will not tolerate any Muslim nation in the region having a nuclear capability. They don't like it, but it is the way of the world, they say to themselves.

Iran having a domestic enrichment plan smashes that. Not only has Iran offered to teach enrichment to any Muslim nation that asks, but when these planners look in the mirror they have to see their eyes and they couldn't look into their own eyes knowing they go along with the US desire for Israel to have a nuclear monopoly after Iran has shown it does not have to be tolerated.

It is very interesting to see the efforts western commentators are willing to expend to distract their audience away from Israel. A reader of these reports will get the false impression that the US is protecting, say Kuwait's interests from a nuclear-capable Iran. Iran being nuclear capable, without building a bomb is no threat to Kuwait or any of the Muslim states. Saudi Arabia, from memory, has actually announced that Iran having nuclear technology without a weapon is not a threat.

Israel is threatened by an Iranian program even if no weapon is produced - which is why the US position is that Iran must not have a program that could produce a weapon. Israel does not hope to actually use its weapons, but to keep the threat of their use to prevent conflicts from escalating to the point where Israel itself is threatened. That threat is blunted if Iran can announce that six months after Cairo is destroyed, Tel Aviv will be destroyed. Just the counter-threat reduces the power of the threat. In Iran's case no actual weapon has to be made.

Iran wants to be able to make that counter-threat, but Cairo, Baghdad, Riyadh and Demascus all being able to make the same counter-threat is seen in Tehran as a good thing.

So it is possible to say Iran being nuclear capable would spur an arms race, especially if I ignore the attempt by the commenter making the claim to distract attention away from Israel. But it is important to be clear, the race is not an actual arms race, and it is certainly not a race between Muslim states. The race is a race of threats and counter-threats and the participants are all of the Muslim states as one side and Israel as the other side.

US Democrats More Afraid for Israel than of Obstructionism Charge

Juan Cole suggests that Democrats do not cut funding for the war, which they could do with their bare majority today because they are afraid of being painted as obstructionists by the Republicans which might lead Republicans to win seats in a future election.

That doesn't make much sense to me, and this is a good segue into just how damaging for Israel a US withdrawal from Iraq would be.

The Democratic party just doesn't seem willing to differentiate itself from the Republicans in any practical way on this issue.

The problem is that mainstream Democrats do not want to withdraw from Iraq. To figure out why, we have to look at what will happen if the US withdraws.

Iran would reach out to the Saudis to stabilize the country, as is consistent with their interests and as they are repeatedly saying.

Iran and the Saudis together would certainly do a better job stabilizing the country and resolving the differences between Sunnis, Shiites and Kurds than the US can do.

If Iraq is to be held together, it will be held together by a Shiite Iraqi nationalist who is in the mainstream of Iraqi political thought, which is to say anti-Western/anti-Zionist (like Sadr). Iran and Saudi Arabia together can make that happen. The US cannot.

But the down side would be that Saudi Arabia would increase its cooperation with Iran and a unified democratic Iraq would vote by a landslide to join the Iran, Hezbollah, Hamas, Syria anti-Western/anti-Zionist configuration. That configuration would end up taking power in Lebanon (it does have the most votes now in any one-person one-vote arrangement) and start pressuring Jordan.

Saudi Arabia in these circumstances would strongly consider joining that configuration itself.

A US pullout would be an absolute nightmare for Israel. Yeah, it would save maybe hundreds of thousands of Iraqi lives, hundreds of billions of US military dollars and several hundred US troops per year but Israel's medium and longer-term viability as a Jewish state would be maybe fatally jeopardized.

To the degree that the US has interests that are separate from Israel's, there would not be much direct harm to US interests from a withdrawal. The Saudis and Iraqis would still sell oil, eventually at a lower price when Iraqi production comes on line and the country has stabilized.

This is a clear example of a divergence of interests between the US and Israel. Elements of the US political system sympathetic to Israel will have the US pursue a policy that is harmful to the US but essential for Israel.

So the Democrats are not taking effective action to force a withdrawal because they don't want a withdrawal.

The Democrats would ignore the charge of obstructionists the same way they ignore the charge of baby-killers over abortion - they have similar majorities of the public on their supposed side of both issues.

The United States at some point will have to begin a discussion about how much it is worth to US interests to ensure that Israel has a Jewish majority forever.

Israel accepting Palestinian refugees could be a peaceful, permanent solution to the Arab-Zionism dispute but would leave the Middle East without a Jewish state. How many US soldiers and resources is the US willing to sacrifice to prevent that is a question that is being answered by events as we speak.

The Saudis and Palestine

http://afp.google.com/article/ALeqM5jq3L2VR6blTV6z1SP8d1aJwlZy6A

A Hamas spokesman told AFP on Monday that ousted Hamas prime minister Ismail Haniya was prepared to meet with Abbas in Saudi Arabia to try to resolve the crisis on the basis of the Mecca accord.

The official Saudi account of the talks suggested Abbas had been assured of Riyadh's support.

The Saudi and Palestinian leaders discussed "the need to remove internal differences amongst the Palestinians... and return the situation to what it was," the state SPA news agency reported.

It said they also reviewed international efforts to activate the stalled Middle East peace process.

Saudi Arabia.

Reports about Saudi Arabia in regional relations almost always paraphrase Saudi statements. That makes me suspicious because I get the feeling there sometimes is an element of hopeful or wishful thinking on the part of Western Middle East analysts.

My feeling is the Saudis are less enthusiastic supporters of the West than Western analysts want to believe and their statements may have double edges that readers of the Western press are protected from. The Saudis right now are certainly less hostile to Iran than is commonly presented.

But it cannot be denied that Saudi Arabia often ends up on the side of Israel conflicting with other Arabs or Muslims. You never saw Nasser ally with Israel to confront Saudi Arabia, but you saw the other way around. You never saw Iran ally with Israel, or Syria ally with Israel. Somehow Saudi Arabia often ends up in these tacit allegiances with the United States and Israel against other Muslims but somehow the Saudis still claim to be leaders of the Muslim world. Weird.

And here we have the Saudis, claiming some principle or another, supporting Abbas along with Israel and George Bush.

How unfortunate it is for the people of the Middle East that Saudi Arabia is not a democracy. But the Saudi version of the Shah remains the most ardent defender of Israel in the Middle East. It is difficult to understand why this is so. One day I hope to ask a Saudi official what the story is.