Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu holds two letters, one of which he read from, as he addresses the American Israel Public Affairs Committee (AIPAC) Policy Conference in Washington, on March 5. (Cliff Owen/AP)
Netanyahu gives Obama the Book of Esther. Biblical parable for nuclear Iran?
When Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu gave President Obama the Book of Esther as a gift a few days ago, the message was only slightly less subtle than if he had constructed a massive neon billboard across the street from 1600 Pennsylvania Avenue with the message "Mr. President, please help me destroy Iran before they destroy us."
The Book of Esther is from the Old Testament, and it's a story that Jews across the world will celebrate tonight and tomorrow with the holiday of Purim. Unlike much of the good book, there are hardly any mentions of God. Instead it's a tale of backroom maneuvering ending in victory for the Jews and destruction of their enemies, with a woman in the rare role of hero. Did this 2,500-year-old tale of double-dealing and deceit, set in the old Persian Empire, really happen? Well, your mileage may vary. Does it contain lessons for today? Bibi certainly thinks so.
One of his aides told a reporter that gift was meant to provide “background reading” on Iran for Obama. In a speech to the American-Israeli Public Affairs Committee (AIPAC), a pro-Israel lobbying group, Netanyahu described Haman, the villain of the tale, as "a Persian anti-Semite [who] tried to annihilate the Jewish people." The context of his speech was that Iran, the modern successor to Persia, presents the greatest danger to peace and security on the planet.
While I'm not sure foreign policy is well-crafted with ancient biblical texts as a guide, the lessons of the Esther story are taken seriously by Netanyahu and millions of Jews. Some Jewish traditions say Hitler is not a historical aberration, but a descendent of Haman (who, in turn, was a descendant of the Jews' enemies in Egypt). The story of a proposed genocide of the Jews in ancient Persia? Evidence for why the modern state of Israel had to be established – there could be no guaranteed security or safety for Jews living in a Gentile-majority state.
What happened? The Persian king Ahasuerus is displeased with his wife and casts her aside, ordering his men to scour the country for a new bride. The beautiful orphan Esther, being fostered by her cousin Mordechai, is brought before Ahasuerus and he takes her as his wife. Mordechai tells her to keep her Jewish identity a secret.
Some time later, Mordechai overhears a plot against the king and transmits the warning through Esther. But Mordechai's role is unknown and he runs into trouble when some time after that, Haman is elevated to vizier – the king's prime minister and right-hand man. Haman is not a nice man. After Mordechai refuses to bow down before the vain and bullying Haman, the vizier decides to eradicate all Jews in Persia in revenge. With a honeyed tongue in the king's ear warning that Jews are disloyal and dangerous, he wins approval. On a set date, all the Jews in the empire will be slaughtered.
Mordechai learns of the plot, and sends word to Esther that she must intercede with the king. He beseeches her: "If you remain silent at this time, relief and deliverance for the Jews will arise from another place, but you and your father’s family will perish. And who knows but that you have come to royal position for such a time as this." (As quoted in the New International Version of the Bible.)
So she arrays herself in finery and presents herself to Ahasuerus, who promises to give her anything she wants. She finally reveals she's a Jew and that Haman's plan means the destruction of her own people, and Mordechai – whose role in uncovering the assassination plot against the king has by now been revealed.
The furious king shifts positions, and gives the Jews permission to destroy their enemies. The story ends with Haman, his brothers, and 75,000 other Persians put to the sword. Mordechai is elevated to vizier, and given wide latitude to make policy.
It appears that in a modern context, Netanyahu sees himself as Mordechai, Iran's leaders as Haman, and Obama perhaps as Ahasuerus, the powerful but easily influenced king who almost led to the Jews' downfall but saved them in the nick of time. There isn't an obvious Esther figure at the moment (though fans of the evangelical Christian politician Sarah Palin often compared her to Queen Esther, come to save her people "at a time such as this," during her vice presidential run). But I think that's enough of the plot to get the point.
The holiday itself, though very Jewish, is really a celebration of man (and woman) taking action to save themselves rather than waiting for divine intervention. There are no miracles but human ingenuity and intelligence, no great lessons beyond a reminder that the Jews have enemies, and when the chips are down they'd better look to themselves first (as Netanyahu told AIPAC, "The purpose of the Jewish state is to defend Jewish lives and to secure the Jewish future. Never again will we not be masters of the fate of our very survival. Never again. That is why Israel must always have the ability to defend itself, by itself, against any threat.")
The holiday has evolved down the centuries into a cross between Halloween and Hogmanay. There will be readings from Esther in synagogues tonight, but also kids running around in costumes gobbling sweet Hamantaschen ("Haman's hats," though in modern Hebrew they're called "Haman's ears"). Their elders generally indulge in the harder stuff. It's a celebration of victory and survival.
In the modern tale being told by Netanyahu, with his frequent warnings that Iran's nuclear program is the gathering storm of a new Holocaust, the Islamic Republic of Iran is the one "trying to kill us." War talk has been quieted slightly by Obama's skillful handling of his own meetings with Netanyahu and AIPAC this week. But the biblical underpinnings of Netanyahu's and many others Jews fears promise to, eventually, ratchet up the heat again.
US Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, Gen. Martin Dempsey (r.) shakes hands with Egyptian Lt. Gen. Sami Anan in Feb. (Khalil Hamra/AP/File)
Joe Scarborough implies General Dempsey unfit to lead joint chiefs
When Gen. Martin Dempsey, the chairman of the joint chiefs of staff, said he considered Iran to be a "rational actor" in congressional testimony in February, he soon came under attack from hawks in the United States.
A string of Republican politicians, from Newt Gingrich to Lindsey Graham, soon lined up to attack General Dempsey's judgment. His point, that Iran is playing the geopolitical game with an eye to advancing its own interests and security, was soon lost in a feedback of insisting that the country doesn't reason at all. And that's a frightening thought, since the implication of that claim is they can't be cajoled, threatened, or coerced by any means at all beyond force.
Today, MSNBC talk show host Joe Scarborough took it a step further, suggesting Dempsey's comments show he's unfit for command. On his morning program, Mr. Scarborough said. "Why did the chairman of the joint chiefs say that about the country that has been the epicenter of world terrorism since 1979? And if he truly believes that, why is he chairman of the joint chiefs?"
Scarborough called Iran the "epicenter of world terrorism" at least three times in his brief remarks, notwithstanding that more terrorist attacks that have damaged US interests have been carried out by the Sunni Al Qaeda, not by Iran. And that rather misses the point. Terrorism may be illegal, it may be morally reprehensible and ruthless, but it can have strategic and, yes, rational uses.
But the host was having none of it.
"To say, though, we can't be drawn into yet another war is one thing that a lot of people in the Pentagon believe. To call Iran a rational actor, I would say, is almost disqualifying of a chairman of the joint chiefs, especially because as you said before, the most disturbing part is it seems like this is calculated. How can this guy run our armed forces, if he believes the epicenter of international terrorism since 1979 -- and I can say that as a guy who wants our troops home, I can say that as a guy who doesn't want to be drawn into another war, but Iran is not a rational actor, they've been the epicenter of international terrorism since 1979 and we've got the guy that's running our armed forces saying they're rational," Scarborough said.
His comment "it seems like this was calculated" was in reference to guest Richard Haass, the head of the Council on Foreign Relations. Mr. Haass had said it was his "hunch" that many at the Pentagon are eager to avoid another war at a time of budget cuts, with the Iraq war just ended, and with the Afghan war lurching towards its conclusion. "They don't want another crisis," said Haass. The strong implication of Scarborough being "disturbed" by this is that he thinks in seeking to deflect a war, Gen. Dempsey is failing in his duty. Scarborough's "Morning Joe" is the second-ranked cable morning news show, with about 350,000 viewers.
So who should you trust, Dempsey or Scarborough?
Dempsey is a 1974 graduate of West Point. He commanded troops during the first Gulf War, and led the 1st Armored Division for a little over a year during the occupation of Iraq before taking over command of the training of Iraqi security forces from 2005-2007. He has Masters degrees in English, Military Arts, and National Security Studies. His Masters thesis from the US Army Command and General Staff College in 1988 is titled "Duty: Understanding the Most Sublime Military Value."
Mr. Scarborough was a Republican congressman from Florida from 1995-2001, and earned a law degree at the University of Florida in 1990. He has mostly been an MSNBC talk show host since leaving Congress.
Dempsey responded to some push-back from Congressman Tom Price (R) of Georgia last week. Rep. Price said that Dempsey's comment that Iran is a "rational actor ... stunned me and many of my constituents.... Do you stand by that statement?"
Dempsey (who sounds just like the former Marine and fellow New Yorker Harvey Keitel): "Yes, I stand by it because the alternative is almost unimaginable. The alternative is that we attribute to them that their actions are so irrational that they have no basis of planning. You know, not to sound too academic about it but Thucydides in the 5th century BC said that all strategy is some combination of reaction to fear, honor, and interests. And I think all nations act in response to one of those three things, even Iran. The key is to understand how they act and not trivialize their actions by attributing to them some irrationality. I think that’s a very dangerous thing for us to do. It doesn’t mean I agree with what they decide, by the way, but they have some thought process they follow."
Price continues: "Maybe you can help me to understand then what you believe to be the rationality of an assassination attempt on the Saudi Ambassador in our territory."
Dempsey: "I'm not here to justify Iran's actions.... I don't understand their rationality, but I'm not them." Price: "But you've described them as a rational actor. Dempsey: "What I'm suggesting... [is] that they are, they are calculating. What I'm suggesting is we need to be equally and maybe even more calculating."
Me? I'm with Dempsey, as the Lord Palmerston quote I selected for Backchannels indicates: "Nations have no permanent friends or allies, they only have permanent interests." Nations may be wrong, they may be thuggish, the may do horrible things, but it's interests that drive them.
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Sen. John McCain, R-Ariz. talks to reporters on Capitol Hill in Washington, on March 5, after making an appeal on the floor of the Senate for the US to lead an 'international effort' involving air strikes on Syria's military forces. (J. Scott Applewhite/AP)
Senator McCain calls for war in Syria
Senator John McCain urged the US to move towards war with Syria today. McCain also demanded that President Barack Obama commit himself to using force.
"The President must state unequivocally that under no circumstances will Assad be allowed to finish what he has started, that there is no future in which Assad and his lieutenants will remain in control of Syria, and that the United States is prepared to use the full weight of our airpower to make it so."
There is certainly reason for alarm from a humanitarian and moral point of view. As McCain said: "The kinds of mass atrocities that NATO intervened in Libya to prevent in Benghazi are now a reality in Homs," Senator McCain said. "Indeed, Syria today is the scene of some of the worst state-sponsored violence since Milosevic’s war crimes in the Balkans, or Russia’s annihilation of the Chechen city of Grozny."
That's pretty much right. Weeks of shelling of Homs, particularly the Baba Amr neighborhood of that city that was a stronghold for anti-Assad insurgents and the activists working with them, have killed scores. Satellite images purchased and analyzed by Human Rights Watch show mortar and rocket strikes on well over 100 buildings in the densely packed neighborhood. And reports from activists have claimed that since the opposition Free Syrian Army was routed from the city last week, opposition supporters have been massacred in the streets and tortured in detention centers.
I was in Benghazi the morning last year that French planes, later joined by British, US, and other NATO airpower, stopped Muammar Qaddafi's march on the city cold and began the process of turning the tide in favor of his opponents. Everything I've read and seen coming out of Homs in recent weeks jibes with what I expected would have been Benghazi's fate if NATO had not come to the Libyan rebellion's aid.
But unfortunately for Syria's opposition, the international cavalry is not coming any time soon. Nearly a year into the war to oust Assad, the Syrian army remains largely intact. In the case of Libya, there were mass defections from Qaddafi's forces within days of protests breaking out against his rule. And the Libyan army of Qaddafi was far less capable than Syria's army under Assad. Its forces were not as well-trained, as well-led, or as well-armed.
If air power were to be used against Assad's regime as it was used to overthrow Qaddafi's, then the venture will take longer than the six months it took in Libya. The price in Syrian blood, on both sides will be higher, and the geography of the country -- without the vast stretches of desert between towns that were turned into shooting galleries when Qaddafi tried to move his forces -- would guarantee more civilian casualties from NATO bombs than occurred in Libya.
And though some are suggesting that civilian protections zones be carved out, and suggest that as a panacea, fighting will have to be done to accomplish that (Peter Munson, a skeptic on intervention in Syria, looks at some of the risks). Finally, Russia and China have vowed to stand in the way of UN Security Council authorization to act, instead of standing aside, as they did in the case of Libya.
McCain continued today: "The problem is, the bloodletting continues. Despite a year’s worth of diplomacy backed by sanctions, Assad and his top lieutenants show no signs of giving up and taking the path into foreign exile. To the contrary, they appear to be accelerating their fight to the finish. And they are doing so with the shameless support of foreign governments, especially in Russia, China, and Iran."
The senator is again right. Assad, like Qaddafi before him, does not want to yield power, nor do the many hundreds of thousands of Syrians who have benefited from his regime, particularly his fellow Alawites. This is a real rock and a hard place situation: Assad is nowhere near ready to quit (and for a reminder on how long sanctions can be withstood, Saddam Hussein handled more than a decade of economic isolation after the Gulf War). But the costs of international action could be high. And it's not clear what allies the US would go to war with if it takes McCain's advice.
"The United States should lead an international effort to protect key population centers in Syria, especially in the north, through airstrikes on Assad’s forces. To be clear: This will require the United States to suppress enemy air defenses in at least part of the country," McCain said today.
He outlines an effort much like the one in Libya. But again, Syria is larger (20 million citizens against 6 million in Libya), Assad's defenders are strong.
“The ultimate goal of airstrikes should be to establish and defend safe havens in Syria, especially in the north, in which opposition forces can organize and plan their political and military activities against Assad. These safe havens could serve as platforms for the delivery of humanitarian and military assistance – including weapons and ammunition, body armor and other personal protective equipment, tactical intelligence, secure communications equipment, food and water, and medical supplies. These safe havens could also help the Free Syrian Army and other armed groups in Syria to train and organize themselves into more cohesive and effective military forces, likely with the assistance of foreign partners. “The benefit for the United States in helping to lead this effort directly is that it would allow us to better empower those Syrian groups that share our interests – those groups that reject Al-Qaeda and the Iranian regime, and commit to the goal of an inclusive democratic transition, as called for by the Syrian National Council. If we stand on the sidelines, others will try to pick winners, and this will not always be to our liking or in our interest. This does that mean the United States should go it alone. We should not. We should seek the active involvement of key Arab partners such as Saudi Arabia, U.A.E., Jordan, and Qatar – and willing allies in the E.U. and NATO, the most important of which in this case is Turkey.
McCain's full prepared statement is worth a read. While he's unlikely to get what he wants anytime soon, the horrors in Syria appear to be increasing, and the calls for international action are likely to get louder. At some point in the future, views like McCain's may end up carrying the day.
Inside AIPAC and out, Obama's opponents turn up the heat
President Obama promised the American-Israel Public Affairs Committee (AIPAC) to do everything in his power to stop Iran from obtaining a nuclear weapon yesterday while simultaneously complaining there has been too much "loose talk" about war with the Islamic Republic.
Later today he meets with Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, who in turn will give a keynote address to AIPAC's annual meeting tonight. Iran's nuclear program will be front and center in both events, count on it.
War fever around Iran has all but obscured the quest for a two-state solution to the Israeli-Palestinian conflict, traditionally a focus of these conferences.
But a lot of the comments around the AIPAC meeting and Netanyahu's visit to Washington this week seems as much about defeating Obama in November as about Iran. Former Republican Vice President Dick Cheney's daughter, Liz Cheney, told the meeting "There is no president who has done more to delegitimize and destabilize the state of Israel in recent history than President Obama."
As Obama spoke at AIPAC yesterday, Republican presidential hopeful Mitt Romney told supporters at a pancake brunch in Georgia that "it's pretty straight forward in my view. If Barack Obama gets reelected, Iran will have a nuclear weapon and the world will change."
Another barb came from a paper owned by Sheldon Adelson, the Jewish-American casino magnate who has poured millions of dollars into the super PAC of Newt Gingrich. A commentary in Israel Hayom responds to an interview that Obama gave last week to The Atlantic's Jeffrey Goldberg, in which the president promised "We’ve got Israel’s back." David Weinberg writes that the "gentleman doth protest too much" and seeks to lay out a case why Obama is dangerous for Israel.
"The US on Obama’s watch seems to be a confused and unpredictable superpower and a fair-weather friend," writes Mr. Weinberg. "This ranges from the strange burst of military activism in Libya to a lack of activism against Bashar al-Assad in Syria. From the abandonment of Hosni Mubarak to the coddling of Turkey’s Recep Tayyip Erdogan. From obsequiousness toward the king of Saudi Arabia to brutishness toward Netanyahu."
Mr. Adelson is a supporter of settlement expansion in the West Bank, something that the Obama administration (like most of its recent predecessors) opposes. The current crop of Republican candidates have promised a much softer line on settlements.
Put simply, doing political damage to Obama has been as much on the agenda of some pro-Israel groups' efforts around this AIPAC meeting as highlighting Iran's nuclear program, or making an Israeli case about what US policy should be towards the Israeli-Palestinian conflict. In 2004, Democratic presidential hopeful John Kerry was prevented from speaking at AIPAC because the group said it had a policy against allowing challengers to a sitting president from speaking.
This year, Republican presidential candidates Newt Gingrich, Mitt Romney, and Rick Santorum have all been given speaking slots.
Suspicion of Obama does not appear to be confined to pro-Israel activists. Barak Ravid wrote in Haaretz over the weekend that "Netanyahu and his associates have been conveying discomfort in recent weeks about the conduct of the American government on the Iran issue. It is not clear if this is a tactic or if this is an actual feeling that Obama cannot be trusted on Iran."
The Emergency Committee for Israel, a group run by the hawkish Bill Kristol, makes no bones about its distaste for the US president. The lobbying group released an ad over the weekend attacking Obama.
The soundtrack is alarming and emotional (think poor man's Carmina Burana), the graphics menacing (metaphor alert: gathering storm clouds), and the commentary and editing are designed to frighten friends of Israel about Obama. A talking head says Obama may be "the most pro-Palestinian" president in history and another says of Obama "this is not the way you treat an ally." The video (embedded below) ends with Obama speaking to an Arab forum. He says, "I want to make sure we end before the call to prayer" and then a hard edit cuts off whatever he said next.
A nod and a wink toward the canard that Obama is secretly a Muslim? It sure seems like it.
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In this 2011 photo, a poker dealer is shown during a game at the Magic City Casino in Miami. (Wilfredo Lee/AP)
Iran debate: If Obama doesn't bluff, he's not a good poker player
As every poker player knows, the key to making a bluff work is to convince your opponent you're not bluffing (hat tip to Doug Saunders).
And that's why President Obama's statement that "I don't bluff" in regards to his willingness to use force to stop Iran from obtaining a nuclear weapon in an interview with The Atlantic's Jeffrey Goldberg released today is so apt. The truth value of the statement is in fact, unknowable.
If at some point the US intelligence establishment determines Iran is on the brink of obtaining a nuclear weapon (the current US consensus is there's no ongoing weapons-related nuclear work), and Obama is president, the strong implication of his comment is that the US would go to war. But if that day comes, there will be a host of other factors to consider, from domestic politics, to surging oil prices, to the potential strains on US alliances.
A cost-benefit calculation will be made. And yes, Obama or any other president will consider containment as an option, depending on if and when the day comes. Obama insisted to Goldberg that containment as a policy is off the table "because you're talking about the most volatile region in the world. It will not be tolerable to a number of states in that region for Iran to have a nuclear weapon and them not to have a nuclear weapon. Iran is known to sponsor terrorist organizations, so the threat of proliferation becomes that much more severe."
Those are real concerns. And it makes sense to insist that there's a red line for the Iranians as Obama and European allies continue to use sanctions and negotiation to bring Iran's nuclear program under stronger outside oversight. But that's just being a good poker player. There is always some ambiguity. Or as Obama told Goldberg: "I think that the Israeli government recognizes that, as president of the United States, I don't bluff. I also don't, as a matter of sound policy, go around advertising exactly what our intentions are."
Poker metaphors have also been in full flow about the jockeying between Obama and Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, who's due in Washington over the weekend for the annual meeting of AIPAC, a pro-Israel lobbying group, and a state visit with the president.
Though Obama may be leader of a superpower and Netanyahu the leader of a small Middle Eastern country, the Israeli premier casts a long shadow on US politics. He's been seeking to pry an iron-clad promise from Obama that the US will in fact attack Iran if it nears a nuclear weapon, and the AIPAC conference is expected to largely focus on the Islamic Republic, which Netanyahu and many Israelis view as the biggest threat to their security.
Aluf Benn's piece today in Israel's left-leaning Haaretz is headlined "Netanyahu and Obama play high-stakes poker over Iran." Mr. Benn writes: "On Monday, Netanyahu will meet President Barack Obama in the White House for a game of diplomatic poker, where the greatest gamble of all will be right on the table: an attack on Iran's nuclear installations. Each of the two players will try to push the other to act."
Benn, calling the trip the "most important one in [Netanyahu's] long career" writes that the Israeli leader has amassed a hefty stack of chips at the table. "For three years, Netanyahu has been preparing for this very moment. During this period, he has chalked up for himself a diplomatic coup that initially was seen as unimaginable: He has managed to turn the superpower's political agenda upside-down - from "Palestine first" to "Iran as top priority.""
Writing in the hawkish Jerusalem Post, Jay Bushinsky says Obama will lean hard on Netanyahu to avoid an attack on Iran, at least for now. "Obama may oppose any kind of military operation before the presidential election in November because it may cost him votes if the results are unsatisfactory or unimpressive," he writes. "[Obama's] thinking may be influenced in part by the principle that one always knows when and how a bilateral conflict began, but one never knows when and how it will come to an end."
Netanyahu, for his part, sought to turn up the heat of war talk ahead of his arrival in Washington. Speaking in Ottawa, he called international talks with Iran a "trap" that will do nothing to deter it from the pursuit of nuclear weapons. Iran "could pursue or exploit the talks as they've done in the past to deceive and delay so that they can continue to advance their nuclear program and get to the nuclear finish line," he said after meeting with Canadian Prime Minister Stephen Harper. He also appeared to insist that Israel reserves the right to conduct a strike on Iran, with or without US approval. "Like any sovereign country, we reserve the right to defend ourselves against a country that calls and works for our destruction," he said.
Meanwhile, US-led sanctions on Iran continue to be taking a toll. The Noor Islamic Bank of Dubai, a financial institution close to the emirate's ruling family that was one of Iran's major international financial lifelines, recently cut Iran off at the behest of US officials. Undersecretary of the Treasury David Cohen said at the end of last month that Iran's currency, the riyal, is "plummeting" and has lost half its value since September. These are real pressures on the regime in Tehran, and Obama is probably going to give them a good long while to before he gives up on them.
So expect more hawkish calls and threats of looming war at this weekend's AIPAC conference. Expect Obama to continue to insist that "all options are on the table." But remember that there's plenty of bluster in international diplomacy, and the shooting's probably a long way from getting started.
President Obama leads guests to a toast as he hosts a dinner for a select group of veterans and officials involved with the Iraq war at the White House in Washington on Wednesday. (Pablo Martinez Monsivais/AP)
Update on Iraq: Not quite freedom on the march
Toward the end of February, Iraqis took to the streets to commemorate the anniversary of their own – ultimately unrealized – attempt at starting an uprising against a corrupt, increasingly authoritarian political order.
What happened?
Those efforts, in imitation of the uprisings that upended the political orders of Tunisia, Egypt, and Libya, were shot down by the country's security services.
"Security forces blocked access to protest sites in Baghdad; beat and arrested peaceful demonstrators in Sulaimaniya, Kurdistan; and briefly detained, beat, or confiscated equipment from media workers and prevented others from covering the protests," according to Human Rights Watch.
Meanwhile for the US, the expensive and bloody Iraq war is already a fading memory.
RELATED: Who's who in Iraq, post US exit?
On Wednesday President Obama hosted a dinner for a select group of veterans and officials involved with the Iraq war. "The nation's gratitude dinner," remembered the more than 4,000 soldiers who died, the thousands more who lost limbs and suffered permanent injury, and the sacrifices made by the families at home.
Obama called the men and women who fought in Iraq "the patriots who served in our name." He went on to say that "after nearly nine years in Iraq, tonight is an opportunity to express our gratitude and to say once more, welcome home."
But the stated purposes that war was fought – to remove Saddam Hussein from power and bring democracy to Iraq – is far from fulfilled. Sure, Mr. Hussein is gone, hung by his own people after being captured by US troops. But a flourishing democracy, Iraq is not.
Take Kurdistan, the pro-American ethnic enclave that was protected by a NATO no-fly zone from Hussein's troops in the '90s and has often been held up as a model by US policy makers about what all of Iraq could become. On Feb. 17, a few hundred democracy protesters sought to gather in Sulaymaniyah. Here's what happened next, according to Human Rights Watch:
"Within 10 minutes, hundreds more security forces surrounded and filled the square, and dozens of men in civilian clothing approached the protesters and began to punch, kick, and strike them with wooden batons, protesters and journalists told Human Rights Watch. The men forced many of the protesters to one side of the square, next to a former police station that was used as a temporary security headquarters for the protests. There, security forces detained protesters inside the building."
A gathering of Arab Iraqis in Baghdad's Tahrir Square on Feb. 25 were received with only a slightly less thuggish show of force.
"As protesters approached the multiple checkpoints surrounding Tahrir Square set up that morning, security forces informed them that they had a long list of protesters whom they had orders to arrest and that they would check this list against the identification cards of anyone wishing to pass through. A young activist who did not want his name used for fear of government reprisal told Human Rights Watch that one smiling soldier told him and other protesters, 'We may have your name. Why don’t you step forward and see if you get arrested?'"
Iraq's Constitution formally guarantees the rights of free speech and assembly, but in practice it's generally ignored.
The Committee to Protect Journalists rated Iraq the worst country in its "impunity index" for last year, which measures how a national legal system does, or does not, protect reporters. Five reporters were killed across the country in 2011 and 150 have been killed there since 2003. Last year, 26 journalists were detained by the authorities for their work. The CPJ says that there has not yet been a conviction in any of those cases.
"As demonstrations for economic and political reform spread with the Arab uprisings (in 2011), journalists were consistently targeted for their coverage. Anti-riot police attacked, detained, and assaulted journalists covering protests," the CPJ reports. "In their attempt to restrict coverage of the unrest, police raided news stations and press freedom groups, destroyed equipment, and arrested journalists. In Iraqi Kurdistan, authorities used aggression and intimidation to restrict journalists' coverage of violent clashes between security forces and protesters."
Just how bad is the state of the press in Iraq? The CPJ's impunity index ranks Iraq as nearly four times worse than number two on the list, Somalia.
RELATED: Who's who in Iraq, post US exit?
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Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu speaks during a conference in Tel Aviv, Tuesday, Feb. 28. Netanyahu sets off for a critical US visit next week, for direct meetings with President Obama and a speech at the upcoming AIPAC conference. (Oded Balilty/AP)
If Israeli voters get their way, no attack on Iran without US help
The Israeli public is champing at the bit for air strikes against Iran's nuclear program right? Wrong.
A new poll run by the University of Maryland's Sadat Chair for Peace and Development Shibley Telhami was released as Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu gets ready to decamp to Washington next week, for direct meetings with President Obama and a speech at the upcoming AIPAC conference.
The annual meeting of AIPAC, a pro-Israel advocacy group with political views aligned with Mr. Netanyahu's Likud, is expected to be a platform for warnings of the Iranian threat, calls for unbreakable solidarity between the US and Israel, and demands that the US provide assistance to the Jewish state if it decides to attack the Islamic republic. Netanyahu has promised to make Iran the "center" of his talks with Obama.
That last bit is understandable, since Israel doesn't have the ability to decisively destroy Iran's hardened and widely dispersed nuclear assets from the air. But the notion of an Israel marching inevitably closer to war with Iran is undercut by the Maryland poll, conducted between Feb. 22-26.
Given three options, 43 percent of Israeli Jews said their country should strike Iran "only if Israel gains at least American support" and 32 percent were opposed to a strike in any circumstances. Some 22 percent supported a strike "even without the support of the US."
As for the US being drawn into the war if Israel acted alone, 28 percent expect the US would join the war on Israel's behalf, 37 percent expect the US would support Israel diplomatically but not militarily and 16 percent expect the US would "punish Israel by reducing its current support." Some 74 percent of Israeli Jews and 68 percent of all citizens expect that Hezbollah, the Lebanon based Shiite militia and political party, would retaliate along with Iran in the event of an Israeli attack.
Interestingly, Israeli Jews appear to have a slight preference for Barack Obama over the current front-runner for the Republican presidential nomination, Mitt Romney. Some 32 percent of Israeli Jews prefer Obama over Romney, while 29 percent prefer the Republican. Among all Israelis, both candidates have 29 percent support – which indicates a more negative view of Obama among Israel's 20 percent Arab minority than among Israeli Jews.
The Guardian reports, citing unnamed sources, that Israel "is pressing Barack Obama for an explicit threat of military action against Iran if sanctions fail and Tehran's nuclear programme advances beyond specified 'red lines,'" and that "the Israeli prime minister wants Obama to state unequivocally that Washington is prepared to use force if Iran's nuclear programme advances."
What the polling data from Israel show is that in the unlikely event Netanyahu gets what he wants from Obama, then the odds of an attack on Iran, and possibly a new war in the Middle East, will go up.
Something beautiful
It's been a grimmer week than normal in the parts of the world I cover (scroll through my posts for the past few days). A friend emailed me Cary Huang's Scale of the Universe graphic recently, and I think i've opened it up about 5 times since and almost instantly felt better.
It's a bit of science geek art, which allows you to explore the relative scale of things in the universe from the smallest subatomic particle to the Stingray Nebula and beyond. My first time playing with the graphic I got the feeling i once had while snorkeling over a coral bed in shallow water that suddenly dropped off to a few thousand feet deep: Exhilarated, a little frightened, mostly in awe.
Here's the link again. Once it loads, press "start" and slide the scale at the bottom left (smaller) and right (bigger). It's very easy to figure out.
A Quran is held during a gathering of Washington-area Muslims at the All Dulles Area Muslim Society (ADAMS) Friday, Feb. 24, in Sterling, Va., where a senior Pentagon official apologized for the mistaken burning of Qurans at a military base in Afghanistan. (Carolyn Kaster/AP)
Why an apology on Afghan Quran burning matters
When word came that Qurans had been burned by US troops in Afghanistan, there was no doubt there would be bloodshed as a consequence. The reason why they were burned (carelessness and ignorance in this case, it seems) didn't matter.
Afghans responded violently to Quran burnings in the past and it is hardly a secret that the country seethes with anti-American, and generally anti-foreigner, sentiment. President Barack Obama quickly moved to do the only thing he could to mitigate the coming storm: he apologized in a formal letter to Afghan President Hamid Karzai. "I assure you that we will take the appropriate steps to avoid any recurrence, to include holding accountable those responsible," Mr. Obama wrote.
To listen to some of his political opponents talk, he should have doubled down and instead insisted on a formal apology for the murder of US troops by Afghan soldiers.
Republican presidential candidate Newt Gingrich called the apology an "outrage," said Obama should have demanded an apology from Mr. Karzai for the murder of US troops instead, and said "this destructive double standard whereby the United States and its democratic allies refuse to hold accountable leaders who tolerate systematic violence and oppression in their borders must come to an end.”
Republican presidential candidate Rick Santorum said the apology was a sign of "weakness." Sarah Palin complained. “Obama apologizes for the inadvertent Koran burning this week; now the US trained and protected Afghan Army can apologize for killing two of our soldiers yesterday," she said.
And quarters of the conservative commentariat were even more strident. Take Andrew McCarthy of the National Review Online. "The only upside of the apology is that it appears... to be couched as coming personally from our blindly Islamophilic president," he writes. "Muslim leaders and their leftist apologists are also forever lecturing the United States about 'proportionality' in our war-fighting. Yet when it comes to Muslim proportionality, Americans are supposed to shrug meekly and accept the 'you burn books, we kill people' law of the jungle."
Here's why they're all wrong.
The answer to the moral question of "What's worse? Burning books or killing people?" is, of course, "killing people." Far, far worse. Furthermore, the burning at Bagram, an effort to get rid of books that Taliban prisoners were scribbling in to share propaganda and messages, was pretty clearly not an act of malice, but negligence. And yes, a greater acknowledgment from Karzai that enormous American sacrifices have been made to install and keep him in power would be nice.
But the dudgeon and moral outrage rather misses the point of what it means to be commander in chief. Obama, or any president, should have a fundamental thought at the top of their mind every time they speak about America's wars: "Is what I'm about to do or say going to put more troops in harm's way?" In this case the answer is an emphatic "yes." A direct refusal to express contrition for the Quran burning would have put more troops in harms way.
Would more than the at least six US soldiers and officers killed in the past week in retaliation for the Quran burning have died? Impossible to say. But it certainly would have fanned the flames in Afghanistan, leading to a more dangerous situation, not a safer one.
An old friend wrote to me complaining about double standards, asking pointedly if there is as much outrage and violence when Afghans mishandle Qurans. No, generally not. His point was that people there are primed to react violently against foreign, generally non-Muslim troops, more quickly than they do against co-religionists and neighbors – and that makes them hypocrites.
Well, his point is made. But the reality of the cultural terrain in Afghanistan is that mob violence will occur when foreign troops burn Qurans. Many more Afghans will be disgusted. Support for the foreign troops in their midst will decline. Hypocrisy? OK, sure. But far more importantly, it's reality. As long as the US is fighting a war there, it needs to keep sight of the Afghans that are, not the ones it might wish there were.
One can decry the immorality, or double standards, all day long. But it doesn't dispel the fact that more troops were threatened and the president's duty was to help quell this flareup as quickly as possible.
Afghan troops keep killing US troops
An Afghan soldier and an Afghan civilian employee murdered two US soldiers at a base near the southern city of Kandahar today.
That brings the total so-called green on blue killings in Afghanistan to six since an Afghan witnessed US soldiers dumping Qurans into a burn bit at Bagram Air Base a week ago. The heightened levels of violence since then, with mobs besieging NATO and UN compounds across Afghanistan, brings into stark relief the fundamental failure of the US-led mission in Afghanistan OVER the past 10 years.
There are growing, not decreasing, numbers of Afghans angry at the foreign occupation. Corruption and thuggery within the Afghan government installed and protected by NATO remain rampant and the Taliban remain active across large parts of the country.
IN PHOTOS Afghanistan in Winter
Though much of the blame for the failings of the Afghan government lie with Afghans like President Hamid Karzai, who owes his current position to a fraud-marred election two years ago, the large presence of foreign troops and the vast cultural gulf between them and most Afghans, make them convenient targets for public ire.
And the willingness of Afghan soldiers to turn their guns on US forces, usually in heavily fortified installations in what amount to suicide missions, is a dark indication of the fragility of the local forces being built – and of their loyalty to the state. For every Afghan soldier who takes such a drastic step, there are surely more who are sympathetic with their aims.
At the end of January, Pentagon officials told a Senate hearing that 70 NATO soldiers have been killed by Afghan forces since 2007. The murder of two US officers in the heart of the Afghan Interior Ministry last week prompted the withdrawal of hundreds of US and other foreign advisers from Afghan government installations. The Interior Ministry and the rest of the Afghan government are almost entirely financed by European and American taxpayers and are now without hands-on oversight from those nations.
To be sure, NATO press releases and embedded reporters continue to pump out anecdotes of steady progress, like this piece from a few days ago titled "Stability takes root in Kandahar." In the article, Capt. Widmar Roman explains: "The amount of security down here is unparalleled compared to what people have seen in the past."
Perhaps. But stories of "slow but steady progress" have been common over the past decade of war. And it's natural that mission-focused soldiers and officers report progress in the areas under their control. The Pentagon wants to present a view of progress to maintain support for the war, and the can-do qualities of soldiers inculcates in them a bias towards optimism, particularly when talking to the press.
But quantitative analysis is something else again. Anthony Cordesman at the Center for Strategic and International Studies, who has been mining data on both the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan since their inception, has a far grimmer outlook.
"The reality... is that the strategy developed under General Stanley McCrystal has been dying for a long time and for many more reasons than the growing distrust between US and ISAF personnel and the Afghans," Mr. Cordesman wrote at the end of February. "It was clear from the start in forming the new strategy that no number of tactical victories could bring security and stability to Afghanistan unless a massive effort in 'nation building' gave Afghanistan a more honest political system, far more capability in governance, effective security forces, and a better economy... Without such success, 'classic counterinsurgency (COIN)' became a farce that could win temporary control in sparsely populated areas like Helmand — the strategic equivalent of “ink spots”— for a while. It could never win the war."
(A long review of the COIN strategy adopted in Afghanistan can be read here).
The recent violence in Afghanistan comes as the Obama administration is reviewing its commitment to Afghanistan. Last June President Obama promised to have 33,000 US troops out of Afghanistan by this coming summer, and promised that "after this initial reduction, our troops will continue coming home at a steady pace as Afghan security forces move into the lead. Our mission will change from combat to support."
The US public appetite for the Afghan war is on the decline as the country steams toward presidential elections, something Obama and his rivals are well aware of. Meanwhile, there is little evidence that Afghan forces can act effectively in the field without a massive NATO logistics and supply backstop. In his piece, Cordesman says that the latest US approach could have worked with a truly open-ended commitment, and all the losses in blood and treasure that it implies.
But the US public has never tolerated that kind of military commitment and the Afghan war is already the longest in US history. The previous record was Vietnam, at 103 months. The Afghan war is now at 124 months and counting. While the US military will soldier on as long as it's asked to, the US voter will not.
Cordesman writes that Obama "faced hard choices in terms of budget pressures, a war that polls showed had lost the support of the American people, as well as the populations of most of United States’ allies" but that the consequence of those choices means the US will now "lack the forces to execute its current campaign plan in both the east and the south in 2012, while it now had to rush toward a political deadline at the end of 2014 for which there was no transition plan or supporting analysis."
These realities have seen an increased urgency to backchannel talks with the Taliban on a peace settlement, which last year was allowed to open a political office in Qatar. Whether a deal can be reached or not, the current mood of electorates in both the US and Europe indicates the Afghan war is heading into the home stretch. Until it crosses the line, though, it looks like soldiers will keep dying, and some of them will be killed by Afghan troops they're there to support.
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