"I want London to stand alongside Dubai and Kuala Lumpur as one of the great capitals of Islamic finance anywhere in the world." — David Cameron, Prime Minister, Great Britain.
But critics say that British ambitions to attract investments from Muslim countries, companies and individuals are spurring the gradual establishment of a parallel financial system based on Islamic Sharia law. The Treasury also said some sukuk Islamic bond issues may require the government to restrict its dealings with Israeli-owned companies in order to attract Muslim money.

The London Stock Exchange will be launching a new Islamic bond index in an effort to establish the City of London as one of the world's leading centers of Islamic finance.

Britain also plans to become the first non-Muslim country to issue sovereign Islamic bonds, known as sukuk, beginning as early as 2014.

The plans are all part of the British government's strategy to acquire as big a slice as possible of the fast-growing global market of Islamic finance, which operates according to Islamic Sharia law and is growing 50% faster than the conventional banking sector.

Although it is still a fraction of the global investment market -- Sharia-compliant assets are estimated to make up only around 1% of the world's financial assets -- Islamic finance is expected to be worth £1.3 trillion (€1.5 trillion; $2 trillion) by 2014, a 150% increase from its value in 2006, according to the World Islamic Banking Competitiveness Report 2012-2013, published in May 2013 by the consultancy Ernst & Young.

But critics say that Britain's ambitions to attract investments from Muslim countries, companies and individuals are spurring the gradual establishment of a parallel global financial system based on Islamic Sharia law.

British Prime Minister David Cameron announced the plans during a keynote speech at the ninth World Islamic Economic Forum, which was held in London from October 29-31, the first time the event has ever been held outside the Muslim world.

"Already London is the biggest center for Islamic finance outside the Islamic world," Cameron told the audience of more than 1,800 international political and business leaders from over 115 countries.
"And today our ambition is to go further still. Because I don't just want London to be a great capital of Islamic finance in the Western world, I want London to stand alongside Dubai and Kuala Lumpur as one of the great capitals of Islamic finance anywhere in the world."

UK Prime Minister David Cameron addresses the World Islamic Economic Forum in London on October 29, 2013. (Image source: 10 Downing St. Facebook page)

Cameron said the new Islamic bond index on the London Stock Exchange (LSE) would help stimulate fixed-income investments from Muslim investors -- especially investors from oil-rich Persian Gulf countries -- by helping them identify which listed companies adhere to Islamic principles.

Investors who practice Islamic finance -- which is said to be structured to conform to a strict code of ethics based on the Koran and Sharia law -- refuse to invest in companies that are linked to alcohol, gambling, pornography, tobacco, weapons or pork. Islamic finance also forbids collecting or paying interest and requires that deals be based on tangible assets.

Unlike conventional bonds, sukuk are described as investments rather than loans, with the initial payment made from an Islamic investor in the form of a tangible asset such as land. The lender of a sukuk earns money as profit from rent, as in real estate, rather than traditional interest.

Cameron says the British Treasury will issue £200 million (€235 million; $320 million) worth of sukuk as early as 2014. The objective is to enable the government to borrow from Muslim investors. The Treasury plans to issue fixed returns based on the profit made by a given asset, thereby allowing Muslims to invest without breaking Islamic laws forbidding interest-bearing bonds.

The Treasury also said some sukuk bond issues may require the British government to restrict its dealings with Israeli-owned companies in order to attract Muslim money.

Although Britain has already established itself as the leading secondary market for sukuk -- the LSE has listed 49 sukuk bonds worth $34 billion during the past five years -- such bonds have rarely been issued from local firms and never from the government.

"For years people have been talking about creating an Islamic bond, or sukuk, outside the Islamic world. But it's never quite happened," Cameron said. "Changing that is a question of pragmatism and political will. And here in Britain we've got both."

According to Cameron, this "pragmatism and political will" is being influenced by the fact that Islamic finance is "already fundamental" to the success of the British economy. Indeed, it is.

Britain is already the leading Western center for Islamic financial and related professional services. It is a leading provider of Sharia-compliant finance, with reported assets of $19 billion, according to Islamic Finance 2013, a new report published by The City UK, a financial sector lobby group.

Britain is home to 22 Islamic banks, of which six are fully Sharia-compliant. This is substantially more than in any other Western country or offshore center and is more than double the number in the United States.

In addition, 25 law firms are now supplying services in Islamic finance, which is increasingly being used for major infrastructure projects in London.

Islamic investment has financed London's Shard skyscraper -- the tallest building in the European Union -- and the 2012 Olympic Village. Middle Eastern investors own Harrods, London's most famous luxury department store, and the Manchester City football team.

Muslims also invested in projects such as the massive London Gateway port, the redevelopment of Battersea Power Station and Arsenal Football Club's Emirates Stadium.

Qualifications in Islamic finance are being offered by four professional institutes and at least 16 universities and business schools.

London is also a leader in Islamic retail banking services, with institutions offering a range of Islamic banking products, such as mortgages and car loans.

The growing demand for Islamic retail banking services is being propelled by the demographic transformation taking place in Britain. The Muslim population of Britain will top 3.3 million sometime before the end of 2013 to reach around 5.2% of the overall population of 63 million, according to figures extrapolated from a recent study on the growth of the Muslim population in Europe.

This demographic earthquake -- which is being attributed to large-scale immigration, coupled with high Muslim birth rates and growing numbers of British converts -- is transforming the country's business landscape.

More than one-third of all small- and medium-sized companies in London are believed to be Muslim-owned, and British Muslims contribute at least £30 billion to the economy, according to a new report published by the Muslim Council of Britain.

The demographic changes are also contributing to the establishment of parallel Islamic financial and legal systems in British public life.

In 2012, the British government began offering Muslim workers a Sharia-compliant pension fund in the public sector. A new government agency, the National Employment Savings Trust (NEST), will give Muslims who do not already have a company pension the option of investing in the HSBC Life Amanah Pension Fund, a Sharia-compliant pension scheme. The initial target market comprises some 200,000 Muslims in Britain.

In June 2011, Pointon York, an independent financial services company based in Leicestershire in central England, announced that it will begin offering four Sharia-compliant Self-Invested Personal Pensions (SIPP) products that comply with Islamic law.

Pointon York was the first specialist SIPP provider to receive Sharia-compliant accreditation by the Islamic Bank of Britain (IBB), which has pioneered Islamic retail banking in the United Kingdom. The IBB will supervise the entire life-cycle of Pointon York's pension funds to ensure full compliance with Sharia legal principles.

Muslim families in Britain can already acquire Sharia-compliant baby bonds under the British government's Child Trust Fund scheme. In 2008, Britain's Financial Services Authority (FSA) authorized the establishment of the country's first Islamic insurance company as well as the country's first Sharia MasterCard, called the Cordoba Gold MasterCard.

In addition, takaful, a type of Islamic insurance, reached a new high in 2012, with premiums estimated to have reached around $30 billion, according to The City UK, the financial services lobby group.

PM Cameron told the economic forum that Britain has also taken steps to ensure that Muslims are not discriminated against by implementing measures ending "double taxation" on Islamic mortgages and introducing alternative forms of student and start-up loans to comply with a ban on interest payments. "Never again should a Muslim in Britain feel unable to go to university because they cannot get a student loan simply because of their religion," he said.

But some are saying that Britain should go even farther in aligning its financial system with Sharia law. In an interview with the newspaper London24, Jodie Ginsberg of Demos Finance, a financial services research firm, said: "David Cameron is right to throw Britain's doors open to the Muslim world to showcase our trading wares. But we should also use this forum as an opportunity to consider how the principles of Islamic finance itself, not just the money generated in the Muslim world, might be applied in the UK. Islamic finance is one of the few models successfully to have weathered the 2008 credit crunch and its aftermath."

Speaking on a stage that included Jordanian King Abdullah and the Sultan of Brunei, Cameron dismissed criticism of increasing foreign ownership in Britain: "I know some people look at foreign companies investing in our businesses, financing our infrastructure or taking over our football clubs and ask, shouldn't we do something to stop it? Well, let me tell you, the answer is no."

Soeren Kern is a Senior Fellow at the New York-based Gatestone Institute. He is also Senior Fellow for European Politics at the Madrid-based Grupo de Estudios Estratégicos / Strategic Studies Group. Follow him on Facebook.

Related Topics:  United Kingdom  |  Soeren Kern

Labels: Britain, Economics, Finance, Islam

posted by Pieface @ Thursday, October 31, 2013

France: Anti-Semitism Now Mainstream

"You show that it is possible to be of the Jewish faith without being completely disgusting." — Standup comedian Sebastian Thoen introducing Elie Semoun on Canal Plus TV.
When a leading Jewish organization complained about "a dangerous trivialization of anti-Semitism," the President of the TV channel responded by saying that the Jewish community had "no sense of humor."

A few weeks ago, when French Jewish actor Elie Semoun was a prime-time guest on one of the main French television channels, Canal Plus, the words of Sebastian Thoen, a standup comedian who introduced him may have been meant to be to be laudatory, but took quite a different turn: "You never plunged into communitarianism [Jewish activism] ... You could have posted yourself in the street selling jeans and diamonds from the back of a minivan, saying 'Israel is always right, f*** Palestine, wallala.' You show that it is possible to be of the Jewish faith without being completely disgusting."

Semoun was obviously ill-at-ease, but did not react. A couple hours after the show, the Representative Council of Jewish Institutions of France (CRIF) issued a statement denouncing a "dangerous trivialization of anti-Semitism." The President of the TV channel responded by saying that the Jewish community had "no sense of humor." The incident occurred, however, in a context where the French Jewish community has no reason to have a sense of humor.

Comedian Sebastian Thoen delivers his humorous anti-Semitic routine.

At the end of 2012, Jewish France was republished. The book is a tirade of extreme anti-Semitism, originally published in 1886 by the author Edouard Drumont, and reprinted repeatedly until after World War II and the fall of the Vichy regime.

The publishing company sent a press release for the latest book launch: "A classic of French literature is finally available again." When Jewish organizations protested, articles in Le Monde and Le Figaro (the two leading French daily newspapers) said that Jewish organizations had "overreacted." The publishing company that reprinted Jewish France issued or reissued other books at the same time, such as The International Jew by Henry Ford; The Controversy of Zion by Douglas Reed, the first anti-Semitic writer to deny Hitler's extermination of the Jews, and an Anthology of Writings Against Jews, Judaism and Zionism, including excerpts from the most libelous anti-Semitic writings of the last two centuries. These books are now available at all the most popular French bookstores.

Thousands of copies of each have been sold. The CEO of the publishing company Kontre Kulture [Counterculture, with a play on words] is a famous French anti-Semitic writer, Alain Soral; his last book, Understanding Empire, purports to explain the "Jewish hold" on the world; it has been on French bestsellers lists for more than two years.

In recent months, an openly anti-Semitic black comedian, Dieudonné, presented a series of shows in the main cities of France and Belgium before large and enthusiastic audiences. One of his greatest hits is a song ridiculing the Holocaust and the "chosen people" : Shoah-Ananas (Holocaust-Pineapple). He popularized a gesture of greeting which he dubbed "quenelle" (a French dumpling), which echoes the Nazi salute. The "quenelle" salute consists of extending the right arm and straightening the hand, but the arm is lowered, and not raised at eye level. "Quenelle" is now used by many young people all over the country when they want to show what they think of Jews and Israel.

Recently, pictures of French soldiers stationed outside a Paris synagogue and welcoming visitors with "quenelles" were published on several websites: a military investigation is now under way. The French Minister of Defense said that one should not attach "great importance" to what happened.

At the end of June, a documentary film, Oligarchy and Zionism, was supposed to be released nationwide. The movie poster, with a likeness to editorial cartoons from Nazi magazines at the time of the Third Reich, should have aroused suspicion: it showed a Jew turned into a spider crushing the planet with his crooked legs. The Jew wore a black jacket with the Star of David and the initials of AIPAC [American Israel Public Affairs Committee] on his shoulders.

The film itself uses all the themes of "classical" anti-Semitism, with a modern twist. It is based on interviews with Shlomo Sand, author of The Invention of the Jewish People, and Thierry Meyssan, who wrote 9/11: The Big Lie, a book explaining that the September 11 terrorist attacks were organized by the CIA and Israel's Mossad. The film's director, Beatrice Pignede, had previously made ​​the film Snapping up the Memory, glorifying the Holocaust denier Robert Faurisson, and she participated in the Fars film festival in Tehran in 2012.

The film was announced in various mainstream magazines as an "important event." It was not released because Jewish organizations threatened to picket movie theaters. It is available, however, on many websites, and has been widely circulated. Beatrice Pignede said she was a "victim of the Jewish lobby" and that the "fate" of her film is "proof" of what she wants to denounce.

To say that the majority of the French population is anti-Semitic would be going too far. Polls show that a favorite public figure this year is popular Jewish singer Jean-Jacques Goldman. But it is clear that anti-Semitism is rapidly gaining ground in France. It is clear there is a real trivialization of anti-Semitism that goes way beyond some ugly sentences uttered by a standup comedian during a prime time TV talk show.

A few years ago, anti-Semitism in France was still hiding behind the mask of "anti-Zionism" and hostility to Israel. It is still true, but more often now, the targets are the Jews themselves, and the mask of "anti-Zionism" has fallen away.

In a recently published book, Demonizing Israel and the Jews, Manfred Gerstenfeld explains that what happens in France is happening all over Europe. "Polls show," he wrote," that well over 100 million Europeans embrace a satanic view of the State of Israel (...) This current widespread...view is obviously a new mutation of the diabolical beliefs about Jews which many held in the Middle Ages, and those more recently promoted by the Nazis and their allies."

Seven decades after Auschwitz, the oldest hatred is slowly regaining its place on the continent, and it is no laughing matter.
Related Topics:  France  |  Guy Millière

Labels: Anti-Semitism, France

posted by Pieface @ Thursday, October 31, 2013

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Labels: Conflict, Hezbollah, Syria

posted by Pieface @ Thursday, October 31, 2013

debkafile’s military sources report exclusively that the main body of the accord is essentially complete. All the same, President Barack Obama plans to announce before Christmas that only partial agreement has been achieved and negotiations will continue.

He will be cagey in public – partly because not all parts of the accord have been finalized, although the pace of US-Iranian negotiations have been accelerated, and partly to avoid coming clean on the full scope of the deal with Tehran.

 The US-Iranian talks are being held at three levels:

1. American and Iranian diplomats and nuclear experts are discussing the technical aspects of the accord in Vienna. Some of these meetings - but not all - take place at International Atomic Energy Agency headquarters in the city.

The talks in Vienna between IAEA chief Yukiya Amano and Iranian deputy foreign minister Abbas Araqchi on Oct. 29-30 in Vienna were held to review items already approved between the American and Iranian delegations. It remained for the two officials to consider how to integrate those understandings in the future IAEA inspections routine.

Araqchi reported he had brought new proposals to the talks, saying they were productive. Amano said more cautiously: “I am very hopeful that we can come out with a good result.”

2. Secretary of State John Kerry and Undersecretary of State for Political Affairs Wendy Sherman, who is the senior US negotiator, are handling the second level of direct negotiations opposite Foreign Minister Mohammed Zarif and his deputy Abbas Araqchi.

Because of his direct involvement, Kerry sounded unusually impatient Monday October 28, when he said, “Some have suggested that somehow there’s something wrong with giving diplomacy a chance. We will not succumb to those fear tactics and forces that suggest otherwise.”

He did not name Israeli Prime Minister Binyamin Netanyahu, but clearly lashed out against what he regards as the prime minister’s “fear tactics.” Neither did he admit how much progress had been made in the direct US line with Tehran.

3. The third level deals with sanctions. It is run by officials of the US Treasury Department’s Office of Foreign Assets Control, which oversees the sanctions regime, and senior staff from President Hassan Rouhani’s bureau.

They are working to determine which sanctions will be lifted and at which stage of the negotiations.
This process aims at lifting decision-making on sanctions out of the hands of Congress and transferring it to this secret negotiating mechanism. By this means, President Obama hopes not only to thwart Congressional calls for tighter sanctions against Iran, but also to forestall Netanyahu’s efforts to this end.

On Tuesday October 29, a group of Jewish leaders was invited to the White House to meet with members of the National Security Council for an update on the Iran negotiations and a bid to defuse tensions with them and Israel. But none of the above information about the accelerated progress of a US-Iranian accord was released to them.

Labels: Controversy, Crisis Politics, Defence, Intervention, Iran, Israel, Nuclear Technology, Political Realities, Security, United States

posted by Pieface @ Thursday, October 31, 2013

Desperately Seeking Haven

"During the day we can't walk, because we are targeted by the planes. They fire rockets at us, and helicopters drop barrels of fuel. Sometimes, we carried our relatives on our shoulders.
"We took back roads. There were snipers all over the place -- sometimes we couldn't move, even at night. The Free Syrian Army helped us and guided us by the hidden routes. They worked as scouts. They have motorcycles on the roads.
"I am thankful to the Free Syrian Army and I ask God to protect them, and to protect the King of Jordan."
Najim Denden, Idlib dairy farmer

"I am asking for help only from God now.
"We are fed up with the international community. They have been giving us promises but nothing on the ground. If only they would put on a no-fly zone, because the regime targets people, animals, crops, everything. Why is there no help? We have been killed not just with chemical weapons but with knives, by mercenaries from Hezbollah, by bombs and guns. Still the international community does nothing to help us.
"Why?"
Esmak Ashar Khaled

Where once the West sympathized and promised backing and practical and arms assistance to the fledgling Free Syrian Army, and there were a mere several thousand Syrians seeking refuge outside the country, now the tide has turned. With the influx of foreign jihadists coming from Pakistan, Egypt, Algeria, Afghanistan and Libya among other sources, the number of Syrians whose exodus from the country has challenged the absorption-and-care capabilities of Jordan, Iraq, Lebanon and Turkey has ballooned to over two million.

And the international community is no longer anxious to support the rebels for fear their support will validate the presence of Sunni Islamist terrorists like al Nusra and al-Qaeda in Iraq whose voracious appetite for slaughter seems unappeasable in its vast brutality. The silent anguished choice between the foreign jihadists of vicious temperament and the equally vicious regime and its Hezbollah terror allies give no comfort to any onlookers. Previous promises of support and weapons have vanished.

Where once the rebels had the government forces on the run, and the Syrian regime and the military were bleeding important government figures and the army its (mostly Sunni) generals, that has now been sorted out; the regime, with the formidable assistance of Hezbollah and Iran's al-Quds division of the Republican Guard has taken the upper hand, recovering from the hands of the rebel forces towns and villages and suburbs of Damascus. And the people of Syria continue to suffer.

Deprived of all means of existence when the regime withholds electricity, food, medicine and potable water, while incessantly bombing the rebel-held areas, Syrian civilians barely manage to hang on to their lives and their possessions, all too often losing both. Unable to escape the confines of the blockade keeping them starving prisoners in their former homes, they plead for mercy from an implacable government claiming they are harbouring rebels. When finally women and children are permitted to flee, their men are held in 'custody' for further examination.

Peace is not merely elusive in the chaos of this conflict leaving destruction and death to fog the atmosphere of hope, but those in the administration who imagine they are capable of leading the regime they represent toward reasonable accommodation leading to a cessation of violent hostilities are given instant notice. Deputy prime minister Qadri Jamil was dismissed for having "undertaken activities and meetings outside the homeland without co-ordination with the government", when he met with Western officials in Geneva to discuss potential negotiations.

And In Jordanian refugee camps, the country least able to financially and logistically manage the influx of desperate Syrians needing succour and haven from fear and death, the refugees must experience the hazards of attempting to cross remote border outposts without alerting government sharp shooters to their covert presence. The Syrian regime is attempting to prevent the escape of Syrians to safety, stationing soldiers to intercept their intentions. Unarmed civilians are gunned down as they flee toward the border.

"Yes, they do this. We have seen it. The regime is trying to prevent people from leaving the country", agreed Brig.-Gen. R. Al-zyoud Hussein, commander of Jordan's border security forces' Sixth Brigade. He spoke of two Syrian regime military vehicles giving chase to three freight trucks overburdened with mostly women and children refugees headed to the border firing on the trucks. Brig.-Gen. Hussein gave orders for a Sixth Brigade patrol to return fire in warning volleys. And the refugees managed to cross the border.

The rebels of the Free Syria Army have an established agreement with Jordanian border authorities where border force trucks are parked close to safe crossing points, leaving headlights on at night to guide FSA-escorted refugee groups to safety.

Labels: Atrocities, Conflict, Hezbollah, Human Relations, Jordan, Refugees, Syria

posted by Pieface @ Thursday, October 31, 2013

Portuguese Roma?

"I'm still having trouble sleeping, it was a horrifying sight, seeing this little girl in her own excrement, not able to hold up her head, white as a sheet.
"We were deeply shocked because she didn't find this abnormal. We told her to remove the little girl [from the trunk] and give her something to drink right away."
Guillaume Iguacel, mechanic

Seems it might be time to give Europe's Roma a break. They raise their children in poverty, vulnerable to degraded living conditions and the contempt of the general society which views them as expendable, not fit for genteel company. Deserving of their state of unemployed welfare-seeking. A society and a culture whose customs and values are not fit to mingle with decent people.

Where the greater society suspects child abduction and human trafficking if a dark-hued mother is seen with a light-skinned child. A condition that clearly marks the adult as a criminal, and the child needing rescue from the malevolent keep of the only family she has ever known, to be taken from the parents who love her. Even if albinism created a genetic inheritance of light skin, or a child was given to parents whose biological parents pleaded for them to care for her.

In giving the Roma a temporary break from accusations, perhaps it's time to mark all Portuguese as cruelly child-abusing. Since a Portuguese mother of  three children, two boys aged nine and ten, and a four-year-old girl, also gave birth to a fourth child. Whom she decided -- on giving birth on her own, without, she claims, her husband suspecting she was pregnant -- not to produce; to hide, and where else than the trunk of the family car.

There she kept the baby, unclothed, uncovered, unloved and neglected, never taking it out of the car trunk for any reason.  "The car always stayed outside at night so if the little girl was inside it, we didn't see anything" said one neighbour in the couple's village of Brignac-la-Plaine, Correze, in France.

The condition of the child was discovered by automobile mechanics who were repairing the vehicle. Hearing strange noises from the trunk that the mother claimed were emanating from "toys" in the vehicle, they insisted on opening the trunk. And there they saw a small, dehydrated, feverish child, naked, lying in excrement she had extruded.

They called paramedics who took the two-year-old child to a hospital. "It appears that the child had been hidden from her birth, and even worse is seriously retarded", explained the prosecutor in nearby Brive-La-Gaillarde. The child's height, weight and mental development did not reflect normal conditions, appropriate to her chronological age. Nor can she speak. "It's a situation that defies the imagination", he said.

How can it be wondered that the child hasn't developed normally  -- physically, mentally. The baby had no exposure to normal child care, no opportunities to develop normally. If the child survives its ordeal it is possible that at her age steps can still be taken to encourage normal growth and human development.

She may be somewhat retarded in development, it may take awhile, but it is still possible that with the love and attention and emotional investment of a caring family she will develop. Unsurprisingly the couple's other three children have been taken into care.

The father, the mother claimed, was kept in the dark about the presence of the baby in the car trunk. Knowing nothing of her birth or of her presence, or her condition. An unemployed builder whom the mother appeared not to want to burden with the reality of another mouth to feed. So while the child may have been fed, it would not have been generously.

One must ask of the intelligence, the emotional stability, the psychological state of a woman who could endure the very thought of depriving a helpless child of comfort, warmth, love and care. The police were unable to question the father when he was taken into custody, since they claim him to have been inebriated.

"We didn't have much contact with them. She barely said hello, and they didn't really want to integrate into the neighbourhood. How could we have known?" said a pensioner living opposite the couple. How indeed....

Clearly, the Portuguese have much to answer for....

Labels: Bigotry, Child Abuse, Child Welfare, Family, Human Relations

posted by Pieface @ Wednesday, October 30, 2013

Iraq violence: Fresh wave of bombings kills 20

In the deadliest attack north of Baghdad, two suicide bombers killed at least 11 military and police officers overnight on Tuesday.

Another suicide bomber drove his car into a checkpoint near the northern city of Mosul. A third hit near a policeman's car in Tikrit.

Violence in Iraq has reached its highest level since 2008.
Almost 1,000 people were killed and more than 2,000 wounded in September alone, according to the UN.
Hundreds more have been killed in October.

The violence is often fuelled by sectarian divisions between Shia and Sunni Muslims and much of it is blamed on al-Qaeda, who are known to target security forces and other government employees.
Since the beginning of 2013, there have been just 16 days in which there were no deaths from violence in Iraq, the most recent of which was 24 May, according to figures compiled by the AFP news agency.

AFP says that about 30 suicide bombers have managed to detonate explosives in attacks this month, while others were killed before they could do so.

The violence comes as Prime Minister Nouri al-Maliki departs for the US, where he will lobby for increased support for the fight against insurgents.

Experts say that the Iraqi government should pursue longer-term efforts to build trust among citizens, especially among members of the country's Sunni minority.

Police say that in the attack 50km (30 miles) north of Baghdad overnight on Tuesday, two suicide bombers detonated their explosives-laden belts among a group of soldiers and militiamen who had gathered in the orchard of a local Sunni leader, killing at least 11 people.
Police told the AP news agency that the militiamen belonged to the Sahwa movement, also known as the Awakening Council, which was formed by US forces in 2007 to fight insurgents during the height of the Iraq war.

Correspondents say that ever since then it has been a target for Sunni hardliners who consider members of the movement to be traitors.

Police say that the bombers blew themselves up in sequence to maximise casualties - the first detonating his device among the group and the second at the gate of the compound as people tried to flee. At least 23 people were wounded.

In the Mosul attack 360km (225 miles) north-west of Baghdad, a suicide bomber drove his car into a checkpoint near a police station, killing three policemen and four civilians, police told AP.
When an ambulance arrived at the scene, gunmen opened fire on its crew, killing one and wounding three.

In the third attack, a roadside bomb on Wednesday exploded near a police captain's car in Tikrit, north of Baghdad, wounding him and killing a civilian, doctors said.

Labels: Conflict, Iraq, Islamism

posted by Pieface @ Wednesday, October 30, 2013

Perspective in Accuracy of Interpretation and Realities

Throughout the years, Lebanon’s demographics have experienced periodic changes. But particularly in the last two years, the demographic shift has been so overwhelming due to the influx of Syrian refugees in desperate need for shelter.

The situation is highly charged, if not perilous, considering Lebanon’s unmanageable sectarian balances, let alone the direct involvement of Lebanese parties in the brutal Syrian war. If not treated with sensitivity and political wisdom, Lebanon’s vastly changing demographics will not bode well in a country of exceedingly fractious sectarian politics.

The numbers speak for themselves. According to the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees (UNHCR), 790,000 Syrian refugees have crossed into Lebanon since the beginning of the conflict. The number is constantly increasing, as an estimated 75,000 make the difficult journey from Syria to Lebanon every month. Those refugees also include tens of thousands of Palestinians that have borne the brunt of the war in the last two years.

In addition to approximately 250,000 Syrians working and living in Lebanon, the country already hosts hundreds of thousands of Palestinian refugees who were driven out of Palestine in several waves, starting with the Nakba, or Catastrophe, in 1947-48.

While the refugees were initially welcomed by their host country — as Syrians were initially welcomed in Lebanon — they eventually became a party in Lebanon’s war of numbers, as each sect was terrified by the prospect of losing political ground to their rivals. It was only a matter of time before the Palestinian presence in Lebanon became heavily politicized, thus thrusting Palestinian factions into the heart of Lebanon’s sectarian brawl. The weakened and fragmented Lebanon was easy prey for Israel, which has jumped at every opportunity to invade the small country, leaving behind a trail of blood and destruction. And with every Israeli onslaught came an attempt at rearranging the power paradigm in favor of Tel Aviv’s allies at the expense of the others.

While the refugees were initially welcomed by their host country - as Syrians were initially welcomed in Lebanon - they eventually became a party in Lebanon’s war of numbers

Ramzy Baroud

This bloody legacy is making a comeback due to the sectarian nature of the Syrian war, and Israelis are already on the lookout for a possible future role. Aside from the flood of Syrian refugees in Lebanon, legions of Lebanese fighters from Hezbollah and other groups are fully engaged in the Syrian strife based on clear sectarian lines. Eventually, the fight crossed over into Syrian borders and made it into Lebanon in the form of cars bombs, mortar shells, hostage-taking and occasional street fighting. If tension continues to build up, there is little question that Lebanon will become embroiled in yet another civil war.

All of this, of course, is welcomed news in Israel, which prefers to wait until the warring parties exhaust each other in every way before Israel decides the time and place of the new confrontation.
Israeli Defense Minister Moshe Ya’alon was quoted in the Jerusalem Post on Oct. 24 saying that a civil war between Hezbollah and “Global Jihad” had erupted in Lebanon. “To those who are not yet aware, there is already a civil war in Lebanon. Global Jihad, which has infiltrated Lebanon and is attacking Hezbollah, is blowing up cars in Dahia and is firing rockets at Dahia and the Beka’a Valley,” he said.

This is a win-win situation for Israel, which continues to navigate the Syrian war very carefully, so that it is not directly involved in the war, but ready to deal with its consequences whenever suitable.

History is of the essence here. The Israeli attitude toward the war in Syria and the fledgling civil war in Lebanon is similar to its attitude toward Lebanon a few decades ago in the lead up to the Israeli invasion of 1978 and again in 1982, mostly aimed at destroying the Palestine Liberation Organization (PLO).

Lebanon’s political and social upheaval dates back to the pre-existence of both the PLO and Israel, to the years of French colonialism in the Middle East. In 1920, France separated Lebanon from greater Syria, which was under French mandate.

The country was then run by various Christian sects who represented a slight majority, according to a 1932 census.

When Lebanon became completely independent in 1945, a political arrangement on how to run the country was reached. Christian Maronites were given the seat of presidency, Sunnis the premiership, and a Shiite was installed as the speaker of Parliament. Other sects received less consequential positions, but the Parliament control ratio still favored Christian sects.

The PLO’s arrival in Lebanon in the early 1970s - following its departure from Jordan - aggravated the situation. The PLO represented Palestinians who were largely Sunni Muslims, and its existence and growth in Lebanon complicated the extremely delicate demographic balance.

The fiasco in Lebanon, however, was not a simple tit-for-tat action, but reflected internal and external balances and calculations. On one hand, the ruling Maronite leadership was greatly challenged by the presence of the PLO and the alliance between the latter and Lebanese opposition groups. The routine Israeli raids on Lebanese territories undermined the Lebanese army’s role as a protector of the country. Israel was determined to eradicate the “terror infrastructure” in Lebanon, i.e. PLO factions, thus using the civil war as an opportunity to intervene in 1976 by arming Christian militias.
Additionally, Syria, which also intervened in 1976, did so first on behalf of the Palestinians, then on behalf of the Maronites, when it appeared that they were losing the fight.

A brief lull in the fighting in 1976 was soon interrupted by violence that engulfed Lebanon for nearly 15 years. In 1978, Israel occupied South Lebanon, driving away thousands of PLO fighters from the area, whose arrival to Beirut had shifted the balance of power, altering the alliances, and, once again Syria’s position. Tens of thousands of Lebanese and Palestinian civilians paid the heavy price of the fighting.

The PLO remained in Lebanon until the Israeli invasion of the country in the summer of 1982. Ultimately, the civil war achieved little for the warring parties except that it fit perfectly into Israel’s strategic goal of removing the PLO from South Lebanon and eventually the country altogether. When Israeli forces finally occupied Lebanon in 1982, as PLO fighters were being shipped by sea to many countries around the Middle East, a triumphant Israeli Defense Minister Ariel Sharon permitted his Christian Phalangist allies to carry out a notorious massacre in the Sabra and Shatilla refugee camps.

Yes, the circumstances are not exactly identical, and history cannot repeat itself in a carbon copy fashion. But these historical lessons should not escape us as we watch Lebanon descend into another abyss. Judging by the brutality of the Syrian war, Lebanon’s own bloody history, and Israel’s familiar military tactics, another Lebanese war is very much possible. Such a war will revive old animosities and establish new military alliances but as always the most vulnerable will pay the price as they already have in Syria’s unending bloodbath.

Labels: Chaos, Conflict, Israel, Lebanon, Palestinians, PLO

posted by Pieface @ Wednesday, October 30, 2013

They told the Russian general that Moscow’s good faith in seeking to build a new military relationship between the two governments would be tested by its willingness to meet this Egyptian requirement.

They are most likely after the brand-new SS-25 road-mobile ICBM which has a range of 2,000 km., which the Russians tested earlier this month.

Russia is not entirely comfortable with this demand, having signed a mutual agreement with the US to stop manufacturing medium-range ballistic missiles. And so the sale of SS-25 ICBMs to Egypt could get the Russians in hot water in Washington.

Gen. Kondrashov told his hosts that their list would receive serious scrutiny and, in the meantime, Moscow is prepared to offer Cairo long-term credit on easy terms to finance the package. This would relieve cash-strapped Egypt of the need to find the money to pay for the arms and save its leaders having to turn to Saudi Arabia and the Arab Emirates for funding.

The Russian general’s arrival in Cairo at the head of a large military delegation was the first in 35 years.  Since 1972, when Anwar Sadat expelled the Soviet advisers, Egypt has never acquired Russian weapons.

debkafile: Western sources are divided over the seriousness of the Saudi feud with the Obama administration and tend to minimize Riyadh’s shift away from its traditional ally, the US. But the Saudis are going full tilt to distance themselves from Washington and are meanwhile urging Egypt’s ruler Defense Minister Gen. Abdel-Fattah El-Sisi, to turn away from his country’s long dependence on America.  Hence the large arms transaction with Moscow, which was agreed as early as last July - and reported by debkafile at the time - when Saudi Intelligence Director Prince Bandar bin Sultan met Russian President Vladimir Putin at the Kremlin.

Word of the arrival of the Russian GRU general in Cairo appears to have prompted US Secretary of State John Kerry to announce Tuesday that he planned to visit to Egypt in the coming weeks. He may be too late to stop Egypt’s drift out of the US orbit, especially since he made it plain that he would insist on meeting with representatives of all the country’s political factions. This was taken to mean the Muslim Brotherhood and other opposition groups.

The Russian delegation has no plans to talk to any non-military figures in Egypt, which means that its members will not step out of the loyal circle centering on Gen. El-Sisi.

Labels: Egypt, Munitions, Russia

posted by Pieface @ Wednesday, October 30, 2013

Furious Indignation

The perceived security of all countries is based primarily on human intelligence, on having built a system of discreet agencies whose duty it is to be apprised at all times if humanly possible, of the concerns and plans of other countries (and individuals) as they impinge on their own.

Intelligence and counter-intelligence marks the first line of defence against harm of one country's sovereignty and another country's aspirations to exploit opportunities. When countries have a signed pact of alliance in light of their commonalities they feel they can trust one another, if only because it is in the interest of each of those part of the agreement to evince trust and in that trust, exchange useful information.

Despite such alliances of trust and interdependence, it is well enough known that all countries, friends and foe alike, engage in espionage. Each country wants to know what the other is planning, whom it consorts with, what their agreements are, how they will impact on one's own. This is a matter of general knowledge, acknowledged but rarely spoken of in public. Yet even the public knows that countries spy on one another, irrespective of their relationships.

Some countries' administrations feel troubled by this fact of national life, and would like things to be otherwise; for trust to be firmly established and for each of the contracting nations to respect one another and trust one another to the extent that no surveillance of the other is required, over and above regular and intimate contact and exchange of vital information critical to the safety and security of one another, singly and combined.

Presumably, the United States, Canada, Britain, New Zealand and Australia, all democracies, all English-speaking, all basically Christian countries having much in common, including heritage, feel that the extent of their cooperative relationship is such that there is no need to take such covert informational action. They name themselves The Five Eyes, and share intelligence between them.

And the understanding is that as national confreres there is no need to indulge in extracurricular spying activities against one another.

It all pivots around the decisions taken by the United States of America, the most authoritative, wealthy and assertive of the countries. Which is now struggling to maintain its friendly relations with other countries of Europe and Latin America because of the revelations of spying indulged upon by the American National Security Agency.

The global public has become aware, if they were naive enough not to be aware before, that their nation's intimate political-social business has been tampered with through American technology enabling snooping.

Thanks to the release of protected security data through documents provided to news media by Edward Snowden, a former NSA contractor who took personal exception to the surveillance activities of his country's national surveillance agency, the world is now awash with scandal and indignation over America's prying proclivities.

Apart from what all nations attempt to establish with respect to their security, the United States was spurred to action through the very real and very bloody terrorist attacks it has suffered. Spain, Britain, Malaysia and other countries have also suffered Islamist jihadist violence. And that violence has been the global spur to surveillance activity.

The French, the Germans and the Spanish have been particularly vocal in their indignation over the NSA's global eavesdropping operations, swooping in to peruse tens of millions of communications, both official and civil, in European countries. In Germany it is unlawful for interception of messages to take place.

"If the Americans intercepted cellphones in Germany, they broke German law on German soil", humphed Hans-Peter Friedrich, the German interior minister. German Chancellor Angela Merkel whose cellphone has reputedly been tapped for many years, is none too enthused over that fact. "The magnitude of the eavesdropping shocked us", said Bernard Kouchner, former French foreign minister.

NSA eavesdropping posts exist in 19 European cities, including Paris, Madrid, Rome and Frankfurt.

"If the French citizens knew exactly what that was about, they would be applauding and popping champagne corks. It's a good thing, it keeps the French safe. It keeps the U.S. safe", said Mike Rogers, chairman of the intelligence committee in the House of Representatives, emphasizing that instead of feigned indignation playing to their national voting list, America's allies should be grateful for surveillance operations.

"If 9/11 had happened to Germany and been planned in New York not Hamburg, I'd expect [German] intel to monitor USA top 2 bottom", wrote John Schindler, a former NSA official on Twitter.

Quite.

Labels: Communications, Espionage, France, Germany, Spain, United States

posted by Pieface @ Tuesday, October 29, 2013

A Country In Dire Peril

On Sunday another al-Qaeda-in-Iraq car bomb that struck Baghdad's eastern Mashtal district killed 42 people. Burned-out cars, vast pools of blood and the streets littered with the remains of the victims. That a single explosion is capable of mounting such destructive carnage is a testament to the ingenuity of the bomb-makers and those who live their lives for the purpose of creating jihad and martyrs. Over 400 people have died through such attacks in Iraq in the month of October alone, and most of those attacks have taken place in the country's capital.

 

Halfway through their ten-year presence in Iraq the U.S. military tried something new. Circumstances were with them, in a sense. A stream of al-Qaeda terrorists had flooded into Iraq across the Syrian border. Unsurprisingly, now that Syria is deep in an endless conflict with itself, many of those al-Qaeda jihadists are now flooding across the border in the opposite direction.

With the removal of the Sunni Alawite regime of Saddam Hussein by American and British and other allied countries' troops the oppressed Iraqi Shi'ite and Kurdish populations were enabled to invoke their rights as citizens and elect a new government where all three shared power under the aegis of the U.S.

That co-operative venture between Kurd, Sunni and Shia sects was meant to introduce a new, democratic government of equal representation in a country that had long been riven by sectarian suspicion, with the ruling Sunni minority under Saddam Hussein's brutal rule satisfied with the oppressive conditions under which the Shi'ites and the Kurds existed in a dictatorship anything but benign.

The 1980 - 1988 Iran-Iraq war that pitted two Islamist governments against one another in a sullen bid for a victor ended in a draw that left the battlefield littered with corpses and mines. Iran's support for Iraq's Shia majority, however, resulted in a later coordinated complicity to empower the Shi'ites in Iraq at the expense of the Sunni minority.

During the American military-political tutelage of Iraq, al-Qaeda ferociously laid waste to the fragile peace, made all the more fragile by Iraq's internal social-religious-tribal antipathies where, for a period of several years beginning in 2008, sectarian violence of Sunni against Shia and Shia mounting atrocities against Sunnis, created a ghoulish bloodbath.

Added to that volatile situation was the presence of al-Qaeda whose penchant for delivering death created a double-pronged danger to civilians of any persuasion; a death machine closing in on the population, leaving bloody devastation in its wake. Al-Qaeda's brutality was so pervasive and nondiscriminatory that Iraqi Sunni tribesmen were appalled enough to make common cause with the American military in fighting back.

Iraqi Sunnis had understood that the fact they were Sunni gave them no protection against the virulent al-Qaeda hatred spurring it to star as an agent of death. The U.S. military trained and armed Sunni tribal militias who fought alongside American troops to defeat the presence of al-Qaeda. While that aspiration never completely succeeded, it did serve to bring Sunni Iraqis into the greater battle for their country's future, and it did manage to decrease the number and severity of al-Qaeda attacks.

Those militias named Awakening Councils were loyal to their country and to those who had trained and armed them. When the U.S. administration agreed to hand over control to the fledgling Iraqi government, withdrawing U.S. troops, the Awakening Councils were left adrift. They were counselled to surrender their arms and to join the Iraqi military, dominated by the country's majority Shias. Who never trusted the Sunni militias, and who didn't accept their presence in the military, and their loyalty drifted as they were spurned and neglected.

Now, in recent years that have seen a gradual and steady increase in sectarian violence in Iraq the government and its military are attempting a new tack to try to suppress the violence. It is a violence that is as two-pronged now as it was years ago. Al-Qaeda, with its signature, deadly bombing, and unaligned tribal Sunni militants, angered that their representatives have been removed from government, mounting their own attacks on Shia populations.

Now, the government and the military that once spurned the Awakening Councils mount missions to the tribal areas to speak with the Sunni leaders, to impress upon them the need to unite against the threat of al-Qaeda-in-Iraq continuing to commit mass atrocities in the country struggling to reassert normalcy in a country which has too long known war and sectarian belligerence.

"We asked them to do as they did in the past: to establish checkpoints and patrols in their cities and towns to help improve security", said Lt. General Abdul Amir al-Shimarri. "We will provide them with the necessary weapons in the weeks to come. They are a vital part of our efforts to defeat terrorism."

Iraq's army wants the assistance of local people to end the violence

Well, it is never too late to attempt to halt a protracted conflict by persuading segments of a population that it is their national duty to come together and cooperate in an unified attempt to dislodge a foreign element intent on destroying security, stability and peace between otherwise-warring sects. The death toll is staggering. Hatred so deep and so lethal that it surmounts human conscience. A pall of death hangs over the country, never knowing where the next assault will take place.

Aside from Baghdad, two car bombs exploded simultaneously, another symbolic al-Qaeda gesture, killing seven people and wounding 15 others in the southeastern Nahrwan district. Another two explosions took place in the northern Shaab and southern Abu Dashir neighbourhoods where six people perished in each. Blasts struck Mashtal, Baladiyat and Ur in eastern Baghdad, the Bayaa district and the northern Sab al-Bor and Hurriyah districts.

And, in the northern city of Mosul a suicide bomber took center-stage, driving an explosives-laden car straight toward a group of soldiers sealing off a street leading to a bank. Troops were receiving their salaries at the bank; instead of taking possession of their salaries, fourteen of the security officers were killed, and 30 people were wounded. Gunmen completed the bloodbath by shooting dead two off-duty soldiers in a drive-by shooting. The former courtesy of al-Qaeda, the last, Iraqi Sunni insurgents.

What will it take to unite the sects in the favour of saving their country? For starters, bringing another Sunni authority figure back into the 'unified', representative government of Iraq.

Labels: Al-Qaeda, Conflict, Iraq, Islamism, Terrorism

posted by Pieface @ Tuesday, October 29, 2013

Egypt judges bow out of Islamist leaders’ trial

October 30, 2013 12:59 AM

Setohy Abdel Rahman holds a portrait of his son Ahmed, killed during early July clashes, outside the Muslim Brotherhood headquarters, during the second trial hearing for Muslim Brotherhood supreme leader Mohammed Badie and his aides on October 29, 2013 in Cairo, Egypt. (AFP PHOTO/GIANLUIGI GUERCIA)

CAIRO: The judges presiding over the trial of leaders of Egypt’s Muslim Brotherhood stepped down from the proceedings Tuesday because security agencies would not allow the defendants to attend in court, apparently out of fear of protests, judicial officials said. Separately, a Brotherhood-led Islamist coalition said ousted President Mohammad Morsi refuses to appoint a lawyer to represent him in his trial, which is due to start on Nov. 4, because he does not recognize the court or the political system set up since his ouster by the military. The developments reflect the political storms surrounding the series of trials of Brotherhood members that come hand in hand with wide-scale crackdown by the new military-backed authorities against Morsi’s Brotherhood since his July 3 ouster. Morsi’s Islamist allies denounce the prosecutions as show trials and political vengeance. The authorities, meanwhile, seek to show that the Brotherhood has been fueling violence in the country, during Morsi’s one-year presidency and after the coup, and to establish legal justification for imprisoning them. The judges stepped down from the trial of 35 Brotherhood members, including the group’s top leader Mohammad Badie and his powerful deputy Khairat al-Shater, on charges of inciting violence. The move forces the trial, which was only holding its second session Tuesday, to start over. The move amounted to a sharp criticism of the proceedings. So far, in its two sessions since August, none of the defendants has attended the trial, apparently out of inability to ensure their safety or fear Brotherhood supporters would hold protests outside the Cairo Criminal Court where it is being held. Announcing the three-judge panel’s decision, judge Mohammad al-Qarmouti said only that it was because the panel “felt uneasiness,” according to a court official, who spoke on condition of anonymity. But another judicial official told the Associated Press that the panel had asked the Interior Ministry, which is in charge of police, to bring the defendants to the courtroom for Tuesday’s session. The ministry promised to do so but, the judges were notified Monday night that “transferring the defendants to the court is impossible.” The judicial official said judges needed to see the defendants, ask them questions and present them with allegations, adding that “no trial should be held just on paper.” Mustafa Attiya, Badie’s lawyer, said the move was because the judges came under pressure by security officials to move the trial to inside Cairo’s Tora prison, where defendants are held. “The judges refused, but the pressure continued,” he said. “This is not a trial, this is a farce.” The judicial official didn’t deny that there was pressure to move trial to the prison. He said the prosecutor general is the only one authorized to issue an order to move the trial to a different location and “this has not happened.” The defendants in the case include six senior leaders, including Badie and Shater, the group’s powerful financier. Four other Brotherhood figures are on trial in the case on charges of incitement, stemming from June 30 clashes that left nine dead when Brotherhood members opened fire on protesters storming their Cairo headquarters. The other 29 are low-level Brotherhood members. The trial is part of an extensive crackdown on Morsi’s group and its supporters since the military removed Egypt’s first freely elected from office on July 3 following widespread protests against him. Several thousand Brotherhood members and supporters have been arrested, while security crackdowns on their continued protests have killed hundreds of Morsi supporters.In next month’s trial, Morsi is facing charges of inciting murder in connection to clashes during his presidency, when Brotherhood supporters attacked a sit-in by anti-Morsi protesters outside his presidential palace in December. The resulting clashes left 10 dead. Since his ouster, Morsi has been held in a secret military detention facility, virtually incommunicado, speaking to his family only twice by phone. He has been undergoing questioning but has not been allowed to see any lawyers. In his phone calls – the most recent in September – he underlined that he did not recognize the prosecution against him. The “anti-coup” coalition, a grouping of Islamist factions that is led by the Brotherhood, said in a statement that Morsi “will not appoint a lawyer to represent him in the trial.” It said it was applying to send lawyers to monitor Morsi’s trial but “not to defend him.” The lawyers, it added, would represent “victims of the coup,” referring to those killed in the crackdown.

A version of this article appeared in the print edition of The Daily Star on October 30, 2013, on page 1

http://www.dailystar.com.lb/News/Middle-East/2013/Oct-30/236253-egypt-judges-bow-out-of-islamist-leaders-trial.ashx#ixzz2jA8iLD9A
(The Daily Star :: Lebanon News :: http://www.dailystar.com.lb)

Labels: Conflict, Egypt, Muslim Brotherhood

posted by Pieface @ Tuesday, October 29, 2013

Saudi Arabia Woes Play Well for Israel

Saudi Arabia Woes Play Well for Israel

JNS.org - Ah, Saudi Arabia! The country that spawned 15 of the 19 terrorists that executed the atrocities of September 11, 2001. The country we in America are told is an ally, even though, when it comes to values, we have virtually nothing in common with the reactionary oil billionaires running the place. The country whose oil supplies us, for the moment, with about 13 per cent of our annual energy needs. The country with one of the most abysmal human rights records in the world, which bans any religion other than Islam, which imports slave labor from the Indian subcontinent, and which subjects women to what can only be described as gender apartheid.

That’s why it’s hard to feel any sympathy with the Saudis when it comes to their current spat with the Obama Administration. Sadly, however, the continued threat posed by Iran and its Syrian and Hezbollah allies, and the absence of any coherent Middle East strategy on Washington’s part, compels us to hold our noses and pay due attention to the Saudi complaints.

Earlier this month, the Saudis refused to take up one of the ten seats on the U.N. Security Council reserved for non-permanent members. There was a rare agreement among regional analysts that this was an odd move to make, but most of the attention focused on the explanation the Saudis offered as to why.

Prince Bandar bin Sultan, the Saudi intelligence chief, said that frustration with the U.S., and not the U.N., was the reason for the Saudi decision. Two justifications were given: firstly, the tiresome ritual objection that the Palestinian question remains unresolved, something the Saudis feel duty-bound to cite in order to underline their Arab credentials. Secondly—and now we’re getting somewhere—a profound frustration with Obama’s Syria policy, which the Saudis correctly feel will simply empower the Iranians at a time when our Administration is being seduced by the overtures of the new President, Hassan Rouhani.

Ultimately, there is nothing remotely attractive about either the Saudi or Iranian models of Islamic government. The Saudis impose the fanatical Islamist doctrines of Wahhabism, while the Shi’a Islamist revolution of the Iranians has been a recipe for domestic oppression and regional aggression, carried out by the Assad regime in Damascus and Hezbollah. Yet it is too easy to say, “a plague on both their houses.”

In the icy moral universe of geostrategic considerations, there is a clear advantage for Israel built into these Saudi objections. Nearly all the Arab states live in perpetual fear of an Iranian nuclear bomb. Like the Israelis, they don’t trust Rouhani or Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei. But if Arab governments are the ones nagging the U.S. about Iran’s malicious intentions, it takes the spotlight off Israel and reminds the world that the Iranian threat is a real, ongoing concern for Iran’s immediate neighbors.

Additionally, the current situation rather forces the Arabs to acknowledge that they have common interests with Israel. That’s always been the case—Israel’s decision to strike Iraq’s nuclear reactor in 1981 resulted in private praise and public condemnation in Arab capitals—but this point is driven home even more explicitly in the Iranian case. Israel’s Prime Minister, Benjamin Netanyahu, has already hinted in the Knesset that secret talks have been taking place between the Israelis and the conservative Arab regimes, adding that there is renewed appreciation for Israel’s role in maintaining regional security.

What’s telling is that the assumption that Israel and these Arab regimes would eventually realize their common purpose under American auspices has been exploded. Incredibly, it now looks as if Israel and its Arab neighbors could come together over Iran not just without the U.S., but in spite of it!
All the same, let’s not count the Americans out just yet. Obama hasn’t reached a deal with the Iranians, and chances are that the current round of making nice with Tehran will go the same way as his previous overtures in in 2010, because any agreement would likely collapse through Iranian reluctance to accept a strict monitoring arrangement of their nuclear facilities.

The democratization of the Middle East, and the acceptance of Israel as part of the region, remains a long way off. Absent that outcome, hardheaded calculations based on immediate interests will rule the day. That’s why it’s helpful that a chorus of Arab voices, led by the Saudis, are telling Obama that Iran under its current regime was, is, and remains the greatest threat to this part of the world.

Ben Cohen is the Shillman Analyst for JNS.org. His writings on Jewish affairs and Middle Eastern politics have been published in Commentary, the New York Post, Ha’aretz, Jewish Ideas Daily and many other publications.

Labels: Iran, Middle East, Nuclear Technology, Saudi Arabia, United States

posted by Pieface @ Tuesday, October 29, 2013