There has been a lot of speculation in Washington these past weeks about the content of the Arab-Israeli stance we might expect to see from the Obama administration. I have followed this speculation as closely as just about everyone, and have the following observations to make:
1. It is still far too early to make any concrete predictions at all. All we know so far is the content of the top-level appointments he announced on December 1, to his foreign affairs and national security team, and the prominent mention he made in that announcement of the need to find “a lasting peace between Israel and the Palestinians.”
2. What we still do not, very significantly, know is how exactly the responsibilities will be divided between Hillary Clinton at State, and Gen. Jim Jones as NSC adviser. All we know is that Hillary asked for, and got, an assurance that she would have direct access to the Prez whenever she needs it. Which is not at all the same as saying that she will over-rule Jones, who will have direct access to the Prez as a matter of course and who is expected to play a strong role as NSC adviser.
3. One of my working assumptions is that Hillary might be expected to be more accommodationist than Jones to whatever government is in power in Israel, and more reserved than him about articulating the United States’ own strong interest in the conclusion of a final, conflict-ending, and claims-ending peace in the region. I might be wrong. But she has been a close and good friend of AIPAC for a long time now. Jones, meanwhile, gained important, firsthand experience into the (previously often dysfunctional) dynamics of the US-Israel-Palestine triangle during his work on revamping the PA’s security apparatus in Jenin. He is a high-level military man with considerable leadership experience, not someone whom Hillary can easily roll right over. (Also, his military experience and stature will be an important asset to Obama as Obama tries to figure out how to deal with the Israelis.)
4. Dennis Ross has worked hard to get himself “mentioned” as possible Arab-Israeli diplomacy czar in many publications in the US, Israel, and elsewhere (including, today, here.) Dennis has been a staunch Clinton-ite ever since he opportunistically jumped ship straight from George Bush I’s failed re-election campaign in ’92 to the Clinton camp. He did a workman-like job on Israeli-Arab diplomacy so long as he was closely supervised by Sec. of State Jim Baker, but once he rose higher on the feeding chain his own preferences were always for (a) lengthy delay in the conclusion of a final peace agreement– argued for in the name of “ripeness theory” and the need for very lengthy “confidence building” before the final negotiations even start; and (b) trying to split the Arab parties off from each other and play each off against the others in a classic “divide and rule” way.
5. However, despite all this “mentioning” and other forms of speculation, we still really do not know anything about how Obama intends to pursue his stated goal of a speedy move toward a final Israel-Palestine peace. And I suspect much of that “mentioning” might backfire.
6. We will not know the content of the policy until we hear additional substantive statements from the President-elect and/or see the next echelon down of Middle-East-relevant appointments being announced, with the lines of their responsibility also clearly established.
7. Given the urgency with which Obama spoke about the need for a final Israel-Palestine peace he may well have hoped to have more pieces of that policy (as in #6 above) in place by now. But the economic crisis has been overwhelming everything else on his agenda in the past couple of weeks. We still have 37 days to go before the inauguration. I am sure we will learn more before then.
Author: Helena
Moreno-Ocampo and the future of the ICC
The International Criminal Court started its work in 2002 with great fanfare and expectations. The hopes of its many supporters around the world (but concentrated particularly in rich western countries) was that this new court could bring a new day of “accountability” to the perpetrators of some of the most heinous mass crimes of our day.
Sadly, those hopes have not been realized. And not just because of the complete inability of the ICC to even start grappling with Pres. Bush’s perpetration of a monstrous Crime Against the Peace in 2003, and his administration’s perpetration of numerous serious war crimes subsequent to that big original crime.
But beyond that big lacuna, the way the ICC itself has gone about its business since 2002 has also been deeply, perhaps fatally, flawed… And one person who has certainly contributed to these mistakes has been the Chief Prosecutor, Argentina’s Luis Moreno-Ocampo.
Tragically, one of the main problems for this court that was meant to usher in this new era of “accountability” has been that the degree to which the court’s own major organs are– or even, can be– held accountable to the public they purport to serve is extremely limited; or, almost non-existent.
Madoff: Symbol of the Age of Deregulation
More details have been coming out about the role that giant-scale Ponzi artist Bernie Madoff played in the whole Age of Financial Deregulation (a.k.a. casino capitalism), here in the US.
On Thursday, Madoff was indicted in federal court in New York for having committed securities fraud regarding the $50 billion of other people’s money he lost by running his Ponzi scheme.
Notable among Madoff’s affiliations is that he was a past Chairman of the board of the Nasdaq stock exchange, and treasurer and board member of Yeshiva University in New York. Among the investors whose money he lost were Jewish philanthropic organizations, some of them with strong interests in Israel. (Recently Sheldon Adelson and Sam Zell, who have both been large-scale supporters of Israel’s settler movement, have also lost huge amounts of money. I can’t find out yet whether Madoff supported pro-settler or pro-withdrawal movements in Israel.)
The Seeking Alpha blog had a fascinating post about Madoff yesterday, written by someone described only as “fund manager ‘Cassandra'”.
Cassandra wrote that he (or just possibly she) could never figure out what it was that Madoff had been doing all these years to generate a steady stream of income for his investors. She– yes, thanks to commenter Larry I’ve discovered she is a she— also had never met anyone who had formerly worked as a trader for Madoff, which she found strange.
My understanding is that because Madoff was supposedly executing his own trades, rather than running them through an outside institution, he was able to hide what he was doing– or, as it may turn out, not doing at all– from the scrutiny of everyone except his auditor. And crucially, the auditor used by Bernard L. Madoff Investment Securities LLC was listed as Friehling & Horowitz, who was described in this Bloomberg piece as, “an auditor operating out of a 13-by-18 foot location in an office park in New York City’s northern suburbs.”
The Bloomberg piece noted that investment adviser Jim Vos of Aksia investigated Madoff Securities intensively in 2006 and identified a number of red flags:
- Among the … “red flags” cited by Aksia was the “high degree of secrecy” surrounding the trading of the feeder fund accounts, which provided capital to Madoff Securities, and its use of a trading strategy that appeared “remarkably simple,” yet “could not be nearly replicated by our quant analyst.”
Friehling & Horowitz operates from a storefront office in the Georgetown Office Plaza in New City, sandwiched between a pediatrician’s office and another medical office…
A woman who works in a nearby office, who didn’t want to be identified, said Friehling doesn’t come to the office regularly. When he does, he is the only person there…
Not exactly the kind of auditorial capacity one needs, to be able to keep track of $50 billion worth of investments…
Back to Cassandra. She wrote at length about his own, apparently longstanding mystification about the source of Madoff’s presumed ‘success’ as an investor:
Continue reading “Madoff: Symbol of the Age of Deregulation”
Getting to Global Zero (Nuclear Weapons)
I went to a great press event today, for the new worldwide movement ‘Global Zero’, which has rolled out what looks like a quite achievable plan to verifiably rid the world of all nuclear weapons by 2035.
Hallelujah. A new day is dawning… (Sorry, I can’t get that spiritual out of my head today.)
One of the most striking aspects of today’s event was the participation of two retired high-level security officials from each of India and Pakistan… And they all seemed to agree that their countries’ nuclear weapons have no actual utility, either militarily or politically.
This judgment was particularly striking given the current tensions between the two countries in the wake of the Mumbai terror attacks.
Shaharyar Khan, the former Foreign Secretary of Pakistan, said explicitly, “Since India and Pakistan exploded their nuclear weapons in 1998 there has been a qualitative change in terms of seeing that they do not have utility. We’ve gained much maturity in this realm.”
His compatriot Lt. Gen. (ret) Talat Masood said,
A new mediator for Tehran & Washington: Iraq!
So now, the ever-mercurial Ali Dabbagh, spokesman for Iraqi PM Nuri al-Maliki, says he’s been urging Barack Obama to initiate a serious, sustained dialogue with Iran.
Reuters reports that Dabbagh,
- also called for dialogue to improve relations between Iran and Arab countries. “The time has come for a new, serious, and calm policy with an open-minded vision,” Dabbagh said.
(HT: Bill the spouse).
So now the Iraqi government, joint foster-child of Washington and Tehran, wants “mommy” and “daddy” to start talking nicely with each other. Good for Maliki.
It’s important that he takes– and hopefully sticks to– this position. Remember back when the US was trying to gin up anti-Iranian feeling in the US on the grounds that Iran was undertaking various heinous efforts to attack and undermine the Baghdad government? Now the foster-child is putting his own voice directly into the discussion.
Reuters adds this:
- Without specifying whether he was addressing Iran or the United States, Dabbagh called for respect for international law, alternatives to military solutions to conflict, and for regional answers to regional problems.
“Solutions (must not be) forced from outside,” he said.
By the way, I don’t speak Farsi but there are some reports (e.g. here) that “Obama” can be understood by Farsi speakers as meaning “he is with us.” That, along with the president-elect’s other two names, could connect powerfully with the millennialism that seems to rumble around in the hearts of many of Iran’s theocrats. Can any readers here shed more light on the linguistic, sociological, or political aspects of this question?
On Rights Day: Yes to Social & Economic Rights!
Happy Human Rights Day, everyone!
On this day 60 years ago the UN General Assembly, meeting in Paris, adopted the Universal Declaration of Human Rights. That was a signal development. However, the language of the UDHR was kept fairly general and proclamatory. The actual content of the universal rights it proclaimed was spelled out in two subsequent documents, the International Covenants on, respectively, (1) Civil and Political Rights, and (2), Economic, Social, and Cultural Rights.
The United States, to our country’s great shame, has never ratified the Covenant on Economic, Social, and Cultural Rights (ICESCR). When Jimmy Carter was president, in 1977, the US did at least sign it. But for the US to become a full party, that signature needs to be ratified by the Senate. By contrast, the US is a longstanding party to the covenant on civil and political rights.
The ICESCR spells out the universal right of all persons to such essential inputs for human wellbeing as a right to work, and the rights to housing, health care, education, and self-determination.
Given the threatening economic prospects that so many US citizens face today, it is more urgent than ever that we raise the demand that our country join the 159 states around the world that are full members of the ICESCR. You can see a map of them at the top of the page here. You can see the full listing of signatories and States Parties (right column), here.
What it would take for our country to become a full member of the ICESCR is that the US Senate should ratify the treaty.
Joining would have a number of clear advantages:
Continue reading “On Rights Day: Yes to Social & Economic Rights!”
AIG execs still acting like bandits
In September, the Bush administration announced it would fork $152 billion over to insurance giant AIG to bail it out of its mounting financial woes. Now, AIG CEO Edward Liddy has confessed in writing to Rep. Elijah Cummings that some 168 senior employees of the firm are being awarded what are called “retention payments”, ranging from $92,500 to $4 million this year. (HT: Calculated Risk.)
When will the President and the congressional leadership stop this immoral madness??
Kudos to Rep. Cummings for staying on the case of the greedy card-sharps who run AIG.
The Wall Street Journal is meanwhile reporting that AIG currently owes Wall Street’s biggest firms about $10 billion for speculative trades (i.e. bets) that have soured. I can’t read the portion of the story that’s behind their paywall. But the comments page there is running heavily against the AIG execs who’ve been letting all this happen.
So what’s happening is that $10 billion of our taxpayers’ money that Bush and Paulson handed to AIG is now going straight through AIG to other big Wall St. firms– and those top execs at AIG who have done this to us are expecting us taxpayers to pay them hefty bonuses (under the fancy name of “retention payments”) to reward them for their actions… and also, presumably, to make sure they stay on with AIG…
Excuse me? Why does AIG– or the American people, who now own 79.9 percent of the company– still “need” these greedy monsters to stay on the firm’s payroll?
In case anyone’s interested I could tell you I’ve never earned anything near $92,500 in a single year. Far less $4 million!
But then, I’ve also never engaged in “speculative trades” with other people’s money that helped any institution lose any portion of $10 billion.
Sack the lot of them. Get some competent managers in to run the people’s AIG, for goodness’ sake.
NATO’s Russian route to Afghanistan
NATO’s deputy assistant sec-gen for security cooperation and partnership, Robert Simmons, has been in Moscow pushing forward the plan to open a Russian route to resupply the NATO positions in Afghanistan. (HT: Afghanistan Conflict Monitor.)
This, two days after the well-planned attack on a NATO staging area in Peshawar that left 160 Afghanistan-bound trucks torched to a cinder.
Interfax tells us that Simmons described Russia-NATO cooperation on Afghanistan as “good on the whole.” He said NATO had received a plausible “proposal” from Russia regarding a trans-shipping agreement. However, to get the Russia route open will also require trans-shipping agreements with Kazakhstan, Uzbekistan, Belarus, and Ukraine, so NATO is working on those now.
Simmons also spoke about an agreement under which Afghan servicemen would receive training at “the Domodedovo center near Moscow.”
As I’ve discussed here before, the urgent need the western alliance has to get supplies to its troops in Afghanistan has forced it into a collaboration with Russia which makes any idea of outright confrontation with Moscow– such as Georgia’s President Saakashvili tried to stoke last August– quite suicidal for NATO.
If you look at the handy sketch-map of possible land routes into Afghanistan that B of Moon of Alabama published in November and the list of countries Simmons is talking to you can see that Simmons’s current “Russia route” will run somewhat to the north of B’s Red Line, thus avoiding the serious hassle and expense of transferring the goods to boats to get across the Caspian Sea. I think to get from either Uzbekistan or Kazakhstan into Afghanistan, the goods will also need to go across Turkmenistan. Maybe that leg is already in NATO’s bag?
This little rail map of Central Asia published by Stratfor in January is also handy. It shows that there is at present just one rail connection going from western China into one of the central Asian Stans: the line from Urumqi into Kazakhstan. But it also shows (in red) the two additional connectors the Chinese are currently working on. These will greatly strengthen China’s ability to exert influence in the entire Central Asian region.
As of now, Afghanistan does not have any national rail line. But China is now planning to build one. It will traverse the whole country north to south, linking Afghanistan to both Tajikstan and Pakistan (and not coincidentally also giving China an indirect outlet to the Arabian Sea.)
But the “China route” for getting NATO goods into Afghanistan– B’s Green Line– still seems to be a long way off. (Correct me if I’m wrong, anyone.) That leaves NATO having to juggle between reliance on Pakistan, or Russia, or on the unbelievably expensive option of shipping things in by air. Airlift is totally not a sustainable option over any length of time. Afghanistan is quite a lot bigger and more distant from NATO’s home-bases than West Berlin!
Hence, given the current uncertainties in Pakistan, NATO’s increasing reliance on Russia.
Pogrom in Hebron? NYT ignores…
Haaretz’s Ami Issacharoff had some striking reporting of the rampage militant Israeli settlers in Hebron went on through the Palestinian parts of the city yesterday, after the IDF evicted some of their fellow-settlers from a Palestinian-owned building, as per Israeli High Court order.
Issacharoff unabshedly described what happened during the rampage as “a pogrom”. He wrote about the enraged settler civilians attacking with stones and flames a Palestinian family home in which 20 family members– 17 of them women and children– cowered in terror. And as the pogromists attacked, people described as “security guards from Kiryat Arba” stood round the house preventing the Palestinians’ neighbors from coming to their aid.
He wrote:
- The brain requires a minute or two to digest what is taking place. Women and children crying bitterly, their faces giving off an expression of horror, sensing their imminent deaths, begging the journalists to save their lives. Stones land on the roof of the home, the windows and the doors. Flames engulf the southern entrance to the home. The front yard is littered with stones thrown by the masked men. The windows are shattered and the children are frightened. All around, as if they were watching a rock concert, are hundreds of Jewish witnesses, observing the events with great interest, even offering suggestions to the Jewish wayward youth as to the most effective way to harm the family. And the police are not to be seen. Nor is the army.
Ten minutes prior, while the security forces were preoccupied with dispersing the rioters near the House of Contention, black smoke billowed from the wadi separating Kiryat Arba and Hebron. For some reason, none of the senior officers of the police or the army were particularly disturbed by what was transpiring at the foot of Kiryat Arba…
Issacharoff was one of a group of Israeli journalists who decided to abandon the “neutral observer” role and intervene to try to save the family members from the lynch mob:
- A group of journalists approach the house. A dilemma. What to do? There are no security forces in the vicinity and now the Jewish troublemakers decided to put the journalists in their crosshairs. We call for the security guards from Kiryat Arba to intervene and put a halt to the lynch. But they surround the home to prevent the arrival of “Palestinian aid.”
The home is destroyed and the fear is palpable on the faces of the children. One of the women, Jihad, is sprawled on the floor, half-unconscious. The son, who is gripping a large stick, prepares for the moment he will be forced to face the rioters. Tahana, one of the daughters, refuses to calm down. “Look at what they did to the house, look.”
Tess, the photographer, bursts into tears as the events unfold around her. The tears do not stem from fear. It is shame, shame at the sight of these occurrences, the deeds of youths who call themselves Jews. Shame that we share the same religion. At 5:05 P.M., a little over an hour after the incident commenced, a unit belonging to the Yassam special police forces arrives to disperse the crowd of masked men.
These journalists deserve the highest awards possible, for their integrity and courage.
And the New York Times? Its writer Ethan Bronner (or his editors?) made no mention at all of what was happening to Hebron’s indigenous and rightful Palestinian residents during the day yesterday. Their account portrayed what was happening as only an intra-Jewish drama. They had space to give detailed accounts of what the Israeli settler women were wearing, and an incendiary quote from someone from a pro-settler party. But the fact that the lives of 20 members of the Abu Sa’afan family were directly threatened during an anti-Palestinian pogrom, conducted by Jewish extremists while the Israeli security forces stood aside– ?
Nah, no room for that in the New York Times.
Paulson fails to melt Chinese hearts
Time was, when there was a problem of any size in the global economy, the countries affected would send their finance ministers running to Washington to get help from the two big Washington-based financial institutions, the World Bank and the IMF. No longer. Today, it is US Treasury Secretary Hank Paulson whose country is in deep, deep trouble. And he’s gone cap-in-hand to the only place that can throw a lifeline to him (and all the rest of us in the western world): Beijing.
Paulson’s mission has not, thus far, been going very well.
This is a huge, truly world-defining story. I don’t know why the WaPo hasn’t given it a lot more prominence.
The Daily Telegraph‘s Malcolm Moore reports from Shanghai today that Lou Jiwei, the chairman and chief executive of China’s biggest sovereign wealth fund, the $200 billion China Investment Corporation, said that China
- had no intention of “saving” the West from the financial crisis. “Right now we do not have the courage to invest in financial institutions because we do not know what problems they may have,” said Mr Lou.