Phew! My horrible time/work crunch is now over. I had a really busy schedule planned for this week, and then on Mon. afternoon Deb Chasman at Boston Review sent me a marked-up copy of the big Lebanon-war upsumming piece I wrote for them at the beginning of September: She asked me to review the markups on it as fast as I could and get it back to her by Wednesday. I looked it over and quickly concluded it needed quite a lot more careful work from me– to update it, to refine its internal organization a bit, and to save it from what looked at that point a little like “death from too many different people having had a go at it.”
Meanwhile, this incredibly busy week loomed. Including me being the gracious hostess (!) for a small fundraiser Bill and I were hosting Tuesday evening for our great Congressional candidate, Al Weed; me getting to DC by 10 a.m. Wed. morning for a really interesting-looking discussion at the U.S. Institute of Peace on “How to deal with Hamas and Hizbullah”; various other meetings in DC; various Quaker-related things; etc etc.
So I panicked a bit. Most of all I didn’t want to short-change the rewriting job for the BR piece, which needed a lot of the kind of focus that’s hard to muster when you have a zillion other things on your mind and you’re flitting from hither to yon. Deb finally gave me till this morning to get it done. On Tuesday, Wednesday, and last night, I did what I could. But it still wasn’t finished… Finally, by sitting straight down at my desk at 7:30 this morning I finally finished the rewrite and got it back to Deb by about 10… Then I pulled on my running clothes, walked the dog, ran three miles, and finally got to sit down with a cup of coffee and today’s newspapers.
So now, what better way to spend a relaxed afternoon than by blogging?
Deb says the issue with my piece in it will be a generally excellent one. I’ll trust her on that, but it won’t be out till the end of October. Since I started enjoying the instant gratification of blogging, I’ve often felt frustrated by having to endure something as onerous as a seven-week turnround for an important, timely piece of writing. But I guess it’s worth doing. I do, after all, keep coming across people who say they’ve read one or another of my longer, composed-and-edited articles– mainly the BR ones on the Middle East or Rwanda, but also my Foreign Policy piece from earlier this year, on war-crimes courts in general. So I guess it’s worth taking the trouble to try and make them as good as possible?
(Talking of long-turnround efforts, where the heck is my book on post-atrocity policies, anyway?? The folks at Paradigm Press told me it was due to ship from the printers a couple of weeks ago… But I haven’t seen it yet. Oh well, that just further reminds me how worthwhile it is to keep blogging.)
Watch for a few interesting posts coming up.
Iraq open thread #9
I am unbelievably busy with things in the real world. Back to blogging when I can. Maybe Thursday evening?
Meantime, talk about Iraq here if you want.
Thomas Jefferson and Iraq
Thomas Jefferson, the fourth president of the USA and the principal framer of our Declaration of Independence, is something of a local icon here in Charlottesville, his hometown. Today, my esteemed friend and colleague R.K. Ramazani, a professor emeritus of government and foreign affairs at the University of Virginia (which was founded by TJ) had a very timely op-ed in the Philadelphia Inquirer titled What would Jefferson say about Iraq?
The main points there:
- In contrast to Bush, Thomas Jefferson, the intellectual father of America, decried what today are called “wars of choice.” He clearly considered the one war for which he was U.S. commander in chief, the war against the Barbary Pirates, a defensive war. He said he banished “the legitimacy of war to dark ages” and in 1797 said, “I abhor war and view it as the greatest scourge of mankind.” While Jefferson would have seen U.S. military operations in Afghanistan as justified after 9/11, he would not have advocated a so-called preventive attack on Iraq…
Jefferson would have opposed the imposition of democracy on any society by military action for several reasons. He believed that coercion is incompatible with liberty and that a society must undergo an evolutionary process before it will embrace democracy and the liberal values of justice, public education and a free press necessary for it to function. Jefferson would have faulted the Bush administration’s launch of democratization in Iraq without regard to the realities of Iraqi society, in which most people still have higher loyalties to family, religion and tribe than to the nation-state…
Instead, if asked how best to spread democracy, Jefferson would have suggested three alternative and peaceful methods. First among these would be America’s own example of liberal democratic practices. In 1801, he wrote: “A just and solid republican government here will be a standing monument and example for the aim and imitation of people of other countries.”
Second would be effective use of what we now call public diplomacy… He wrote in 1810: “No one more sincerely wishes the spread of information among mankind than I do, and none has greater confidence in its supporting free and good government.”
Third, and most important… he would have advocated expanding American educational initiatives…. In his memorable words: “Enlighten the people generally, and tyranny and oppression of body and mind will vanish like evil spirits at the dawn of day.”
And regarding the treatment of prisoners of war, Jefferson would have insisted on upholding the principles of international law in general, and the Geneva Conventions in particular… More than 200 years ago, Jefferson urged that Americans should endeavor “as far as possible to alleviate the inevitable miseries of war by treating captives as humanity and national honor requires.”
Having provided us all with some great insights into how this important Founding Father of US democracy would have viewed the 43rd president’s actions in Iraq today, Ramazani concludes thus:
- Jefferson would have been appalled by Bush’s misguided policy in the Middle East as tactically shortsighted, strategically ineffective, and above all, dishonorable. He would have … endorsed the efforts of Sen. John McCain (R., Ariz.) and other congressional leaders to put the brakes on Bush’s foreign policy and redirect the country, even in these difficult times, to a path that preserves the morals of our founders: duty, justice and national honor.
Otherwise, what are we defending?
Well written!
Lebanese war; post-war; role of UNIFIL
Here’s the short version of the 33-day war that wracked Lebanon and some of northern Israel this summer.
On the morning of July 12, Hizbullah undertook two cross-border actions against Israel. One of them (the diversion) was to rocket a couple of border areas (no casualties recorded.) The other– the “real thing”– was to ambush a two-jeep patrol. In the ambush they killed three IDF soldiers, wounded two, and captured two others, taking them to captivity somewhere in Lebanon.
The diversion had been so successful– and the IDF’s operating procedures so sloppy– that it was half an hour before any one in the IDF Northern Command even realised the jeep patrol had been attacked. At that point, the IDF sent a tank unit in “hot” (or by that time, decidedly “cool”) pursuit after the Hizbullahis into Lebanon. The tank unit went straight into a land-mine trap. One tank was completely blown up. It took the IDF nearly a further day (and one further life) to get the tank and the bodies of its four dead crew members out of there.
PM Olmert had never faced a national-security challenge like this before and may well have felt flustered and humiliated. He and his equally inexperienced defense minister Amir Peretz clearly felt they had a lot to prove… and they had chief of staff Dan Halutz, a former chief of the Air Force, whispering in their ears that he “had the solution” to all the government’s problems… By the end of that day, July 12, the Olmert government had decided to launch what was clearly signaled as a full-scale reprisal attack against all of Lebanon.
That CNN report there, from July 12, spells out that Olmert had stated that,
- The raid was “not a terror attack, but an operation of a sovereign state without any reason or provocation… The Lebanese government, which Hezbollah is part of, is trying to undermine the stability of the region, and the Lebanese government will be responsible for the consequences.”
The head of the IDF’s northern command, Udi Adam, said,
- “This affair is between Israel and the state of Lebanon… Where to attack? Once it is inside Lebanon, everything is legitimate — not just southern Lebanon, not just the line of Hezbollah posts.”
And Halutz said,
- “If the soldiers are not returned, we will turn Lebanon’s clock back 20 years.”
So, the attack was quite evidently (and declaredly) not just against Hizbullah, though later the Israeli leaders tried to claim it had been. And that very night, the Israeli air force, navy, and long-range artillery units started attacking infrastructure targets throughout the whole of Lebanon.
* * *
What were they thinking?
As best as I can reconstruct it, Olmert’s very inexperienced leadership team was fighting at that point for one major goal: They sought to bomb Lebanon’s government and people into compliance with their request that the Lebanese authorities agree to disarm and hopefully also dismantle Hizbullah. And they would do this through “strategic counter-value bombing”, a strategy whose time, Halutz evidently felt, had finally come! Never mind that this time round, Israel didn’t even have any allies inside Lebanon in the way it had back in June 1982, when Ariel Sharon had launched his earlier war against the country. This time, Halutz evidently felt Israel didn’t even need any allies: they had total air superiority, plentiful supplies of extremely enormous and lethal American and Israeli munitions; and they could simply bomb the Lebanese people into submission.
(And never mind, either, 80 years’ worth of experience indicating that airpower on its own is only very, very rarely able to effect political change on the ground.)
Well, it didn’t work. Not only did the Saniora government not bow to Olmert’s demands– but Hizbullah’s rockets started coming into northern Israel in far greater numbers than they had done during that first, limited diversionary bombardment– and on a regular and seemingly unstoppable basis.
For Hizbullah, whose claims that they hadn’t expected the full-scale Israeli Blitzkrieg may or may not be true, the war had rapidly become one about something very important to them: their ability to “deter” a full-scale Israeli attack on Lebanon, which had been very badly eroded by Olmert’s decision to launch Halutz’s long-planned Blitzkrieg. Hizbullah’s people evidnetly felt they needed to restore the credibility of their deterrent.
But guess what? Once Hizbullah’s rockets started raining regularly on and around communities in northern Israel, the Olmert/Halutz leadership felt it needed majorly to restore the credibility of Israel’s military deterrent, too. (That feeling had anyway been percolating throughout rightwing circles in Israel ever since PM Barak’s unilateral withdrawal from Lebanon in 2000, and had become stronger after Sharon’s unilateral withdrawal from Gaza last year…)
And so the fighting ground on, between these two parties each fighting determinedly to restore the credibility of its own “deterrent.” Also, Hizbullah was understandably anxious not to let the Saniora government fall into the grip of Israel’s political schemes.
So Hizbullah’s very expert political operatives– who included two members of Saniora’s government, a dozen MPs, and numerous other pols very experienced in the intricacies of Lebanon’s internal situation– went into action. In the Lebanese political field, the Israelis had almost no assets at all with which to counter them. I mean, what could they say: “Dear Fouad Saniora, we’re so sorry we’re bombing your country and killing your people but please enter into an alliance with us anyway?”
So Halutz kept promising the Israeli government that “within ten days”, or “within two weeks”, or whatever, his bombardment would bear fruit. And they had the Bush administration (and lapdog Blair) totally on their side, running serious interference for them by blocking any possibility of a ceasefire for almost a full month there, at the UN and elsewhere.
The IDF was given all the time (and emergency resupply of munitions from the US) that it needed. But Halutz’s Blitzkrieig still didn’t have the desired political effect. Finally, during the first week of August, the Israeli leaders started getting serious about supplementing the air attack with a ground invasion. But Gen. Adam apparently understood full well that his ground forces were in lousy shape. He stalled (I think) and there was evidently a massive set of debates in the Kirya (Israel’s mini-Pentagon) in those days. Israelis anyway– and quite understandably– have a lot of wariness about sending ground forces for any length of time into Lebanon. When the ground incursion came it was late– it started, indeed, even after the text of the ceasefire resolution had been agreed at the UN in New York on the evening of August 11. It was also just as disastrous as Gen. Adam had feared it would be.
On August 14, ceasefire day, Israeli ground troops started pouring back home from Lebanon, carrying with them the many casualties they had suffered during those last two days, and a massive sense of shame, frustration, bewilderment, and anger that continues to rock Israel to this day.
On that same day, starting at 8 in the morning, the hundreds of thousands of civilian supporters of Hizbullah who had been violently displaced from their homes in south Lebanon by the fighting started flocking back to their homes in any way they could get there. Here’s what the very experienced military analyst Pat Lang wrote on his blog that day:
- A basic lesson of history is that one must win on the battlefield to dictate the peace. A proof of winning on the battlefield has always been possession of that battlefield when the shooting stops. Those who remain on the field are just about always believed to have been victorious. Those who leave the field are believed to be the defeated.
Well, yes and no… I did note with interest, however, the stress that Hizbullah leader Sayyed Hassan Nasrallah put in his most recent (Sept. 22) speech, on the evidently well-planned actions his adherents undertook on August 14. He told that adoring crowd of his supporters,
- When 14 August came, [the Israelis’] wager was that the presence of the displaced in the areas to which they were displaced would put pressure on the resistance to impose more conditions on it. The resistance did not submit to any conditions.
Once again, you amazed the world when the displaced returned in their cars and trucks, and some on foot. At 0800, the southern suburb of Beirut, the south of Lebanon, and Al-Biqa were full of their proud and honourable residents, who returned with raised heads.
* * *
It seems clear to me that at this point, in the “battle” for the loyalty of the Lebanese government and people, Hizbullah has come out streets ahead of the Olmert government. Olmert in 2006, like Shimon Peres in 1996, sought to use extreme military pressure on the people and the civilian infrastructure of Lebanon to try to turn the country against Hizbullah. In 2006 as in 1996, this project not only failed, but it back-fired significantly, leaving Hizbullah politcally stronger inside Lebanon than it had been before the Israeli assault.
In the other “battle” that both sides were fighting, meanwhile– the one in which each was seeking to re-establish the “credibility” of its ability to militarily deter the other, both sides won. There is an element of good news in this. The Lebanon-Israel border is now marked by a return of the basic strategic stability– underpinned by effective reciprocal deterrence– that marked it from 2000 through July 12 of this year. That is the reason why the August 11 ceasefire has “stuck” so amazingly, and has been so remarkably successful since August 14– and also why it can be expected to continue to stick well for some further time to come. This stability has almost nothing at all to do with the presence of (now) about 5,000 more UNIFIL troops in southern Lebanon than were there before the war.
So a world that is crying out for proficient peacekeepers in so many trouble-spots might indeed ask today: What on earth are all those well-trained European and other UN units actually doing in South Lebanon at this time?
Good question.
Philippe Bolopion of Le Monde described a leaked version of the force’s new Rules of Engagement and “Operational Concept” as follows:
US citizens: How to lobby for a troop pullout from Iraq
The Friends Committee on National Legislation’s website has a great resource page that tells us the specific lobbying steps we should be taking to push for a speedy (and hopefully also total and generous) withdrawal from Iraq. Look in particular at this page there, which tells us that right now, “Congress has one final opportunity in this session to pass legislation barring the Pentagon from spending money to establish permanent military bases in Iraq”
So do go there, explore their great and information-packed website… and get going with the lobbying. They have lots of great ideas for what we can do– on Iraq, and on a whole range of other issues.
US religious leaders and Ahmadinejad: nuclear issues, de-escalation, Holocaust, etc
While Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad was in New York for the U.N. General Assembly last week, one of the groups he met with was a group of around 45 “religious leaders from Christian and Muslim faith backgrounds”. This group was convened by the Mennonite Central Committee, whose account of the meeting can be found here.
The Mennonite Chirch is one of the historic “peace churches” here in the US– that is, one of the churches that hews to the strong peace testimony within the New Testament rather than to the “Just War” theory, which was a much later accretion to the body of Christian belief and practice. The MCC has maintained an inter-faith dialogue with religious scholars in Teheran for several years now.
According to that report on the MCC website, the meeting in New York lasted about 70 minutes. After opening remarks from both Pres. Ahmadinejad and MCC Executive Director Robb Davis, Davis asked
- a question about the language being used by the U.S. and Iran, such as President Bush referring to Iran as one of the “Axis of Evil” countries, while Iranian protesters march through the streets shouting “Death to America.”
Ahmadinejad responded by saying that “Death to America” does not mean death to the American people, but in fact Iranians love the American people. What it pointed to, he said, were problems with how U.S. government policy has negatively impacted the recent history of Iran from the Shah to the present crisis.
“There was no cause for anger as they are not addressed to the American nation but to the aggressive, unjust, warmongering and bullying U.S. policies,” he said. He later added that there are times when people need strong language to express themselves.
That last part strikes me as an unhelpful cop-out.
Asked about his views on the Holocaust, Ahmadinejad
- made a direct connection between the current conflict between Israel and Palestine and the Holocaust in which he said the Palestinian people are being asked to pay the price of the Holocaust. In this context “the Holocaust is a European problem not a Palestinian one,” he said.
Acknowledging the millions of people who died in World War II, Ahmadinejad asked why so much attention was being paid to those who died in the Holocaust and very little to the millions of other civilians who also died.
Davis told Ahmadinejad that more dialogue was necessary on this issue.
Yes, indeed.
The group also discussed nuclear-weapons issues. The best account of this part of the discussion is this one from David Culp– also here. Culp heads the Nuclear Disarmament Program at our Quaker lobbying group, the Friends Committee on National Legislation.
Culp picked out this statement from Ahmadinejad as central: “We believe the production or use of nuclear weapons is immoral.”
Culp wrote:
- I suspect that all of the people in this meeting had many areas where we probably disagree with the policies of the Iranian government. For instance, FCNL is concerned about political prisoners in Iran, religious tolerance, and Iran’s position on Israel. We also were aware that the Iranian president met with us as part of his effort to defuse the looming crisis between the Iranian government and the international community over Iran’s nuclear energy program.
But I’ve been a lobbyist working for the abolition of nuclear weapons for more than a decade, and I’ve talked about these issues with a lot of people. Ahmadinejad impressed me as someone who had thought about these issues a lot. He’s a former engineer, who is thinking through the arguments from a number of different perspectives.
For instance, although he starts any discussion by saying that nuclear weapons are immoral, Ahmadinejad also reminded us that the Soviet Union had thousands of nuclear weapons, which didn’t prevent their government from collapsing. He added that, during Iran’s war with Iraq in the 1980s, Iraq’s alliance with a country with nuclear weapons (presumably he was referring to the United States) didn’t have any impact on the war. He convinced me that Iran is not interested in developing nuclear weapons.
Iran is interested in developing nuclear energy. As a former engineer, he believes that nuclear fuel is the cleanest fuel there is and he explained that this energy source is critical for the future development of his country. And Ahmadinejad bristles at suggestions that the United States or anyone else would try to dictate how his country pursued its energy needs.
He reported that Ahmadinejad suggested that the 27-year-old Conference on Disarmament in Geneva might be a good place to discuss these issues, and added:
- He then offered a proposal: Iran will open all of its nuclear facilities to inspections, if the United States will also open its facilities to inspections. Neither Iran nor the U.S. have implemented the Additional Protocol to the nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty that includes additional inspections, although we at FCNL believe both countries should do so. He added that the United States should refrain from building so-called second or third generation nuclear weapons.
Now, I’m not endorsing Iran’s proposals or even arguing this is the only path to peace. And, in our meeting in New York on Wednesday, the Iranian president made other comments that I found deeply troubling. In particular, I was struck by his comments about the Holocaust…
But when he spoke about issues that I cover, the nuclear weapons issues, what struck me is that the Iranian president was offering a reasonable basis for real negotiations. Since Ahmadinejad took office, Iran has been backing away from permitting full inspections of its nuclear program. But I think this is a bargaining stance to start negotiations. Iran wants to have full rights for civilian nuclear energy, including nuclear enrichment. Iranian leaders also want some kind of assurance that the United States will not bomb their country.
He added this little bit of further context:
- The day I left Washington to go to New York for this meeting, I attended a hearing of the Senate Foreign Relations Committee. The contrast was striking. Nicholas Burns, the number three official at the State Department, spent most of that hearing lob[b]ing what I can only describe as rhetorical hand grenades at Iran. In his first State of the Union address, President Bush described Iran as part of the “axis of evil.” That’s still the approach of some in the U.S. government.
But what is even more striking is the pride U.S. officials take in insisting they will not even talk to Iran. Nicholas Burns, in his testimony this week to the Senate Foreign Relations Committee, made a point of saying he has never met with an Iranian government official. Now here is a man who has been part of the U.S. foreign service for decades, and he made a point of pride that he had never met with any Iranian official. If the U.S. continues to insist that no dialogue is possible with Iran, then war is the likely alternative.
These are great observations. Even more of a reason for folks to become big supporters (financial and otherwise) of FCNL’s truly constructive work there in Washington DC!
Ahmadinejad, Bush, and the avoidance of war
Veteran Washington (now WaPo) columnist David Ignatius is, as I’ve written here numerous times before, a savvy and very well-connected journo. Within the past three weeks he has: (1) made a ten-day tour to Iran, (2) participated in a significant, if quirky, little conference on the problems of empire convened in Venice by some very well-connected Washington “paleo-conservatives”, (3) conducted a one-on-one interview with Pres. Bush, and (4) participated in a two-on-one interview in New York with Iranian Pres. Mahmoud Ahmadinejad.
In this latter interview, David was accompanied by diva-ish WaPo “First Sister” Lally Weymouth, whose transcript of the interview is here. (See Scott’s commentary on that interview, here.) Equally as interesting as the straight content of that interview is David’s very well-informed judgment of the historical moment it represents:
- The most telling moment in a conversation here last week with Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad came when he was asked if America would attack Iran. He quickly answered “no,” with a slight cock of his head as if he regarded the very idea of war between the two countries as preposterous.
Ahmadinejad’s confidence was the overriding theme of his visit. He was like a picador, deftly sticking darts into a wounded bull…
Over the course of a week’s time, I had an unusual chance to sit with both President Bush and President Ahmadinejad and hear their thoughts about Iran. The contrasts were striking: Bush is groping for answers to the Iran problem; you sense him struggling for a viable strategy. When I asked what message he wanted to send the Iranian people, Bush seemed eager for more contact: He spoke of Iran’s importance, of its great history and culture, of its legitimate rights. He made similar comments in his speech Tuesday to the U.N. General Assembly.
Ahmadinejad, meanwhile, is sitting back and enjoying the attention. He’s not groping for anything; he’s waiting for the world to come to him. When you boil down his comments, the message is similar to Bush’s: Iran wants a diplomatic solution to the nuclear impasse; Iran wants dialogue; Iran wants more cultural exchanges. At one point, Ahmadinejad even said that “under fair conditions,” he would favor a resumption of diplomatic relations with the United States.
But if the words of accommodation are there, the music is not. Instead of sending a message to the administration that he is serious about negotiations, Ahmadinejad spent the week playing to the gallery of Third World activists and Muslim revolutionaries with his comments about Israel and the Holocaust. This audience hears the defiant message between the lines: America cannot do a damn thing.
Ahmadinejad is the calmest revolutionary I’ve ever seen. Sitting in a plush easy chair in his suite at the InterContinental hotel, he barely moves a muscle as he makes the most radical statements. His feet don’t jiggle, his hands don’t make gestures, his facial expression barely changes. His eyes are the most expressive part of his body — sparkling one moment, glowering the next, focusing down to dark points when he is angry.
An interview with Ahmadinejad is an intellectual ping-pong match. He bounces back each question with one of his own: Ask about Hezbollah’s attacks, and he asks about Israel’s attacks. Question his defiance of the United Nations, and he shifts to America’s defiance of the world body. In more than an hour of conversation with me and Lally Weymouth of Newsweek, he didn’t deviate from his script. Indeed, some of his comments in the interview were repeated almost word for word when he addressed the General Assembly a few hours later. This is a man adept at message control.
The common strand I take away from this week of Iranian-American conversation is that the two countries agree on one central fact: Iran is a powerful nation that should play an important role in the international system..
That’s the challenge: Can America and Iran find a formula that will meet each side’s security interests, and thereby allow Iran to return fully to the community of nations after 27 years? Iran can’t achieve its ambitions as a rising power without an accommodation with America. America can’t achieve its interest in stabilizing the Middle East without help from Iran. The potential for war is there, but so is the bedrock of mutual self-interest. The simple fact is that these two countries need each other.
It seems clear to me that right now in both capitals, Washington and Teheran, there is an intense internal struggle over this relationship– though quite possibly, the struggle is more intense inside Washington now, than it is inside Teheran.
Why do I say this? Because for all the rhetorical barbs he launched while in New York this week, Ahmadinejad was also very careful to express himself in a measured, calculated way when it came to the central core of the issue: the possibility of a real opening with Washington. For example, in the interview with Ignatius and Weymouth, he started off, in the first answer, saying that “the US administration” (does not create the right circumstances for negotiations) but immediately self-corrected that to say, “that is, a section of the U.S. administration — does not create the right circumstances. It destroys chances for constructive talks.” And later, he said, “Some politicians in the United States think that the nuclear issue is a way to put pressure on Iran.”
As David noted, this is a man who knows how to stay “on message”. And the message he is on now seems clearly to be one that seeks not to demonize the entire current US administration but to leave the way open to empowering any voices within it that might be ready to open a serious negotiation with Teheran.
That, and the relative calm and circumspection with which Ahmadinejad responded to, for example, Weymouth’s questions on Israel and the Holocaust indicate to me that the Superme Leader, Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, has now gotten Ahmadinejad sufficiently on board his more moderate diplomatic project that at least Ahmadinejad’s performance while in New York has not torpedoed (and may perhaps have helped?) Khamenei’s project.
While in New York Ahmadinejad also held a couple of other significant meetings with Americans. One was the very controversial meeting with the ultra-Establishment-oriented “Council on Foreign Relations”. Another was with a group of 50 non-governmental people convened by the Mennonite Central Committee. (More on this in a later post.)
Many of the attendees at the CFR meeting were later quoted as saying that his performance there had shown that Ahmadinejad was “impossible” to deal with– though at least one experienced diplomatist responded to those utterances by saying that they just showed how out of practice most Americans have become at the fine art of diplomacy over the years in which the US has been able to act as a largely unchallenged hegemonic power…
It looks, though, in general as if Ahmadinejad’s visit has kept the opening provided by former Pres. Khatami’s recent visit here at least wide enough open for some form of serious, de-escalatory communication to proceed. As I noted in this recent CSM column, that should at the very least include some kind of an inter-military hot-line system down there in the Gulf. But beyond that, there certainly need to be conflict-resolving talks on a wide range of issues including the modalities of a US withdrawal from Iraq, the American concerns about Iran’s nuclear program, and other outstanding regional issues.
Meanwhile, the US Navy is also proceeding on the parallel track of preparing an entire additional carrier battle group to leave Virginia to sail toward Iran. It is time to get the US-Iran diplomacy started.
WP Ahmadinejad Interview & the Stealth Dialogue
Today’s Washington Post includes a remarkable interview with Iran’s President Ahmadinejad, conducted by senior WaPo editor Lally Weymouth.
Ahmadinejad’s visit to the US, to speak at the UN, was intensely controversial in the US media, given the Iranian President’s harmful hard-line comments regarding the existence of Israel and the Holocaust. Columbia University felt compelled to withdraw an invitation to Ahmadinejad to speak (blaming “logistics”), and the Council on Foreign Relations downgraded a “sparring” session they hosted with him.
By the way, I urge CFR to post a full transcript of Ahmadinejad’s actual comments at their session, instead of their current report with its characterizations by critics of what was said. Whose sensitivities are being protected?
Ahmadinejad is quite the controversial figure inside Iran as well. A major Iranian reformist paper, Shargh, was suspended recently, ostensibly for running a cartoon that satirically alluded to reports of Ahmadinejad’s own mystical take on his visit to the UN last year.
All that said, I have a hunch the recent and important re-organizationof Iran’s foreign policy advisory system, authorized by Supreme Leader Ayatollah Khamenehi, has resulted in an upgrading of the Iranian President’s understanding of international realities – and of the need for more diplomatic rhetoric.
Ahmadinejad certainly hasn’t been shy. In recent weeks, he’s given several long interviews with western media sources, including Anderson Cooper on CNN and Mike Wallace of 60 minutes. You know he did “well” by the magnitude of the vituperation being aimed in neocon circles at Mike Wallace. Just as Iranian reformists underestimated Ahmadinejad last year, so too have recent interviewers.
Ahmadinejad apparently was so emboldened by his perceived media success that he challenged Bush to a public debate – one that Bush understandably declined. (As perhaps his advisors recognized, he’d likely get “gored” – pardon the seven-year-old pun.)
Yet Ahmadinejad’s fiercest critics persist in the cardboard characterizations of Ahmadinejad as another “Hitler” – a madman with whom we cannot do any business. Robert Blackwill, a former Bush II national security official, characterized his encounter with Ahmadinejad at CFR rather bluntly, “If this man represents the prevailing government opinion in Tehran, we are headed for a massive confrontation with Iran.”
Similarly, Richard Hollbrooke, a former Clinton Administration Ambassador to the UN, today on CNN characterized Ahmadinejad’s recent statements and interviews as expressing “nothing new.”
I disagre. I think its worth examining just what Ahmadinejad has been saying – carefully – before throwing out the standard “devil” or “Hitler” hand grenades or summarilydismissing them as Hollbrooke and others have done.
Continue reading “WP Ahmadinejad Interview & the Stealth Dialogue”
Nasrallah full text “we won”
- Preface note: For the past several decades, the British and US governments, via the BBC and the former US Foreign Broadcast Information Service (FBIS) – now re-organized as the “open source center” (OSC) – have quietly collaborated in producing very valuable translations of speeches, articles, and key documents from the Middle East. Identical translations of materials, such as the following full text of Nasrallah’s speech on Friday, are usually released simultaneously. BBC versions often have helpful summaries and sub-headings inserted editorially (as below). I have reason though to suspect the US OSC side of the arrangement is being increasingly politicized, an old chronic problem, but perhaps worse lately. (The following Nasrallah translation is still not in the WNC data base — what the public can view via “depository” and subscribing libraries) As such, here’s the BBC version. In the comments, I’ll append additional reactions to the speech from Lebanon, Israel, etc.
On substance, Nasrallah’s isn’t here giving any “red meat” to neocons about presumed “mistakes.” (e.g., “if he had known how Israel would respond, he would not have so and so….”) Instead, Nasrallah’s emphasis here is on characterizing Hizbullah’s “victory” as a triumph for all of Lebanon – one that defended Lebanon against threats from abroad and within. (comments aimed at “divide and conquer” analysis.) Note the reference to Hizbullah’s resistance as a “model” for Iraq. Consider also what is not said – esp. re. Iran. Nasrallah is no “dummy.” — Scott
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I seek God’s protection against the cursed Satan; in the name of God, the merciful, the compassionate; praise be to almighty God; blessings and peace be upon our master and prophet, the last of the prophets, Muhammad; his good, righteous, infallible family members; his noble companions; and upon all the prophets and messengers;
O beloved and honourable ones; O most honourable, pure, and generous people, may God’s peace, mercy, and blessings be upon you; [applause].
Praise be to God, who fulfilled His promise to us and who granted us, Lebanon, and the people of Lebanon victory over the enemy of Lebanon. Praise be to God who made us proud, enabled us to hold fast, and gave us security. Praise be to God, on whom we relied and to whom we turned repentantly. As He promised, He has always been the best protector. Praise be to God for His victory, assistance, and support.
Brothers and sisters, Ladies and Gentlemen.
On 22 September, you once again surprised the world and truly proved that you are a great, proud, loyal, and courageous people. [Applause]
Rally involves risks
For some days now, many people have been waging a psychological war on this rally, just as they waged a psychological war on the Resistance. [Boos] They said that this square would be bombed and that this podium would be destroyed in order to scare people and keep them from coming. On 22 September, you prove, by crowning the victory rally, that you are more courageous than [you were on] 12 July and 14 August. [Applause]
Standing before you and amongst you involves risk for you and me. There were other choices, up until just half an hour ago, we were discussing [my participation]. However, my heart, mind, and soul did not allow me to address you from afar nor through a screen. [Applause]
The utmost one expects is for the enemy to make a mistake or commit a crime. However, does this enemy not know who we are? We are the sons of that imam, who said: Are you threatening me with death? We are used to death and our dignity is derived from the martyrdom God grants us. [Applause]
You are all welcome – from the fighting and resisting south, to the steadfast Al-Biqa, to the loyal north, to the proud mountain, to the Beirut of Arabism, to the [southern] suburb of loftiness and dignity. You are all welcome – from the Palestinian refugee camps in Lebanon; you are all welcome – from Syria, Iran, Kuwait, Bahrain, and every country that came to us to celebrate and rejoice.
God’s peace, mercy, and blessings be upon you; peace be upon your martyrs and the families of your martyrs; peace be upon your wounded people and their bleeding wounds; peace be upon your prisoners; peace be upon your blood and tears; peace be upon your orphans and widows; peace be upon your demolished houses; peace be upon your burnt property; peace be upon your souls and strong will, which is stronger than the mountains of Lebanon.
“Strategic, historic, divine victory”
Brothers and sisters,
We are today celebrating a big strategic, historic, and divine victory.
Nasrallah appears; war-time casualty tolls
Nasrallah has now– as forecast– made a public appearance at the big Hizbullah rally in Beirut today. This, in open defiance of the many threats that Israeli political and military leaders have made against his life, even after the conclusion of the August 11/August 14 ceasefire.
During late August and early September, Israeli PM Ehud Olmert taunted Nasrallah a number of times, asking when he would come out of the “bunker” in which, Olmert alleged, Nasrallah was hiding. On a number of occasions, Nasrallah calmly told interviewers from the media that he would appear at a seemly and appropriate time, once all the bodies of Lebanese residents killed by Olmert’s military had been recovered and buried.
By the way, human rights researchers in Lebanon say that in recent weeks they have been able to travel extensively around south Lebanon. Families of Hizbullah fighters are nearly always eager to note that affiliation on the tombstones and the memorial notices that are widely posted throughout the whole region. Based on this evidence, the researchers estimate that the ratio of Hizbullah fighters to civilians killed in Lebanon is somewhere around 1:7 or 1:8 .
With a total Lebanese casualty toll of about 1,200, that would give a total of about 150 to 170 Hizbullah fighters killed. Among Israelis, the casualty toll was 118 IDF members killed and 39 civilians. RIP, all of them.