Top Ten Reasons to Anticipate Musavi as Iran’s Next President

Received wisdom tells us in America that it is too hazardous to predict elections in Iran. Said wisdom, often from prominent think tanks and editorial writers, includes refrains denouncing Iran’s elections as badly flawed, mere “staged democracy,” and/or meaningless in terms of policy. (a tendency echoing Israeli foreign ministry talking points.)
I call it laziness mixed with institutional inertia and pre-set agendas. For those able to go beyond stale analysis and look closely, there are major signs suggesting Iran’s hotly contested Presidential race is leaning strongly in favor of Mir-Hussein Musavi. The tea leaves are decidedly green — Musavi’s campaign color. Musavi could win well over 50% on the first round, thus avoiding a run-off.
Here’s my top ten reasons for seeing green:
10. “It’s the foreign policy, stupid.” As I suggested here on May 23rd, current President Ahmadinejad’s foreign policy has been among the top symbolic issues in the contest. All three of his opponents have repeatedly pounded away at how his confrontational style has hurt Iran’s interests, how it has caused Iranian passports to be “worth less than a Somali’s.” Musavi even tied Iran’s economic troubles to foreign policy failings.
Moreover, Iranians by wide margins in recent polling actually prefer better relations with America — and Ahmadinejad has a credibility problem in saying he’s the best candidate to achieve it. By contrast, a common campaign poster for Musavi proclaims, “A New Greeting to the World.” The days of Marg Bar Amrika may be numbered.
9. Ahmadinejad’s return volleys at his primary accusers are back-firing. First, claims that it was “his” foreign policies that restored Iranian pride have infuriated leading system figures, like Hassan Rowhani, who (correctly) emphasize that Iran’s foreign policy decision-making, including on nuclear issues, is a multi-layered process. Condemning key strategies tried during the Khatami era in effect is a slap at Iran’s Supreme Leader.

Similarly, Ahmadinejad’s populist allegations of corruption of Musavi’s supporters, including “pillars of the revolution” such as former President Hashemi-Rafanjani and his family, produced shock waves in the system that may bite him back. Supreme Leader Khamenei, often presumed to be an Ahmadinejad backer, (a debatable assumption in my view) has strongly rebuked such mud-slinging, and has repeatedly reiterated his neutrality in the race.

Rafsanjani cried foul in a widely re-published poetic letter, accusing Ahmadinejad of “counter-revolutionary” behavior. Khamenei has not commented publicly, yet his silence may also speak volumes. He neither criticized the sensational charges, nor prevented their publication. On election eve, Khamenei received Rafsanjani for a 3 hour private visit. Of note, Rafsanjani also chairs Iran’s Assembly of Experts, which in theory, has supervisory powers over the Leader.

8. Ahmadinejad’s challengers have also made great sport lampooning his charts and graphs of Iran’s supposedly healthy economy. He’s been branded widely as “the liar,” a “delusional fanatic,” the “propagandist” who “squandered the nation’s wealth.” As Musavi put it quite bluntly,

“We are up against a person who says black is white and four times four equals five. He looks into the camera and lies with self-confidence…. There is nothing worse than when a government lies to its own people.” — So much for Iran being a “totalitarian” place that didn’t tolerate criticism of politicians.

While the less affluent rural areas may be swayed by memories of Ahmadinejad’s generous handouts and potato doles when oil revenues were high, inflation is again accelerating and unemployment rising — raising fears across social strata. Even his rural base may be eroding.

7. Women have also played an unprecedented and and even powerful role in this campaign, energized by Musavi’s wife, Zahrah Rahnavard, a politics professor, artist, and former University chancellor. (This will be news to Americans still Reading Lolita in Tehran, but yes Virginia, in the “real” Iran, women do vote, do think, and they’re quite politically aware)

Ahmadinejad’s brazen debate insinuations about Rahnavard’s Ph.D. were widely seen as condescending and insulting. More analogous to Hillary Rodham Clinton than Michelle Obama, Dr. Rahnavard shot back that, “Either [Ahmadinejad] cannot tolerate highly educated women or he’s discouraging women from playing an active role in society.” In Musavi’s wife, Iranian women and activists frustrated by recent set-backs again have hope. As Rahnavard recently put it, “Never have women had so much self-awareness. Women have always been just under the skin of history. Today, we assert ourselves.”
Iranians are also stunned to see the couple campaigning together and even holding hands as they move through crowds. As one amazed Iranian commented to the LA Times, “I’ve never seen a politician who holds his wife’s hand in public. And he holds it with love and respect, not with possessiveness.”

6. The unprecedented sharpness of the nationally televised debates among candidates, and substance packed campaign speeches have stirred tremendous excitement and energy, especially among younger voters. The Musavi camp regularly accused Ahmadinejad of behavior that fosters “dictatorship,” and has campaigned instead for a “civil rights charter” and guarantees for ethnic rights. Iranians nationwide realize that this time, there’s real choices to be made among candidates with sharp differences about real issues that matter profoundly to all Iranians.

Speaking of dictatorships or “sultanistic” behavior, a group of Iranian Interior Ministry employees risked their careers in signing a letter charging that an Ayatollah (presumed to be Mesbah-Yazdi — marja to A/N) had issued a fatwa condoning manipulation of the vote process, to protect the system. While this might seem to be evidence of vote rigging potential, I find it intriguing that the claims have not been denied — and instead we have intense calls for multiple forms of monitoring the integrity of the voting.

5. Evidence: The crowds, the crowds. A “Green Tsunami.”

Continue reading “Top Ten Reasons to Anticipate Musavi as Iran’s Next President”

My Moualem interview on ForeignPolicy.com

… is here.
I will just add to everything else I’ve written about Syria-Israel in recent days that Turkish Foreign Minister Ahmet Davutoğlu was in Washington last week, where he conveyed the message that Turkey is very willing to support Syria’s suggestion that any new Syria-Israel talks resume as proximity talks in Turkey, taking up where the talks broken off by Olmert left off in late December.
Davutoğlu has only recently been named FM. Prior to that he was a special adviser to PM Erdoğan. In that capacity, it was he who orchestrated the whole proximity talks project between Israel and Syria last year.
He also seems to be a man of considerable strategic vision: a foreign-policy intellectual who then gets a chance to influence real power. Sort of Kissinger without the bullying and arrogance, you might say.
He was the author of the AKP’s policy of “zero problems with the neighbors.”

My book on Syria-Israel talks, being reprinted

I just heard from the good folks at the US Institute of Peace Press that they will be reprinting my 2000 book The Israeli-Syrian Peace Talks: 1991-96 and Beyond.
The book had fallen out of print a couple of years ago, which I thought was a real pity. But one phone call to a friend at USIP and it seems they’re now planning to print up a bunch more copies. (My thanks to that friend!)
This is very timely, given Mitchell’s imminent arrival in Damascus.

Continue reading “My book on Syria-Israel talks, being reprinted”

Highlights from my interview with Syrian Foreign Minister Moualem, June 4

On his impressions of
Pres. Obama, his hopes from Obama’s
[at that moment underway] Cairo speech, and Sen. George Mitchell’s peace
mission:

We think Pres. Barack Obama seems very sincere. But can he deliver? There is
always Congress and the pro-Israeli lobby to take into account.

With the speech, we hope Obama can
deliver everybody’s dreams! Including his own dream, and that of the
Palestinians—to see the occupied territories freed from occupation and
all Israelis to be able to live in peace.

… I don’t know
Sen. Mitchell, but I have worked closely in the past with Fred Hof, who is one
of his assistants. What we’ve heard about Mitchell’s work in Northern Ireland
and on the Mitchell Commission on the Palestinian issue is encouraging to
us.  We are very ready to work with
him.

We approve of Barack Obama a lot. The man put a comprehensive peace back on the
agenda. He also intends to pull out of Iraq completely. We are ready to help
with that, but we need our conditions in the matter addressed, too.

On the May 31st
phone call he had with Secretary of State Hillary Clinton:

I think Hillary Clinton is a good and effective Secretary of
State. We agreed on a Road Map to normalize US-Syrian relations in all
fields—political, security, and cultural.  We agreed we have a mutual, shared vision that centers around these three points: to stabilize Iraq; to work for a
comprehensive peace in the Middle East; and to cooperate on combating
terrorism.

We realize none of these depend on Syria and the US alone;
but they also involve other players.

On the way the Obama administration has been implementing sanctions
against Syria:

I am very eager to see a real improvement in our relations
with Washington. But nothing has happened yet. Even on the question of the
parts for our civilian air fleet [whose shipment has been blocked under the
US’s sanctions legislation], we have seen no movement. They haven’t informed
the Europeans yet that it’s okay to ship those parts. I think your Commerce
Secretary could authorize this whenever he wants, as it’s a matter of aviation
safety.

… It seems anachronistic to us that Obama
recently renewed the Syrian Accountability and Restoration of Lebanese
Sovereignty Act. The issue has been resolved! We withdrew our troops from
Lebanon, and have exchanged ambassadors with Beirut.

On Syria’s continued
presence on the State Department’s list of “state sponsors of terrorism”:

We know that our position on the list is not even really in
regard to Syria and the United States as such, but more related to Hizbullah and Hamas and their fight against Israel. But
it’s very strange that you condemn me as a “terrorist” at the same time as you
call on me to help you combat terrorism in Iraq and elsewhere. It doesn’t make
sense!

On Sen. Kerry, who
visited Damascus recently and held a number of meetings with Pres. Bashar al-Asad:

Sen. Kerry’s role is essential. He enjoys the trust of my
president. They have had good meetings and several good telephone calls. There
is chemistry between the two men, you could say.

On prospects for
dealing with Israel’s Likud government:

The most important thing is that there should be a political
decision for peace. It is not important to us whether the government is Likud
or Labour.

On the Arab Peace
Initiative:

Yes, there is Arab consensus on the Arab Peace Initiative,
which was reaffirmed at the Arab summit in Doha [in late March]. This mandates
the implementation of all the Security Council’s resolutions about the
Arab-Israeli issue and lays out commitments for what will happen after that.

On the proximity talks
that the Turkish government hosted throughout several months of 2008 between
Syria and Israel:

We were very happy with the Turkish role. The Turks were
completely professional,  trustworthy, and helpful as mediators. We think that
was a good approach: to start with the indirect talks in that way. And then, if
we had gotten over the preliminaries with the Turks the plan was to hand the
task of completing the peace agreement over to the Americans.

The best way would be to try to repeat this approach now. If
this should succeed, the success would belong to Barack
Obama—and if we fail, the failure would be ours
alone!

Why do we need the US in this? Firstly, because of the
unique nature of the relationship they have with Israel, and secondly because
of their command of certain technical capabilities—for monitoring and
verification of a peace agreement—that only the United States has.

On Syria’s previous
peace efforts with Israel—in nearly all of which he was a direct
participant:

We got closest to bridging our differences under Rabin. He
was the only Israeli leader we have dealt with who had a real strategic vision
for this region. We were able to engage on every single issue with him. We
differed only on some details regarding the timetable for implementation.

The effort that [US-Israeli businessman] Ron Lauder
launched, trying to mediate between us and Netanyahu’s first
government in the 1990s also seemed very serious. But it ended
prematurely. Lauder told us that Ariel Sharon had interfered, leaking news of
the initiative to Daniel Pipes and thereby aborting it.

We were ready to sign an agreement with Israel even if the
Palestinians didn’t conclude their agreement. But this has to be a genuine
peace agreement for us.

On Iran, US-Iranian
and Syrian-Iranian relations:

We are ready to help. We want to help inform both sides
about their real importance—about the United States’ true importance in
the world, and Iran’s true importance in the region.

Can the relationship we have with Iran help us to resolve
the Arab-Israeli conflict—or, will solving the Arab-Israeli conflict
actually help to reduce the importance of Iran in regional affairs? These are
important questions to discuss.

Why would the US want to persist in trying to mobilize an
Arab-Israeli coalition against Iran? We are talking about peace in the
whole region!

What would happen if we managed to achieve that? Iran would
then have to choose to go with the peace, or against it.

If a close ally of Iran like Syria went to Iran and said
‘This peace is in our interest’, what do you think would they do? I can tell
you they have never opposed any of our peace moves since 1991. Even with
the Turkish mediation last year, they told us they supported it.

On whether Syria could
mediate between Fateh and Hamas:

This mediation effort needs an Egyptian direct role, as at
present; and that role should be supported by the Arabs.
But the mediator should be neutral between Fateh
and Hamas. Ultimately, the two Palestinian parties must come together to reach
common ground between them without pressure.

They need to see that they are both losing from the present
stalemate—both of them!

Gaza is in a terrible humanitarian situation, and has to be
a priority.

Now we have a new U.S. president with a different approach,
so we hope there can be speedy progress.

He should realize, though, that Hamas has already taken two
important steps: Khaled Meshaal
announced his support for a Palestinian state with its border at the pre-1967
line—he did this at a press conference two years ago, and has restated
that position many times since.  He
has also said that Hamas will accept a political solution to the conflict if
the majority of Palestinians accept it. That means he accepts the political
solution.

The Palestinians will have to have an election in January,
anyway. But meanwhile, their split need not be, and indeed is not, an obstacle
to progress in peacemaking.

On whether and how he
sees the issue of the Three Preconditions the US and its Quartet allies defined
for any Hamas participation in peacemaking getting resolved:

First of all, this is a matter for the Palestinian parties
to resolve, not Syria.

Secondly, this idea of “recognizing Israel” as a
pre-condition to the Quartet even talking with Hamas has no basis in the
international terms of reference for the diplomacy. Look at us: We have
negotiated with Israel since 1991, sometimes very productively indeed, and we
have never given, or been required to give, formal recognition to Israel.
Recognition is something that will be part of the outcome of a successful peace
negotiation, and should not be considered a precondition!

Thirdly, these preconditions have become an obstacle in
intra-Palestinian reconciliation,  so everyone needs to find a way to remove that
obstacle.

His hopes regarding
the Lebanese elections of June 7th:

I hope they happen peacefully, and that the Lebanese people
choose people who will represent their interests well.  And I wish the Lebanese people well!

On the potential role
in the peacemaking of Quartet member Russia:

The diplomatic initiative the Russians are now undertaking
is serious. We told [Foreign Minister Sergei] Lavrov
when he was here that the peacemaking effort needs to be prepared well; it
needs to have a clear aim; it needs to be conducted on the basis of clear
understandings; and it needs to build on what’s been achieved already. We
believe Russia can help in all these parts of the effort.

WaPo’s Kessler pulls punches on Ross

The WaPo’s Glenn Kessler had an article today in which he deals with the topic of Dennis Ross’s objectivity and the appropriateness of having this person, of all available people, acting as Sec. Clinton’s adviser on Iran and Gulf affairs.
It is good and notable, I guess, that this topic can even be raised by a journo in the MSM. For many years, almost no-one in the MSM would have dared even mention the criticisms that have surfaced against a leading Jewish-American public figure like Ross, for fear of being labeled anti-Semitic.
However, Kessler considerably pulls his punches in the article.
He makes no mention of the many questions that have been raised about Ross’s competence to arrive at any judgments about decisionmaking in Iran, a very complex country of whose affairs he has never previously demonstrated any detailed knowledge.
Though Kessler does mention Ross’s role as co-author with another WINEP person of the new book “Myths, Illusions and Peace: Finding a New Direction for America in the Middle East”, he doesn’t mention the fact that the book argued strongly against a key proposition propounded by his principals in the administration: namely that there is a strong link between Iran policy and Arab-Israeli peacemaking.
Also, in the book, Ross and Makovsky express a hard line toward Iran that can give the Iranian government ample reason to believe that a US leadership guided by Ross’s advice may only be undertaking diplomatic overtures to Tehran as a ruse, preparatory to launching a further escalation of its attacks against the Islamic Republic.
Finally, though Kessler does mention Ross’s role as a co-founder of a very hawkish US group called United Against Nuclear Iran, he mysteriously makes no mention of Ross’s just-relinquished role as founding President of the Jerusalem-based Jewish People’s Public Policy Institute (JPPPI). According to reports in the Israeli press, while Ross was still its president JPPPI was “tasked” by the Israeli government with doing some important strategic planning on its behalf.
Kessler also writes in deadpan vein, “Ross has written that his admiration for Israel has not hurt his effectiveness as a negotiator.” But he has apparently been quite unable to find a single Arab or Muslim person to corroborate that statement!
That part is pretty hilarious.
But I wish Kessler and his editors had been braver and published much more of the material that I am sure they have to hand that strengthens the judgment that this man is a quite unsuitable pick for the Iran-affairs advisory post in Hillary Clinton’s State Department.
Addition, 11:20 a.m.: I just read the article in the paper edition. It is still always easier for me to read texts on paper! What struck me on this read was this framing Kessler made in his fourth para of what “the issue” is around Ross:

    Ross is undertaking this assignment amid questions in Washington about whether he has sufficient clout in the nascent Obama administration. And in the Middle East, many officials view him as too pro-Israel, raising concerns about whether he is the right person for the job of coaxing the Islamic Republic of Iran.

I would say that seriously mischaracterizes the concerns here in Washington DC. Some people here doubtless have questions about whether he has enough clout in the administration– but I can tell you that many others– perhaps an even greater number!– question whether he too much clout. Worries on that score are not, as Kessler’s framing would have you believe, limited to the Middle East.

Settlers going ‘crazy’ as pressure mounts

Haaretz’s Bradley Burston reported this yesterday:

    On the Sabbath, Israeli television viewers were treated to the recorded-on-a-weekday observations of Arele, a resident of the West Bank settlement of Karnei Shomron, grinning as he watched the progress of an arson fire burning Palestinian land near the Gilad Farm, an icon of the outlaw outpost movement.
    Asked by Israel Channel Two Television reporter Shai Gal what would happen if Israeli forces tried to evacuate Havat Gilad, Arele replied, “At most, they’ll demolish one measly shack, so they’ll have something to show – that Kushon [a Hebrew slur equivalent to the “N” word] in the United States, in order to have an Etnan [the biblical term for a fee paid to a prostitute] to give him – if you [secular] guys know what an Etnan is.”
    According to Arele, the fire, in this instance a form of pre-emptive revenge, was the price tag Palestinians would be forced to pay each time Obama pressed Israel to “touch any settlement of any kind, any place in Judea and Samaria.”

This last point is very important.
Gabi Peterberg has warned that, as in the case of the final portion of many decolonization processes, as decolonization in the West Bank become a more imminent reality those settlers who fear losing their situation of uber-privilege and even perhaps their quite illegally acquired homes may well go on final rampages of unbridled violence against the unarmed indigenes.
(And don’t you love the term “pre-emptive revenge”?)
The UN-OCHA weekly report for 27 May – 2 June reported (PDF) that,

    Settler violence and attacks increased this week in the northern West Bank, notably in the Nablus and Qalqiliya districts in response to a recent Israeli government announcement of its intention to dismantle 26 settlement outposts.

The Palestinians of the West Bank urgently need protection from this violence.
Can the very numerous Palestinian “security forces” who have been trained and armed by the US do anything to provide it– or are they too busy trying to suppress internal political opposition to Ramallastan in an attempt to help Abu Mazen “protect” the settlers?
The rest of Burston’s report makes important reading, too. In it, he writes of “racism… masquerading as love of Israel.”

Mitchell includes Syria, Lebanon

It’s now confirmed. US peace envoy George Mitchell, now on his fourth trip to the Middle East, will travel to both Syria and Lebanon this week.
He met this morning in Tel Aviv with Ehud Barak, and is meeting– possibly as I write– with Avigdor Lieberman and PM Netanyahu. Tomorrow, Mahmoud Abbas, in Ramallah. So Damascus maybe Thursday?
This is excellent news. Mitchell certainly shouldn’t have delayed so long in going to Syria, a country that is a necessary and pivotal part of any comprehensive peace between Israel and all of its neighbors.
The type of peace, that is, that will end the state of war that Israelis have lived in, with their neighbors, throughout all the 61 years since the establishment of their state in 1948.
(How will Jewish Israelis– whose national culture, mindset, and economy have all been built importantly, though not wholly, around their sense of of being surrounded by hostile others– deal with the prospect of such a ground-shifting transformation in their situation? This is a non-trivial question that too few Israelis have ever studied in much depth… )
When I was interviewing Syrian foreign minister Walid Moualem and other high Syrian officials in Damascus on Tuesday-Thursday of last week, they expressed eagerness to receive Mitchell and to be fully included in the peace-making venture that he leads.
Syrian officials are also very eager to have a serious discussion with the Obama administration on issues of joint concern regarding Iraq.
They told me they have a strong interest– in common with the Obama administration– in seeing the Maliki government in Baghdad increase its effectiveness and strength: something that will both prevent the whole region from collapsing into a chaos that would be very harmful for Syria, and will allow US troops the smooth exit from Iraq that Obama is now committed to.
(In discussions with a few Syrian private citizens, I heard a little speculation that if the situation in the Gulf area is for whatever reason too chaotic to allow US troops to exit Iraq through that route, they might even be allowed to exit through Syria…. Interesting!)
More, obviously, from my important Moualem interview later– here and elsewhere.
One of my main observations, after 35 years of reporting on and studying the dynamics of various Israeli-Arab peace-making efforts, is that US peace brokers have a number of different ways of approaching the Syrian (and Lebanese) tracks, and their relationship with the Palestinian track.
Here, in capsule form, are my further thoughts on this subject:

    1. Washington ‘peace’ brokers have very frequently tried to play the Syrians off against the Palestinians.
    2. They do this either over a longer or shorter time frame. That is, sometimes they have both these tracks “in play” at the same time, and there is a literal use of pressure as when Dennis Ross or whoever conveys a message like this: “We’ve got the other track just about ready to reach completion but we wouldn’t have any more energy then to deal with your track– so give me an even better offer!” Sometimes the manipulation occurs over a longer time-frame than that.
    3. The success of that manipulative strategy depends crucially on the maximization of distrust between the Syrian and Palestinian leaderships, and the minimization (or absence) of direct communications between them.
    4. Presidents Clinton and GWB both relied on this manipulation strategy very heavily. The whole Oslo phenomenon, of course, fed very strongly into it.
    5. Neither Clinton nor GWB proved able to secure a final-status peace, on either of these crucial negotiating tracks!!!
    6. So the ‘manipulation’ strategy really doesn’t have any credibility– unless the goal is to delay the conclusion of final peace agreements on these two tracks, which “by an amazing coincidence” gives Israel the opportunity to build more Jews-only colonies in both the occupied West Bank and the occupied Golan.
    7. Obama has committed himself to the establishment of an independent Palestinian state within a relatively short time frame– some say two years, some say four.
    8. While he has publicly reiterated that commitment a large number of times, including in Cairo last Thursday, his references to the need for a comprehensive peace between Israel and all of its neighbors have been far fewer, and far less clear.
    9. He has, however, made several approving references to the Arab Peace Initiative, which is based centrally on the concept of a ‘comprehensive’ peace between Israel and all neighbors, and which also stresses the need for Israel to evacuate all the Arab lands occupied in 1967.
    10. In the context of an effort to build an fair, stable, and increasingly trust-imbued order in the Arab-Israeli region, the manipulative, “divide and rule” approach that has marked all US peace efforts since 1993– whose failure has now been amply documented– needs to be laid aside in favor of one that actively welcomes the building or rebuilding of good working relations among all the Arab parties as the Arab parties walk together along the path laid out by their peace initiative of 2002.
    11. It was, remember, only a level of decent working relations among ideologically diverse Arab parties that in 1991 allowed the convening of the breakthrough Madrid Peace Conference. The same is true– but even more urgent!– today.
    12. Decent working relations are therefore now needed both within national communities– as in, between Fateh and Hamas; and also amongst the different large parties in Lebanon– and among the Arab states themselves.
    13. GWB’s malicious and divisive policy of stoking “moderates” versus “extremists” tensions at the regional level needs to be decisively cast aside. The languaging around that policy also needs to be jettisoned.
    14. One big challenge, obviously, is for the Palestinians to find a workable amount of intra-party reconciliation. It is good news that Hamas head Khaled Meshaal traveled to Cairo yesterday– hopefully, to try to break the logjam in the Cairo-mediated talks with Fateh. (It is my hope that one of the big things Obama and Hillary did when they were in Cairo last week was to tell Mubarak and his man Omar Suleiman quite clearly that they want him to succeed in this mediation, regardless of what Mubarak’s own small sectional interests in the matter might be.)
    15. Another challenge will be to build good relations between the Palestinian and Syrian leaderships as the negotiations gather steam. Having a national unity government for the Palestinians would most likely make that easier, as Hamas has had a long working relationship with Syria.
    16. Good relations between these two important Arab parties, and between Syria and Lebanon, (and among all the Arab parties) should be seen at this point as potentially synergistic and very helpful for the peacemaking effort, rather than being feared as presaging the imminent creation of a strong anti-Israeli military alliance– which was always the old fear of Israel and its western backers.
    17. We need to remember that these days, no Arab leaders have either the will or the capability to launch a military attack against Israel. They are all– including Hamas– focused on the peace arena. “Divide and rule” would be a completely counter-productive way for Washington to deal with this situation. Inclusion has to be the name of the game. Oh, and of course, real forward progress on securing the actual peace.

Anyway, as I say, I’m planning blog a lot more on all of this over the days ahead… For now, you’ll have to make do with my “17 points”.

M-14 win in Lebanon

The March 14 bloc in Lebanon, that is heavily supported by the US and Saudi Arabia, came out ahead in yesterday’s elections in Lebanon.
Qifa Nabki has done a great job of pulling together and assessing some of the dominant current western explanations for this outcome, here.
Qifa’s own main explanation is this:

    Far more decisive, in my opinion, seems to have been: (1) the high turnout of Sunnis in Zahle — many of whom came from abroad — coupled with a low turnout of Christians; (2) strong feelings of antipathy towards Hizbullah by the Christians of Beirut who voted decisively for March 14th’s list in the district of Achrafieh; (3) some rare rhetorical blunders by Nasrallah in the past couple of weeks, calling the events of May 7th [2008] “a glorious day” for the resistance.

This last point might well track with the one Paul Salem had made Friday, namely that “Hezbollah didn’t really want to win and give up its cozy seat in the opposition.”
Certainly of the “experts” Qifa refers to in the post, I would trust the judgment of Qifa himself and of Paul Salem considerably more than that of Andrew Exum, Rob Satloff, or Tony Badran.
The prime contest in the election was not, as many western analysts wrote, between Hizbullah and its opponents. Because of Lebanon’s blatantly gerrymandered and discriminatory political system, the Shiite Muslim community that is the largest single religious community in Lebanon, representing around 40% of the population, has only a tiny number of members in the confessionally constituted parliament. Hizbullah could only ever expect to keep the 11 seats in the 128-seat body that it had before yesterday; and it has done that.
The main contest, then, was inside the grossly over-represented Christian community. Here, Hizbullah’s allies in the Free Patriotic Movement (FPM) apparently lost in a major way to supporters of March 14 who are also members of extremely well-entrenched political “families” and ardent supporters of the present system of Christian political privilege.
The FPM and its leader, General Michel Aoun, had offered a clear alternative to that system, as well as a strong political platform for this election. For those reasons, despite some other other misgivings I have about Aoun (and about Hizbullah), I wanted their alliance to win. Hizbullah, by the way, also supports a “de-confessionalized”, one-person-one-vote system in Lebanon.
It is truly anomalous that so many Americans, including Joe Biden and Hillary Clinton, intervened in the election to support the anti-democratic March 14 coalition.
Now, I hope we can see another broad national unity government in Lebanon, like the outgoing one but hopefully a lot more effective in meeting people’s needs than that one.
There are, of course, several issues remaining from the election itself. Nicholas Kimbrell writes in today’s Daily Star that Carmen Jeha, the Deputy Coordinator of the Lebanese Association for Democratic Elections (LADE) said her organization had identified over 900 “critical violations” of the election law.
To his credit, Kimbrell leads with that news, and then mentions the efforts and assessments of the the Lebanese Alliance for Election Monitoring (CLOE), which fielded Lebanese-citizen observation missions “with 2,500 monitors countrywide”, and which also noted significant violations.
Kimbrell then goes on to note that the Lebanese Interior Ministry, which organized the elections, and the foreign election-monitoring teams fielded by the EU and the Carter Center, had all given the election process relatively high marks.
I expect that in much of the western media, the assessments of the foreign monitors will receive a lot more play than those of the indigenous Lebanese monitors. But why should westerners need to give undue weight to western monitors (whose reach inside the country is anyway miniscule compared with that of the indigenous Lebanese organizations)?
If we really support democracy for all peoples, shouldn’t we also highlight, celebrate, and respect the work and assessments of indigenous Lebanese democracy-supporting organization much more than those of western teams who just parachuted into the country for a tiny proportion of the whole campaign process?

First-day thoughts: My latest trip

    One cool thing about Quakers is that, by tradition, we don’t use the Nordic/pagan names of the days of the week that are common in western society, but use a simple counting-off system: First-day is ‘Sunday’, Second-day is ‘Monday’, etc. In practice, among the members of my Quaker meeting in Charlottesville, VA, we quite frequently use the Nordic/pagan names, to be more generally understood; though sometimes, amongst ourselves we use the counted-off names, which were once an integral part of what was known as Quaker ‘plain speech.’
    Going to Meeting for Worship on a First-day often puts me in a reflective/spiritual mood that lasts long after the meeting itself. That happened today; so I thought I’d put these ‘First-day thoughts’ onto the blog. I may do so again, in the future. Anyway, here these ones are. ~HC

The trip turned out to be a big one. Qatar, in early May, was a lot more thought-provoking than I’d expected– thanks in good part to a friend who lives there who took me to the old downtown and talked a lot about what the conditions of life are like there for the country’s numerous Arab-national expatriate residents. The UNESCO conference was also a lot more substantive than I’d expected– and it gave me the great gift there of spending a lot of time with someone I’ve long admired, Allister Sparks.
London was good, too. Mainly, to catch up with some old friends and colleagues; to spend some good time with my best friend from Oxford days, the economist Bridget Rosewell; and to catch up with two of my sisters (though I did see them back in April, too.)
But the most memorable parts of the trip were the two weeks I spent in Turkey and the week I spent in Syria. Both these legs were with Bill the spouse. We had planned that part of the trip as a bit of an indulgence, to mark our 25th wedding anniversary; but it all proved extremely informative, as well as enjoyable.
I hadn’t been to Turkey since 1976, when I drove through the country with my first husband in the Fiat 127 we had bought shortly beforehand from Jihad Khazen for 250 Lebanese pounds (!) That trip was part of the longer drive we undertook from Beirut to the UK that summer.
This time, before Bill and I went I thought quite a bit about Mary Fisher, a young London woman who was one of the “Valiant Sixty” of early Quaker leaders, back in the mid-17th century. Some 18 months ago, Friends Journal published a terrific article about Mary, that focused on the journey she undertook in 1658 to go and share her version of the truth with Ottoman Sultan Mehmet IV. I don’t have my collection of FJ’s to hand right now– and the full text is sadly not available online. But what I recall from it is that Mary persuaded a small number of male Quakers to go along with her on the trip– but they all turned back when they received advice from the British consul in Smyrna that there might be “brigands” ahead…
So anyway, she proceeded on her own, and caught up with the Sultan and his court in Adrianople (now Edirne), north and west from Istanbul. And she somehow, without speaking a word of Turkish, talked her way into his exalted presence and got an audience in front of him and his courtiers. He asked her to speak her promised message; and after a short period of silence in the Quaker fashion, she did just that. It was doubtless a classically Christian testimony, as proclaimed by all those foundational Quakers in the 17th century.
The Sultan apparently listened to it with due respect, and thanked her for it. He then courteously asked if he could give her an armed guard to ensure she could return to Smyrna in peace; but she declined the offer, returning quite peaceably enough on her own… Sometime later she was one of the first of the English Quakers who, suffering from repression at home, migrated to north America to find refuge there. She was persecuted by the Puritans there, too; but she ended her days many years later in, I believe, South Carolina…
In the current era, Turkey has been ruled since 2002 by the AKP, a party that is avowedly Islamist but is also committed to pluralism and democracy. It has been ruled very well indeed by them. In 2007, the party was re-elected, with a stronger mandate than before. I was really interested to go there, see some of the country, and meet with Turkish friends and colleagues, though sadly our attempts to meet with a few of the officials who’ve been working on their very innovative Middle East policy did not work out.

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