Happy New Year

The last post of 2009.

Happy New Year
Heri ya Mwaka Mpya
С Новым 2010 годом!
Веселого Різдва і з Новим Роком

Iran on the Brink

Image via Wikipedia

Well. Not exactly. But the Western media would have you believe it is as they continue to portray the "opposition" as some sort of anti-clerical, anti-Islamic group (this does not apply to the protesters in the street who are likely very anti-clerical rule).

I recently received an email of an alternative view which seems to me much more reality based although I can't vouch for its accuracy. Essentially, the alternative view says this:

1. This is not about a conflict of ideology. It is about economics - those that affect the economic elites.

2. On one side is Ayatollah Ali Akbar Hashemi Rafsanjani. The other side is represented by President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad. The former has been on the short end of the deal to Ahmadinejad lately and his businesses are not doing well. Remember, he is a very wealthy cleric.

3. Rafsanjani is basically shut down in Iran - he is no longer privy to the inner circle discussions or decisions.

4. The 30 year old sanctions have taken a toll and Rafsanjani developed a strong overseas network for trade. So, Rafsanjani's overseas network has come into play.

5. Ahmadinejad did not sit on his hands and has been developing his own overseas network. This has not worked out so well as Rafsanjani gave the names etc of people the President had been working with to the CIA and MI5 who have dutifully scotched the deals. In a tit for tat, Ahamdinejad closed his opponents out of the internal banking system. Bad if you need loans to run businesses.

6. If either side voiced this in public, the religious mantle they cover themselves with would vanish. Nothing but the political and economic hacks that they are.

7. The street protests are mostly those Iranians who are westernized. Not many, I'm afraid.

8. The growing pressure by security forces to put an end to the demonstrations is becoming intense. If they are unleashed, the bloodshed so far seen will be nothing.

9. Since Rafsanjani is out of the loop, anything he or his people say to the west must be considered unreliable.

10. Ahmadinejad will deal on the nuclear issue but the US has to simultaneously (or a nano-second before) drop sanctions so that he will come out looking like a savior.

11. The economic control war is playing out, but the regime is running thin on patience.

What is left unsaid above is what would happen if the US agreed, as a New Year gesture, to lift sanctions? Would the demonstrations stop - or be stopped?

As I said, take the above with a grain of salt. But it is entirely plausible under the circumstances and is consistent with other political power struggles - one only needs to look to the clan struggle going on now in Russia. It's all about the money.

Failed Plane Bombing - War in Yemen

The growing clamour from the usual suspects in the US to insert itself somehow into the Yemen as a result of the failed attack on the Delta plane over Detroit is very reminiscent of previous cries by the same cast of characters to invade Iraq and bomb Iran. Before succumbing to the mendacious arguments put forward by some of the dumbest members of the legislative community (I'm talking about you Hoekstra), a little bit of fact checking is in order.

First - Republicans (again I'm talking to you Hoekstra, and you Bachmann, and you Boehner)voted against appropriating the necessary funds for airport security which included explosive detection devises. And shame on you BBC, CNN et al for not reporting that and on the Obama administration for not shoving it in their collective faces. Oh. It was the Bush administration that released (presumably for lack of evidence) two Yemenis who were the alleged plotters behind this attempted bombing. So Cheney - STFU.

Second - The BBC revealed today that the CIA knew about Umar Farouk Abdulmutallab, the 23-year-old (wealthy brat) Nigerian and failed to talk to anyone about it - thereby allowing his visa for the US to continue. No comment.
Third - Joe Lieberman (R-CT) said on Fox News Sunday that the US should launch a pre-emtive war against Yemen - quoting an anonymous administration source. Does this sound familiar? Yemen, Senator, has not attacked the US and, in fact, is cooperating with a key US ally in the region - Saudi Arabia - to disrupt and destroy what is known as al Qaeda in the Arabian Peninsula (AQAP). Who does he want the US to pre-emtively attack?

The call for the US to significantly increase its presence in the conflict, which is partly a civil war, all as a result of a failed attack by a lone, pathetic rich kid from Nigeria, of whom the US was warned by his father, is bordering on the insane. However, it may be too late as CNN reported today that although there has been no deal on a US Special Forces helicopter-borne assault that puts boots on the ground, that the US would like the Yeminis to develop that capacity.

That Yemen is a mess, politically and economically is clear. It has been fighting an indigenous al Houthi insurgency in the north for years and a growing secessionist movement in the south. The al Houthi are the proxy now for Iran in its regional competition with Saudi Arabia and are not connected with al Qaeda of the Arabian Peninsula (AQAP) whose stated goal has been the overthrow of the Saudi government. The Saudi's can and have crushed al Houthi incursions on Saudi territory and have even launched effective airstrikes against their mountain strongholds in Yemen.

AQAP is the combination of the now destroyed Saudi al Qaeda group and its Yemeni counterpart. The group has been singularly ineffective in doing anything and has now lost its leadership as a result of a succession of air/ground attacks. AQAP is hardly the type of threat requiring any more attention from the US than is already being given. Politically, however, the US administration may not have a choice as the media and Republicans press for "action" and pre-emptive war.

The Lieberman crowd need to dial down the hysterics. Yemen is a fragile state posing absolutely no threat to the US or anyone else. The government can only push the jihadists so far without running into trouble with the various tribes in the area and it's own security units (sound familiar?) The government has to fight an al-Houthi insurgency and a secessionist movement in the south. Disintegration is a word that comes to mind. But, the prospect of another failed state in the region (Somalia is the other) does not appear to concern the neo-con element that is palpably tingling with anticipation for another war. Yemen is on the edge of the failed state slope and insertion of more US forces would push it over that edge.

The reality, Senator Lieberman, is that this matter is much more complex than you are leading people who watch Fox to believe. Furthermore, the US does not need to escalate any more than it already has, to wit:

December 17: Mohammed Saleh Mohammed Ali al-Kazemi, a senior leader of AQAP, and dozens of other AQAP militants, were killed in an air strike in the southern province of Abyan. The U.S. Navy carried out the strike. The strike was accompanied by coordinated ground raids by Yemeni forces to prevent escape. The use of US naval assets is already a dramatic escalation by the US.

December 24: A Yemeni assault on AQAP was backed by US air assets resulting in 30 killed, including the cleric Anwar al-Aulaqi, Nasser al-Wuhayshi (al-Qaeda's regional leader) and his deputy, Said Ali al-Shihri. The cleric, by the way, had contact with three of the 9/11 hijackers and also exchanged e-mails with Maj. Nidal M. Hasan, killed 13 fellow soldiers at Fort Hood.

The bomber was trained and supplied in Yemen by AQAP. That much he has admitted. So what? His mentor in Yemen is probably dead. What is it about AQAP that has the media blasting headlines and demands for a pre-emptive war against the country that is, after all, fighting AQAP? For the US to go after AQAP any more than it currently is doing risks a full scale meltdown of the current government. That is an unpleasant prospect. US policy should be to coordinate and support, as it is doing, the Saudi and Yemeni government efforts, not make this a US war.

AQAP began in Saudi Arabia with the express purpose of destabilizing the regime. It was destroyed and kicked south. Now it is isolated, surrounded, under assault and incapable of producing any serious threat to anyone as it is gradually worn down and its leadership killed. The desire for a grand fireworks display to assuage Lieberman's and Hoekstra's delusions of manhood is both foolish and counterproductive.

Washington Post - Bad for Mental Health

I admit I have abandoned reading most US newspapers. However, at times I am compelled to seek out stupid. So I read the Washington Post.

The latest Hiatt editorial regarding Hillary Clinton's recent speech is stupendously moronic, but typical of the AIPAC and neo-con mentality that appears to have hijacked a formerly great newspaper.

There is this, for instance:

She offered an innovation: The Obama administration, she said, would "see human rights in a broad context," in which "oppression of want -- want of food, want of health, want of education, and want of equality in law and in fact" -- would be addressed alongside the oppression of tyranny and torture. "That is why," Ms. Clinton said, "the cornerstones of our 21st-century human rights agenda" would be "supporting democracy" and "fostering development."

This is indeed an important change in U.S. human rights policy -- but the idea behind it is pure 20th century.

First of all - he might have just as well characterized this as "soooo 20th century", dismissing freedom from want as some sort of passing phase. This is the conservative equivalent of "let them eat cake". The point made by the Secretary of State is that human rights must encompass freedom from hunger, disease, and access to education as well as supporting democracy. This is not a new policy Freddy and is fundamental to the Universal Declaration of Human Rights to which the US is a signatory.

...and this:

Ms. Clinton said that in adding "human development" to human rights and democracy, "we have to tackle all three simultaneously." But there are two dangers in her approach. One is that non-democratic regimes will seize on the economic aspect of her policy as an substitute for political reform -- as dictators have been doing for decades. Another is that the Obama administration will itself, in working with friendly but unfree countries, choose the easy route of focusing on development, while downplaying democracy.

Hiatt is amazingly transparent here while also conveniently ignoring those parts of the speech that don't fit his view of the universe. He and his fellow travellers believe that dictators are interested in economic development in a vacuum and indulge in assuring their population are adequately housed and fed only in order to please Washington. Simultaneously, he clearly has no problem with that so long as US corporate investments (China leaps to mind) get their cut, while ignoring the non-democratic aspects of the government.

Kazakhstan Takes Up the OSCE

In 2010, the Republic of Kazakhstan will assume the chair of the OSCE. Is this a cause for concern or is it possible that the government in Astana will become more democratic as a result?

I don't really think the chairmanship will turn into the possible debacle that has been portrayed by organizations like Human Rights Watch. Neither will it produce the deep changes in Kazakhstan's human rights record precisely because in order to alter attitudes within the country, laws restricting basic human rights such as freedom of expression and religion, will need to be amended so as to remove the vagueness surrounding, for example, what can be written in the press without charges of affecting the welfare of the state. Unfortunately, Astana is a totally top-down government. Nothing happens unless lower level officials receive explicit instructions from the Presidential Administration and then often it must come from the president himself.

In the meantime, perhaps the first test of the chairmanship will be monitoring the elections in Ukraine in January. Considering that after the Orange Revolution even mentioning the events in Ukraine was met by cold stares from government officials, to have Astana judging a much more robust democratic expression (despite its flaws) in Ukraine is worrying. Astana will need to approve of an election process in Ukraine (and it will) that is in stark contrast to its own.

Astana is in a position to gain considerable prestige from its chairmanship, but it will also focus attention upon its own, considerable, failings. Will the attention prove too much for the government to tolerate? Perhaps by 2011, they will be glad to have done with it. Kazakhstan is a tribal society with a ruler not accustomed or tolerant of dissent. The people were appalled by the Orange Revolution and are repelled by the apparent chaos that it represented. Stability is highly valued, just like it is in China. Holding the reins of the OSCE for a year will not change that perception and although legislation may be enacted to assuage the sensibilities of OSCE members and organizations like Human Rights Watch, implementation will unlikely be pushed very hard.

This is not to say that pressure to change will be entirely unsuccessful or should be abandoned. But more will be needed than simply appealing to Astana's sense of justice and respect for human rights. After all, they are much more interested in economic development as the newest pipeline to China indicates or recent energy deals with France.

Economic strength is a priority for the government and the general population and attitudinal changes only come after people feel economically secure. The misconception peddled by donor agencies that civil society programs alone have a significant impact in societies such as in Central Asia (or in any of the former Soviet Union for that matter)is simply a waste of money in the absence of economic stability. To put it simply, a family does not care about what happens to journalists, who owns the media or the lack of government transparency when there is no job and no food on the table. More, not less, economic development and investment will be needed to establish a foundation for systemic change while at the same time keeping the pressure on for an end to human rights abuses.

Finally, what damage can Kazakhstan possibly do to the reputation of the OSCE? Silvio Berlusconi was President of the EU for a year and the universe did not collapse.

Back from the Tanzania Bush

Returned from an amazing trip to Ruaha National Park - no crowds, no cars, no cell phones and solar power only - with close-up, non-enclosed viewing of lions - very, very close. Bumped into an elephant outside my banda as well - and retreated in a hurry. People need to do this at least once.

Merry Christmas, Happy Hannukka from Tanzania

Image by Getty Images via Daylife

I won't be posting for a week. I'm off on safari to Ruaha National Park for three days, four nights in a tent camp where hopefully there will be lion, giraffe, hippo and wild dogs. A 2+ hour flight on a small plane to central Tanzania. Back on Christmas day. Incidentally, it is over 40c during the day here lately. Almost the same at night.

So - Merry Christmas, Happy Hanukkah to all.