The Impeachment of Benjamin Netanyahu
http://www.roseanneworld.com/blog/2014/01/impeachment-benjamin-netanyahu/
By Roseanne | Israel & Palestine, Middle East, Peace and Freedom Party
Tuesday, January 7, 2014
Roseanne Barr
2012 Presidential Candidate
Peace and Freedom Party
United States of America
December 27, 2013
33rd Cabinet of Israel
Head of State-Shimon Peres
Minister of Foreign Affairs-Avigdor Lieberman
Minister of Agricultural and Rural Development-Yair Shamir
Minister of Communications-Gilad Erdan
Minister of Culture and Sport-Limor Livnat
Minister of Defense-Moshe Ya’alon
Minister for the Development of the Negev and Galilee-Silvan Shalom
Minister of Education-Shai Piron
Minister of Environmental Protection-Amir Peretz
Minister of Finance-Yair Lapid
Minister of Health-Yael German
Minister of Housing and Construction-Uri Ariel
Minister of Immigration Absorption-Sofa Landver
Minister of Industry, Trade and Labor-Naftali Bennett
Minister of Internal Affairs-Gideon Sa’ar
Minister of Intelligence-Yuval Steinitz
Minister of Justice-Tzipi Livni
Minister of Pensioner Affairs-Uri Orbakh
Minister of Public Security- Yitzhak Aharonovich
Minister of Science and Technology-Yaakov Peri
Head of Mossad-Tamir Pardo
IDF Chief of Staff-General Gantz
cc: Prime Minister-Benjamin Netanyahu
Subject: The Impeachment of Benjamin Netanyahu
Dear 33rd Cabinet of Israel:
I write this Open Letter to prevent an existential crisis from playing out in Israel. Historically speaking we are on the edge of WW3 punctuated by situations similar to that of WW1. Benjamin Netanyahu, as directed by his ideological masters who serve Empire’s Middle Eastern oil policy and banking system has recklessly put Israel in the cross hair of thermal nuclear destruction, trade boycotts and increased isolation.
Geopolitically speaking: Where are Israel’s allies? How are Israel’s current polices conducive to economic and cultural prosperity for the next 50 years? The plan for a “Greater Israel” (‘living space’) was never in the interest of the Jewish State, or the Jewish people. However, endless war between Tribal and Ethnic peoples is money in the bank for the war profiteers who, coincidentally, sit atop of everything PNAC.
Israel needs to re discover the principles of Prime Minister Yitzhak Rabin and dump the destructive dictates of Netanyahu. Israel has been on an increasingly rightwing path since the death of the former prime minister. Members of the Israeli Cabinet and Knesset MUST make steps to remove Benjamin Netanyahu from office before Israel is destroyed from the inside. Netanyahu has violated the Human Dignity and Liberty Clause of Israeli Basic Law. Moving ever toward apartheid like treatment of its workforce, the Palestinians, and its minority citizens has cheapened and eroded Israel’s moral authority, and placed every living Jew on earth in potential peril.
Failed Israeli government (as well as failed US government) was always the plan of AIPAC, as I have written for over two decades. The alleged complicity of the usual gang of suspects, Royal Empire of UK, Royal House of Saud, Jesuit banks, Bush & Bibi in the 9-11 attack on the USA is a broken dam that is just beginning to spill over, and which is unstoppable.
Peace is Israel’s only real hope-and the building of a two state economy. Impeach the neo con banking system of endless war for profit of Empire. Impeach B. Netanyahu, the puppet of Feudalistic world policy (PNAC).
My thoughts are conventional as they relate to Israeli domestic and foreign policy.
Some of my thoughts have been echoed by Colonel Wilkerson and other U.S. members of the political establishment.
Netanyahu is obviously a follower of Jabotinsky who was puppet of the Young Turks. Israel needs to reject Jabotinsky and re embrace the visionary pursuit of peace as per Yitzhak Rabin, who also had an IDF military background-let this not be forgotten. The IDF must be the voice of sanity for Israel in these perilous geo political times. If Israel is to survive peacefully the ideology of Jabotinsky must abandoned. It isn’t in Israel’s interest to annex the Jordan River Valley. The true patriots of Israel must abandon their servitude to the Modern Anglo-Dutch Empire.
My conscience, as a Jewish American, moves me to speak as loudly as I can in service to the interests of intelligence and peace.
May both prevail on earth.
Sincerely,
Roseanne Barr
Peace and Freedom Party
Thursday, January 9, 2014
Wednesday, January 8, 2014
Oman Stands in U.S.'s Corner on Iran Deal
Oman Stands in U.S.'s Corner on Iran Deal
http://online.wsj.com/news/articles/SB10001424052702304753504579284870097243180
After Behind-the-Scenes Moves That Fueled Nuclear Accord, Small Kingdom Plays Bigger Role in Courting Arab Support
By Jay Solomon
Dec. 29, 2013 7:45 p.m. ET
Washington has gained a little-known ally in its bid to win crucial Arab support for curbing Iran's nuclear program: Oman, a small kingdom that is expanding its role on the Middle East's diplomatic stage.
After playing a behind-the-scenes role in the Obama administration's diplomatic overture to Iran, the Sultan of Oman and his royal court are working to help sell the deal to skeptical Arab governments, said U.S., Iranian and Arab officials. The Obama administration is pressing to gain the support of its key Mideast allies, particularly Saudi Arabia and Israel, for its Iran diplomacy, but is facing strong resistance.
Senior U.S. officials have lauded Oman's support in the effort. U.S. and Iranian officials said Oman has become a key promoter of talks with Tehran, an initiative that is emerging as the signature foreign-policy move of President Barack Obama's second term.
November's interim agreement between world powers and Tehran seeks to curb the most advanced elements of Iran's nuclear program in exchange for an easing of Western sanctions.
Saudi Arabia, the United Arab Emirates and some other Gulf states have attacked the U.S. outreach to Iran and doubt it will do enough to deny Tehran a nuclear weapon. They have pressed for additional steps to isolate Tehran.
New details of Oman's efforts point to a central role for the quiet kingdom, which has long been an anomaly among the largely Sunni monarchies in the Persian Gulf because of its warm ties to Tehran.
Oman's ancient capital of Muscat has served as a setting for meetings that have advanced the global diplomacy leading to November's deal, U.S. and Iranian diplomats said.
Little understood is the extent to which Oman's monarch, Sultan Qaboos bin Said al Said, and his court's ministers and economic officials have personally steered the U.S.-Iranian rapprochement.
Oman has publicly backed Washington's campaign of rapprochement with Tehran and views the nuclear accord as providing a rare opportunity to lessen tensions between Sunni monarchies and Iran, said Arab and Iranian officials.
Responding to an American request, the 73-year-old Sultan Qaboos has hosted secret meetings between senior American and Iranian officials over the past two years in Muscat, said these officials.
"We believe we are in a historical phase around the world that requires work to achieve peace and stability," Oman's minister for foreign affairs, Yousif Bin Alawi, told Arab and Western defense officials at a conference in Bahrain this month. "Based on that, we can achieve sustainable development and progress."
The Persian Gulf country's role has evolved beyond the nuclear file as it positions itself as a salesman for the Iran diplomacy, its interests spurred by regional geopolitics and economic self-interest.
Oman's role in trying to broker a detente between Washington and Tehran offers potential opportunities and pitfalls for the country of four million people, said Iranian and Arab officials.
The sultanate has long sought to build a pipeline bringing Iranian gas to Oman, but the project has been blocked by American sanctions on Tehran. Such a project could proceed if Washington eases its financial pressure, and Oman could benefit from expanded trade between the West and Iran.
Mideast watchers were stunned this month in Bahrain when Omani officials vigorously opposed a Saudi drive to further consolidate the defenses of the six Sunni monarchies in the Persian Gulf—who make up a body called the Gulf Cooperation Council—in part, to better contain Iran. The Omani officials countered that the countries shouldn't seek to further militarize the region.
"It was the talk of the conference," said Emile Hokayem of the International Institute for Strategic Studies, which organized the event, known as the Manama Dialogue. "It showed Oman's willingness to assert an autonomous regional policy, even if it conflicts with its bigger neighbor."
Meanwhile, the sultan empowered one of his top economic advisers, Salem ben Nasser al Ismaily, to broker the exchanges of Iranians and Americans captured in their opposing government's dragnets, said officials from those countries.
Mr. Ismaily, head of the Omani investment board, facilitated the return beginning in late 2010 of three American hikers detained by Iranian security forces on charges they were spies.
In April, the businessman, philanthropist and author also helped broker the return of an Iranian scientist, Mojtaba Atarodi, who was arrested in Los Angeles on charges he was purchasing equipment for Tehran's nuclear program.
Iran's government had pressed Washington for the return of Mr. Atarodi, a top specialist in the field of microchips, at the highest levels for months, said Iranian and Arab officials.
"Oman has tried to play a positive role and to bridge differences between the two sides," Iran's ambassador to France, Ali Ahani, said this month in Monaco. "In the future, anything is possible."
Oman's posture in the talks in many ways represents an outgrowth of its long-rooted ties to Tehran. The late Iranian ruler, Shah Mohammad Reza Pahlavi, sent troops and attack helicopters to Oman in the 1970s to help Sultan Qaboos put down a tribal revolt against his rule. Oman was the sole Persian Gulf state to remain neutral during Iran's 1980-88 war with Iraq, with the rest providing financial support to Iraqi strongman Saddam Hussein.
Tehran and Washington have used Oman to relay messages after diplomatic relations broke down following the 1979 Islamic revolution in Tehran.
Aides to Sultan Qaboos said the British-educated monarch views himself as a mediator between competing sides in the Middle East's conflicts. He hosted then-Israeli Prime Minister Yitzhak Rabin in 1994 in a bid to forge economic and diplomatic ties.
"He is an idealist in that to a significant extent his policy-making is driven by ethical considerations," said a senior Arab diplomat who has worked closely with Sultan Qaboos.
The Obama administration heightened Oman's role as an intermediary in late 2011, in part because of the help it provided in bringing home the three American hikers, said senior U.S. officials.
In December of that year, Secretary of State John Kerry, then the chairman of the Senate Foreign Relations Committee, held secret talks with Sultan Qaboos and requested that higher-level meetings between Tehran and Washington be held in Muscat. Oman's proximity to Iran, less than 200 miles across the Persian Gulf, made it a strategic—and out-of-the-way—site.
In July 2012, the first high-level meetings between Iranians and Americans took place during Mr. Obama's tenure, said senior U.S. and Iranian officials.
The Obama administration dispatched Jake Sullivan, a key adviser to then-Secretary of State Hillary Clinton, and Puneet Talwar, the top Iran specialist on the National Security Council staff. The meetings were largely focused on seeing if direct talks on the nuclear issue were possible, said U.S. officials briefed on the diplomacy.
That encounter led to an even higher-level meeting in Muscat this March involving Deputy Secretary of State William Burns and Iran's deputy foreign minister, Majid Ravanchi. U.S. officials said these talks, which included follow-up negotiations in New York and Geneva, helped lay the groundwork for the interim agreement.
Oman over the past year has helped in the return of imprisoned Americans and Iranians.
Mr. Ismaily greeted the last of the three American hikers in Tehran after they were released by Iranian security forces in September 2011. This year, he helped bring home Mr. Atarodi, who had been detained in California for more than a year on charges he had sought to illegally procure equipment for Iran's nuclear program.
Iran's government has denied Mr. Atarodi played such a role, and lobbied aggressively to bring home the Sharif University professor, said Arab and Iranian officials.
Obama administration officials, however, said the scientist's release wasn't related to international diplomacy and only occurred after the 55-year-old pleaded guilty in a San Francisco court to conspiring to export banned equipment to Tehran. He was sentenced to time served in April and then released, said a senior U.S. official.
Oman also facilitated the return to Tehran this past year of a former Iranian ambassador to Jordan who had been living in London. The U.S. had been seeking to extradite Nosratollah Tajik for more than six years on charges he had sought to export night-vision equipment to the Iranian military. The U.K., however, never honored the American request, said U.S. officials.
Still, many Arab governments have vented at the Obama administration for pursuing secret talks with Iran, and suggested that Washington and Muscat operated behind their backs.
"We're very disappointed…that they went cheating on us with the Iranians," said a senior Arab diplomat.
Write to Jay Solomon at jay.solomon@wsj.com
http://online.wsj.com/news/articles/SB10001424052702304753504579284870097243180
After Behind-the-Scenes Moves That Fueled Nuclear Accord, Small Kingdom Plays Bigger Role in Courting Arab Support
By Jay Solomon
Dec. 29, 2013 7:45 p.m. ET
Oman's Sultan Qaboos with Secretary of State John Kerry in Muscat in May - Associated Press
Washington has gained a little-known ally in its bid to win crucial Arab support for curbing Iran's nuclear program: Oman, a small kingdom that is expanding its role on the Middle East's diplomatic stage.
After playing a behind-the-scenes role in the Obama administration's diplomatic overture to Iran, the Sultan of Oman and his royal court are working to help sell the deal to skeptical Arab governments, said U.S., Iranian and Arab officials. The Obama administration is pressing to gain the support of its key Mideast allies, particularly Saudi Arabia and Israel, for its Iran diplomacy, but is facing strong resistance.
Senior U.S. officials have lauded Oman's support in the effort. U.S. and Iranian officials said Oman has become a key promoter of talks with Tehran, an initiative that is emerging as the signature foreign-policy move of President Barack Obama's second term.
John Kerry with Iran's President Rouhani in Tehran in August - Reuters
November's interim agreement between world powers and Tehran seeks to curb the most advanced elements of Iran's nuclear program in exchange for an easing of Western sanctions.
Saudi Arabia, the United Arab Emirates and some other Gulf states have attacked the U.S. outreach to Iran and doubt it will do enough to deny Tehran a nuclear weapon. They have pressed for additional steps to isolate Tehran.
New details of Oman's efforts point to a central role for the quiet kingdom, which has long been an anomaly among the largely Sunni monarchies in the Persian Gulf because of its warm ties to Tehran.
Oman's ancient capital of Muscat has served as a setting for meetings that have advanced the global diplomacy leading to November's deal, U.S. and Iranian diplomats said.
Little understood is the extent to which Oman's monarch, Sultan Qaboos bin Said al Said, and his court's ministers and economic officials have personally steered the U.S.-Iranian rapprochement.
Salem ben Nasser al Ismaily facilitated the return of three American hikers detained by Iranian security forces on charges they were spies. Shown, Shane Bauer, one of the hikers. - Reuters
Oman has publicly backed Washington's campaign of rapprochement with Tehran and views the nuclear accord as providing a rare opportunity to lessen tensions between Sunni monarchies and Iran, said Arab and Iranian officials.
Responding to an American request, the 73-year-old Sultan Qaboos has hosted secret meetings between senior American and Iranian officials over the past two years in Muscat, said these officials.
"We believe we are in a historical phase around the world that requires work to achieve peace and stability," Oman's minister for foreign affairs, Yousif Bin Alawi, told Arab and Western defense officials at a conference in Bahrain this month. "Based on that, we can achieve sustainable development and progress."
The Persian Gulf country's role has evolved beyond the nuclear file as it positions itself as a salesman for the Iran diplomacy, its interests spurred by regional geopolitics and economic self-interest.
Oman's role in trying to broker a detente between Washington and Tehran offers potential opportunities and pitfalls for the country of four million people, said Iranian and Arab officials.
The sultanate has long sought to build a pipeline bringing Iranian gas to Oman, but the project has been blocked by American sanctions on Tehran. Such a project could proceed if Washington eases its financial pressure, and Oman could benefit from expanded trade between the West and Iran.
Mideast watchers were stunned this month in Bahrain when Omani officials vigorously opposed a Saudi drive to further consolidate the defenses of the six Sunni monarchies in the Persian Gulf—who make up a body called the Gulf Cooperation Council—in part, to better contain Iran. The Omani officials countered that the countries shouldn't seek to further militarize the region.
"It was the talk of the conference," said Emile Hokayem of the International Institute for Strategic Studies, which organized the event, known as the Manama Dialogue. "It showed Oman's willingness to assert an autonomous regional policy, even if it conflicts with its bigger neighbor."
Meanwhile, the sultan empowered one of his top economic advisers, Salem ben Nasser al Ismaily, to broker the exchanges of Iranians and Americans captured in their opposing government's dragnets, said officials from those countries.
Mr. Ismaily, head of the Omani investment board, facilitated the return beginning in late 2010 of three American hikers detained by Iranian security forces on charges they were spies.
In April, the businessman, philanthropist and author also helped broker the return of an Iranian scientist, Mojtaba Atarodi, who was arrested in Los Angeles on charges he was purchasing equipment for Tehran's nuclear program.
Iran's government had pressed Washington for the return of Mr. Atarodi, a top specialist in the field of microchips, at the highest levels for months, said Iranian and Arab officials.
"Oman has tried to play a positive role and to bridge differences between the two sides," Iran's ambassador to France, Ali Ahani, said this month in Monaco. "In the future, anything is possible."
Oman's posture in the talks in many ways represents an outgrowth of its long-rooted ties to Tehran. The late Iranian ruler, Shah Mohammad Reza Pahlavi, sent troops and attack helicopters to Oman in the 1970s to help Sultan Qaboos put down a tribal revolt against his rule. Oman was the sole Persian Gulf state to remain neutral during Iran's 1980-88 war with Iraq, with the rest providing financial support to Iraqi strongman Saddam Hussein.
Tehran and Washington have used Oman to relay messages after diplomatic relations broke down following the 1979 Islamic revolution in Tehran.
Aides to Sultan Qaboos said the British-educated monarch views himself as a mediator between competing sides in the Middle East's conflicts. He hosted then-Israeli Prime Minister Yitzhak Rabin in 1994 in a bid to forge economic and diplomatic ties.
"He is an idealist in that to a significant extent his policy-making is driven by ethical considerations," said a senior Arab diplomat who has worked closely with Sultan Qaboos.
The Obama administration heightened Oman's role as an intermediary in late 2011, in part because of the help it provided in bringing home the three American hikers, said senior U.S. officials.
In December of that year, Secretary of State John Kerry, then the chairman of the Senate Foreign Relations Committee, held secret talks with Sultan Qaboos and requested that higher-level meetings between Tehran and Washington be held in Muscat. Oman's proximity to Iran, less than 200 miles across the Persian Gulf, made it a strategic—and out-of-the-way—site.
In July 2012, the first high-level meetings between Iranians and Americans took place during Mr. Obama's tenure, said senior U.S. and Iranian officials.
The Obama administration dispatched Jake Sullivan, a key adviser to then-Secretary of State Hillary Clinton, and Puneet Talwar, the top Iran specialist on the National Security Council staff. The meetings were largely focused on seeing if direct talks on the nuclear issue were possible, said U.S. officials briefed on the diplomacy.
That encounter led to an even higher-level meeting in Muscat this March involving Deputy Secretary of State William Burns and Iran's deputy foreign minister, Majid Ravanchi. U.S. officials said these talks, which included follow-up negotiations in New York and Geneva, helped lay the groundwork for the interim agreement.
Oman over the past year has helped in the return of imprisoned Americans and Iranians.
Mr. Ismaily greeted the last of the three American hikers in Tehran after they were released by Iranian security forces in September 2011. This year, he helped bring home Mr. Atarodi, who had been detained in California for more than a year on charges he had sought to illegally procure equipment for Iran's nuclear program.
Iran's government has denied Mr. Atarodi played such a role, and lobbied aggressively to bring home the Sharif University professor, said Arab and Iranian officials.
Obama administration officials, however, said the scientist's release wasn't related to international diplomacy and only occurred after the 55-year-old pleaded guilty in a San Francisco court to conspiring to export banned equipment to Tehran. He was sentenced to time served in April and then released, said a senior U.S. official.
Oman also facilitated the return to Tehran this past year of a former Iranian ambassador to Jordan who had been living in London. The U.S. had been seeking to extradite Nosratollah Tajik for more than six years on charges he had sought to export night-vision equipment to the Iranian military. The U.K., however, never honored the American request, said U.S. officials.
Still, many Arab governments have vented at the Obama administration for pursuing secret talks with Iran, and suggested that Washington and Muscat operated behind their backs.
"We're very disappointed…that they went cheating on us with the Iranians," said a senior Arab diplomat.
Write to Jay Solomon at jay.solomon@wsj.com
U.S. and Iran Face Common Enemies in Mideast Strife
U.S. and Iran Face Common Enemies in Mideast Strife
http://www.nytimes.com/2014/01/07/world/middleeast/iran-offers-military-aid-but-not-troops-to-iraq.html
By THOMAS ERDBRINK JAN. 6, 2014
TEHRAN — Even as the United States and Iran pursue negotiations on Tehran’s nuclear program, they find themselves on the same side of a range of regional issues surrounding an insurgency raging across the Middle East.
While the two governments quietly continue to pursue their often conflicting interests, they are being drawn together by their mutual opposition to an international movement of young Sunni fighters, who with their pickup trucks and Kalashnikovs are raising the black flag of Al Qaeda along sectarian fault lines in Syria, Lebanon, Iraq, Afghanistan and Yemen.
The United States, reluctant to intervene in bloody, inconclusive conflicts, is seeing its regional influence decline, while Iraq, which cost the Americans $1 trillion and more than 4,000 lives, is growing increasingly unstable.
At the same time, Shiite-dominated Iran, the magnetic pole for the Shiite minority in the region, has its own reasons to be nervous, with the ragtag army of Sunni militants threatening Syria and Iraq, both important allies, and the United States drawing down its troops in Afghanistan.
On Monday, Iran offered to join the United States in sending military aid to the Shiite government in Baghdad, which is embroiled in street-to-street fighting with radical Sunni militants in Anbar Province, a Sunni stronghold. On Sunday, Secretary of State John Kerry said he could envision an Iranian role in the coming peace conference on Syria, even though the meeting is supposed to plan for a Syria after the resignation of President Bashar al-Assad, an important Iranian ally.
To some, the Iranian moves reflect the clever pragmatism of Iran’s new president, Hassan Rouhani, and his foreign minister, Mohammad Javad Zarif, aimed at building their country into a regional power. To others critical of the potential reconciliation, the moves are window dressing aimed at lulling the West into complacency while Tehran pursues nuclear weapons and supports its own jihadists throughout the region.
Yet even Iranians outside the reformist camp see the shared interests as undeniable. “It is clear we are increasingly reaching common ground with the Americans,” said one of them, Aziz Shahmohammadi, a former adviser to Iran’s Supreme National Security Council. “No country should have an eternal enemy, neither we nor the United States.”
With Iran as an island of stability in a region plagued by violent protests, sectarian clashes and suicide bombers, there are not that many options left for Washington, experts here say.
“We face the same enemy, and the enemy of my enemy is my friend,” said Mashallah Shamsolvaezin, a prominent Iranian reformist journalist who closely follows the Arab world. He recalled how Iranian intelligence operatives gave reliable information to American Special Forces troops battling Iran’s enemy, the Afghan Taliban, in 2001.
While the Obama administration acknowledges that Iran has the potential to be an influential player on regional issues from Afghanistan to Syria, senior officials have said they are keeping their focus tightly on the nuclear negotiations. Cooperation on any other issues, they said, hinges largely on coming to terms on Iran’s nuclear program.
The administration has concluded that Mr. Rouhani and Mr. Zarif have been empowered to negotiate on the nuclear program, but officials said it remained unclear whether their policy-making authority extended to regional issues like Syria. There, the Islamic Revolutionary Guards Corps holds vast influence through its Quds Force, and it is supplying weapons to Hezbollah in an effort to prop up President Assad’s government.
The thaw in relations extends back almost a year, with the two countries making overtures long thought impossible, deeply angering Washington’s closest regional allies, Saudi Arabia and Israel.
As early as last spring, a series of secret talks in Oman and Geneva laid the groundwork for re-establishing relations, cut over three decades ago after Iranian students took American diplomats hostage in revolutionary Tehran.
In September came the agreement — credited to President Vladimir V. Putin of Russia but fully backed and partly engineered by Iran — to remove Syria’s chemical weapons. Not long afterward, President Obama and Mr. Rouhani held a historic phone conversation, and in late November the United States and other world powers struck a temporary nuclear agreement with Iran, the first in 10 years.
Iran has been presenting itself as the voice of reason, pointing at the extremely graphic videos of beheadings and other executions produced by some of the insurgent groups in Syria, while Mr. Rouhani wished a happy new year to all Christians on his Twitter account.
“Now extremists are once again threatening our security, and as in 2001, both countries will cooperate with each other in Iraq, and potentially elsewhere, too,” Mr. Shamsolvaezin said. “This is the beginning of regional cooperation.”
The thaw presents dangers to Mr. Obama and Mr. Rouhani, who will remain vulnerable to criticism from conservatives in both countries. Mr. Kerry’s invitation on Sunday for Iran to join “on the sidelines” of the Geneva conference was angrily rejected by Iranian hard-liners.
“The Americans are confessing Iran stands for peace and stability in this region,” said Hamid Reza Tarraghi, a hard-line political analyst, with views close to those of Iran’s leaders. “But when they invite us for a conference on Syria we are ‘allowed’ to be present on the ‘sidelines.’ This is insulting.”
Even Mr. Zarif rebuffed Mr. Kerry, saying that “everybody must be unified in order to fight the terrorists,” the official Islamic Republic News Agency reported.
But Tehran’s full participation in the conference would seem to present even deeper problems, in that the talks are aimed at planning for a Syria after Iran’s longtime ally, Mr. Assad, has stepped down.
Critics of United States policy say that the Obama administration is strengthening Iran at the expense of traditional allies, particularly Saudi Arabia and Israel. They say that Iran has not cut back on its support of its regional allies, like Hezbollah, the militant Shiite group in Lebanon, and Mr. Assad, and is deeply involved with Iraq’s Shiite government.
Moreover, they say, a final nuclear agreement with Iran, should it be reached, would relieve Iran of crippling economic sanctions, reviving its economy and giving it more resources to spread its influence in the region, while depriving the West of diplomatic leverage to restrain Iran.
Analysts in Iran say that Tehran is pursuing a clever strategy, using the United States to undermine its greatest regional rival, Saudi Arabia.
“Cooperating skillfully with Russia, Iran has managed to change the game both in Iraq and in Syria,” said Hooshang Tale, a Tehran-based nationalist activist and a member of Parliament before the 1979 Islamic Revolution. “If we play our cards well, we will end up outsmarting both the U.S. and Saudi Arabia.”
He and others note that Iran has managed to keep Mr. Assad in power and wields considerable influence over its neighbors, Iraq and Afghanistan. Rightly or wrongly, they view their regional enemy Saudi Arabia as being on the verge of collapse, saying in Friday Prayer speeches and in televised debates that the kingdom is ruled by old men who have lost their way.
“We are worried for Saudi Arabia, which seems weak and potentially unstable,” said Mr. Shahmohammadi, the former adviser, who heads an institute that promotes dialogue between Sunnis and Shiites. “Even we, as their competitor, see all the horrible consequences if things go wrong there.”
On Tehran’s streets, where people tend to see much of the region as distant lands filled with mayhem and unrest, many Iranians welcome every step that brings Iran and the United States closer together.
“The U.S. stands for progress, for work, a future, new cars and a better life,” said Mohammad Reza Barfi, an auto mechanic. “I’d rather have peace with the U.S. than with any regional country. What do they have to offer?”
A version of this article appears in print on January 7, 2014, on page A1 of the New York edition with the headline: U.S. and Iran Face Common Enemies in Mideast Strife.
http://www.nytimes.com/2014/01/07/world/middleeast/iran-offers-military-aid-but-not-troops-to-iraq.html
By THOMAS ERDBRINK JAN. 6, 2014
Fighters in Ramadi, Iraq, on Monday. Iran offered to join the United States in sending military aid to Iraq’s Shiite government. Ali al-Mashhadani/Reuters
TEHRAN — Even as the United States and Iran pursue negotiations on Tehran’s nuclear program, they find themselves on the same side of a range of regional issues surrounding an insurgency raging across the Middle East.
While the two governments quietly continue to pursue their often conflicting interests, they are being drawn together by their mutual opposition to an international movement of young Sunni fighters, who with their pickup trucks and Kalashnikovs are raising the black flag of Al Qaeda along sectarian fault lines in Syria, Lebanon, Iraq, Afghanistan and Yemen.
The United States, reluctant to intervene in bloody, inconclusive conflicts, is seeing its regional influence decline, while Iraq, which cost the Americans $1 trillion and more than 4,000 lives, is growing increasingly unstable.
At the same time, Shiite-dominated Iran, the magnetic pole for the Shiite minority in the region, has its own reasons to be nervous, with the ragtag army of Sunni militants threatening Syria and Iraq, both important allies, and the United States drawing down its troops in Afghanistan.
On Monday, Iran offered to join the United States in sending military aid to the Shiite government in Baghdad, which is embroiled in street-to-street fighting with radical Sunni militants in Anbar Province, a Sunni stronghold. On Sunday, Secretary of State John Kerry said he could envision an Iranian role in the coming peace conference on Syria, even though the meeting is supposed to plan for a Syria after the resignation of President Bashar al-Assad, an important Iranian ally.
To some, the Iranian moves reflect the clever pragmatism of Iran’s new president, Hassan Rouhani, and his foreign minister, Mohammad Javad Zarif, aimed at building their country into a regional power. To others critical of the potential reconciliation, the moves are window dressing aimed at lulling the West into complacency while Tehran pursues nuclear weapons and supports its own jihadists throughout the region.
Yet even Iranians outside the reformist camp see the shared interests as undeniable. “It is clear we are increasingly reaching common ground with the Americans,” said one of them, Aziz Shahmohammadi, a former adviser to Iran’s Supreme National Security Council. “No country should have an eternal enemy, neither we nor the United States.”
With Iran as an island of stability in a region plagued by violent protests, sectarian clashes and suicide bombers, there are not that many options left for Washington, experts here say.
“We face the same enemy, and the enemy of my enemy is my friend,” said Mashallah Shamsolvaezin, a prominent Iranian reformist journalist who closely follows the Arab world. He recalled how Iranian intelligence operatives gave reliable information to American Special Forces troops battling Iran’s enemy, the Afghan Taliban, in 2001.
While the Obama administration acknowledges that Iran has the potential to be an influential player on regional issues from Afghanistan to Syria, senior officials have said they are keeping their focus tightly on the nuclear negotiations. Cooperation on any other issues, they said, hinges largely on coming to terms on Iran’s nuclear program.
The administration has concluded that Mr. Rouhani and Mr. Zarif have been empowered to negotiate on the nuclear program, but officials said it remained unclear whether their policy-making authority extended to regional issues like Syria. There, the Islamic Revolutionary Guards Corps holds vast influence through its Quds Force, and it is supplying weapons to Hezbollah in an effort to prop up President Assad’s government.
The thaw in relations extends back almost a year, with the two countries making overtures long thought impossible, deeply angering Washington’s closest regional allies, Saudi Arabia and Israel.
As early as last spring, a series of secret talks in Oman and Geneva laid the groundwork for re-establishing relations, cut over three decades ago after Iranian students took American diplomats hostage in revolutionary Tehran.
In September came the agreement — credited to President Vladimir V. Putin of Russia but fully backed and partly engineered by Iran — to remove Syria’s chemical weapons. Not long afterward, President Obama and Mr. Rouhani held a historic phone conversation, and in late November the United States and other world powers struck a temporary nuclear agreement with Iran, the first in 10 years.
Iran has been presenting itself as the voice of reason, pointing at the extremely graphic videos of beheadings and other executions produced by some of the insurgent groups in Syria, while Mr. Rouhani wished a happy new year to all Christians on his Twitter account.
“Now extremists are once again threatening our security, and as in 2001, both countries will cooperate with each other in Iraq, and potentially elsewhere, too,” Mr. Shamsolvaezin said. “This is the beginning of regional cooperation.”
The thaw presents dangers to Mr. Obama and Mr. Rouhani, who will remain vulnerable to criticism from conservatives in both countries. Mr. Kerry’s invitation on Sunday for Iran to join “on the sidelines” of the Geneva conference was angrily rejected by Iranian hard-liners.
“The Americans are confessing Iran stands for peace and stability in this region,” said Hamid Reza Tarraghi, a hard-line political analyst, with views close to those of Iran’s leaders. “But when they invite us for a conference on Syria we are ‘allowed’ to be present on the ‘sidelines.’ This is insulting.”
Even Mr. Zarif rebuffed Mr. Kerry, saying that “everybody must be unified in order to fight the terrorists,” the official Islamic Republic News Agency reported.
But Tehran’s full participation in the conference would seem to present even deeper problems, in that the talks are aimed at planning for a Syria after Iran’s longtime ally, Mr. Assad, has stepped down.
Critics of United States policy say that the Obama administration is strengthening Iran at the expense of traditional allies, particularly Saudi Arabia and Israel. They say that Iran has not cut back on its support of its regional allies, like Hezbollah, the militant Shiite group in Lebanon, and Mr. Assad, and is deeply involved with Iraq’s Shiite government.
Moreover, they say, a final nuclear agreement with Iran, should it be reached, would relieve Iran of crippling economic sanctions, reviving its economy and giving it more resources to spread its influence in the region, while depriving the West of diplomatic leverage to restrain Iran.
Analysts in Iran say that Tehran is pursuing a clever strategy, using the United States to undermine its greatest regional rival, Saudi Arabia.
“Cooperating skillfully with Russia, Iran has managed to change the game both in Iraq and in Syria,” said Hooshang Tale, a Tehran-based nationalist activist and a member of Parliament before the 1979 Islamic Revolution. “If we play our cards well, we will end up outsmarting both the U.S. and Saudi Arabia.”
He and others note that Iran has managed to keep Mr. Assad in power and wields considerable influence over its neighbors, Iraq and Afghanistan. Rightly or wrongly, they view their regional enemy Saudi Arabia as being on the verge of collapse, saying in Friday Prayer speeches and in televised debates that the kingdom is ruled by old men who have lost their way.
“We are worried for Saudi Arabia, which seems weak and potentially unstable,” said Mr. Shahmohammadi, the former adviser, who heads an institute that promotes dialogue between Sunnis and Shiites. “Even we, as their competitor, see all the horrible consequences if things go wrong there.”
On Tehran’s streets, where people tend to see much of the region as distant lands filled with mayhem and unrest, many Iranians welcome every step that brings Iran and the United States closer together.
“The U.S. stands for progress, for work, a future, new cars and a better life,” said Mohammad Reza Barfi, an auto mechanic. “I’d rather have peace with the U.S. than with any regional country. What do they have to offer?”
A version of this article appears in print on January 7, 2014, on page A1 of the New York edition with the headline: U.S. and Iran Face Common Enemies in Mideast Strife.
Bahrain: Trouble ahead
Bahrain: Trouble ahead
http://www.economist.com/news/middle-east-and-africa/21591647-government-poisoning-well-trouble-ahead
The government is poisoning the well
Dec 14th 2013 | MANAMA
SOON there will be no empty walls in the villages west of Manama, capital of the tiny island kingdom of Bahrain. Graffiti calling for the king’s overthrow are crossed out by the authorities every day, only to reappear somewhere else, until the walls are entirely covered by black splodges. Police vehicles sit at the entrance to every village. Even in the shiny, built-up areas of Manama many residents grumble. “There is no freedom, no justice and no democracy,” complains one man.
Bahrain, where a Sunni monarchy has long ruled over a Shia majority, saw a brief flickering of Arab spring protests in February 2011. The biggest were brutally put down with the help of troops from neighbouring Saudi Arabia. Yet smaller protests have continued. Violent clashes erupted on December 6th when the government hosted a jamboree of security and military officials from the region (Bahrain’s 40-person delegation included people close to the Shia opposition). Youths in several villages threw stones and Molotov cocktails; security forces lobbed back tear gas and sound bombs.
Human-rights organisations warn that the situation is deteriorating. Two years after an even-handed report by the Bahrain Independent Commission of Inquiry—a laudable effort by King Hamad bin Isa al-Khalifa—few of its recommendations have been implemented. Opposition activists are harassed and imprisoned; many want to leave the country. Foreign journalists are rarely granted visas.
The trial of Khalil al-Marzooq, a former parliamentarian and prominent figure in al-Wefaq, the leading opposition block, has caused much upset. Mr Marzooq may have been foolish in posing with a flag of the February 14th Coalition, an opposition group that has some violent members, but that hardly warrants charges for inciting “terrorist crimes”. The opposition has suspended its involvement in a national dialogue in response, and political reconciliation has stalled. Both sides say they are keen to make progress, but trust is in short supply.
The government has pushed the protest movement into a more radical direction by depicting its uprising as a sectarian struggle rather than a call for democracy. Bashar Assad, the Syrian president fighting a Sunni-majority population, follows a similarly divisive strategy. By calling the opposition an Iranian proxy, Bahrain’s rulers have managed to rally fellow Sunnis around them, overcoming grumbles on all sides about the rising cost of living and a lack of say in the country’s politics.
Shia opinion is far from united. Al-Wefaq says it is not seeking the government’s overthrow, and indeed recommends a constitutional monarchy. But it struggles to convince parts of the opposition. Some are locked in a stand-off with the police.
Even moderates are angry that 38 mosques were destroyed during raids and few have been rebuilt, says Maytham al-Salman, a Shia cleric, though the government had agreed to do this last year. “Politics is one thing but to attack religion is another”, says a rights activist.
Protesters are especially resentful that the government employs many non-Bahrainis in the police. The ranks of the well-paid security forces include many Yemenis and Pakistanis; Shia applicants for police jobs are usually turned away. The extensive use of tear gas has become another bone of contention; a document leaked in October exposed plans by the interior ministry to buy 1.6m additional rounds of the stuff.
So far the Khalifas have been able to keep the protests under control, helped by the Saudis and reassured by the presence of America’s Fifth Fleet, permanently based here. The economy has not gone under, as some feared in 2011. Growth next year is expected to be 3.3%. Despite jitters, few firms have left Bahrain, a regional financial centre, partly to avoid offending Saudi Arabia, the islands’ godfather.
Moderate protesters pin their hopes for reform on Salman bin Hamad al-Khalifa, the 44-year-old crown prince. However, the untested ruler-in-waiting must contend with hardliners in his own family. For the foreseeable future, Bahrain’s Shias can expect more tear gas.
From the print edition: Middle East and Africa
http://www.economist.com/news/middle-east-and-africa/21591647-government-poisoning-well-trouble-ahead
The government is poisoning the well
Dec 14th 2013 | MANAMA
SOON there will be no empty walls in the villages west of Manama, capital of the tiny island kingdom of Bahrain. Graffiti calling for the king’s overthrow are crossed out by the authorities every day, only to reappear somewhere else, until the walls are entirely covered by black splodges. Police vehicles sit at the entrance to every village. Even in the shiny, built-up areas of Manama many residents grumble. “There is no freedom, no justice and no democracy,” complains one man.
Bahrain, where a Sunni monarchy has long ruled over a Shia majority, saw a brief flickering of Arab spring protests in February 2011. The biggest were brutally put down with the help of troops from neighbouring Saudi Arabia. Yet smaller protests have continued. Violent clashes erupted on December 6th when the government hosted a jamboree of security and military officials from the region (Bahrain’s 40-person delegation included people close to the Shia opposition). Youths in several villages threw stones and Molotov cocktails; security forces lobbed back tear gas and sound bombs.
Human-rights organisations warn that the situation is deteriorating. Two years after an even-handed report by the Bahrain Independent Commission of Inquiry—a laudable effort by King Hamad bin Isa al-Khalifa—few of its recommendations have been implemented. Opposition activists are harassed and imprisoned; many want to leave the country. Foreign journalists are rarely granted visas.
The trial of Khalil al-Marzooq, a former parliamentarian and prominent figure in al-Wefaq, the leading opposition block, has caused much upset. Mr Marzooq may have been foolish in posing with a flag of the February 14th Coalition, an opposition group that has some violent members, but that hardly warrants charges for inciting “terrorist crimes”. The opposition has suspended its involvement in a national dialogue in response, and political reconciliation has stalled. Both sides say they are keen to make progress, but trust is in short supply.
The government has pushed the protest movement into a more radical direction by depicting its uprising as a sectarian struggle rather than a call for democracy. Bashar Assad, the Syrian president fighting a Sunni-majority population, follows a similarly divisive strategy. By calling the opposition an Iranian proxy, Bahrain’s rulers have managed to rally fellow Sunnis around them, overcoming grumbles on all sides about the rising cost of living and a lack of say in the country’s politics.
Shia opinion is far from united. Al-Wefaq says it is not seeking the government’s overthrow, and indeed recommends a constitutional monarchy. But it struggles to convince parts of the opposition. Some are locked in a stand-off with the police.
Even moderates are angry that 38 mosques were destroyed during raids and few have been rebuilt, says Maytham al-Salman, a Shia cleric, though the government had agreed to do this last year. “Politics is one thing but to attack religion is another”, says a rights activist.
Protesters are especially resentful that the government employs many non-Bahrainis in the police. The ranks of the well-paid security forces include many Yemenis and Pakistanis; Shia applicants for police jobs are usually turned away. The extensive use of tear gas has become another bone of contention; a document leaked in October exposed plans by the interior ministry to buy 1.6m additional rounds of the stuff.
So far the Khalifas have been able to keep the protests under control, helped by the Saudis and reassured by the presence of America’s Fifth Fleet, permanently based here. The economy has not gone under, as some feared in 2011. Growth next year is expected to be 3.3%. Despite jitters, few firms have left Bahrain, a regional financial centre, partly to avoid offending Saudi Arabia, the islands’ godfather.
Moderate protesters pin their hopes for reform on Salman bin Hamad al-Khalifa, the 44-year-old crown prince. However, the untested ruler-in-waiting must contend with hardliners in his own family. For the foreseeable future, Bahrain’s Shias can expect more tear gas.
From the print edition: Middle East and Africa
Saudis Pledge $3 Billion to Support Lebanon's Army
Saudis Pledge $3 Billion to Support Lebanon's Army
http://online.wsj.com/news/articles/SB10001424052702304361604579288430866906254
Grant Seeks to Bolster Armed Forces Against Iranian-Backed Hezbollah
By Ellen Knickmeyer and Maria Abi-Habib
Dec. 29, 2013 2:43 p.m. ET
BEIRUT—Saudi Arabia pledged $3 billion to bolster Lebanon's armed forces, in a challenge to the Iranian-allied Hezbollah militia's decadeslong status as Lebanon's main power broker and security force.
Lebanese President Michel Sleiman revealed the Saudi gift on Lebanese national television Sunday, calling it the largest aid package ever to the country's defense bodies. The Saudi pledge compares with Lebanon's 2012 defense budget, which the Stockholm International Peace Research Institute put at $1.7 billion.
Lebanon would use the Saudi grant to buy "newer and more modern weapons," from France, said Mr. Sleiman, an independent who has become increasingly critical of Hezbollah. It followed what he called "decades of unsuccessful efforts" to build a credible Lebanese national defense force.
As a direct challenge to Hezbollah, the Saudi gift—and the Lebanese president's acceptance—has potential to change the balance of power in Lebanon and the region. It also threatens to raise sectarian and political tensions further in a region already made volatile by the three-year, heavily sectarian civil war next door in Syria.
The Saudi move was announced hours after thousands of Lebanese turned out for the funerals of former cabinet minister Mohamad Chatah and some of the other victims killed Friday in a bombing in downtown Beirut. The bomb was believed to have targeted Mr. Chatah, an outspoken critic of Hezbollah's dominance of Lebanese affairs and security. No group has claimed responsibility.
Saudi Arabia on Friday responded to the assassination by calling for Lebanon to build up the government and armed forces "to stop this tampering with the security of Lebanon and the Lebanese."
Saudi Arabia sees itself as a patron of Lebanon's Sunni Muslims. Saudi Arabia also backs rebels in Syria, while Iran and Hezbollah support Syrian President Bashar al-Assad.
Fireworks exploded over Beirut after Mr. Sleiman's announcement as some in the Lebanese capital celebrated the Saudi gift.
Hezbollah, a Shia Muslim political faction and militia that grew out of resistance to the Israeli occupation of Lebanon in the 1980s and now rivals Lebanon's government and security forces in clout, made no immediate public response Sunday. Hezbollah officials couldn't be reached for comment.
Saudi leaders, who were meeting with the visiting French President François Hollande at a palace near Riyadh when Lebanon announced the Saudi gift, also made no immediate public comment. Interviewed by telephone, Mustapha Alani, a Gulf security official close to Saudi security officials, said the Saudi intention behind the gift "is not to go and open war with Hezbollah; but definitely it is to rebalance."
The Saudi grant is intended as a five-year package to the Lebanese armed forces, allowing them not just to buy new French weapons systems but also to make broad improvements in areas including military bases and recruitment, Mr. Alani said.
Saudi Arabia increasingly is using massive cash infusions to support allies around the region. This year, the kingdom bequeathed billions of dollars to Egypt after the Egyptian military helped force out a government allied with the Muslim Brotherhood, a Sunni Muslim political faction that, like Iran, Hezbollah and Syria, stands as a rival of Saudi Arabia.
Saudi Arabia's $3 billion grant to Lebanon surpasses the $1 billion in U.S. assistance to Lebanon's armed forces since 2006, when Washington resumed military aid after a long hiatus.
In Syria, Saudi Arabia as of late this summer had given $400 million in arms and other equipment to rebels fighting the Syrian president and his Hezbollah and Iran allies, said diplomats briefed on Saudi spending.
The French president, who met Sunday with Saudi Arabia's King Abdullah, later said France wanted to do its fair share in supporting Lebanon. "France for a long time and even recently has been supplying the Lebanese army and intends to address every request."
In Paris, a French official indicated France saw no reason for Israel to object to the aid to Lebanon's army, saying Saudi Arabia and France were helping deal with Israel's concerns about Hezbollah.
Still, concerns mounted in Israel on Sunday morning after a Katyusha rocket fired from Lebanon landed in northern Israel, two weeks after an Israeli soldier was killed on the same border.
Saudi Arabia since this summer has turned increasingly to France as a security ally, expressing dismay at the U.S.—still Saudi Arabia's and the Arab Gulf's main protector—for refusing to intervene more forcefully in the conflict in Syria. Saudis and French since this summer have held repeated joint military exercises. France is reported to be negotiating several large weapons deals with the kingdom.
U.S. assistance to Lebanon's army has mostly come in the form of logistical equipment such as trucks amid congressional concerns that any sophisticated weapons given might be used against Israel.
This fall, the U.S. pledged $8.7 million in assistance to the Lebanese army during a meeting between President Barack Obama and Mr. Sleiman, said Lebanese officials present. Mr. Sleiman scoffed at the offer, said the officials, saying it wouldn't be enough to help Lebanon secure its border with Syria against jihadists flocking to fight in the Syrian war.
"When Presidents Obama and Sleiman met in September, they discussed…the United States' continued support for Lebanon, including the U.S. commitment to the unity and stability of Lebanon and the need for all countries in the region to respect Lebanese sovereignty," said a spokeswoman for the U.S. Embassy in Beirut, who didn't address the aid. "They also discussed the long-term partnership between the two countries."
Lebanon's Ministry of Defense has long complained that it needs to beef up its outdated weapons reserves and that its forces have suffered high casualties fighting a rising terrorism threat in Lebanon because they are poorly equipped.
The inability of the Lebanese security forces was demonstrated in 2007, when radical Islamist militants occupied a Palestinian refugee camp in northern Lebanon. The military took three months to root out the militants from the camp, using grenades thrown from hovering helicopters.
The Saudi assistance to the military will also counter perceptions among the radical segment of Lebanon's Sunni population, which believes that the army is in Hezbollah's control. That distrust has hobbled the army's ability to patrol certain Sunni neighborhoods in Tripoli and Sidon, where Islamist militancy is on the rise and attacks on the military are becoming commonplace. For the first time, al Qaeda is gaining a following among Lebanese Sunnis in Tripoli and Sidon.
In 2009, a report by the U.S.-based Center for Strategic and International Studies urged building up the Lebanese armed forces but warned that "any attempt to strengthen the LAF so that it can fight Hezbollah will fail."
The study cited the large percentage of Shia officers in the army, and argued that the socially diverse force couldn't be successfully ordered to fight any faction in Lebanese society.
—Géraldine Amiel in Paris
contributed to this article.
Write to Ellen Knickmeyer at ellen.knickmeyer@dowjones.com and Maria Abi-Habib at maria.habib@wsj.com
http://online.wsj.com/news/articles/SB10001424052702304361604579288430866906254
Grant Seeks to Bolster Armed Forces Against Iranian-Backed Hezbollah
By Ellen Knickmeyer and Maria Abi-Habib
Dec. 29, 2013 2:43 p.m. ET
The coffins of Mr. Chatah and his bodyguard are carried on Sunday. Agence France-Presse/Getty Images
BEIRUT—Saudi Arabia pledged $3 billion to bolster Lebanon's armed forces, in a challenge to the Iranian-allied Hezbollah militia's decadeslong status as Lebanon's main power broker and security force.
Lebanese President Michel Sleiman revealed the Saudi gift on Lebanese national television Sunday, calling it the largest aid package ever to the country's defense bodies. The Saudi pledge compares with Lebanon's 2012 defense budget, which the Stockholm International Peace Research Institute put at $1.7 billion.
Lebanon would use the Saudi grant to buy "newer and more modern weapons," from France, said Mr. Sleiman, an independent who has become increasingly critical of Hezbollah. It followed what he called "decades of unsuccessful efforts" to build a credible Lebanese national defense force.
Lebanese President Michel Sleiman, seen earlier this month, called the Saudi gift the largest ever to the country's armed forces. Associated Press
As a direct challenge to Hezbollah, the Saudi gift—and the Lebanese president's acceptance—has potential to change the balance of power in Lebanon and the region. It also threatens to raise sectarian and political tensions further in a region already made volatile by the three-year, heavily sectarian civil war next door in Syria.
The Saudi move was announced hours after thousands of Lebanese turned out for the funerals of former cabinet minister Mohamad Chatah and some of the other victims killed Friday in a bombing in downtown Beirut. The bomb was believed to have targeted Mr. Chatah, an outspoken critic of Hezbollah's dominance of Lebanese affairs and security. No group has claimed responsibility.
Saudi Arabia on Friday responded to the assassination by calling for Lebanon to build up the government and armed forces "to stop this tampering with the security of Lebanon and the Lebanese."
Saudi Arabia sees itself as a patron of Lebanon's Sunni Muslims. Saudi Arabia also backs rebels in Syria, while Iran and Hezbollah support Syrian President Bashar al-Assad.
Fireworks exploded over Beirut after Mr. Sleiman's announcement as some in the Lebanese capital celebrated the Saudi gift.
Hezbollah, a Shia Muslim political faction and militia that grew out of resistance to the Israeli occupation of Lebanon in the 1980s and now rivals Lebanon's government and security forces in clout, made no immediate public response Sunday. Hezbollah officials couldn't be reached for comment.
Saudi leaders, who were meeting with the visiting French President François Hollande at a palace near Riyadh when Lebanon announced the Saudi gift, also made no immediate public comment. Interviewed by telephone, Mustapha Alani, a Gulf security official close to Saudi security officials, said the Saudi intention behind the gift "is not to go and open war with Hezbollah; but definitely it is to rebalance."
The Saudi grant is intended as a five-year package to the Lebanese armed forces, allowing them not just to buy new French weapons systems but also to make broad improvements in areas including military bases and recruitment, Mr. Alani said.
Saudi Arabia increasingly is using massive cash infusions to support allies around the region. This year, the kingdom bequeathed billions of dollars to Egypt after the Egyptian military helped force out a government allied with the Muslim Brotherhood, a Sunni Muslim political faction that, like Iran, Hezbollah and Syria, stands as a rival of Saudi Arabia.
Saudi Arabia's $3 billion grant to Lebanon surpasses the $1 billion in U.S. assistance to Lebanon's armed forces since 2006, when Washington resumed military aid after a long hiatus.
In Syria, Saudi Arabia as of late this summer had given $400 million in arms and other equipment to rebels fighting the Syrian president and his Hezbollah and Iran allies, said diplomats briefed on Saudi spending.
The French president, who met Sunday with Saudi Arabia's King Abdullah, later said France wanted to do its fair share in supporting Lebanon. "France for a long time and even recently has been supplying the Lebanese army and intends to address every request."
In Paris, a French official indicated France saw no reason for Israel to object to the aid to Lebanon's army, saying Saudi Arabia and France were helping deal with Israel's concerns about Hezbollah.
Still, concerns mounted in Israel on Sunday morning after a Katyusha rocket fired from Lebanon landed in northern Israel, two weeks after an Israeli soldier was killed on the same border.
Saudi Arabia since this summer has turned increasingly to France as a security ally, expressing dismay at the U.S.—still Saudi Arabia's and the Arab Gulf's main protector—for refusing to intervene more forcefully in the conflict in Syria. Saudis and French since this summer have held repeated joint military exercises. France is reported to be negotiating several large weapons deals with the kingdom.
U.S. assistance to Lebanon's army has mostly come in the form of logistical equipment such as trucks amid congressional concerns that any sophisticated weapons given might be used against Israel.
This fall, the U.S. pledged $8.7 million in assistance to the Lebanese army during a meeting between President Barack Obama and Mr. Sleiman, said Lebanese officials present. Mr. Sleiman scoffed at the offer, said the officials, saying it wouldn't be enough to help Lebanon secure its border with Syria against jihadists flocking to fight in the Syrian war.
"When Presidents Obama and Sleiman met in September, they discussed…the United States' continued support for Lebanon, including the U.S. commitment to the unity and stability of Lebanon and the need for all countries in the region to respect Lebanese sovereignty," said a spokeswoman for the U.S. Embassy in Beirut, who didn't address the aid. "They also discussed the long-term partnership between the two countries."
Lebanon's Ministry of Defense has long complained that it needs to beef up its outdated weapons reserves and that its forces have suffered high casualties fighting a rising terrorism threat in Lebanon because they are poorly equipped.
The inability of the Lebanese security forces was demonstrated in 2007, when radical Islamist militants occupied a Palestinian refugee camp in northern Lebanon. The military took three months to root out the militants from the camp, using grenades thrown from hovering helicopters.
The Saudi assistance to the military will also counter perceptions among the radical segment of Lebanon's Sunni population, which believes that the army is in Hezbollah's control. That distrust has hobbled the army's ability to patrol certain Sunni neighborhoods in Tripoli and Sidon, where Islamist militancy is on the rise and attacks on the military are becoming commonplace. For the first time, al Qaeda is gaining a following among Lebanese Sunnis in Tripoli and Sidon.
In 2009, a report by the U.S.-based Center for Strategic and International Studies urged building up the Lebanese armed forces but warned that "any attempt to strengthen the LAF so that it can fight Hezbollah will fail."
The study cited the large percentage of Shia officers in the army, and argued that the socially diverse force couldn't be successfully ordered to fight any faction in Lebanese society.
—Géraldine Amiel in Paris
contributed to this article.
Write to Ellen Knickmeyer at ellen.knickmeyer@dowjones.com and Maria Abi-Habib at maria.habib@wsj.com
Lebanon Arrests Leader of Qaeda-Linked Group, Reports Say
Lebanon Arrests Leader of Qaeda-Linked Group, Reports Say
http://www.nytimes.com/2014/01/02/world/middleeast/lebanon.html
By ANNE BARNARD JAN. 1, 2014
BEIRUT, Lebanon — The Lebanese military authorities have detained the Saudi leader of a Sunni militant group linked to Al Qaeda that claimed responsibility for a double suicide bomb attack on the Iranian Embassy in Beirut in November, according to Lebanese news media.
The militant, Majid bin Muhammad al-Majid, is the head of the Abdullah Azzam Brigades, an offshoot of Al Qaeda. He was taken into custody just three days after Saudi Arabia pledged a $3 billion aid package to the Lebanese Army. The gift was widely seen as a Saudi attempt to counter the influence of Hezbollah, the Lebanese Shiite militia and political party that is allied with the Shiite government of Iran and with Syria’s president, Bashar al-Assad.
The detention, which American national security officials confirmed to news agencies, provoked an array of political responses in the region — the latest sign that the power struggle between Saudi Arabia and Iran, which is helping to drive the bloody war in Syria, is intensifying in neighboring Lebanon.
An Iranian national security official, Alaeddin Boroujerdi, on Wednesday praised the Lebanese security forces for apprehending Mr. Majid, and blamed him for the embassy bombing. He also urged the Lebanese government to consider the fact that “the main element in the operation is of Saudi nationality,” Iran’s semiofficial Fars News Agency reported.
While there was no immediate response from Saudi Arabia, there is little sympathy in its government for Mr. Majid, who is on its list of people most wanted for links with Al Qaeda. A Lebanese newspaper, Al Safir, wrote that he was “wanted by Saudi Arabia, Lebanon, Egypt, Jordan and several other Western countries, mainly the United States.”
The Abdullah Azzam Brigades, which has also claimed responsibility for attacks in Egypt and Jordan, was formed in the crucible of the Iraqi insurgency in cooperation with Al Qaeda in Mesopotamia, the Qaeda franchise there. That was done on orders from Abu Musab al-Zarqawi, the Sunni militant who was subsequently killed by American troops, according to the Long War Journal, a website that follows counterterrorism efforts.
While founded well before the conflict in Syria, the Abdullah Azzam Brigades has allied itself with extremists among the rebels fighting Mr. Assad there and has threatened more attacks if Hezbollah does not stop sending its fighters to support him. Recently, Mr. Majid was reported to have pledged allegiance to the Nusra Front, another Qaeda-linked group fighting in Syria.
Iran and Hezbollah, its Lebanese ally and Lebanon’s most powerful political party, have backed Mr. Assad, while their Sunni Lebanese political rivals have supported the insurgency. Hezbollah has sent fighters to aid the government, and Lebanese Sunni militants have joined the rebels.
The Iranian official, Mr. Boroujerdi, said that Lebanese security forces had arrested two people, including someone involved in “the assassination of the Hezbollah leader in Lebanon,” an apparent reference to the shooting death in December of Hassane Laqees, a senior Hezbollah militant. It was unclear whether he was blaming the Abdullah Azzam Brigades or Saudi Arabia for killing Mr. Laqees. Citing the killers’ professionalism, Hezbollah had blamed the hit on Israel rather than Sunni jihadist groups.
Mr. Majid’s detention was potentially sensitive in a divided Lebanon, especially under a caretaker government that has been in place for months because of political stalemate. The army has tried to maintain its reputation as the only largely neutral security agency, even as it remains too weak to challenge Hezbollah’s independent militia, and Lebanese Sunnis increasingly see it as leaning toward the Shiite party.
The war in Syria has been a fruitful recruiting tool and training ground for extremist Sunni militants in Lebanon, who have a longstanding presence but had been seen as fairly marginal before the Syrian conflict. Until recently, they had been mainly confined to pockets in Palestinian refugee camps outside the control of Lebanese authorities.
Now, with the Syrian war radicalizing some groups and Lebanese militants crossing the porous border to fight on both sides of the conflict, extremist fighters and clerics have increased their presence and influence in border areas, camps and cities.
Mr. Majid lived in one of the camps, Ein al-Hilwe, near the southern city of Sidon until recently, according to Munir al-Maqdah, a commander in the Palestinian Fatah movement in the camp. Mr. Maqdah said that security officials had informed Fatah that Mr. Majid had entered the camp and later left for Syria.
While it is not known when Mr. Majid was detained, Hezbollah’s television channel Al Manar quoted Lebanese security officials as saying that an attack on a security checkpoint on Dec. 15 near Sidon and the Ein al-Hilwe camp was an attempt by militants to free him.
The Iranian Embassy bombing was one of several attacks in recent months to heighten fears that the increasingly sectarian conflict in Syria is bringing violence to neighboring Lebanon, radicalizing the population and deepening Lebanon’s own political and sectarian divisions.
In what have been seen as tit-for-tat attacks, car bombs have targeted Hezbollah-dominated neighborhoods in the southern suburbs of Beirut and Sunni mosques in the northern city of Tripoli.
On Friday, a powerful car bomb killed Mohamad B. Chatah, a former Lebanese finance minister who was a major figure in the Future bloc, a political group that is Hezbollah’s main Sunni rival.
Hwaida Saad contributed reporting.
A version of this article appears in print on January 2, 2014, on page A4 of the New York edition with the headline: Lebanon Arrests Leader of Qaeda-Linked Group, Reports Say.
http://www.nytimes.com/2014/01/02/world/middleeast/lebanon.html
By ANNE BARNARD JAN. 1, 2014
BEIRUT, Lebanon — The Lebanese military authorities have detained the Saudi leader of a Sunni militant group linked to Al Qaeda that claimed responsibility for a double suicide bomb attack on the Iranian Embassy in Beirut in November, according to Lebanese news media.
The militant, Majid bin Muhammad al-Majid, is the head of the Abdullah Azzam Brigades, an offshoot of Al Qaeda. He was taken into custody just three days after Saudi Arabia pledged a $3 billion aid package to the Lebanese Army. The gift was widely seen as a Saudi attempt to counter the influence of Hezbollah, the Lebanese Shiite militia and political party that is allied with the Shiite government of Iran and with Syria’s president, Bashar al-Assad.
The detention, which American national security officials confirmed to news agencies, provoked an array of political responses in the region — the latest sign that the power struggle between Saudi Arabia and Iran, which is helping to drive the bloody war in Syria, is intensifying in neighboring Lebanon.
An Iranian national security official, Alaeddin Boroujerdi, on Wednesday praised the Lebanese security forces for apprehending Mr. Majid, and blamed him for the embassy bombing. He also urged the Lebanese government to consider the fact that “the main element in the operation is of Saudi nationality,” Iran’s semiofficial Fars News Agency reported.
While there was no immediate response from Saudi Arabia, there is little sympathy in its government for Mr. Majid, who is on its list of people most wanted for links with Al Qaeda. A Lebanese newspaper, Al Safir, wrote that he was “wanted by Saudi Arabia, Lebanon, Egypt, Jordan and several other Western countries, mainly the United States.”
The Abdullah Azzam Brigades, which has also claimed responsibility for attacks in Egypt and Jordan, was formed in the crucible of the Iraqi insurgency in cooperation with Al Qaeda in Mesopotamia, the Qaeda franchise there. That was done on orders from Abu Musab al-Zarqawi, the Sunni militant who was subsequently killed by American troops, according to the Long War Journal, a website that follows counterterrorism efforts.
While founded well before the conflict in Syria, the Abdullah Azzam Brigades has allied itself with extremists among the rebels fighting Mr. Assad there and has threatened more attacks if Hezbollah does not stop sending its fighters to support him. Recently, Mr. Majid was reported to have pledged allegiance to the Nusra Front, another Qaeda-linked group fighting in Syria.
Iran and Hezbollah, its Lebanese ally and Lebanon’s most powerful political party, have backed Mr. Assad, while their Sunni Lebanese political rivals have supported the insurgency. Hezbollah has sent fighters to aid the government, and Lebanese Sunni militants have joined the rebels.
The Iranian official, Mr. Boroujerdi, said that Lebanese security forces had arrested two people, including someone involved in “the assassination of the Hezbollah leader in Lebanon,” an apparent reference to the shooting death in December of Hassane Laqees, a senior Hezbollah militant. It was unclear whether he was blaming the Abdullah Azzam Brigades or Saudi Arabia for killing Mr. Laqees. Citing the killers’ professionalism, Hezbollah had blamed the hit on Israel rather than Sunni jihadist groups.
Mr. Majid’s detention was potentially sensitive in a divided Lebanon, especially under a caretaker government that has been in place for months because of political stalemate. The army has tried to maintain its reputation as the only largely neutral security agency, even as it remains too weak to challenge Hezbollah’s independent militia, and Lebanese Sunnis increasingly see it as leaning toward the Shiite party.
The war in Syria has been a fruitful recruiting tool and training ground for extremist Sunni militants in Lebanon, who have a longstanding presence but had been seen as fairly marginal before the Syrian conflict. Until recently, they had been mainly confined to pockets in Palestinian refugee camps outside the control of Lebanese authorities.
Now, with the Syrian war radicalizing some groups and Lebanese militants crossing the porous border to fight on both sides of the conflict, extremist fighters and clerics have increased their presence and influence in border areas, camps and cities.
Mr. Majid lived in one of the camps, Ein al-Hilwe, near the southern city of Sidon until recently, according to Munir al-Maqdah, a commander in the Palestinian Fatah movement in the camp. Mr. Maqdah said that security officials had informed Fatah that Mr. Majid had entered the camp and later left for Syria.
While it is not known when Mr. Majid was detained, Hezbollah’s television channel Al Manar quoted Lebanese security officials as saying that an attack on a security checkpoint on Dec. 15 near Sidon and the Ein al-Hilwe camp was an attempt by militants to free him.
The Iranian Embassy bombing was one of several attacks in recent months to heighten fears that the increasingly sectarian conflict in Syria is bringing violence to neighboring Lebanon, radicalizing the population and deepening Lebanon’s own political and sectarian divisions.
In what have been seen as tit-for-tat attacks, car bombs have targeted Hezbollah-dominated neighborhoods in the southern suburbs of Beirut and Sunni mosques in the northern city of Tripoli.
On Friday, a powerful car bomb killed Mohamad B. Chatah, a former Lebanese finance minister who was a major figure in the Future bloc, a political group that is Hezbollah’s main Sunni rival.
Hwaida Saad contributed reporting.
A version of this article appears in print on January 2, 2014, on page A4 of the New York edition with the headline: Lebanon Arrests Leader of Qaeda-Linked Group, Reports Say.
Mohamad Chatah's Open Letter to Tehran
Mohamad Chatah's Open Letter to Tehran
http://online.wsj.com/news/articles/SB10001424052702304483804579286723620835720
The former Lebanese finance minister, killed by a car bomb Friday, left behind this missive.
By Mohamad Chatah
Dec. 28, 2013 10:48 p.m. ET
Editor's note: Mohamad Chatah, a former Lebanese finance minister, wrote the following open letter last week to Iranian President Hasan Rouhani. Chatah was killed by a car bomb in Beirut Friday before he could gather signatures from members of the Lebanese parliament.
Your Excellency,
We are taking this exceptional step to address you and other regional and global leaders because these are exceptionally dangerous times for our country. Not only is Lebanon's internal and external security being seriously threatened, but the very unity of our state is in real jeopardy. It is our obligation to do all we can to protect our nation from these l threats. And today, more than ever before, the choices made by the Islamic Republic of Iran will play an important role in determining our success or failure. That's why we are writing to you, as the President of the Islamic Republic of Iran.
But these are exceptional times for Iran as well. After many years of confrontation between Iran and a major part of the international community, your election as president last summer has signaled to many in the region and the world that the Iranian people want to set their country on a new path; a path of reform and openness and peaceful relations with the rest of the world. The recent interim agreement between Iran and the P5+1, and the statements you have made since your election, have raised expectations that Iran may indeed be taking the first concrete steps along that positive path. We sincerely hope that this is the case.
But for us, as representatives of the Lebanese people, the real test is not so much whether Iran reaches a final agreement with Western powers on its nuclear program, nor whether domestic economic and social reforms are successfully put in place—important as these objectives are to the world and to the Iranian people. For us in Lebanon, the real test is whether Iran is genuinely prepared to chart a new course in its policies toward the rest of region, and most specifically toward Lebanon.
Your Excellency,
It is an undisputed fact that Iran's Revolutionary Guard continues to maintain a strategic military relationship with Hezbollah, a military organization that Iran's Revolutionary guard was instrumental in establishing 30 years ago. At that time Lebanon was still in the midst of a terrible civil war and southern Lebanon was under Israeli occupation. Today, 23 years after the end of the civil war and the disbanding of all other Lebanese militias, and 13 years after the liberation of the south from Israeli occupation (in which the Lebanese resistance played a crucial role), Hezbollah continues to maintain an independent and heavily armed military force outside the authority of the state. This is happening with the direct support and sponsorship of your country.
As we are sure you would agree, the presence of any armed militia in parallel to the legitimate armed forces of the state and operating outside the state's control and political authority is not only in conflict with the Lebanese constitution, but also with the very definition of a sovereign state—any state. This is the case irrespective of the religious affiliations of such non-state militias or the causes they claim to champion.
Hezbollah's insistence on maintaining an independent military organization, under the banner of "Islamic Resistance," has been a major obstacle in the face of much-needed national efforts to strengthen state institutions and to put an end to the legacy of the civil war and the spread weapons throughout the country. This has, inevitably, also weakened Lebanon's national unity and exposed the country to the widening sectarian fault lines in the region, and has contributed to the rise of religious extremism and militancy.
Moreover, the use of—or implied threat of using—Hezbollah's weapons advantage to tilt the domestic political playing field has made the delicate task of managing the Lebanese political system almost impossible, and has led to a gradual systemic paralysis. Hezbollah's blatant protection of five of its members who had been indicted by the Special international Tribunal for Lebanon in the case of the late Rafiq Hariri assassination has compounded the suspicions and mistrust.
Your Excellency,
Over the past year, Hezbollah's direct participation in the conflict in Syria has greatly aggravated Lebanon's already precarious situation. It is well recognized that the Lebanese public is divided regarding the war in Syria. We, as members of the broad March 14 political alliance, stand fully, both politically and morally, in support of the Syrian people. We believe the Assad regime has lost both its moral legitimacy and its ability to restore peace and unity in Syria. However as representatives of the Lebanese people, our focus and main responsibility is to protect Lebanon from the grave danger of the fire raging next door spreading into our country. In fact, the conflict in Syria has already touched many of our border towns and villages and sparked sporadic violence and despicable acts of terrorism. As you know, the Iranian embassy in Beirut has been the target of a deplorable terrorist bombing, so were mosques and civilian neighborhoods.
Combating this scourge and protecting Lebanon from worse spillovers cannot succeed while a major Lebanese party is participating directly in the Syrian conflict. It is, in effect, an invitation to those on the receiving end of Hezbollah's bombs and bullets in Syria to bring the war back to Hezbollah's homeland—our common homeland. Regrettably, this is happening with the support of, and in coordination with, the Islamic Republic of Iran.
Your Excellency,
Lebanon today is in crisis on all levels. Clearly, palliatives are not enough anymore. We need to protect Lebanon from falling further down a very slippery slope. We believe that this can be done only if regional and international powers, including Iran, are ready to take the necessary steps. The guideposts are already there. They were spelt out in the national declaration issued jointly by all political parties last year and dubbed the Baabda Declaration. The declaration had affirmed the objective of safeguarding Lebanon's security by: 1.) protecting it against spillovers from Syria and more generally neutralizing it away from regional and international conflicts and alliances; and 2.) completing the implementation of Security Council Resolution 1701.
In our view, this would require the following concrete steps, to be agreed and launched through a special Security Council meeting or a special, wider support-group conference:
1. A declared commitment by all other countries, including Iran, to the neutralization of Lebanon as agreed in the Baabda Declaration. Clearly, it is not enough for Lebanon to declare a desire to be neutralized. More importantly, other countries need to commit themselves to respect Lebanon's national desire;
2. Ending all armed participation by Lebanese groups and parties, including Hezbollah, in the Syrian conflict;
3. Establishing effective control by the Lebanese army and security forces over the border with Syria, supported by the United Nations if needed as permitted under UNSCR 1701;
4. Requesting the Security Council to begin the steps needed to complete the implementation of UNSCR 1701. This aims at moving Lebanon from the current interim cessation-of-hostilities status with Israel to a permanent cease-fire with U.N. security arrangements, which will end border infringements by Israel and establish complete and exclusive security authority by the Lebanese armed forces throughout the country.
This vision and roadmap may seem radical, considering that Lebanon has not seen full and exclusive control by the state over its territory and over all weapons in four decades. But these are also the basic natural rights of any country that seeks to be free and independent. It is our obligation as representatives of the people of Lebanon to do all we can to regain those rights. For years, we have supported—and will continue to support—the right of Palestine to be free and independent. Similarly, we support Iran's national right as a free and sovereign nation in control of its destiny and its security within its borders. As a small but proud nation we cannot aspire for less.
Your Excellency,
This is Lebanon's cause. We will do all we can to mobilize all the support it needs and deserves. Ultimately, whether we succeed or not will depend on decisions taken, not only by the Lebanese people but also by others, including your good self. Admittedly—but also understandably—there are many Iran-skeptics in Lebanon and in the region. We hope that Iran's choices in Lebanon can prove them wrong.
Sincerely,
Mohamad Chatah
Commentary:
Mohamad Chatah, a former Lebanese finance minister, wrote the following open letter last week to Iranian President Hasan Rouhani. Chatah was killed by a car bomb in Beirut this past Friday before he could gather signatures from members of the Lebanese parliament. As can be noted both from the text as well as the tone of Mr. Chatah's letter, he places the entire blame with respect to Syrian crisis and its impact on Lebanon, in the laps of Islamic Republic of Iran and Hezbollah. He does not utter a single word regarding the cruel and criminal role played by Saudi Arabia, Qatar and Turkey, in instigating this bloodbath which by now is spinning out of control.
Mohamad Chatah, like his malicious mentor Rafiq Harreri, the late Prime Minister of Lebanon was a long time stooge of Saudi Arabia, who until his assassination made every effort to stoke the sectarian problems in Lebanon by encouraging the Labanese Salafis to enter Syria and help Al Qaida, Islamic State of Iraq in Syria (ISIS), Jabhat Al Nusra, Ahrar al Sham and other terrorist groups to topple Bashar el-Assad and establish an Islamic State in Syria.
Agha Shaukat Jafri
http://online.wsj.com/news/articles/SB10001424052702304483804579286723620835720
The former Lebanese finance minister, killed by a car bomb Friday, left behind this missive.
By Mohamad Chatah
Dec. 28, 2013 10:48 p.m. ET
Editor's note: Mohamad Chatah, a former Lebanese finance minister, wrote the following open letter last week to Iranian President Hasan Rouhani. Chatah was killed by a car bomb in Beirut Friday before he could gather signatures from members of the Lebanese parliament.
Your Excellency,
We are taking this exceptional step to address you and other regional and global leaders because these are exceptionally dangerous times for our country. Not only is Lebanon's internal and external security being seriously threatened, but the very unity of our state is in real jeopardy. It is our obligation to do all we can to protect our nation from these l threats. And today, more than ever before, the choices made by the Islamic Republic of Iran will play an important role in determining our success or failure. That's why we are writing to you, as the President of the Islamic Republic of Iran.
But these are exceptional times for Iran as well. After many years of confrontation between Iran and a major part of the international community, your election as president last summer has signaled to many in the region and the world that the Iranian people want to set their country on a new path; a path of reform and openness and peaceful relations with the rest of the world. The recent interim agreement between Iran and the P5+1, and the statements you have made since your election, have raised expectations that Iran may indeed be taking the first concrete steps along that positive path. We sincerely hope that this is the case.
But for us, as representatives of the Lebanese people, the real test is not so much whether Iran reaches a final agreement with Western powers on its nuclear program, nor whether domestic economic and social reforms are successfully put in place—important as these objectives are to the world and to the Iranian people. For us in Lebanon, the real test is whether Iran is genuinely prepared to chart a new course in its policies toward the rest of region, and most specifically toward Lebanon.
Your Excellency,
It is an undisputed fact that Iran's Revolutionary Guard continues to maintain a strategic military relationship with Hezbollah, a military organization that Iran's Revolutionary guard was instrumental in establishing 30 years ago. At that time Lebanon was still in the midst of a terrible civil war and southern Lebanon was under Israeli occupation. Today, 23 years after the end of the civil war and the disbanding of all other Lebanese militias, and 13 years after the liberation of the south from Israeli occupation (in which the Lebanese resistance played a crucial role), Hezbollah continues to maintain an independent and heavily armed military force outside the authority of the state. This is happening with the direct support and sponsorship of your country.
Mohamad Chatah, 1951-2013 Reuters
As we are sure you would agree, the presence of any armed militia in parallel to the legitimate armed forces of the state and operating outside the state's control and political authority is not only in conflict with the Lebanese constitution, but also with the very definition of a sovereign state—any state. This is the case irrespective of the religious affiliations of such non-state militias or the causes they claim to champion.
Hezbollah's insistence on maintaining an independent military organization, under the banner of "Islamic Resistance," has been a major obstacle in the face of much-needed national efforts to strengthen state institutions and to put an end to the legacy of the civil war and the spread weapons throughout the country. This has, inevitably, also weakened Lebanon's national unity and exposed the country to the widening sectarian fault lines in the region, and has contributed to the rise of religious extremism and militancy.
Moreover, the use of—or implied threat of using—Hezbollah's weapons advantage to tilt the domestic political playing field has made the delicate task of managing the Lebanese political system almost impossible, and has led to a gradual systemic paralysis. Hezbollah's blatant protection of five of its members who had been indicted by the Special international Tribunal for Lebanon in the case of the late Rafiq Hariri assassination has compounded the suspicions and mistrust.
Your Excellency,
Over the past year, Hezbollah's direct participation in the conflict in Syria has greatly aggravated Lebanon's already precarious situation. It is well recognized that the Lebanese public is divided regarding the war in Syria. We, as members of the broad March 14 political alliance, stand fully, both politically and morally, in support of the Syrian people. We believe the Assad regime has lost both its moral legitimacy and its ability to restore peace and unity in Syria. However as representatives of the Lebanese people, our focus and main responsibility is to protect Lebanon from the grave danger of the fire raging next door spreading into our country. In fact, the conflict in Syria has already touched many of our border towns and villages and sparked sporadic violence and despicable acts of terrorism. As you know, the Iranian embassy in Beirut has been the target of a deplorable terrorist bombing, so were mosques and civilian neighborhoods.
Combating this scourge and protecting Lebanon from worse spillovers cannot succeed while a major Lebanese party is participating directly in the Syrian conflict. It is, in effect, an invitation to those on the receiving end of Hezbollah's bombs and bullets in Syria to bring the war back to Hezbollah's homeland—our common homeland. Regrettably, this is happening with the support of, and in coordination with, the Islamic Republic of Iran.
Your Excellency,
Lebanon today is in crisis on all levels. Clearly, palliatives are not enough anymore. We need to protect Lebanon from falling further down a very slippery slope. We believe that this can be done only if regional and international powers, including Iran, are ready to take the necessary steps. The guideposts are already there. They were spelt out in the national declaration issued jointly by all political parties last year and dubbed the Baabda Declaration. The declaration had affirmed the objective of safeguarding Lebanon's security by: 1.) protecting it against spillovers from Syria and more generally neutralizing it away from regional and international conflicts and alliances; and 2.) completing the implementation of Security Council Resolution 1701.
In our view, this would require the following concrete steps, to be agreed and launched through a special Security Council meeting or a special, wider support-group conference:
1. A declared commitment by all other countries, including Iran, to the neutralization of Lebanon as agreed in the Baabda Declaration. Clearly, it is not enough for Lebanon to declare a desire to be neutralized. More importantly, other countries need to commit themselves to respect Lebanon's national desire;
2. Ending all armed participation by Lebanese groups and parties, including Hezbollah, in the Syrian conflict;
3. Establishing effective control by the Lebanese army and security forces over the border with Syria, supported by the United Nations if needed as permitted under UNSCR 1701;
4. Requesting the Security Council to begin the steps needed to complete the implementation of UNSCR 1701. This aims at moving Lebanon from the current interim cessation-of-hostilities status with Israel to a permanent cease-fire with U.N. security arrangements, which will end border infringements by Israel and establish complete and exclusive security authority by the Lebanese armed forces throughout the country.
This vision and roadmap may seem radical, considering that Lebanon has not seen full and exclusive control by the state over its territory and over all weapons in four decades. But these are also the basic natural rights of any country that seeks to be free and independent. It is our obligation as representatives of the people of Lebanon to do all we can to regain those rights. For years, we have supported—and will continue to support—the right of Palestine to be free and independent. Similarly, we support Iran's national right as a free and sovereign nation in control of its destiny and its security within its borders. As a small but proud nation we cannot aspire for less.
Your Excellency,
This is Lebanon's cause. We will do all we can to mobilize all the support it needs and deserves. Ultimately, whether we succeed or not will depend on decisions taken, not only by the Lebanese people but also by others, including your good self. Admittedly—but also understandably—there are many Iran-skeptics in Lebanon and in the region. We hope that Iran's choices in Lebanon can prove them wrong.
Sincerely,
Mohamad Chatah
Commentary:
Mohamad Chatah, a former Lebanese finance minister, wrote the following open letter last week to Iranian President Hasan Rouhani. Chatah was killed by a car bomb in Beirut this past Friday before he could gather signatures from members of the Lebanese parliament. As can be noted both from the text as well as the tone of Mr. Chatah's letter, he places the entire blame with respect to Syrian crisis and its impact on Lebanon, in the laps of Islamic Republic of Iran and Hezbollah. He does not utter a single word regarding the cruel and criminal role played by Saudi Arabia, Qatar and Turkey, in instigating this bloodbath which by now is spinning out of control.
Mohamad Chatah, like his malicious mentor Rafiq Harreri, the late Prime Minister of Lebanon was a long time stooge of Saudi Arabia, who until his assassination made every effort to stoke the sectarian problems in Lebanon by encouraging the Labanese Salafis to enter Syria and help Al Qaida, Islamic State of Iraq in Syria (ISIS), Jabhat Al Nusra, Ahrar al Sham and other terrorist groups to topple Bashar el-Assad and establish an Islamic State in Syria.
Agha Shaukat Jafri
U.S. Sends Arms to Aid Iraq Fight With Extremists
U.S. Sends Arms to Aid Iraq Fight With Extremists
http://www.nytimes.com/2013/12/26/world/middleeast/us-sends-arms-to-aid-iraq-fight-with-extremists.html
By MICHAEL R. GORDON and ERIC SCHMITT
Published: December 25, 2013
WASHINGTON — The United States is quietly rushing dozens of Hellfire missiles and low-tech surveillance drones to Iraq to help government forces combat an explosion of violence by a Qaeda-backed insurgency that is gaining territory in both western Iraq and neighboring Syria.
The move follows an appeal for help in battling the extremist group by the Iraqi prime minister, Nuri Kamal al-Maliki, who met with President Obama in Washington last month.
But some military experts question whether the patchwork response will be sufficient to reverse the sharp downturn in security that already led to the deaths of more than 8,000 Iraqis this year, 952 of them Iraqi security force members, according to the United Nations, the highest level of violence since 2008.
Al Qaeda’s regional affiliate, the Islamic State in Iraq and Syria, has become a potent force in northern and western Iraq. Riding in armed convoys, the group has intimidated towns, assassinated local officials, and in an episode last week, used suicide bombers and hidden explosives to kill the commander of the Iraqi Army’s Seventh Division and more than a dozen of his officers and soldiers as they raided a Qaeda training camp near Rutbah.
Bombings on Christmas in Christian areas of Baghdad, which killed more than two dozen people, bore the hallmarks of a Qaeda operation.
The surge in violence stands in sharp contrast to earlier assurances from senior Obama administration officials that Iraq was on the right path, despite the failure of American and Iraqi officials in 2011 to negotiate an agreement for a limited number of United States forces to remain in Iraq.
In a March 2012 speech, Antony J. Blinken, who is currently Mr. Obama’s deputy national security adviser, asserted that “Iraq today is less violent” than “at any time in recent history.”
In contrast, after a recent spate of especially violent attacks against Iraqi forces, elected officials and civilians, Jen Psaki, the State Department spokeswoman, issued a strongly worded statement on Sunday warning that the Qaeda affiliate is “seeking to gain control of territory inside the borders of Iraq.”
Pledging to take steps to strengthen Iraqi forces, Ms. Psaki noted that the Qaeda affiliate was a “common enemy of the United States and the Republic of Iraq, and a threat to the greater Middle East region.”
But the counterterrorism effort the United States is undertaking with Iraq has its limits.
Iraq’s foreign minister has floated the idea of having American-operated, armed Predator or Reaper drones respond to the expanding militant network. But Mr. Maliki, who is positioning himself to run for a third term as prime minister and who is sensitive to nationalist sentiment at home, has not formally requested such intervention.
The idea of carrying out such drone attacks, which might prompt the question of whether the Obama administration succeeded in bringing the Iraq war to what the president has called a “responsible end,” also appears to have no support in the White House.
“We have not received a formal request for U.S.-operated armed drones operating over Iraq, nor are we planning to divert armed I.S.R. over Iraq,” said Bernadette Meehan, a spokeswoman for the National Security Council, referring to intelligence, surveillance and reconnaissance missions. For now, the new lethal aid from the United States, which Iraq is buying, includes a shipment of 75 Hellfire missiles, delivered to Iraq last week. The weapons are strapped beneath the wings of small Cessna turboprop planes, and fired at militant camps with the C.I.A. secretly providing targeting assistance.
In addition, 10 ScanEagle reconnaissance drones are expected to be delivered to Iraq by March. They are smaller cousins of the larger, more capable Predators that used to fly over Iraq.
American intelligence and counterterrorism officials say they have effectively mapped the locations and origins of the Qaeda network in Iraq and are sharing this information with the Iraqis.
Administration officials said the aid was significant because the Iraqis had virtually run out of Hellfire missiles. The Iraqi military, with no air force to speak of and limited reconnaissance of its own, has a very limited ability to locate and quickly strike Qaeda militants as they maneuver in western and northern Iraq. The combination of American-supplied Hellfire air-to-ground missiles, tactical drones and intelligence, supplied by the United States, is intended to augment that limited Iraqi ability.
The Obama administration has given three sensor-laden Aerostat balloons to the Iraqi government, provided three additional reconnaissance helicopters to the Iraqi military and is planning to send 48 Raven reconnaissance drones before the end of 2014. And the United States is planning to deliver next fall the first of the F-16 fighters Iraq has bought.
The lack of armed drones, some experts assert, will hamper efforts to dismantle the Qaeda threat in Iraq over the coming weeks and months.
“Giving them some ScanEagle drones is great,” said Michael Knights, an expert on Iraqi security at the Washington Institute for Near East Policy. “But is it really going to make much difference? Their range is tiny.”
“The real requirement today is for a long-range, high-endurance armed drone capability,” added Mr. Knights, who frequently travels to Iraq. “There is one place in the world where Al Qaeda can run a major affiliate without fear of a U.S. drone or air attack, and that is in Iraq and Syria.”
In an effort to buttress the Iraqi military’s abilities, the Obama administration has sought congressional approval to lease and eventually sell Apache helicopter gunships. But some lawmakers have been hesitant, fearing that they might be used by Mr. Maliki to intimidate his political opponents.
A plan to lease six Apaches to the Iraqi government is now pending in the Senate. Frustrated by the United States’ reluctance to sell Apaches, the Iraqis have turned to Russia, which delivered four MI-35 attack helicopters last month and planned to provide more than two dozen more. Meanwhile, cities and towns like Mosul, Haditha and Baquba that American forces fought to control during the 2007 and 2008 surge of American troops in Iraq have been the scene of bloody Qaeda attacks.
Using extortion and playing on Sunni grievances against Mr. Maliki’s Shiite-dominated government, the Qaeda affiliate is largely self-financing. One Iraqi politician, who asked not to be named to avoid retaliation, said Qaeda militants had even begun to extort money from shopkeepers in Ramadi, Anbar’s provincial capital.
A number of factors are helping the Qaeda affiliate. The terrorist group took advantage of the departure of American forces to rebuild its operations in Iraq and push into Syria. Now that it has established a strong foothold in Syria, it is in turn using its base there to send suicide bombers into Iraq at a rate of 30 to 40 a month, using them against Shiites but also against Sunnis who are reluctant to cede control.
The brutal tactics, some experts say, may expose Al Qaeda to a Sunni backlash, much as in 2006 and 2007 when Sunni tribes aligned themselves with American forces against the Qaeda extremists.
But Mr. Maliki’s failure to share power with Sunni leaders, some Iraqis say, has also provided a fertile recruiting ground.
Haitham Abdullah al-Jubouri, a 40-year-old government employee in Baquba, said that “the policy of the sectarian government” had “contributed to the influx of desperate young elements from the Sunni community to the ranks of Al Qaeda.”
In Mosul, most of the security force members who are not from the area have left the city, and Al Qaeda controls whole sections of territory.
“In the morning, we have some control, but at night, this is when we hide and the armed groups make their movements,” said an Iraqi security official, who spoke only on the condition of anonymity, out of fear of retaliation.
Ayad Shaker, a police officer in Anbar, said that Al Qaeda had replenished its ranks with a series of prison breakouts, and that the group had also grown stronger because of the limited abilities of Iraqi forces, the conflict in Syria and tensions between Mr. Maliki and the Sunnis.
Mr. Shaker said that three close relatives had been killed by Al Qaeda and that he had been wounded by bombs the group had planted.
“I fought Al Qaeda,” he said. “I am sad today when I see them have the highest authority in Anbar, moving and working under the sun without deterrent.”
Yasir Ghazi contributed reporting from Baghdad, Thom Shanker from Washington and an employee of The New York Times from Mosul, Iraq.
A version of this article appears in print on December 26, 2013, on page A1 of the New York edition with the headline: U.S. Sends Arms to Aid Iraq Fight With Extremists.
Commentary:
ANOTHER NAIL IN THE SAUDI COFFIN!
Agha Shaukat Jafri
http://www.nytimes.com/2013/12/26/world/middleeast/us-sends-arms-to-aid-iraq-fight-with-extremists.html
By MICHAEL R. GORDON and ERIC SCHMITT
Published: December 25, 2013
Iraqis gathered in Tikrit on Tuesday to pray over journalists killed in an attack claimed by a Qaeda-affiliated group. - Mahmoud Al-Samarrai/Agence France-Presse — Getty Images
WASHINGTON — The United States is quietly rushing dozens of Hellfire missiles and low-tech surveillance drones to Iraq to help government forces combat an explosion of violence by a Qaeda-backed insurgency that is gaining territory in both western Iraq and neighboring Syria.
The move follows an appeal for help in battling the extremist group by the Iraqi prime minister, Nuri Kamal al-Maliki, who met with President Obama in Washington last month.
But some military experts question whether the patchwork response will be sufficient to reverse the sharp downturn in security that already led to the deaths of more than 8,000 Iraqis this year, 952 of them Iraqi security force members, according to the United Nations, the highest level of violence since 2008.
Al Qaeda’s regional affiliate, the Islamic State in Iraq and Syria, has become a potent force in northern and western Iraq. Riding in armed convoys, the group has intimidated towns, assassinated local officials, and in an episode last week, used suicide bombers and hidden explosives to kill the commander of the Iraqi Army’s Seventh Division and more than a dozen of his officers and soldiers as they raided a Qaeda training camp near Rutbah.
Bombings on Christmas in Christian areas of Baghdad, which killed more than two dozen people, bore the hallmarks of a Qaeda operation.
The surge in violence stands in sharp contrast to earlier assurances from senior Obama administration officials that Iraq was on the right path, despite the failure of American and Iraqi officials in 2011 to negotiate an agreement for a limited number of United States forces to remain in Iraq.
In a March 2012 speech, Antony J. Blinken, who is currently Mr. Obama’s deputy national security adviser, asserted that “Iraq today is less violent” than “at any time in recent history.”
In contrast, after a recent spate of especially violent attacks against Iraqi forces, elected officials and civilians, Jen Psaki, the State Department spokeswoman, issued a strongly worded statement on Sunday warning that the Qaeda affiliate is “seeking to gain control of territory inside the borders of Iraq.”
Pledging to take steps to strengthen Iraqi forces, Ms. Psaki noted that the Qaeda affiliate was a “common enemy of the United States and the Republic of Iraq, and a threat to the greater Middle East region.”
But the counterterrorism effort the United States is undertaking with Iraq has its limits.
Iraq’s foreign minister has floated the idea of having American-operated, armed Predator or Reaper drones respond to the expanding militant network. But Mr. Maliki, who is positioning himself to run for a third term as prime minister and who is sensitive to nationalist sentiment at home, has not formally requested such intervention.
The idea of carrying out such drone attacks, which might prompt the question of whether the Obama administration succeeded in bringing the Iraq war to what the president has called a “responsible end,” also appears to have no support in the White House.
“We have not received a formal request for U.S.-operated armed drones operating over Iraq, nor are we planning to divert armed I.S.R. over Iraq,” said Bernadette Meehan, a spokeswoman for the National Security Council, referring to intelligence, surveillance and reconnaissance missions. For now, the new lethal aid from the United States, which Iraq is buying, includes a shipment of 75 Hellfire missiles, delivered to Iraq last week. The weapons are strapped beneath the wings of small Cessna turboprop planes, and fired at militant camps with the C.I.A. secretly providing targeting assistance.
In addition, 10 ScanEagle reconnaissance drones are expected to be delivered to Iraq by March. They are smaller cousins of the larger, more capable Predators that used to fly over Iraq.
American intelligence and counterterrorism officials say they have effectively mapped the locations and origins of the Qaeda network in Iraq and are sharing this information with the Iraqis.
Administration officials said the aid was significant because the Iraqis had virtually run out of Hellfire missiles. The Iraqi military, with no air force to speak of and limited reconnaissance of its own, has a very limited ability to locate and quickly strike Qaeda militants as they maneuver in western and northern Iraq. The combination of American-supplied Hellfire air-to-ground missiles, tactical drones and intelligence, supplied by the United States, is intended to augment that limited Iraqi ability.
The Obama administration has given three sensor-laden Aerostat balloons to the Iraqi government, provided three additional reconnaissance helicopters to the Iraqi military and is planning to send 48 Raven reconnaissance drones before the end of 2014. And the United States is planning to deliver next fall the first of the F-16 fighters Iraq has bought.
The lack of armed drones, some experts assert, will hamper efforts to dismantle the Qaeda threat in Iraq over the coming weeks and months.
“Giving them some ScanEagle drones is great,” said Michael Knights, an expert on Iraqi security at the Washington Institute for Near East Policy. “But is it really going to make much difference? Their range is tiny.”
“The real requirement today is for a long-range, high-endurance armed drone capability,” added Mr. Knights, who frequently travels to Iraq. “There is one place in the world where Al Qaeda can run a major affiliate without fear of a U.S. drone or air attack, and that is in Iraq and Syria.”
In an effort to buttress the Iraqi military’s abilities, the Obama administration has sought congressional approval to lease and eventually sell Apache helicopter gunships. But some lawmakers have been hesitant, fearing that they might be used by Mr. Maliki to intimidate his political opponents.
A plan to lease six Apaches to the Iraqi government is now pending in the Senate. Frustrated by the United States’ reluctance to sell Apaches, the Iraqis have turned to Russia, which delivered four MI-35 attack helicopters last month and planned to provide more than two dozen more. Meanwhile, cities and towns like Mosul, Haditha and Baquba that American forces fought to control during the 2007 and 2008 surge of American troops in Iraq have been the scene of bloody Qaeda attacks.
Using extortion and playing on Sunni grievances against Mr. Maliki’s Shiite-dominated government, the Qaeda affiliate is largely self-financing. One Iraqi politician, who asked not to be named to avoid retaliation, said Qaeda militants had even begun to extort money from shopkeepers in Ramadi, Anbar’s provincial capital.
A number of factors are helping the Qaeda affiliate. The terrorist group took advantage of the departure of American forces to rebuild its operations in Iraq and push into Syria. Now that it has established a strong foothold in Syria, it is in turn using its base there to send suicide bombers into Iraq at a rate of 30 to 40 a month, using them against Shiites but also against Sunnis who are reluctant to cede control.
The brutal tactics, some experts say, may expose Al Qaeda to a Sunni backlash, much as in 2006 and 2007 when Sunni tribes aligned themselves with American forces against the Qaeda extremists.
But Mr. Maliki’s failure to share power with Sunni leaders, some Iraqis say, has also provided a fertile recruiting ground.
Haitham Abdullah al-Jubouri, a 40-year-old government employee in Baquba, said that “the policy of the sectarian government” had “contributed to the influx of desperate young elements from the Sunni community to the ranks of Al Qaeda.”
In Mosul, most of the security force members who are not from the area have left the city, and Al Qaeda controls whole sections of territory.
“In the morning, we have some control, but at night, this is when we hide and the armed groups make their movements,” said an Iraqi security official, who spoke only on the condition of anonymity, out of fear of retaliation.
Ayad Shaker, a police officer in Anbar, said that Al Qaeda had replenished its ranks with a series of prison breakouts, and that the group had also grown stronger because of the limited abilities of Iraqi forces, the conflict in Syria and tensions between Mr. Maliki and the Sunnis.
Mr. Shaker said that three close relatives had been killed by Al Qaeda and that he had been wounded by bombs the group had planted.
“I fought Al Qaeda,” he said. “I am sad today when I see them have the highest authority in Anbar, moving and working under the sun without deterrent.”
Yasir Ghazi contributed reporting from Baghdad, Thom Shanker from Washington and an employee of The New York Times from Mosul, Iraq.
A version of this article appears in print on December 26, 2013, on page A1 of the New York edition with the headline: U.S. Sends Arms to Aid Iraq Fight With Extremists.
Commentary:
ANOTHER NAIL IN THE SAUDI COFFIN!
Agha Shaukat Jafri
Pakistan’s Persecuted Christians
Pakistan’s Persecuted Christians
http://www.nytimes.com/2013/12/24/opinion/pakistans-persecuted-christians.html
By AKBAR AHMED
Published: December 23, 2013
LAHORE, Pakistan — If ever there was a target for the Pakistan Taliban, I thought to myself, this would be it.
Besides the 750 graduating students and more than 2,000 guests gathered on the campus of Forman Christian College on Nov. 30 were the university’s American rector and two of Pakistan’s five provincial governors. Senior officials in Lahore had already warned the public to be vigilant. The police had information that the Taliban had dispatched suicide bombers to the city to take revenge for the recent killing of their leader, Hakimullah Mehsud, in a United States drone strike. Their targets would be senior government officials and foreigners, especially Americans.
Forman is Pakistan’s leading Christian educational institution, now celebrating its 150th anniversary. Only 600 of its 6,000 students are Christian; what’s remarkable is how fully integrated into campus life they are.
Like many non-Christian Pakistanis, I owed my education to Christian teachers, both at Forman and at my previous school, Burn Hall in Abbottabad, which was run by Roman Catholic priests. We loved and respected our Christian teachers, and they us. We never doubted that harmony and cooperation between faith groups were not only possible, but also completely normal. It was the reality of our lives.
I had returned after half a century to my old college (now a chartered university) to receive an honorary doctorate. Once there, I found myself transported back to one of the happiest periods of my life. It was a different Pakistan and it was a time of hope. Christians were very much part of the fabric of the nation.
Times have changed. Today, Forman is an island of tranquillity for Christians in a troubled sea. With increasing frequency, Christians have been attacked and their churches vandalized.
No one was taking lightly the seriousness of the threat at the commencement. I was told there were snipers on all the vantage points and security officers in plain clothes all over the campus. Yet, as if to insist on the normalcy of university life, the rector announced a new center with the express purpose of bridge building between different cultures and faiths.
Many Pakistanis are unaware of the role Christians have played in the nation’s history. Although the Christian population is barely three million, or 1.6 percent of the population — as compared with 180 million Muslims (more than 95 percent) — Christians have had a considerable impact, especially in education. Many of Pakistan’s most prominent leaders — including the current prime minister, Nawaz Sharif, the assassinated prime minister, Benazir Bhutto, and former President Pervez Musharraf — went to Christian schools. Christians also educated Muhammad Ali Jinnah, who founded Pakistan in 1947. Under Pakistan’s Constitution, Christians were guaranteed equal rights.
The targeting of Christians comes amid a widespread breakdown of public order. The ordinary citizen — hearing stories of gangs breaking into homes and kidnapping people — thinks only of survival. Groups like the Pakistani Taliban have challenged government authority to the point where the rule of law barely exists in parts of the country like the tribal areas of the Northwest.
While militant groups are frequently the culprits in attacks on Christians, a general anger against the United States has caused large numbers of people to target Christians, whom they associate with America, as scapegoats.
Christians have been especially vulnerable in cases concerning the blasphemy laws, which easily convert into a tool of oppression against them. Cases like that of the 11-year-old Christian girl arrested last year after being accused of burning pages of the Quran in Islamabad gain nationwide publicity — easy causes célèbres for those who are opposed to United States foreign policy in Pakistan or who believe that Islam is under siege from the West.
This, in turn, makes it very difficult for public officials to intervene, even if they are inclined to do so. Government promises to reconstruct the homes of Christians destroyed by mobs and distribute aid are rarely carried out.
Those Pakistanis who do speak up for Christians have themselves become targets of violence. In 2011, a governor of Punjab Province who criticized the blasphemy laws was killed by his own bodyguard, who was then hailed as a hero. Senior politicians and the Pakistani elite have been complicit in the sectarian hostility because they fear that any of them could meet the same fate.
Perhaps the worst blow to date was the deadly assault on a historic church in Peshawar earlier this year, in which 78 people were killed and 130 wounded. Little wonder, then, that there is widespread fear and uncertainty among Christians. There are rumors of entire families fleeing the country, many stranded in halfway stations like Thailand, awaiting official papers to emigrate.
The situation of the Christians will improve only if the causes of Pakistan’s instability are addressed. These include the breakdown of law and order, the dangerous gap between rich and poor, the ever rising prices of wheat and sugar, the lack of jobs, and the conduct of the American war on terror in the region.
Pakistanis also need to be reminded of their own history of religious tolerance. What they perhaps do not realize is that the protection and rights of the Christian community are more than a constitutional obligation: The situation of Pakistani Christians is a barometer of the health of the nation. Today, the signs are not good.
Akbar Ahmed, the Islamic Studies chairman at the American University in Washington, is the author of “The Thistle and the Drone: How America’s War on Terror Became a Global War on Tribal Islam.”
A version of this op-ed appears in print on December 24, 2013, in The International New York Times.
http://www.nytimes.com/2013/12/24/opinion/pakistans-persecuted-christians.html
By AKBAR AHMED
Published: December 23, 2013
LAHORE, Pakistan — If ever there was a target for the Pakistan Taliban, I thought to myself, this would be it.
Sam Brewster
Besides the 750 graduating students and more than 2,000 guests gathered on the campus of Forman Christian College on Nov. 30 were the university’s American rector and two of Pakistan’s five provincial governors. Senior officials in Lahore had already warned the public to be vigilant. The police had information that the Taliban had dispatched suicide bombers to the city to take revenge for the recent killing of their leader, Hakimullah Mehsud, in a United States drone strike. Their targets would be senior government officials and foreigners, especially Americans.
Forman is Pakistan’s leading Christian educational institution, now celebrating its 150th anniversary. Only 600 of its 6,000 students are Christian; what’s remarkable is how fully integrated into campus life they are.
Like many non-Christian Pakistanis, I owed my education to Christian teachers, both at Forman and at my previous school, Burn Hall in Abbottabad, which was run by Roman Catholic priests. We loved and respected our Christian teachers, and they us. We never doubted that harmony and cooperation between faith groups were not only possible, but also completely normal. It was the reality of our lives.
I had returned after half a century to my old college (now a chartered university) to receive an honorary doctorate. Once there, I found myself transported back to one of the happiest periods of my life. It was a different Pakistan and it was a time of hope. Christians were very much part of the fabric of the nation.
Times have changed. Today, Forman is an island of tranquillity for Christians in a troubled sea. With increasing frequency, Christians have been attacked and their churches vandalized.
No one was taking lightly the seriousness of the threat at the commencement. I was told there were snipers on all the vantage points and security officers in plain clothes all over the campus. Yet, as if to insist on the normalcy of university life, the rector announced a new center with the express purpose of bridge building between different cultures and faiths.
Many Pakistanis are unaware of the role Christians have played in the nation’s history. Although the Christian population is barely three million, or 1.6 percent of the population — as compared with 180 million Muslims (more than 95 percent) — Christians have had a considerable impact, especially in education. Many of Pakistan’s most prominent leaders — including the current prime minister, Nawaz Sharif, the assassinated prime minister, Benazir Bhutto, and former President Pervez Musharraf — went to Christian schools. Christians also educated Muhammad Ali Jinnah, who founded Pakistan in 1947. Under Pakistan’s Constitution, Christians were guaranteed equal rights.
The targeting of Christians comes amid a widespread breakdown of public order. The ordinary citizen — hearing stories of gangs breaking into homes and kidnapping people — thinks only of survival. Groups like the Pakistani Taliban have challenged government authority to the point where the rule of law barely exists in parts of the country like the tribal areas of the Northwest.
While militant groups are frequently the culprits in attacks on Christians, a general anger against the United States has caused large numbers of people to target Christians, whom they associate with America, as scapegoats.
Christians have been especially vulnerable in cases concerning the blasphemy laws, which easily convert into a tool of oppression against them. Cases like that of the 11-year-old Christian girl arrested last year after being accused of burning pages of the Quran in Islamabad gain nationwide publicity — easy causes célèbres for those who are opposed to United States foreign policy in Pakistan or who believe that Islam is under siege from the West.
This, in turn, makes it very difficult for public officials to intervene, even if they are inclined to do so. Government promises to reconstruct the homes of Christians destroyed by mobs and distribute aid are rarely carried out.
Those Pakistanis who do speak up for Christians have themselves become targets of violence. In 2011, a governor of Punjab Province who criticized the blasphemy laws was killed by his own bodyguard, who was then hailed as a hero. Senior politicians and the Pakistani elite have been complicit in the sectarian hostility because they fear that any of them could meet the same fate.
Perhaps the worst blow to date was the deadly assault on a historic church in Peshawar earlier this year, in which 78 people were killed and 130 wounded. Little wonder, then, that there is widespread fear and uncertainty among Christians. There are rumors of entire families fleeing the country, many stranded in halfway stations like Thailand, awaiting official papers to emigrate.
The situation of the Christians will improve only if the causes of Pakistan’s instability are addressed. These include the breakdown of law and order, the dangerous gap between rich and poor, the ever rising prices of wheat and sugar, the lack of jobs, and the conduct of the American war on terror in the region.
Pakistanis also need to be reminded of their own history of religious tolerance. What they perhaps do not realize is that the protection and rights of the Christian community are more than a constitutional obligation: The situation of Pakistani Christians is a barometer of the health of the nation. Today, the signs are not good.
Akbar Ahmed, the Islamic Studies chairman at the American University in Washington, is the author of “The Thistle and the Drone: How America’s War on Terror Became a Global War on Tribal Islam.”
A version of this op-ed appears in print on December 24, 2013, in The International New York Times.
Worshipers Are Targeted at a Christmas Service in Baghdad
Worshipers Are Targeted at a Christmas Service in Baghdad
http://www.nytimes.com/2013/12/26/world/middleeast/baghdad-bomb-attack.html
By YASIR GHAZI
Published: December 25, 2013
BAGHDAD — At least 26 people were killed and 38 others were wounded on Wednesday when a car bomb exploded in a parking lot near St. John’s Roman Catholic Church in a southern neighborhood of Baghdad, according to police and medical officials.
The bomb detonated at the end of Christmas prayers as worshipers were leaving the church in Dora, the officials said.
The victims, most of them Christians, included women and children, as well as a number of police officers posted to guard the church.
A few minutes before the bombing, and barely half a mile away, a series of three other explosions in a market in an Assyrian Christian neighborhood killed 11 people and wounded 22.
Khaled Yacoub, a parishioner at St. John’s, said he had not gone to the church for a long time out of fear, but decided to attend Christmas services with his wife and two children after hearing assurances that he would be safe. “During the Mass, we heard explosions nearby,” he said.
The priest said he would shorten the liturgy so the worshipers could leave early. While taking pictures in the church garden with his children, Mr. Yacoub said, he heard a huge explosion in the parking lot as people were walking to their cars.
“People were running around,” Mr. Yacoub said. “I caught my kids and entered the church. They were crying.” A woman in the church who had been wounded in her legs was asking for help, he said.
He said, weeping: “The priest was talking about peace. He told us that we have to be Iraqi before Christians, and we must love each other.”
His wife, Sahar Yousif, said: “I wasn’t encouraging the Christians to leave the country, but today am rethinking. I do not know who was behind this targeting, but we will not believe the words of brotherhood and peace and coexistence in Iraq anymore.”
Iraqi security forces said they were providing extra security at churches on Christmas and were searching those entering. One police officer stationed near St. John’s said he did not know how the bomb-rigged car made its way into the church parking lot.
Many Christians living in Baghdad and in other provinces traveled in recent days to the Iraqi Kurdistan region to celebrate Christmas and the new year, fearing just this sort of attack.
In other sectarian violence on Wednesday, six Shiite pilgrims were killed and 11 others were wounded when gunmen attacked their bus on a highway southeast of Baghdad. An improvised explosive device hit Shiite pilgrims north of Baghdad, killing five and wounding 11, according to the police.
This article has been revised to reflect the following correction:
Correction: December 25, 2013
An earlier version of this article, as well as the headline, misstated the location of the church where worshipers were attacked. It is in a southern neighborhood of Baghdad, not south of Baghdad.
A version of this article appears in print on December 26, 2013, on page A14 of the New York edition with the headline: Worshipers Are Targeted at a Christmas Service in Baghdad.
Commentary:
These facts and figures, indeed, do not include over 8000 Muslims, Sunni & Shia, who have been massacred just during the year, 2013 by the cruel and criminal agents of Al Qaida, Islamic State of Iraq as well as members of Sufi Nakshbandi order. Saudi Arabia, though, quite similar to its perilous practice in Syria, is the mastermind behind this bloody venture. It has been, for the past several years, engaged in fermenting the turmoil and bloodshed in Iraq and in collaboration with the likes of Tariq Al- Hashemi, the fugitive vice president of Iraq, it has made several attempts to topple the democratically elected government of Iraq. Also, joined by Qatar, Kuwait and a few other Gulf states it continues to recruit and finance the most seasoned and brutal domestic as well as foreign fighters for its playgrounds in Syria, Iraq and Lebanon.
Agha Shaukat Jafri
http://www.nytimes.com/2013/12/26/world/middleeast/baghdad-bomb-attack.html
By YASIR GHAZI
Published: December 25, 2013
The site of a bomb attack at a Baghdad market, one of a series of attacks in Iraq on Wednesday, some aimed at Christians. - Ahmed Malik/Reuters
BAGHDAD — At least 26 people were killed and 38 others were wounded on Wednesday when a car bomb exploded in a parking lot near St. John’s Roman Catholic Church in a southern neighborhood of Baghdad, according to police and medical officials.
The bomb detonated at the end of Christmas prayers as worshipers were leaving the church in Dora, the officials said.
The victims, most of them Christians, included women and children, as well as a number of police officers posted to guard the church.
A few minutes before the bombing, and barely half a mile away, a series of three other explosions in a market in an Assyrian Christian neighborhood killed 11 people and wounded 22.
Khaled Yacoub, a parishioner at St. John’s, said he had not gone to the church for a long time out of fear, but decided to attend Christmas services with his wife and two children after hearing assurances that he would be safe. “During the Mass, we heard explosions nearby,” he said.
The priest said he would shorten the liturgy so the worshipers could leave early. While taking pictures in the church garden with his children, Mr. Yacoub said, he heard a huge explosion in the parking lot as people were walking to their cars.
“People were running around,” Mr. Yacoub said. “I caught my kids and entered the church. They were crying.” A woman in the church who had been wounded in her legs was asking for help, he said.
He said, weeping: “The priest was talking about peace. He told us that we have to be Iraqi before Christians, and we must love each other.”
His wife, Sahar Yousif, said: “I wasn’t encouraging the Christians to leave the country, but today am rethinking. I do not know who was behind this targeting, but we will not believe the words of brotherhood and peace and coexistence in Iraq anymore.”
Iraqi security forces said they were providing extra security at churches on Christmas and were searching those entering. One police officer stationed near St. John’s said he did not know how the bomb-rigged car made its way into the church parking lot.
Many Christians living in Baghdad and in other provinces traveled in recent days to the Iraqi Kurdistan region to celebrate Christmas and the new year, fearing just this sort of attack.
In other sectarian violence on Wednesday, six Shiite pilgrims were killed and 11 others were wounded when gunmen attacked their bus on a highway southeast of Baghdad. An improvised explosive device hit Shiite pilgrims north of Baghdad, killing five and wounding 11, according to the police.
This article has been revised to reflect the following correction:
Correction: December 25, 2013
An earlier version of this article, as well as the headline, misstated the location of the church where worshipers were attacked. It is in a southern neighborhood of Baghdad, not south of Baghdad.
A version of this article appears in print on December 26, 2013, on page A14 of the New York edition with the headline: Worshipers Are Targeted at a Christmas Service in Baghdad.
Commentary:
These facts and figures, indeed, do not include over 8000 Muslims, Sunni & Shia, who have been massacred just during the year, 2013 by the cruel and criminal agents of Al Qaida, Islamic State of Iraq as well as members of Sufi Nakshbandi order. Saudi Arabia, though, quite similar to its perilous practice in Syria, is the mastermind behind this bloody venture. It has been, for the past several years, engaged in fermenting the turmoil and bloodshed in Iraq and in collaboration with the likes of Tariq Al- Hashemi, the fugitive vice president of Iraq, it has made several attempts to topple the democratically elected government of Iraq. Also, joined by Qatar, Kuwait and a few other Gulf states it continues to recruit and finance the most seasoned and brutal domestic as well as foreign fighters for its playgrounds in Syria, Iraq and Lebanon.
Agha Shaukat Jafri
Growing Corruption Inquiry Hits Close to Turkish Leader
Growing Corruption Inquiry Hits Close to Turkish Leader
http://www.nytimes.com/2013/12/20/world/europe/growing-corruption-inquiry-hits-close-to-turkish-leader.html
By TIM ARANGO, SEBNEM ARSU and CEYLAN YEGINSU
Published: December 19, 2013
ISTANBUL — In building his political career, Turkey’s powerful and charismatic prime minister, Recep Tayyip Erdogan, relied heavily on the support of a Sufi mystic preacher whose base of operations is now in Pennsylvania.
The two combined forces in a battle with the country’s secular military elite, sending them back to the barracks in recent years and establishing Turkey as a successful example of a moderate, democratic Islamic government.
Now a corruption scandal not only threatens Mr. Erdogan’s rule but has exposed a deepening rift between the prime minister and the followers of his erstwhile ally that is tearing the government apart.
On Thursday, after several days of sensational disclosures of corruption in Mr. Erdogan’s inner circle, Istanbul’s police chief was dismissed as the government carried out what officials indicated was a purge of police officers and officials conducting the corruption investigation — nearly three dozen so far, according to the semiofficial Anadolu news agency.
Following much the same strategy he employed as he battled thousands of mostly liberal and secular-minded antigovernment protesters this summer over a development project in a beloved Istanbul park, Mr. Erdogan is portraying himself as fighting a “criminal gang” with links abroad.
That is an apparent reference to Fethullah Gulen, the Pennsylvania imam who adheres to a mystical brand of Sufi Islam and whose followers are said to occupy important positions in Turkey’s national government, including the police and judiciary but also in education, the news media and business.
Mr. Erdogan weathered the summer of protest, emerging with the support of his base even as his image abroad was tarnished. But the corruption investigation, started by the Istanbul chief prosecutor, poses a challenge that analysts and some Western diplomats believe could be even greater. The inquiry has ensnared several businessmen close to him, including one major construction tycoon, the sons of ministers and other government workers involved in zoning and public construction projects.
Mr. Erdogan and Mr. Gulen have disagreed on a number of important issues in recent years, although the tensions were kept largely silent.
Mr. Gulen was said to have opposed the government’s activist foreign policy in the Middle East, especially its support of the rebels in Syria. He is also said to be more sympathetic to Israel, and tensions flared after the Mavi Marmara episode in 2010. That was when Israeli troops boarded a Turkish ship carrying aid for Gaza and killed eight Turks and one American of Turkish descent, leading eventually to a rupture in relations — since patched up — between Turkey and its onetime ally.
Mr. Gulen’s followers “never approved the role the government tried to attain in the Middle East, or approved of its policy in Syria, which made everything worse, or its attitude in the Mavi Marmara crisis with Israel,” said Ali Bulac, a conservative intellectual and writer who supports Mr. Gulen.
The escalating political crisis, experts say, underscores the power Mr. Gulen has accumulated within the Turkish state. That power threatens to divide Mr. Erdogan’s core constituency of religious conservatives ahead of a series of elections over the next 18 months.
Mr. Gulen left Turkey in 1999 after being accused by the then-secular government of plotting to establish an Islamic state. He has since been exonerated of that charge and is free to return to Turkey, but never has. He lives quietly in Pennsylvania, though his followers are involved in an array of businesses and organizations in the United States and abroad, and some of them helped start a collection of charter schools in Texas and other states. He rarely gives interviews, and a spokesman recently said he was too ill to meet with a reporter.
But a lawyer for Mr. Gulen, Orhan Erdemli, said in a statement released to the Turkish news media and shared by Mr. Gulen on Twitter that “the honorable Gulen has nothing to do with and has no information about the investigations or the public officials running them.”
Huseyin Gulerce, who is personally close to Mr. Gulen and is a writer for a Gulen-affiliated newspaper, said Mr. Gulen’s followers have many of the same complaints about Mr. Erdogan that the protesters had this summer. They believe that Mr. Erdogan has become too powerful, too authoritarian in his ways, and has abandoned his earlier platform of democratic overhauls and pursuit of membership in the European Union. “This is not a group that Mr. Erdogan is not familiar with,” Mr. Gulerce said. “He knows all of us personally, from the time he was mayor of Istanbul. He has known Mr. Gulen personally for 20 years.”
“It was the Mavi Marmara crisis that created the first cracks,” in their relationship, Mr. Gulerce said. “Mr. Gulen’s attitude was very clear, as he always suggested that Turkey should not be adventurous in its foreign policy and stay oriented to the West, and that it should resolve its foreign policy issues through dialogue.”
Now, he suggested, their estrangement may be beyond repair.
As Mr. Erdogan has tried to contain the fallout, he is blaming domestic conspirators and foreign meddlers, just as he did during last summer’s protests, which began over plans to raze Gezi Park in central Istanbul and convert it into a shopping mall.
“Such accusations are only absurd speculations,” said Ersin Kalaycioglu, a political science professor at Sabanci University in Istanbul. “In Gezi, he accused the Alevis, interest rate lobbies, opposition powers and international power groups for organizing the protests. And now, he’s trying to build the same links with this corruption investigation. What kind of twisted logic is that?”
Hours after a series of dawn raids unfolded at the offices of several businessmen on Tuesday, Mr. Erdogan appeared before a crowd in Konya, a conservative town in the country’s heartland where he draws many supporters. “Some people have guns and weapons, tricks and traps,” he said, “but we have our God and that is enough for us.”
The Gezi protests showed a prime minister deeply involved in local urban planning issues — not surprising to a Turkish public accustomed to hearing Mr. Erdogan tell them how many children to have or what to eat. Similarly, the corruption investigation has laid bare the concentrated nature of power in Turkey.
The inquiry, like the Gezi protests, touches on an issue with deep emotional resonance to the Turkish public, and one at the core of the financial constituency that has built Mr. Erdogan’s power: the dizzying construction in Istanbul and the well-known but rarely acknowledged ties between Mr. Erdogan’s Islamist-rooted Justice and Development Party and a new, pious economic elite, anchored in the construction industry, that rose to power alongside him over the last decade.
For residents of this city there are daily reminders, and nuisances, of the power of Mr. Erdogan and his allies in the construction industry: the traffic snarls, the rising cranes and the early-morning jackhammering.
In one section of the city’s historic peninsula, just near the old city walls that once protected the seat of an empire, townhouses sprouted in recent years, providing luxury residences for members of the governing elite and pushing out the Roma community. Nearby, old wooden houses that once housed Ottoman military officers are being refurbished, squatter homes are being demolished and migrants from the southeast are left wondering where they will go.
The mayor of the historic district, called Fatih, and several municipal workers were among those brought in for questioning this week in the corruption investigation, which reportedly involves allegations of taking bribes in exchange for ignoring zoning rules.
“It took Erdogan 10 years, but piece by piece he has taken this city into his hands,” said Mehmet Ali Guler, a garment seller in the district, “pushing us poor fellows out and opening up big luxury spaces to house his own class of rich men.”
A version of this article appears in print on December 20, 2013, on page A1 of the New York edition with the headline: Growing Corruption Inquiry Hits Close to Turkish Leader.
Commentary:
Agha Shaukat Jafri wrote:
CHICKENs ARE COMING HOME TO ROOST!
And this man Recep Tayyip Erdogan, himself an arrogant and autocratic Prime Minister of Turkey thought he was digging a hole for Bashar el Assad, the President of Syria, when almost three years ago, he became the first and foremost supporter of a violent uprising by the so-called Rebels in Syria. Of course Saudi Arabia, Qatar and a few other members of the Gulf states were equal partners in this bloody game and crimes against Humanity. They invited and then unleashed seasoned gangs of terrorist from Al-Qaida, Al-Nusra and Islamic state of Iraq into Syria that caused one mayhem after another. Now this war is out of control and make no mistake that a majority of over 120,000 lives and the countless treasure that have been lost during this conflict are the responsibility of these aforementioned perpetrators.
Agha Shaukat Jafri
Shamim Siddiqi wrote:
Dear Br. Agha Jafri, Salaam
But you forget altogether in the burst of your emotion the atrocities committed by Hafiz Assad and now his son Bashar over the Syrian Muslims. What is going on in Syria is the backlash of the Alavites who perpetuated a reign of terror in Syria through their Bathist Regime.
So please don't shed crocodile tears. Allah is the best Judge. The game " tit for tat" is on. Therefore, please wait and see the result . You cannot stop the flow of history. Allah does not like the Zalimeen
Shamim Siddiqi
Agha Shaukat Jafri wrote:
Wa Alaikum Assallam Shamim Siddiqi Saheb:
No one here is claiming to be the fan of Bashar al-Assad, his father Hafez al-Assad and for that matter a slew of tyrants such as the cruel and criminal Saudi kings and the Sultans of numerous Gulf states who have been masquerading around the Muslim lands for the past 35 years and perpetrating one act of genocide after another against the fellow Muslims. Afghanistan, pakistan, Iraq, Egypt, Libya, Yemen, and Lebanon are the stark examples of this bloodshed, and by now the entire universe has become aware of these well documented schemes of Satanic Saudis.
Turkey, somehow got sucked into this game of utter criminality with respect to its intervention in Syria, and it is paying a hefty price for that. Historically speaking, Syria has never interfered in the internal affairs of Turkey even though Turkey has slaughtered over 45000 of its Muslim Kurd citizens during the past decade. Nor did Egypt ever inflict any harm on Saudi Arabia, which recently, using its treasure, played a big role in decimating the democratically elected government of Egypt led by Akhwan ul Muslimeen. The recent military coup in Egypt was singlehandedly financed and engineered by Saudi Arabia that ousted President Mohammad Morsi and it resulted in thousands of deaths and destruction. Furthermore, the wicked Wahhabi regime of Saudi Arabia is doing its utmost best to poison the well that will facilitate a detente between the Islamic Republic of Iran and the West.
I fail to understand your analogy of "Tit-For-Tat" within the context of this discussion, nor do I comprehend your assertion of shedding crocodile tears. The Muslim world is shocked and saddened by this horrific tragedy so no one is sitting here and shedding the crocodile tears. It is that criminal Crocodile in Islam that is known as Saudi Arabia, which is tormenting and traumatizing the Muslims and Islam on a global scale. As a Muslim. we do indeed have a right to invoke the name of Allah (swt), and of course it is true according to our faith that Allah (swt) condemns the Zalim, and he is never with the Zalim. Nevertheless, the Almighty is the sole authority to judge as to who is Zalim and who is Mazloom. You, my brother in Iman, do not possess that divine knowledge to deliberate that in this tragedy, the Alavites of Syria can be singled out as the Zalims. Regards.
Agha Shaukat Jafri
http://www.nytimes.com/2013/12/20/world/europe/growing-corruption-inquiry-hits-close-to-turkish-leader.html
By TIM ARANGO, SEBNEM ARSU and CEYLAN YEGINSU
Published: December 19, 2013
Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdogan.
ISTANBUL — In building his political career, Turkey’s powerful and charismatic prime minister, Recep Tayyip Erdogan, relied heavily on the support of a Sufi mystic preacher whose base of operations is now in Pennsylvania.
The two combined forces in a battle with the country’s secular military elite, sending them back to the barracks in recent years and establishing Turkey as a successful example of a moderate, democratic Islamic government.
Fethullah Gulen, an influential Sufi preacher and former close ally of Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdogan - Ruth Fremson/The New York Times
Now a corruption scandal not only threatens Mr. Erdogan’s rule but has exposed a deepening rift between the prime minister and the followers of his erstwhile ally that is tearing the government apart.
On Thursday, after several days of sensational disclosures of corruption in Mr. Erdogan’s inner circle, Istanbul’s police chief was dismissed as the government carried out what officials indicated was a purge of police officers and officials conducting the corruption investigation — nearly three dozen so far, according to the semiofficial Anadolu news agency.
Following much the same strategy he employed as he battled thousands of mostly liberal and secular-minded antigovernment protesters this summer over a development project in a beloved Istanbul park, Mr. Erdogan is portraying himself as fighting a “criminal gang” with links abroad.
That is an apparent reference to Fethullah Gulen, the Pennsylvania imam who adheres to a mystical brand of Sufi Islam and whose followers are said to occupy important positions in Turkey’s national government, including the police and judiciary but also in education, the news media and business.
Mr. Erdogan weathered the summer of protest, emerging with the support of his base even as his image abroad was tarnished. But the corruption investigation, started by the Istanbul chief prosecutor, poses a challenge that analysts and some Western diplomats believe could be even greater. The inquiry has ensnared several businessmen close to him, including one major construction tycoon, the sons of ministers and other government workers involved in zoning and public construction projects.
Mr. Erdogan and Mr. Gulen have disagreed on a number of important issues in recent years, although the tensions were kept largely silent.
Mr. Gulen was said to have opposed the government’s activist foreign policy in the Middle East, especially its support of the rebels in Syria. He is also said to be more sympathetic to Israel, and tensions flared after the Mavi Marmara episode in 2010. That was when Israeli troops boarded a Turkish ship carrying aid for Gaza and killed eight Turks and one American of Turkish descent, leading eventually to a rupture in relations — since patched up — between Turkey and its onetime ally.
Mr. Gulen’s followers “never approved the role the government tried to attain in the Middle East, or approved of its policy in Syria, which made everything worse, or its attitude in the Mavi Marmara crisis with Israel,” said Ali Bulac, a conservative intellectual and writer who supports Mr. Gulen.
The escalating political crisis, experts say, underscores the power Mr. Gulen has accumulated within the Turkish state. That power threatens to divide Mr. Erdogan’s core constituency of religious conservatives ahead of a series of elections over the next 18 months.
Mr. Gulen left Turkey in 1999 after being accused by the then-secular government of plotting to establish an Islamic state. He has since been exonerated of that charge and is free to return to Turkey, but never has. He lives quietly in Pennsylvania, though his followers are involved in an array of businesses and organizations in the United States and abroad, and some of them helped start a collection of charter schools in Texas and other states. He rarely gives interviews, and a spokesman recently said he was too ill to meet with a reporter.
But a lawyer for Mr. Gulen, Orhan Erdemli, said in a statement released to the Turkish news media and shared by Mr. Gulen on Twitter that “the honorable Gulen has nothing to do with and has no information about the investigations or the public officials running them.”
Huseyin Gulerce, who is personally close to Mr. Gulen and is a writer for a Gulen-affiliated newspaper, said Mr. Gulen’s followers have many of the same complaints about Mr. Erdogan that the protesters had this summer. They believe that Mr. Erdogan has become too powerful, too authoritarian in his ways, and has abandoned his earlier platform of democratic overhauls and pursuit of membership in the European Union. “This is not a group that Mr. Erdogan is not familiar with,” Mr. Gulerce said. “He knows all of us personally, from the time he was mayor of Istanbul. He has known Mr. Gulen personally for 20 years.”
“It was the Mavi Marmara crisis that created the first cracks,” in their relationship, Mr. Gulerce said. “Mr. Gulen’s attitude was very clear, as he always suggested that Turkey should not be adventurous in its foreign policy and stay oriented to the West, and that it should resolve its foreign policy issues through dialogue.”
Istanbul’s police chief after his dismissal on Thursday. - European Pressphoto Agency
Now, he suggested, their estrangement may be beyond repair.
As Mr. Erdogan has tried to contain the fallout, he is blaming domestic conspirators and foreign meddlers, just as he did during last summer’s protests, which began over plans to raze Gezi Park in central Istanbul and convert it into a shopping mall.
“Such accusations are only absurd speculations,” said Ersin Kalaycioglu, a political science professor at Sabanci University in Istanbul. “In Gezi, he accused the Alevis, interest rate lobbies, opposition powers and international power groups for organizing the protests. And now, he’s trying to build the same links with this corruption investigation. What kind of twisted logic is that?”
Hours after a series of dawn raids unfolded at the offices of several businessmen on Tuesday, Mr. Erdogan appeared before a crowd in Konya, a conservative town in the country’s heartland where he draws many supporters. “Some people have guns and weapons, tricks and traps,” he said, “but we have our God and that is enough for us.”
The Gezi protests showed a prime minister deeply involved in local urban planning issues — not surprising to a Turkish public accustomed to hearing Mr. Erdogan tell them how many children to have or what to eat. Similarly, the corruption investigation has laid bare the concentrated nature of power in Turkey.
The inquiry, like the Gezi protests, touches on an issue with deep emotional resonance to the Turkish public, and one at the core of the financial constituency that has built Mr. Erdogan’s power: the dizzying construction in Istanbul and the well-known but rarely acknowledged ties between Mr. Erdogan’s Islamist-rooted Justice and Development Party and a new, pious economic elite, anchored in the construction industry, that rose to power alongside him over the last decade.
For residents of this city there are daily reminders, and nuisances, of the power of Mr. Erdogan and his allies in the construction industry: the traffic snarls, the rising cranes and the early-morning jackhammering.
In one section of the city’s historic peninsula, just near the old city walls that once protected the seat of an empire, townhouses sprouted in recent years, providing luxury residences for members of the governing elite and pushing out the Roma community. Nearby, old wooden houses that once housed Ottoman military officers are being refurbished, squatter homes are being demolished and migrants from the southeast are left wondering where they will go.
The mayor of the historic district, called Fatih, and several municipal workers were among those brought in for questioning this week in the corruption investigation, which reportedly involves allegations of taking bribes in exchange for ignoring zoning rules.
“It took Erdogan 10 years, but piece by piece he has taken this city into his hands,” said Mehmet Ali Guler, a garment seller in the district, “pushing us poor fellows out and opening up big luxury spaces to house his own class of rich men.”
A version of this article appears in print on December 20, 2013, on page A1 of the New York edition with the headline: Growing Corruption Inquiry Hits Close to Turkish Leader.
Commentary:
Agha Shaukat Jafri wrote:
CHICKENs ARE COMING HOME TO ROOST!
And this man Recep Tayyip Erdogan, himself an arrogant and autocratic Prime Minister of Turkey thought he was digging a hole for Bashar el Assad, the President of Syria, when almost three years ago, he became the first and foremost supporter of a violent uprising by the so-called Rebels in Syria. Of course Saudi Arabia, Qatar and a few other members of the Gulf states were equal partners in this bloody game and crimes against Humanity. They invited and then unleashed seasoned gangs of terrorist from Al-Qaida, Al-Nusra and Islamic state of Iraq into Syria that caused one mayhem after another. Now this war is out of control and make no mistake that a majority of over 120,000 lives and the countless treasure that have been lost during this conflict are the responsibility of these aforementioned perpetrators.
Agha Shaukat Jafri
Shamim Siddiqi wrote:
Dear Br. Agha Jafri, Salaam
But you forget altogether in the burst of your emotion the atrocities committed by Hafiz Assad and now his son Bashar over the Syrian Muslims. What is going on in Syria is the backlash of the Alavites who perpetuated a reign of terror in Syria through their Bathist Regime.
So please don't shed crocodile tears. Allah is the best Judge. The game " tit for tat" is on. Therefore, please wait and see the result . You cannot stop the flow of history. Allah does not like the Zalimeen
Shamim Siddiqi
Agha Shaukat Jafri wrote:
Wa Alaikum Assallam Shamim Siddiqi Saheb:
No one here is claiming to be the fan of Bashar al-Assad, his father Hafez al-Assad and for that matter a slew of tyrants such as the cruel and criminal Saudi kings and the Sultans of numerous Gulf states who have been masquerading around the Muslim lands for the past 35 years and perpetrating one act of genocide after another against the fellow Muslims. Afghanistan, pakistan, Iraq, Egypt, Libya, Yemen, and Lebanon are the stark examples of this bloodshed, and by now the entire universe has become aware of these well documented schemes of Satanic Saudis.
Turkey, somehow got sucked into this game of utter criminality with respect to its intervention in Syria, and it is paying a hefty price for that. Historically speaking, Syria has never interfered in the internal affairs of Turkey even though Turkey has slaughtered over 45000 of its Muslim Kurd citizens during the past decade. Nor did Egypt ever inflict any harm on Saudi Arabia, which recently, using its treasure, played a big role in decimating the democratically elected government of Egypt led by Akhwan ul Muslimeen. The recent military coup in Egypt was singlehandedly financed and engineered by Saudi Arabia that ousted President Mohammad Morsi and it resulted in thousands of deaths and destruction. Furthermore, the wicked Wahhabi regime of Saudi Arabia is doing its utmost best to poison the well that will facilitate a detente between the Islamic Republic of Iran and the West.
I fail to understand your analogy of "Tit-For-Tat" within the context of this discussion, nor do I comprehend your assertion of shedding crocodile tears. The Muslim world is shocked and saddened by this horrific tragedy so no one is sitting here and shedding the crocodile tears. It is that criminal Crocodile in Islam that is known as Saudi Arabia, which is tormenting and traumatizing the Muslims and Islam on a global scale. As a Muslim. we do indeed have a right to invoke the name of Allah (swt), and of course it is true according to our faith that Allah (swt) condemns the Zalim, and he is never with the Zalim. Nevertheless, the Almighty is the sole authority to judge as to who is Zalim and who is Mazloom. You, my brother in Iman, do not possess that divine knowledge to deliberate that in this tragedy, the Alavites of Syria can be singled out as the Zalims. Regards.
Agha Shaukat Jafri
Shias Target Killing in Pakistan in 2013
Dead Bodies During Protest of 90 Shaheed
Mass Grave after 90 killed in blast in Quetta this year.
100 Shia killed in Quetta, 2013
Kids mourning on the dead bodies of their loved ones in Quetta!
Zahareen of Imam Raza (as) removed from bus killed, Quetta(2012).
Kids & families mourning over the dead bodies of their loved ones in Quetta!
بِسْمِ اللَّهِ الرَّحْمَٰنِ الرَّحِيمِ
السلام عليكم
We share with you some information about the non-stop tragedies happening in Pakistan with Shia community, as we are observing the "Arbaeen of Imam Hussain (as)" so please keep these innocent martyrs in your prayers. The pictures shown above are from Quetta where Shia Hazara genocide has been going on for many years.
http://www.aljazeera.com/indepth/features/2013/01/2013117124512947691.html
It is very sad that in these past two months great scholars, poets & momneen such as Dr Sibte Jaffar, Allama Nasir Abbas and Moulana Deedar Hussain were killed by Deobandi Takfiri forces. Hardly a single week during this year has gone by when shias were not targeted, maimed and killed by these cannibals who claim to be Muslims. Please view the detail in the website given below. These "Zalameen" (Takfiris) are the same who are doing the horrible and inhuman crimes in Iraq, Syria and Bahrain against innocent people, be them Shias, Christians or Hindus.
A few days ago a Shia Muslim was killed, he was beheaded and his head was hanged on a bridge in Karachi on Dec 1, 2013; open the following link to see it.....
http://en.shiapost.com/2013/12/01/converted-shia-muslims-beheaded-head-found-hanging-from-bridge-in-karachi/
Big Tragedies in 2013:
Jan 10, 2013- 91 shia killed, more than 200 injured in Quetta
http://www.presstv.com/detail/2013/01/14/283463/pakistani-shias-to-bury-quetta-victims/
Feb 01, 2013- 24 shia killed, 40 injured in Hangu
http://www.dawn.com/news/782910/blast-in-hangu-kills-at-least-twelve
Feb 19, 2013- 100 shias killed, more than 200 injured in Quetta
http://ireport.cnn.com/docs/DOC-928299
Mar 03, 2013- 45 killed, 135 injured in Abbas Town Karachi (shia town)
http://www.nytimes.com/2013/03/04/world/asia/bombing-in-shiite-district-of-karachi.html
June 30, 2013- 40 Shias Killed in Hazara Town, Quetta
http://en.shiapost.com/2013/06/30/suicide-blast-kills-25-shias-in-quettas-hazara-town/
Jul 27, 2013- 60 killed, 122 injured in Parachinar
http://www.theguardian.com/world/video/2013/jul/27/pakistan-dead-bomb-shia-market-video
Please review the following site for detail of tragic incident in 2013: [There may be more that could not be captured]
http://www.shaheedfoundation.org
Also, being shared with you is some thought provoking information that focuses towards our responsibility during this time of crisis and Karbala of our time. We appeal for a total support for our leadership of Ulema who are at the front line at every incident as this leadership is engaged in helping Orphans & Shohada families. The most important thing needed in Pakistan is Unity among Muslims.
More than 50 innocent shias were arrested after Takfiris attacked the peaceful procession of 10th Muharram in Rawapaindi, Pakistan this year; about 7 shia mosque/Imambargahs were burnt on this night. Shia organizations are spending huge amount of legal fees for the release of innocent people. The amount needed to rebuild burnt Mosque/Imambargahs is also huge. There are a lot needs in Pakistan that needs our attention and help; A few organizations are making efforts to address the issues.
All the Deobandi, Takfiri, and pro-Taliban forces are united against Shia Muslims so it's time for us to show unity by foregoing minor differences and work for the cause of Imam e Zamana (as) and try to understand the global conspiracies against shias. Please pray for the protection of Shia Muslims as well as the people of other faiths, who are being so ruthlessly being victimized by this genocidal dogs .
Hazara Genocide 2001-2013 Documentary
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kCyM2aTLRWo
Gunmen of Punjabi Lashkar e Jhangvi Kill 26 Shia's In Quetta, Pakistan
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TE6_WPnTYTE
Shia Killings in Baluchistan - 4 (Dawn News KAB TAK - Ep 133)
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8xeSmdJMOwY
Regards,
Hasnain Gardezi
Detroit, MI
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