Informed Comment

Top Ten things Bush won’t Tell you About the State of the Nation

1. US economic growth during the last quarter was an anemic 1.1%, the worst in 3 years.

2. The US inflation rate has jumped to 3.4 percent, the highest rate in 5 years.

3. The number of daily attacks in Iraq rose from 52 in December, 2004 to 77 in December, 2005.

4. A third of US veterans who served in Iraq and Afghanistan, some 40,000 persons, exhibit at least some signs of mental health disorders. Some 14,000 were treated for drug dependencies, and 11,000 for depression.

5. Increases in American consumer spending come from borrowing.

6. The $320 – $400 bilion deficits run by the Bush administration may push up the cost of mortgages and loans.

7. 58% of Americans think Bush is painting Iraq as rosier than it is. A majority thinks we should never have invaded the country.

8. The US military is at a breaking point.

9. In fact, The US and Iran are tacit allies in Iraq.

10. Mor e money would be needed to finish the US reconstruction projects begun in Iraq.

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Bombings of Churches
Bush and Blair Plotted to Ignore Security Council

Who woulda thunk it? Bush and Blair plotted to go to war against Iraq even if the UN Security Council declined to authorize it. The Scotsman summarizes findings of Phillipe Sands: “Prof Sands’ book, entitled Lawless World, claims that president Bush had earlier displayed open contempt for the UN during the summit, made wild threats against Iraq dictator Saddam Hussein and displayed astounding ignorance of the likely post-war problems.” Now Bush will come out on television Tuesday night and lie about the situation in Iraq to his gullible followers.

Guerrillas set off car bombs outside churches in Baghdad and Kirkuk on Sunday, and also targeted a Vatican office. The 8 bombs killed 3 and wounded 17. Many of Iraq’s originally 750,000 Christians have already fled, mainly to Syria or Detroit, and some observers fear the community will dwindle to virtually nothing if these attacks continue. Although Iraq’s Christians are among the oldest such communities in the world, and are indigenous, radical Muslim guerrillas often code them as “foreign” or allied to the largely Christian American occupiers. There was also other guerrilla violence in Iraq on Sunday, which left altogether at least 25 dead.

Some 1500 Shiites demonstrated in the southern port city of Basra (pop. 1.3 mn.) against the British authorities. They were upset about British arrests of policemen that London believes were connected to puritan militias that sometimes acted as death squads. The elected governor of Basra province last Friday threatened to cease cooperating with the British over the arrests.

Al-Zaman reports that [Ar.] Kurdish leader Massoud Barzani and Shiite leader Abdul Aziz al-Hakim began their deliberations, in a meeting characterized by much formal protocol, on Sunday evening. The negotiations, to be continued on Monday, are expected to take weeks to conclude.

Hadi al-Amiri, secretary general of the paramilitary [Shiite fundamentalist] Badr Corps, announced that “The United Iraqi Alliance considers [its possession of] the ministry of the interior a red line that cannot be crossed.” [The Iraqi Interior is like the US FBI.] He told al-Zaman that the UIA “Gives the utmost importance to security in Iraq. Prominent personalities in the UIA had been victims during the extinct regime of the former security apparatus. For this reason, we cannot consider stepping down from the ministry of the interior.”

Amiri revealed that he had been visited by Sunni Arab secular leader Salih al-Mutlak in connection with discussions on forming the new government, but said that he did not know if al-Mutlak had asked the UIA to join them in a national unity government.

Young Shiite nationalist cleric Muqtada al-Sadr’s bloc in parliament will give him increased clout in the new government, the CSM points out. Amatzia Baram points out that he will push for puritanism and anti-Americanism, and will also reach out to fundamentalist Sunni Arabs.

Iraq’s oil ministry is again leaderless and in turmoil, at a time when the industry can afford neither. Despite engineering feats accomplished by American teams, the Iraqi petroleum industry is a mess.

Number of US military personnel just forced to serve extended duty: 50,000.

Number by which junior enlisted soldiers have declined in the US military since 2001: 19,000.

New cap on interest rate on government student loans, which Republicans are raising in order to pay for the Iraq War and Hurricane Katrina: 6.9%.

The US military’s practice of taking suspected guerrilla leaders’ wives hostage will backfire, according to expert observers.

The complexities of Iraq are underlined by the increasingly flourishing condition of the holy Shiite city of Najaf south of Baghdad, which is fairly secure and peaceful. Its pharmacies have medicines, it has 20 hours of electricity a day, and US troops withdrew last September to a base well away from the city, reducing the chance of provocations. Plans are going forward for an airport. Some 3 million pilgrims a year are already coming, mostly from Iran but also from Lebanon, Kuwait, Pakistan and elsewhere, to visit the shrine of Imam Ali. The combination of resources from Iran and from the wealthy merchants and shopkeepers of the city, the calming influence of Grand Ayatollah Sistani, who resides there, the loyalty of the tribal levies to Sistani, the induction of members of the Badr Corps paramilitary into the provincial police and government military, and the defeat of the radical Mahdi Army of Muqtada al-Sadr in August 2004 by the joint efforts of Sistani, the other grand ayatollahs and the US Marines, have all contributed to this current flourishing situation. Ironically, Najaf’s success is a rebuke to Paul Bremer, who once cancelled an election there because he feared Iranian influence in the city. In the end, Iran wins this one.

AP explains the long relationship between the Iraqi Shiites and their Iranian co-religionists.

Here’s hoping Bob Woodruff and Doug Vogt pull through. We talk about people getting blown up every day in Iraq, but when it is someone you feel you know and admire through television, it is personal.

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Beeman Guest Editorial: US to Blame for Iranian Nuclear Program

United States Instigated Iran’s Nuclear Program 30 Years Ago

William O. Beeman
Brown University

‘ The White House staffers, who are trying to deny Iran the right to develop its own nuclear energy capacity have conveniently forgotten that the United States was the midwife to the Iranian nuclear program 30 years ago. Every aspect of Iran’s current nuclear development was approved and encouraged by Washington in the 1970s. President Gerald Ford offered Iran a full nuclear cycle in 1976, and the only reactor currently about to become operative, the reactor in Bushire, was started before the Iranian revolution with U.S. approval.

Kenneth Timmerman, in Countdown to Crisis: The Coming Nuclear Showdown with Iran presents a misleading description of this plant, claiming again and again that the facility might be used to produce nuclear fuel.

As the late Tom Stauffer and I wrote in June, 2003, the Bushire (Bushehr) reactor–a “light water” reactor–does not produce weapons grade Plutonium. It produces Pu 240, Pu241 and Pu242. Although these isotopes could theoretically be weaponized, the process is extremely long and complicated, and also untried. To date no nuclear weapon has ever been produced with plutonium produced with the kind of reactor at Bushire. Moreover, the plant would have to be completely shut down to extract the fuel rods, making the process immediately open to detection and inspection. (The plant IS shut down to change the fuel rods, but only every 30-40 months to provide longer and better energy generation)

By contract, the Dimona reactor in Israel–a “heavy water” reactor–is an example of a reactor that is ideal for producing weapons fuel. It produces Pu239 and the fuel rods can be extracted “on the fly.” without any need to shut down the plant or alter its operation. The fuel rods are exchanged every few weeks.

The full original article with much more detailed analysis and reader commentary can be found at this URL.

It is paired with a companion piece explaining why nuclear power makes perfect sense for the Iranian economic situation. This article can be found here.

A number of former officials have questioned the proposition that the United States fostered Iran’s nuclear development. Certainly it is inconvenient for their present course of action to have to admit that an American hand was present in the gestation of the program.

Professor Ahmad Sadri, Chair of the Department of Sociology and Anthropology at Lake Forest College in Illinois was a young man in Iran when the United States was touting nuclear power facilities to the government of the Shah. He reminisces:

The image that came to me was the late sixties’ lavish exhibit of the United States in Tehran’s annual International Exhibit that was fashioned as a nuclear reactor complete with a white dome. Easily the most popular exhibit in the entire international gala, the American exhibit sported by far the longest snaking lines of eager visitors. It was dedicated to the single theme of extolling the virtues of atomic energy and the feasibility of its transfer to Iran. White clad attendants offered inspiring tours to small flocks of the overawed visitors and encouraged them to emulate atomic researchers by lifting small cubes and pyramids laying behind thick Plexiglas walls with the use of mechanical hands. That image found its companion a few days ago as I soaked in the hot tub of my local gym in one of the northern burbs of Chicago with a gentleman that turned out to be Octave J. Du Temple, executive director emeritus of the American Nuclear Society. He fondly reminisced about half a dozen trips in early seventies to Tehran and Shiraz in order to participate in conferences and summits on “transfer of nuclear technology.” For whatever it’s worth, this native’s account is
awash in images that confirm a fair amount of enthusiasm on behalf of the United States for Iran’s nuclear program in the 1970′s.

Washington International Lawyer Donald Weadon points out that after 1972, and the oil crisis, the United States was rabidly pursuing investment opportunities in Iran, including selling nuclear power plants. He writes:

‘ . . . utilizing the good offices of the Hoover Institution and the
self-interest of Bechtel and other U.S. A&E contractors who found
significant profit in Nuclear Power Plants at home and overseas (e.g, Taiwan), the Iranians were wooed hard with the prospect of nuclear power from trusted, U.S.-backed suppliers, with the prospect of the reservation of significant revenues from oil exports for foreign and domestic investment (this was not solely and Iranian pipe dream, as the Kuwaitis had targeted by 1980 to be obtaining half of their GNP from investment income, not sales of wasting assets like oil). Obviously, the principal benefit from the U.S. perspective was the significant absorption of petrodollars, NOT Iran’s fiscal and national best interest. ‘

Despite current White House denials of U.S. instigation of the program, there is absolutely no question that the United States did not oppose Iran’s nuclear development in the 1970′s–even to the point of facilitating training for Iran’s senior engineers at MIT, CalTech and other U.S. institutions. Nor is it in question that the Bushire plant was started before the revolution with the United States’ blessing.

American dissimulation on this point reveals some interesting motives on Washington’s part. Iran under the Shah was as much of a threat to its neighbors (including Iraq) as it might be said to be today. Its nuclear ambitions then could have been inflated and denigrated in exactly the same way they are being inflated and denigrated today, but the U.S. was blissfully unconcerned. The big, big difference is that Iran is now perceived to be a threat to Israel, and that is why we see retired military as consultants to the news media bandying about plans to bomb multiple sites over an area the size of California, Arizona and Nevada (Good luck!) .

Even those who admit that the United States helped start Iran’s current nuclear development claim that two factors make a difference in how Iran should be treated today as opposed to the 1970′s: Iran’s concealment of nuclear energy development activities in the past and President Ahmadinejad’s remarks on Israel.

What White House officials never tell the American public is that President Ahmadinejad’s remarks have little or no connection with any probable action on Iran’s part regarding Israel (or “the Zionist regime” to be strictly accurate regarding his reference). President Ahmadinejad has no effective power in this area, and his remarks aren’t even embraced by Iran’s clerical leaders. His remarks are widely understood as a clumsy attempt to pander to his own right-wing base in an attempt to shore up his faltering power within the Iranian government.

However, the second proposition is equally specious. It is fruitful to examine the now conventional wisdom that Iran had “regularly hidden information about its nuclear program” etc. as if this in and of itself was proof of a nuclear weapons program. Of course, it is not, although many breathlessly cite it as the principal smoking gun.

First of all, much of what the United States has called “concealment” was never concealed at all when the reports of the United Nations inspection team are examined. Many of the charges about removing topsoil and bulldozing material at some of the research sites never took place. However, even if one concedes that Iran did conceal some processes, whatever concealment of whatever activity started 18-20 years ago when the Revolution was still young and Ayatollah Khomeini was still alive.

There was, of course, a different Iranian administration than is in power today, or that was in power when the nuclear question became an issue. If George W. Bush were to be held responsible for things that happened 18 years ago, or even 8 years ago, there would be howling in the Capitol. The myth of a monolithic unchanging government in Iran is indeed very powerful, overwhelming all common sense and reason.

Second, whatever Iran did or didn’t do in the past, they are in compliance with the NNPT at present. Indeed, there would be no way to accuse them of anything if they were not so compliant.

Third, it is essential to emphasize that there are many countries who have concealed their nuclear activities (Israel, India, Pakistan, Brazil, North Korea), and some who still do–it is an open secret. Mohammad Elbaradei gave a half-dozen plausible reasons why Iran might have felt it prudent to conceal its activities (the U.S. embargo, the ran-Iraq war, the U.S. actions in Gulf War I and II right next door, the U.S. invasion of Afghanistan, India and Pakistan’s possession of nuclear weapons-again right next door, the hidden weapons program in Israel, etc. etc. ). This didn’t excuse the concealment, but neither is it proof that Iran has a weapons’ program at present. In fact, no one has shown that such a weapons program exists.

The mantra “Iran must not get nuclear weapons” has been repeated so often now that most people have come to believe that Iran has them or is getting them. Has anyone stopped to think that this only became an issue when the neoconservative agenda to “remake” the Middle East–including Iran-became actualized? The Iran nuclear crisis is truly a manufactured crisis, based on the flimsiest of evidence and reasoning. I can only hope that soberer minds rethink this position.

The tragedy would be that in the end, the U.S. may goad Iran in to a real nuclear weapons program. The Iranians may reason that since they are being punished for the crime anyway, they might as well commit it. ‘

William O. Beeman
Brown University

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Over 30 Killed in Guerrilla Violence
Sadrists Demand any Prime Minister Call for US Troop Withdrawal

AP reports on the ambitions of the Shiite religious parties to retain control of the Ministry of the Interior security forces (analogous to the US FBI and Secret Service.) AP also reports that some 22 died in Iraq as a result of guerrilla violence, including the macabre bombing of a candy store in a Shiite area of Iskandariyah that killed 11 and wounded 5. The only problem is that an earlier report from Reuters detailed 21 deaths even before the candy store bombing. That would take it to over 30 dead, at least.

A third of US veterans who served in Iraq and Afghanistan, some 40,000 persons, exhibit at least some signs of mental health disorders. Some 14,000 were treated for drug dependencies, and 11,000 for depression. Societies that think that aggressive war is some macho game and that the price is well worth it just have a lot of homeless and limbless people after a while.

The LA Times reports cautiously on the stories of conflicts among Sunni Arab guerrilla groups, especially between Iraqis and foreigners. The article notes that guerrilla attacks are averaging 75 a day, as opposed to 52 a day last year this time, so whatever is going on is not impeding the guerrillas’ ability and motivation to strike. In fact, I suspect that to the extent there is fighting among Sunni guerrillas, it is for control of the guerrilla movement, i.e. for the right to decide which targets are hit. It isn’t a matter of not wanting to hit targets.

The deteriorating security situation in Iraq is driving the country’s physicians, lawyers and businessmen out of the country. There’s a metric for Mr. Rumsfeld– when the white collar professionals flee, it isn’t a good situation.

Michael Slackman reports for the NYT from Iran that Iran’s clerical leaders are cocky about the way the US is bogged down in the Iraq quagmire. Far from moderating the Iranians, the US predicament in Iraq has made them confident it is helpless against them and that they may proceed with their nuclear energy program despite US objections.

Krishna Guha reports from Davos for the FT, with the following points on Iraq:

1. Deputy Sec. of State Robert Zoellick wants the Gulf states to play a positive role in Iraq. (Yes, those experienced democrats can teach the Iraqis a lot about avoiding authoritarianism– I except Kuwait from the sarcasm.)

2. Amr Moussa of the Arab League is still hoping to have the Baghdad Conference, a successor to the Cairo Conference, in February or March.

3. Barham Salih says that the Kurds will insist on a government of national unity that includes a major Sunni and a secular party.

4. Salih also says that the US must not use Iraq as a springboard to attack Iran.

5. Humam Hammoudi of the Supreme Council for Islamic Revolution in Iraq, who chaired the committee that wrote the constitution, agreed that the Sunni Arabs must be included in the government.

The Supreme Council for Islamic Revolution in Iraq (SCIRI) is still pushing for Adil Abdul Mahdi to be prime minister. The issue will be decided by an internal vote of the United Iraqi Alliance.

Al-Sharq al-Awsat [The Middle East] reports [Ar.] that Abbas al-Ruba’i, a Baghdad representative of young Shiite nationalist cleric Muqtada al-Sadr, says that the Sadrist bloc has forwarded its platform to the major internal candidates for prime minister in the United Iraqi Alliance. He said that the Sadrists will swing their support to the candidate who most fully commits to implement their platform.

Two planks of the Sadrist platform are the withdrawal of foreign troops from the country and opposition to loose federalism and provincial confederations that might break up the country. The Sadrists also want more attention to providing Iraqis with services and security. It will be interesting to see if any of the major candidates for PM signs on to these first two principles in order to win the Sadrist vote. Al-Ruba’i said that so far the candidate who is closes to Sadrist principles is Ibrahim Jaafari of the Dawa Party, the current PM.

The same article says that behind the scenes, UIA candidates for prime minister have been seeking the support of Allawi and his National Iraqi list. [Cole: I can't see what sense this makes except if they are using the Iraqiyah Party as a channel to the Americans. Otherwise, the prime minister will be chosen inside the UIA by an up and down vote of party parliamentarians, and I should think that being in contact with Allawi would actually hurt a candidate with the other UIA representatives, who code him as a dusted off Baathist and CIA agent. The Sadrists have said they won't permit Allawi to have a government post.]

Al-Hayat reports [Ar.] that Bayan Jabr, the minister of the interior in the outgoing Iraqi government and a member of SCIRI is saying that the United Iraqi Alliance (Shiite fundamentalists) will seek 19 of the expected 36 cabinet posts, just over half.

Al-Hayat has more on the alliance of the Iraqi Accord Front, the national Dialogue Council, and Allawi’s Iraqi National list, which together will have a bloc of 80 members in parliament.

The problem is that 80 members gets you nothing. It isn’t a third, and so cannot block anything. And if enough Kurds vote with the Shiites on things like loose federalism, the 80 can just be outvoted every time.

Moreover, the likelihood is that the Sunni/secular alliance will split on issues of Islamic law, with the Iraqi Accord Front voting with the Shiite religious parties for shariah or Islamic law. The United Iraqi Alliance could count on its own 128, then 2 from the Message Party (Sadrists), plus 5 from the Kurdish Islamists, plus 44 from the Sunni IAF for any Islamist law or policy, i.e. 179. Since laws are passed by simple majority, the result is a strong Islamist majority in the new parliament for any measure that is not specifically Sunni or Shiite (there are few of those in Islamic law.)

The only thing that the Sunni/secular bloc can agree on is opposition to loose federalism, and on that they could gain some allies from the United Iraqi Alliance, whose Sadrists and Dawa Party members are nervous about it. But can they gain the 58 Shiite defectors necessary to legislate anything on the issue?

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Achcar on Hamas: Guest Editorial

‘First Reflections On The Electoral Victory Of Hamas

by Gilbert Achcar; January 27, 2006

1. The sweeping electoral victory of Hamas is but one of the products of the intensive use made by the United States in the Muslim world, since the 1950′s, of Islamic fundamentalism as an ideological weapon against both progressive nationalism and communism. This was done in close collaboration with the Saudi kingdom — a de facto U.S. protectorate almost from its foundation in 1932. The promotion of the most reactionary interpretation of the Islamic religion, exploiting deeply-rooted popular religious beliefs, led to this ideology filling the vacuum left by the exhaustion by the 1970′s of the two ideological currents it served to fight. The road was thus paved in the entire Muslim world for the transformation of Islamic fundamentalism into the dominant expression of mass national and social resentment, to the great dismay of the U.S. and its Saudi protectorate. The story of Washington’s relation with Islamic fundamentalism is the most striking modern illustration of the sorcerer’s apprenticeship. (I have described this at length in my Clash of Barbarisms.)

2. The Palestinian scene was no exception to this general regional pattern, albeit it followed suit with a time warp. Although the Palestinian guerilla movement came to the fore initially as a result of the exhaustion of more traditional Arab nationalism and as an expression of radicalization, the movement underwent a very rapid bureaucratization, fostered by an impressive influx of petrodollars and reaching levels of corruption that have no equivalent in the history of national liberation movements. Still, as long as it remained — in the guise of the PLO — what could be described as a “stateless state apparatus seeking a territory” (see my Eastern Cauldron), the Palestinian national movement could still embody the aspirations of the vast majority of the Palestinian masses, despite the numerous twists, turns, and betrayals of commitments with which its history is littered. However, when a new generation of Palestinians took up the struggle in the late 1980′s, with the Intifada that started in December 1987, their radicalization began in turn to take increasingly the path of Islamic fundamentalism. This was facilitated by the fact that the Palestinian left, the leading force within the Intifada in the first months, squandered this last historic opportunity by eventually aligning itself one more time behind the PLO leadership, thus completing its own bankruptcy. On a smaller scale, Israel had played its own version of the sorcerer’s apprentice by favoring the Islamic fundamentalist movement as a rival to the PLO prior to the Intifada.

3. The 1993 Oslo agreement inaugurated the final phase of the PLO’s degeneration, as its leadership — or rather the leading nucleus of this leadership, bypassing the official leading bodies — was granted guardianship over the Palestinian population of the West Bank and the Gaza Strip. This came in exchange for what amounted to a capitulation: the PLO leadership abandoned the minimal conditions that were demanded by the Palestinian negotiators from the 1967 occupied territories, above all an Israeli pledge to freeze and reverse the construction of settlements which were colonizing their land. The very conditions of this capitulation — which doomed the Oslo agreements to tragic failure as critics very rightly predicted from the start — made certain that the shift in the popular political mood would speed up. The Zionist state took advantage of the lull brought to the 1967 territories by the Palestinian Authority’s fulfillment of the role of police force by proxy ascribed to it, by drastically intensifying the colonization and building an infrastructure designed to facilitate its military control over these territories. Accordingly, the discredit of the PA increased inexorably. This loss in public support hampered more and more its ability to crack down on the Palestinian Islamic fundamentalist movement — as was required from it and as it began attempting as early as 1994 — let alone its ability to marginalize the Islamic movement politically and ideologically. Moreover, the transfer of the PLO bureaucracy from exile into the 1967 territories, as a ruling apparatus entrusted with the task of surveillance over the population that waged the Intifada, quickly led to its corruption reaching abysmal levels — something that the population of the territories hadn’t seen first-hand before. At the same time, Hamas, like most sections of the Islamic fundamentalist mass movement — in contrast with “substitutionist” strictly terrorist organizations of which al-Qaeda has become the most spectacular example — was keen on paying attention to popular basic needs, organizing social services, and cultivating a reputation of austerity and incorruptibility.

4. The irresistible rise of Ariel Sharon to the helm of the Israeli state resulted from his September 2000 provocation that ignited the “Second Intifada” — an uprising that because of its militarization lacked the most positive features of the popular dynamics of the first Intifada. A PA that, by its very nature, could definitely not rely on mass self-organization and chose the only way of struggle it was familiar with, fostered this militarization. Sharon’s rise was also a product of the dead-end reached by the Oslo process: the clash between the Zionist interpretation of the Oslo frame — an updated version of the 1967 “Alon Plan” by which Israel would relinquish the populated areas of the 1967 occupied territories to an Arab administration, while keeping colonized and militarized strategic chunks — and the PA’s minimal requirements of recovering all, or nearly all the territories occupied in 1967, without which it knew it would lose its remaining clout with the Palestinian population. The electoral victory of war criminal Ariel Sharon in February 2001 — an event as much “shocking” as the electoral victory of Hamas, at the very least — inevitably reinforced the Islamic fundamentalist movement, his counterpart in terms of radicalization of stance against the backdrop of a still-born historic compromise. All of this was greatly propelled, of course, by the (very resistible, but unresisted) accession to power of George W. Bush, and the unleashing of his wildest imperial ambitions thanks to the attacks on September 11, 2001.

5. Ariel Sharon played skillfully on the dialectics between himself and his Palestinian true opposite number, Hamas. His calculation was simple: in order to be able to carry through unilaterally his own hard-line version of the Zionist interpretation of a “settlement” with the Palestinians, he needed two conditions: a) to minimize international pressure upon him — or rather U.S. pressure, the only one that really matters to Israel; and b) to demonstrate that there is no Palestinian leadership with which Israel could “do business.” For this, he needed to emphasize the weakness and unreliability of the PA by fanning the expansion of the Islamic fundamentalist movement, knowing that the latter was anathema to the Western states. Thus every time there was some kind of truce, negotiated by the PA with the Islamic organizations, Sharon’s government would resort to an “extrajudicial execution” — in plain language, an assassination — in order to provoke these organizations into retaliation by the means they specialized in: suicide attacks, their “F-16s” as they say. This had the double advantage of stressing the PA inability to control the Palestinian population, and enhancing Sharon’s own popularity in Israel. The truth of the matter is that the electoral victory of Hamas is the outcome that Sharon’s strategy was very obviously seeking, as many astute observers did not fail to point out.

6. As long as Yasir Arafat was alive, he could still use the remnant of his own historical prestige. Contrary to what many commentators have said, the seclusion of Arafat in his last months by Sharon did not “discredit” the Palestinian leader: as a matter of fact, Arafat’s popularity was at an all-time low before his seclusion, and regained in strength after it started. Actually, Arafat’s leadership has always been directly nurtured by his demonization by Israel and his popularity rose again when he became Sharon’s prisoner. This is why the U.S. and Israel’s nominee for Palestinian leadership, Mahmud Abbas, was not able to really take over as long as Arafat was alive. This is also why both the Bush administration and Sharon would not let the Palestinians organize the new elections that Arafat kept demanding as his representativeness was challenged very hypocritically in the name of “democratic reform.” The very nature of the “democrats” supported by Washington and Israel under this heading is best epitomized by Muhammad Dahlan, the most corrupt chief of one of the rival repressive “security” apparatuses that Arafat kept under his control on a pattern familiar to autocratic Arab regimes.

7. The electoral victory of Hamas is a resounding slap in the face of the Bush administration. As the latest illustration of the sorcerer’s apprenticeship that U.S. policy in the Middle East has so spectacularly displayed, it is the final nail in the coffin of its neocon-inspired, demagogic and deceitful rhetoric about bringing “democracy” to the “Greater Middle East.” It is, of course, too early to make any safe prediction at this point regarding what will happen on the ground. It is possible, however, to make a few observations and prognoses:

Hamas does not have a social incentive for collaboration with the Israeli occupation, at least not in any way resembling that of the PLO-originated PA apparatuses: it has actually been thrown into disarray by its own victory, as it would certainly have preferred the much more comfortable posture of being a major parliamentary opposition force to the PA. Therefore, it takes a lot of self-deception and wishful thinking to believe that Hamas will adapt to the conditions laid out by the U.S. and Israel. Collaboration is all the less likely given that the Israeli government, under the leadership of the new Kadima party founded by Sharon, will continue his policy, taking full advantage of the election result that suits its plans so well, and making impossible any accommodation with Hamas. Moreover, Hamas faces an outbidding rival represented by “Islamic Jihad,” which boycotted the election.

In order to try to rescue the very sensitive Palestinian component of overall U.S. Middle East policy that it managed to steer into dire straits, the Bush administration will very likely consider three possibilities. One would be a major shift in the policies of Hamas, bought by and mediated by the Saudis; this is, however, unlikely for the reason stated above and would be long and uncertain. Another would be fomenting tension and political opposition to Hamas in order to provoke new elections in the near future, taking advantage of the vast presidential powers that Arafat had granted himself and that Mahmud Abbas inherited, or just by having the latter resign, thus forcing a presidential election. For such a move to be successful, or meaningful at all, there is a need for a credible figure that could regain a majority for the traditional Palestinian leadership; but the only figure having the minimum of prestige required for this role is presently Marwan Barghouti, who — from his Israeli jail cell — made an alliance with Dahlan prior to the election. It is therefore likely that Washington will exert pressure on Israel for his release. A third possibility would be the “Algerian scenario” — referring to the interruption of the electoral process in Algeria by a military junta in January 1992 — which is already envisaged, according to reports in the Arab press: the repressive apparatuses of the PA would crack down on Hamas, impose a state of siege and establish a military-police dictatorship. Of course, a combination of the last two scenarios is also possible, postponing the crackdown until political conditions are created, that are more suitable for it.

Any attempt by the U.S. and the European Union to starve the Palestinians into submission by interrupting the economic aid that they grant them would be disastrous for both humanitarian and political reasons and should be opposed most vigorously.

The catastrophic management of U.S. policy in the Middle East by the Bush administration, on top of decades of clumsy and shortsighted U.S. imperial policies in this part of the world, has not yet born all its bitter fruit.

January 27, 2006

Gilbert Achcar is author of Eastern Cauldron (New York : Monthly Review Press, 2004) and The Clash of Barbarisms, new expanded edition coming out soon from Saqi Books (London) and Paradigm Publishers (Boulder, CO). The author thanks Steve Shalom for his editing and very useful suggestions. ‘

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Iraq Round-Up

Al-Zaman/ AFP report that [Ar.] the fundamentalist Shiite United Iraqi Alliance is awaiting the arrival in Baghdad of Kurdish leader Massoud Barzani at the beginning of the coming week for discussions concerning the formation of a new government. A source within the UIA told al-Zaman [the Baghdad Times] that the party had formed two delegations, which will negotiate simultaneously, one with the Kurdistan Alliance and the other with the Iraqi Accord Front [Sunni fundamentalist] over how to form a national unity government. The source was vague on the likelihood that the UIA might accept members of Iyad Allawi’s National Iraqi Party in the government. (Earlier reports said that the Sadrist faction had ruled it out.) Other party members said that Allawi and his faction would not be welcome.

Al-Sharq al-Awsat reports [Ar.] that US troops have formally turned over security duties to the Iraqi army in Ninevah province, which is dominated demograpically by its capital of Mosul. US troops had 100 bases in Iraq, and have been turning them over to Iraqi troops. They typically continue to be garrisoned near major cities so as to retain the capability of intervening where trouble gets out of hand.

According to documents sprung by the ACLU, the US military in Iraq sometimes kidnaps the wives of suspected guerrillas as a way of pressuring them to turn in their husbands or of getting the husbands to turn themselves in. Informed Comment is one of the few places where Iraqi allegations to this effect, and street demonstrations over the issue, have been covered. The kidnapping of journalist Jill Carroll appears to be an attempt by guerrillas to free wives of key fighters, so as to reduce the likelihood they will be broken and inform on their husbands’ whereabouts. The US claims to have only a handful of women in custody, and to have just released 5 of them.

——-

A kind reader writes:

‘ It may interest you to know that the taking of hostages is a “grave breach” of the Fourth Geveva Convention.

Following are relevant extracts from the ICRC web site.

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

Convention (IV) relative to the Protection of Civilian Persons in Time of War. Geneva, 12 August 1949.

Part III : ARTICLE 34
The taking of hostages is prohibited.

ARTICLE 34. — HOSTAGES (1)
1. ‘ Definition and historical survey ‘

The word “hostage” has stood for rather different conceptions. It is not, therefore, easy to give a definition of it valid for every case. Generally speaking, hostages are nationals of a belligerent State who of their own free will or through compulsion are in the hands of the enemy and are answerable with their freedom or their life for the execution of his orders and the security of his armed forces.
In the beginning, the hostage constituted a guarantee by the adversary that a treaty would be carried out; hostages were given [p.230] as a pledge or a safeguard; this practice, which is very ancient, has now disappeared. The modern form, with which this Article is concerned, is the taking of hostages as a means of intimidating the population in order to weaken its spirit of resistance and to prevent breaches of the law and sabotage in order to ensure the security of the Detaining Power.

(a) The most frequent case is that of an Occupying Power taking as hostages persons generally selected from among prominent persons in a city or a district in order to prevent disorders or attacks on occupation troops.

(b) Another form of the taking of hostages which is very close to (a) consists of arresting after an attack a certain number of inhabitants of the occupied territory and announcing that they will be kept captive or executed if the guilty are not given up.
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ICRC Document.

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Part IV : ARTICLE 147
Grave breaches to which the preceding Article relates shall be those involving any of the following acts, if committed against persons or property protected by the present Convention: wilful killing, torture or inhuman treatment, including biological experiments, wilfully causing great suffering or serious injury to body or health, unlawful deportation or transfer or unlawful confinement of a protected person, compelling a protected person to serve in the forces of a hostile Power, or wilfully depriving a protected person of the rights of fair and regular trial prescribed in the present Convention, taking of hostages and extensive destruction and appropriation of property, not justified by military necessity and carried out unlawfully and wantonly.

Open Document.

ARTICLE 147. — GRAVE BREACHES

[p.597] The idea of defining grave breaches in the Convention itself must be laid to the credit of the experts convened in 1948 by the International Committee of the Red Cross. If repression of grave breaches was to be universal, it was necessary to determine what constituted them. However, there are violations of certain detailed provisions of the Geneva Convention which would constitute minor offences or mere disciplinary faults which as such could not be punished to the same degree.
It was also thought advisable to draw up as a warning to possible offenders a clear list of crimes whose authors would be sought for in all countries. The idea had been stated in the draft of Article 40, which defined in a rather general way what was meant by grave breaches. A joint amendment submitted to the Diplomatic Conference by a number of delegations led to the inclusion in each Convention of a list of offences defined more exactly. It was that text which was finally adopted by the Conference with slight alterations (1).
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The taking of hostages. ‘ — Hostages might be considered as persons illegally deprived of their liberty, a crime which most penal codes take cognizance of and punish. However, there is an additional feature, i.e. the threat either to prolong the hostage’s detention or to put him to death. The taking of hostages should therefore be treated as a special offence. Certainly, the most serious crime would be to execute hostages which, as we have seen, constitutes wilful killing. However, the fact of taking hostages, by its arbitrary character, especially when accompanied by a threat of death, is in itself [p.601] a very serious crime; it causes in the hostage and among his family a mortal anguish which nothing can justify.

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The text is here.

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Sistani Calls on Iraqis to Turn in Terrorists
Sadrists Call for Sunnis to Fight Zarqawi

Al-Zaman/ AFP report that Grand Ayatollah Ali Sistani, the Shiite spiritual leader, called Friday on his supporters to aid the authorities in combatting the perpetrators of violence, according to the members of a delegation that met with him. According to their statements, Sistani said, “Most Iraqis, and in particular the Shiites, face great hardships and numerous problems. It is necessary that they consult experts, and especially the learned. They must beware of enemies. Our enemies have multiplied, even though the Shiites, who follow the family of the Prophet, do not attack others. But their enemies, because of their political weakness, wreak murder and destruction.” He added, “Here, we bear the responsibility to direct the people to help the state and prevent terrorism, and curb them and eliminate them, even if only by informing on them.” He continued, “The Shiites, from the political and social point of view–even in the West–have come to be characterized by an absence of violence and refraining from infringing against the rights of others. The clerics of Najaf play a role in this excellent molding of character.”

Sistani said, “It is a shame for Iraqi blood to be shed by other Iraqis.” He concluded that ignorant inciters to violence attempt to spread anarchy [by promoting sectarian hatred] “even though it is useless to them and to the Iraqis, given that they believe in a single religious belief, pray toward a single point of adoration [Mecca], and share in common much among them.”

Meanwhile, al-Hayat reports [Ar.] that Shaikh Hazim al-A’raji praised the people of Ramadi in his Friday prayers sermon at the mosque attached to the shrine of Imam Musa al-Kadhim . Al-A`raji, a follower of Muqtada al-Sadr, said that “our people” were standing against terrorism and the Zarqawi group. (For a Shiite preacher to refer to Sunni Arabs of Ramadi as “our people” is a deliberate appeal to pan-Islam, similar to that of Sistani.) He said, “The tribes in those regions have formed popular committes to struggle against Zarqawi and al-Qaeda in the area.” On 19 January, the US military had announced fighting between Iraqi rebels in Ramadi and foreign fighters. Al-Hayat says that the Iraqi government hopes to make what happened in Ramadi a model for other provinces.

[Cole: Baghdad is surrounded and much of it is in the hands of the guerrillas, and they are starving it effectively of fuel and electricity, which doesn't sound to me like all this amazing progress is being made, as trumpeted by al-Hayat. Guerrillas launched a significat attack at Ramadi only a few days ago,which was repelled with US help.]

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