Last week's upheaval showed that citizens of the Arab world are willing and able to overthrow their dictators -- and the Obama administration has to f

The Post-Tunisia World


BY JAMES TRAUB | JANUARY 21, 2011


The Sept. 11, 2001, attacks prompted a radical rethinking inside the administration of President George W. Bush about the purposes of American foreign policy -- above all in the Middle East. "Realism died on 9/11," as an administration official said to me several years later. Changing the insides of states had become a matter of national security no less urgent than affecting their external behavior. Bush, previously a hardheaded realist, became an ardent proponent of democracy promotion.

But the problem -- or at least the biggest problem -- was that while the terrorist attacks had changed the United States, they hadn't changed the place where the United States hoped to act. Terrorism had made democratic reform more urgent without making it a whit more likely. Autocratic leaders in Egypt, Jordan, Saudi Arabia, and elsewhere regarded the president's new preoccupation as a mere irritant.

Now, suddenly, unexpectedly, it's that world, not the United States, that's changing. The Tunisian people have taken to the streets and ousted a tyrant, just as the people in the Philippines, Chile, Romania, and Georgia once did. And that spectacle has inspired young people and activists across the region. The Tunisian drama may end badly, of course: Protests elsewhere may simmer down, and in any case the conditions that produced this one revolutionary upheaval may turn out to be sui generis. But Arab regimes are shakier today, and their critics more emboldened, than they were before. And Barack Obama, like Bush before him, must adapt to a Middle East different from the one he inherited.

A region that has felt paralyzed by autocratic rule is now in motion. Leaders are backpedaling: The emir of Kuwait abruptly announced that he would distribute $4 billion in cash and free food to citizens. President Hosni Mubarak of Egypt issued a call for investment in Arab youth. You can almost smell the fear in the likes of Ahmed Aboul Gheit, Egypt's foreign minister, who informed the country's official press agency that "the talk about the spread of what happened in Tunisia to other countries is nonsense."

Egypt, where the increasingly frail and profoundly unpopular Mubarak, age 82, seems prepared to run for president once again this year, looks especially vulnerable. At least three desperate protesters there have set themselves on fire in imitation of Mohamed Bouazizi, the Tunisian street vendor whose self-immolation sparked the uprising in Tunisia. The bombing of a Coptic Christian church in Alexandria on New Year's Day, which killed 21, has exposed frightening new divisions in the country. And Egyptian leaders are angrily pushing back against outside criticism. Aboul Gheit called on a group of Arab foreign ministers meeting in the resort town of Sharm-el-Sheikh this week to adopt a resolution telling the West: "Do not dare interfere in our affairs."

Aboul Gheit was reacting not only to criticism following the New Year's Day bombing, but to a speech his American counterpart, Hillary Clinton, had just delivered in Doha on January 13, warning that people in many parts of the Arab world "have grown tired of corrupt institutions and a stagnant political order" and imploring states to demonstrate a commitment to the rule of law and the inclusion of civil society. One way of framing the choices facing Obama: Should he now be more willing, or less, to risk infuriating autocratic allies through public criticism?

Until now, U.S. officials, above all Clinton, have almost always chosen circumspection. And they've had at least a plausible rationale: Bush took a different approach and failed. In 2005, both Bush and Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice publicly criticized Mubarak's regime and demanded that it hold free and fair elections. Mubarak first gave ground, and then cracked down on the opposition; the White House, fearful of offending a key ally and worried about the growing popularity of the Muslim Brotherhood, held its tongue. Obama discarded Bush's crusading moralism in favor of "engagement," which dictated a more respectful stance toward regimes.

Clinton has been the administration's most single-minded practitioner of engagement. When she emerged from a meeting with Aboul Gheit in Washington last November to brief the press, she decided to omit one subject they had discussed -- human rights in Egypt. According to two Middle East experts, Aboul Gheit had been so offended by her private remarks that she decided to say nothing in public, though aides had included such remarks in her prepared text. (A State Department official would neither confirm nor deny the account.) Clinton has rarely criticized autocratic allies in public. Although Bahrain, home of the U.S. Navy's 5th Fleet, has recently jailed political opponents and shut down human rights organizations, Clinton has remained silent on the subject -- as has the White House -- and she did not allude to this unpleasantness in the speech she gave in the Persian Gulf kingdom last month.

The truth is that, just as Bush's bluster didn't relax the iron grip of Arab regimes, neither has Obama's policy of engagement. The president asked Mubarak to lift Egypt's state of emergency and permit international observers to monitor the recent parliamentary election; Mubarak stiffed him on both counts. Taking engagement seriously has had the effect of demonstrating its limits as well as its virtues. It's time to try something else -- or something more.

Is the Doha speech, then, a sign of new thinking? Tamara Cofman Wittes, the State Department's lead official for Middle East democracy promotion, insists that it's not. "We've been watching these trends in the region for quite some time," she says. But Clinton's language was in fact a sharp departure from the past, and my understanding is that the administration has been conducting a broad reassessment of human rights and democracy promotion policy in recent months, though not specifically with regard to the Middle East. Obama himself seems more willing to use the kind of moral vocabulary he once regarded with skepticism: Witness his public welcome to Chinese President Hu Jintao, which included a call for China to accept universal standards of human rights. Obama also made a point of meeting with five Chinese human rights activists and scholars the week before Hu's arrival.

China, of course, will not give much more than lip service to American calls for reform. But the lesson of Tunisia is that even in the Middle East, public fury can demolish apparently stable regimes -- and do so in a moment. Some regimes, especially in the Persian Gulf, will be able to continue bribing restive citizens into submission; some may even retain legitimacy through good governance and economic mobility. But others will try to stare down their domestic and foreign critics as internal pressures rise higher and higher. What then?

The answer that some administration officials give -- and this does, in fact, represent a new strain of thinking -- is that they have begun to look beyond regimes in order to strengthen the hand of other actors. In this sense, Clinton's swing through the Arab world, which included meetings with local human rights and democracy activists, was itself the message, as much as the speech itself: The administration has increasingly come to see the funding and public encouraging of civil society organizations as a "second track" of engagement in repressive regimes. I was told, in fact, that the harsh criticisms of regimes that Clinton heard in these sessions found their way into her speech.

This is all to the good. But how will the administration respond when regimes jail those activists or shut down their organizations? With silence, as in Bahrain? With private entreaties and public tact, as in Egypt? Or has the logic of engagement finally exhausted itself? Betting that Arab autocrats will stay in power and preserve American interests looks riskier than ever. How will the White House react if public outrage threatens Algiers, or Cairo? The time to start thinking about this question is now.


LIRE CET ARTICLE EN FRANCAIS

Raed Jarrar / James Zogby

Raed Jarrar's blog : http://raedinthemiddle.blogspot.com/

Wikileaks founder Julian Assange fears for his life

There was an international uproar in April when Wikileaks released classified US military video of a US helicopter crew firing on a group of people in Iraq. (collateralmurder.com)


"The man behind whistleblower website Wikileaks says he is not in a position to record an interview amid claims his life is in danger.
Julian Assange, the Australian-born founder of Wikileaks, is said to be under threat with reports that the site has hundreds of thousands of classified cables containing explosive revelations.
There was an international uproar in April when the website released classified US military video which officials had been refusing to make public for three years.
The leaked video showed a US helicopter crew mistaking a camera for a rocket-propelled grenade launcher before firing on a group of people in Iraq.

Mr Assange has also told his supporters he is planning to release a video of a US air strike in Afghanistan that killed many civilians.
The 2007 video of the US army helicopter shooting civilians has already led to a chain of events which reportedly has Mr Assange in hiding.
A hacker blew the whistle on the US army intelligence analyst Bradley Manning, who allegedly handed that video to Wikileaks.
Mr Manning is now reported to be in custody in Kuwait.
The hacker says Mr Manning bragged to him about having thousands of diplomatic cables that would embarrass US secretary of state Hillary Clinton and several thousand diplomats around the world.

It has since been reported that American officials are searching for Mr Assange to pressure him not to publish the cables.
But an unnamed source in the Obama administration has told Newsweek that the US government is not trying to convince Mr Assange not to release the cables, but it is trying to contact him.
The World Today has also received an email from Mr Assange which says: "Due to present circumstances, I am not able to easily conduct interviews".
In an email to supporters this week, Mr Assange denies Wikileaks has 260,000 classified US department cables.
But he confirms the website has a video of a US air strike on a village in western Afghanistan in May last year.
The Afghan government said at the time of the attack that 140 civilians died.

Life in danger

Daniel Ellsberg, who leaked Pentagon papers in the 1970s showing government deceit over the Vietnam War, says he believes Mr Assange has reason to keep his whereabouts secret.
"I think it's worth mentioning [that there is] a very new and ominous development in our country," he said.
"I think he would not be safe, even physically, entirely wherever he is.
"We have, after all, for the first time ever perhaps in any democratic country... a president who has announced that he feels he has the right to use special operations operatives against anyone abroad that he thinks is associated with terrorism."
Mr Ellsberg told a US TV network Mr Assange's life may be in danger.
"I was, in fact, the subject of a White House hit squad in November on May 3, 1972," he said.
"A dozen Cuban assets were brought up from Miami with orders, quoting their prosecutor 'to incapacitate Daniel Ellsberg totally' on the steps of the Capitol.
"It so happens when I was in a rally during the Vietnam war and I asked the prosecutor 'what does that mean - kill me?' He said the words were to incapacitate you totally, but you should understand these guys, meaning the CIA operatives, never use the word 'kill'."

Professor Amin Saikal, director of the centre for Arab and Islamic studies at the Australian National University, says the US government has strong motivations for keeping video of the strike under wraps.
"That NATO operation in western Afghanistan caused quite a number of civilian casualties which caused outrage among the Afghan leaders," he said.
"The issue was also raised very strongly in the Afghan parliament.
"I suppose that the American authorities would be very adverse at the release of the video at this point which could cause more problems in the relationship between Afghanistan and Washington."
As far fetched as Mr Ellsberg's claim sounds, the national president of Whistleblowers Australia, Peter Bennett, agrees Mr Assange's life may be at risk.
"There is a lot of money to be made from wars. There is a lot of people who will become very, very wealthy through the course of this Afghan war," he said.
"To stop anybody raising questions about its conduct would put those profits at risk and profit is a high motivation to stop somebody interfering with those profits.
"It is possible that there are vested interests - military, political and certainly economic, possibly even criminal - who would rather him not release that information.
"There is a serious chance that his wellbeing could be at risk. If I was in his shoes, I would be taking all necessary precautions to make sure that my whereabouts and my wellbeing were being protected.""

Source



http://wikileaks.org/

Has the mainstream media in the US replaced serious coverage with "junk news" and tabloidism?

Bush - Facebook Inaugural Address

“Helen Thomas and “archetypal” democracy! ”

“Helen Thomas and “archetypal” democracy!!”


On June 14, the state-controlled Al-Watan (Syria) daily carried the following opinion
piece by Khaled Bdeir:

“American democracy is so odd, because in form it is with
“extra sugar” [Arabic expression meaning perfect] while in fact, it is void of
any content. It is the democracy of cultural, moral and ethical vandalism in
which American citizens can wear, eat, sing and listen to whatever they want.
But this is only form. In reality, they are consuming what the American media
outlets are offering them in terms of goods and products, in which case, they
are subjected to those paying the most to the most renowned outlets and this is
where it does not have “extra sugar.” There is no real democracy in the area of
opinion, especially on urgent matters. There is also no democracy in tackling
sensitive issues, as the disputes between Hillary Clinton and her husband or the
way President Obama treats his dog do not fall in the latter context and the
Americans can address them as much as they please. This is the democracy of that
country.

“However, those like intellectual Noam Chomsky who is calling for the lifting of
Washington’s hegemony over the people of this Earth and for positive
intervention in favor of human rights, are besieged. In this context, the story
of journalist Helen Thomas, the 89-year old dean of White House correspondents
who has been covering the activities of the White House since the days of
American President John Kennedy, testifies to this “archetypical” American
democracy. In response to a question by a Rabbi named David Nesenoff regarding
the Zionist entity, Helen Thomas stated: “Tell them – the Jews - to get the hell
out of Palestine,” adding: “Remember, these people are occupied and it's their
land. It's not Germany, it's not Poland!” Asked “where should the Jews go?” she
replied: “Poland, Germany and America and everywhere else…”

“Naturally, this solution did not and will not ever please decision-makers in
the United States who perceive the Zionist entity as their advanced barrack, the
guardian of their interests and part of their “civilization, morals and values.”
Therefore, the old journalist faced a flow of condemnation, starting with the
White House spokesman who said that her statements were “offensive and
reprehensible” and ending with the Jewish lobby. Organizations such as the
“Anti-Defamation League” said: “Her remarks were outrageous, offensive and
inappropriate. Her suggestion that Israelis should go back to Poland and Germany
is bigoted and shows a profound ignorance of history.”

“As for Ari Fleischer, the former White House spokesman during the term of
George Bush, he believes that “She is advocating religious cleansing… It is as
bad as saying that all the blacks should leave America and return to Africa."
What Fleischer is forgetting however, is that the arrival of the blacks to
America was not an invasion or an occupation, but due to White America’s need
for someone to serve in their country … Still, he added: “Hearst should do the
right thing and fire her,” to which the Hearst administration did not take long
to respond, announcing her resignation. The United States’ alleged democracy did
not fit the opinions of journalist Helen Thomas… This is American democracy!
Without “extra sugar?!”” (Al-Watan Syria, Syria)

Source : http://alwatan.sy/dindex.php?idn=81020

Haaretz : les USA informés d'avance de l'assaut d'Israël contre la flottille

Selon le quotidien israélien Haaretz, citant des sources diplomatiques américaines, le président américain Barak Obama était tout à fait au courant de l’assaut des forces militaires israéliennes contre la flottille internationale humanitaire de Gaza !

Helen Thomas and the moral failure of US liberals

The ostracism of Helen Thomas, the doyenne of the White House press corps, over her comment that Jews should "get the hell out of Palestine" and "go home" to Poland, Germany, America and elsewhere is revealing in several ways. In spite of an apology, the 89-year-old has been summarily retired by the Hearst newspaper group, dropped by her agent, spurned by the White House, and denounced by long-time friends and colleagues.

Thomas earned a reputation as a combative journalist, at least by American standards, with a succession of administrations over their Middle East policies, culminating in Bush officials boycotting her for her relentless criticisms of the occupations of Iraq and Afghanistan. But the reaction to her latest remarks suggest that, if there is one topic in American public life on which the boundaries of what can and cannot be said are still tightly policed, it is Israel.

Undoubtedly, Thomas' opinions, as she expressed them in an unguarded moment, were inappropriate and required an apology. It is true, as she says, that Palestine was occupied and the land taken from the Palestinians by Jewish immigrants with no right to it barring a Biblical title deed. But 62 years on from Israel's creation, most Jewish citizens have no home to go to in Poland and Germany -- or in Iraq and Yemen, for that matter. There is also an uncomfortable echo in her words of the chauvinism underpinning demands from some Jews -- and many Israelis -- that Palestinians should "go home to the 22 Arab states."

But Thomas did apologize and, after that, a line ought to have been drawn under the affair -- as it surely would have been had she made any other kind of faux pas. Instead, she has been denounced as an anti-Semite, even by her former friends.

The reasoning of one, Lanny Davis, counsel to the White House in the Clinton administration, was typical. Davis, who said he previously considered himself "a close friend," asked whether anyone would be "protective of Helen's privileges and honors if she had been asking Blacks to return to Africa, or Native Americans to Asia and South America, from which they came 8,000 or more years ago?"

It is that widely-accepted analogy, appropriating the black and Native American experience in a wholly misguided way, that reveals in stark fashion the moral failure of American liberals. In their blindness to the current relations of power in the US, most critics of Thomas contribute to the very intolerance they claim to be challenging.

Thomas is an Arab-American, of Lebanese descent, whose remarks were publicized in the immediate wake of Israel's lethal commando attack on a flotilla of aid ships trying to break the siege of Gaza. Unlike most Americans, who were half-wakened from their six-decade Middle East slumber by the killing of at least nine Turkish activists, Thomas has been troubled by the Palestinians' plight for much of her long lifetime.

She was in her late twenties when Israel ethnically cleansed three-quarters of a million Palestinians from most of Palestine, a move endorsed by the fledgling United Nations. She was in her mid-forties when Israel took over the rest of Palestine and parts of Egypt and Syria in a war that dealt a crushing blow to Arab identity and pride and made Israel a favored ally of the US. In her later years she has witnessed Israel's repeated destruction of Lebanon, her parents' homeland, and the slow confinement and erasure of the neighboring Palestinian people. Both have occurred under a duplicitous American "peace process" while Washington has poured hundreds of billions of dollars into Israel's coffers.

It is therefore entirely understandable if, despite her own personal success, she feels a simmering anger not only at what has taken place throughout her lifetime in the Middle East but also at the silencing of all debate about it in the US by the Washington elites she counted as friends and colleagues.

While she has many long-standing Jewish friends in Washington -- making the anti-Semite charge implausible -- she has also seen them and others promote injustice in the Middle East. Doubtless she, like many of us, has been exasperated at the toothless performance of the press corps she belongs to in holding the White House to account in Iraq, Afghanistan, Iran, Lebanon and Israel-Palestine.

It is with this context in mind that we can draw a more fitting analogy. We should ask instead: how harshly should Thomas be judged were she a black professional who, seeing yet another injustice like the video of Rodney King being beaten to within an inch of his life by white policemen, had said white Americans ought to "go home to Europe?"

This analogy accords more closely with the reality of power relations in the US between Arabs and Jews. Thomas is not a representative of the oppressor white man disrespecting the oppressed black man, as Davis suggests; she is the oppressed black man hitting back at the oppressor. Her comments shocked not least because they denied an image that continues to dominate in modern America of the vulnerable Jew, a myth that persists even as Jews have become the most successful minority in the country.

Thomas let her guard down and her anger and resentment show. She generalized unfairly. She sounded bitter. She needed to -- and has -- apologized. But she does not deserve to be pilloried and blacklisted.

Jonathan Cook, The Electronic Intifada, 10 June 2010

Jonathan Cook is a writer and journalist based in Nazareth, Israel. His latest books are Israel and the Clash of Civilisations: Iraq, Iran and the Plan to Remake the Middle East (Pluto Press) and Disappearing Palestine: Israel's Experiments in Human Despair (Zed Books). His website is www.jkcook.net.

Les enfants-soldats du gouvernement somalien, allié des Etats-Unis

REUTERS/CANDACE FEIT


Seuls deux pays n'ont pas ratifié la Convention internationale des droits de l'enfant, qui fixe à 15 ans l'âge minimum d'enrôlement volontaire et à 18 ans l'âge de participation directe aux hostilités, il s'agit des Etats-Unis et de la Somalie.

Noam Chomsky Palestine Israel occupation 101

For more info or to purchase the DVD please visit: www.occupation101.com.

Israel attacks US NAVY ship in International waters, 34 killed, 170 injured. REMEMBER USS LIBERTY!

That was in 1967.

Hearing on current and projected threats to the US. Select Committee on intelligence

Document: Project on National Security Reform Study (pdf)

The fake U.S.-Israel crisis: Obama's flawed response to an ally's gaffe

The word is that the decision to hammer Bibi Netanyahu on Friday for Israel’s settlements screwup last week came directly from President Obama.

He was apparently very upset at the seeming contempt the Israelis showed for the vice president and by extension for the president himself and his administration. In addition, Obama, like many of his top aides, felt that the Israeli action was undermining U.S. standing at a critical time in American efforts to both advance the "peace process" and to weave together tough, effective international sanctions on Iran.

Here's the problem: This is one of those diplomatic flareups that may trigger fire drills in the governments and polemic fireworks from pundits but which, upon analysis, is really much less than meets the eye. It's actually a fake crisis.

First, of all, on the face of it the Israeli action seems genuinely to have been much more of a screwup than a calculated affront. And if someone was trying to undercut the U.S.-Israel relationship, it seems certain they represented a fringe group and not the Netanyahu government. Subsequent statements of defiance by Netanyahu regarding building within Jerusalem were more in response to U.S. efforts to make additional political hay out of the dustup than they were related to the initial misstep.

Second, there is no real "or else" backing up U.S. demands for a reversal, an inquiry and the offering of a meaningful olive branch to the Palestinians. Obama, with few foreign-policy accomplishments to point to thus far in his young presidency, needs the peace process at least as much if not more than Netanyahu does. Time and leverage are, for the near term at least, on Netanyahu's side ... which is one reason why the U.S. government is opportunistically trying to use this crisis as a pretext to gain concessions out of the Israelis in advance of talks with the Palestinians.

Further, the United States can't really turn its back on Israel and embrace the Palestinian side any more closely than it has because there is really no there there. And were the United States to ally itself more closely to the Palestinian position (as I believe some at high levels wish they could), the administration knows they would inevitably find the Palestinian authorities made gaffes of the magnitude of this most recent Israeli blunder on an uncomfortably frequent basis -- thanks to the fact that the Palestinian government is more defined by rifts than by meaningful accomplishments.

Finally, most importantly, the U.S. argument that the Israelis need to be seen to be more quietly cooperative with U.S. efforts or Obama won't be able to effectively stop the Iranian nuclear weapons program is undercut by the fact that the United States won't, in the end, actually stop the Iranian nuclear program. We just don't have the domestic will or the international support to do so. Just as each successive deadline for Iranian compliance with international cease and desist requirements has evaporated so too will the illusions that the U.S. can engineer anything like effective sanctions against the Iranians in an effort to penalize them for their noncompliance.

Containment is rapidly replacing engagement as the false hope on which the U.S.-Iranian relationship will be built. (Engagement was dependent on the other side wanting to engage back. Containment is dependent on the government or some other rational actor exercising effective control over all nuclear warheads. Neither precondition will, I'm afraid, prove to have been sufficiently certain to warrant betting our vital interests on it.) In any event, when the Iranians do ultimately go nuclear, the United States will want and need a strong relationship with Israel more not less.

This has created the current, almost bizarre, set of circumstances. Everyone, including the Israelis, agree Netanyahu's government made a big-league error last week. (In a way, it's a real breakthrough: finally something that everyone on all sides of the Israeli-Arab divide can agree on.) But the reaction of the United States, regardless of all the robust language and diplomatic dressing down of top Israeli officials, is indicative of weakness not of strength.

The bigger message that will be unintentionally have been delivered to the world at the end of all this is that the United States is willing to get fierce with its friend Israel over a perceived insult but that we are likely to remain ineffective in the face of self-declared Iranian enemies' efforts to destabilize the entire Middle East with nuclear weapons. This is not only a problem for the president because the outcome is so dangerous. It's also that "tough on your friends, weak with your enemies" is neither a common trait among great leaders nor is it a particularly good campaign bumper sticker.

SOURCE

"For those worried that US President Barack Obama is particularly antagonistic toward Israel, there's good news and bad news: The good news is that Israel is hardly Obama's obsession; the bad news is that his administration's conduct toward it is consistent with its pattern of backing away from embattled American allies - a predictable byproduct of Obama's approach to foreign policy through dictator outreach."

Prof. Stephen M. Walt – Time for George Mitchell to resign

" If Mideast special envoy George Mitchell wants to end his career with his reputation intact, it is time for him to resign. He had a distinguished tenure in the U.S. Senate — including a stint as majority leader — and his post-Senate career has been equally accomplished. He was an effective mediator of the conflict in Northern Ireland, helped shepherd the Disney Corporation through a turbulent period, and led an effective investigation of the steroids scandal afflicting major league baseball. Nobody can expect to be universally admired in the United States, but Mitchell may have come as close as any politician in recent memory.

Why should Mitchell step down now? Because he is wasting his time. The administration's early commitment to an Israeli-Palestinian peace was either a naïve bit of bravado or a cynical charade, and if Mitchell continues to pile up frequent-flyer miles in a fruitless effort, he will be remembered as one of a long series of U.S. "mediators" who ended up complicit in Israel's self-destructive land grab on the West Bank. Mitchell will turn 77 in August, he has already undergone treatment for prostate cancer, and he's gotten exactly nowhere (or worse) since his mission began. However noble the goal of Israeli-Palestinian peace might be, surely he's got better things to do.

In an interview earlier this week with Time's Joe Klein, President Obama acknowledged that his early commitment to achieving "two states for two peoples" had failed. In his words, "this is as intractable a problem as you get … Both sides-the Israelis and the Palestinians-have found that the political environments, the nature of their coalitions or the divisions within their societies, were such that it was very hard for them to start engaging in a meaningful conversation. And I think we overestimated our ability to persuade them to do so when their politics ran contrary to that" (my emphasis).

This admission raises an obvious question: who was responsible for this gross miscalculation? It's not as if the dysfunctional condition of Israeli and Palestinian internal politics was a dark mystery when Obama took office, or when Netanyahu formed the most hard-line government in Israeli history. Which advisors told Obama and Mitchell to proceed as they did, raising expectations sky-high in the Cairo speech, publicly insisting on a settlement freeze, and then engaging in a humiliating retreat? Did they ever ask themselves what they would do if Netanyahu dug in his heels, as anyone with a triple-digit IQ should have expected? And if Obama now realizes how badly they screwed up, why do the people who recommended this approach still have their jobs?

As for Mitchell himself, he should resign because it should be clear to him that he was hired under false pretenses. He undoubtedly believed Obama when the president said he was genuinely committed to achieving Israel-Palestinian peace in his first term. Obama probably promised to back him up, and his actions up to the Cairo speech made it look like he meant it. But his performance ever since has exposed him as another U.S. president who is unwilling to do what everyone knows it will take to achieve a just peace. Mitchell has been reduced to the same hapless role that Condoleezza Rice played in the latter stages of the Bush administration — engaged in endless "talks" and inconclusive haggling over trivialities-and he ought to be furious at having been hung out to dry in this fashion.

The point is not that Obama's initial peace effort in the Middle East has failed; the real lesson is that he didn't really try. The objective was admirably clear from the start — "two states for two peoples" — what was missing was a clear strategy for getting there and the political will to push it through. And notwithstanding the various difficulties on the Palestinian side, the main obstacle has been the Netanyahu government's all-too obvious rejection of anything that might look like a viable Palestinian state, combined with its relentless effort to gobble up more land. Unless the U.S. president is willing and able to push Israel as hard as it is pushing the Palestinians (and probably harder), peace will simply not happen. Pressure on Israel is also the best way to defang Hamas, because genuine progress towards a Palestinian state in the one thing that could strengthen Abbas and other Palestinian moderates and force Hamas to move beyond its talk about a long-term hudna (truce) and accept the idea of permanent peace.

It's not as if Obama and Co. don't realize that this is important. National Security Advisor James Jones has made it clear that he sees the Israel-Palestinian issue as absolutely central; it's not our only problem in the Middle East, but it tends to affect most of the others and resolving it would be an enormous boon. And there's every sign that the president is aware of the need to do more than just talk.

Yet U.S. diplomacy in this area remains all talk and no action. When a great power identifies a key interest and is strongly committed to achieving it, it uses all the tools at its disposal to try to bring that outcome about. Needless to say, the use of U.S. leverage has been conspicuously absent over the past year, which means that Mitchell has been operating with both hands tied firmly behind his back. Thus far, the only instrument of influence that Obama has used has been presidential rhetoric, and even that weapon has been used rather sparingly.

And please don't blame this on Congress. Yes, Congress will pander to the lobby, oppose a tougher U.S. stance, and continue to supply Israel with generous economic and military handouts, but a determined president still has many ways of bringing pressure to bear on recalcitrant clients. The problem is that Obama refused to use any of them.

When Netanyahu dug in his heels and refused a complete settlement freeze — itself a rather innocuous demand if Israel preferred peace to land — did Obama describe the settlements as "illegal" and contrary to international law? Of course not. Did he fire a warning shot by instructing the Department of Justice to crack down on tax-deductible contributions to settler organizations? Nope. Did he tell Secretary of Defense Robert Gates to signal his irritation by curtailing U.S. purchases of Israeli arms, downgrading various forms of "strategic cooperation," or canceling a military exchange or two? Not a chance. When Israel continued to evict Palestinians from their homes and announced new settlement construction in East Jerusalem and the West Bank in August, did Obama remind Netanyahu of his dependence on U.S. support by telling U.S. officials to say a few positive things about the Goldstone Report and to use its release as an opportunity to underscore the need for a genuine peace? Hardly; instead, the administration rewarded Netanyau's intransigence by condemning Goldstone and praising Netanyahu for "unprecedented" concessions. (The "concessions," by the way, was an announcement that Israel would freeze settlement expansion in the West Bank "temporarily" while continuing it in East Jerusalem. In other words, they'll just take the land a bit more slowly).

Like the Clinton and Bush administrations, in short, the idea that the United States ought to use its leverage and exert genuine pressure on Israel remains anathema to Obama, to Mitchell and his advisors, and to all those pundits who are trapped in the Washington consensus on this issue. The main organizations in the Israel lobby are of course dead-set against it — and that goes for J Street as well — even though there is no reason to expect Israel to change course in the absence of countervailing pressure.

Obama blinked — leaving Mitchell with nothing to do-because he needed to keep sixty senators on board with his health care initiative (that worked out well, didn't it?), because he didn't want to jeopardize the campaign coffers of the Democratic Party, and because he knew he'd be excoriated by Israel's false friends in the U.S. media if he did the right thing. I suppose I ought to be grateful to have my thesis vindicated in such striking fashion, but there's too much human misery involved on both sides to take any consolation in that.

So what will happen now? Israel has made it clear that it is going to keep building settlements — including the large blocs (like Ma'ale Adumim) that were consciously designed to carve up the West Bank and make creation of a viable Palestinian state impossible. Mahmoud Abbas, the Palestinian Authority, and other moderate forces will be increasingly discredited as collaborators or dupes. As Israel increasingly becomes an apartheid state, its international legitimacy will face a growing challenge. Iran's ability to exploit the Palestinian cause will be strengthened, and pro-American regimes in Egypt, Jordan, and elsewhere will be further weakened by their impotence and by their intimate association with the United States. It might even help give al Qaeda a new lease on life, at least in some places. Jews in other countries will continue to distance themselves from an Israel that they see as a poor embodiment of their own values, and one that can no longer portray itself convincingly as "a light unto the nations." And the real tragedy is that all this might have been avoided, had the leaders of the world's most powerful country been willing to use their influence on both sides more directly.

Looking ahead, one can see two radically different possibilities. The first option is that Israel retains control of the West Bank and Gaza and continues to deny the Palestinians full political rights or economic opportunities. (Netanyahu likes to talk about a long-term "economic peace," but his vision of Palestinian bantustans under complete Israeli control is both a denial of the Palestinians' legitimate aspirations and a severe obstacle to their ability to fully develop their own society. Over time, there may be another intifada, which the IDF will crush as ruthlessly as it did the last one. Perhaps the millions of remaining Palestinians will gradually leave — as hardline Israelis hope and as former House speaker Dick Armey once proposed. If so, then a country founded in the aftermath of the Holocaust — one of history's greatest crimes-will have completed a dispossession begun in 1948 — a great crime of its own.

Alternatively, the Palestinians may remain where they are, and begin to demand equal rights in the state under whose authority they have been forced to dwell. If Israel denies them these rights, its claim to being the "only democracy in the Middle East" will be exposed as hollow. If it grants them, it will eventually cease to be a Jewish-majority state (though its culture would undoubtedly retain a heavily Jewish/Israeli character). As a long-time supporter of Israel's existence, I would take no joy in that outcome. Moreover, transforming Israel into a post-Zionist and multinational society would be a wrenching and quite possibly violent experience for all concerned. For both reasons, I've continued to favor "two states for two peoples" instead.

But with the two-state solution looking less and less likely, these other possibilities begin to loom large. Through fear and fecklessness, the United States has been an active enabler of an emerging tragedy. Israelis have no one to blame but themselves for the occupation, but Americans — who like to think of themselves as a country whose foreign policy reflects deep moral commitments-will be judged harshly for our own role in this endeavor.

The United States will suffer certain consequences as a result-decreased international influence, a somewhat greater risk of anti-American terrorism, tarnished moral reputation, etc.-but it will survive. But Israel may be in the process of drafting its own suicide pact, and its false friends here in the United States have been supplying the paper and ink. By offering his resignation-and insisting that Obama accept it-George Mitchell can escape the onus of complicity in this latest sad chapter of an all-too-familiar story. Small comfort, perhaps, but better than nothing.

* Stephen M. Walt is the Robert and Renée Belfer professor of international affairs at Harvard University's Kennedy School of Government. Professor Walt is the author of Taming American Power: The Global Response to U.S. Primacy, and, with coauthor J.J. Mearsheimer, The Israel Lobby and U.S. Foreign Policy."

Source.

L'affaire des couveuses dans la guerre du Golfe - Hill & Knowlton

"En 1990, les démocraties anglo-saxonnes découvrent un adversaire, un dictateur, qui commence à leur porter ombrage. Comme son illustre prédécesseur à la croix gammée, ce dictateur entend récupérer une ancienne province qui a été arrachée jadis à son pays par ces mêmes démocraties. Mais ce pays offre la particularité de regorger de pétrole. La province perdue s'appelle le Koweit et le dictateur qu'il va falloir abattre, Saddam Hussein. Pour que les choses soient plus claires, on l'appelle d'ailleurs Saddam-Hitler et on le charge bientôt de crimes identiques à ceux qu'on attribue à son prédécesseur. Pourquoi imaginer quelque chose de nouveau et changer une méthode dont l'efficacité a été prouvée ?

Des experts et des témoins directs font comprendre au monde horrifié, surtout aux États-Unis, qu'il faut déclencher une guerre «juste» contre cet affreux dictateur, car ce dictateur tue, lui aussi, des bébés. Il ne leur fracasse pas la tête contre les murs, mais il les arrache des couveuses dans les hôpitaux et les jette par terre.

Quelques mois ont passé et nous sommes maintenant en 1991. Le méchant dictateur a été vaincu. Le triomphe des démocraties est complet.

Mais déjà des voix s'élèvent ou des murmures s'entendent qui disent que ce triomphe a été acquis au prix de beaucoup de tueries et de destructions qui n'étaient peut-être pas indispensables. Certes, le traitement démocratique qui a été infligé à l'Irak n'a pas la même ampleur que celui qui fut appliqué à l'Allemagne de 1945 massacrée, torturée, violée de mille façons, mais cela suffit à soulever quelques timides protestations. Pis encore, ne voilà-t-il pas que de nouveaux «révisionnistes» prétendent que les horreurs attribuées à Saddam-Hitler — et en particulier l'histoire des bébés et des couveuses — seraient une pure invention."

"Pour "vendre au grand public" le renversement de Saddam Hussein, la CIA va tout d’abord s’approprier les services d’une agence de communication, le Rendon Group, l’officine des coups douteux de John Rendon, payée à prix d’or (un des employés touchera jusqu’à 22000 dollars par mois et la firme y gagnera 23 millions de dollars !), dont le rôle consistera à raconter des histoires fausses dans la presse. C’est un des fameux "storytellers". La plus belle en 1990 déjà, lors de la guerre du Golfe, avec l’histoire larmoyante de la pauvre Nayirah, 15 ans, qui témoignera avoir vu des bébés koweitiens jetés en bas de leur couveuses dans un hôpital, lors de l’invasion irakienne : un énorme bobard, élaboré par l’agence Hill & Knowlton, employée par l’association "Citizens for a Free Kuwait" dirigée en sous-main par la CIA. La pauvre petite Nayirah, cette "inconnue", qui avait tant fait pleurer dans les chaumières, était en réalité Nayirah al-Sabah, la fille de Saud bin Nasir Al-Sabah, l’ambassadeur du Kuwait aux USA !"

Biden backs election ban on Iraq’s Baath party

" Vice President Joe Biden told Iraqi officials on Saturday the United States backed a ban on Saddam Hussein's Baath party and said he had faith Iraq would resolve a row over the banning of election candidates suspected of links to it. "

Now - this IS democracy.

By the way, isn't Baath party a Secular one ?

In a time of deceit telling the truth is a revolutionary act. - G. Orwell

America: Freedom to Fascism - Director's Authorized Version