Überall sind es die Mönche, die die Menschen verdorben haben. Der weise und gelehrte Leibniz hat es eindeutig nachgewiesen. Er hat gezeigt, daß das 10. Jahrhundert, das man das Jahrhundert der Roheit nennt, viel weniger barbarisch war als das 13. und die folgenden Jahrhunderte, in denen diese Massen von Bettlern entstanden, die das Gelübde ablegten, auf Kosten der Laien zu leben und diese zu bedrücken. (Voltaire)
“Ebenso ist das kleine Bergvolk der Tibeter immer schon autokratisch regiert worden, allerdings nicht von einem Fürsten oder vom Adel, sondern von Priestern und Oberpriestern. Der Dalai Lama war als Oberpriester einer lamaistischen Sekte zugleich das weltliche Oberhaupt aller Tibeter; der Pantschen Lama als Oberpriester einer anderen Sekte hatte jedoch einen höheren klerikalen Rang. Noch am Ende des Zweiten Weltkriegs war Tibet eine Theokratie – ähnlich wie ehedem der Kirchenstaat oder wie heutzutage Iran. [...] Die Mönche kämpfen nicht für Menschenrechte, sondern vielmehr für die Interessen ihrer Klöster - und für den tibetischen Nationalismus.”
Newsweek International previews talks on installing a new EU president but questions how much clout the official will have once in office.
“In the past, there was just a president of the Commission to choose. But now the EU has greater ambitions. Its new treaty, currently going through its last ratification hurdles after interminable wrangling, calls for the selection of a president of the European Council. The post mixes the mundane, like chairing the meetings of the 27 heads of government, with the task of representing Europe globally. EU leaders have yet to define which is more important-making sure the agenda is ready, the pencils sharpened and the chairs in place for the council meeting, or being a bully-pulpit president of Europe who walks through the door at the White House, the Kremlin and the Forbidden City in Beijing and makes clear that the voice of Europe is important and heard around the world.”
China and Japan inked a historic agreement and a “new starting point” for bilateral relations. The pledge, which comes after years of tense relations over wartime history and off-shore natural resources, establishes an annual summit between the nations.
Moscow and Washington signed a long-awaited nuclear cooperation agreement. The U.S. State Department said the deal will increase international joint venture opportunities in the civilian nuclear sector between Russia and the United States.
A Great Gift in an Unhappy Wrapping: Celebrating (Despite It All!) Israel at Sixty
by Dr. Eran Lerman
Former deputy chief of Israel Defense Forces (IDF) strategic intelligence planning and currently director of American Jewish Committee (AJC) Israel/Middle East office
Israeli citizens may be forgiven if they look askance at the wrappings in which the gifts and joys of Yom Ha-Atzmaut (Independence Day) 2008 - our sixtieth - come ensconced.
The prime minister is facing fresh investigations into his conduct (in his previous positions), and the newspapers, based on rumors and hints, suggest that this might amount to an indictment for graft. Our former president, having reneged on his plea bargain, may soon force upon us a long and ugly trial for sexual abuse and perhaps even rape. Divided counsels in the governing coalition give the demands of Shas, and the claims of ultra-Orthodoxy to define Jewish identity, additional leverage. The influence of powerful “oligarchs” is being felt in our corridors of governance.
And despite some remarkably brave decisions recently - for example, the successful raid on the Syrian/North Korean nuclear facility, made half-public by the U.S. administration briefing before Congress - some of the questions left lingering as to the conduct of the Second Lebanon War remain unanswered. The agony of Sderot goes on and on, and with it, the challenge posed by Hamas ascendancy in Gaza. Iran continues to defy the world, racing toward the bomb, and to spew hate and terror. The challenges we face are clear for all to see.
As Israelis gather in military cemeteries across the land on Yom Ha-Zikaron (Memorial Day), which quite deliberately precedes Independence Day, they remember the sacrifice of those who fell in that war, in the eight subsequent ones - if one counts the two eruptions of Palestinian violence and the War of Attrition of 1968-70, as well as the more “conventional” conflicts of 1948, 1956, 1967, 1973, and 1982 - and in the many acts of violence (as well as training accidents and other sad consequences of a prolonged military effort) in between. The unspoken, ever-powerful subtext, as always, but perhaps today with added force, is: Was it for a good cause? Are we worthy? This was expressed in a poem by Archibald MacLeish:
They say: We have given our lives
But until it is finished
no one can know what our lives gave.
They say: Our deaths are not ours: they are yours,
they will mean what you make them.
They say: Whether our lives and our deaths were for
peace and a new hope or for nothing we cannot say,
it is you who must say this.
In a certain respect, however, we are perhaps unfortunately touched by a linguistic quirk of modern Hebrew usage. For reasons rooted in the years of our pre-independence struggle and the intense experience of emergence from the valley of death of the Holocaust into the sunlight of sovereignty, Israelis have come to use the term “ha-medina,” “the State,” as synonymous with “the Country.” (In fact, Israel’s official name is not the “Republic of Israel”-as it might have been, following a firm European tradition-but simply the State of Israel.)
While “the State” in its narrower sense-the established government and its exercise of its institutional powers-may leave much to be desired at this point in time, there is much to celebrate, and indeed, with all the pain involved, much to give meaning to the price paid by “The Young Dead Soldiers” - the title of MacLeish’s poem - and to the toils and strains of our own “greatest generation,” that of the young women and men, like my two parents, who stood at the brink in 1948 and, in a desperate struggle, made this country happen.
This is a time when we may, with good reason, look beyond the painful headlines and contemplate, not the state of the State, but the broader achievements of the country, and the Jewish people, in sixty years. Therein lies a very different story - of almost constant growth; of an ingathering that produced a vibrant and multihued society; of breathtaking economic breakthroughs; of scientific and technological impact way beyond our numbers in the world (in which Israelis are only one in a thousand); of artistic and literary creativity on par with that of much larger nations.
Traveling in America recently, I was gratified to come upon the pride of place given to Israeli women artists in various forums - Sigalit Landau’s haunting work at the Museum of Modern Art in New York, and Yael Naim’s joyous music clip featured in the entertainment program on a prominent American airline. Surely they speak to a larger phenomenon, as do the imprints of Israeli technologies, from the disk-on-key flash drive to Intel chips; and as participants in AJC’s Annual Meeting last week heard from Shai Agassi, who wants Israel to lead to world in electric cars, the visionaries are still out there, even if they have moved from the meeting places of political movements and halls of government to the boardrooms of innovative corporations and the newly empowered gatherings of civil society and voluntary organizations.
An American Jewish intellectual recently took it upon himself to speculate whether Israel was “finished”-presumably because of the difficulty in solving the Palestinian problem. Similar sound bites emanate from Damascus and Tehran.
And yet the end of a phase in our history, and the loss of much of our political innocence, is just the beginning of a new chapter, possibly more energetic and more creative for being rooted in richer soil. America in 1836 was very much an unresolved set of contradictory propositions (and we must fervently hope that we shall not need to resort to what it took to sort them out, one score and seven years later). We have no ambition to emerge as a world power, as America already was by 1896.
But when our descendants in 2068 look upon this period of transition, they will little remember the political vicissitudes of the day, and will find instead the building blocks of an Israel that has become a creative force in her regional and Mediterranean environment and in the world community at large.
Reprinted with kindly permission of The American Jewish Committee.
Outgoing Russian President Vladimir Putin has defended plans to roll tanks and missiles through Moscow at the end of the week, declaring that the display is not intended to “threaten anyone.” It is the first time in many years Moscow’s Victory Day parade will include armaments.
Newsweek International reports on France’s success in using small combat units to partner with different international military alliances.
“A year into his first term, in fact, French President Nicolas Sarkozy is using his warm relations with Washington and his military’s strong record fighting in Africa and the Balkans to help re-establish France publicly and formally as a leading player in NATO, more than four decades after President Charles de Gaulle pulled out of the alliance’s integrated command and kicked its offices out of Paris. At the same time, he’s working to put France at the fore of a separate European Union defense force and extend its influence eastward to the Persian Gulf and South Asia. And if France really wants to project itself on the world stage this way, well, it couldn’t happen at a better time. U.S. forces are stretched thin, and there are only a handful of other armies with the training, the bases, the organization and, most important, the political will to kill and die in far corners of the planet to keep local wars from emerging into global threats. The shortlist includes the Brits-and the French, and that’s about it.”
In an op-ed for The Washington Post, former Pentagon official and president emeritus of the Council on Foreign Relations Leslie H. Gelb writes that dealing with bad guys is part of the “foreign policy business,” and outlines how to make deals with devils. A real issue: not whether to talk to “Bad Guys”, but how?
“Presidents Franklin D. Roosevelt and Harry S. Truman knew well about the sins of the Soviet Union, but they cooperated with the monstrous Joseph Stalin against an even bigger monster, Adolf Hitler. (Winston Churchill was similarly unsentimental: ‘If Hitler invaded Hell,’ he reportedly said, ‘I would at least make a favorable reference to the Devil in the House of Commons.’) President Richard M. Nixon was well aware of the tens of millions killed by Mao Zedong but figured that dealing with the Chinese leader would give him leverage against Moscow. Even Reagan married his condemnation of the Soviets with an all-out effort to negotiate far-reaching arms control agreements with them.”
In an article in the Financial Times, Richard Nathan Haass, president of The Council on Foreign Relations, argues that the age of unprecedented U.S. dominance is over. The transition to a nonpolar world will have mostly negative consequences for the United States.
“Why did it end? One explanation is history. States get better at generating and piecing together the human, financial and technological resources that lead to productivity and prosperity. The same holds for companies and other organisations. The rise of new powers cannot be stopped. The result is an ever larger number of actors able to exert influence regionally or globally. It is not that the US has grown weaker, but that many other entities have grown much stronger.”
“France has indisputably close contact with China thanks to Jacques Chirac’s China policy of 12 years,” The China Daily, October 25, 2006.
Only few people know that the great French statesman Jacques Chirac is a very good connoisseur of the Chinese culture and history (he speaks Chinese fluently and has a private collection of Chinese art).
On January 27, 1964, China and France issued a joint communiqué, announcing the forging of diplomatic ties with ambassadors to be appointed within three months. France thus became the first major Western country to forge formal diplomatic relations with the People’s Republic of China. Culture and history have always held a very important position in exchanges between the people of the two nations, both permanent members of the United Nations Security Council.
INTERVIEW GIVEN BY M. JACQUES CHIRAC, PRESIDENT OF THE FRENCH REPUBLIC, TO CHINA CENTRAL TELEVISION (CCTV)
Beijing, 25 October 2006
Q. – Mr President, you are known for your interest in the history of civilizations, and in particular Eastern civilizations. What advice would you give as regards the exploration and preservation of China’s cultural heritage, and what have been the experiences of France in this area?
THE PRESIDENT – China has a very long history and is a very ancient civilization, and consequently has quite exceptional traces of both. This is what makes everything about China’s culture so fascinating, from the earliest writings to the modern day.
I am in no doubt that there is nothing that I can teach the Chinese, who have excellent archaeologists and great scholars and who have no need of advice. If you asked me for a simple assessment, I would say that it is in China’s interest to develop the legal framework of its system in a way which, obviously, provides very effective protection for everything of importance, but which also allows certain exports which otherwise, unfortunately, take place in an irregular way, which is not a very good thing. It is therefore necessary to control these illegal exports of Chinese artefacts from China.
And then there are all the questions relating to excavations. I believe that China is wise not to want to do too much too quickly, particularly as regards royal and imperial tombs. There is a benefit to be gained from waiting a while so as to have the necessary resources to be able to carry out these major excavations, which will have a great impact on world culture, under optimal technical conditions and with sufficient resources. I am thinking particularly of the tomb of the first emperor, Qin Shi Huangdi, which it had been imagined could be opened, but which it was wisely decided not to open, but rather to wait for a more suitable occasion. I believe that this was a wise decision, especially in respect of a site destined to become the eighth wonder of the world.
Q. – This is your fourth visit as President of France; what is the purpose of this particular visit?
THE PRESIDENT – First, there is the political aspect: China is playing an increasingly important role in the world. This can particularly be seen in its participation in UN peacekeeping operations, for example recently in Lebanon.
Secondly, China’s economic development is quite extraordinary and has resulted in the Chinese economy having a more and more important place in the world. Consequently, it is entirely right that there should be the strongest possible relations of a political, economic and cultural nature between Europe and China, and, in particular, between France and China. This is my ambition in my dealings with China.
Q. – France and China are two countries which play a very important role in international affairs. What are the new challenges of an international and strategic nature that the two countries currently face? How can the two countries strengthen their dialogue?
THE PRESIDENT – France and China are both countries which desire peace and stability in the world, for many reasons. We therefore have the same objective. In this respect, it can be seen that China is becoming more and more sensitive to international problems. This has been seen in its role in relation to the North Korean, Iranian and Lebanese questions, and again in its increasing and desirable presence in Africa, with the forthcoming China-Africa summit. Throughout the world, China is making its presence felt with objectives that are shared by France, that is to say the objectives of peace and stability in the world.
TAIWAN
Q. – China is very appreciative of your support for the policy of “one country, two systems”. Recently, the leader of Taiwan, Mr Chen Shui-bian, again expressed his determination to secure the island’s independence. What are your feelings on this subject?
THE PRESIDENT – As you know, we stated France’s position on this subject a very long time ago, and it has not changed: for historical, geographical, economic and political reasons, we are in favour of the unity of China and we will not change our minds on this.
CHINA/EU/TRADE
Q. – In recent years, commercial trade between China and France, and between China and the European Union, has sometimes given rise to tensions. We have particularly in mind the very high import duties placed on shoes by Brussels in order to maintain the balance of the markets, and there are of course other examples. How can the Chinese economy be harmonized with the European economy, and, in your view, when will the European Union recognize China’s status as a market economy?
THE PRESIDENT – We are in favour of the European Union recognizing China’s status as a market economy, and France has said so very clearly.
By the same token, we are also in favour of the removal of this anachronistic embargo.
Thereafter, economic relations between Europe and China do pose competition problems. Competition must be as fair as possible and, in this respect, China gave commitments when it joined the WTO – commitments with which it is complying. We have one problem, in particular, with China – and incidentally with other countries as well, particularly Asian countries – which is counterfeiting. This poses a real difficulty which is both political and economic. I know that the Chinese authorities are alive to this and are trying to combat the development of such counterfeiting, and I hope they succeed in doing so.
EU ARMS EMBARGO
Q. – Is France still in favour of lifting the European Union embargo on arms sales to China?
THE PRESIDENT – As I have told you, I am in favour of that. We are putting the case to the European Union for the lifting of the embargo, because I think that the embargo is an anachronism which is no longer relevant.
FUTURE OF EU/CHINA
Q. – In 2007, the European Union will have 27 member States. How do you see the future of the European Union and its relationship with China?
THE PRESIDENT – The European Union is founded on the same principles that I mentioned earlier with regard to China, that is to say the establishment of lasting peace, stability and democracy in the world. Against this background, my hope is that the European Union and China will develop stable relationships in all areas, and particularly of a cultural, economic and political nature, and this is a process that is already very largely under way.
Q. – What will be the role of the European Union in the world, and what will be that of France in an enlarged European Union?
THE PRESIDENT – The central mission of the European Union is to strengthen peace, stability and democracy throughout the world. Europe has fought many wars in its history, and now wants to banish war altogether. This is also China’s objective. Consequently, we have common objectives. Clearly, when it comes to the practicalities of implementing democracy, we have problems which, quite naturally, we raise. But I would mention that China’s decision to recognize the United Nations Covenant on Civil and Political Rights is an important step in the right direction, and one which I welcome.
Q. – Mr President, thank you very much for giving this interview. Do you have a final message for the Chinese people?
THE PRESIDENT – It is a message first and foremost of esteem for a great people, for a country which, undoubtedly, will be one of the most important, and possibly the most important, in tomorrow’s world. A people deeply rooted in a very ancient culture – we have talked about that – and in a whole set of traditional and historic values that give it strength and dynamism, and a country which, like all countries, has experienced difficulties in adapting to the modern world, but which I believe is in the best possible position to face those difficulties, particularly in light of the stated ambition of the 11th Plan, on the one hand, and of the statements of President Hu Jintao in relation to harmonious development, on the other.
Q. – I wish you a most successful visit and a pleasant trip.
The Christian Science Monitor reports on a new U.S. military initiative called the Africa Partnership Station and U.S. efforts to train soldiers in western Africa.
“America now gets more than 15 percent of its oil from Africa, a figure expected to grow to one quarter by 2015, and West Africa is an oil-rich region. ‘We wouldn’t be here if it wasn’t in US interests,’ concedes Nowell but he argues that oil is only one component part. Ninety percent of commerce is by sea so a stable and secure maritime environment is good for the US.”
Christian Lequesne, Professor für Internationale Politik am Pariser Institut für Politische Studien (IEP) und an der London School of Economics (LSE), verfasste eine ausgewogene Analyse der außenpolitischen Bilanz des einstigen Staatspräsidenten Frankreichs Jacques Chirac.
“In die Zeit der zwölfjährigen Präsidentschaft von Jacques Chirac (1995-2007) fielen mit der sich verstärkenden Globalisierung, der EU-Erweiterung und der damit verbundenen Krise der europäischen Integration sowie der Zunahme des internationalen Terrorismus wichtige Veränderungen in den internationalen Beziehungen.
Im Bereich der Außenpolitik war Chirac ein Präsident, der auf manchen Feldern dem gaullistischen Erbe treu war und sich gleichzeitig in anderen Fragen von diesem doktrinären Erbe frei gemacht hat. So stand er für eine Amerika-, Russland-, China- oder Afrika-Politik, die sich an den Paradigmen der Multipolarität beziehungsweise der traditionell gaullistischen »Françafrique«-Politik orientierte. Andererseits trug er, vom gaullistischen Erbe abweichend, die Stärkung der europäischen Institutionen im Verfassungsvertrag mit.”
A new report from the Rand Corporation looks at Turkey as a strategic ally of the United States of America in its security operations across the Middle East. It says a shifting focus in Turkish interests should command the attention of U.S. policymakers.
“Turkey has long been an important U.S. ally, but especially with the end of the Cold War, the relationship has been changing. Divergences between U.S. and Turkish interests have grown, in part because of Turkey’s relationships with its neighbors and the tension between its Western identity and its Middle Eastern orientation. Further, relations with the European Union have also deteriorated of late. As a result, Ankara has come to feel that it can no longer rely on its traditional allies, and Turkey is likely to be a more difficult and less predictable partner in the future. While Turkey will continue to want good ties to the United States, it is likely to be drawn more heavily into the Middle East by the Kurdish issue and Iran’s nuclear ambitions. Consequently, the tension between Turkey’s Western identity and Middle Eastern orientation is likely to grow even more.”
Responding to Zbigniew Brzezinski, Max Boot, foreign policy adviser to the McCain campaign, writes in The Washington Post that “an early American departure is the last thing that most Iraqis or their elected representatives want”, and urges the U.S. to learn from the mistakes made in Vietnam.
“Why am I not reassured by Zbigniew Brzezinski’s breezy assurance in Sunday’s Outlook section that ‘forecasts of regional catastrophe’ after an American pullout from Iraq are as overblown as similar predictions made prior to our pullout from South Vietnam? Perhaps because the fall of Saigon in 1975 really was a catastrophe. Another domino fell at virtually the same time - Cambodia.
Estimates vary, but a safe bet is that some two million people died in the killing fields of Cambodia. In South Vietnam, the death toll was lower, but hundreds of thousands were consigned to harsh ‘reeducation’ camps where many perished, and hundreds of thousands more risked their lives to flee as boat people. [...] I, for one, hope that we do not betray our allies in Iraq as we did in Southeast Asia”
A report from the Nixon Center, a research organization focused on U.S. foreign policy, examines Europe’s energy dependence on Russia and its ramifications for the future of EU energy security.
On the second day of the NATO summit in Bucharest, French President Nicolas Sarkozy indicated he intends to have France rejoin NATO’s military command, which it quit in 1966 under Général De Gaulle, and said he will make a formal decision by the end of the year. Nicolas Sarkozy also said France was prepared to deploy some 800 troops to eastern Afghanistan.
“As Arab summits go, the recent one in Damascus surely rates as the lowest ever,” writes Dr. Eran Lerman, former deputy chief of Israel Defense Forces (IDF) strategic intelligence planning and currently director of American Jewish Committee (AJC) Israel/Middle East office. Lerman describes the lack of serious participation in the summit as a sign that the Iran-Syria connection is creating a “cold war” among Arab nations.
by Dr. Eran Lerman
As Arab summits go, the recent one in Damascus surely rates as the lowest ever. In fact, despite the attendance of a few leaders from the Gulf States and the Maghreb, it could barely be dignified by the elevated term “summit,” given that the key figures in Arab affairs - President Hosni Mubarak of Egypt, King Abdullah of Saudi Arabia, King Abdullah II of the Hashemite Kingdom of Jordan, President Massoud Barzani of the Kurdistan regional government in Iraq, and even the prime minister of what the Syrians condescendingly call “sisterly Lebanon” - made their absence conspicuously obvious.
(External meddling has created the sad limbo in which there is no president of Lebanon at the present-which is precisely the reason why the host, President Bashar al-Assad of Syria, is in the doghouse as far as the Saudis and the Egyptians are concerned.)
The Saudis - backed, as Syria loudly complained, by a firm American position - have gone so far as to express their anger in two distinctive ways:
- They were represented at the summit by the lowest-ranking official they could send without avoiding the gathering altogether - their ambassador to the Arab League institutions in Cairo;
- They scheduled a major speech by His Majesty for the very moment when other TV stations in the region carried live Bashar al-Assad’s opening statement.
To those familiar with the intricacies of the regional game, these were telling signs of conflict. There were others. This week, the Lebanese government under Fuad Siniora made open its allegations of Syrian complicity in the bitterly fought Fatah al-Islam insurgency in the Nahr al-Bared refugee camp in northern Lebanon last year. The Arab media is rife with accusations of conspiracy and destabilization campaigns on both sides. Much of the U.S. vice president’s visit had to do with these escalating tensions; and so, too, does the recent outbreak of fighting in Basra, and the ongoing crisis in Gaza. A new cognitive map of the Middle East is emerging, which in some ways is entirely different and in other ways reminiscent of past rivalries.
For students of regional politics in the 1970s, Malcolm Kerr’s The Arab Cold War was an essential part of their education; written wisely and with a touch of refreshing irony, it chronicled the manner in which Gamal Abdel Nasser’s ambitions, and the fears of the monarchies and other regimes he sought to destabilize, gradually became intertwined with the broader global conflict of the time. Soon, the ironies made way for bitter tragedies, with the bloodthirsty coup in Iraq in 1958 being the harbinger of things to come.
By the 1990s, all this was history-as was the Soviet Union; but while many good people hoped that peace would now be made inevitable by the New World Order, other conflicts soon emerged to fill the void. Kerr himself, as Fouad Ajami touchingly tells us in The Dream Palace of the Arabs, fell to an assassin, as did several of the leading figures of his beloved American University of Beirut. (His son went on to become a star of American college basketball, far from the turmoil that claimed his father’s life.)
A new breed of killers came on the scene, driven by a fanatical perversion of religion - modern revolutionary Islamist totalitarianism, somewhat ridiculously referred to as “fundamentalism” - making some of the iniquities of the Cold War era look trivial by comparison.
It took the rise of Iran as a focal point for these movements to turn the post-Cold War crisis in the region into something that closely resembles the dynamics of the old Cold War - but with Tehran and the ambitions of the Islamic Revolution now playing the role once reserved for the Soviets as the revisionist challenger of the existing order. Offering a vision of the future radically different from that of the West - regimented, released from the lusts and moral depravities of free societies, and with the “stain” of Israel expunged from the map-Iran and her allies are openly challenging not only the “Zionist entity” and the “Great Satan,” but the entire regional power structure; and would do so much more vehemently and dangerously would a nuclear umbrella be shielding them.
Now, as the Damascus fiasco surely shows, the existing order has decided to fight back-perhaps sending a signal to those in the West who seriously think about a “grand bargain” with the likes of Iran’s leader Ali Khamene’i (who stands over the head of President Mahmoud Ahamadinejad, who shows no interest in accommodating the opinions of the world). Such a “détente” bargain, if it is to include a historic concession by Iran on the nuclear front-and unless backed by a very robust alternative course of action, if Iran refuses to come to terms - would almost by necessity carry a terrible price tag: the abandonment of the Gulf regimes, and the Arab monarchies and pro-Western regimes, to their sad fate at the hands of Iran’s proxies. (Israel, too, would face bitter realities, but is better equipped to handle them.)
This goes a long way toward explaining the decision of the Saudis, Jordanians, and belatedly, the Egyptians to take a sharp stand that would make the stark choices obvious to all-in Washington and beyond. In 1977, to thwart a U.S.-Soviet grand bargain (the Declaration of October 1, that year, which also riled the Israeli government and American Jewish opinion), Sadat came to Jerusalem. In 2008, to send a similar message, his successor did not come to Damascus.
Not everyone in the area reads from this sheet of music. There is growing suspicion that the smaller Gulf states are frightened enough to hedge their bets and make nice with Tehran. The Palestinians, torn right down the middle, are looking at both confrontation and reconciliation as viable options in an impossible situation. But overall, the dynamics of the new Arab Cold War are the dominant regional reality.
This goes a long way toward explaining two strange, almost absurd, developments on the Palestinian front:
1. The talks between Prime Minister Ehud Olmert and Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas are picking up momentum and, indeed, are beginning to ignite internal tensions within Olmert’s coalition. There may be an air of futility about these talks-they are, at best, aimed at a “shelf” agreement that can only be implemented when Hamas no longer controls Gaza. And yet they are necessary (and so are the Israeli gestures, in terms of reduced security measures in the West Bank, which Defense Minister Ehud Barak approved in time for Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice’s visit) as part of the overall alignment of forces on the anti-Iranian side of the new Cold War;
2. Meanwhile, the reduction of violence on the Gaza front-utilizing the profound impact that recent Israeli operations have had on the local Hamas leadership-serves the short-term purposes of the anti-Iranian alliance. (While publicly defiant, and committed to being the ones to fire the last missile, Hamas leaders cannot ignore the effects that even a limited two-day, one-brigade IDF incursion had on their forces and their people.) But this development opens up dangerous long-term questions, insofar as it takes the Palestinian issue off the public boil just when Assad and the Iranians would have wanted it to dominate the Damascus discussions (and indeed, Iran’s proxy, Palestinian Islamic Jihad, did fire a large but luckily unsuccessful salvo on the summit.)
A tahdi’a or “calm” between Israel and Hamas has yet to be (indirectly) negotiated and agreed upon, and so also the fate of abducted soldier Gilad Shalit; but at least, given the Damascus framework, Egyptian efforts to obtain both of these goals may (now) be read in the context of their work to subvert Iran’s interests rather than as gestures of conciliatory intent toward Tehran and its local allies.
Reprinted with kindly permission of The American Jewish Committee.
A briefing from the Rand Corporation examines the U.S. Navy’s first modular warship, the Littoral Combat Ship, and offers suggestions for how to use the vessel strategically.
“The next few years will be crucial to determining which direction European Security and Defense Policy (ESDP) goes. Some factors will favor further growth and development.
First, the Lisbon ‘reform’ treaty should soon be ratified, introducing important new innovations to the EU’s Common Foreign and Security Policy (CFSP) and, more importantly, putting to rest the intra-EU quarrel that has impeded progress for the last five years.
Second, the divisions that arose over the Iraq War are fading, both Europe and the United States and within Europe itself. This should facilitate a more reasoned discussion of Europe’s role in global security.
Third, with the Iraq and Afghanistan wars continuing and a major presidential campaign underway, the United States has entered a period in which openness to independent European efforts is apt to increase, provided that these efforts are viewed as generally positive for the transatlantic relationship.
Fourth, the French presidency of the EU, which begins in June 2008, is very likely to attempt to push ESDP forward into a new phase.”
Top strategist Zbigniew Brzezinski, now foreign policy adviser to Senator Barack Obama, wrote in a Washington Post op-ed that a “sensibly conducted disengagement will actually make Iraq more stable over the long term.”
The Transatlantic Institute has the pleasure of inviting you to join us for an off-the-record panel debate on:
Iran’s Parliamentary elections and ramifications for EU policy
Wednesday, 2nd April 2008 - 17.30 - 19.00
At the: MaeIbeek Room, International Press Center, Residence Palace, Rue de la loi 155, 1040 Brussels, Belgium
Guest Speakers:
Didier Cossé, Desk Officer in charge of Iran at DGE 5 - External Affairs, Middle East Task Force, Council of the European Union. Didier Cossé was previously in charge of human rights and non-proliferation at the Office of High Representative Mr. Javier Solana. He is a graduate of the Institut d’Études Politiques de Paris (IEP) and the École Nationale d’Administration (ENA).
Mehdi Khalaji, Visiting Fellow at the Washington Institute, focusing on the role of politics in contemporary Shiite clericalism in Iran and Iraq. A Shiite theologian by training, he trained in the seminaries of Qom, the traditional centre of Iran’s clerical establishment, from 1986 - 2000. He later joined the BBC Persian Service and then Radio Farda, the U.S. government Persian news service. He has written widely on contemporary Iranian issues.
Moderator: Dr. Emanuele Ottolenghi, Executive Director of the Transatlantic Institute
“The silver anniversary of President Ronald Reagan’s ‘Star Wars’ speech came and went quietly this week. However, the research program to develop ballistic missile defense still remains a big-ticket item a quarter-century later.
For 2009, the White House is requesting $12.3 billion to develop ballistic missile defense. This is on top of the more than $120 billion taxpayers have already spent since 1985 to develop a system that still has yet to be realistically tested and may never be operationally effective.
Over the past decade, security experts have warned that the most likely way a nuclear weapon will find its way into the United States is hidden in the cargo of a ship or smuggled across US borders.”
Address to the Nation on National Security by President Ronald Reagan, March 23, 1983
My fellow Americans,
The calls for cutting back the defense budget come in nice, simple arithmetic. They’re the same kind of talk that led the democracies to neglect their defenses in the 1930’s and invited the tragedy of World War II. We must not let that grim chapter of history repeat itself through apathy or neglect.
This is why I’m speaking to you tonight - to urge you to tell your Senators and Congressmen that you know we must continue to restore our military strength. If we stop in midstream, we will send a signal of decline, of lessened will, to friends and adversaries alike.
Free people must voluntarily, through open debate and democratic means, meet the challenge that totalitarians pose by compulsion. It’s up to us, in our time, to choose and choose wisely between the hard but necessary task of preserving peace and freedom and the temptation to ignore our duty and blindly hope for the best while the enemies of freedom grow stronger day by day.
The solution is well within our grasp. But to reach it, there is simply no alternative but to continue this year, in this budget, to provide the resources we need to preserve the peace and guarantee our freedom.
Now, thus far tonight I’ve shared with you my thoughts on the problems of national security we must face together. My predecessors in the Oval Office have appeared before you on other occasions to describe the threat posed by Soviet power and have proposed steps to address that threat. But since the advent of nuclear weapons, those steps have been increasingly directed toward deterrence of aggression through the promise of retaliation.
This approach to stability through offensive threat has worked. We and our allies have succeeded in preventing nuclear war for more than three decades. in recent months, however, my advisers, including in particular the Joint Chiefs of Staff, have underscored the necessity to break out of a future that relies solely on offensive retaliation for our security.
Over the course of these discussions, I’ve become more and more deeply convinced that the human spirit must be capable of rising above dealing with other nations and human beings by threatening their existence. Feeling this way, I believe we must thoroughly examine every opportunity for reducing tensions and for introducing greater stability into the strategic calculus on both sides.
One of the most important contributions we can make is, of course, to lower the level of all arms, and particularly nuclear arms. We’re engaged right now in several negotiations with the Soviet Union to bring about a mutual reduction of weapons. I will report to you a week from tomorrow my thoughts on that score. But let me just say, I’m totally committed to this course.
If the Soviet Union will join with us in our effort to achieve major arms reduction, we will have succeeded in stabilizing the nuclear balance. Nevertheless, it will still be necessary to rely on the specter of retaliation, on mutual threat. And that’s a sad commentary on the human condition. Wouldn’t it be better to save lives than to avenge them? Are we not capable of demonstrating our peaceful intentions by applying all our abilities and our ingenuity to achieving a truly lasting stability? I think we are. Indeed, we must.
After careful consultation with my advisers, including the Joint Chiefs of Staff, I believe there is a way. Let me share with you a vision of the future which offers hope. It is that we embark on a program to counter the awesome Soviet missile threat with measures that are defensive. Let us turn to the very strengths in technology that spawned our great industrial base and that have given us the quality of life we enjoy today.
What if free people could live secure in the knowledge that their security did not rest upon the threat of instant U.S. retaliation to deter a Soviet attack, that we could intercept and destroy strategic ballistic missiles before they reached our own soil or that of our allies?
I know this is a formidable, technical task, one that may not be accomplished before the end of this century.
Yet, current technology has attained a level of sophistication where it’s reasonable for us to begin this effort. It will take years, probably decades of effort on many fronts. There will be failures and setbacks, just as there will be successes and breakthroughs. And as we proceed, we must remain constant in preserving the nuclear deterrent and maintaining a solid capability for flexible response. But isn’t it worth every investment necessary to free the world from the threat of nuclear war? We know it is.
In the meantime, we will continue to pursue real reductions in nuclear arms, negotiating from a position of strength that can be ensured only by modernizing our strategic forces. At the same time, we must take steps to reduce the risk of a conventional military conflict escalating to nuclear war by improving our nonnuclear capabilities.
America does possess - now - the technologies to attain very significant improvements in the effectiveness of our conventional, nonnuclear forces. Proceeding boldly with these new technologies, we can significantly reduce any incentive that the Soviet Union may have to threaten attack against the United States or its allies.
As we pursue our goal of defensive technologies, we recognize that our allies rely upon our strategic offensive power to deter attacks against them. Their vital interests and ours are inextricably linked. Their safety and ours are one. And no change in technology can or will alter that reality. We must and shall continue to honor our commitments.
I clearly recognize that defensive systems have limitations and raise certain problems and ambiguities. If paired with offensive systems, they can be viewed as fostering an aggressive policy, and no one wants that. But with these considerations firmly in mind, I call upon the scientific community in our country, those who gave us nuclear weapons, to turn their great talents now to the cause of mankind and world peace, to give us the means of rendering these nuclear weapons impotent and obsolete.
Tonight, consistent with our obligations of the ABM treaty and recognizing the need for closer consultation with our allies, I’m taking an important first step. I am directing a comprehensive and intensive effort to define a long-term research and development program to begin to achieve our ultimate goal of eliminating the threat posed by strategic nuclear missiles. This could pave the way for arms control measures to eliminate the weapons themselves. We seek neither military superiority nor political advantage. Our only purpose - one all people share - is to search for ways to reduce the danger of nuclear war.
My fellow Americans, tonight we’re launching an effort which holds the promise of changing the course of human history. There will be risks, and results take time.
But I believe we can do it. As we cross this threshold, I ask for your prayers and your support.
While the United States has focused its attention on Iranian activities in the greater Middle East, Iran has worked assiduously to expand its influence in Latin America and Africa. Iranian president Mahmoud Ahmadinejad’s outreach in both areas has been deliberate and generously funded. He has made significant strides in Latin America, helping to embolden the anti-American bloc of Venezuela, Bolivia, and Nicaragua. In Africa, he is forging strong ties as well. The United States ignores these developments at its peril, and efforts need to be undertaken to reverse Iran’s recent gains.
Both before and after the Islamic Revolution, Iran has aspired to be a regional power. Prior to 1979, Washington supported Tehran’s ambitions - after all, the shah provided a bulwark against both communist and radical Arab nationalism. Following the Islamic Revolution, however, U.S. officials
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