The Palestinian Use of Propaganda

by Michael Curtis

The use of propaganda has a long history, going back to the Persians in 6th century B.C. The word itself can be traced back to at least the early 17th century when in January, 1622, Pope Gregory XV set up the Congregation for the Propagation of the Faith. Its objective was missionary work to oppose the Protestant Reformation. In general, propaganda is the use of communication to influence the emotions, attitudes, and opinions of people in the attempt to get them to accept a particular political, religious, or economic point of view. It implies, in democratic as well as in non-democratic societies, conscious manipulation of the opinions of those societies. 

That manipulation is usually directed at emotion rather than to thought. At its most extreme, propaganda takes the form of the big lie, the repetition of a view of events or history that induces or encourages action. It was Adolf Hitler who clearly explained this manipulation when he wrote "The most brilliant propagandist technique will yield no success unless one fundamental principle is borne in mind constantly -- it must confine itself to a few points and repeat them over and over." That technique takes many forms, appeals to prejudice and to fear, disinformation and presentation of forgeries and false documents, selective truth, scapegoating or demonizing the enemy. 

Arguably, the use of propaganda by Palestinians to gain compassion and political support has been their one great success. The Palestinian narrative of victimhood, with its falsifications of history and politics, its portrayal of themselves as not only innocent but the most compelling victims in the world, its staging of events to blame Israel for atrocities they themselves have committed, its deliberate concentration on alleged injuries or deaths of children, and its achievement in persuading much of the media to accept and advance its manipulation of language and action, have all been part of its success in the propaganda war.

That success is shown by the fact that a considerable proportion of the European population accepts the Palestinian propaganda that Israel is conducting a war of extermination against the Palestinians, in spite of the reiteration of Palestinian leaders of their determination to eliminate the State of Israel. Israel, the only liberal democracy in the Middle East, is held responsible for the problems not only of the area but for those in the world in general. 

In contrast, the Palestinians present themselves as helpless, blameless individuals who have been the victims of Israeli brutality and colonialism. This presentation has been advanced in a number of ways but most successfully by three devices: using Palestinian children to assert Israeli brutality; staging and falsifying events, sometimes in collusion with sympathetic Western journalists, to portray Palestinians as innocent victims and Israelis as cruel oppressors; and by distorting the historical and political chronicle of Jews and Arabs.

Faking news has become a Palestinian cottage industry. A familiar aphorism is that a picture is worth more than a thousand words. The most diabolic aspect of Palestinian propaganda is its use or rather abuse of children by using them as stage props. Palestinians have been adept at that, often using photos of injured or dead children who supposedly have been killed by Israeli fire. The international Western media has often been eager or induced to use the photos, often recycled, of the dead or suffering children, thus seeking compassion for Palestinians and demonizing Israel at the same time. The compliant media and the compassionate public ignore the reality and the irony that some of these children had been injured or killed by rockets fired by Hamas that had been aimed at Israeli civilians.

The device of using children has probably been the most effective tool in the propaganda campaign against Israel. It was Yasser Arafat who in January 2002 who appreciated this when he said, "The Palestinian child holding a stone, facing a tank-is that not the greatest message to the world, when that hero becomes a 'martyr'?" He used the photo of a 15 year-old boy stoning a tank to good effect. In saluting the boy as "our hero, the martyr," Arafat encouraged other children to attack soldiers. Those children who are sent to the front lines, and others who throw stones at Israeli cars attract television cameras. 

The most well known use of children was the incident of the supposed death on September 2000 of Mohammed al-Durah, a 12-year-old Palestinian boy allegedly killed by Israeli fire. The "targets of Israeli fire," emotional documentary footage of the scene with the boy and his father supposedly endangered by Israeli fire was narrated by a French reporter, Charles Enderlin, who had not been there, but who apparently accepted the Palestinian version of events. The acceptance and reporting of the story by the international media provoked anti-Israeli riots. 

Yet the story was false; it was a hoax with fake photos devised by a Palestinian propagandist, as Richard Landes and others have explained. If al-Durah had been killed, which is in doubt, it was by Palestinian not Israeli fire. However, the image of the boy was used throughout the Western as well as the Muslim world to depict Israel engaged in criminality, equivalent to that of Nazi Germany. 

The charge of criminality surfaces on many occasions. In April 2013 the Russian newspaper, Komsomolskaya Pravda, published a false story, based on an accusation by a Palestinian who had been released from an Israeli jail. It stated that Israel injected Palestinian prisoners with dangerous viruses before releasing them from prison. The prisoners also were said to suffer from serious diseases such as bladder cancer and liver problems caused by Israeli torture. Symbolically, the charge is reminiscent of blood libel accusations against Jews.

Another false photo story, this one published by Reuters news agency in 2006, was of a young Palestinian girl killed during an air strike in Gaza in operation "Pillar of Defense." The reality was that the girl had died as a result of falling off a swing. 

The distorted Palestinian chronicle of history and events has become all too familiar. 

The anti-Israeli propaganda campaign has focused on a number of false charges. Zionism, the Jewish national movement, and therefore Israel is characterized as colonialism and oppressive. Israel is a racist country responsible for the plight of Palestinians in general, and for the problem of Palestinian refugees in particular. Israel has usurped the rights, land and natural resources of Palestinians, and destroyed Islamic holy places. Israel has conducted massacres in Jenin and Nablus, poisoned children, spread drug use, and committed war crimes.

The propaganda campaign continues with presentation of false charges and the reiteration of the fallacious Palestinian narrative of victimhood. The campaign has and may continue to achieve some acceptance by some in the international community, but if it is not confronted with exposition of its pernicious character, its harmful impact and lack of validity the battle for a peaceful settlement of the Arab-Israeli conflict will be lost.

Michael Curtis

Source: http://www.americanthinker.com/2013/09/the_palestinian_use_of_propaganda.html

Copyright - Original materials copyright (c) by the authors.

The Nuclear Tide Comes In

by Shoshana Bryen & Stephen D. Bryen


President Obama's speech to the U.N. General Assembly contained his annual diplomatic overtures to the government of Iran, pointing to letters he has written to Iran's supreme leader and to President Rouhani and disavowing "regime change."  Declaring "our" preference for the diplomatic path, President Obama enjoined Secretary of State Kerry to meet directly with Iranian Foreign Minister Zarif to begin the process of improving relations.  His own attempt at diplomacy, however, was rebuffed when Iranian President Rouhani declined the American president's offer of a meeting at the U.N., calling it "complicated."

At the same time, the president told the General Assembly, "We are determined to prevent [Iran] from developing a nuclear weapon."  But his "determination" carries little weight following the on-again-off-again American response to Syria's use of chemical weapons and the broad sense that Russia is the rising power in an area that had been America's domain.  With a weakened United States, the impact of its newest diplomatic overture is likely to be a scramble for nuclear weapons -- with important consequences for global stability. 

Iran has already announced that it will not give up its quest for nuclear capability.  It has invested far too much; it has a huge supporting infrastructure and a large set of international technology feeders, as well as a strongly ingrained belief that it is entitled.  President Obama doesn't entirely disagree, saying it is "weapons," not "capabilities" that he forbids, insofar as he can forbid anything.  But as enrichment continues and Iran's missile program continues, the space between nuclear capability and nuclear weapons capability shrinks.  Iran is closing in on what Israel called "the zone of immunity," the point at which Iran no longer needs outside assistance to pursue its nuclear goals.

The first country likely to react to Iran's nuclear progress and America's regional diminution is Saudi Arabia, presently locked in a proxy battle with Iran in Iraq, Syria, and Lebanon.  Sunni and virulently opposed to Shi'ite Iran, the Saudis will do everything they can to acquire nuclear weapons.  Expect them to hook up with countries that already have nuclear know-how.  After all, if Pakistan could get nuclear support from corrupt European governments and predatory companies, and Iran gets similar support, why not Saudi Arabia?  Thanks to "diplomacy," the chances of American military intervention against Iran have gone to zero, and of Israeli intervention nearly to zero, leaving the Saudis on their own.  While Saudi Arabia is still more likely to trust Israel than to put any faith in the United States, if it is to survive, it has to have a counterpunch.

Other American dependencies are also reading the tea leaves.  Bahrain, Kuwait, Qatar, and Oman all fear Iranian hegemony.  If the U.S. is not going to defend its vital Middle Eastern interests, and has recklessly abandoned a large and important client such as Egypt, how can smaller states and sheikdoms expect the United States to guarantee their security?  Oddly enough, American pressure on Israel at the behest of the Palestinians also makes the Gulf States nervous.  If the U.S. won't protect its political, social, and religious ally, Israel, how can states with essentially only a shared interest in oil claim American attention?

Any country that wants to survive will have to figure out how to do it on its own, or expect that its days will be numbered.

Farther east, Afghanistan will fall to the Taliban, and fairly soon.  The Afghan government is engaged "peace talks" while the Taliban continues to attack both government and allied installations.  Without Western troops and money to prop up President Karzai in Kabul, he is on his way out, whether he like it or not.  Iraq, which is fissured, may explode in a new civil war unless a new dictator emerges and the Iraqi army is strong enough to beat back its "enemies."  In Syria, Assad will likely hold a third or more of the country, and the rest will remain in chaos.  He will keep his chemical arsenal.

In Asia there will be some surprises.  The United States sees China -- like Russia -- as a superpower competitor in economic and military terms.  But China, like Iran, operates not only at the level of superpower confrontation.  China, like Russia, has a "near abroad."  Its regional interests are the capture of resources in the Western Pacific and the ouster of the United States from its "backyard," as Iran hopes to oust American from the Persian Gulf.  China has begun to build on a disputed shoal in Philippine-claimed waters.  Manila hopes the U.S. will deter China's sprawl in the region, but with the U.S. Navy shrinking, additional resources and a firm posture from the U.S. are unlikely.  With that, democratic Taiwan may be forced by circumstances to make a final deal with the mainland and end its independent journey.

These are conventional responses to China's conventional rise, but Japan poses a different set of issues.  It will need to reconfigure itself to deal with China and take into account America's failure to divest North Korea of its nuclear program; both China and Korea are historic adversaries of Japan.  Although it is living through a disaster in its nuclear power industry, Japan has lots of plutonium and solid-fueled long-range rockets, and may not be far from being able to become a nuclear weapons power.  This can happen only with a right-wing political revolution in Japan, but Japanese sources note that conversations have already taken place in the government.

A U.S. "deal" that leaves Iran capable of producing nuclear weapons will serve as a warning to the Japanese.

The Koreas, too, may see the American retreat as opening the possibility of a deal between North and South, as far-fetched as that may seem.  North Korea is rapidly becoming a nuclear power, and satellite imagery shows that the Yongbyon reactor, capable of producing weapons-grade plutonium, has been restarted.  China appears concerned and has announced restrictions on nuclear-related exports to North Korea.  Rather than remaining a Chinese protectorate, the North Korean military could overthrow the Kim regime and look for a deal for power-sharing with the wealthy South, leading to reunification.  Undersecretary of Defense Fred Ikle during the Reagan administration predicted that ultimately, North and South Korea would merge into an economically powerful, nuclear-armed, united peninsula.  The decline of the United States in Asia might make South Korea more amenable.

These changes are massive, and it is unlikely that they all will happen, but with the absolute retreat of the United States, the natural inclination of smaller countries is to seek self-preservation and to maintain regional and local balances of power.  Each country will weigh its weapons programs -- conventional and non-conventional -- and its alliances against the understanding that the American protective umbrella is folding.  President Obama insisted to the U.N. General Assembly that the United States will not withdraw and not retreat. 

Whether he is believed is another matter.

Shoshana Bryen & Stephen D. Bryen

Source: http://www.americanthinker.com/2013/09/the_nuclear_tide_comes_in.html

Copyright - Original materials copyright (c) by the authors.

The Mullahs’ Charm Offensive

by Noah Beck


 

With starry-eyed optimism, Western leaders and members of the media have recently fawned all over the new Iranian president, Hasan Rouhani, as if he had taken any meaningful steps to reverse Iran’s illicit nuclear program, abysmal human rights abuses, or support for Hezbollah terrorism and Basher Assad’s murderous regime in Syria. Rouhani can thank his predecessor, Mahmoud Ahmadinejad, for being so repugnant that virtually anyone succeeding him would be welcomed with relief. But the West’s premature exuberance over Rouhani undermines efforts to curb Iran’s nuclear ambitions and dangerously signals to rogue states that a few weeks of charm can quickly compensate for decades of terrorism, genocidal incitement, and human rights abuses.

On the core issues, Iran’s behavior is the same, but with a more PR-savvy face. Rouhani has continued Iran’s support for the Syrian regime and Iran’s anti-Israel rhetoric and policies. About a month into Rouhani’s term, the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) declared that Iran’s nuclear program includes “strong indicators of possible nuclear weapon development.”  The program includes developing plutonium-based capabilities for building nukes, installing advanced uranium enrichment equipment that enables Iran quickly to weaponize its nuclear materials without detection by IAEA inspections, enriching uranium in defiance of UN Security Council and IAEA resolutions, and developing nuclear warheads and the missiles to deliver them.

These facts completely discredit Rouhani’s repeated claims that Iran’s nuclear program exists only for “peaceful” purposes. His boasts about playing for time (in a 2004 speech) when he served as Iran’s chief nuclear negotiator further undermine his credibility on this issue (in his words: “While we were talking with the Europeans in Tehran, we were installing equipment in parts of the [nuclear conversion] facility in Isfahan”). Moreover, Iran has consistently deceived the international community about its nuclear activities, like when the Islamic Republic concealed its nuclear facility in Qom (which was uncovered by Western intelligence agencies).

But these facts don’t seem to matter because when Rouhani repeatedly drops the word “peace” in his speeches, Western media and diplomats swoon. “At the cost of thoughtful reporting” (as media watchdog CAMERA aptly summarized), Western media have also fallen for the “Twitter charms” reportedly sent by members of the Iranian regime.

And this same naive crowd celebrates the release of 80 Iranian political prisoners — timed for maximum PR effect — while forgetting that Iran has executed more than 170 political prisoners since Rouhani’s election and continues to imprison close to 800 (including U.S. citizen and former Marine Amir Hekmati, despite requests to release him from top U.S. officials, including Secretary of State John Kerry). Indeed, a web site documenting Iran’s human rights abuses confirms that — under Rouhani’s rule — it’s very much business as usual in Iran, with public hangings, religious persecution, abuse of women, arbitrary arrests, and suppression of dissent. But why spoil the party with such details when Rouhani speechifies about “peace” and “friendship?”

Desperate for a sign of progress, delusional optimists point out that Rouhani hasn’t actively denied the Holocaust. That this could be considered a sign of Iranian “progress” shows just how pathetically low the bar has dropped (thanks, again, to Ahmadinejad’s fine work). But even by this measure, Rouhani just looks more sophisticated (opting to say that “he’s not a historian” instead of unequivocally denying the Holocaust). One Iran expert explained Rouhani’s shameful response as a result of local politics, but if Rouhani’s not even free to acknowledge a historical fact, how can he possibly change Iran’s nuclear policy? Rouhani may have subsequently realized that his media strategy required improving upon his initial answer, but the clarification he attempted in his recent interview with Christiane Amanpour left him plenty of room for Holocaust denial and revisionism. Equally troubling, starting around 4:00 of this video (which part was suspiciously excluded from CNN’s written interview summary), Rouhani goes on to suggest that the Jewish claim to the land of Israel is based only on the Holocaust, and — in equally twisted moral and historical logic — suggests an equivalence between the Holocaust and the Israeli “occupation” of Palestinians.

Only the credible threat of force has ever worked in stopping Iran’s nuclear ambitions, and after Obama’s feckless and spineless approach to a far weaker adversary (Syria), the Iranians have all the more reason to doubt any U.S. military threat — particularly if Obama can be stalled by a diplomatic process that seems to offer progress now that the Iranian wolf has been redressed as a sheep.

While Obama likes to boast that his economic sanctions have brought Iran to the table, the only measure of success is whether Iran is closer to a nuclear weapons capability, and on that score Obama is a complete failure: Iran has been inching closer to nukes every day that Obama has been in office.

Moreover, the dynamics of Obama’s diplomatic efforts reveal who’s actually winning: Obama asked Rouhani for a meeting at the UN, only to be rejected. So the U.S. looks like the eager party here, making it that much easier for Iran to manipulate any eventual talks in its favor. Indeed, the more the West appears desperate to welcome Rouhani’s new tune, the less Iran has to make any meaningful concessions. In this way, Ahmadinejad’s revolting persona and style made it that much easier for his successor to succeed at playing the “good cop” in any negotiations. And it is actually Iran’s hardline supreme leader, Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, who has the final say on Iranian policy, so the Rouhani theatrics are ultimately meaningless anyway. While the country’s dictator recently said that Iran can show “heroic flexibility,” he’s not actually beholden to anyone, so he can easily change his mind after buying another 6-12 months of nuclear enrichment time by “negotiating” with the West through Rouhani.

To resolve a crisis that could otherwise end up as a massive regional war in the near future, Iran must: 1) stop all nuclear enrichment, 2) dismantle the illicit underground nuclear facility near Qom and the second-generation centrifuges in Natanz, 3) remove all enriched material from Iranian territory, and 4) stop the construction of the heavy water reactor in Arak. If the international community hopes to stop Iran’s nuclear program before it’s too late, any deal with Iran must ensure that the above four steps are verifiably taken. Any lesser deal would allow Iran to continue developing nuclear weapons capabilities behind a smokescreen of promises, as the North Koreans have done. Will the West be charmed all the way to Armageddon?

Noah Beck is the author of The Last Israelis, an apocalyptic novel about Iranian nukes and other geopolitical issues in the Middle East.

Source: http://frontpagemag.com/2013/noah-beck/the-mullahs-charm-offensive/

Copyright - Original materials copyright (c) by the authors.

Believe Khamene'i and Assad? Not Me

by Daniel Pipes


Has anyone else noted the similarity in today's top two Middle East news headlines – the telephone call between the Iranian and American presidents and the passage of U.N. Security Council Resoluton 2118 that calls for the "expeditious destruction" of Syrian chemical weapons? In both cases:

• A long-ruling tyrant (Ali Khamene'i, Bashar al-Assad,) is reaching out to the West.
• Those tyrants are furiously signaling an apparent reform (a smiling Hassan Rouhani, Assad acknowledging his chemical weapons and agreeing to turn them over).
• "Who us, WMD?" they ask. "No interest at all in them."

Supreme Leader Ali Khamene'i (left) with President Hassan Rouhani. Let's not forget who's in charge in Tehran.

Count me skeptical. In part, I've learned over the decades that pessimism is good for one's career as a Middle East analyst. In part, both the Iranian and Syrian governments have shown such dedication to their WMD buildups that it's nearly inconceivable either will voluntarily undo them.

I just hope that the U.S. and other governments don't fall prey to manipulations and delays. Given the occupant in the White House, however, that seems like a very probable outcome, especially in the Iranian case. (September 28, 2013)


Daniel Pipes

Source: http://www.danielpipes.org/blog/2013/09/believe-khamenei-and-assad-not-me

Copyright - Original materials copyright (c) by the authors.

Netanyahu's Mission at the UN: To Expose Rouhani's Fraud

by Shlomo Cesana, Gideon Allon, Yoni Hirsch and Israel Hayom Staff

Israeli PM: In the face of Iranian sweet talk, I will tell the truth • MK Avigdor Lieberman: Rouhani's charm offensive is nothing but a deceptive trick • Sunday Times: Netanyahu will give Obama proof that Iran has enough enriched uranium for a bomb.

Prime Minister Netanyahu and his wife depart for the United States | Photo credit: GPO

Following Iranian President Hasan Rouhani's attempt on Tuesday to sell the idea of the "new Iran" to the world at the United Nations General Assembly, this week, Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu will have an opportunity to "tell the truth" as Israel sees it. 

"I will tell the truth at the U.N.," Netanyahu said in the twilight hours of Sunday morning before leaving for the United States. In Washington and in New York, "I will represent the citizens of Israel, our national interests, our rights as a nation, our determination to defend ourselves and our hope or peace. In the face of the [Iranian] sweet talk and the smiles offensive, we must speak out about the facts and tell the truth. I think that telling the truth today is essential to the security and well-being of the world and of course, it is essential to the security of our country."

Netanyahu is expected to meet with U.S. President Barack Obama on Monday and to address the United Nations General Assembly on Tuesday. The ongoing peace negotiations between Israel and the Palestinians will likely come up at both events, but the prime minister is expected to focus on the topic of Iran, as he sees Iran's nuclear capability as the greatest existential threat to Israel. 

Netanyahu's principal mission is to reveal recent Iranian attempts for reconciliation as insincere and fraudulent. 

On Sunday, Knesset Foreign Affairs and Defense Committee Chairman MK Avigdor Lieberman (Yisrael Beytenu) discussed Netanyahu's upcoming U.N. address on his Facebook page, saying that "it is important to keep in mind that the Iranians have been doing this for years, in a consistent pattern of deception: They use different tactics such as promises, stalling and the kind of false information that they have provided the international community time and time again. All the while they continue to advance toward their stated goal -- obtaining nuclear weapons in order to pose a threat to world peace." 

"Once again this year the debate revolves around Iran's nuclear race, only this time the world's attention is focused on Iran's new president and his efforts to appear moderate and conciliatory. [Hasan] Rouhani's charm offensive is nothing but another deceptive trick, the same as North Korea," Lieberman wrote. 

Let us recall that at the beginning of the 1980s, with the nuclear reactor in Iraq, Israel was the only one to warn in advance, and in retrospect it turned out that we were right. The same is true for other instances," Lieberman stressed. "Today, too, Israel is not willing to take part in this fraud. That is why I support the prime minister as he heads out on an important mission. I am convinced that even if the atmosphere and discourse aren't conducive to making such harsh declarations, the prime minister will be wise enough to do it and stand strong. He will protect the vital interests, essential not only to the security of the state but to the peace and stability of the entire world." 

The prime minister's office has adopted a policy of silence, and prior to his departure, Netanyahu instructed his ministers and senior officials not to speak to the media on recent developments. This primarily refers to Friday's one-on-one phone conversation between Obama and Rouhani and to statements Obama has made regarding Iran's right to a nuclear program for civilian purposes. 

However on Friday, before the prime minister instructed ministers not to speak about Iran, Homefront Defense Minister Gilad Erdan told Israel Radio that, "Netanyahu's public relations efforts against Iran in recent years have allowed the world to impose unprecedented sanctions." According to him, "in his remarks to the U.N., the prime minister will reveal intelligence information to the world."

In a Sunday Times report, a senior Israeli official stated that Netanyahu will tell the world that Iran currently has 482 pounds (219 kilograms) of enriched uranium, which is enough to produce a nuclear weapon. During his remarks at the U.N. General Assembly in 2012, Netanyahu famously displayed a cartoon diagram of a bomb, demarcating his "red line" for Iran's nuclear program, which was 90 percent of the amount of enriched uranium needed to produce a nuclear weapon.

The British newspaper went on to report that Netanyahu was expected to present Obama with a dossier containing intelligence that attests to Iran's advancing nuclear program, including the progress made during Rouhani's leadership. 

On Monday, Netanyahu is expected to meet Monday in Washington with Obama, Vice President Joe Biden and Secretary of State John Kerry. The prime minister is also planning to embark on a "media blitz" in the coming week, in efforts to influence local public opinion to oppose the possible removal of sanctions on Iran. 

According to information from well-placed sources, Netanyahu is expected to emphasize during his meeting with Obama and his speech at the U.N. that any agreement made with the Iranians will be deceitful and fraudulent. Such agreements, he is expected to claim, are designed to remove sanctions from Iran and will not prevent military nuclear capability from getting into the hands of the extremist regime in Tehran. One of the sources stated that, "Netanyahu's objective is to lift the smoke screen Rouhani created in New York. The Iranians are trying to reverse the sanctions that were imposed on them because of Netanyahu, while seeking to give up only the auxiliary part of their nuclear program and to keep their main capabilities."

"Netanyahu understands that there is a lot of euphoria," said an unnamed senior Israeli official quoted by The New York Times on Saturday. "Netanyahu knows that people in the international community will want to believe. I think you'll see in his remarks a lot of facts, a lot of facts that no one denies." According to the report, the thaw in relations between the United States and Iran was met with suspicion and concern both in Israel and in Saudi Arabia, a bitter enemy of Tehran. 

A senior state official added that, "Netanyahu will tell the truth in the clearest way. The Israeli stance on stopping the Iranian nuclear program is correct, and we will repeat it and insist upon it. The instructions of [Iranian] spiritual leader Ali Khamenei to continue with the nuclear military program have not changed."

Netanyahu will be accompanied in New York by Erdan, Deputy Foreign Minister Zeev Elkin and Deputy Defense Minister Danny Danon. 

"Israel has every reason to be skeptical. It is completely understandable and appropriate that the Israeli government would be skeptical of Iran," said a senior American official this weekend regarding the warming relations between the U.S. and Iran. The unnamed official stressed that Iran's words must be accompanied by action. "The bottom line for us is that we cannot allow Iran to develop nuclear weapons."

In the same vein, New York Times columnist Thomas Friedman wrote Saturday that the fact that Rouhani decided not to shake Obama's hand due to his fears that extremists at home would not approve of the action, "tells us how hard it will be to reach the only kind of nuclear deal Obama can sign on to."

Head of Israel's left-leaning Meretz party Zehava Gal-On agrees with Netanyahu's suspicions. "You can't be naive when it comes to Iran's intentions. Like Netanyahu, I also don't believe Rouhani when he says the nuclear program is exclusively for peaceful purposes."

Shlomo Cesana, Gideon Allon, Yoni Hirsch and Israel Hayom Staff

Source: http://www.israelhayom.com/site/newsletter_article.php?id=12241

Copyright - Original materials copyright (c) by the authors.

Russia and Iran Roll Over John Kerry

by Joseph Klein


Secretary of State John Kerry and Russian Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov announced in separate statements to the press late Thursday afternoon that an agreement had been reached between them on the elements of a Security Council resolution to implement the transfer of Syria’s chemical weapons to international control for removal and destruction. The resolution being contemplated would follow along the lines of the framework agreement the two men worked out in Geneva, but without any explicit automatic consequences under Chapter VII of the United Nations Charter for non-compliance by the Syrian regime. In other words a second resolution may be required before any enforcement action can actually be taken.

Two hours prior to the announcement that the U.S. and Russia were on the same page, Lavrov answered a question as to whether the parties were close to an agreement: “Russia is very close. The United States is not.”

It looks like Kerry ended up moving in Russia’s direction.

“We have finalized the draft which will be submitted at the headquarters of the Organization for the Prohibition of Chemical Weapons in the Hague any minute now,” Lavrov said Thursday evening. “We have also agreed on a US-Russian draft resolution which will be submitted to the Security Council later tonight.”

The Security Council went into a closed consultation on the draft of the resolution later on in the evening and may vote on the final text as early as Friday, depending on when the Organization for the Prohibition of Chemical Weapons (“OPCW”) formally acts, Russia’s UN Ambassador Vitaly Churkin said.  The OPCW’s text would become an annex to the Security Council resolution and be rendered legally binding once the resolution is passed as expected.

A draft of the resolution made available late Thursday night states the obvious – that “the use of chemical weapons in the Syrian Arab Republic constitutes a threat to international peace and security.” It does not assign specific blame for the massive August 21^st chemical weapons attack, even though the Obama administration had made a point of saying there was no doubt that the Syrian regime was responsible. It demands that non-state actors (i.e., the opposition), rather than just the Syrian government, “not develop, acquire, manufacture, possess, transport, transfer, or use nuclear, chemical or biological weapons and their means of delivery.” This was an obvious concession to Russia, which has been arguing that the rebels have been responsible for chemical weapons attacks. In another concession to the Russians, the draft resolution calls for accountability of the perpetrators but makes no specific reference to referral of the perpetrators to the International Criminal Court.

Most importantly, while there is an oblique reference to the imposition of “measures under Chapter VII of the United Nations Charter” if there is “non-compliance with this resolution, including unauthorized transfer of chemical weapons, or any use of chemical weapons by anyone in the Syrian Arab Republic,” there is no automatic set of clearly defined consequences, triggered without requiring further Security Council authorization, such as sanctions, let alone the use of collective military force. Indeed, Russian Ambassador Vitaly Churkin interpreted this provision as requiring additional action by the Council to actually activate Chapter VII enforcement mechanisms.

Thus, under this interpretation – not expressly contradicted to date by the U.S. or its allies on the Council – all this resolution would be doing is to kick the can down the road and buy Syrian President Bashar al-Assad more time. President Obama and John Kerry can boast that “peace is at hand,” at least until they are faced with having to deal with likely non-compliance.

In short, Russia won this round.

The UN was also the venue on Thursday for a meeting of foreign ministers of the permanent members of the Security Council, Germany and Iran.  The post-meeting consensus, at least for public consumption, was that the tone and atmosphere of the meeting were positive. Iranian Foreign Minister Mohammad Zarif was described by Kerry as earnestly trying to find a way to answer questions of the international community regarding Iran’s nuclear program. He said that Zarif’s presentation was different in tone and vision than previous Iranian negotiating postures.

For his part, Zarif was also positive. He described this initial meeting as “constructive” and “substantive.” While continuing to insist that Iran retained the right to conduct its nuclear program, including enrichment of uranium, for peaceful purposes, Zarif acknowledged the need to find ways to ensure that there is no international uncertainty as to whether Iran’s nuclear program is intended for peaceful purposes. However, he said that the “end game” must be the removal of all unilateral and multilateral sanctions.

The outcome of this meeting was that there will be another meeting to launch negotiations with Iran in Geneva on October 15^th and 16^th. This would be just the beginning of what could be a long negotiating process during which Iran buys more time to achieve its ambition of completing the development of a nuclear weapons capacity, with all of the leverage that will bring. Iran is very adept at using negotiations as a delaying tactic.

In short, Iran won this round.

Quite a day’s worth of “diplomacy” at the United Nations for Secretary of State John Kerry.


Joseph Klein

Source: http://frontpagemag.com/2013/joseph-klein/russia-and-iran-roll-over-john-kerry/

Copyright - Original materials copyright (c) by the authors.

'Winds of Munich' Blowing in the West

by Dan Margalit

Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu will speak at the U.N. General Assembly on Tuesday. Two speakers ahead of him the representative from North Korea -- the country that has trampled all over its pledge to stop producing nuclear weapons -- will take the podium. 

By the time Netanyahu addresses the U.N., he will have spoken with U.S. President Barack Obama. It is likely that his conversation with Obama will not be an easy one; that he will suggest that the American president see past Iranian President Hasan Rouhani's good English and look for his actions instead, and that he will ask him to remember how deals with terror states, the likes of which are represented by the speaker that precedes him at the U.N., usually turn out.

The fact that Israel is not a signatory to the Non-Proliferation Treaty is secondary to the fact that Iran, Syria, Iraq and Libya, which have signed it, have breached it. Not only will Obama struggle to reach a deal with the obstinate Iranians, he will soon learn that their signature it set in ice. 

The U.S. is not pushing to balance the Israel-Iranian equation by demanding that Israel subject the Dimona reactor to international supervision. Others do, including Israeli Jews. But Obama's speech at the U.N. linked the Iranian nuclear threat and the Israeli-Palestinian negotiations, whose very existence is encountering growing criticism from within Netanyahu's own coalition. 

U.S. Ambassador to Israel Dan Shapiro explained to Channel 1's Ayala Hasson that Obama had stressed the importance of both issues without linking one with the other, but the connection was clear and it does not seem like Netanyahu would be able to sever it. All he can do is try to position the Iranian nuclear threat as the top priority among the region's other volatile issues.

The assumption that the Iranian threat cannot be resolved because the negotiations with the Palestinians are treading quicksand is not true -- quite the opposite. When the Iranian issue is resolved it would be easier to reach an understanding regarding the local conflict. Reality, however, has created a climate in which it would be hard for Netanyahu to present Obama with a concrete plan of action.

An idea was raised recently saying that Netanyahu should push for Obama to stipulate that any dialogue with Iran must involve a suspension of all centrifuge operation for the duration of the talks. The problem is that Israel had rejected a similar suggestion regarding a temporary moratorium on settlement expansion in Judea and Samaria for the duration of its negotiations with the Palestinian Authority. Netanyahu will therefore have to offer Obama a different stipulation to present to the Iranians.

It is doubtful, however, if the weary Western democracies are willing to lift a finger at this point. The "Winds of Munich" -- as U.S. Secretary of State John Kerry called it regarding the Syrian issue -- are blowing across the West, which seeks to embrace Rouhani. Obama's phone conversation with him was made to look like an Iranian gesture. When the appease-at-all-cost approach dominates international diplomacy, no one wants to listen to serious arguments warning against the trap being set by the nations making up the axis of evil.

It is true that Netanyahu would have been wiser to instruct the Israeli delegation to the U.N. to remain in their seats during Rouhani's speech -- a gesture of sorts to his allaying (and more deceitful) rhetoric -- but that was a matter of decorum. The fact is that the danger has not diminished and Netanyahu's concerns and warnings are valid.

Dan Margalit

Source: http://www.israelhayom.com/site/newsletter_opinion.php?id=5817

Copyright - Original materials copyright (c) by the authors.

With Morsi gone, Hamas turns back to Iran

by Jonathan Spyer


A number of recent reports have noted the revival of Iranian financial backing for Hamas, the Palestinian Islamist movement which rules the Gaza Strip. The Iranian decision appears to follow a series of meetings between officials of the Islamic Republic and senior Hamas members in recent days. It is not yet clear what this apparent Iranian rapprochement with Hamas will mean in practice. Iranian arming and support of Hamas never entirely ended, though its levels were drastically reduced after Hamas departed Damascus in November 2012.

But the reason for the rekindled romance between Tehran and Gaza is very clear — this is the latest fallout from the July coup in Egypt.

As time goes on, it is becoming clear that the military coup was a historic moment. Prior to it, there was a growing sense that the onward march of the Muslim Brotherhood and its Sunni Islamism was unstoppable. Indeed, the “Arab Spring” is best understood as beginning not with the self-immolation of the Tunisian Mohamed Bouazizi in December 2010, but rather with the Hamas coup against Fatah in Gaza in June 2007, the first political victory of Muslim Brotherhood-type Islamists against their nationalist rivals. The next key event was the toppling of Bin Ali in Tunisia and the subsequent victory of the Islamist al-Nahda party in 2011. The third — and most important — event was the bringing down of the Western-aligned military regime in Egypt in 2011, and its replacement by a Muslim Brotherhood government.

The fourth advance came in Syria, as military groups dedicated to a Muslim Brotherhood-type Islamist ideology came to dominate the rebellion, and for a moment at the beginning of 2013 appeared to be close to victory against the Assad regime.

The fomentor and financier of much of this was a single Middle Eastern state: the Emirate of Qatar. Qatari financial backing for the Muslim Brotherhood in all of these countries was essential to success. Of course, the ceaseless agitation by the enormously influential al-Jazeera channel — maintained by the Qataris — played a vital role in spreading the message.

Hamas, like many others during 2011 and 2012, saw an emergent Brotherhood and Qatari power alliance in the region. The movement’s domination of Egypt would be the jewel in the crown; Qatar would be the financier. The Hamas enclave in Gaza would take its position as an honored member of this alliance. Since it was safe to assume that vilification and hatred of the Jewish state would form an essential element of the new aligned states, Hamas was looking forward to a secure and well-padded future.

In October, Qatari Emir Sheikh Hamad bin Khalifa paid an official visit to Gaza, pledging $400 million to the Hamas administration there.

Some of the militants of the Qassam Brigades objected to the growing ties with Qatar. An alliance headed by Qatar — which ultimately relies on the West for its security — and Egypt — which remained formally committed to a peace deal with Israel — would mean the end of Hamas militancy, they claimed. But they lost the argument. Hamas thought it was part of the force set to redefine the politics of the Arab Middle East.

And anyway, how could Hamas — a Sunni Islamist movement — remain aligned with the Shia sectarian bloc that was slaughtering Sunni Muslims by the tens of thousands in Syria? They couldn’t, and they didn’t.

Unfortunately for Hamas, it has all gone horribly wrong.

In retrospect, it seems that late 2012 represented the high-water mark of the Qatar-Muslim Brotherhood project in the region. Since that time, Qatar and the Brotherhood’s various enemies have hit back hard.

Saudi Arabia and the United Arab Emirates backed a coup in Egypt, which with one stroke nullified the main gain of the Brotherhood and Qatar. The new regime in Egypt has adopted a hardline approach, banning the Brotherhood and besieging Hamas-controlled Gaza.

The Emir of Qatar retired under unclear circumstances in June 2013. The new Emir Tamim appears to be pursuing a far more cautious and modest regional policy — Qatar has been largely invisible in recent months.

In Syria, Iran and its allies mobilized and have halted the advance of the rebels. The Saudis meanwhile, with less success, have sought to curtail the influence of Muslim Brotherhood-associated factions within the rebellion.

The waning of the Qatari tide left Hamas stranded. As mentioned above, it never completely severed the link with the Iranians. Now, with Sisi’s security forces pressing against it in northern Sinai, Hamas has little choice but to turn back to the Iran-led regional bloc.

The turn back to Iran will prevent any possible eclipse of the Hamas regime in Gaza, and end any hopes that the Ramallah Palestinian Authority might have had for its return to exclusive control of Palestinian nationalism. Beyond this, it may well presage a turn back to militancy by Hamas, which has been very quiet since the conclusion of Operation Pillar of Defense in early 2013.

Ultimately, Hamas’ turn back to Iran is a testimony to the group’s new weakness. Of course, the setbacks for the Muslim Brotherhood may not be permanent. It is down, but hardly out. But for the moment, its various component parts are in retreat.

For a moment, it looked like Hamas was riding the tide of history. Then the tide turned.


Dr. Jonathan Spyer is a senior research fellow at the Global Research in International Affairs Center in Herzliya, Israel, the author of The Transforming Fire: The Rise of the Israel-Islamist Conflict (Continuum, 2010) and a columnist at the Jerusalem Post newspaper.

Source: http://www.gloria-center.org/2013/09/with-morsi-gone-hamas-turns-back-to-iran/

Copyright - Original materials copyright (c) by the authors.

Kurdish Independence Now

by Jonathan Spyer


The civil war in Syria and the increasing fragility of Iraq have thrown the long-term future of these states into question. For years, they were ruled by brutal regimes that held power in the name of Arab nationalism; as a result, they failed to knit together the populations they ruled into a coherent national identity. With the decline of repressive centralized authority in Syria and Iraq, however, older nationalities and identities are reemerging. Chief among them are the Kurds. Indeed, current regional developments make Kurdish statehood a realistic possibility for the first time in living memory.

I have reported on a number of occasions from both Iraqi and Syrian Kurdistan. I last visited these areas four months ago, and have an extensive network of friends and contacts there and in the wider Kurdish world. And it has become overwhelmingly clear to me that Kurdish sovereignty would be of benefit to the Kurds, the region as a whole, and Western interests in the Middle East. I find it unfortunate that the emerging Kurdish success story receives so little attention in the West—both among policymakers and the general public.

Kurdish statehood is good for the Kurds. It’s also good for the West.

The Kurds number around 30 million, and are generally considered to be the world’s largest stateless nation. A non-Semitic, non-Turkic people native to the Middle East, the Kurds believe themselves to be descendants of ancient Iranian tribes that predated the Turkish and Arab invasions.

When the Western powers carved up the remains of the Ottoman Empire after World War I, they promised the Kurds autonomy in the 1920 Treaty of Sevres. Subsequent resistance to the treaty by the Turkish nationalist movement led by Mustafa Kemal led to its renegotiation at Lausanne in 1923, where the West recognized the borders of the new Turkish republic. As a result, the Kurds found themselves divided between the post-Ottoman states of Turkey, Iraq, and Syria, with a small population in Iran.

Kurdish politics have been labyrinthine and divided ever since. No single, united pan-Kurdish national movement exists or has ever existed. Instead, the separated Kurdish populations each developed political movements of their own.

Unsurprisingly, the Kurds have developed a long tradition of heroic defeat over the course of the 20th century. Modern Kurdish nationalists like to trace the origins of their movement to the short-lived Mahabad Republic, the first attempt at Kurdish statehood. Officially known as the Republic of Kurdistan, it was declared in the Iranian city of Mahabad in early 1946, and was crushed by the Iranian army several months later.

The leader of the fleeting republic’s armed forces was Mulla Mustafa Barzani, an Iraqi Kurd and father of Massoud Barzani, the current president of Iraq’s Kurdish Regional Government (KRG). Kurdish agitation and uprisings continued under Barzani family leadership for years afterward. Most significantly, Mustafa Barzani led an unsuccessful military campaign in northern Iraq from 1961-70.

In 1983, the Iraqi Kurds rose up yet again, now led by Massoud Barzani and his Kurdish Democratic Party, in alliance with the younger Patriotic Union of Kurdistan, led by Jalal Talabani. This uprising was brutally crushed by Saddam Hussein in the infamous “Anfal” campaign, during which Hussein used poison gas against the civilians of the village Halabja in 1988, killing 3-5,000 people.

After the First Gulf War in 1991, a Kurdish autonomous zone was created in northern Iraq. Since the 2003 US invasion, this zone has emerged as a quasi-sovereign entity, with its own armed forces, political system, and economic interests. Traveling there today is to witness a little-known Mideast success story in the midst of regional chaos and meltdown. The autonomous zone is the most peaceful part of Iraq, and the absence of political violence is encouraging investment. Erbil, the capital city, feels like a boom town. There are construction cranes everywhere and brand new SUVs on the streets. Exxon Mobil has signed an agreement with the KRG to search for oil and develop an energy industry in the zone. The US, France, and a number of other countries now have consulates in the capital.

But Kurdish politics don’t start and finish in northern Iraq. The second major nationalist movement began with a 1984 uprising led by the Partiya Karkerên Kurdistan (the Kurdish Workers Party or PKK) in southeast Turkey, with the goal of founding a Kurdish state. The rebellion and the Turkish response to it went on to claim more than 40,000 lives. But this year, a ceasefire was declared and a peace process begun in hopes of ending the conflict.

Meanwhile, the Syrian civil war has led to the emergence of a Kurdish-ruled enclave in the northeast of the country. This area is controlled by the Kurdish Democratic Party (PYD), an offshoot of the PKK. This embryonic autonomous zone is poorer and more fragile than its Iraqi counterpart. But it too is the quietest and most peaceful part of that war-torn country. PYD-imposed authority is ubiquitous. The Yekîneyên Parastina Gel (People’s Protection Units or YPG) militia does as much as possible to prevent the entry of both Islamist rebels and Assad regime soldiers. The militia and the Kurdish security service, the Asayish, maintain an extensive presence and a firm grip on the area.

It is very telling that the Kurdish areas in both Syria and Iraq have become destinations for Arab refugees from elsewhere in these countries. There is a simple reason for this: Generally speaking, where the Kurds are in control, things stay quiet.

The turbulent events of the last decade have brought an unexpected bonanza for the Kurds. Two powerful—if very different—Kurdish autonomous zones have emerged out of the collapsing societies of Iraq and Syria, while Turkey’s Kurds are engaged in negotiations to advance their rights. Only the Kurds of Iran remain firmly behind prison walls.

The question before the Kurds today is how to consolidate these gains and build on them. It is rarely discussed openly, but looming above it all is the question of Kurdish statehood and what it would mean for both the Kurds and the region in general. Will the Kurds continue to develop their quasi-states while avoiding a direct push toward sovereignty? Or are events leading inexorably toward Kurdish independence, with the resulting partition of Iraq and Syria?

The road to sovereignty for the Kurds remains strewn with obstacles. Not least among them is the absence of a united Kurdish national movement. As outlined above, there are two main forces in Kurdish politics today. One of them derives from the Iraqi Kurdish experience, the other from that of Turkey. In recent years, each of these factions has made considerable progress toward forming rival “pan-Kurdish” movements.

The first of these is Massoud Barzani’s Kurdish Democratic Party in Iraq. While the KDP is based in northern Iraq, it maintains smaller offshoots and sister parties in both Syria and Iran. The second is the PKK, still officially headed by its jailed founder Abdullah Ocalan. Until recently, it was for all practical purposes led by Murat Karayilan, its commander in the Qandil mountains area, and is now headed by movement veteran Cemil Bayek. This movement and its various front organizations are the dominant force among both the Kurds of Turkey and the Kurdish autonomous zone in Syria. The PKK also has sister organizations among the Kurds of Iran and northern Iraq.

The KDP and the PKK have very different visions of the Kurdish future. The KDP is a traditional, conservative organization; it is pro-Western, pro-business, and pro-American in outlook, rooted in the clan and tribal structures of Iraqi Kurdish life. Its leader, after all, is a scion of the most prominent family in Iraqi Kurdish politics.

The PKK, by contrast, is a leftist organization, with its roots in the radical ferment of Turkey in the 1970s. Ocalan, its founder, is from a poor rural family. Although the movement has come a long way from its early days, it still represents a distinct, secular leftist nationalism of a type rarely found in today’s Middle East.

This is reflected in its very progressive approach to the role of women in society and politics, which is in stark contrast to the surrounding culture. Women, for example, serve in frontline units of PKK militias. This is not the case with the Pesh Merga, the armed forces of Iraq’s Kurdish autonomous zone.

Both of these movements are political-military organizations, and suffer from the authoritarian tendencies inherent in such groups. There have been verified instances of political repression in both the Kurdish zones of northern Iraq and northeast Syria.

The PKK remains on US and EU lists of terrorist organizations. But this designation is more a concession to Turkish sensibilities and interests than an objective assessment of the group’s current modus operandi. Whatever may have been the case in the past, the PKK today is a guerrilla organization at war with Turkish security forces, not a group that deliberately targets civilians.

Neither the KDP nor the PKK is openly committed to the achievement of Kurdish statehood, albeit for very different reasons. Iraqi Kurdish officials will privately concede that an independent Kurdish state is their goal, but stress the difficulties of achieving it and the need for a pragmatic, cautious strategy. Some PKK members speak in similar terms, but others stress the views of their leader Ocalan, who is opposed to very idea of the nation-state and advocates a system of “democratic autonomy” or “radical democracy” for the entire Middle East.

These two very different movements are set to dominate the next and possibly decisive chapter in the modern political history of the Kurds.

Neither of these movements is going to replace or defeat the other; so the future of the Kurds is likely to depend on whether they can find a way to cooperate. This will probably be difficult, however, because of the KRG’s burgeoning strategic relationship with Turkey.

For decades, the Turks have seen Kurdish national aspirations as an anathema, but this is no longer entirely the case. Over the last few years, Turkey and the Iraqi Kurdish government have been building a close relationship based on mutual interests. Turkey currently relies on Russia and Iran for its oil supplies, and has deteriorating strategic relations with both. At the same time, the Kurdish zone is rich in oil and borders on Turkey. As a result, Turkey has recently been making private agreements with the Iraqi Kurds for the purchase of crude oil supplies. This is despite vocal objections from the US—which is opposed to any attempt by the Kurdish autonomous zone to secede from Iraq—and, of course, opposition from the central government in Baghdad.

The main obstacles to the burgeoning alliance between Turkey and the Iraqi Kurds are the future status of Turkey’s Kurds and the Kurdish enclave in northeast Syria, which shares a long border with Turkey. The situation is even more complex because the PKK uses the Qandil Mountains, which are under the control of the Iraqi Kurds, as a base for its insurgency against Turkey. Although the Kurdish zone’s government does not officially sanction the presence of the PKK, it does nothing to prevent it.

The emergence of a Kurdish enclave in northeast Syria helped push Turkey toward resolving its long conflict with the PKK. Should open hostilities resume, however, there is a real possibility that the long border controlled by the Syrian Kurdish zone and the Assad regime will be used as a base for attacks on Turkey. Partly as a result, Turkish Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdogan has entered into peace negotiations with the PKK’s jailed leader Abdullah Ocalan; but talks have rapidly run aground. In mid-July, with the peace process frozen, the Kurdish leadership in northeast Syria declared an “interim administrative body” in the area under its control, alarming the Turkish government.

Relations between the Iraqi autonomous zone and its Syrian counterpart are similarly fraught; partly because of their differing relationships with Turkey. The Iraqi Kurds control the border between their own territory and that of the Syrian Kurds. When I crossed this border in March 2013 with a group of Syrian Kurdish fighters, it was necessary to avoid Iraqi Kurdish forces deployed along the border. At the same time, however, it was clear that a sort of ambiguous live-and-let-live attitude existed between the two groups, with each doing its best to ignore the other.

There is no likelihood of armed confrontation between these two nascent Kurdistans. But because of the role played by Turkey, unification seems equally elusive. The Iraqi Kurds needs their flourishing relationship with Turkey in order to continue on its path toward greater autonomy and possible independence. The PKK, however, has been at war with Turkey since 1984. For the Syrian and Iraqi Kurdish zones to unify, the PKK must move toward rapprochement with Turkey. This means that Turkey has an effective veto over Kurdish unity and possible independence. To achieve their goals, the PKK and the Iraqi Kurds must find a way to neutralize it.

One way to do so would be for the US and other Western powers to support Kurdish sovereignty as a legitimate goal. This would pave the way for greater Western investment and diplomatic support for Kurdish goals and weaken Turkey’s ability to snuff out a Kurdish bid for independence. A second way is, of course, Kurdish unity. The establishment of a single “national congress”-type organization could defeat Turkey’s strategy of divide and rule. An upcoming conference in Erbil is intended to lay the foundation for such an organization. It remains to be seen if it will succeed.

If Kurdish unity and a strategy for statehood cannot be achieved, the most likely result is two Kurdish quasi-states, existing on adjoining territories but unable to maintain good relations with each other or achieve complete sovereignty. Such quasi-states have become a familiar feature of the Middle East and the post-Cold War world in general. They combine de facto sovereignty with an absence of international recognition. Hamas has been running such an entity in the Gaza Strip since 2007. The Hezbollah state-within-a-state in southern Lebanon is arguably another example—though in that case the quasi-state appears to have largely devoured the legitimate state.

The problem with such entities is that while they can survive on the basis of their monopoly on the use of force, they cannot thrive. Their uncertain status precludes the development of their economies or their civil and political institutions. As a result, they also tend to become centers of paramilitary and criminal activity, such as Gaza and Lebanon, as well as Kosovo, Bosnian Serbia, and Transnistria.

The Middle East remains beset by deeply problematic political trends that undermine political stability and economic development. Extremist political Islam, deeply rooted anti-Western sentiment, widespread and pervasive anti-Semitism, and hostility to non-Muslim minorities are all on the rise across the Arab world, Iran, and Turkey.

In this context, the Kurds represent an anomaly. There is no need to romanticize either the Iraqi zone’s government or the PKK in order to see this. Each of these entities has their own problems. They show certain authoritarian tendencies and the enclaves they rule are unlikely to resemble US or EU-style democracies any time in the near future. But Kurdish political culture is largely free of the kind of extreme dysfunction noted above.

Political Islam exists among the Kurds, but because of the predominance of ethnic identification, it has demonstrably less appeal than among other Mideast peoples. That the two primary rivals in Kurdish politics are both secular nationalist movements is proof of this. In the Iraqi zone, Islamist parties support the Gorran movement, a reformist party that does not even profess political Islam; which testifies to the relative weakness of the area’s Islamic movement. In Syrian Kurdistan, there is no identifiable Islamist movement, and the its militia has been actively engaged in combat with Syrian rebel groups associated with Al Qaeda.

The Kurds are also notably less hostile to the West than many others in the region. For the most part, their grievances are directed not against the US or Europe, but the local oppressors of the Kurds. Indeed, other than Israel, the KRG in northern Iraq is the most pro-Western of all the non-monarchical governments in the region. The ruling KDP is openly and outspokenly pro-Western and pro-American. And unlike the Arab monarchies, its pro-Western orientation is deeply rooted in popular sentiment.

The PKK, however, is more of a question mark. Due to Turkey’s de facto veto over Kurdish independence and the lack of Western support for the Kurdish cause, the PKK might turn toward Turkey’s main rival for support—Iran. This would be a disaster, and an entirely unnecessary one. Western support for Kurdish national aspirations would almost certainly prevent it.

The moral and strategic case for Kurdish sovereignty is therefore a strong one. Western endorsement of the principle of Kurdish statehood, removal of the PKK from lists of terror organizations, and the development of closer relations with the Iraqi and Syrian Kurdish enclaves could help break the current stalemate on the issue.

There is neither benefit nor justice in a situation where the legitimate national aspirations of a largely pro-Western people are subject to the veto of the Islamist prime minister of Turkey. This is particularly the case given that Prime Minister Erdogan is adopting an increasingly problematic stance vis-a-vis the West and more and more repressive domestic policies.

Other opponents of Kurdish statehood include the Maliki government in Iraq, the Assad regime in Syria, and Islamist groups among the Syrian rebels. Maliki and Assad are both clients of Iran, and the former is actively aiding the latter in his fight for survival. The Syrian rebels are Islamists and Arab nationalists who are determined to maintain the unity of the Syrian state. All of these forces are hostile to the West, and acquiescence to their rejection of Kurdish rights makes little or no sense.

The Middle East is in the midst of enormous historic changes, and the Kurds stand to be one of the main beneficiaries. Kurdish sovereignty would mean the establishment of a strong, pro-Western state in Middle East that is likely to be characterized by pragmatism, stable governance, and a pro-Western strategic outlook. It would also possess substantial natural resources and a mobilized populace willing to defend it. A Kurdish state in northern Iraq, moreover, would likely absorb the Kurdish enclave in northeast Syria, effectively breaking up Iraq and Syria—two failed states that have been a byword for war, repression, and terrorism for most of the last fifty years.

In order for this to happen, however, the US must adopt Kurdish sovereignty as a strategic goal. At the moment, caution, timidity, and the desire to withdraw from the region make this unlikely. The last of these is probably the most difficult to overcome. After all, if the US and other Western nations do not want to be involved in the Middle East, then there is no point in supporting the emergence of a pro-Western ally in the region. But recent events in Syria and Egypt have shown what happens when the West fails to cultivate allies or abandons reliable clients in the region: Chaos.

Moreover, the forces ready and willing to replace the US as the region’s strategic hegemon—above all, Iran and Russia—do not intend to manage it as custodians of order and stability. Their interest is in the promotion of movements and regimes aligned with them and hostile to the West. At the same time, the rise of the anti-Western Sunni Islamism of the Muslim Brotherhood and other Islamic extremists with the support of Turkey and Qatar is leading to war and disorder across the eastern Mediterranean.

A sovereign Kurdish state could be a powerful bulwark against such disorder and a solid, pro-Western ally in this most troubled of regions. It would also realize the Kurds’ desire for long-delayed historic justice. It is an idea whose time has come.


Jonathan Spyer

Source: http://www.gloria-center.org/2013/09/kurdish-independence-now/

Copyright - Original materials copyright (c) by the authors.