Target Centermass

Category: Middle East

  • Surprise! Syria Backs a Nuclear Iran

    Oh wait, no, this isn’t a surprise at all.

    Syria yesterday backed Iran in its nuclear confrontation with the West as their leaders met in Damascus in a defiant show of solidarity.

    The Syrian president, Bashar al-Assad, welcomed Mahmoud Ahmadinejad and said the Iranian leader had the right to acquire nuclear technology for peaceful purposes. In turn, Mr Ahmadinejad asserted his host’s right to freedom from foreign interference.

    Both men face confontations with the United Nations Security Council.

    Both men also face the danger of a virus called democracy growing between them.

  • U.S. Freezes Assets of Syrian Intelligence Chief

    The United States is upping the ante on Syria, with its latest maneuver focused on a single key figure in the Syrian regime.

    The United States on Wednesday froze the U.S. assets of Syrian military intelligence director Asef Shawkat, accusing him of fomenting terrorism against Israel and backing Syria’s intrusion in Lebanon.

    The U.S. Treasury Department, in the Bush administration’s latest effort to pressure Syria, named Shawkat a “Specially Designated National” — freezing his assets in the United States and banning U.S. citizens from doing business with him.

    “Shawkat has been a key architect of Syria’s domination of Lebanon, as well as a fundamental contributor to Syria’s long-standing policy to foment terrorism against Israel,” said Stuart Levey, under secretary for terrorism and financial intelligence at the U.S. Treasury.

    The U.S. Treasury did not specify whether Shawkat, who is Syrian President Bashar al-Assad’s brother-in-law, had any assets in the United States.

    The United States accused Shawkat of cooperating with groups like Hizbollah, Hamas, and Palestinian Islamic Jihad in his position as military intelligence chief.

    The U.S. Treasury also cited Shawkat for contributing to Syria’s military and security presence in Lebanon, an enduring source of tension following last year’s killing of former Lebanese Prime Minister Rafik al-Hariri for which a U.N. probe has implicated Syrian officials.

    Though international pressure following the assassination caused Syria to withdraw its military presence from Lebanon, the United States has accused Syria of continuing to interfere in Lebanese affairs, which it says undermines efforts to stabilize Iraq and supporting terrorism in the region.

    The White House in 2004 imposed sanctions that prohibited certain U.S. exports to Syria, severed banking ties with the Commercial Bank of Syria, froze the assets of Syrians believed linked to terrorism or weapons of mass destruction, and banned Syrian airlines from flying to and from the United States.

    Yes, international pressure on Syria has certainly increased since the country’s apparent involvement in the Hariri assassination. Still, as the story points out, the U.S. began ramping up the heat before the hit, and that would certainly be a result of the Syrian role as accomplice to ongoing bloodshed in Iraq. I do like that Hizbollah, Hamas, and Palestinian Islamic Jihad were specifically named, as it is well past time to start joining together the many jigsaw pieces of Islamic terror throughout the region and the globe.

  • Abbas Not to Seek Re-election as Palestinian President

    No more years, no more years.

    Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas said on Sunday that he would not seek re-election after his four-year term ends in 2009.

    Abbas made the remarks after attending a ceremony to mark the first anniversary of his election to succeed the late Palestinian leader Yasser Arafat in the West Bank city of Ramallah.” I have worked and will work to reinforce democracy and implement my program that I presented before I was elected,” Abbas asserted

    It must be exhausting to rule over anarchy, over a barbarity and bloodthirst that was, for decades, engendered into their own children by the Palestinians, resulting in a society of madness and the lawlessness of mob rule.

  • Hamas Drops Manifesto Call for Israel Destruction

    Take this “development” with one freakin’ big grain of salt.

    Hamas has dropped its call for the destruction of Israel from its manifesto for the Palestinian parliamentary election in a fortnight, a move that brings the group closer to the mainstream Palestinian position of building a state within the boundaries of the occupied territories.

    The Islamist faction, responsible for a long campaign of suicide bombings and other attacks on Israelis, still calls for the maintenance of the armed struggle against occupation. But it steps back from Hamas’s 1988 charter demanding Israel’s eradication and the establishment of a Palestinian state in its place.

    The manifesto makes no mention of the destruction of the Jewish state and instead takes a more ambiguous position by saying that Hamas had decided to compete in the elections because it would contribute to “the establishment of an independent state whose capital is Jerusalem”.

    The shift in emphasis comes as Hamas finds itself under pressure from the Palestinian president, Mahmoud Abbas, and from foreign governments to accept Israel’s right to exist and to end its violence if it wants to be accepted as a political partner in a future administration.

    The group is expected to emerge as the second largest party after Mr Abbas’s Fatah in the next Palestinian parliament. Opinion polls give it more than a third of the popular vote, built on a campaign against Fatah’s endemic corruption and mismanagement and failure to contain growing criminality, and by claiming credit for driving the Israeli army and settlers out of Gaza.

    But the manifesto continues to emphasise the armed struggle. “Our nation is at a stage of national liberation, and it has the right to act to regain its rights and end the occupation by using all means, including armed resistance,” it says.

    Gazi Hamad, a Hamas candidate in the Gaza Strip, yesterday said the manifesto reflected the group’s position of accepting an interim state based on 1967 borders but leaving a final decision on whether to recognise Israel to future generations.

    “Hamas is talking about the end of the occupation as the basis for a state, but at the same time Hamas is still not ready to recognise the right of Israel to exist,” he said. “We cannot give up the right of the armed struggle because our territory is occupied in the West Bank and East Jerusalem. That is the territory we are fighting to liberate.”

    This is not a case of a leopard changing its spots. Rather, the leopard would simply not prefer to talk about its spots … for now.

  • Crisis as Iran Reopens Nuclear Research Plant

    Iran has taken the next step in its game of nuclear brinksmanship.

    Iran yesterday precipitated a fresh crisis over its nuclear programme by removing UN seals at a facility in the town of Natanz and announcing that it would begin research involving nuclear enrichment – which can produce weapons grade material.

    To counter, Russia has announced that it is “very disappointed” and “expressed deep concern” on the development. Great Britain, France and Germany, the Euro powers that have been in negotiation with Iran in hopes of halting the radical nation’s nuclear ambitions, announced that they “may meet on Thursday to discuss” the issue. The United Nations’ International Atomic Energy Agency bravely rushed forth with a “predictably lame response” (for once not my phrasing for anything the agency has managed for years and years). Apparently, there was even a “global outcry” today, though I seemed to have missed it.

    With a tad bit more effort, the civilized world could have come across looking even more limp-wristed and weak … maybe.

    It is time, actually well past time, to admit that the Euro diplomacy path was a gambit doomed to fail. The U.S. was forced to allow it, as the Bush administration had been painted into a corner with all the false and politically-driven accusations of unilateral action and rush to war surrounding the Iraqi theater. From the beginning, there was a key fault with the negotiations — one side didn’t actually want them to succeed.

    Negotiation in the classic diplomatic sense assumes parties more anxious to agree than to disagree.

    —Dean Acheson

    The Euro-Iranian talks have been along the lines of the negotiations preceeding the Munich Agreement, as one side sought “peace in our time” while the other merely sought to buy time.

    The danger to the survival of Israel is evident, especially given the fanaticism of the current Iranian president and his backing hard-line religious leaders. What may be less evident but no less true is the danger the West would face by a nuke-capable and quite radical Iran stepping forth as leaders of the Islamist world.

    Unless science suddenly helps the European powers regrow a spine, the time has come for the only nations actually willing and capable of facing the threat to step up to the plate. I’m speaking specifically about the U.S. and Israel. Bloody action by one of the two may quickly be needed, though such wouldn’t be easy. Unfortunately, current global politics would prevent an overtly-combined action by the two. As the Islamist threat matures and becomes more evident, at least to those not completely and pathetically blinded, that sad political reality may change or become a less-pressing consideration when compared to the survival of our civilization.

  • Downed U.S. Helicopter in Iraq Hit Bad Weather

    Though not conclusively declaring causation, the U.S. has stated that yesterday’s tragic helicopter crash in Iraq occurred in heavy weather.

    A U.S. military helicopter which came down in northern Iraq on Sunday killing all 12 aboard had been flying in bad weather, but the cause of the crash was still under investigation, the U.S. military said on Monday.

    It was one of the deadliest air crashes in Iraq since the start of the U.S.-led invasion of Iraq in 2003.

    U.S. military spokesman Lieutenant-Colonel Barry Johnson said all 12 aboard the UH-60 Blackhawk helicopter were U.S. citizens. In a separate statement the military said the 12 included eight service personnel and four civilians.

    “The cause of the crash is still under investigation, but we know the weather was severe at the time,” Johnson told Reuters.

    The helicopter went down in a sparsely populated area 7.5 miles east of the town of Tal Afar shortly before midnight on Saturday. It had been flying between bases in northern Iraq when communications were lost.

    That the flight was in the area of Tal Afar, which has recently been the scene of hostile action, leaves open the possibility of other causes. However, weather is the likely culprit, as it can wreak havoc on military aviation on or away from the battlefield … even here at home in Texas.

    My best wishes for the families involved in yesterday’s loss.

  • Gaza’s Spiral into Anarchy

    Hey, it’s their headline, not mine.

    Campaigning is under way in the first Palestinian parliamentary election for 10 years. But the talk in Gaza is not so much of issues and policies and the prospects for parties.

    The focus is more on the law and chronic problems, and whether the polls will be held at all.

    Foreigners have been kidnapped. And every day there are angry anti-government protests. Public buildings are stormed as armed demonstrators demand jobs, or sometimes the release of prisoners.

    There have been attacks on police stations, clan feuds and clashes between militia groups.

    This looks bad. It’s time to spin.

    All this has to be kept in context. Much of the upheaval has been confined to the south, and to the town of Rafah in particular – and much of the turmoil has about it an element of show.

    There have been few casualties, and very little serious, sustained violence. Protesting gunmen who occupy government buildings often leave as soon as they have made their point.

    Yes, the violence is only about making a point. If only we could find somebody to blame …

    But the disturbances are more frequent now, and they are generating a sense of insecurity that deeply disturbs people here.

    The chaos has its roots in many problems.

    This society has been radicalised and traumatised by its confrontation with the Israelis, who occupied Gaza decades ago and only evacuated their settlers and troops last summer.

    Yeah, it’s the fault of the Jews in Israel. That’s why the Palestinians have no problems with any of their other neighbors. For those who believe this, stop reading now.

    Palestinians steal bulldozers, smash through border wall

    Hundreds of angry Palestinians streamed into Egypt on Wednesday after militants with stolen bulldozers broke through a border wall, and two Egyptian troops were killed and 30 were wounded by gunfire in the rampage.

    About 3,000 Egyptian Interior Ministry troops who initially had no orders to fire swarmed the border but were forced to withdraw about a half-mile, said security forces Lt. Sameh el-Antablyan, who announced the casualties.

    Gen. Essam el-Sheikh said Egyptian forces later began firing back.

    The scene was one of utter chaos. An Egyptian armored vehicle was burning and hundreds of Palestinians could be seen crouched in farm fields just inside Egypt.

    The militants’ rampage through the southern Gaza town of Rafah underscored the growing lawlessness in Palestinian towns, especially in Gaza, and represented the most brazen challenge to the authority of Palestinian leader Mahmoud Abbas.

    Yup. Sounds like Israel is the only speedbump stopping the Palestinians from forming a civilized society. The Egyptians (and, decades past, the Syrians) are obviously just tools of the dreaded Zionists.

    Give the Palestinians a state already. They’re cool, and their fashions are so sheik at anti-almost-anything protests.

  • Sharon Fighting for His Life

    Bad news today out of Israel.

    Israeli Prime Minister Ariel Sharon, a dominant figure for decades in shaping the Middle East, was fighting for his life on Thursday after suffering a massive brain hemorrhage.

    “It looks very bad. I don’t know if he will recover,” said a senior political source after Sharon, 77, was rushed in an ambulance from his ranch in southern Israel to Hadassah hospital in Jerusalem late on Wednesday.

    Sharon’s death or incapacitation would cause political upheaval in Israel ahead of a March 28 general election he had been expected to win on a platform of ending conflict with the Palestinians. He has been prime minister since 2001.

    Hopes of any peace talks would be given another setback at a time of growing violence and increasing Palestinian turmoil.

    “He has significant, massive cerebral bleeding … the aim of the operation is to drain it,” Hadassah hospital director Shmuel Shapira said.

    Sharon was still in surgery after over five hours. His spokesman, Raanan Gissin, described his condition as stable.

    But Haaretz newspaper said on its Web site that Sharon was paralyzed in half of his body, and medical experts agreed the prime minister was unlikely to pull through the operation without his faculties being at least seriously impaired.

    “With all due caution, it appears as though the era of Sharon leading Israel has reached its tragic end,” wrote Aluf Ben, Haaretz’s diplomatic correspondent.

    My best wishes for the prime minister and especially for his family.

  • Iraqi Leaders Agree in Principle to Enlarge Cabinet

    The key phrase in that headline has to be the “in principle” hedging. Still, this is a promising development for those who saw the worst in the recent Iraqi parliamentary elections.

    Iraq’s Shiite and Kurdish leaders said on Thursday that they agree in principle to enlarge the next government’s cabinet to include representatives of other communities in a bid to push for a national unity government.

    “The Kurdish coalition and the Shiite alliance agree in principle on a government of national unity,” Kurdish leader and Iraqi President Jalal Talabani told reporters after a meeting with Shiite leader Abdul Aziz al-Hakim in Dokhan, a mountain resort 400km north of Baghdad.

    However, Talabani specified that there would be some restrictions in the forming of an enlarged cabinet, saying, “the other parties must believe in certain principles,” including “rejection of terrorism.”

    While the move is obviously intended to allay concerns about election irregularities or the lack of support for secular entities, it is still a move in the right direction. Democracy is a series of missteps heading in the right general direction … hopefully; this is no different for the fledgling attempt in Iraq. Every effort toward inclusion should be considered a welcome one.

  • Poland Keeping Troops in Iraq Another Year

    Bully for the Poles, among our staunchest of allies.

    Poland’s president on Thursday approved extending the country’s military mission in Iraq for another year, the prime minister said.

    “The president made such a decision on the government’s request,” Prime Minister Kazimierz Marcinkiewicz said on TVN24 television during a ski trip at a mountain resort. “The issue is closed and taken care of.”

    Marcinkiewicz’s government requested Tuesday that President Lech Kaczynski, the commander in chief of Poland’s armed forces, reverse plans by the previous government to bring home troops serving with the U.S.-led coalition in early 2006.

    […]

    Marcinkiewicz’s announcement offers some relief to President Bush, who has seen the U.S.-led coalition in Iraq dwindle and faced withering criticism at home and abroad over his handling of the war.

    Ukraine and Bulgaria announced this week that their remaining soldiers had pulled out of Iraq.

    In calling for an extension Tuesday, Marcinkiewicz called the move “a very difficult decision” but said that it was a step meant to help maintain stability as Iraq progresses toward democracy.

    Though the mission will be prolonged, the number of Poles serving in Iraq will be cut from about 1,500 to 900 by March, officials have said. The Poles are based at Camp Echo in the central city of Diwaniyah, one of the nation’s more stable areas, where they mainly train Iraqi security forces.

    Poland has been a staunch U.S. ally in Iraq. It sent combat troops to the country and in September 2003 took command of an international force that now numbers some 3,000 troops from 12 countries.

    However, the deployment is unpopular, and some in Poland have complained that they have not seen sufficient rewards such as easier access to U.S. visas or more rebuilding contracts for Polish companies. Seventeen Poland solders have died in Iraq.

    I feel that there is much merit to the idea of insufficient rewards to date, not only for Poland’s sacrifice but also for the growing importance the country seems willing to accept on the world’s stage.

    Four months ago, a resident fellow at the American Enterprise Institute – a Washington-based think tank known for neo-conservative ideas – wrote a treatise urging US financial backing for further deployments of eastern European troops in Iraq, citing Poland as a particularly attractive candidate.

    “The Polish military, unlike the public, is upbeat about its service in Iraq, recognising that the mission has done wonders for the army’s preparedness,” the AEI scholar wrote. “Does it always make sense to hire private contractors, with all their legal and political baggage, when you could have real soldiers for less money?”

    It was a prescient suggestion. The writer, Radoslaw Sikorski, has since traded Washington for Warsaw, and in October became defence minister in Poland’s new centre-right government, which on Tuesday recommended extending the country’s deployment in Iraq for another year.

    […]

    “What Poland has done is decided it wants to be a strategic player,” said Kurt Volker, the number two official in the State Department’s European bureau. “People always make the assumption a country does this to please the US . . . Poland sees this as valuable in itself for the role it can play globally.”

    Poland, along with the UK and Australia, were the only international partners to provide combat troops for the invasion of Iraq. It has since commanded a multinational division based in the south-central city of Diwaniya, now one of the most stable regions in the country. In that role, it has overseen the troops of at least a dozen countries and trained the Iraqi army’s 8th Division.

    The deployment has cost Poland money and personnel, however, with 17 soldiers killed, 45 seriously wounded, and financial costs of about $600m – a high price for a country with a $6bn (€5bn, £3.5bn) defence budget.

    And while the deployment has given Poland international prominence, Mr Sikorski has also attempted to use the decision to win more US military aid, making the push most recently in meetings at the Pentagon this month.

    The US has already spent about $300m assisting the Polish mission. Because Poland does not have its own long-range military transports, the US helped fly Polish troops and ship equipment to Iraq. In theatre, the US has supplied fuel, food and occasionally trucks and other vehicles.

    I have long argued for military assistance for Poland, not only as a reward for the nation’s willingness to sacrifice but also as an investment for the betterment of a friend that can be trusted in time of need. In February I blogged the following:

    Military assistance is entirely appropriate for a country with a backbone and a willingness to stand along side its allies. Certainly, Poland and other coalition nations, particularly those whose militaries were shaped and equipped during the days of the Warsaw Pact, could stand to have some martial modernization.

    In many ways, Poland was the first crack in the Iron Curtain. They are now placing themselves towards the forefront of nations to which America can turn to and see a true ally, along with the steadfast friends we have in the U.K. and Australia.