TEHRAN - A two-day conference with Iraq's neighbors plus Egypt and Bahrain ended in Tehran this week with mixed results. The conference, attended by a United Nations envoy, Iraq's deputy prime minister, Saudi Arabia's interior minister, and others, was supposed to reflect the spirit of unanimity and consensus on a host of issues ranging from the upcoming January elections in Iraq to border control, terrorism and Iraq's economic reconstruction. Yet the overall impression that emerged after intense, and often divisive discussions, was the depth and significance of divergent perspectives barely glued together in a final communique.
The latter, consisting of nine items, mentions that the next meeting will take place in Turkey, a previous host of the group. One must wonder about the role of Egypt, which has already hosted the group's meetings twice, since it has no border with Iraq and is considered as "out of area" by Iranian policy-makers.
With less than two months to the general elections in Iraq, all eyes are focussed on the thorny question of Shi'ite-Sunni relations and, in the light of the recent request by some 17 Sunni and Kurdish groups from the Iraqi interim government of Iyad Allawi, a postponement of the elections. Although the Kurds have backtracked somewhat, it is hardly surprising to see that the Sunni Arab governments have officially or semi-officially backed this request, hoping that time will somehow turn the tides back in favor of the Sunni minority that ruled Iraq for so long.
Still, perhaps realizing that the momentum for the January elections is at this point irreversible, the Arab participants at the Tehran conference finally relented and signed on to item number 2 of the final communique, referring to the January elections "under the UN's auspices". Yet, given the token presence of UN workers, ie, less than 50, the communique's singular emphasis on the central role of the UN may have been a misnomer aimed to give the impression of greater unity than actually exists among the participant countries.
In the tumult of the pre-elections in Iraq, the Sunni world encompassing Iraq's Sunni population has yet to come to grips with the post-invasion change of political fortunes laying the foundations for a Shi'ite-led regime in Iraq, which in turn will undoubtedly change in times to come the very nature and makeup of the Shi'ite-Sunni calculus in the Persian Gulf. Perhaps Iran's willingness to allow Egypt to participate in this group is an implicit sign of a quid pro quo, namely, a return of favors by permitting a more muscular form of Arab politics in the Persian Gulf at a time when the Shi'ite wave is riding relatively high.
Of course, this is not to say that everything is fine and dandy between Iran and Iraqi Shi'ites, many of whom fought against Iran during the Iran-Iraq war of the 1980s, notwithstanding the fact that even Saddam Hussein's government included many Shi'ites in the civil and military bureaucracy. In fact, the Iraqi defense minister, Hamza Shaalan, has quite unnerved the Iranians with his recent blistering criticisms and even threats against Iran's "meddlings" inside Iraq. Hence, it is really not the question of Shi'ites, per se, in the Iraqi government, but which kind of Shi'ites, pro or anti-Iran, that matters most from Iran's point of view.
Presently, Iran has vested its hopes on a gradual process whereby the specifically Shi'ite identity of Iraq's ruling politicians will thicken as time goes on, with the current prime minister and his Shi'ite deputies representing only the beginning points of departure for a more substantive process. Whether or not this is wishful thinking or a tissue of future reality is unclear, but it is important to keep in mind that the leading Iraqi Shi'ite figure, namely, Ayatollah Ali al-Sistani, has his own agenda not always commensurate with Iran.
Concerning Sistani, he has appointed a small council that is busy nowadays apportioning seats in the upcoming assembly among the several dozen Shi'ite groups and parties, some of whom have protested their small share of the pie. A case in point, the ayatollah's committee has designated fewer than 30 seats for the group(s) supporting the rebel Shi'ite, Muqtada al-Sadr, and this may not satisfy him.
As the bargaining among Shi'ites continues, a larger bargaining between the Shi'ites and Sunnis appears to be even more problematic. The Sunnis are complaining of a "tacit" approval of Iraqi Shi'ites for the recent American assault on Fallujah, and certain Arab commentators have even gone further and painted gloomy pictures of a coming civil war along sectarian lines. The mere threat of such a dreadful prospect, while many Muslims are convinced Israel is actively sowing the seeds of division in order to exploit the instability of Iraq for its own purposes, has been sufficient for the moment to accentuate the points of coinciding interests among Iraq's Sunni and Shi'ite neighbors, none of whom want to see the troubled region face any more crisis than it has already experienced.
But the prospect of a Sunni boycott of the upcoming elections remains strong and unless a deal is worked out for a mutually satisfactory distribution of power between the two sides, such a boycott will undoubtedly diminish the legitimacy, if not the legality, of the post-election polity. The Kurds, on the other hand, with their eyes set on Kirkuk, ideally hope that with delayed elections they can manage a comfortable Kurdish majority in the Kurdish areas, but at the same time they have not thrown their lot in with the Sunnis, who are at the moment the political losers of the invasion. By adopting a flexible, pragmatic attitude meant to extract more political capital from Baghdad and the American authorities, the Kurds remain largely optimistic that no matter when the elections take place, they will gain politically.
Iran's worry, on the other hand, is that a stable Iraq will be used against it, that the new Iraq may be added to the Gulf Cooperation Council thus enhancing the hands of United Arab Emirates, which is in dispute with Iran over three Persian Gulf islands, and that the regional security framework will be reshaped to the detriment of Tehran's interests, not to mention the insecurity over US military bases near Iran's borders and the occasional US-Israel threats of surgical strikes inside Iran against its nuclear facilities.
Thus, an Iranian conundrum: its participation and cooperation for stable borders and Iraqi stability may not pay off in the end and, instead, cause a bigger problem down the line, suggesting the protean value of multiple strategies inclusive of the threat card meant to maintain hostility toward the US presence in the region and increasing fears of the US Western power self-entrenching in a crucial corner of the abode of Islam.
Yet, simultaneously, just about every salient feature of Iran's Iraq policy today is in tandem with US policy, which is why at the Sharm el-Shaikh conference in Egypt two weeks ago, Iran followed the US's policy toward Iraq, ie, with respect to the elections, and this was partly to disallow the US to paint Iran as non-cooperative at a delicate time when Iran was negotiating with Europe over the nuclear issue.
There are, however, serious side effects to Iran's Iraq policy in tandem with the US approach, given the second George W Bush administration's stubborn resistance to acknowledging any positive role played by Iran in regional crises, depicting Iran instead as a "rogue" power that, in the words of Kenneth Pollack in his new book, Persian Puzzle, aims to overthrow its neighbors. Such caricatures of Iran's regional foreign policy are not helpful and the Bush administration must sooner or later reckon with the fact that Iran is a major regional player with a sophisticated, multilayered foreign policy, featuring certain shared or parallel interests with the US.
Until and unless the US comes to this new realization, or new threshold, any chance of even a mini-breakthrough in US-Iran relations remains remote.
Kaveh L Afrasiabi, PhD, is the author of After Khomeini: New Directions in Iran's Foreign Policy (Westview Press) and "Iran's Foreign Policy Since 9/11", Brown's Journal of World Affairs, co-authored with former deputy foreign minister Abbas Maleki, No 2, 2003. He teaches political science at Tehran University.
Expressing a deep distrust of U.S. intentions, he added, "America is trying to annul the region's Arab nature by including non-Arab states like Turkey and Afghanistan in this geographical unit."
The United States has also recently attempted a regional dilution or denial of ethnic identity in the renaming of the Persian Gulf to the Arabian Gulf or at times just plain Gulf, a slap at Iran.
The Persian Gulf island dispute most probably had something to do with the effort to rename the Arabian Gulf but it should also be noted that Bush seems to be soliciting the help of the Arab world in an attempt to split the ME along Persian/Arab lines in order to control Persian Iran. Therefore a softening of position toward the Arabs is expected.
It is entirely possible the United States, an ally of the UAE, is the hidden force behind the Persian Gulf Cooperation Council (PGCC) request that the European Union mediate the issue of the disputed islands between Iran and the UAE in an attempt to create an unhealthy political climate. The involvement of the EU has the potential to ignite an international crisis and divide the Arabs. This looks like the United States is attempting to escalate the territorial dispute as a means to diminish Iran. #msg-4719685 #msg-3136614
Last point beware of geeks bearing gifts, albeit in this case oil profits can go a long way in helping a country pay back a loan.
The U.S. cheats poor countries around the globe out of trillions of dollars by lending them more money than they could possibly repay and then take over their economies. #msg-4948785
-Am
US Backs Away From Arab Political Reform
January 4, 2005
by Adam Morrow CAIRO - After a year of tough talk from U.S. policymakers about the inevitable "democratization" of the Middle East, Washington appears to be backtracking, along with its Arab friends in the region.
With the reelection of U.S. President George W. Bush and his hardline administration, a shift appears to have taken place in U.S. strategic thinking in accordance with which economic, not political, reform is to be given precedence.
"After the reelection of Bush to the presidency, there's been a retreat away from the idea of bringing democracy to the region," says Hefez Abu Seada, general secretary of the Egyptian Organization for Human Rights (EOHR), a non-governmental agency based in Cairo.
In February last year, the United States introduced its Greater Middle East Initiative (GMEI), which aimed to compel the region's authoritarian regimes to liberalize politically, economically, and socially.
The geographical area in question, the "Greater Middle East," was taken to mean the Muslim countries of the Middle East and North Africa, including non-Arab states such as Turkey, Iran, and Afghanistan. Washington policymakers believed that progress in terms of democracy, human rights, and economic liberalization could be made in a traditionally authoritarian region via cooperation between local governments, private sectors, and civil society.
Moreover, within the context of the ongoing U.S.-led war in Iraq, the threat was implicit: change your ways or face regime change, a la Saddam Hussein.
While the smaller, less influential states of North Africa and the Gulf signed on to the program with varying caveats, regional heavyweights Egypt and Saudi Arabia were less accommodating, particularly given the initiative's ambiguous approach to implementation. "I don't know," Egyptian President Hosni Mubarak was quoted as saying at the time, "but I sense something strange in the air."
Arab League head Amr Moussa called the original draft "very vague, and riddled with question marks."
What is more, Arab public opinion found the still-undefined notion of a "Greater Middle East" disturbing. "This 'Greater' or 'Broader' Middle East concept is nonsense," said a 33-year-old Cairo resident. "There's only one Middle East – not a small one or a big one – and it's Arab. I'm not talking about Christians and Muslims, I'm talking about Arabs. We speak one language – Arabic."
Expressing a deep distrust of U.S. intentions, he added, "America is trying to annul the region's Arab nature by including non-Arab states like Turkey and Afghanistan in this geographical unit."
The Arab League, at its tumultuous May meeting in Tunis, also voiced strong reservations about the plan. It said the plan was meant to impose Western values on the traditional societies of the region.
Observers were also quick to point out that while Arab and Muslim states of the region were expected to liberalize, no solutions to the increasingly violent Israel-Palestine conflict were offered. "You can't let [Israeli Prime Minister Ariel] Sharon wreak havoc in the Palestinian territories, then talk about freedom," says Mohamed Said, deputy director of the Egyptian state-run al-Ahram Center for Political and Strategic Studies.
Washington, also facing increasingly fierce military resistance in Iraq, backed off in deference to its Arab critics. In partnership with fellow members of the G8 (Canada, Britain, France, Germany, Italy, Japan, and Russia besides the United States), it reinvented the GMEI as the Broader Middle East and North Africa (BMENA) initiative. This initiative was proposed at the G8 summit held in Georgia in the United States in June last year.
The new watered-down version of the initiative – while still avoiding the Palestine issue – conceded that "successful reform depends on the countries in the region and change should not and cannot be imposed from outside."
Arab League chief Moussa called the revised document "more readable and easy to understand." For once, he said, "The U.S. was open to our points of view, and the new document was free of the points that aroused the angry attention of those from this region. This better document received a better reception."
But despite its Arab-friendlier tone, Egypt and Saudi Arabia, along with Morocco and Tunisia, declined to attend the inauguration of the initiative despite the participation of smaller regional actors Algeria, Bahrain, Jordan, Yemen, Afghanistan, and Turkey.
In a sign of its ongoing unease vis-à-vis foreign political interference, Cairo also declined to receive a North Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO) envoy visiting Arab capitals in May to discuss potential Arab-NATO cooperation on reform issues.
According to Said, the Georgia G8 meeting represented the "biggest sign of retreat" from earlier pressures to democratize. "It was where the Europeans and Americans compromised on a gradual, piecemeal approach to reforming the region. The Europeans wanted more of a focus on human rights, while the Americans toned this aspect down."
The reelection of Bush in November, perceived by some as a fresh mandate from the American public for messianic empire-building, appears to have brought a hardening of this position. "After a lot of tough talk from Washington in terms of political transformation, it had become obvious by the end of the year that smaller issues would receive the most attention; that [the West] was no longer pushing for constitutional reform," Said noted.
The new shift in emphasis became manifest at the first Forum for the Future conference held in the Moroccan capital Rabat Dec. 10 and 11, where outgoing U.S. Secretary of State Colin Powell presented Washington's new take on democratization in his diplomatic swan song.
The forum, the annual convening of which had been stipulated at the Georgia summit, brought together finance and foreign ministers from 20 Arab countries and the G8, as well as delegates from civil society and the private sector. Sudan and Iran were not represented, but Egypt and Saudi Arabia, which had previously spurned such initiatives, both sent high-level representatives.
The presence of so many finance officials, both from the United States and from Arab participant countries, was telling. The Dec. 11 edition of the pan-Arab daily al-Hayat commented that the preliminary meetings of the forum "were characterized by the 'marginalization' of civil society representatives, who had previously been considered one of the three pillars [of reform], along with the private sector and the governmental sector."
The government-run al-Ahram weekly in Egypt reported that calls for political reform took a back seat before calls for economic liberalization and job creation.
Much talk revolved around the creation of a $100 million fund for small business loans and literacy campaigns, it said. "All the talk was about spreading 'a culture of entrepreneurship' and the 'creation of enterprises' as a driving force for sustainable development in the region," with little emphasis on political reform, the paper noted.
On the first day of the event, civil society representatives reportedly went so far as to boycott meetings after complaining they had been denied the chance to express their views.
Abu Seada, who represented EOHR at the forum, expressed disappointment with the event. "If you look at the forum's agenda, the focus was on development and economic reform," he said. "Political or constitutional reform was neglected."
But even before the convention there had been signs that the emphasis was shifting. "Economy before politics" had also been the theme at the annual meeting of Egypt's ruling National Democratic Party (NDP) in September. Despite a host of announced economic reforms, relatively little was said at the meeting about political liberalization.
President Hosni Mubarak, who also heads the party, told state broadsheet al-Mayo just before the event, "We cannot bring about the political reform we seek given the economic situation, and we cannot realize social justice without a strong economy that increases gross domestic product, creates new jobs, and increases individual wealth."
The NDP congress rejected demands by opposition parties and civil society organizations that presidential power be limited, emergency laws repealed, and the constitution amended to guarantee citizens' rights. Party leaders also refused to broach the question of whether or not Mubarak would seek a fifth presidential term in 2005.
Some observers speculate, particularly since the Rabat meeting, that a new quid pro quo has been struck between Washington and U.S.-friendly regimes in the region. These regimes, no matter how autocratic, would be left alone as long as they play ball on two other fronts: improved relations with Israel, and cooperation in Washington's global "war on terror."
"It appears that there is some kind of hidden agenda between the governments of the region and Washington, and that the United States, along with the G8, aren't into pushing for real steps toward political reform," said Abu Seada.
Such suspicions have been bolstered further by recent perceived Egyptian concessions to Israel, including a recently signed trade deal between the two countries, Cairo's release of convicted Israeli spy Azaam Azzam, and Egyptian government silence regarding the allegedly accidental death of three Egyptian frontier guards in cross-border Israeli fire. "If we flatter Israel as the Americans want," suggested Said, "we're off the hook."
While the new dynamic can be seen most visibly in Egypt's recent political maneuverings, the pattern appears to apply to the entire region. At Rabat, Powell cited Egypt, Yemen, Jordan, Morocco, Afghanistan, Bahrain, and Algeria as some of the countries that the United States perceived to be "moving forward on political, educational, and economic reform initiatives."
This surprisingly upbeat assessment comes at a time when the Arab world continues to suffer to varying degrees under a permanent state of martial law.
In some cases, as in that of Jordan, the political landscape has actually deteriorated with the highly unpopular U.S. invasion of Iraq and the worsening plight of the Palestinians next door. In late December, 15 Jordanian opposition parties united to accuse the government of de facto re-establishment of emergency law after a spate of arrests targeted opposition leaders and union activists.
"This lowering of the ceiling for democratic expectations [by the United States] applies to the whole region," Said from the al-Ahram Center said. "Each country has its own package, but the lowering of expectations vis-à-vis political reform applies to the whole Middle East."
Whatever Washington's motives, most local observers maintain that any kind of bona fide progress on the political front must be the result of homegrown activism. Ahmed Seif al-Islam of the Hisham Mubarak Law Center, an Egyptian non-governmental organization devoted to local political issues, rejected the notion that the Middle East must pin its hopes on U.S. democracy initiatives. "The government – and its way of doing things – will change sooner or later," he said. "To what extent, though, will depend on local pressure."
In the meantime, Arab public opinion remains highly skeptical of U.S. intentions. A 30-year-old food and beverages specialist from Cairo suggested that the change in emphasis reflected recognition by Washington that in many countries fresh political power vacuums might get filled by Islamist-leaning parties or groups.
Tehran Times Political Desk TEHRAN (MNA) -- Iran will launch a satellite in the near future, the acting chairman of the Geographical Organization of the Defense Ministry, Bahman Zomorodian, announced on Monday.
Zomorodian said guarding Iran’s borders is part of the mandate of the Geographical Organization.
He also stated that the short-lived decision by the National Geographic Society to invent a fictitious name for the Persian Gulf was a pre-planned move, but the historical documents of Europe and the United States prove that the move was unjustified.
In the light of the illogical moves by certain countries, the organization has opened a fair to display historical documents showing that the name Persian Gulf has been used for over 2000 years.
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