Israel’s Quandary

Well this is a mess for anyone who was hoping for the latest attempt at peace between Israel and the Palestinians.  In case you haven’t heard about it by now, early this morning, Israel intercepted the “Freedom Flotilla”, an attempt by human-rights activists to get past Israel’s blockade of the Gaza Strip.  In short, it was bloody, it looks bad, and it is certainly a big smear on the peace prospects.  On the surface, it looks bad no matter how you slice it; the loss of life and the declared intentions of the convoy as an aid mission make this an absolute public-relations nightmare for the Israeli Defense Forces. As with all events of this magnitude, the devil is in the details; in this case, the original source of the violence, whether it was the activists or the Israeli commandos who stormed the flotilla, is critical in determining who is ultimately responsible.

Despite the competing claims, with countries around the world condemning the raid and Israel being called before the UN Security Council over the incident, the public relations momentum is clearly on the side of the human rights activists.  Naturally, Israeli officials are all claiming the troops acted in self-defense, but at the very least the evidence points to excessive force being used against the flotilla.  After all, why would they need to drop commandos on the flotilla as the first attempt to get them to stop?  Apparently, the Israeli navy did try to convince the flotilla to divert to an Israeli port, but seriously, a commando strike first?  It seems to me that someone in command was convinced that the unarmed activists were terrorists trying to reinforce Hamas, because a preemptive commando strike against the aid convoy only makes sense when viewed as a counter-terrorist operation.

In addition to that, the flotilla was allegedly attacked in international waters, which by treaty among most nations are open for the safe passage of anyone and everyone.  It would have been one thing if the flotilla was stopped inside Israel’s territorial waters, but to be stopped in open ocean is a flagrant violation of several major international treaties.  Oh, and Israeli officials are justifying the seizure outside its territory on national security reasons.  What security reasons?  This flotilla was well-publicized, and included among its passengers a Nobel Peace Prize laureate and several high-ranking European officials.  I could understand Israel’s concerns if it were just organizations that were tied to the Hamas government in Gaza, but with such high publicity and the presence of people who could only stand for peace, any concerns of terrorism are baseless.

Is Mideast Peace Finally About to Happen?

Peace in the Middle East; it has been a dream shared by millions throughout the last several decades, and it may finally be time for it to be achieved.  Of course, there are plenty of reasons to be skeptical about this possibility, but this is the first time that I can remember when there has been a significant step toward realizing this goal.  Of course, I know about the Camp David Accords, the Roadmap, and other efforts throughout history, but this is the first major attempt during the time I have actually been seriously aware of things happening in the world.  Looking back, the convergence of events on a couple of separate fronts make this seem like a very realistic chance to achieve it.

Today, the Obama Administration is pushing its plan for working toward this goal.  According to the Washington Post, the President is said to be “seriously considering” a deal based largely on what has already been agreed to in past negotiations.  Apparently, and quite logically, I might add, the impetus behind an American proposal would be that the Israel-Palestine issue has gone on for far too long, and that we need to instead focus on Iran and terrorism issues.  In proposing a new plan, President Obama is expected to ideologically part ways with his special envoy to the Middle East, George Mitchell and instead embrace an approach favored by people including Colin Powell, and the national security advisers for Presidents George H.W. Bush, Ford, and Carter.  This plan, which is still only being discussed in the vaguest of terms, would attempt to resolve the questions surrounding the status of Jerusalem, the right of refugees to return to their homeland, and a focus on stabilizing Israel’s relations with its Arab neighbors.  To me, this sounds very plausible, though we will have to wait and see what the actual proposals turn out to be.

On the other hand, the Palestinians don’t seem to want to wait much longer.  The New York Times reported this week that Palestinians are changing their strategy of resistance to Israel to one that has been tried and found to be successful in India, South Africa, and the U.S.  Yes, the Palestinians have begun to embrace nonviolence in a limited form as a product of exasperation with the lack of results produced by terrorism and diplomacy.  With the burning of Israeli goods among other things, the new protests echo more of the Vietnam War protesters than the Civil Rights movement.  However, it is certainly a start, and at least the “official” Palestinian leadership appears serious.

Afghanistan Gets A Surge

Tonight came the news that most of us have been anxiously waiting for over the past three months.  Today, President Obama traveled to the Army’s college at West Point to deliver a speech outlining his new strategy for the War in Afghanistan.  It seems to make sense overall, but of course, it is going to be almost as contentious as the healthcare debate.

The plan is, like just about everything else, a compromise between what the military wants and what the public can stand.  The new surge will, according to the New York Times, have a bit less than the original number of troops requested by General McChrystal, the top commander in Afghanistan.  In the speech, President Obama also called on America’s allies in the War on Terror to fill at least part of the gap between the new American commitment and what the General requested.  The plan is clearly focused on an exit strategy, which is to hopefully begin a drawdown of American forces in Afghanistan in mid-2011.  Of course, this depends on the Afghanis taking a larger role in their own security.  This is the right thing to say, but there is a high likelihood that this will all come crashing down before it gets off the ground.

Ahead of the speech, President Obama had conversations with allied leaders, and that part of the equation is weaker than he would have liked.  Already, President Sarkozy of France has stated that France would not send any more troops, and the British have only mentioned sending about 500 more, according to this article.  With a weak international interest in sending more troops, more pressure will be on the Americans to perform, and the Army leadership in the region has quite clearly stated that less than 40,000 will work.  Another issue is the timetable.  I like the idea of a set withdrawal time for the conflict; we do not want to be there forever in an open-ended conflict, like we were in Vietnam.  Nonetheless, if our objective is to rout the Taliban so that the Afghan government can have a chance, why would we want to broadcast that we will not be there for much longer to the enemy?

Despite this, I can see how making this exact information widely available could be a good thing.  While there is a legitimate concern that the Taliban would use our withdrawal timetable to their advantage, the announcement also makes President Hamid Karzai and Afghan citizens aware of the reality that we will not be around forever.  Also, there are questions of whether we are cutting ourselves short.  According to the new timetable, the first drawdown is about 18 months away.  Is that really enough time to effect change?  I tend to think not, given the fact that we are dealing with a resilient insurgency in the form of the Taliban, and trying to turn around a government seen by many Afghans as corrupt and untrustworthy.

A further concern comes from the cost of this whole adventure.  According to the Washington Post, the wars are becoming increasingly more expensive.  For example, assuming this year’s defense appropriations bill is passed by Congress, the wars in Afghanistan and Iraq will have cost officially over $1 trillion.  Oh, and that does not include the impact of the new strategy and troop surge, which is estimated at around $30 billion dollars.  To cover the new costs, some members of Congress are talking about a war tax, among other things.  Raising taxes is always contentious, add in an unpopular war, and you have a real mess.  While I see the surge is necessary, there are too many things that could go wrong with it, and knowing Murphy’s Law…

New Developments in Iran

Coming off a holiday week, there is not much to write about as far as American politics goes.  Fortunately, Thanksgiving is largely an American holiday, and there are plenty of events around the world to write about.  Now that I am over the whole “eat as much turkey as humanly possible” part of my holiday season, I might as well start with Iran.  Now that I have caught up on the literally thousands of news articles that came down my RSS reader over the holiday, there are a couple of interesting stories from Iran that have broader implications for our relationship with that nation.

The first, and perhaps most important as far as our direct relationship with Iran is concerned, is their formal response to the IAEA.  As the New York Times is reporting today, instead of complying with the IAEA’s demand to stop work on the secret facility revealed in the past couple of months, Iran announced their desire to build ten more plants, a step that is quite the opposite of what pretty much the rest of the world wants them to take.  While this escalation is certainly unwelcome, it is actually the least of the West’s concerns relating to Iran’s nuclear program.

In the article linked above, there are suggestions within the Iranian government that they should withdraw from the Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty.  This treaty is the cornerstone for all nuclear negotiations in our time, and several influential figures in Iranian politics want to withdraw that nation from it, including Ali Larijani, the speaker of Iran’s parliament.  In addition to the obvious signal withdrawing from the Non-Proliferation Treaty would send, there are fears that the withdrawal will signal an all-out push by Iran to get the bomb.  After all, North Korea took a similar action earlier this decade, and while we do not know for certain that North Korea has nuclear weapons, there is a general consensus that they likely do.

The withdrawal would also, as the article states, give more strength to Israel’s desire to take military action against Iranian nuclear facilities.  This is the worst possible situation, given the regional influence Iran already has; don’t forget, Iran at the very least funds Hezbollah and similar extremist groups.  If Israel were to take military action against Iran, the world would almost certainly see a spike in terrorist attacks perpetrated by one or more of these groups.  On the other hand, if we simply lay on more sanctions, Iran will likely end up the same way as North Korea: isolated, armed to the teeth, and a humanitarian disaster zone.  After all, look at where the six-party talks and other attempts to engage North Korea on the nuclear issue have gotten us.  Unfortunately, the world is quickly running out of options to deal with this; the best option may be to hope for internal change.  Though this too is somewhat unlikely, it is more likely now than it was before the election controversy.

For instance, and this brings us to the other main issue that caught my attention today, the New York Times is reporting that one of Iran’s most senior clerics, Grand Ayatollah Hossein Ali Montazeri, is speaking out in condemnation of Iran’s now-infamous Basij militia force as being against Islam.  As you may recall, this force is the one responsible for many of the abuses during the election protests.  Normally, government institutions are respected within Iran, and you almost never see a cleric speaking out against such an institution.  This is another example of the growing divide between government hardliners and those in positions of some authority or influence who recognize that the country needs to go in a different direction.  This is also a sign that there may be some radical change in Iran’s future, and it may come sooner rather than later.  Radical changes are usually brought about in reaction to a major event, or the population finally deciding enough is enough.  A withdrawal from the Non-Proliferation Treaty could be exactly the kind of event that triggers this.  It will be very messy, of course, but a revolution against the 1979 revolutionaries and their heirs is probably the best hope for any meaningful progress with Iran on nuclear issues.

UPDATED: What is Iran Hiding?

A couple of months ago, as you may recall, the world learned about a secret nuclear facility in Iran, buried into the mountain at Qom, one of Iran’s holiest cities.  Surprisingly, Iran was very open about it.  As soon as Western powers demanded it, Iran allowed UN inspectors to visit the site, and negotiated a possible deal to ship their enriched uranium to other countries to be refined for use in a medical reactor.  Now that the inspection has been completed, there are more questions than answers.

According to the New York Times, the inspectors who went into the new facility found it to potentially serve as a backup in case the main facilities at Natanz and elsewhere were destroyed or otherwise sabotaged.  This begs the question, why would Iran have only one backup facility, especially since this one is so small?  The only logical explanation is, of course, that there are other secret facilities spread around Iran.  This would be game-changing in our policy of engagement with Iran.    If Iran has a whole secret network of backup facilities, agreeing to send their declared enriched uranium away is therefore completely worthless.

By some estimates, the amount of enriched uranium Iran proposed to send to other countries could be easily remade within the space of a year.  This is just in the facilities we know about.  Given that Iran is not that small of a country in terms of land area, as well as their varied terrain, secret nuclear facilities could be hidden just about anywhere.  For all we know, there could be dozens, if not hundreds of them hidden throughout the country.  If that is the case, not only will Iran be capable of replenishing their stockpile of enriched uranium very quickly, but they may have already acquired nuclear weapons unbeknownst to us.

In addition to all of this, Iran’s diplomatic tactics leave little hope for the deal proposed in September.  A few days ago, President Obama met with Russian President Dmitri Medvedev in China to discuss Iran during the Asia-Pacific conference that was the primary purpose of the Shanghai stop, according to this article.  Within the Obama administration, Iran has until the end of the year to get serious about the proposal; otherwise, the U.S. will likely pursue greater sanctions against the regime.  I am still not convinced that sanctions are the best route to take, but we have given diplomacy a shot, and it appears to have failed.  Now we must simply choose between the lesser of two evils: increased sanctions, or yet another war in the Middle East.  If it does come down to this, I would choose the sanctions.

UPDATE 11/18, 11:02 PM CST: Today, Iran’s government gave its answer to the IAEA in the form of a statement to the press.  Unfortunately, it is not the statement we all hoped for.  Iran essentially rejected the main part of the agreement that had been negotiated back in October by saying that they would rather not ship their enriched uranium out of the country.  They offered instead to reprocess it in Iran, but we all know how that is going to fare in Washington, Paris, and Moscow.  The fact of the matter is, the West does not trust Iran to be telling the truth regarding their intentions, and it does indeed seem suspicious when one looks at the matter.  While Western diplomats have stated they will wait until the formal written response from Iran is delivered to the IAEA, it is pretty clear to me that we are headed for another round of sanctions.

What to Do About Afghanistan

For some time now, President Obama has been trying to decide what to do with the Afghanistan situation.  We have now been there for over eight years, and have very little progress to show for it.  In fact, one could say the situation has deteriorated over the years.  Now, General McChrystal and others are asking for a troop surge of 40,000 more soldiers, with the hope that it will be as successful in Afghanistan as the similar surge was in Iraq.  However, it is not the only option.

As Politico reports, all of the options President Obama is considering will include an exit strategy.  Thank you, this war has gone on long enough, and we should not be facing open-ended commitments in the first place.  That being said, how many troops should we send?  The military asks for 40,000 as I stated earlier, but can we as a nation support that?  After eight years of war, the American people has had enough.  In addition, we are becoming more aware of the “human cost” of war; recent events, including the Fort Hood shootings last week, have focused a media spotlight on soldiers with psychological issues, and to an extent, those who interact with these veterans.  Some more troops should be sent to Afghanistan in order to help with the security situation, however fifteen to twenty thousand should be enough, especially if we continue to heavily use the drones that we hear about from time to time.

Another interesting idea is to mirror the drawdown in Iraq with a similar and concurrent increase in Afghanistan, essentially shifting the troops in Iraq to Afghanistan.  However, it would not really be a shift, as the soldiers in Iraq have served several tours of duty at this point, and should be able to come home.  Therefore, this idea, though an interesting idea, would not work.  Where would the additional troops come from?  As it is now, we are overextended; finding relatively fresh troops to send could prove to be a challenge.  That brings us to a very radical idea; in fact, some would probably call the President crazy for suggesting this.  In theory, we could just pull out of Afghanistan after a period of intense training of the Afghan security forces and let them handle it.

However, this is a very bad idea, as good as it sounds.  If we simply abandon Afghanistan, and let’s face it, if we follow this plan we essentially are, I can almost guarantee that we will be back within ten years.  Also, after the disputed Afghan election, we cannot really trust President Karzai.  He simply does not have the credibility or the focus that running a war demands.  In addition, we will be seen as abandoning an effort on the world stage, and there will undoubtedly be people heralding a premature Afghan pullout at “America conceding defeat” or “the end of American prominence on the world stage.”  Okay, those sound dire, but I assure you, an early pullout from Afghanistan will do some damage to our international reputation and credibility.  What ever option President Obama chooses, the fact he  is taking as much time as he is shows he is at least mindful of all these different possibilities and their respective pros and cons, which are far too numerous to list, and I am confident that he will make the best decision possible given the circumstances.

Is President Karzai Worth It?

When Hamid Karzai was elected by the loya jirga, or council of delegates from around Afghanistan, in 2002, there were such high hopes for his administration.  Seven years later, much of that hope is gone.  With the security situation in Afghanistan deteriorating and with President Karzai tainted by the election scandal last summer, one can only wonder if it time for a change.

Last August, Afghanistan had an election to choose whether to re-elect Karzai or someone new.  While Karzai claimed he won, there were widespread allegations of fraud.  A review by American officials and observers from the UN determined that there was indeed a large electoral fraud during the election.  Despite this, Karzai still had the lead, just not enough of one to avoid a runoff with the top challenger, Abdullah Abdullah.  The runoff election was supposed to be this week, but Mr. Abdullah just quit the race, effectively handing Karzai another term.  In nearly any other situation, this would be considered a polite concession, but according to the article, Mr. Abdullah is quitting to protest the corruption in the government and the election commission.  Such reasons could possibly undermine the legitimacy of Karzai’s term, since the only election that truly mattered in his reelection was tarnished.

Another issue with President Karzai is the revelation that his brother, Ahmed Wali, is on the CIA’s payroll.  For the last few years, Taliban propaganda in Afghanistan has claimed that the government is nothing more than an American puppet; these revelations do not help the government counter these assertions, if anything, they boost the credibility of the Taliban’s allegations.  Further, there is a perception that Ahmed Wali Karzai is heavily involved in Afghanistan’s drug trade.  We should not continue to support him if this is the case.  The fact of the matter is, if we continue to support him, what does it say about our efforts to eliminate Afghanistan’s drug trade?

Since we shifted focus to Iraq, Afghanistan has been a quagmire.  Of course, a large part of that is our fault, but Karzai has remained in power during that time, and the strategy has been relatively unchanged.  Now, we are faced with the possibility of sending more troops in just to stabilize the situation.  I am in no way suggesting we just give up on Afghanistan, but maybe it is time to give up on President Hamid Karzai.

A Sudden Thaw?

Well, I’m shocked, to say the least.  Today is the first day of the meeting in Geneva, Switzerland between Iran and the U.S., the U.K., Germany, France, China, Russia.  Already, Iran made a major concession on their part.  According to the New York Times, during the course of today’s meeting, Iran agreed in principle to ship most of their declared stocks of enriched uranium to Russia to be turned into fuel for a reactor that produces medical isotopes.  Not only that, but they also agreed to inspections of the Qom facility within the next couple of weeks.

With these two significant concessions, one can only wonder what is really happening here.  While this summit is different, given that the U.S. is participating fully this time, it is highly unusual for a nation in Iran’s position to suddenly reverse course in good faith.  The Wall Street Journal echoes these concerns.  According to the Israeli analyst quoted in the article, Iran can seem to offer these great concessions, but “in the end, they turn out to be nothing.”  Most disturbing, though, is the fact that the potential agreement does not explicitly say anything about Iran’s enrichment efforts; in fact, Iran explicitly dismissed the “freeze for freeze” approach favored by the U.S.

At the very least, shipping out most of its uranium stockpile buys some time for more negotiations.  In fact, some are skeptical that that is exactly what Iran is trying to do.  Given the history of Iran when it comes to negotiations over their nuclear program, I tend to agree.  On the other hand, the recent unrest related to the June elections in Iran may have forced some relaxation of tensions.  While Iran seems to have been relatively unfazed by the sanctions to date, any rational leader realizes that in a delicate domestic situation like this, one does not do anything that would stir up the opposition any more.  Putting a new, more effective regime of sanctions on Iran would certainly be destabilizing, and may make the Middle East even more dangerous.  Plus, those who have absolute power, like the ruling clerics in Iran, do not generally like the prospect of it weakening or losing it entirely.

The fact of the matter is, we simply do not know if Iran has been truthful in its declarations of the quantities of uranium.  They could have more that we do not know about; the possibility also exists that there are many more hidden facilities in Iran.  If these possibilities turn out to be facts, the concessions proposed by Iran would be utterly pointless.  At the very least, Iran’s gesture has caused President Obama to schedule additional talks later this month, and that is a step in the right direction.  While it would be nice for Iran to finally come clean and prove to the world that they are interested only in peaceful nuclear technologies, given the history, the odds of that happening at this summit are unfortunately about as good as the odds that the Taliban will surrender to U.S. forces in Afghanistan tomorrow.

What to Do About Iran?

Late last week, it was revealed to the world that Iran has been building a secret nuclear facility near Qom.  Though nowhere near the size of the large facility at Natanz, the new facility is worrisome.  The revelation of the facility only increases tensions and opens doors to action by the world’s powers.  In fact, the revelation could not have come at a worse time for Iran trying to keep it quiet; the U.S. and other nations are meeting with Iran later this week.  Any bets on what will be on the agenda for what was supposed to be a summit focused on reopening ties to the Islamic Republic?

In addition to the revelations about the facility at Qom, over the weekend Iran conducted some missile tests over the weekend, timing the test of a Shahab-3 rocket, the one with the range to strike Israel and southeastern Europe, to coincide with Yom Kippur.  May be that I’m just reading too much into this, but the timing of the launches in relation to the Qom revelation and a major Jewish holiday are just a little too coincidental.

Iran’s actions in the past week seem to paint it into a corner.  Typically, Iranian rhetoric has been of the “it’s strictly for peaceful purposes” variety.  Well, now the U.S. is asking Iran to prove their assertion.  If U.S. officials do not receive the unhindered access to the site in question, then we’re bound to have yet another round of sanctions.

But will they work?  While the Wall Street Journal seems to think so, I remain unconvinced.  We’ve put up numerous sanctions on various nations that don’t want to get along with the international community, including Iran.  In most cases, the sanctions hit the civilians the hardest, and, as is often the norm in the types of governments that are hit with sanctions, government officials are largely undeterred.  In addition, many sanctions are easily avoided, as is exemplified by the bank transaction highlighted in the Wall Street Journal article.  The third hindrance to the efficacy of sanctions is the lack of commitment on the part of other nations.  In the past, when the U.S. has taken unilateral sanctions against a nation, the only thing that happens are that foreign companies take up the slack.

Hopefully, with the coordination of the most powerful nations in the world coordinating their efforts this time, that will not be as much of an issue.  If, on the other hand, Iran decides to grant access to the Qom site as the Americans request, there is the risk that Iran really doesn’t have anything to hide at this facility- at least not yet, since it is still under construction.  After all, the New York Times points out that if Iran is serious about making a nuclear weapon, there will likely be many sites throughout the country, any one of which could be the real facility.  In fact, if Iran gives inspectors access to the Qom facility, it is pretty safe to assume that is the case.

If sanctions do not work, and Iran refuses to budge, what else can we do?  A military strike will be even more destabilizing than just about any measure that could be done.  However, there is a possibility that they could still work this time, especially given the political turmoil from Iran’s last election that is still simmering.  If another round of sanctions fail, we can only wait and hope for a change in regime down the road to one that is more open.  Or perhaps a miracle.