Just Foreign Policy News
December 6, 2010
*Action: Attend a "South of the Border" Screening Party
In major US media, evidence of US involvement in coups in Latin America doesn’t exist..
On December 10 – Human Rights Day – attend a house party to watch Oliver Stone’s documentary "South of the Border," and tune in to a live webcast with Just Foreign Policy President Mark Weisbrot, who co-wrote the script.
https://www.justforeignpolicy.org/southofobama/search
CounterSpin: WikiLeaks and the Coup in Honduras
One story hasn’t received enough media attention: how the U.S. embassy really saw the 2009 coup in Honduras. How did this cable conflict with official U.S. pronouncements and corporate media spin? Counterspin talks to Just Foreign Policy.
http://www.fair.org/index.php?page=4208
Guardian Misreports Wikileaks on US Stance on Taliban Talks
Under the headline: "WikiLeaks cables show surrender is only option offered to Taliban: Afghan president speaks publicly of negotiation but pursues US-backed policy that rejects talks with insurgent leadership," the Guardian reported that "the secret cables show a united US front against talks" and that Richard Holbrooke, Obama’s special representative to Afghanistan and Pakistan, said: "There will be no power-sharing with elements of the Taliban." But the cable cited was sent in January, and in reporting on the cable to characterize US policy in the present tense the Guardian ignored its own reporting in July that the US said its policy had changed. It’s important that what we know about the US stance be reported correctly. If public understanding of the situation becomes pea soup, that makes it harder for people to effectively advocate for the needed change in policy to end the war.
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/robert-naiman/guardian-misreports-wikil_b_792641.html
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Summary:
U.S./Top News
1) Afghans are more willing to negotiate with the Taliban than they were a year ago, the Washington Post reports. Nearly three-quarters of Afghans now believe their government should pursue negotiations with the Taliban, with almost two-thirds willing to accept a deal allowing Taliban leaders to hold political office. Nearly a third of adults see the Taliban as more moderate today than they were when they ruled the country. Nationwide, more than half of Afghans interviewed said U.S. and NATO forces should begin to leave the country in mid-2011 or earlier. 79 percent of people in Helmand and Kandahar say US and allied troops should start their withdrawal next summer or sooner. More than six in 10 respondents feel President Karzai is doing an "excellent" or "good" job. While majorities of Afghans continue to support girls’ schools, voting rights for women and their ability to work, 50 percent oppose women going outside their home unaccompanied by a male relative.
2) The assessments pouring into the White House from Afghanistan run the gamut from discouraging to awful, as the Obama administration finishes up its December review of the war strategy, writes David Wood for Politics Daily. A recent Pentagon report concludes that the insurgents’ "capabilities and operational reach have been qualitatively and geographically expanding."
3) US diplomats in Afghanistan continually warned that night raids against insurgents by special forces had dramatically eroded public support for the NATO mission in key parts of Afghanistan, the Guardian reports. In several cables state department officials working in Afghanistan’s provincial reconstruction teams passed on reports from the field about the growing resentment towards night raids and warnings by locals that the US would inevitably come to be seen in the same light as the Soviet Union.
4) Leaked U.S. diplomatic cables covering recent years of Afghanistan policy portray an unremittingly bleak landscape in which U.S. officials have seemed destined to repeat the past, the Washington Post reports. "No matter how effective military performance may be, the insurgents will readily fill any vacuums of governance, and without political competence, lasting [counterinsurgency] success . . . will remain one more operation away," Ambassador Eikenberry concluded in a June 2009 cable that echoes concerns expressed over the current coalition offensive in Kandahar.
5) According to a leaked cable, the EU president said in December 2009 that the EU no longer believed US and NATO forces could succeed in Afghanistan, but continued to commit troops to the fight "out of deference to the United States," Al Jazeera reports. Herman Van Rompuy said "No one believes in Afghanistan any more. But we will give it 2010 to see results. If it doesn’t work, that will be it because it is the last chance."
6) A Wikileaks cable revealed the US had claimed to Russia that Iran had obtained 19 Musudan missiles from North Korea, prompting news reports suggesting Iran can hit targets in Western Europe, the Washington Post reports. But there is no indication the missile is operational or that it has ever been tested. The US had claimed news reports as proof, but the main news source, a German newspaper story, quoted German intelligence sources as saying only that Iran had purchased 18 kits made up of missile components for the BM-25 from North Korea, not 19 of the missiles themselves. Some experts doubt the missiles were ever transferred to Iran. "If you’re claiming that there’s a missile that can reach Western Europe from Iran, then you should be able to produce evidence," said MIT professor and former Pentagon official Theodore Postol. "But they can’t. The Iranians love to show photographs of what they have because part of their game is to appear bigger than they are. There is no reason for the Iranians to keep it secret. I am kind of surprised at the American side’s assertions." A senior U.S. intelligence official said he was unaware of any sale of a complete BM-25, although there was probably a transfer of kits.
7) The international community has said that it will not condone any manipulation of the vote in Haiti, McClatchy reports. It has staffed the vote tabulation center with monitors from the US, Canada and the OAS to help detect fraudulent tally sheets. Haiti’s electoral commission acknowledge several election failings that had been reported in the press: some residents with voting cards were told their numbers were invalid; some of people sent by the political parties to work at voting stations were paid to tell voters their names were not on the list; at Camp Corail, only 39 people out of 6,000-plus residents were on the electoral list.
Israel/Palestine
8) Brazil recognized Palestine as an independent state within the 1967 borders, Al Jazeera reports.
Iran
9) Swedish Foreign Minister Carl Bildt said international sanctions are not likely to convince Iran to abandon its nuclear program and Monday’s talks in Geneva are only the first step in a process that could take years to succeed, Foreign Policy reports. Bildt disagreed with Secretary Clinton’s view that international sanctions had brought Iran back to the table and was thus having an effect on the Iranian leadership’s decision making. "They were at the table one year ago, they were at the table six months ago, and they are at the table again. And I think it’s at the table where the solution can be found. I fail to see any solution that is not at the table," Bildt said.
Sanctions might have some effect over the long term, but that could take a very long time, he said. "You’re talking about a 10, 15, 20 year process," Bildt said. "The thing that can change things in the near term is the talks." But even the nuclear negotiations that begin on Monday in Geneva will need several follow-up sessions before progress is can be made, said Bildt. "I think we’re talking about a fairly lengthy process. We have a gulf of mistrust between the Iranians and the Americans that is profound… It will have to be a step by step approach, where you start by some smaller steps before you’re ready to take some bigger steps." Bildt reported that Iranian Foreign Minister Mottaki acknowledged that a speech by Secretary Clinton which focused on Iran’s right to civilian nuclear development and avoided harsh criticisms was a significant change in tone.
Iraq
10) Leaked US cables reveal that Iraqi officials see Saudi Arabia, not Iran, as the biggest threat to the integrity and cohesion of Iraq, the Guardian reports. "Iraqi contacts assess that the Saudi goal… is to enhance Sunni influence, dilute Shia dominance and promote the formation of a weak and fractured Iraqi government," wrote US Ambassador Christopher Hill in September 2009. Iraqi officials also argue that Iraqis will resist Iranian interference "if others do not intervene."
Bolivia
11) A January 2009 cable from the US embassy in Bolivia lays bare an embassy that is biased against the Morales government and out of touch with the political reality of the country, Benjamin Dangl writes. Embassy officials cited Bolivia’s Santa Cruz Civic Committee as a source on the supposed electoral fraud of the governing party. This Civic Committee is tied to Bolivian business elites, racist youth groups, and acts of violent repression against indigenous activists and government supporters. According to the cable, embassy officials were told by members of the Santa Cruz Civic Committee they did not trust international electoral observers – including those from the OAS, the Carter Center, the UN and the EU – because they had "blessed" a August 2008 recall vote which empowered President Morales with over 60% of the vote. The US embassy emphasized electoral fraud where leading international observers saw none; it looked to the Civic Committee, an organization totally unrepresentative of the views of the majority of the population, as a source on the topic.
Contents:
U.S./Top News
1) Afghan poll shows falling confidence in U.S. efforts to secure country
Rajiv Chandrasekaran and Jon Cohen, Washington Post, Monday, December 6, 2010; 6:02 AM
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2010/12/06/AR2010120601788.html
Afghans are more pessimistic about the direction of their country, less confident in the ability of the United States and its allies to provide security and more willing to negotiate with the Taliban than they were a year ago, according to a new poll conducted in all of Afghanistan’s 34 provinces.
But residents of two key southern provinces that have been the focus of U.S. military operations over the past year say aspects of their security and living conditions have improved significantly since last December.
The new poll – conducted by The Washington Post, ABC News, the British Broadcasting Corp. and ARD television of Germany – found a particularly notable shift in public opinion in Helmand province, where Marines have been conducting intensive counterinsurgency operations. The number of people in Helmand describing their security as "good" jumped from 14 percent in a December 2009 poll to 67 percent now. Nearly two-thirds of Helmand residents now say Afghanistan is on the right track.
In Helmand and in neighboring Kandahar, the percentage of residents reporting threatening nighttime letters from the Taliban has been sliced in half. Public assessments of the U.S. military efforts in the area have also improved over the year, but 79 percent of people in the two provinces say American and allied troops should start their withdrawal next summer or sooner.
[…] Nationwide, more than half of Afghans interviewed said U.S. and NATO forces should begin to leave the country in mid-2011 or earlier. More Afghans than a year ago see the United States as playing a negative role in Afghanistan, and support for President Obama’s troop surge has faded. A year ago, 61 percent of Afghans supported the deployment of 30,000 additional U.S. troops. In the new poll, 49 percent support the move, with 49 percent opposed.
[…] After a big drop last year, more than a quarter of Afghans again say attacks against U.S. and other foreign military forces are justifiable.
Overall, nearly three-quarters of Afghans now believe their government should pursue negotiations with the Taliban, with almost two-thirds willing to accept a deal allowing Taliban leaders to hold political office. Nearly a third of adults see the Taliban as more moderate today than they were when they ruled the country.
[…] Support for the Taliban has jumped in Kandahar, where 45 percent now hold favorable views of the group. The same 45 percent of Kandahar residents see the Taliban as having a strong presence in their area.
But nationwide support for the Taliban remains tepid. Afghans overwhelmingly prefer the current government over the Taliban, and almost three in four continue to say it was good that the U.S. military toppled the Taliban in 2001, although that number is nine points lower than it was a year ago.
Despite the U.S. government’s persistent skepticism of Hamid Karzai’s leadership, more than six in 10 respondents feel the Afghan president is doing an "excellent" or "good" job. Fifty-nine percent of Afghans said they believe their country is headed in the right direction, a drop of 11 percentage points from a year ago.
Another change in the country over the year is a 13-point jump in the number of Afghans who say women’s rights are suffering. While majorities of Afghans continue to support girls’ schools, voting rights for women and their ability to work, 50 percent oppose women going outside their home unaccompanied by a male relative.
[…]
2) White House Mulls Grim Picture Of ‘Deteriorating Stalemate’ In Afghanistan
David Wood, Politics Daily, 12/3/10
http://www.politicsdaily.com/2010/12/03/white-house-mulls-grim-picture-of-deteriorating-stalemate-in-a/
The assessments now pouring into the White House from Afghanistan run the gamut from discouraging to awful, as the Obama administration finishes up its long-awaited December review of the war strategy the president announced a year ago.
In many ways, the cold facts charting the grim course of the war belie the upbeat views that the perpetually confident Gen. David Petraeus, the war’s top commander, has expressed in public.
[…] The White House has set high expectations. In his West Point speech a year ago, Obama said his new strategy "will break the Taliban’s momentum." And, he promised, "After 18 months, our troops will begin to come home." But with six months to go, the outlook is bleak.
[…] A recent Pentagon report, for instance, asserts that U.S. and allied forces and the new strategy announced by Obama a year ago are "beginning to have cumulative effects." But in unusually frank terms, the report concludes that despite combat operations against the Taliban by the 97,000 U.S. troops and 49,000 NATO and allied troops, the insurgents’ "capabilities and operational reach have been qualitatively and geographically expanding." In other words, despite the U.S. "surge," enemy forces are getting better and bigger.
[…]
3) WikiLeaks cables: Karzai pushed Nato to end Afghanistan night raids
Forces warned they would be reduced to the status of the hated Soviet invaders of the 1980s if attacks continued
Jon Boone, Guardian, Friday 3 December 2010 10.15 GMT
http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/2010/dec/03/wikileaks-cables-afghanistan-night-raids/print
Kabul – US diplomats in Afghanistan continually warned that night raids against insurgents by special forces had dramatically eroded public support for the Nato mission in key parts of Afghanistan.
Night raids have recently become a major area of contention between Karzai and Nato. The Afghan president told the Washington Post last month that he wanted an end to the "kill or capture" missions.
The cables show he has been privately asking the Americans to change their tactics for almost two years. In a memo of February 2009 Karzai asked the US under-secretary of defence policy Michele Flournoy for a limit on night raids. Since then the number of raids has increased fivefold. In several cables state department officials working in Afghanistan’s provincial reconstruction teams (PRTs) passed on reports from the field about the growing resentment towards night raids and warnings by locals that the US would inevitably come to be seen in the same light as the Soviet Union, which occupied Afghanistan in the 1980s.
One cable dated January 2009 warns of popular "outrage" against US activities in the south-east province of Zabul and says that "without ‘error free’ coalition operations" the coalition and government will lose public support. At least six such operations in December 2008 angered locals, including one that apparently forced 200 families to flee their homes.
In an operation the following January that led to five deaths and three suspected insurgents being captured the local elders of Jaldak were so furious that "they refused to bury the bodies and threatened to display them on Highway 1" – an inflammatory step given the Islamic requirement to bury the dead immediately.
Foreign efforts to calm local feelings were met with limited success. Local elders told Nato forces that the operations were strengthening the Talban. "When coalition operations hurt innocent civilians ‘the Taliban wins’. They suggested ‘the Taliban is laughing at the coalition’ and the Afghan government every time a civilian is killed."
The following month the PRT reported with even greater urgency that just one more "special operation with casualties could tip the balance in Zabul towards anti-coalition forces". "If coalition forces (CF) disregard the clear warnings and specific requests for co-operation they risk endangering all of their stabilisation and reconstruction efforts, and creating a more hostile environment as the US plans on increasing troops in the province."
The heightened concern was prompted by a raid on a compound that the Americans regarded as having successfully killed and captured militants prompted a demonstration the following day by more than 300 locals, a rally a few days later attracted 800 people.
On 9 February a delegation of tribal elders told the provincial reconstruction team that unless the night raids stopped they would withdraw their support. "We will close our shops, block the streets, move to the mountains and fight you the way we fought the Soviets," they were reported to have said.
[…]
4) Cables show U.S. officials’ sense of futility in Afghanistan
Karen DeYoung, Washington Post, Friday, December 3, 2010; A14
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2010/12/02/AR2010120207030_pf.html
Leaked U.S. diplomatic cables covering recent years of Afghanistan policy portray an unremittingly bleak landscape in which U.S. officials have alternately cajoled and pressured an erratic Afghan president, been repeatedly exasperated by corruption and seemed destined to repeat the past.
"What does it take to break out of the cycle of ‘clear and clear again’ to achieve sustained success in an area of persistent insurgency?" U.S. Ambassador Karl W. Eikenberry lamented in a June 2009 cable to Washington about repeated coalition offensives followed by Taliban resurgence in an area north of Kabul. The document was among dozens released to news organizations by the anti-secrecy group WikiLeaks.
"No matter how effective military performance may be, the insurgents will readily fill any vacuums of governance, and without political competence, lasting [counterinsurgency] success . . . will remain one more operation away," Eikenberry concluded in an assessment that echoes concerns expressed over the current coalition offensive in the southern province of Kandahar.
This spring, when Defense Secretary Robert M. Gates visited a town in Helmand province, site of a major Marine offensive this year, aides noted that his walk through the marketplace and chats with local residents would have been "unthinkable" barely six months earlier. In November 2008, U.S. Embassy officials reported a similar walk, in a nearby town, by then-British Foreign Secretary David Miliband.
"A large number of local elders turned out," the report noted, and Miliband "bought locally produced pomegranates .. . . None of this would have been possible only a few months ago."
While the overall impression afforded by the selectively released cables differed little from news reports about the Afghanistan war, the publication of unvarnished diplomatic assessments is likely to prove problematic for the Obama administration as it completes a new review of its war strategy this month. Administration and military officials have described recent progress throughout Afghanistan and indicated they see little need to change the strategy President Obama put in place a year ago with the deployment of an additional 30,000 troops.
[…]
5) EU ‘losing faith’ in Afghanistan
Leaked US cables quote EU president saying that European troops are deployed in Nato force in ‘deference’ to the US.
Al Jazeera, 05 Dec 2010 14:15 GMT
http://english.aljazeera.net/news/europe/2010/12/2010125125337676886.html
The European Union no longer believes that US and Nato forces can succeed in Afghanistan, but continues to commit troops to the fight "out of deference to the United States", the EU president is quoted as saying in leaked US diplomatic cables.
Herman Van Rompuy, who at the time was president-designate, was quoted as telling Howard Gutman, the US ambassador to Belgium, in December 2009 that 2010 would be the "last chance" for Afghanistan in European eyes.
"Europe is doing it and will go along out of deference to the United States but not out of deference to Afghanistan," Van Rompuy is quoted as saying in the cable posted by the WikiLeaks whistleblowing website on Sunday.
"No one believes in Afghanistan any more. But we will give it 2010 to see results. If it doesn’t work, that will be it because it is the last chance. And if a Belgian gets killed, it would be over for Belgium right then."
[…]
6) Experts question North Korea-Iran missile link from WikiLeaks document release
John Pomfret and Walter Pincus, Washington Post, Wednesday, December 1, 2010 http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2010/11/30/AR2010113006781.html
On Oct. 10, to celebrate its 65th anniversary as a one-party state, North Korea unveiled a new missile in the type of military parade that for decades has been a hallmark of authoritarian regimes. The North Koreans call the missile the Musudan.
The Musudan is now playing a starring role in reports this week prompted by WikiLeaks’ release of U.S. diplomatic cables. One of the documents says that Iran has obtained 19 of the missiles from North Korea, prompting news reports suggesting that the Islamic republic can hit targets in Western Europe and deep into Russia – farther than Iran’s existing missiles can strike.
The problem, however, is that there is no indication that the Musudan, also known as the BM-25, is operational or that it has ever been tested. Iran has never publicly displayed the missiles, according to experts and a senior U.S. intelligence official, some of whom doubt the missiles were ever transferred to Iran. Experts who analyzed Oct. 10 photographs of the Musudan said it appeared to be a mock-up.
The snapshot provided by the cable illustrates how such documents – based on one meeting or a single source – can muddy an issue as much as it can clarify it. In this case, experts said, the inference that Iran can strike Western Europe with a new missile is unjustified.
The 19-page document, labeled "secret," summarized a Dec. 22, 2009, meeting between 15 U.S. and 14 Russian officials who gathered as part of a bilateral program to monitor missile threats from Iran and North Korea. The two sides clashed repeatedly and agreed occasionally. The Russians claimed the Iranian missile program was not as much of a threat as the Americans feared and argued that the BM-25 might not even exist, dubbing it a "mysterious missile." Americans at the meeting acknowledged never seeing the new missile in Iran.
According to experts who are familiar with the Iranian program, the Americans and the Russians came to the meeting with competing agendas. The Americans were intent on emphasizing the Iranian threat because of their fears about Iran’s alleged nuclear weapons programs and their support for a multibillion-dollar missile defense shield that is a priority of the Obama administration. The Russians focused on playing down the threat because they opposed the missile shield and because of their embarrassment that Russian technology was showing up in North Korean and Iranian missile systems.
At one point, the U.S. side said it believed the BM-25 "was sold to Iran by North Korea." The American team cited news reports as proof. But the main news source on the issue, a story by the German newspaper Bild Zeitung in 2005, quoted German intelligence sources as saying only that Iran had purchased 18 kits made up of missile components for the BM-25 from North Korea – not 19 of the missiles themselves.
[…] "If you’re claiming that there’s a missile that can reach Western Europe from Iran, then you should be able to produce evidence," said Theodore Postol, a Massachusetts Institute of Technology professor and a former Pentagon official. "But they can’t. The Iranians love to show photographs of what they have because part of their game is to appear bigger than they are. There is no reason for the Iranians to keep it secret. I am kind of surprised at the American side’s assertions."
A senior U.S. intelligence official said Tuesday that he was unaware of any sale of a complete BM-25, although there was probably a transfer of kits. "There has been a flow of knowledge and missile parts" from North Korea to Iran, he said, "but sale of such an actual missile does not fully check out."
[…]
7) Ballot inspections under intense scrutiny in Haiti
Jacqueline Charles and Trenton Daniel, McClatchy Newspapers, Sunday, Dec. 05, 2010
http://www.sacbee.com/2010/12/05/3235019/ballot-inspections-under-intense.html
Port-au-Prince, Haiti – As Haitians await the preliminary results of the chaotic and highly contested elections on Nov. 28, there’s growing concern that if the results are not considered valid, this already earthquake-battered country could plunge even deeper into crisis.
To avoid a protracted stalemate, the international community has begun to lean heavily on electoral officials – even threatening to deny visas to some countries – if the vote count cannot be trusted, sources said. "We are interested in results of the election that demonstrably reflect the will of the Haitian people," U.S. Ambassador Ken Merten said.
The United States, France and others insist they have no favored candidate among the 17 who ran in the country’s most competitive presidential elections in more than two decades. Preliminary results are expected to be released Tuesday.
The international community has said that it will not condone any manipulation of the vote. It has staffed the vote tabulation center with monitors from the United States, Canada and the Organization of American States to help detect fraudulent tally sheets.
Political parties have been told to go through the formal complaint process with lawyers to try and remedy any irregularities.
"For me, everything hinges on the transparency of the work, the effectiveness of the work and the professional manner in which the screening and verification processes at the (vote tabulation center) are going to be carried out," said Colin Granderson, the head of the OAS-Caribbean Community electoral observer mission, which had 120 watchers deployed. "The suspicious (tallies) need to be set aside, properly verified and a decision taken as to whether they are going back into the general pool of results or if they are going to be quarantined."
[…] The elections council also confirmed what The Miami Herald found in examining election failings, which began well before polls opened Sunday morning. Among the findings:
-In the days before Election Day, many people could not get through to a call center to learn their polling site. The call center was overwhelmed with callers, and certain cell phone users couldn’t connect at all.
-The Office of National Identification ignored OAS requests to use text messaging to notify 416,631 people that their new or replaced voter identification cards were ready.
-Some residents with voting cards were told their numbers were invalid; others found that no address was listed for their assigned voting center.
-Forty-three percent of the 1,500 voting centers were destroyed in the earthquake and had to be reassigned. Many of the new sites were too small.
-Some of people sent by the political parties to work at voting stations were either functionally illiterate or paid to tell voters their names were not on the list.
-In a departure from previous elections, residents were not allowed to vote at the polling place of their choosing. Nor were they allowed to vote showing only a receipt indicating they had applied for a voter ID card.
-One million people had been added to the rolls since the last presidential election in 2006, causing a significant number of voters to be moved without notice.
-A campaign to allow camp residents to vote in camp sites fizzled. Result: At Camp Corail, only 39 people out of 6,000-plus residents were on the electoral list, sparking violent clashes on Election Day.
[…]
Israel/Palestine
8) Brazil recognises Palestine
Israel expresses disappointment over Brazil’s decision to recognise a Palestinian state on the 1967 borders.
Al Jazeera, 05 Dec 2010 03:51 GMT
http://english.aljazeera.net/news/middleeast/2010/12/201012504256198565.html
[…] In a public letter addressed to Mahmoud Abbas, the Palestinian president, on Friday, Luiz Inacio Lula da Silva, the Brazilian president, recognised Palestine as an independent state within the 1967 borders.
The decision came in response to a personal request made by Abbas on November 24, according to the letter published on the foreign ministry’s website on Friday.
"Considering that the demand presented by his excellency [Abbas] is just and consistent with the principles upheld by Brazil with regard to the Palestinian issue, Brazil, through this letter, recognises a Palestinian state on the 1967 borders," it said.
The letter refers to the "legitimate aspiration of the Palestinian people for a secure, united, democratic and economically viable state coexisting peacefully with Israel."
[…]
Iran
9) Swedish FM Carl Bildt: Iran sanctions won’t work, negotiations could take years
Josh Rogin, Foreign Policy, Monday, December 6, 2010
http://thecable.foreignpolicy.com/posts/2010/12/06/swedish_fm_carl_bildt_iran_sanctions_won_t_work_negotiations_could_take_years
Manama, Bahrain – International sanctions are not likely to convince Tehran to abandon its nuclear program and Monday’s talks in Geneva between Iran and the P5+1 countries are only the first step in a process that could take years to succeed, according to Swedish Foreign Minister Carl Bildt.
Bildt, who is considered one of Europe’s leading voices on foreign policy, is no friend of Iran. He’s a vocal critic of Iran’s human rights record and has worked hard to free Europeans held in Iranian prisons. But he gave a speech on Sunday at the 2010 IISS Manama Security Dialogue that included criticism of the sanctions regime the United States and Europe have worked to put in place. He also happened to sit next to Iranian Foreign Minister Manouchehr Mottaki at the Dec. 3 gala dinner at which Secretary of State Hillary Clinton spoke.
The Cable sat down with Bildt on Sunday for an exclusive interview about Iran, the nuclear negotiations, and his dinner date with the Iranian leader.
Bildt disagreed with Clinton’s view, expressed in our exclusive interview with her two days before, that the international sanctions regime had brought Iran back to the table and was thus having an effect on the Iranian leadership’s decision making.
"They were at the table one year ago, they were at the table six months ago, and they are at the table again. And I think it’s at the table where the solution can be found. I fail to see any solution that is not at the table," Bildt said.
"The sanctions are part of the scene but they are not the solution," he told The Cable. "There are some people that seem to believe sanctions are going to sort out the problem itself, as if you have sufficiently hard sanctions, the Iranians are suddenly going to fold and say, ‘We agree with everything that you’ve said.’ That’s a pipe dream."
Sanctions might have some effect over the long term, but that could take a very long time, he said. "You’re talking about a 10, 15, 20 year process," Bildt said. "The thing that can change things in the near term is the talks."
But even the nuclear negotiations that begin on Monday in Geneva will need several follow-up sessions before progress is can be made, said Bildt. "I think we’re talking about a fairly lengthy process. We have a gulf of mistrust between the Iranians and the Americans that is profound. One side is locked into 1979 and one side is locked into 1953," Bildt said, referring to the dates of Islamic Revolution and the U.S. sponsored coup that overthrew Mohammad Mosaddegh. "It will have to be a step by step approach, where you start by some smaller steps before you’re ready to take some bigger steps."
Luckily, the West has some more time to negotiate with Iran, Bildt added, because he believes that their nuclear progress is going much slower than anyone anticipated.
And what about his dinner with Mottaki? Bildt said he told Mottaki that Clinton’s speech, which focused on Iran’s right to civilian nuclear development and avoided harsh criticisms, was a huge change in tone from the American side made in the hope of improving relations.
Bildt said that Mottaki agreed, but that the Iranian diplomat doubted it would make much of a difference in the end.
"I said to Mottaki, ‘this is significant,’" Bildt related, referring to Clinton’s direct outreach to the Iranian delegation.
"’Yes, yes,’ he said, ‘it is,’" Bildt quoted Mottaki as telling him. "But there many people in Tehran who don’t believe it," Mottaki added.
Iraq
10) WikiLeaks cables: Saudi Arabia rated a bigger threat to Iraqi stability than Iran
Baghdad says it can contain influence of Shia neighbour, unlike powerful Gulf state that wants a return to Sunni dominance
Simon Tisdall, Guardian, Sunday 5 December 2010 12.00 GMT http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/2010/dec/05/wikileaks-cables-saudi-meddling-iraq
Iraqi government officials see Saudi Arabia, not Iran, as the biggest threat to the integrity and cohesion of their fledgling democratic state, leaked US state department cables reveal.
The Iraqi concerns, analysed in a dispatch sent from the US embassy in Baghdad by then ambassador Christopher Hill in September 2009, represent a fundamental divergence from the American and British view of Iran as arch-predator in Iraq.
"Iraq views relations with Saudi Arabia as among its most challenging given Riyadh’s money, deeply ingrained anti-Shia attitudes and [Saudi] suspicions that a Shia-led Iraq will inevitably further Iranian regional influence," Hill writes.
"Iraqi contacts assess that the Saudi goal (and that of most other Sunni Arab states, to varying degrees) is to enhance Sunni influence, dilute Shia dominance and promote the formation of a weak and fractured Iraqi government."
Hill’s unexpected assessment flies in the face of the conventional wisdom that Iranian activities, overt and covert, are the biggest obstacle to Iraq’s development.
It feeds claims, prevalent after the 9/11 attacks, that religiously conservative, politically repressive Saudi Arabia, where most of the 9/11 terrorists came from, is the true enemy of the west.
Hill’s analysis has sharp contemporary relevance as rival Shia and Sunni political blocs, backed by Iran and the Saudis respectively, continue to squabble over the formation of a new government in Baghdad, seven months after March’s inconclusive national elections.
Hill says Iraqi leaders are careful to avoid harsh criticism of Saudi Arabia’s role for fear of offending the Americans, Riyadh’s close allies. But resentments simmer below the surface.
"Iraqi officials note that periodic anti-Shia outbursts from Saudi religious figures are often allowed to circulate without sanction or disavowal from the Saudi leadership. This reality reinforces the Iraqi view that the Saudi state religion of Wahhabi Sunni Islam condones religious incitement against Shia."
[…] Returning to more familiar ground, Hill asserts that Iranian efforts in Iraq are also "driven by a clear determination to see a sectarian, Shia-dominated government that is weak, disenfranchised from its Arab neighbours, detached from the US security apparatus and strategically dependent on Iran". Such an outcome is not in the interests of the US, he notes drily.
But he passes on to Washington the arguments of Iraqi officials who say they know how to "manage" Iran. "Shia contacts … do not dismiss the significant Iranian influence but argue that it is best countered by Iraqi Shia politicians who know how to deal with Iran." These officials also maintain Iranian interference "is not aimed, unlike that of some Sunni neighbours, at fomenting terrorism that would destabilise the government". They predict Tehran’s meddling will "naturally create nationalistic Iraqi resistance to it, both Shia and more broadly, if others do not intervene."
[…]
Bolivia
11) The Ambassador Has No Clothes: WikiLeaks Cable Lays Bare Washington’s Stance Toward Bolivia
Benjamin Dangl, Toward Freedom, Wednesday, 01 December 2010 22:53
http://towardfreedom.com/americas/2201-the-embassy-has-no-clothes-wikileaks-cable-clarifies-washingtons-stance-toward-bolivia
A classified cable from the US embassy in La Paz, Bolivia released by WikiLeaks lays bare an embassy that is biased against the Evo Morales government, underestimates the sophistication of the governing party’s grassroots base, and out of touch with the political reality of the country.
The recently released January 23, 2009 cable, entitled "Bolivia’s Referendum: Margin of Victory Matters," analyzes the political landscape of the country in the lead up to the January 2009 referendum on the country’s new constitution, and was sent to all US embassies in South America and various offices in Washington.
In 2006, the leftist union leader and politician Evo Morales was inaugurated as Bolivia’s first indigenous president. Since his election he and members of his party, the Movement Toward Socialism (MAS), have partially nationalized gas reserves, enacted land reform and convoked an assembly to rewrite the country’s constitution. Following years of debates among assembly members, this constitution was passed in a national referendum on January 25, 2009.
The US embassy cable released by WikiLeaks that was written during the politically-charged days leading up to this vote shows a mischaracterization on the part of embassy officials of the MAS government and its supporters.
The cable cites Bolivian newspaper reports that many community leaders and their supporters in the Altiplano, the high plains of western Bolivia, where much of the MAS support lies, had not even read the constitution, and instead would simply "take their marching orders from the MAS, and vote for the constitution." Many had not read the document out of, according to the US embassy, "disinterest, blind faith in Evo Morales’ political project, and illiteracy." The cable describes one meeting between members of the US embassy and Bolivian political officials who "lamented the way the MAS had ‘cheated’ and ‘fooled’ campesinos into believing Morales was himself truly indigenous or cared about indigenous issues." The officials said the MAS popularity was due to "’vertical control’ in the countryside…"
These are all inaccurate portrayals of the dynamics of the MAS party and its grassroots base. Support for the constitution and the MAS did not simply grow out of illiteracy, disinterestedness, blind faith or the vertical control of the MAS over its members, as embassy officials would have those reading of this cable believe.
While many social sectors in Bolivia had serious critiques of the new constitution, the writing and passage of it was largely the result of years of discussions and consultations with constituents. The political consciousness among the MAS party base, both rural and urban, is highly sophisticated and has benefited from years of social mobilizations and a first hand understanding of the needs of the impoverished majority of the country. People support the MAS because the party speaks to those needs, has opened up political participation to marginalized sectors of society, and has developed a political project that seeks to empower disenfranchised and indigenous communities.
Such democratic tendencies challenge the economic interests and political power of Washington and the Bolivian right. It is telling, therefore, that many of the sources the US embassy drew from in this cable are members of the Bolivian right and critics of Morales.
For example, in the cable, the embassy officials cite Bolivia’s Santa Cruz Civic Committee as a source on the supposed electoral fraud of the MAS. Since Morales’ election, this Civic Committee has risen to notoriety as a fierce critic of the MAS government, and is tied to Bolivian business elites, racist youth groups, and acts of violent repression against indigenous activists and MAS supporters.
According to the released cable, US embassy officials were told by members of the Santa Cruz Civic Committee that they did not trust international electoral observers – including those from the Organization of American States, the Carter Center, the United Nations and the European Union – because they had "blessed" a August 2008 recall vote which empowered Morales with over 60% of the vote. Therefore, members of the Civic Committee did "not expect an honest review of the constitutional referendum" in January of 2009.
These views are illustrative for a couple of reasons. For one thing, the US embassy, in this diplomatic primer on one of the most important votes of the decade in Bolivia, emphasized electoral fraud on the part of the MAS where leading international observers saw none. Secondly, it looked to the Civic Committee, an organization that is totally unrepresentative of the views of the majority of the population, as a source on the topic.
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