Just Foreign Policy News
January 12, 2011
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Maxine Waters Calls for New Elections in Haiti
California Representative Maxine Waters has called for the results of the disputed November presidential election in Haiti to be set aside and for new elections to be held. She writes: "I call upon the Government of Haiti to set aside the flawed November 28th elections and organize new elections that will be free, fair and accessible to all Haitian voters." The electoral data from 2010 and 2006 strongly suggest that the call for new elections reflects the opinions and interests of the majority of Haitians.
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/robert-naiman/rep-maxine-waters-calls-f_b_808113.html
*Action: Center for Constitutional Rights: Cheryl Mills: Please Listen to the Haitian People!
Ask the State Department to support fair elections. On Friday, Chief of Staff Cheryl Mills allowed that the US might consider new elections if an OAS report recommended it. The draft OAS report does not so recommend, but that draft report is now the subject of vigorous dispute.
http://salsa.democracyinaction.org/o/383/p/dia/action/public/?action_KEY=5508
*Action: SOA Watch: Tell UN Ambassador Susan Rice to support withdrawal of UN troops from Haiti
Tell Ambassador Rice Haiti does not need UN troops, it needs schools, hospitals, housing, industries and farms. Ask that she calls for a withdrawal of military troops and a redirection of funds to true humanitarian aid.
http://salsa.democracyinaction.org/o/727/p/dia/action/public/?action_KEY=5509
Dana Frank: In Honduras, the Holiday Season Brings Repression
A new wave of military repression is sweeping through Honduras, directed at the campesino movement.
http://www.commondreams.org/view/2011/01/11-3
Sarah Lazare: Protests at Fort Campbell Over Deployment of Wounded Soldier
Operation Recovery organizers say that Jeff Hanks is not the only Fort Campbell soldier that has contacted them with similar complaints, he is just currently the only one who has gone public with his case.
http://www.truth-out.org/protests-fort-campbell-over-deployment-wounded-soldier66718
Summary:
U.S./Top News
1) California Rep. Maxine Waters, a leading Congressional voice on Haiti, called upon the Government of Haiti to set aside the flawed November 28th elections and organize new elections that will be free, fair and accessible to all Haitian voters, according to a statement from her office.
2) Prominent conservative Grover Norquist is calling on Republicans to begin a serious debate about the war in Afghanistan, the Huffington Post reports. Norquist is confident an honest debate would lead to Republicans to call for military withdrawal, HuffPo says.
3) Many in Lebanon fear the collapse of the Lebanese government, following the breakdown of Saudi-Syrian talks to end the political impasse between pro-US leaders and Hizbullah, could turn bloody with street clashes in which Hizbullah is likely to prevail, the New York Times reports. Other analysts dismiss the prospect of violence, given Hizbullah’s strength. A more likely scenario, they say, is months of political stalemate, not unlike Lebanon witnessed between 2006 and 2008, before another deal is reached.
4) Iran’s ambassador to the IAEA was quoted as saying that time was running out for negotiations on the nuclear fuel swap, the New York Times reports. But a Western diplomat played down the threat, noting that such language has been used repeatedly by both sides, and neither side wants to fuel swap deal to collapse.
5) Former Petraeus adviser Andrew Exum says most people in policy-making circles agree that the U.S. and NATO missions in Afghanistan should transition away from counterinsurgency, Politics Daily reports. Experts on Afghanistan and on counterinsurgency, among them active-duty and retired military officers, analysts and academics, are pushing to have the U.S. mission in Afghanistan significantly narrowed in scope.
6) The US has tied its AfPak policy to political leaders in Afghanistan and Pakistan who don’t share its long-term strategy and don’t have the capabilities to realize it in any case, writes military scholar T.X. Hammes, a retired Marine, in Foreign Policy. That’s an oversight likely to doom the war effort, he writes.
7) A report from the New America Foundation concludes that only 6 percent of released Guantanamo detainees engaged or are suspected of having engaged with insurgents aimed at attacking U.S. interests, the Huffington Post reports.
Tunisia
8) A three-week wave of demonstrations in Tunisia spread to the capital, Tunis, the New York Times reports. Tunisia has one of the most repressive governments in a region full of police states, the Times notes. A gracious dinner at the home of the President’s billionaire son-in-law, detailed in a cable from the U.S. Ambassador released by Wikileaks, fueled at least some of the outrage, the Times says.
Iran
9) US sanctions narrowly targeted on Iran’s nuclear program may indeed be working to slow it, argues Robert Dreyfuss in the Nation. But the US is pursuing a sanctions policy that goes far, far beyond what’s needed to counteract Iran’s ability to purchase technology, materials and equipment for its nuclear program. By cutting off Iran’s finances, forcing Western and Asian companies to stop dealing with Iran in areas such as oil, gasoline and petrochemicals, by trying to shut down Iran’s oil exports, and so on, the US is engaged in what can only be called a "regime change" policy.
10) Israeli Prime Minister Netanyahu stepped back from former Mossad head Meir Dagan’s appraisal that Iran will not get nuclear weapons until the middle of the decade, the Jerusalem Post reports. Netanyahu made clear he believed the Iranian threat had not in any way become less acute, and reiterated what he said two months ago – and for which he was chastised publicly by Secretary of Defense Gates – that sanctions needed to be backed up by a viable and serious military option.
Contents:
U.S./Top News
1) On Anniversary of Haiti’s Deadly Earthquake, Congresswoman Waters Calls for Botched Elections to be Voided and New Elections to be Held
Rebuilding and Progress Require Strong and Legitimate Haitian Government, Sustained Commitment from International Community
Office of Rep. Maxine Waters, Jan 12
http://waters.house.gov/News/DocumentSingle.aspx?DocumentID=219599
Washington – Congresswoman Maxine Waters (D-CA) issued the following statement today, marking the one year anniversary of the devastating earthquake in Haiti:
"One year after a catastrophic 7.0 earthquake struck Haiti, the country is still devastated. A million displaced Haitians are still living in tent camps, mountains of rubble are piled in the streets, and billions in assistance pledged by the international community has yet to be delivered. Meanwhile, recent elections have been widely discredited and are unlikely to result in a government capable of leading recovery and development efforts.
[…] Recovery efforts have also been hampered by a weak Haitian government. Ideally, the Presidential and parliamentary elections scheduled for November 28th would have resulted in a strong, credible government that would oversee recovery and reconstruction efforts. But these elections, as many of us feared, turned out to be deeply flawed.
The credibility of the Haitian elections was in doubt long before they actually occurred. Haiti’s Provisional Electoral Council (CEP) was widely viewed as biased in favor of current President Rene Préval. The CEP refused to allow candidates from over a dozen political parties to participate in the elections, including Lavalas, Haiti’s largest political party. Meanwhile, thousands of displaced persons were disenfranchised either because they were unable to obtain new voter cards reflecting their new addresses or because there were no accessible polling places at the tent camps where they live.
There were numerous reports of ballot-stuffing and other types of fraud on election day. Many voters were turned away from polling places throughout the country because they could not find their names on voter lists.
Haitians began to protest the elections before the polls had even closed. During the day, twelve presidential candidates issued a statement urging that the elections be discontinued and the results invalidated because of widespread fraud. Some protests became violent in December when the CEP announced preliminary results, which designated two candidates for a runoff election but which did not match the results reported by official election observers.
According to an analysis by the Center for Economic and Policy Research (CEPR), there were major problems with the conduct of the elections and the tallying of the votes. Tally sheets were either missing or were discounted for irregularities at 1,326 voting booths or 11.9 percent of the total. Furthermore, among the tally sheets that were not discounted, more than 5 percent had clerical errors, and 8.4 percent had irregularities that were sufficient to disqualify them. As a result of the missing, discounted and otherwise irregular tally sheets, more than 24 percent of the total votes either were not counted or should not have been counted.
Prior to the elections, I advised Secretary of State Hillary Clinton, in a letter signed by 44 of my colleagues, that the U.S. should not support elections in Haiti in the absence of assurances that they would be free and fair; open to participation by all eligible political parties; and accessible to voters displaced by the earthquake. It is now clear both inside and outside of Haiti that the November 28th elections did not meet these basic democratic standards.
I call upon the Government of Haiti to set aside the flawed November 28th elections and organize new elections that will be free, fair and accessible to all Haitian voters. The fact that the CEP and the Government of Haiti have been unable to carry out the questionable runoff and have postponed it with no date set provides further support for my conviction that the whole election should be set aside. Haiti’s next government will be called upon to make difficult decisions that will have a lasting impact on Haitian society, such as the allocation of resources for cholera treatment efforts and earthquake reconstruction projects. If these decisions are made by a government that is not perceived as legitimate, the recovery process could be impeded for years to come.
Finally, I call upon the U.S. Government and other donor governments to keep their promises to the Haitian people. It is long past time to rebuild Haiti’s infrastructure, remove the rubble from the streets, move people out of tents and into permanent housing, deliver the aid that has been promised, and respond to the cholera outbreak with the urgency it deserves."
2) Norquist Decries Lack Of Conservative Debate On Afghanistan
Dan Froomkin, Huffington Post, 01/12/11 11:49 AM
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2011/01/12/norquist-afghanistan-debate-conservative_n_807947.html
A prominent conservative thinker is calling on Republicans to begin a serious debate about the war in Afghanistan, its costs and what Ronald Reagan would do in the same circumstances.
And while Grover Norquist stopped short of personally calling for a rapid withdrawal, he made it clear Tuesday night that he thinks an honest conversation on the right would inevitably lead to that conclusion. "I’m confident about where that conversation would go," he told attendees of a dinner sponsored by the New America Foundation. "And I think the people who are against that conversation know where it would go, too."
Norquist said he was aiming his plea to "the people who voted for Ronald Reagan, or would have." And he pointed out that Reagan’s response to the 1983 bombing of the U.S. Marine barracks in Lebanon, which cost 241 American lives, was not to occupy Lebanon.
"His reaction to the Lebanon bombing was not to stay, it was to leave," Norquist said. "Ronald Reagan didn’t decide to fix Lebanon. I think that’s helpful in getting the conversation going on the right."
Norquist said conservatives recognize the weakness of the arguments for the war, which is why they don’t often make them.
He scoffed at the notion that fighting two wars was making American stronger. "Being tied up there does not advance American power," he said. "If you’ve got a fist in the tar baby Iraq and you’ve got a fist in the tar baby Afghanistan, then who’s afraid of you?"
[…]
3) Hezbollah Forces Collapse of Lebanese Government
Nada Bakri, New York Times, January 12, 2011
http://www.nytimes.com/2011/01/13/world/middleeast/13lebanon.html
Beirut, Lebanon – Hezbollah and its allies forced the collapse of the government here on Wednesday, deepening a crisis over a United Nations-backed tribunal investigating the assassination of a former prime minister.
Eleven of the cabinet’s 30 ministers announced their resignations, a move that dissolves the government. They said they were prompted to act by the cabinet’s refusal to convene an emergency session to oppose the tribunal, which is expected to indict members of Hezbollah.
Ten of the ministers announced their resignations just as Prime Minister Saad Hariri was meeting with President Obama in Washington. The opposition had hoped that all 11 ministers would resign together, to bring down the government at that time and expose Mr. Hariri to the maximum embarrassment.
But the 11th minister, Adnan Sayed Hussein, announced his resignation in a statement later in the evening, the National News Agency reported, after the meeting in Washington was over.
The collapse of the fragile government is the worst crisis in Lebanon since 2008, when an agreement reached in Qatar achieved a truce to end sectarian clashes that killed 81 people and brought Lebanon to the brink of a renewal of its 15-year civil war, which ended in 1990.
[…] In contrast to 2005, Hezbollah’s adversaries – gathered around Mr. Hariri – have fewer options and less support than they once did, emblematic of the vast changes in Lebanon’s political landscape the past few years. While the Bush administration wholeheartedly backed Mr. Hariri and his allies then, President Obama has not pledged the same kind of support. Syria, whose influence was waning in 2005, has re-emerged in Lebanon, and even its detractors here have sought some kind of relationship with it. Most Lebanese also vividly recall the speed at which Hezbollah and its allies vanquished their foes in just a few days of street fighting in Beirut in May 2008. "Who are your allies these days?" Sateh Noureddine, a columnist with As-Safir newspaper, asked of Mr. Hariri’s camp. "You are going to get beaten on the streets and you will not be able to respond."
The decision to resign came after the collapse of talks between Saudi Arabia and Syria aimed at easing the political tension. The two countries have backed rival camps in Lebanon since 2005 and their initiative was seen across the political spectrum as the best chance to end the stalemate. But Tuesday night, Michel Aoun, a former general and Hezbollah’s Christian ally, announced the two sides were unable to reach an agreement. "The initiative has ended with no result," he said.
The prospect of the government’s collapse sent a wave of anxiety through Lebanon, which has seen only brief periods of calm since Rafik Hariri’s killing and has often found itself perched between the competing agendas of Hezbollah allies – Iran and Syria – and Mr. Hariri’s supporters, in particular the United States and Saudi Arabia.
[…] Many here fear that "unknown" could turn bloody with street clashes in which Hezbollah is likely to prevail. An outbreak of violence might enable it to effectively seize control of the government and force a new reality on the streets of Beirut, at least until a new agreement can be reached under the auspices of foreign powers, who have long played an outsized role in the country’s domestic affairs.
Other analysts dismiss the prospect of violence, given Hezbollah’s strength. A more likely scenario, they say, is months of political stalemate, not unlike Lebanon witnessed between 2006 and 2008, before another deal is reached.
4) Iran Says Time Running Out for Nuclear Deal
Alan Cowell, New York Times, January 12, 2011
http://www.nytimes.com/2011/01/13/world/middleeast/13iran.html
Paris – A week before nuclear talks resume with outside powers, a senior Iranian official was quoted on Wednesday as saying that time was running out for negotiations on some parts of his country’s nuclear program because of Tehran’s enhanced ability to enrich and manufacture atomic fuel.
It was not clear whether the remarks were intended as an overture – or as a maneuver to raise the stakes – before the negotiations restart.
The official, Ali Asghar Soltanieh, Iran’s ambassador to the International Atomic Energy Agency, referred in particular to an abortive agreement dating to October 2009 providing for Iran to ship nuclear material abroad in return for nuclear fuel rods for a research reactor in Teheran. The energy agency is the United Nations’ nuclear supervisory body.
"Time is moving against the negotiating side," Mr. Soltanieh said, referring to the group of countries – the United States, Britain, France, Germany, Russia and China – that, along with the European Union, are set to resume talks with Iranian negotiators in Istanbul on Jan. 21 following inconclusive negotiations in Geneva in December. "It should use the chance at the earliest."
"After the installation of the first fuel rods, produced by Iran, in the core of the Tehran research reactor, Iran’s Parliament will probably never allow the government to negotiate dispatching uranium to Turkey or other countries," Mr. Soltanieh said.
[…] However, a Western diplomat in Vienna, where the U.N.’s atomic energy agency has its headquarters, said that it was not clear whether Iran was able to certify the enriched uranium for use as fuel.
[…] "This kind of last chance language has been used repeatedly by both sides" in negotiations with Iran, the diplomat said. "But time keeps on running anyhow." Moreover, he added, "neither side wants to scupper the deal, even though it has not progressed."
[…]
5) Counterinsurgency Strategy Not Working In Afghanistan, Critics Say
David Wood, Politics Daily, January 11, 2011
http://www.politicsdaily.com/2011/01/11/counterinsurgency-strategy-not-working-in-afghanistan-critics-s/
The counterinsurgency strategy the United States has relied on to win the Afghan war is producing disappointing progress at best and, at worst, is wasting billions of dollars and prolonging the nine-year war, according to a wide range of informed critics.
Experts on Afghanistan and on counterinsurgency, among them active-duty and retired military officers, analysts and academics, are pushing to have the U.S. mission in Afghanistan significantly narrowed in scope.
Their message, in brief: Drop the hearts ‘n’ minds stuff. Go kill the enemy.
It’s increasingly clear to the critics, at least, that the enemy is not the Taliban, the local Afghan insurgents. It is, rather, the remnants of al Qaeda in Afghanistan and Pakistan who continue to plot against the United State s.
Sending American soldiers and Marines headlong against Afghanistan’s "inadequate governance, corruption, and abuse of power," as the most recent guidance of Gen. David Petraeus demands, is too broad, too costly and potentially self-defeating, many critics say.
"Most people in and around policy-making circles agree that the U.S. and NATO missions in Afghanistan should transition away from counterinsurgency and toward a strategy combining counter-terror activities with a train-and-equip mission," Andrew M. Exum, a former Army officer and adviser to Petraeus, wrote this week in his counterinsurgency blog. C. Christine Fair, a regional expert and Georgetown University professor, writes that "General David Petraeus’ COIN doctrine simply may not apply to Afghanistan.
[…]
6) AfPak’s Strategic Blinders
One month after the Obama administration’s strategic review of the Afghan war, it’s become clear that there’s little willingness to change what increasingly looks like a failure in the making.
T.X. Hammes, Foreign Policy, January 11, 2011
http://www.foreignpolicy.com/articles/2011/01/11/afpaks_strategic_blinders
[Hammes retired from the U.S. Marine Corps after 30 years and is currently a senior research fellow at the National Defense University’s Center for Strategic Research.]
As the past year came to a close, most commentators were pessimistic in their assessments of security in Afghanistan. A typical take came from Nic Lee, director of the Afghanistan NGO Safety Office, an independent group that analyzes security risks for aid organizations: "Absolutely, without any reservation, it is our opinion that the situation is a lot more insecure this year than it was last year."
But the analysts who mattered most – those who were working on the Obama administration’s review of the Afghan war – had a very different view. The final report summary made public on Dec. 16 declared that NATO forces in Afghanistan have been succeeding in their mission and will continue to execute their current plan. Vice President Joseph Biden’s sudden visit to Afghanistan this week serves to reinforce that decision.
While acknowledging that the gains were fragile and reversible, the report did not recognize that the plan depends heavily on military and political conditions that are quickly losing all credibility. A successful strategy would begin by acknowledging, rather than ignoring, all the uncertainties at the root of the current mission of the NATO-led International Security Assistance Force (ISAF).
Let’s take these one at a time. First, the Obama administration’s strategy assumes that NATO is in a position to fundamentally "degrade" enemy Taliban militarily – to the point that Afghan National Security Forces can be solely responsible for dealing with them. But as long as the Taliban have a sanctuary in Pakistan, the Taliban can choose when they will fight and how many casualties they are willing to sustain. In essence, at this point, it’s the Taliban who decides how "degraded" they will let themselves become. The White House report admits that "the denial of extremist safe havens will require greater cooperation with Pakistan along the border with Afghanistan." But the government doesn’t hint at how the administration will manage in the next four years to finally convince Pakistanis to change their fundamental strategic calculus after nine years of repeatedly failing to do so.
The issue here is the conviction among Pakistani elites that India is their country’s long-term existential threat. Pakistan has maintained a long-term relationship with the Afghan Taliban, particularly the Haqqani network, in a bid to gain strategic leverage in Afghanistan over its rival to the south. Biden’s trip to Pakistan this week will simply be the latest in a long series of trips by senior U.S. officials. The renewed U.S. commitment to Afghan President Hamid Karzai’s government does not provide a reason for Pakistan to change its strategic appreciation or actions.
The administration also overlooks the probability that, even if Pakistan decides to control traffic across its porous and remote border with Afghanistan, it may well lack the capability to do so. Previous attempts by outside powers to close the same frontier have failed. Indeed, the Soviet war effort in Afghanistan fell apart because the United States was able to arm mujahideen fighters in Pakistan, from which they traveled into the border regions. Senior Pakistani officers have complained to me in several venues that Pakistani militants have retreated to sanctuaries in Afghanistan despite Pakistani requests that the United States prevent border crossings from the Afghan side. That may sound like an expedient excuse, but U.S. commanders have admitted similar difficulties with closing the border.
[…] NATO’s plan also depends on Karzai’s government in Kabul developing the willingness and capacity to extend effective governance nationwide. That’s a remarkably optimistic assumption given both its failure to do so for the last nine years and its current lack of legitimacy and popular support throughout the country. There’s little to suggest that Karzai is preparing to improve his government’s accountability and competency: He is still actively resisting ISAF efforts to prosecute corrupt officials. Even if NATO continues to bear the brunt of the battle against the Taliban, outside military forces can at best only provide an opportunity for indigenous governance to develop. The idea that Karzai will suddenly change his approach seems to be a very thin reed on which to build a strategy.
Even if Karzai does have a change of heart, it is very unlikely that the Afghan government will have the capacity to extend its reach across the entire country by the end of 2014, the date at which the Obama administration aims to conclude its "path to complete transition." Indeed, the Afghan government has still failed to fill most government jobs in Kandahar, a task that has been one of NATO’s highest priorities. If after nine years of mentoring, Kabul still cannot find a couple of hundred officials to fill key positions in a critical province, how can it possibly be ready to govern the entire country in four years?
The administration makes another leap of faith concerning the future capabilities of the Afghan National Security Forces. The United States has been training the Afghan National Army (ANA) since 2003 and professes great hopes about its future. But one can only wonder how NATO reconciles its positive reports on the ANA’s performance with the fact that Afghan forces have been notably absent in recent key operations. In October, NATO kicked off its offensive to clear Panjwai, a vital Taliban stronghold. Despite Panjwai being declared a critical campaign, apparently none of the ISAF-trained Afghan National Security Force units were up to leading this critical offensive. Because the NATO commander thought it important that Afghan forces lead, he turned to Abdul Razziq, a self-appointed "colonel" who raised and trained his own force to control a border crossing near Kandahar. At NATO’s request, Razziq brought about 500 men to provide an Afghan lead for the operation. In short, though NATO has contributed six years of mentoring and claims to have trained 235,000 Afghan troops, the ANA still cannot contribute a single battalion to lead the most important military operation in the country. The Obama administration’s strategic review gave no indication of how that dreadful record can be turned on its head over the next four years.
When there’s a strong possibility that the key assumptions underlying a military strategy are mistaken, it is time to reframe the problem and rethink the strategy. Unfortunately, where the Obama administration’s strategic-review panel ought to have challenged the assumptions underlying the current Afghan strategy, it instead offered unquestioned acceptance. Despite a steady stream of pessimistic reports, including the U.S. National Intelligence Estimate and countless testimonies from NGOs and independent experts in Afghanistan, the administration has not challenged its basic assumptions about Karzai and Pakistan. The West has hitched its wagons to political leaders in Kabul and Islamabad who don’t share its long-term strategy and don’t have the capabilities to realize it in any case. That’s an oversight likely to doom the war effort. If Washington is wise, it would organize another strategic review to correct the failures of the last.
[…]
7) Report Challenges Purported Guantanamo ‘Recidivism’ Figures
Dan Froomkin, Huffington Post, 01/12/11
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2011/01/11/guantanamo-recidivism-report-challenge_n_807690.html
Washington – On the ninth anniversary of the first detainee’s arrival at the infamous prison in Guantanamo Bay, Cuba, a Washington think tank challenged intelligence estimates suggesting that large numbers of former detainees have taken up arms against the United States.
Director of National Intelligence James Clapper claimed in December – without offering any evidence – that 13.5 percent of former Guantanamo detainees are confirmed, and an additional 11.5 percent are suspected of "reengaging" in terrorist or insurgent activities after their release.
The conservative media embraced the storyline that as many as one in four former detainees had returned to the battlefield, up sharply from the prior year.
But three scholars with the New America Foundation are out with a new report – this one backed up with data – concluding that only 6 percent of released detainees engaged or are suspected of having engaged with insurgents aimed at attacking U.S. interests. Another 2 percent engaged or are suspected of having engaged against non-U.S. targets.
Members of a NAF panel Tuesday afternoon also challenged the notion that some detainees "returned" to the battlefield, noting that many were innocent to begin with.
[…]
Tunisia
8) Mayhem Spreads in Tunisia; Curfew Decreed
David D. Kirkpatrick, New York Times, January 12, 2011
http://www.nytimes.com/2011/01/13/world/africa/13tunisia.html
Tunis – The government of Tunisia scrambled alternately to appease and to crush growing unrest on Wednesday as a three-week-old wave of violent demonstrations spread for the first time to the capital, where swarms of protesters called for the ouster of the authoritarian president, Zine al-Abidine Ben Ali.
The protesters came together after circulating calls to rally over online networks like Facebook and twitter.com. Many were unemployed college graduates, and they angrily demanded more jobs and denounced what they called the self-enrichment of Tunisia’s ruling family.
Army units and riot police were deployed around the city around dawn in anticipation, and they quickly dispersed protesters with billy clubs, tear gas, and bullets. By late in the day the government decreed a night-time curfew. And there were reports that some relatives of the president were leaving the country for their own safety.
At one of several demonstrations, witnesses reported that the security forces had shot and killed four protesters. Some said the army had used rooftop snipers to fire on the crowd. Rights groups said they had confirmed more than 30 deaths before the day began, all in skirmishes with police over the last several days.
"How can you fire on your own people?" said a 30-year-old business owner taking refuge from police as they broke up a protest near the French Embassy and train station downtown. "If you do that, then there is no return. Now you are a killer." He declined to provide his name for fear of reprisals.
Tunisia is in some ways the most European country of North Africa. It boasts of a relatively large middle class, liberal social norms and broad gender equality, and welcoming Mediterranean beaches. United States officials give it high marks for its aggressive prosecution of suspected terrorists.
But Tunisia also has one of the most repressive governments in a region full of police states. Residents long tolerated extensive surveillance, scant civil liberties and the routine use of torture, at least until the economic malaise that has gripped southern Europe spread here, sending unemployment and public resentment skyrocketing.
[…] President Ben Ali and other officials have sought to blame the unrest on foreign terrorists or Islamic radicals capitalizing on the frustrations of the unemployed. But there were little evidence of any reference to God or Islam around the protests on Wednesday, and some demonstrators called the assertion insulting. "They say the people are terrorists, but they are the real terrorists, Ben Ali and his family," said Ala Djebali, an 18-year-old student hiding in the train station after a protest downtown.
Protesters seemed to direct much of their anger at the great wealth and lavish life of President Ben Ali’s second wife, Leila Trebelsi, a former hairdresser, and their extended family, most notably their son-in-law, the billionaire businessman Mohammed Sakher El Materi. Mr. Materi, whose company Princess Holdings includes a major ‘independent’ newspaper here, is a member of parliament and a prominent official in the ruling party. Like heirs to the presidents of Egypt and Libya (and the current presidents of Syria and Lebanon), Mr. Materi is also discussed as a potential successor to President Ben Ali.
A gracious dinner at his home was detailed in a cable from the U.S. Ambassador to Tunisia that was released by the anti-secrecy organization Wikileaks and fueled at least some of the outrage: a beachfront compound decorated with Roman artifacts, ice cream and frozen yoghurt flown from St. Tropez, a Bangladeshi butler and South African nanny, and a pet tiger in a cage.
On Wednesday, however, there were reports that Mr. El Materi had fled the country and taken refuge in another mansion he owns, in Montreal.
Iran
9) Clinton Gets It Wrong On Iran Sanctions
Robert Dreyfuss, The Nation, January 11, 2011
http://www.thenation.com/blog/157640/clinton-gets-it-wrong-iran-sanctions
Intelligently enough, Secretary of State Hillary Clinton said this week during her whirlwind tour of the Arab states of the Persian Gulf – Abu Dhabi and Dubai, Qatar, Yemen, Oman – that war with Iran is not a good idea. Saying that she was aware of the "drumbeat" of war talk, most of which is coming from a small minority of neoconservative hardliners, Clinton added: "I think it’s very important that we look at how disastrous such a war would be for everyone. And it still is a fact that there is no solution to the problems that beset the area through war. War will not resolve the longstanding concerns."
But Clinton then went on to mix apples and oranges, asserting that "sanctions are working," slowing down Iran’s nuclear research program. In this case, however, the "apples" are the highly targeted sanctions that seek to prevent Iran from acquiring the technology and materials that it needs to build more centrifuges, add to its missile capacity, and so on. And the "oranges" are the onerous, destructive economic sanctions that are supposedly designed to bring Iran to its knees politically and to compel Iran to halt its nuclear enrichment program. In the eyes of the hawks and neoconservatives, the "oranges" are really aimed at sparking a revolt in Iran, bringing down the government, and forcing "regime change."
So far, it’s unclear whether the former sanctions, the "apples," are working, but it is at least plausible. According to the IAEA and others, apparently including US and Israeli intelligence, Iran’s enrichment program has suffered setbacks, and at least a good portion of the centrifuges at Natanz aren’t working properly. Last week, the outgoing head of the Mossad, Meir Dagan, declared that Iran wouldn’t be able to manufacture a bomb until 2015. Whether that’s because of the sanctions, or because of the Mossad’s own campaign of sabotage and assassination – Dagan’s preferred narrative – or for some other reason, isn’t clear.
But, according to the Wall Street Journal, Iran has had trouble acquiring what it needs, including "maraging steel" for the a component of the centrifuges called the "bellows" and carbon fiber used in the centrifuge rotors. If so, then that part of the sanctions, at least, are effective.
[…] So, two points in her favor: that she disparaged the war talk and that she said that there is time to deal with Iran’s nuclear program, i.e., that it isn’t an immediate crisis.
But on the broader point, the United States is pursuing a sanctions policy that goes far, far beyond what’s needed to counteract Iran’s ability to purchase technology, materials and equipment for its nuclear program. By cutting off Iran’s finances, forcing Western and Asian companies to stop dealing with Iran in areas such as oil, gasoline and petrochemicals, by trying to shut down Iran’s oil exports, and so on, the United States is engaged in what can only be called a "regime change" policy. Very few analysts believe that such a policy is productive, and many – including myself – believe that it"s counterproductive, since it pushes Iran into a corner, inflames the atmosphere for negotiations, and makes it easier for Iran’s hardliners to argue that the Great Satan is the cause of Iran’s economic woes.
10) PM disagrees with claim Iran won’t get bomb until 2015
Netanyahu publicly takes issue with Dagan’s Iranian assessment; tells foreign press 2011 will reveal who in region wants peace.
Herb Keinon, Jerusalem Post, 01/11/2011 22:34
http://www.jpost.com/VideoArticles/Article.aspx?id=203161
Prime Minister Binyamin Netanyahu stepped back on Tuesday from former Mossad head Meir Dagan’s appraisal that Iran will not get nuclear weapons until the middle of the decade.
These were "only" intelligence assessments and should be seen as such, he said. "I think that intelligence estimates are exactly that, estimates," Netanyahu said. "They range from best case to worst case possibilities, and there is a range there, there is room for differing assessments."
Speaking at the prime minister’s annual press conference with the foreign press, Netanyahu made clear that he believed the Iranian threat had not in any way become less acute, and reiterated what he said two months ago in New Orleans – and for which he was chastised publicly by US Secretary of Defense Robert Gates – that sanctions needed to be backed up by a viable and serious military option.
[…] Netanyahu, clearly unhappy with the idea that the world has somehow gained a great deal more time to deal with Teheran, said that the only time the Iranians halted their nuclear program over the last 15 years was in 2003, after the US invasion of Iraq, when they feared American military action.
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