Just Foreign Policy News
December 10, 2010
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The Real News: Just Foreign Policy on Wikileaks and US Iran policy
Just Foreign Policy tells The Real News: there are three items on the menu at this restaurant: war, more sanctions, and real diplomacy. If you don’t want war or more sanctions, you have to support real diplomacy.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=AxX3AugIFQs
Leveretts: Listening Posts On Iran Produce Same Sort Of Bad Intel As Iraqi Defectors
Flynt Leverett and Hillary Mann Leverett review evidence from the Wikileaks cables that the Obama Administration is getting information on Iran that is as reliable as the information that the Bush Administration got on Iraq in the run-up to the 2003 US invasion.
http://www.raceforiran.com/listening-posts-on-iran-produce-same-sort-of-bad-intel-as-iraqi-defectors
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Summary:
U.S./Top News
1) A recent statement by Secretary of State Clinton seemed to indicate a change in the U.S. negotiating position towards Iran, Time Magazine reports. She suggested that a diplomatic solution would include Iran exercising its right to enrich uranium for peaceful purposes, once it had "restored the confidence of the international community" that its program had no military objective. But a group of prominent U.S. Senators – including John Kyl, Joe Lieberman, Kirsten Gillebrand and John McCain – wrote to President Obama urging him to reject any proposal under which Iran would maintain a uranium-enrichment capability. "We would strongly oppose any proposal for [a diplomatic] endgame in which Iran is permitted to continue these activities in any form," the Senators wrote.
But Clinton’s comments seemed to correspond with proposals reportedly put to the Iranians by the EU’s Catherine Ashton, Time says. Media reports suggested European diplomats were offering a deal in which Iran could continue to enrich uranium if it satisfied transparency concerns raised by the IAEA, and agreed to a tighter and more intrusive inspection regime than the one currently in effect.
The Senators’ view is not supported by most of the countries currently implementing sanctions against Iran or by some influential voices in Washington, who have warned that no diplomatic solution is possible while demanding Iran relinquish the right to enrichment for peaceful purposes. "The Bush Administration [argument of] no enrichment was ridiculous … because it seemed so unreasonable to people," John Kerry told the Financial Times last year, citing Iran’s NPT rights. "It sort of hardened the lines … They have a right to peaceful nuclear power and to enrichment in that purpose."
2) U.N. High Commissioner for Human Rights Navi Pillay voiced concern at reports of pressure being exerted on private companies to halt financial or Internet services for WikiLeaks, Reuters reports. Pillay said that taken together, the measures could be interpreted as an attempt to prevent WikiLeaks from publishing, thereby violating its right to freedom of expression.
3) According to Wikileaks cables, the U.S. military is more engaged in armed conflicts in the Muslim world than the U.S. government openly acknowledges, McClatchy reports. The cables underscore the perils of using advanced military technologies in complex, remote battlefields with sometimes shifty friends, McClatchy says. Experts said that the revelations of secretive US operations in Muslim countries could offer fodder to Islamist militants who accuse the United States of aggression against Muslims and of siding with authoritarian and unpopular regimes.
4) President Obama does not need Congress’ permission to instruct the US ambassador at the UN to abstain on UN Security Council resolutions concerning Israel, Juan Cole notes. Obama could simply let the UNSC be the body that forces Israel into accepting a two-state solution.
5) Brazilian President Lula criticized the arrest of the Wikileaks founder Julian Assange as "an attack on freedom of expression," the BBC reports. President Lula said the internet publication of secret US cables had "exposed a diplomacy that appeared untouchable." Lula also criticized other governments for failing to condemn the arrest.
6) President Obama’s chief nuclear adviser said Friday the US and its allies planned a new round of sanctions against the country in coming weeks, part of an effort to test "how high Iran’s pain threshold is," the New York Times reports.
7) It’s OK for Iran to get nuclear weapons, USA Today founder Al Neuharth writes in USA Today, so long as President Obama makes clear to Iran that they are for defensive purposes only.
Israel/Palestine
8) A group of 26 ex-EU leaders has urged the union to impose sanctions on Israel for continuing to build settlements on occupied Palestinian territory, the BBC reports. Signatories of the letter include the former EU foreign affairs chief, Javier Solana. The letter asks ministers to set the Israeli government an ultimatum that, if it has not fallen into line by April 2011, the EU will seek an end to the US-brokered peace process in favor of a UN solution. The EU should link its informal freeze on an upgrade in diplomatic relations with Israel to a settlement construction moratorium andban imports of products made in settlements, the letter says.
Iran
9) Israel’s heightening of its rhetoric against Iran is putting Iranian Jews in a tough spot, the Christian Science Monitor reports.
Colombia
10) According to leaked U.S. diplomatic cables, Former President Uribe sought secret talks with the FARC, and the FARC reached out to the U.S. Embassy, AP reports. The contacts, including Switzerland’s role as a mediator, were not previously known to the public before the cables were released Wednesday by WikiLeaks.
Contents:
U.S./Top News
1) Could Domestic Politics Tie Obama’s Hands on Iran Diplomacy?, TIME
Tony Karon, Time Magazine, Friday, Dec. 10, 2010
http://www.time.com/time/nation/article/0,8599,2036275,00.html
It has long been clear that Iran’s domestic political power struggle impedes prospects for any diplomatic breakthrough on the nuclear standoff – just a year ago, a confidence-building fuel swap agreed between Western and Iranian negotiators in Vienna was shot down in Tehran by conservative and reformist rivals to President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad. But U.S. domestic politics too may be coming into play to restrain President Barack Obama from embracing a deal reportedly being discussed with the Iranians by European negotiators.
On Monday, as Iran’s nuclear negotiator Saeed Jalili met in Geneva with E.U. foreign policy chief Catherine Ashton, a group of prominent U.S. Senators – including John Kyl, Joe Lieberman, Kirsten Gillebrand and John McCain – wrote to President Obama urging him to reject any proposal under which Iran would maintain a uranium-enrichment capability. "It is critical that the United States and our partners make clear that, given the government of Iran’s patterns of deception and noncooperation, its government cannot be permitted to maintain any enrichment or reprocessing activities on its territory for the foreseeable future," the Senators wrote. "We would strongly oppose any proposal for diplomat [sic] endgame in which Iran is permitted to continue these activities in any form."
The Senators’ letter followed a statement made by Secretary of State Hillary Clinton the previous week that seemed to indicate a change in the U.S. negotiating position. She suggested that a diplomatic solution would include Iran exercising its right to enrich uranium for peaceful purposes, once it had "restored the confidence of the international community" that its program had no military objective. "They can enrich uranium at some future date once they have demonstrated that they can do so in a responsible manner in accordance with international obligations," she told a BBC interviewer.
Although the Bush Administration had taken the same zero-enrichment position demanded in the Senators’ letter, until now the Obama team has been vague on whether it would accept Iran keeping a uranium-enrichment capability in a certifiably peaceful nuclear program. But Clinton’s comments seemed to correspond with proposals reportedly put to the Iranians by Ashton. Media reports suggested European diplomats were offering a deal in which Iran could continue to enrich uranium if it satisfied transparency concerns raised by the U.N.’s nuclear watchdog, the IAEA, and agreed to a tighter and more intrusive inspection regime than the one currently in effect. Although Iran is not accused of currently building nuclear weapons, it is required by U.N. Security Council resolutions to suspend enrichment until it has satisfied the IAEA’s concerns. But according the Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty (NPT), to which it is a signatory, once the IAEA has resolved the disclosure issues that had raised questions about its intentions, Iran has the right to enrich uranium for energy purposes under international scrutiny.
The Bush Administration, along with Israel and France, believed that Iran could not be trusted with a civilian enrichment program, because that would give it the technological basis to build weapons within a year or two, should it choose to break out of the NPT – as North Korea did in 1994. The Senators who wrote to Obama on Monday clearly share that view – which, however, is not supported by most of the countries currently implementing sanctions against Tehran or by some influential voices in Washington, who have warned that no diplomatic solution is possible while demanding Iran relinquish the right to enrichment for peaceful purposes. "The Bush Administration [argument of] no enrichment was ridiculous … because it seemed so unreasonable to people," Senate Foreign Relations Committee chairman John Kerry told the Financial Times last year, citing Iran’s NPT rights. "It sort of hardened the lines … They have a right to peaceful nuclear power and to enrichment in that purpose."
Earlier this year, former Secretary of State Colin Powell told an interviewer, "The Iranians are determined to have a nuclear program. Notice I did not say a nuclear weapon. But they are determined to have a nuclear program, notwithstanding the last six or seven years of efforts on our part to keep them from having a nuclear program." The more realistic goal, he argued, was to press Iran to agree to greater oversight of its program in order to build confidence in its stated peaceful intentions.
Unless the West is able to force the Tehran regime into an as-yet-unlikely surrender, some form of compromise on the question of enrichment may be the only diplomatic game in town. And Clinton’s statement signaled that the Administration may be coming to realize that. But powerful voices in Washington are mustering to stop President Obama from playing that game. And that means that, even if Tehran is amenable to a deal – and that remains a very big if – trying to make one could leave Obama going into his 2012 re-election campaign facing charges of being "soft on Iran." Given the epic mistrust between the U.S. and Iran, and the skepticism of Obama’s domestic political critics, any long-term deal on the nuclear issue may still be years away. But hawks will be warning that the clock is ticking and pressing for tougher measures.
2) UN rights boss concerned at targeting of WikiLeaks
* Navi Pillay dismayed at reports of pressure on companies
* Says measures could be interpreted as attempt at censure
* Group case raises difficult issues requiring balancing act
Stephanie Nebehay, Reuters, Thu, Dec 9 2010
http://www.reuters.com/article/idUSLDE6B81WE20101209
Geneva – U.N. High Commissioner for Human Rights Navi Pillay voiced concern on Thursday at reports of pressure being exerted on private companies to halt financial or Internet services for WikiLeaks. Pillay said that taken together, the measures could be interpreted as an attempt to prevent WikiLeaks from publishing, thereby violating its right to freedom of expression.
While it was not clear who was behind the cyber attacks and counter-attacks, they raised concerns about the need for countries to protect the right to freely share information, as required under international law, she said.
"I am concerned about reports of pressure exerted on private companies including banks, credit card companies and Internet service providers to close down credit lines for donations to WikiLeaks, as well as to stop hosting the website," she told a news conference. "If WikiLeaks has committed any recognisable illegal act then this should be handled through the legal system, and not through pressure and intimidation including on third parties," Pillay added, without elaborating.
[…] Pillay noted that they included some documents pointing to U.S. officials being aware of widespread use of torture by Iraqi forces and nevertheless transferring detainees to Iraqi custody.
"The case raises complex human rights questions about balancing the freedom of information, the right of the people to know, and the need to protect national security or public order," she said. "This balancing act is a difficult one."
A landmark international treaty on civil and political rights protects the right to freedom of expression. Any restrictions placed on these freedoms must be both necessary and proportional, according to the former U.N. war crimes judge. "Courts of law are equipped to address the delicate issue of balancing competing rights and values," she said.
Pillay, referring to WikiLeaks founder Julian Assange, said: "If Mr. Assange has committed any recognisable offence then the judicial system, following fair procedures, should be able to address how these rights can be balanced."
She noted the accusations against the 39-year-old Australian for sex crimes in Sweden, for which he was remanded in custody in Britain on Tuesday, are unrelated to the leaked information.
[…]
3) WikiLeaks: Cables Reveal U.S. Military Role In Muslim World
Shashank Bengali, McClatchy Newspapers, December 09, 2010 06:40:55 PM
http://www.mcclatchydc.com/2010/12/09/105053/wikileaks-show-deeper-us-military.html
Baghdad – From the Saudi-Yemen border to lawless Somalia and the north-central African desert, the U.S. military is more engaged in armed conflicts in the Muslim world than the U.S. government openly acknowledges, according to cables released by the WikiLeaks website.
U.S. officials have struck relationships with regimes that generally aren’t considered allies in the war against terrorism, and while the cables show U.S. diplomats admonishing the regimes to respect the laws of war, they also underscore the perils of using advanced military technologies in complex, remote battlefields with sometimes shifty friends.
Cables released this week indicate that the United States:
– Provided Saudi Arabia with satellite imagery to help direct airstrikes against Shiite rebels after earlier strikes resulted in civilian casualties.
– Collaborated with Algerian forces in 2006 and 2007 to capture militants allegedly bound for Iraq and, more recently, obtained permission to fly U.S. surveillance planes through Algerian airspace to hunt suspected al Qaida members.
– Killed a militant Islamist leader in a 2008 airstrike in Somalia and, later, fielded requests from Somali officials to "take out" more suspected militants.
Experts said that the revelations of secretive American operations in Muslim countries could offer fodder to Islamist militants who accuse the United States of aggression against Muslims and of siding with authoritarian and unpopular regimes. "This kind of feeds the al Qaida narrative, that we’re doing it everywhere," said Lawrence J. Korb, a senior fellow at the Center for American Progress in Washington and a former Pentagon official in the Reagan administration.
The Pentagon hasn’t acknowledged its role in Saudi Arabia’s sporadic fight against a Yemeni Shiite group known as the Houthi. But a cable from the U.S. embassy in Riyadh says that in February, a senior Saudi defense official asked the U.S. for satellite maps of its border with Yemen to help the underequipped Saudi air force target the rebels, and the U.S. ambassador, James B. Smith, agreed.
A previous Saudi airstrike had hit a medical clinic, while another bombing run turned back when pilots learned that the target – selected by the Yemeni government – wasn’t a rebel site but instead the headquarters of a political opponent of Yemeni President Ali Abdullah Saleh.
The strikes "were necessarily being conducted without the desired degree of precision," said the Saudi official, Prince Khaled bin Sultan. When Smith produced a satellite image of the bomb-damaged clinic, bin Sultan suggested that his air force needed more advanced aircraft. "If we had the Predator, maybe we would not have this problem," he said, referring to a drone aircraft the U.S. has used extensively in strikes on suspected terrorists in Pakistan and elsewhere.
The cable said that Smith agreed to furnish the Saudis with the satellite imagery because, while the Houthi clashes appeared to be dying down, the imagery would help Saudi forces keep a better eye on suspected al Qaida activity in that area.
[…] Peter Singer, the director of the 21st Century Defense Initiative at the center-left Brookings Institution in Washington, said the exchange illustrates the dangers of U.S. forces relying on local allies who have other objectives.
"There are no guarantees that our ally might not also use the tools against another of their enemies – indeed, they would be almost remiss not to," Singer said. "The end result is that you may get the action you may have wanted, but you also incur all sorts of unexpected side effects, including in these cases being drawn into local disputes that aren’t fully in our strategic interests."
[…]
4) Obama Should Let the UN apply Economic Sanctions to Israel
Juan Cole, Informed Comment, 12/10/2010
http://www.juancole.com/2010/12/obama-should-let-the-un-apply-economic-sanctions-to-israel.html
Israeli Prime Minister Binyamin Netanyahu and his far rightwing government have slapped President Obama in the face with mail gloves by refusing to extend the freeze on new colonies in the Palestinian West Bank. Palestine Authority president Mahmoud Abbas reaffirmed his refusal to go forward with direct negotiations if Israelis were going to be seizing land that was being negotiated for while the talks were ongoing!
President Obama has few options in forcing Netanyahu back to the negotiating table. The US Congress controls the purse strings, and Obama cannot punish the obstreperous Likud government by cutting aid or military weaponry, without the cooperation of Congress. Republican Eric Cantor has already pledged to run interference for Netanyahu in Congress, against Obama.
But there is one thing Obama has in his control. He can instruct the US ambassador to the UN to abstain from United Nations Security Council resolutions on Israel. Obama could simply let the UNSC be the body that forces Israel into accepting a two-state solution.
Israel is already in profound contravention of numerous UNSC resolutions, with regard to their refashioning of Jerusalem, treatment of Occupied Palestinians, the Gaza blockade, etc.
The UN Security Council should start giving Israel the Iran treatment, putting economic sanctions on it until it complies with international law and with UNSC resolutions.
Everyone is contrasting a Palestinian unilateral action such as declaring statehood with a bilateral negotiation with Israel.
But there is a third possibility,which is a multilateral process. By letting the UNSC assert itself on the Palestinian-Israeli conflict, Obama could achieve the main goals of his sponsored bilateral talks, even in the face of Israeli intransigence.
If push comes to shove, Obama should let the UNSC give Palestine a formal seat as a nation-state at the UN. Once Palestine is a recognized nation, it would have standing to sue Israel in international courts over the theft of Palestinian property.
Obama has nothing to lose in unleashing the Security Council on Israel. He is already being defied by the Israel lobbies,which will surely oppose his reelection bid in 2012.
The beauty of it is that Obama does not have to instruct the US ambassador to the UN to vote against Israel. A series of abstentions would do the trick.
[…]
5) Wikileaks: Brazil President Lula backs Julian Assange
BBC, 9 December 2010
http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-latin-america-11966193
Brazilian President Luiz Inacio Lula da Silva has criticised the arrest of the Wikileaks founder Julian Assange as "an attack on freedom of expression".
President Lula said the internet publication of secret US cables had "exposed a diplomacy that appeared untouchable".
He also criticised other governments for failing to condemn the arrest.
Mr Assange was detained in the UK on Tuesday over alleged sex offences in Sweden. "They have arrested him and I don’t hear so much as a single protest for freedom of expression", President Lula said at a public event in Brasilia.
[…]
6) U.S. and Allies Plan More Sanctions Against Iran
David E. Sanger, New York Times, December 10, 2010
http://www.nytimes.com/2010/12/11/world/middleeast/11nuke.html
Washington – Three days after the first nuclear talks with Iran in more than a year adjourned with no progress, President Obama’s chief nuclear adviser said on Friday that the United States and its allies planned a new round of sanctions against the country in coming weeks, part of an effort to test "how high Iran’s pain threshold is" and force the country into suspending its production of nuclear fuel.
Another session of talks with Iran is scheduled to take place next month, probably in Turkey. But at a conference on Friday held by the Foundation for the Defense of Democracies, Mr. Obama’s coordinator for weapons of mass destruction, Gary Samore, suggested that Iran may have decided to resume talks with the with the members of the United Nations Security Council and Germany "because it believes it can manipulate the appearance of negotiations to weaken existing sanctions and avoid additional measures."
"This ploy will not work," Mr. Samore said. "In the wake of the Geneva talks, we and our allies are determined to maintain and even increase pressure. We need to send the message to Iran that sanctions will only increase if Iran avoids serious negotiations and will not be lifted until our concerns are fully addressed."
[…]
7) Why it’s OK for Iran to join ‘Nuclear Age’
Al Neuharth, USA Today, December 9, 2010
http://www.usatoday.com/news/opinion/forum/2010-12-10-column10_ST_N.htm
Diplomatic discussions in Geneva this week among Iran, the USA and other global leaders and a follow-up meeting scheduled for January in Istanbul should help us understand one thing clearly: This is the "Nuclear Age."
That means that every country large or small that has the wherewithal wants its own nuclear weapons. Latest estimate from the Federation of American Scientists on the number held worldwide:
– Russia 12,000
– USA 9,600
– France 300
– China 240
– United Kingdom 225
– Israel 80
– Pakistan 70-90
– India 60-80
– North Korea 1-10
The fact that Iran’s leaders want to join that group should not be any surprise. What we need to make sure they understand is that any effort to use nuclear weapons offensively would lead to their country’s wipeout.
The two biggies – Russia and the USA – learned that in 1962. Russia (then the USSR) sent atomic missiles to Cuba for Fidel Castro’s arsenal. It was a clear threat to the neighboring United States.
I was an editor at The Miami Herald then, and we dispatched reporters and photographers all over South Florida and especially the Keys to cover what looked like an inevitable military confrontation.
President John F. Kennedy had a series of letter exchanges with Soviet leader Nikita Khrushchev telling him to get the missiles out of Cuba, or else.
Key JFK warning: No "sane man would, in this nuclear age, deliberately plunge the world into war which it is crystal clear no country could win and which could only result in catastrophic consequences to the whole world, including the aggressor." Khrushchev got it and got the missiles out of Cuba.
If President Obama sends a clear "or else" message to Iran’s leaders, explaining that such weapons are defensive only, it will be OK to satisfy their ego by letting them join the "Nuclear Club."
Israel/Palestine
8) Former EU leaders urge sanctions for Israel settlements
BBC, 10 December 2010
http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-middle-east-11968304
A group of 26 ex-EU leaders has urged the union to impose sanctions on Israel for continuing to build settlements on occupied Palestinian territory.
In a letter sent on Monday, they said Israel "like any other state" should be made to feel "the consequences" and pay a price for breaking international law. The signatories include the former EU foreign affairs chief, Javier Solana.
But in a written response Mr Solana’s successor, Catherine Ashton, said the bloc’s approach would remain unchanged.
[…] The letter sent to European governments and EU institutions, asks EU foreign ministers to reiterate that they "will not recognise any changes to the June 1967 boundaries and clarify that a Palestinian state should be in sovereign control over territory equivalent to 100% of the territory occupied in 1967, including its capital in East Jerusalem".
It also asks ministers to set the Israeli government an ultimatum that, if it has not fallen into line by April 2011, the EU will seek an end to the US-brokered peace process in favour of a UN solution, according to the EUobserver website.
The EU should link its informal freeze on an upgrade in diplomatic relations with Israel to a settlement construction moratorium; ban imports of products made in settlements; and force Israel to pay for the majority of the aid required by the Palestinians, it adds.
It also urges the bloc to send a high-level delegation to East Jerusalem to support Palestinian claims to sovereignty and reclassify EU support for Palestine as "nation building" instead of "institution building".
"Time is fast running out", the letter warns, because "Israel’s continuation of settlement activity… poses an existential threat to the prospects of establishing a sovereign, contiguous and viable Palestinian state."
In addition to Mr Solana, the letter was signed by 10 former leaders of European countries – including Romano Prodi and Giuliano Amato of Italy, Richard von Weizsaecker and Helmut Schmidt of Germany, Mary Robinson of Ireland, Felipe Gonzalez of Spain and Norway’s Thorvald Stoltenberg – 10 former ministers and two former EU commissioners.
In a letter of response to the former leaders, sent on Tuesday and seen by EUobserver, Baroness Ashton said the EU’s approach to Jewish settlement expansion would remain unchanged for the time being. She said the demand for a peace treaty based on pre-June 1967 borders was "commonly accepted" and that she supported the US-brokered negotiations.
[…]
Iran
9) As Hanukkah closes, menorahs have flickered in surprising place: Iran
Iranian Jews, who have been celebrating Hanukkah this week along with Jews around the world, are eking out a tenuous existence amid escalating Iran-Israel rhetoric.
Becky Lee Katz, Christian Science Monitor, December 9, 2010 at 2:23 pm EST
http://www.csmonitor.com/World/Middle-East/2010/1209/As-Hanukkah-closes-menorahs-have-flickered-in-surprising-place-Iran
Tehran – As Jews around the world celebrate Hanukkah this week, menorahs are burning in a surprising corner of the world: Iran. Home to Jews – including the biblical Esther – for 3,000 years, the land today is sprinkled with synagogues that serve the Middle East’s largest community of Jews after Israel.
At recent services in the Joybar synagogue in Tehran, one of 20 in the capital city, Iranian Jews streamed in until the hall, decorated with gold, wooden, and velvet relics. More than 200 attendees read from prayer books printed in both Hebrew and Farsi.
Inside, the men wear the kippa, a Jewish religious head covering. The women cover their hair with their hijab, adhering to the Orthodox Jewish custom of covering their hair while also abiding by the laws of the Islamic Republic of Iran. "It is safe for us in Iran, for Jews. But we always have to be careful. We know that we should stay with our community. We should not become close to Muslims. If we do, it will only be trouble," says Rachel, a young woman who attended services recently with her toddler son.
There is official acceptance of the Jewish presence in Iran – Jews, along with Christians and Zoroastrians, are allowed a representative in parliament and provided with special family law courts. But as Israel heightens its rhetoric against Iran – WikiLeaks cables this week revealed an Israeli plan for regime change and support for a military strike this year – Iranian Jews find themselves in a tight spot.
Siamak Marreh-Sedq, the sole Jewish representative to the Iranian parliament, argued recently that Israel would never attack Iran. "No idiot may imagine attacking Iran because the Iranian nation has already proved that it obeys the words and order of the Supreme Leader of the Islamic Revolution," proclaimed Mr. Marreh-Sedq on Aug. 2, according to the Fars News Agency, indicating that as a Jewish Iranian MP, he stood behind Iran and not Israel.
Iran’s Jews, such as Marreh-Sedq, have sometimes been criticized for siding too closely with the Islamic Republic to avoid possible government retaliation because of the stand-off between arch-enemies Iran and Israel. The tensions illustrate a decades-long struggle to distinguish Judaism from support for Israel’s Zionist policies.
[…]
Colombia
10) Cables: Colombia’s Uribe reached out to FARC.
Vivian Sequera, Associated Press, Wednesday, December 8, 2010; 11:03 PM
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2010/12/08/AR2010120808071.html
Bogota, Colombia – Former President Alvaro Uribe sought secret talks during his second term with Colombia’s main leftist rebel group in Switzerland, and the guerrillas even reached out to the U.S. Embassy, according to leaked U.S. diplomatic cables.
But it appears none of the described contacts made headway toward resolving Colombia’s nearly half century-old civil conflict, which claims several thousand lives annually.
Uribe left office in August after badly crippling the leftist Revolutionary Armed Forces of Colombia, or FARC, with a withering military campaign and refused steadfastly to accept their demand for a demilitarized zone as a condition for talks.
Uribe always maintained he would not engage in serious dialogue with the FARC until the rebels stop kidnapping civilians, free all their captives – they currently hold 22 soldiers and police – and halt their practice of laying land mines that kill indiscriminately.
The contacts, including Switzerland’s role as a mediator, were not previously known to the public before the cables were released Wednesday by WikiLeaks.
Reacting via Twitter, Uribe said his government "accepted many international initiatives" to open dialogue with the rebels. He promised to later detail them on his personal website.
In the cables, in particular one dated Feb. 6 that discussed a three-hour meeting Uribe had with Deputy Secretary of State James Steinberg, the hard-line former Colombian president is described as skeptical about contacts with the FARC leading to a negotiated peace as long as the rebels have refuge in neighboring Venezuela and "a fountain of wealth" from cocaine trafficking.
A Feb. 11 dispatch mentions that a meeting has been arranged between Colombian government and FARC representatives in Switzerland but offers no more details.
[…] The FARC’s contact with the U.S. Embassy came on May 14, 2009, when a Colombian politician representing Pablo Catatumbo, a member of the FARC’s seven-man ruling secretariat, met with the embassy’s political counselor, according to a cable sent 12 days later.
The Colombia politician, whose name is removed from the cable, "stressed that he did not bring a message from the FARC" for the U.S. government but rather "wanted to establish a ‘relationship’ with the Embassy that could prove useful in the future. He said Catatumbo is convinced that (U.S. government) participation in any eventual peace process with the (government of Colombia) would be key to success."
[…]
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