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Pedro Gonçalves

U.S. Reaches Out to Iran to Celebrate 4th of July - NYTimes.com - 0 views

  • Last Friday, the State Department sent a cable to its embassies and consulates around the world notifying them that “they may invite representatives from the government of Iran” to their Independence Day celebrations — annual receptions that typically feature hot dogs, red-white-and-blue bunting and some perfunctory remarks about the founding fathers.
  • Last Friday, the State Department sent a cable to its embassies and consulates around the world notifying them that “they may invite representatives from the government of Iran” to their Independence Day celebrations
  • Mrs. Clinton has said Iran’s rising influence in the region is “quite disturbing.” In May, she told State Department employees that the Bush administration’s policy toward Latin America had created an opening for Iran and China, which are using commercial and other assistance to bolster anti-American leaders like Hugo Chávez of Venezuela and Daniel Ortega of Nicaragua.“They are building strong economic and political connections with a lot of these leaders,” she said. “I don’t think that’s in our interest.”
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  • “The specter of Iran raises red flags in a way that China doesn’t, because China tends to respect the American sphere of influence,” said Julia E. Sweig, a Latin American expert at the Council on Foreign Relations.
  • Iran’s motives are murkier, according to administration officials. It has cultivated wide-ranging economic ties with Venezuela and, to a lesser extent, Nicaragua. But it has also been linked to the bombing of a Jewish community center in Buenos Aires in 1994, which killed 85 people.
  • Iran is not known to have a big presence in El Salvador, officials said, and it was not represented at Mr. Funes’s inauguration. But the change in power after 17 years of a pro-American right-wing government could offer an opening.
Argos Media

Clinton urges Nato to bring Russia back in from the cold | World news | guardian.co.uk - 0 views

  • The Obama administration moved today to resume high-level relations with Moscow when Hillary Clinton led a western push to revive contacts between Russia and Nato.Making her European debut as secretary of state, Clinton told a meeting of Nato foreign ministers that Washington wanted "a fresh start" in relations with Moscow.
  • "I don't think you punish Russia by stopping conversation with them," she said, adding that there could be benefits to the better relationship. "We not only can but must co-operate with Russia."
  • The meeting in Brussels agreed to reinstate the work of the Nato-Russia council, a consultative body that was frozen last year in protest at Moscow's invasion and partition of Georgia.
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  • Diplomats said the accord and the talks in Geneva tomorrow could pave the way for the Obama administration to press ahead with a common agenda with Russia which would entail talks on nuclear arms control and on Russian co-operation with US policy on Afghanistan and Iran.The new White House team are clearly hoping to bypass the prime minister and former president, Vladimir Putin, and focus its diplomacy on President Dmitry Medvedev.
  • For any big shifts in the Russian-­American relationship, Moscow would insist on the shelving of the Pentagon's missile shield project in Poland and the Czech Republic and a freeze in the ­prospects for Ukraine and Georgia joining Nato.
  • The US and Germany tabled a joint proposal for yesterday's Nato meeting, leaving the contentious issue of Ukraine's and Georgia's membership chances open and urging greater co-operation with Russia "as equal partners in areas of common interest". It went on: "These include: Afghanistan, counter-terrorism, counter-piracy, counter-narcotics, non-proliferation, arms control and other issues."
  • "Russia is a global player. Not talking to them is not an option," said Jaap de Hoop Scheffer, the Nato secretary-general.
  • In the first big foreign policy speech from the Obama administration, in Munich last month, the vice-president, Joe Biden, said the White House wanted to "press the reset button" in relations with Moscow after years of dangerous drift.
  • The agreement today was held up for several hours by Lithuania, which strongly opposed the resumption of dialogue with the Kremlin.France and Germany, keen to develop close links with Moscow, threatened in turn to cancel scheduled meetings last night between Nato and Ukraine and Georgia if "the opening with Russia" was not given a green light, diplomats said.
Argos Media

Freeman speaks out on his exit | The Cable - 0 views

  • I have concluded that the barrage of libelous distortions of my record would not cease upon my entry into office.  The effort to smear me and to destroy my credibility would instead continue.  I do not believe the National Intelligence Council could function effectively while its chair was under constant attack by unscrupulous people with a passionate attachment to the views of a political faction in a foreign country.
  • The libels on me and their easily traceable email trails show conclusively that there is a powerful  lobby determined to prevent any view other than its own from being aired, still less to factor in American understanding of trends and events in the Middle East.  The tactics of the Israel Lobby plumb the depths of dishonor and indecency and include character assassination, selective misquotation, the willful distortion of the record, the fabrication of falsehoods, and an utter disregard for the truth.  The aim of this Lobby is control of the policy process through the exercise of a veto over the appointment of people who dispute the wisdom of its views, the substitution of political correctness for analysis, and the exclusion of any and all options for decision by Americans and our government other than those that it favors.
  • There is a special irony in having been accused of improper regard for the opinions of foreign governments and societies by a group so clearly intent on enforcing adherence to the policies of a foreign government – in this case, the government of Israel.
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  • I believe that the inability of the American public to discuss, or the government to consider, any option for US policies in the Middle East opposed by the ruling faction in Israeli politics has allowed that faction to adopt and sustain policies that ultimately threaten the existence of the state of Israel.  It is not permitted for anyone in the United States to say so.  This is not just a tragedy for Israelis and their neighbors in the Middle East; it is doing widening damage to the national security of the United States.
  • The outrageous agitation that followed the leak of my pending appointment will be seen by many to raise serious questions about whether the Obama administration will be able to make its own decisions about the Middle East and related issues.  I regret that my willingness to serve the new administration has ended by casting doubt on its ability to consider, let alone decide what policies might best serve the interests of the United States rather than those of a Lobby intent on enforcing the will and interests of a foreign government. 
Argos Media

Influence of Israel Lobby Debated as Intelligence Pick Casts Blame for Pullout - 0 views

  • When Charles W. Freeman Jr. stepped away Tuesday from an appointment to chair the National Intelligence Council -- which oversees the production of reports that represent the view of the nation's 16 intelligence agencies -- he decried in an e-mail "the barrage of libelous distortions of my record [that] would not cease upon my entry into office," and he was blunt about whom he considers responsible. "The libels on me and their easily traceable email trails show conclusively that there is a powerful lobby determined to prevent any view other than its own from being aired, still less to factor in American understanding of trends and events in the Middle East," Freeman wrote. Referring to what he called "the Israel Lobby," he added: "The aim of this Lobby is control of the policy process through the exercise of a veto over the appointment of people who dispute the wisdom of its views." One result of this, he said, is "the inability of the American public to discuss, or the government to consider, any option for US policies in the Middle East opposed by the ruling faction in Israeli politics."
  • Only a few Jewish organizations came out publicly against Freeman's appointment, but a handful of pro-Israeli bloggers and employees of other organizations worked behind the scenes to raise concerns with members of Congress, their staffs and the media. For example, the American Israel Public Affairs Committee (AIPAC), often described as the most influential pro-Israel lobbying group in Washington, "took no position on this matter and did not lobby the Hill on it," spokesman Josh Block said. But Block responded to reporters' questions and provided critical material about Freeman, albeit always on background, meaning his comments could not be attributed to him, according to three journalists who spoke to him. Asked about this yesterday, Block replied: "As is the case with many, many issues every day, when there is general media interest in a subject, I often provide publicly available information to journalists on background."
  • Yesterday, the Jewish Institute for National Security Affairs, which tried to derail Freeman's appointment, applauded his withdrawal. But it added: "We think Israel and any presumed 'lobby' had far less effect on the outcome than the common-sensical belief that the person who is the gatekeeper of intelligence information for the President of the United States should be unencumbered by payments from foreign governments."
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  • And Stephen Walt, one of two writers who in 2006 famously described the influence of the Israel lobby as dangerous, chimed in on ForeignPolicy.com: "For all of you out there who may have questioned whether there was a powerful 'Israel lobby,' or who admitted that it existed but didn't think it had much influence . . . think again." (Foreign Policy is owned by a subsidiary of The Washington Post Co.)
  • The earliest cry of alarm about Freeman's appointment -- a week before it was announced -- came from a former AIPAC lobbyist. Steve Rosen wrote Feb. 19 on his blog that Freeman was a "strident critic of Israel" and described the potential appointment as "a textbook case of the old-line Arabism" whose "views of the region are what you would expect in the Saudi foreign ministry." Rosen said yesterday that he had been "quite positive" about President Obama's previous appointments for Middle East positions but that he was "surprised" about Freeman. The appointee's "most extreme point of view," he said, was not what he had expected for the head of the NIC. Rosen has a unique position in Washington. A former chief foreign policy lobbyist for AIPAC, he and a colleague were indicted by the Bush administration in 2005 on suspicion of violating the Espionage Act, the first nongovernment employees ever so charged. AIPAC cut him loose, and a trial date has been set for May.
  • Also on March 2, the Zionist Organization of America called for support of a letter by Rep. Mark Steven Kirk (R-Ill.) that called on the DNI inspector general to investigate Freeman for possible conflicts of interest because of his financial relations with Saudi Arabia. That letter, signed by Kirk and seven other congressmen, including House Minority Leader John A. Boehner (R-Ohio), was sent to Inspector General Edward Maguire on March 3.
Argos Media

'World leaders must drop their slogans' | Israel | Jerusalem Post - 0 views

  • JPost.com » Israel » Article Apr 24, 2009 0:14&nbsp;|&nbsp;Updated Apr 24, 2009 13:54 'World leaders must drop their slogans' By DAVID HOROVITZ AND AMIR MIZROCH PrintSubscribe articleTitle = ' \'World leaders must drop their slogans\' '; showOdiogoReadNowButton ('1002,1003,1005,1004,1006,1484,1560,1561,1562,1563,1564,1565,1566',articleTitle,'0', 290, 55); E-mailToolbar + Recommend: What's this? showInitialOdiogoReadNowFrame ('1002,1003,1005,1004,1006,1484,1560,1561,1562,1563,1564,1565,1566', '0', 290, 0); Talkbacks for this article: 117 &nbsp; | &nbsp;Avg. rating 4.61 out of 5</s
  • The international community has to "stop speaking in slogans" if it really wants to help the new Israeli government work toward a solution to the Palestinian conflict and help bring stability to the Middle East, Foreign Minister Avigdor Lieberman told The Jerusalem Post on Thursday, in his first interview with an Israeli newspaper since taking the job.
  • "Over the last two weeks I've had many conversations with my colleagues around the world," he said. "Just today, I saw the political adviser to German Chancellor Angela Merkel, the Chinese foreign minister and the Czech prime minister. And everybody, you know, speaks with you like you're in a campaign: Occupation, settlements, settlers..." Slogans like these, and others Lieberman cited, such as "land for peace" and "two-state solution," were both overly simplistic and ignored the root causes of the ongoing conflict, he said.
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  • Lieberman insistently refused to rule in, or rule out, Palestinian statehood alongside Israel as the essence of a permanent accord, but emphatically endorsed Netanyahu's declared desire not to rule over a single Palestinian.
  • The foreign minister spoke as US Secretary of State Hillary Clinton warned Israel on Thursday that it risks losing Arab support for combating threats from Iran if it rejects peace negotiations with the Palestinians. Clinton said Arab nations had conditioned helping Israel counter Iran on Jerusalem's commitment to the peace process.
  • The fact was, said the Israel Beiteinu leader, that the Palestinian issue was "deadlocked" despite the best efforts of a series of dovish Israeli governments. "Israel has proved its good intentions, our desire for peace," he said. The path forward, he said, lay in ensuring security for Israel, an improved economy for the Palestinians, and stability for both. "Economy, security, stability," he repeated. "It's impossible to artificially impose any political solution. It will fail, for sure. You cannot start any peace process from nothing. You must create the right situation, the right focus, the right conditions."
  • Equally emphatically, he said no peace proposal that so much as entertained the notion of a "right of return" to Israel for Palestinian refugees could serve as a basis for negotiation. "It cannot be on the table. I'm not ready to even discuss the 'right of return' of even one refugee," he said. But he also made clear that Palestinian recognition of Israel as a Jewish state was not a precondition for progress. "You know, we don't want to torpedo the process," he said. "But somebody who really wants a solution, somebody who really desires a real peace and a real agreement, must realize that this would be impossible to achieve without recognizing Israel as a Jewish state."
  • Lieberman said the new government would have no dealings with Hamas, which needed to be "suffocated," and that the international community also had to maintain the long-standing Quartet preconditions for dealing with the Islamist group.
  • The real reason for the deadlock with the Palestinians, said Lieberman, "is not occupation, not settlements and not settlers. This conflict is really a very deep conflict. It started like other national conflicts. [But] today it's a more religious conflict. Today you have the influence of some nonrational players, like al-Qaida."
  • And the biggest obstacle to any comprehensive solution, he said, "is not Israel. It is not the Palestinians. It's the Iranians."
  • Lieberman said the prime responsibility for thwarting Iran's march to a nuclear capability lay with the international community, not Israel, and especially the five permanent members of the Security Council. He was confident that stringent economic sanctions could yet achieve the desired result, and said he did not even "want to think about the consequences of a crazy nuclear arms race in the region."
  • He said it would be "impossible to resolve any problem in our region without resolving the Iranian problem." This, he said, related to Lebanon, Syria and problems with Islamic extremist terror in Egypt, the Gaza Strip and Iraq.
  • Nonetheless, Lieberman stressed that Israel did not regard stopping Iran as a precondition for Israeli efforts to make progress with the Palestinians. Quite the reverse, he said. "No, we must start with the Palestinian issues because it's our interest to resolve this problem. But there should be no illusions. To achieve an agreement, to achieve an end of conflict, with no more bloodshed, no more terror, no more claims - that's impossible until Iran [is addressed]."
  • Noting what he called Syria's deepening ties with Iran, Lieberman said he saw no point whatsoever in resuming the indirect talks with Damascus conducted by the last government. "We don't see any good will from the Syrian side," he said. "Only the threats, like 'If you're not ready to talk, we'll retake the Golan by military action...'"
Argos Media

NATO Leaders Debate Afghan Strains - NYTimes.com - 0 views

  • increasing American troops in Afghanistan to some 68,000 by the end of the year, from 38,000 today, is also likely to significantly Americanize an operation that in recent years had been divided equally between American troops and allied forces. By year’s end, American troops will outnumber allied forces by at least two to one.
  • NATO allies are giving the president considerable vocal support for the newly integrated strategy. But they are giving him very few new troops on the ground, underlining the fundamental strains in the alliance.
  • “As a candidate, Obama had expectations that Europe would make a serious increase in troop levels after he became president,” said Charles A. Kupchan of the Council on Foreign Relations in Washington. “But there is a realization now that Europe’s main contribution will be police trainers, economic assistance and development assistance.”
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  • The allies will offer more funds but no more than several thousand new personnel members, according to alliance military planners. Many of those will not be soldiers, but police trainers to meet a central pillar of the president’s new Afghan strategy, which focuses on an expansion of Afghan security forces. But even for the small numbers of European combat reinforcements, check the fine print: Nearly all will be sent to provide security for Afghanistan’s elections this summer, and will not be permanently deployed.
  • Defense Secretary Robert M. Gates and his British counterpart, John Hutton, have publicly warned that the performance of some European troops demonstrates that NATO risks slipping toward a two-tiered alliance. In that event, it would be divided between those that can and will fight, like Britain, Canada, France and Poland, and those that cannot or will not because of public opinion at home.
  • In many cases, European capitals have placed severe restrictions on their forces assigned to NATO’s International Security Assistance Force, or I.S.A.F. That has been such a hindrance to the war effort, in the view of some American commanders, that they ruefully say the alliance mission’s initials now stand for “I Saw America Fight.”
Pedro Gonçalves

EU threatens mass pullout of ambassadors from Tehran | World news | The Guardian - 0 views

  • EU threatens mass pullout of ambassadors from Tehran Buzz up! Digg it Ian Black, Middle East editor guardian.co.uk, Monday 29 June 2009 20.06 BST Article history European Union members are threatening the collective withdrawal of their ambassadors from Iran to secure the release of the British embassy employees being held by the authorities.
  • European Union members are threatening the collective withdrawal of their ambassadors from Iran to secure the release of the British embassy employees being held by the authorities.
  • EU diplomats said tonight all the envoys could be recalled "temporarily" in solidarity with staff from the British mission in Tehran who have been accused – entirely falsely, UK officials insist – of involvement in protests over the "stolen" presidential election.
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  • As the row with Britain continued, Iran's guardian council, the country's top legislative body, confirmed Mahmoud Ahmadinejad's victory in the disputed poll after a partial recount, finally dashing hopes of a different outcome.
  • Iran's foreign ministry had earlier appeared to respond to the warning by saying it did not wish to damage or downgrade relations with the UK, after a telephone conversation yesterday between David Miliband, the foreign secretary, and his Iranian counterpart, Manuchehr Mottaki. Miliband had demanded the immediate release of the embassy staff.But the fear in London is that the foreign ministry is not in control, with regime hardliners from the interior ministry and intelligence service calling the shots as part of a campaign to pin the blame for the unrest on foreign governments.
Pedro Gonçalves

Millionaire Mullahs - Forbes.com - 0 views

  • t's rumble time in Tehran. At dozens of intersections in the capital of Iran thousands of students are protesting on a recent Friday around midnight, as they do nearly every night, chanting pro-democracy slogans and lighting bonfires on street corners. Residents of the surrounding middle-class neighborhoods converge in their cars, honking their horns in raucous support. Suddenly there's thunder in the air. A gang of 30 motorcyclists, brandishing iron bars and clubs as big as baseball bats, roars through the stalled traffic. They glare at the drivers, yell threats, thump cars. Burly and bearded, the bikers yank two men from their auto and pummel them. Most protesters scatter. Uniformed policemen watch impassively as the thugs beat the last stragglers.
  • These Hell's Angels are part of the Hezbollah militia, recruited mostly from the countryside. Iran's ruling mullahs roll them out whenever they need to intimidate their opponents. The Islamic Republic is a strange dictatorship. As it moves to repress growing opposition to clerical rule, the regime relies not on soldiers or uniformed police (many of whom sympathize with the protesters) but on the bullies of Hezbollah and the equally thuggish Revolutionary Guards. The powers that be claim to derive legitimacy from Allah but remain on top with gangsterlike methods of intimidation, violence and murder.
  • Who controls today's Iran? Certainly not Mohammad Khatami, the twice-elected moderate president, or the reformist parliament. Not even the Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, a stridently anti-American but unremarkable cleric plucked from the religious ranks 14 years ago to fill the shoes of his giant predecessor, Ayatollah Khomeini, is fully in control. The real power is a handful of clerics and their associates who call the shots behind the curtain and have gotten very rich in the process.
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  • The 1979 revolution expropriated the assets of foreign investors and the nation's wealthiest families; oil had long been nationalized, but the mullahs seized virtually everything else of value--banks, hotels, car and chemical companies, makers of drugs and consumer goods. What distinguishes Iran is that many of these assets were given to Islamic charitable foundations, controlled by the clerics. According to businessmen and former foundation executives, the charities now serve as slush funds for the mullahs and their supporters.
  • Dozens of interviews with businessmen, merchants, economists and former ministers and other top government officials reveal a picture of a dictatorship run by a shadow government that--the U.S. State Department suspects--finances terrorist groups abroad through a shadow foreign policy. Its economy is dominated by shadow business empires and its power is protected by a shadow army of enforcers.
  • Ironically, the man most adept at manipulating this hidden power structure is one of Iran's best-known characters--Ali Akbar Hashemi Rafsanjani, who has been named an ayatollah, or religious leader. He was the speaker of parliament and Khomeini's right-hand man in the 1980s, president of Iran from 1989 to 1997 and is now chairman of the powerful Expediency Council, which resolves disputes between the clerical establishment and parliament. Rafsanjani has more or less run the Islamic Republic for the past 24 years.
  • He played it smart, aligning himself in the 1960s with factions led by Ayatollah Khomeini, then becoming the go-to guy after the revolution. A hard-liner ideologically, Rafsanjani nonetheless has a pragmatic streak. He convinced Khomeini to end the Iran-Iraq war and broke Iran's international isolation by establishing trade relations with the Soviet Union, China, Saudi Arabia and the United Arab Emirates. In the 1990s he restarted Iran's nuclear program. He is also the father of Iran's "privatization" program. During his presidency the stock market was revived, some government companies were sold to insiders, foreign trade was liberalized and the oil sector was opened up to private companies. Most of the good properties and contracts, say dissident members of Iran's Chamber of Commerce, ended up in the hands of mullahs, their associates and, not least, Rafsanjani's own family, who rose from modest origins as small-scale pistachio farmers.
Argos Media

David Miliband: China ready to join US as world power | World news | The Guardian - 0 views

  • David Miliband today described China as the 21st century's "indispensable power" with a decisive say on the future of the global economy, climate change and world trade.The foreign secretary predicted that over the next few decades China would become one of the two "powers that count", along with the US, and Europe could emerge as a third only if it learned to speak with one voice.
  • Miliband said a pivotal moment in China's rise came at the G20 summit last month in London. Hu Jintao, China's president, arrived as the head of the only major power still enjoying strong growth (expected to be 8% this year), backed by substantial financial reserves."The G20 was a very significant coming of economic age in an international forum for China. If you looked around the 20 ­people sitting at the table … what was striking was that when China spoke everybody listened," Miliband said.
  • "Historians will look back at 2009 and see that China played an incredibly important role in stabilising global capitalism. That is very significant and sort of ironic," Miliband said. "There's a joke that goes: 'After 1989, capitalism saved China. After 2009, China saved capitalism.'"
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  • "China is becoming an indispensable power in the 21st century in the way Madeleine Albright said the US was an indispensable power at the end of the last century," Miliband said. "It has become an indispensable power economically, and China will become an indispensable power across a wider range of issues."
  • "I think that there is a scenario where America and China are the powers that count," the foreign secretary said. "It is massively in our interests to make sure that we have a stake in that debate, and the most effective way of doing so is … to ensure we do it with a European voice."
  • A report by the European Council on Foreign Relations argued that China was exploiting the EU's divisions and treating it with "diplomatic contempt". The report, published in advance of Wednesday's EU-China summit in Prague, said that European states, dealing with China individually, lacked leverage on issues such as trade, human rights and Tibet.
  • "Europe has not been sufficiently strategic in its relationship with China," Miliband said. "I think a significant part of that is institutional. The EU-China relationship is a good case for the Lisbon treaty. At the moment, at every EU-China summit, the EU side is led by a different presidency and every year there's a different set of priorities.
Argos Media

What would an "even-handed" U.S. Middle East policy look like? | Stephen M. Walt - 0 views

  • the United States supports the creation of a viable Palestinian state in virtually all of the West Bank and Gaza. The new Israeli government led by Benjamin Netanyahu opposes this goal, and Foreign Minister Avigdor Lieberman has already said that he does not think Israel is bound by its recent commitments on this issue. &nbsp;
  • To advance its own interests, therefore, the United States will have to pursue a more even-handed policy than it has in the past, and put strong pressure on both sides to come to an agreement. Instead of the current "special relationship" -- where the U.S. gives Israel generous and nearly-unconditional support -- the United States and Israel would have a more normal relationship, akin to U.S. relations with other democracies (where public criticism and overt pressure sometimes occurs).&nbsp; While still committed to Israel’s security, the United States would use the leverage at its disposal to make a two-state solution a reality.
  • This idea appears to be gaining ground. Several weeks ago, a bipartisan panel of distinguished foreign policy experts headed by Henry Siegman and Brent Scowcroft issued a thoughtful report calling for the Obama administration to “engage in prompt, sustained, and determined efforts to resolve the Arab-Israeli conflict.” Success, they noted, "will require a careful blend of persuasion, inducement, reward, and pressure..."
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  • Last week, the Economist called for the United States to reduce its aid to Israel if the Netanyahu government continues to reject a two-state solution.&nbsp; The Boston Globe offered a similar view earlier this week, advising Obama to tell Netanyahu "to take the steps necessary for peace or risk compromising Israel's special relationship with America." A few days ago, Ha’aretz reported that the Obama Administration was preparing Congressional leaders for a possible confrontation with the Netanyahu government.
  • We already know what it means for the United States to put pressure on the Palestinians, because Washington has done that repeatedly -- and sometimes effectively -- over the past several decades.&nbsp; During the 1970s, for example, the United States supported King Hussein’s violent crackdown on the PLO cadres who were threatening his rule in Jordan. During the 1980s, the United States refused to recognize the PLO until it accepted Israel’s right to exist.&nbsp; After the outbreak of the Second Intifada, the Bush administration refused to deal with Yasser Arafat and pushed hard for his replacement. After Arafat's death, we insisted on democratic elections for a new Palestinian assembly and then rejected the results when Hamas won. The United States has also gone after charitable organizations with ties to Hamas and backed Israel’s recent campaign in Gaza.
  • In short, the United States has rarely hesitated to use its leverage to try to shape Palestinian behavior, even if some of these efforts -- such as the inept attempt to foment a Fatah coup against Hamas in 2007 -- have backfired.
  • The United States has only rarely put (mild) pressure on Israel in recent decades (and never for very long), even when the Israeli government was engaged in actions (such as building settlements) that the U.S. government opposed.&nbsp; The question is: if the Netanyahu/Lieberman government remains intransigent, what should Obama do?
  • 1. Cut the aid package? If you add it all up, Israel gets over $3 billion in U.S. economic and military aid each year, which works out to about $500 per Israeli citizen. There’s a lot of potential leverage here, but it’s probably not the best stick to use, at least not at first. Trying to trim or cut the aid package will trigger an open and undoubtedly ugly confrontation in Congress (where the influence of AIPAC and other hard-line groups in the Israel lobby is greatest). So that’s not where I’d start.
  • 2. Change the Rhetoric. The Obama administration could begin by using different language to describe certain Israeli policies.&nbsp; While reaffirming America’s commitment to Israel’s existence as a Jewish-majority state, it could stop referring to settlement construction as “unhelpful,” a word that makes U.S. diplomats sound timid and mealy-mouthed.&nbsp; Instead, we could start describing the settlements as “illegal” or as “violations of international law.”
  • U.S. officials could even describe Israel’s occupation as “contrary to democracy,” “unwise,” “cruel,” or “unjust.”&nbsp; Altering the rhetoric would send a clear signal to the Israeli government and its citizens that their government’s opposition to a two-state solution was jeopardizing the special relationship.
  • 3. Support a U.N. Resolution Condemning the Occupation.&nbsp; Since 1972, the United States has vetoed forty-three U.N. Security Council resolutions that were critical of Israel (a number greater than the sum of all vetoes cast by the other permanent members)
  • If the Obama administration wanted to send a clear signal that it was unhappy with Israel’s actions, it could sponsor a resolution condemning the occupation and calling for a two-state solution.
  • 4. Downgrade existing arrangements for “strategic cooperation.”&nbsp; There are now a number of institutionalized arrangements for security cooperation between the Pentagon and the Israel Defense Forces and between U.S. and Israeli intelligence. The Obama administration could postpone or suspend some of these meetings, or start sending lower-grade representatives to them.
  • There is in fact a precedent for this step: after negotiating the original agreements for a “strategic partnership,” the Reagan administration suspended them following Israel’s invasion of Lebanon in 1982. Today, such a step would surely get the attention of Israel’s security establishment.
  • 5. Reduce U.S. purchases of Israeli military equipment. In addition to providing Israel with military assistance (some of which is then used to purchase U.S. arms), the Pentagon also buys millions of dollars of weaponry and other services from Israel’s own defense industry. Obama could instruct Secretary of Defense Robert Gates to slow or decrease these purchases, which would send an unmistakable signal that it was no longer "business-as-usual." Given the battering Israel’s economy has taken in the current global recession, this step would get noticed too.
  • 6. Get tough with private organizations that support settlement activity. As David Ignatius recently noted in the Washington Post, many private donations to charitable organizations operating in Israel are tax-deductible in the United States, including private donations that support settlement activity. This makes no sense: it means the American taxpayer is indirectly subsidizing activities that are contrary to stated U.S. policy and that actually threaten Israel’s long-term future.&nbsp; Just as the United States has gone after charitable contributions flowing to terrorist organizations, the U.S. Treasury could crack down on charitable organizations (including those of some prominent Christian Zionists) that are supporting these illegal activities.&nbsp;
  • 7. Place more limits on U.S. loan guarantees. The United States has provided billions of dollars of loan guarantees to Israel on several occasions, which enabled Israel to borrow money from commercial banks at lower interest rates.&nbsp; Back in 1992, the first Bush administration held up nearly $10 billion in guarantees until Israel agreed to halt settlement construction and attend the Madrid peace conference, and the dispute helped undermine the hard-line Likud government of Yitzhak Shamir and bring Yitzhak Rabin to power, which in turn made the historic Oslo Agreement possible.
  • 8. Encourage other U.S. allies to use their influence too. In the past, the United States has often pressed other states to upgrade their own ties with Israel.&nbsp; If pressure is needed, however, the United States could try a different tack.&nbsp; For example, we could quietly encourage the EU not to upgrade its relations with Israel until it had agreed to end the occupation.
  • most of these measures could be implemented by the Executive Branch alone, thereby outflanking die-hard defenders of the special relationship in Congress.&nbsp; Indeed, even hinting that it was thinking about some of these measures would probably get Netanyahu to start reconsidering his position.
  • Most importantly, Obama and his aides will need to reach out to Israel’s supporters in the United States, and make it clear to them that pressing Israel to end the occupation is essential for Israel’s long-term survival.
  • He will have to work with the more far-sighted elements in the pro-Israel community -- including groups like J Street, the Israel Policy Forum, Brit Tzedek v'Shalom,&nbsp; and others
  • In effect, the United States would be giving Israel a choice: it can end its self-defeating occupation of Palestinian lands, actively work for a two-state solution, and thereby remain a cherished American ally.&nbsp; Or it can continue to expand the occupation and face a progressive loss of American support as well as the costly and corrupting burden of ruling millions of Palestinians by force.
  • Indeed, that is why many—though of course not all--Israelis would probably welcome a more active and evenhanded U.S. role. It was former Prime Minister Ehud Olmert who said "if the two-state solution collapses, Israel will face a South-Africa style struggle for political rights." And once that happens, he warned, “the state of Israel is finished."
  • The editor of Ha’aretz, David Landau, conveyed much the same sentiment last September when he told former Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice that the United States should "rape" Israel in order to force a solution. Landau's phrase was shocking and offensive, but it underscored the sense of urgency felt within some segments of the Israeli body politic.
Pedro Gonçalves

Nuclear Posture Review - Council on Foreign Relations - 0 views

  • this was the third NPR since the end of the Cold War
  • There is not a classified version of the NPR. There was not a classified version of the QDR or the Ballistic Missile Defense Review
  • we seek, as these -- as states like North Korea and Iran seek to increase their reliance on nuclear weapons, we aren't going to increase our reliance on nuclear weapons. We'd like to increase our reliance on supplementary tools of extended deterrence. But so long as nuclear threats remain for which nuclear weapons are relevant, there will be a nuclear component to this umbrella.
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  • the NPT review conference, which is going to be one of these agonizing, multilateral events
  • we don't say anything about U.S. forward-deployed systems in Europe, and we don't do that because we don't want to act unilaterally. This is an alliance issue and should be dealt with and we should achieve consensus within the alliance.
  • We have opportunities in NATO over the next year, in looking at the alliance's strategic concept, to talk about U.S. forward-deployed nuclear weapons, and we'll do that. It will begin very soon and continue throughout the year, looking at the Lisbon summit meeting in November.
  • Whether we'll have a multilateral negotiation, the NPR doesn't deal with that. We haven't addressed it as a government. I'll express my personal view on that: I don't think we're going to have a multilateral negotiation. (Chuckles.) When we were talking about INF systems in Europe, that wasn't a multilateral negotiation. I don't see it here. And it's not even clear whether the problem of Russian non-strategic weapons is amenable to arms-control kinds of solutions.
  • Connoisseurs of NPRs will not find the word reliance in this NPR. The last NPR said it was an objective of policy to reduce reliance on nuclear weapons, and the services took the message, as did lots of other actors. We've said we're trying to reduce the roles and numbers. But where roles remain, deterrence has to be not only maintained but strengthened in the manner of broadening and diversifying
  • the Russians right now are in their modernization phase. They're well into it and working their way through what their next 30 years of delivery vehicles and weapons is going to look like. We haven't really entered it. We're just now starting to get into that side of the equation.
  • how do you keep the balance -- not from a weapons standpoint, but from a stability standpoint -- with China, Russia and the United States, with China getting at the cutting edge of technology and moving as quickly as they can? Maybe they don't have the number of warheads today, but you still have to pay attention. And how do you take then the Russian side of this equation, which is a drastic demographic reduction, yet looking at kind of the reverse of the Fulda Gap? They're worried about divisions to their south, divisions to their west. Weapons have a very different meaning to them today than they did in the Cold War.
  • The Chinese are trying to understand what their threat is and how they're going to handle deterrence, and we're trying to straddle and make sure that we don't unseat this balance.
  • That's why, for me, it's been so important to think beyond nuclear when you're thinking deterrence. Because I just don't think nuclear is enough, in the broad spectrum of threat that we'll face.
  • the president has come out and said as long as we have a need for our nuclear stockpiles, as long as other nations have them, he is committed to maintaining them. He is committed to revitalizing the infrastructure, the experimental capabilities, the buildings where these people work. Much of the infrastructure I've got, particularly the uranium/plutonium infrastructure, literally dates back to the early 1950s. They were designed in the '40s, built and started operating in 1952. So it's going to take us 10 years to get this up. So it takes a sustained effort, and that's what it's going to take.
  • Obviously, our forward-deployed systems in Europe are -- it's a political-military issue. And I understand that the NPR did not want to prejudice the discussions underway at NATO. But if I can just separate the military for a moment, is there a military mission performed by these aircraft-delivered weapons that cannot be performed by either U.S. strategic forces or U.S. conventional forces? CARTWRIGHT: No. (Scattered laughter.)
  • It doesn't anywhere say we're committed to reducing reliance on. We're committed to reducing the roles and reducing the salience of, internationally
  • On the NATO topic, I wish it were as simple. I would put a question back: what targets do NATO's weapons have? Not nuclear. Any weapon in NATO. An alliance that doesn't have an enemy -- (scattered laughter) -- so the argument about where nuclear weapons might be pointed is only a part of the argument.
  • The theme we carry in the NPR and that we're going to carry forward to Tolline (ph) and beyond is that nuclear sharing is what has been essential to NATO, in terms of the credibility of deterrence and assurance. And the choices NATO makes are interpreted by its members as being reflective of how committed those members are to their Article V obligations. And there are plenty of NATO's members who are worried that NATO would make a choice to abandon nuclear weapons and thus put at risk their ability to do Article V actions. And so when we've said in our policy goal we are interested in strengthening regional deterrence and reassurance of allies, these are two sides of the same coin
  • Where we try and lead NATO -- the president said about NATO, he was there a year ago, to listen and learn and we'll come back to lead. As we come back to lead on this NATO nuclear topic, we're going to bring the messages of burden and risk sharing, because these are essential to the -- uniquely to this alliance. The NPR talks about extended deterrence in Europe, East Asia and the Middle East. Uniquely to the European landscape is this risk and burden-sharing dimension. And it's a different way of think about the capabilities question.
  • as General Cartwright observed, the technical possibilities of breakthrough and breakout capabilities are there, but the ones that Russia and China most worry about are our possible breakout capabilities. And if we're serious about meeting their requirements for strategic stability, we need to do a better job than we have of putting all of this together in a comprehensive role and getting off of defensive mode and saying, oh, don't worry, missile defenses aren't pointed at you, and strategic stability is untroubled by our capabilities, and get on to a more solid foundation.
  • we've tried to engage Russia on missile defense. We have proposals for extensive cooperation in the area of missile defense. The Russians haven't been interested, so far, in engaging on that. And not to mention the difficulties of engaging with them on non-strategic forces.
  • We need to reassure our allies for -- because we're committed to do that, but also because for a nonproliferation reason, we don't want them to develop a -- to feel they have incentives to acquire their own deterrent capabilities.
  • I think this is a balanced report; this is not a revolutionary report. Some were hoping for more on declaratory policy. Some were hoping that we'd go for a no-first-use approach, say that the sole purpose of U.S. nuclear weapons is to deter a nuclear attack. We weren't prepared to go there.
  • We believe there remains a narrow range of contingencies in which nuclear weapons continue to play a role in deterring non-nuclear attack. We're prepared to state that as an objective, but not to say we're ready yet.
  • I think going farther faster would have been unsettling to some of our friends around the world. I think it would be unsettling to domestic audiences as well. And we -- to be frank, the administration had its sights set on gaining two-thirds of the U.S. Senate for ratification of START and the CTBT. And I think this document will move us toward the goals enunciated by the president without kind of upsetting the apple cart and making this difficult to have further progress.
  • it does seem to me that in this document, the U.S. is saying we withhold the right to use nuclear weapons against an Iran that has no nuclear weapons. And in making this particular threat, we're basically just extending the continuity from the Bush administration that keeps all military options on the table and, whether explicitly or implicitly, also had threatened Iran to use nuclear weapons against Iran that did not have nuclear weapons. So I guess the way I would end this question is, is this the right message for the Green movement in Iran, for the Brazils and the Turkeys of the world that this U.S., which says it's reducing the role of nuclear weapons, reserves the right to use this weapon of mass destruction against an Iran that does not yet have nuclear weapons? EINHORN: This negative security assurance was about assuring non-nuclear weapon states, party to the NPT in good standing with the NPT. It was not about threatening -- (chuckles) -- those that are not in good standing. I know -- the Iranians will try to capitalize, there'll be a lot of Iranian propaganda that this whole thing is about an implicit threat to Iran. It's not about an implicit threat to Iran.
  • we made clear in the NPR that countries that are not -- we're not increasing the likelihood of using nuclear weapons against countries that are not eligible to receive this pledge. The countries that are not covered by the pledge are simply not affected by it. It's not as if we've increased the threat to France or Russia or the U.K. or something like that. And neither have we increased the threat to North Korea or Iran. The situation is simply unaffected.
  • Or we're as serious about NPT membership as we are compliance, because the pledge is also not offered to Israel, India and Pakistan. But it seems like those three countries are in much better shape than Iran, even though Iran is partially in compliance with its IAEA safeguards agreement.
Argos Media

Divisions emerge in international response to North Korean rocket launch | World news |... - 0 views

  • The Taepodong-2 rocket flew twice as far as any previous North Korean missile.
  • Although Obama described the action as a "provocation", the US and Japan have so far failed to win support from China and Russia for a statement condemning Pyongyang and tightening existing sanctions.
  • The Japanese foreign minister, Hirofumi Nakasone, today admitted there were divisions in the security council."China and Russia share the concern that this is a threat to the region, but they appear reserved and cautious as of now," he told reporters in Tokyo.
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  • North Korea claimed the Taepodong-2 rocket put an experimental communications satellite into orbit, where it is collecting data and broadcasting the Song of General Kim Il-Sung and the Song of General Kim Jong-il.
  • But US, South Korean and Japanese scientists say the only broadcasts are likely to be from the bottom of the ocean because the satellite failed to reach orbit.
  • China, a historical ally of and food supplier to North Korea, has called on all sides to remain calm."Our position is that all countries concerned should show restraint and refrain from taking action that might lead to increased tension," Zhang Yesui, the Chinese ambassador to the UN, told reporters.
  • So far, however, the US and its allies have been unable to persuade China and Russia that the act was a breach of UN security council resolution 1718, passed after long-range missile and nuclear tests in 2006.
  • The resolution bans Pyongyang from activities related to a ballistic missile programme and calls on the international community to stop trading weapons and luxury goods with North Korea.
  • The advance in North Korea's ballistic missile technology will raise concerns that the country could one day be capable of delivering a nuclear payload to the US or western Europe.It is likely to interest potential buyers from Pakistan, Iran and Syria, who have sent observers to previous launches.
  • Russia described the North Korean rocket launch as "regrettable", but stopped short of confirming whether the launch had violated existing resolutions."Before embarking on any actions, we should understand the character of this launch because, at this particular moment, we do not have a clearcut picture," Igor Scherbak, the deputy Russian permanent UN representative, said.
Pedro Gonçalves

Obama's Nuclear Plans Face Daunting Obstacles - Council on Foreign Relations - 0 views

  • In the case of the CTBT, he needs the consent of countries like India, Pakistan, Iran, North Korea, Egypt, Brazil, Mexico, and any number of other countries who, historically, have lots of questions and concerns that make ratification less than a sure thing. I would guess it would be a long, long time, even if the United States got these agreements ratified--and in the case of Fissile Material Cutoff treaty, drafted--before they would ever come into force. And some people think never.
  • The Fissile Material Cutoff Treaty is supposed to be negotiated in Geneva at the Comprehensive Disarmament Talks. The Pakistanis are refusing to allow the matter to be brought up. And in the case of the Comprehensive Test Ban, you certainly have countries like Egypt that say, "We will approve but only if Israel joins the Nuclear Nonproliferation Treaty as a non-weapon state."
  • Critics of the CTBT claim that the Russians have a more liberal view as to what the ban prohibits. These critics fear that Russia thinks that you can have low-level nuclear tests and still be compliant with the CTBT. Well, the Congressional Commission report that was produced by former Defense secretaries James R. Schlesinger and William J. Perry said that this in fact was a serious enough concern that the five recognized states that have nuclear weapons--the United States, Britain, France, Russia, and China--needed to reach an agreement not only on what was allowed but what was clearly prohibited under the treaty
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  • In the FMCT you have another oddity. It only bans the production of highly enriched uranium and plutonium for military weapons. That means that you could still make those materials if you claimed they were for civil purposes.
  • It [the Fissile Material Treaty] only bans states that are non-weapons states from continuing to make materials. The problem is that if you are Iran and you're a non-weapons state, and you see weapons states being able to continue to make nuclear fuel for civil purposes under loose inspection procedures, you've got to raise your voice and say, "I don't even have weapons, why can't I make enriched uranium for civil purposes like the weapons states under the loose inspection procedures that they are obligated to? Why are you picking on me?"
  • There are three concerns raised by critics, and those are the three concerns that Republicans are going to focus on. The first is that the law currently requires the administration to lay out a ten-year plan with budget estimates about how they intend to keep our nuclear weapons reliable, safe, and up to date. The administration has not yet done this, as I understand it. So the Senate is going to ask for that almost certainly. Second, the numbers permitted are lower than what some people wanted them to be. The critics of this agreement are not happy that the numbers went a little bit lower than were forecast initially.
  • what you see in the press is that the number of warheads should be no more than 1,550, but they should be on delivery systems that when deployed are no more than seven hundred. You can have another hundred that are not operationally deployed. But we're told the counting rules for what constitutes a weapon are a little complex. A bomber, for example, carrying many bombs would only count as one weapon
  • both sides can engage in "limited missile defenses." The words "limited missile defenses" would be consistent with this treaty, and if one goes beyond limited missile defenses, [the other] would have the right to leave. So, first question is, "What is a limited defense program consistent with this treaty?"
Argos Media

Hamas Head, Meshal, Says Rocket Strikes on Israel Have Halted - NYTimes.com - 0 views

  • The leader of the militant Palestinian group Hamas said Monday that its fighters had stopped firing rockets at Israel for now. He also reached out in a limited way to the Obama administration and others in the West, saying the movement was seeking a state only in the areas Israel won in 1967.
  • “I promise the American administration and the international community that we will be part of the solution, period,” the leader, Khaled Meshal, said during a five-hour interview with The New York Times spread over two days in his home office here in the Syrian capital.
  • He repeated that he would not recognize Israel, saying to fellow Arab leaders, “There is only one enemy in the region, and that is Israel.”
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  • But he urged outsiders to ignore the Hamas charter, which calls for the obliteration of Israel through jihad and cites as fact the infamous anti-Semitic forgery, “The Protocols of the Elders of Zion.” Mr. Meshal did not offer to revoke the charter, but said it was 20 years old, adding, “We are shaped by our experiences.”
  • the Obama administration, which has decided to open a dialogue with Iran and Syria, but not with Hamas until it renounces violence, recognizes Israel and accepts previous Palestinian-Israeli accords.
  • Regarding President Obama, Mr. Meshal said, “His language is different and positive,” but he expressed unhappiness about Secretary of State Hillary Rodham Clinton, saying hers “is a language that reflects the old administration policies.”
  • He said his group was eager for a cease-fire with Israel and for a deal that would return an Israeli soldier it is holding captive, Cpl. Gilad Shalit, in exchange for many Palestinian prisoners.
  • Apart from the time restriction and the refusal to accept Israel’s existence, Mr. Meshal’s terms approximate the Arab League peace plan and what the Palestinian Authority of President Mahmoud Abbas says it is seeking. Israel rejects a full return to the 1967 borders, as well as a Palestinian right of return to Israel itself.
  • Regarding recognition of Israel, Mr. Meshal said the Palestinian leader Yasir Arafat and Mr. Abbas had granted such recognition, but to no avail. “Did that recognition lead to an end of the occupation? It’s just a pretext by the United States and Israel to escape dealing with the real issue and to throw the ball into the Arab and Palestinian court,” he said.
  • In April, only six rockets and mortar rounds were fired at Israel from Gaza, which is run by Hamas, a marked change from the previous three months, when dozens were shot, according to the Israeli military.
  • Mr. Meshal made an effort to show that Hamas was in control of its militants as well as those of other groups, saying: “Not firing the rockets currently is part of an evaluation from the movement which serves the Palestinians’ interest. After all, the firing is a method, not a goal. Resistance is a legitimate right, but practicing such a right comes under an evaluation by the movement’s leaders.”
  • On the two-state solution sought by the Americans, he said: “We are with a state on the 1967 borders, based on a long-term truce. This includes East Jerusalem, the dismantling of settlements and the right of return of the Palestinian refugees.” Asked what “long-term” meant, he said 10 years.
  • Mr. Meshal, one of the founders of Hamas, barely escaped assassination at the hands of Israeli agents in 1997 in Jordan. He was injected with a poison, but the agents were caught. King Hussein, furious that this was taking place in his country, obliged Israel to send an antidote. Mr. Meshal ultimately went to Damascus, the base for Hamas apart from its leaders inside Gaza. The Israeli prime minister during that assassination attempt was Benjamin Netanyahu, who has been returned to that post. Mr. Netanyahu has said that Hamas is a tool of Iran and that Iran is the biggest danger to world peace and must be stopped.
Pedro Gonçalves

The European dream is in dire need of a reality check | Simon Jenkins | Comment is free... - 0 views

  • In every one of the big European states, trust has gone into "a vertiginous decline". Five years ago, no country, not even Britain, showed more than half its voters hostile to Europe, and most were strongly supportive. Now, according to the EU's own Eurobarometer, distrust runs at 53% in Italy, 56% in France, 59% in Germany, 69% in the UK and 72% in Spain. The EU has lost the support of two thirds of its citizens. Does it matter?
  • "Anti-Europeanism" was growing across Europe even before the credit crunch – witness the Lisbon treaty referendums. It is reflected in the rise of nationalist parties and is rampant even among such one-time EU loyalists as Spain, Italy, Greece and Germany. As the head of the European Council on Foreign Relations, José Ignacio Torreblanca, said of yesterday's poll, "The damage is so deep that it does not matter whether you come from a creditor or debtor country … citizens now think their national democracy is being subverted."
  • Dreams make dangerous politics, and when they require the imposition of "yet more Europe" against the run of public opinion, they are badly in need of a reality check. The new requirement that the EU (in this case Germany) imposes budgets on indebted states goes far beyond anything domestic voters seem likely to tolerate.Barroso's dream is becoming the vision espoused by the Columbia professor of European history István Deák, who demanded last year in the New York Times "a new imperial construct" as the only alternative to save the continent from a "revival of tribalism". To Deák this new empire was "a sacred task … an almost religious goal: a new European faith that belongs&nbsp;to no church".
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  • Even a majority of Germans are now anti-EU, and a third want the deutschmark back.
  • Cameron and the sceptics therefore need to be constructive to be plausible. They need to argue for a European Bretton Woods, to write off bad debts and recalibrate regional economies by returning to revalued regional currencies. They need to propose European institutions that respect national politics and character, not just grab more power to the centre. There needs to be a sceptics' vision of Europe.Closer European union was an answer to war. After that it offered an answer to communist dictatorship. In both it could claim success. Finally, at Maastricht in 1992, it flew too near the sun. It pretended that one currency traded within a single politico-economic space could overcome economic diversity and yield a common wealth. It overreached itself. In refusing to recognise this failure, Barroso and his colleagues now risk jeopardising even Europe's earlier successes.
Argos Media

EU Offers Aid, Loans to Six Eastern Nations - WSJ.com - 0 views

  • The European Union on Thursday offered six former Soviet states €600 million ($798 million) in incentives to promote stronger energy and economic ties and democratic reforms.
  • The plan, called the Eastern Partnership, has inflamed tensions between the EU and Russia, as Moscow worries that the bloc is encroaching on its traditional turf. The EU, for its part, remains wary following Russia's war in Georgia last year and a weekslong January cutoff of gas supplies to the EU during a dispute between Moscow and Ukraine.
  • "The EU knows, not just because of the Georgia crisis and the gas crisis at the beginning of this year, that safety and prosperity in Europe also depend on the stability of the Eastern partner countries," German Chancellor Angela Merkel said at a summit here of the six countries and the EU.
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  • In addition to the money, international institutions, including the European Bank for Reconstruction and Development and the European Investment Bank, have been asked to increase their lending in the six -- Armenia, Azerbaijan, Belarus, Georgia, Moldova and Ukraine -- some of which have been hit hard by the downturn.
  • But the EU may be losing the competition for influence with a more-determined Russia. Only €350 million of the money is new, suggesting limited commitment. Moscow sees the Eastern Partnership, which it has described as EU "meddling," as an attempt by the West to carry on with a failed attempt to expand NATO into the region, says Alexander Rahr, director of the Russia program at the German Council on Foreign Relations.
  • In a sign of EU divisions over the Eastern Partnership plan, Ms. Merkel was the only leader of a big EU nation to attend the summit. Leaders of the six Eastern Partnership countries also gave the offer a mixed reception. Alexander Lukashenko, president of Belarus, and Moldovan President Vladimir Voronin, who have close ties to Moscow, didn't attend.
Pedro Gonçalves

BBC News - Why Russia is standing by Syria's Assad - 0 views

  • Foreign policy analysts usually tend to explain Moscow's inflexible stance on Syria by evoking arms sales to Damascus (Bashar al-Assad's regime is said to have placed orders for Russian hardware to the tune of $3.5bn) and the Russian naval station in the Syrian port of Tartous. But this alone does not account for Russia's seeming indifference to the adverse effect that its international advocacy of the Assad government has on its relations with the United States, the European Union and the majority of the Arab states. The explanation has a lot to do with Russia's domestic policies and the obsessions of the Russian political class. By standing up for Damascus, the Kremlin is telling the world that neither the UN, nor any other body or group of countries has the right to decide who should or should not govern a sovereign state.
  • Ever since the fall of Slobodan Milosevic in 2000, but especially after the 2004 "Orange Revolution" in Ukraine, the Russian leadership has been obsessed with the idea of America and the EU engineering the overthrow of governments that, for whatever reason, they find unsuitable.
  • Ever since the Nato operation against former Yugoslavia in 1999, Moscow has deeply mistrusted Western humanitarian rhetoric and sees it as nothing but a camouflage for a policy of regime change.
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  • he 2011 Libyan crisis revived these fears. Many Russian leaders, and Mr Putin himself, see then President Dmitry Medvedev's decision to abstain during a vote on UN Security Council Resolution 1973, which authorised a "no-fly zone" over Libya, as a disaster.
  • Moscow's hard-line attitude thus becomes not just a way of defending particular interests, but rather a way of making a very important political point.
  • Off the record, Russian officials like to point to the Yemen roundtable talks which eased veteran Ali Abdullah Saleh from the presidential chair, granted him immunity and installed his own vice-president as the head of state. But with the Syrian drama's tragic turn, such a scenario looks increasingly unlikely. Which may well leave Moscow stuck with the Assad government till the bitter end.
Pedro Gonçalves

Presidential Power in Iran - Council on Foreign Relations - 0 views

  • The office of the president is generally seen as more powerful today than when it was established three decades ago. In the early years of the Islamic Republic, presidential powers were limited, with the regime's constitutional framers taking care not to give the office excessive strength for fear of a possible coup.
  • In an interview with CFR.org, Milani said Ali Akbar Hashemi Rafsanjani was an effective president due to his personal relationships and political charisma, a dynamic that was lost in 1997 with the election of Mohammad Khatami. "Khatami didn't have that kind of relationship with the Supreme Leader" that Rafsanjani did
  • After the elimination of the post of prime minister in 1989, executive duties were consolidated in the office of the presidency.
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  • The election of Ali Khamenei as Iran's third president in 1981 restored order to the executive, but Khamenei (now Iran's Supreme Leader) operated in the shadow of Ayatollah Khomeini and "remained a weak and uncontroversial president," Milani notes. During Khamenei's presidency, Prime Minister Mir-Hossein Mousavi, a top challenger for the June 2009 presidency whose supporters believe was the victim of vote rigging, was credited with displaying strong leadership, especially on economic matters.
  • Even without the Supreme Leader's explicit consent, Iran's constitution does provide the president considerable autonomy; he unquestionably holds the second-most powerful office in Iran. Among the office's duties is the ability to appoint provincial governors, ambassadors, and cabinet members-key posts in Iran's government that hold significant sway in shaping the Supreme Leader's thinking
  • Kenneth Katzman, a specialist in Middle Eastern Affairs at the non-partisan Congressional Research Service, writes (PDF) in a May 2009 report that "the presidency is a coveted and intensely fought over position which provides vast opportunities for the president to empower and enrich his political base."
  • in the wake of the contested June 2009 vote, some analysts say the delicate balance between Iran's clergy and its elected officials may be in jeopardy of crumbling, especially if voters believe their ballots no longer count.
Argos Media

Moldova forces regain control of parliament after 'Twitter revolution' | World news | g... - 0 views

  • Security forces in Moldova were today back in control of the country's parliament, a day after demonstrators stormed the building.
  • One analyst called the uprising a "Twitter revolution".
  • At least 10,000 protesters took part in yesterday's demonstrations.The young crowd carried EU, Moldovan and Romanian flags and shouted slogans including: "Down with communism!" Others demanded the unification of Moldova and Romania.
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  • According to official results, the party took about 49.9% of the votes, but opposition leaders dismissed the result as fraudulent and have demanded a rerun.
  • Despite some economic progress under the communists, who have been in power since 2001, Moldova remains the poorest country in Europe. About 600,000 Moldovans have left to find work in EU countries.
  • Moldova's provinces largely support the pro-Russian communists, but the capital favours the more western-leaning opposition.
  • Andrew Wilson, a senior policy fellow at the European Council on Foreign Relations, said: "Moldova's violent 'Twitter revolution' is totally different from the peaceful protest of Ukraine's Orange revolution."This time, the crowd are not angry at a stolen election, but at the growing corruption of the ruling Communist party, its recent turn towards Russia and an imminent economic crisis."
  • Russian analysts, however, suggested that the protests were unjustified because western observers had confirmed that the communists were legitimate winners of the election and had certified the poll as fair."This is an active attempt by a small minority to take power," Vladimir Zharikhin, the deputy director of the Moscow Institute for the Study of Post-Soviet Countries, said.
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