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Iraq Resists Pleas by U.S. to Placate Hussein's Party - NYTimes.com - 0 views

www.nytimes.com/...26baathists.html

Iraq Baath Party US Nuri al-Maliki

shared by Argos Media on 26 Apr 09 - Cached
  • On April 18, American and British officials from a secretive unit called the Force Strategic Engagement Cell flew to Jordan to try to persuade one of Saddam Hussein’s top generals — the commander of the final defense of Baghdad in 2003 — to return home to resume efforts to make peace with the new Iraq.
  • But the Iraqi commander, Lt. Gen. Raad Majid al-Hamdani, rebuffed them. After a year of halting talks mediated by the Americans, he said, he concluded that Iraq’s leader, Prime Minister Nuri Kamal al-Maliki, simply was not interested in reconciliation.
  • The American appeal — described by General Hamdani and not previously reported — illustrates what could become one of the biggest obstacles to stability in Iraq. Mr. Maliki’s pledges to reconcile with some of the most ardent opponents of his government have given way to what some say is a hardening sectarianism that threatens to stoke already simmering political tensions and rising anger over a recent spate of bombings aimed at Shiites.
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  • On March 28, Mr. Maliki’s Shiite-led government arrested a prominent Sunni leader on charges of heading a secret armed wing of Mr. Hussein’s Baath Party. A week later, the prime minister accused Baathists of orchestrating car bombings that killed more than 40 people. On Monday, he lashed out again, saying the Baath Party was “filled with hate from head to toe.”
  • Mr. Maliki’s earlier effort to reunite the country was one of Washington’s primary benchmarks for measuring political progress in Iraq. The goal was to separate Baathist opponents of the government who were considered more willing to trade violence for political power from intractable extremists, many of them religious. Early last year, under intense American pressure, Mr. Maliki pushed through Parliament a law to ease restrictions on the return of Baath Party members to public life. But 15 months later, the law has yet to be put into effect.
  • Mr. Maliki’s retreat risks polarizing Iraqis again and eroding hard-fought security gains. One hundred sixty people died in bombings on Thursday and Friday alone. There is no evidence that Baathists were involved, but fears are rising that they and jihadi insurgents are increasingly cooperating in areas, Baghdad especially, that have been largely quiet over the last year.
  • The prime minister’s return to a hard line appears to be motivated by a number of factors. Despite Mr. Maliki’s success in provincial elections in January and in projecting himself as a strong nonsectarian leader, his Dawa Party recognizes that it still needs his Shiite partners to govern. And his Shiite rivals, many of whom are close to Iran, have accused him of recently orchestrating a wholesale return of Baathists to bolster his standing with the Sunni minority. Mr. Maliki, political experts say, cannot afford to alienate fellow Shiites ahead of the general elections in December.
  • Ahmad Chalabi, a Shiite politician who led the push six years ago to purge Iraq of the Baath Party, said that despite Mr. Maliki’s pragmatic efforts to court Sunni support, the prime minister retained a visceral hatred for everything associated with the Baath Party and the brutal former regime. Mr. Maliki is also suspicious of bringing back some of the Sunni old guard, which Mr. Chalabi says is part of an American plan “to stiffen Iraq into opposing Iran and help integrate Iraq back into the Arab fold.”
  • From Washington’s point of view, reconciliation with approachable Baathists would isolate extremists like Mr. Douri’s followers. There lies the fundamental difference with the Iraqi side, which is shackled by its fears. “The mere ideas of the Baath Party are dangerous because they are about conspiracies, infiltration and coups,” Kamal al-Saedi, a member of Parliament and one of Mr. Maliki’s partisans on the government’s reconciliation committee, said Wednesday.
  • Mr. Maliki’s adviser for reconciliation, Mohammed Salman al-Saady, said he knew nothing of those promises, but he acknowledged that Mr. Maliki’s government had “fundamental differences” with Washington over how far to extend reconciliation.
  • Mr. Saady said the talks with General Hamdani stalled because many of his demands were against government policy. “According to the Constitution, holding negotiations with the Baath Party is a red line that cannot be crossed,” Mr. Saady said. But he underscored the government’s readiness to engage Baathists who renounced their party affiliation and accepted accountability for crimes they might have committed.
Argos Media

German Environment Minister: 'We Must Discuss Climate Change's Devastating Consequences... - 0 views

www.spiegel.de/...0,1518,620819,00.html

Climate Change Germany Sigmar Gabriel

shared by Argos Media on 24 Apr 09 - Cached
  • to see that Africans are the hardest hit by climate change, even though they generate almost no greenhouse gas, is a glaring injustice, which also triggers anger and outrage over those who seek to ignore it.
  • SPIEGEL: But one cannot claim that the German government is making any particular effort to stop climate change. The measures that have been introduced to date are insufficient to achieve the goal we have set for ourselves, a 40 percent reduction in greenhouse gas emissions by 2020. Are you disappointed by Angela Merkel, the former climate chancellor?
  • Gabriel: Oh please. We are among a handful of countries in Europe that have exceeded their Kyoto climate protection goals for 2012 in 2008. And we never claimed that have already implemented all the measures that will be needed to reach our goal for the year 2020. We are still about five percentage points behind. But a great deal has been put in motion, from the expansion of renewable energy to the renovation of buildings. And just as an aside, these efforts have created 280,000 new jobs. Our counterparts in other countries, including South Africa, China and India, rate us in a completely different way and see us as role models. So why the criticism?
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  • SPIEGEL: Only 13 percent of Germany's stimulus funds are slated for environmental measures. There is little evidence here of the "crisis as opportunity" you repeatedly mention. Gabriel: That puts us in fourth place worldwide, which isn't bad. If you added the money other countries earmark for renewable energy in their national budgets, which goes through the cost of electricity in Germany, we would be even higher up in the ranking, perhaps even at the top.
  • SPIEGEL: At least that would have deserved the name environmental premium. Gabriel: But, as environment minister, I am very interested in a thriving German automobile industry, because I can only pay for the rising costs of environmental protection at home and abroad if there are people in Germany with jobs and who pay taxes. The increase in expenditures for environmental and climate protection in the federal budget from €875 million ($1.14 billion) under a Green environment minister to €3.4 billion ($4.4 billion) today would not work without the economic success of German industry.
  • SPIEGEL: And what happens to your own credibility, when you reward people for buying cars by paying a so-called environmental premium that makes no environmental sense? Gabriel: I still call it the scrapping premium, because the main goal is to stabilize auto sales. But the project clearly has an economic impact, because new vehicles emit less CO2 and pollutants per kilometer driven than old ones. SPIEGEL: But the production of new car consumes enormous resources. Gabriel: One could take that argument a step further and say: It would be best for the environment if we stopped buying or producing any new products. That would be the way to save the most energy and CO2. The next thing you'll ask me is why the government didn't give people €2,500 ($3,250) to buy tickets for public transportation.
  • The environmental industry, with its new technologies, is the biggest market worldwide. We must retain our leading position, because other countries, like the United States, have started to compete with us.
  • SPIEGEL: US President Barack Obama is depriving the Germans of their leadership role in climate protection?
  • Gabriel: No, but his economic stimulus programs are good, and he introduced an overdue change of direction in climate policy. But as far as concrete reduction targets are concerned, his current proposals are still not sufficient. America remains well removed from the European targets and the necessary international targets in climate protection. Many in politics are so pleased about the new American administration that they want to be nothing but nice to the United States. But in doing so, we fail to recognize that the American president, no matter who he is, will always strongly champion American interests.
  • SPIEGEL: Obama has offered to reduce American CO2 emissions to 1990 levels by 2020. Gabriel: But that is still far from enough. International climate scientists believe it is vital that we reduce CO2 emissions by 2020 to a level 25 to 40 percent lower than in 1990. And the developing and emerging nations expect serious efforts on the part of the industrialized nations. The Americans must also show some movement if the December climate summit in Copenhagen is to be a success. Otherwise, many will hide behind the United States. If that happens, our efforts will fall far short of what is needed to stop climate change and its devastating consequences. We must now discuss this openly worldwide.
Argos Media

U.S. Questions Pakistan's Will to Stop Taliban - NYTimes.com - 0 views

www.nytimes.com/...24pstan.html

Pakistan Taliban Swat Valley Buner North West Frontier Province Shangla Swabi Mardan Maulana Fazlur Rahman

shared by Argos Media on 24 Apr 09 - Cached
  • As the Taliban tightened their hold over newly won territory, Pakistani politicians and American officials on Thursday sharply questioned the government’s willingness to deal with the insurgents and the Pakistani military’s decision to remain on the sidelines.
  • Where it has engaged the insurgents, the Pakistani Army, untrained in counterinsurgency, has become reviled by the civilian population for its heavy-handed tactics, which have cost many lives while failing to stop the Taliban. At the same time, the police and paramilitary forces have proved too weak to stand up to the militants. In Buner, desperate residents had resorted to forming their own militias, as much to keep out the military as the Taliban. That effort, too, has now failed.
  • As they did, Taliban contingents were seen Thursday in at least two other districts and areas still closer to the capital, according to Pakistani government officials and residents.
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  • Yet Pakistani authorities deployed just several hundred poorly paid and equipped constabulary forces to Buner, who were repelled in a clash with the insurgents, leaving one police officer dead
  • The limited response set off fresh scrutiny of Pakistan’s military, a force with 500,000 soldiers and a similar number of reservists. The army receives $1 billion in American military aid each year but has repeatedly declined to confront the Taliban-led insurgency, even as it has bled out of Pakistan’s self-governed tribal areas into Pakistan proper in recent months.
  • The military remains fixated on training and deploying its soldiers to fight the country’s archenemy, India. It remains ill equipped for counterinsurgency, analysts say, and top officers are deeply reluctant to be pressed into action against insurgents who enjoy family, ethnic and religious ties with many Pakistanis.
  • In the limited engagements in which regular army troops have fought the Taliban in the tribal areas and sections of the Swat Valley, they not only failed to dislodge the Taliban, but also convinced many Pakistanis that their own military was as much of a menace as the Islamic radicals it sought to repel, residents and analysts say.
  • In Washington, a Defense Department official who is monitoring Pakistan closely said that the poorly trained constabulary force was sent Thursday because Pakistani Army troops were not available, and Pakistani generals were reluctant to pull reinforcements off the border with India — something American officials have encouraged them to do.
  • Instead, the military, which is stretched thin in the areas along the Afghan border, has favored negotiations, and the civilian government has acquiesced. “The government is too worried about its own political survival to take on the militants,” the Defense Department official said.
  • Some 400 to 500 insurgents consolidated control of their new prize, a strategic district called Buner, just 70 miles from the capital, Islamabad, setting up checkpoints and negotiating a truce similar to the one that allowed the Taliban to impose Islamic law in the neighboring Swat Valley.
  • On Capitol Hill, legislators preparing to introduce a bill to provide Pakistan with $7.5 billion in nonmilitary aid over five years may face a steep challenge.
  • In a sign of the urgency of the crisis, the special envoy for the region, Richard C. Holbrooke, is sending Secretary of State Hillary Rodham Clinton memos several times a day with his latest reading of the situation in Pakistan, an American official said. Adm. Mike Mullen, chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, briefly visited Pakistan on Wednesday night and Thursday from Afghanistan, to meet with Gen. Ashfaq Parvez Kayani, the Pakistani Army chief of staff. An American official briefed on discussions said the Pakistani leadership was “very concerned.”
  • Buner (pronounced boo-NAIR), home to about one million people, lies in the heart of North-West Frontier Province, bordering seven other districts. Its capture not only advances the Taliban closer to the capital, but also gives the Taliban a vital hub to extend their reach.
  • More than 30 armed militants entered the Shangla district, east of the main Swat Valley and north of Buner, and were seen patrolling an area around Loch Bazaar, the independent channel Geo TV reported Thursday, quoting witnesses.Government officials also confirmed that militants have been seen in Totali, far south in Buner and close to the boundary with the Swabi district, which lies close to the main highways into the capital.
  • Armed militants have also been seen visiting mosques and patrolling in Rustam, a town on the boundary between Buner and the adjoining district of Mardan, said Riaz Khan, a lawyer living in Mardan, the second largest town in North-West Frontier Province. “People are anxious and in a state of fear,” he said.
  • The Taliban were making a concerted push into areas that overlook the capital, lawmakers and government officials in North-West Frontier Province said.
  • A powerful religious party leader, Fazlur Rehman, who is allied with the government, warned that militants had reached into the Mansehra district, close to the Tarbela Dam, a vital source of electricity to the center of the country.
  • “If the Taliban continue to move at this pace they will soon be knocking at the door of Islamabad,” he told Parliament on Wednesday, adding that Margalla Hills, north of the capital, seem to be the only hurdle to the Taliban advance.
  • The Pakistani Taliban, who number in the thousands across the tribal areas and the Swat region, have declared their aim of establishing Shariah rule throughout Pakistan. But for now, their expansion may be opportunistic and their strength sufficient only to establish local fiefdoms, or “micro-emirates of Shariah,” said Christine Fair, a senior research associate at the RAND Corporation.“I don’t know what the Taliban’s game plan is, but what seems apparent is the state has no game plan,” she said. “The Pakistani state is not able to stop them and they expand where they can.”
Argos Media

BBC NEWS | Americas | Obama offers Cuba 'new beginning' - 0 views

news.bbc.co.uk/...8004798.stm

US Obama Cuba Hugo Chavez Raul Castro Organization of American States

shared by Argos Media on 18 Apr 09 - Cached
  • President Barack Obama has said the US seeks a "new beginning" with Cuba and an "equal partnership" with all the nations of the Americas.
  • Mr Obama was addressing Latin American and Caribbean leaders at the Summit of the Americas in Trinidad and Tobago. The summit follows a thaw in US-Cuban relations. Cuba is not at the summit.
  • Earlier, US Secretary of State Hillary Clinton welcomed an offer for talks from Cuban President Raul Castro, saying the old US policy had failed. Mr Castro said on Thursday that he was ready to talk about "everything" with the US, including human rights, political prisoners and freedom of the press. His comments came after the US eased its long-standing embargo of the communist nation, allowing Cuban-Americans to visit relatives in Cuba and send money home more easily.
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  • Speaking to leaders gathered in Port of Spain, Mr Obama declared: "The US seeks a new beginning with Cuba."
  • "I know there is a longer journey that must be travelled to overcome decades of mistrust, but there are critical steps we can take toward a new day," he said.
  • Cuba is excluded from the summit, which includes 34 members of the Organisation of American States (OAS), though Latin American leaders have been calling for the communist country to be readmitted.
  • speaking on Friday in the Dominican Republic, Mrs Clinton acknowledged that US policy towards Cuba had "failed" and said Washington was "taking a very serious look at how to respond."
  • Addressing the summit, Mr Obama said he wanted to move forward with a sense of "equal partnership" with all the nations of the Americas despite decades of mistrust.
  • Mr Obama earlier greeted and shook hands with Venezuela's President, Hugo Chavez, during an impromptu meeting. Photographs released by the Venezuelan government showed Mr Chavez - one of the Bush's administrations most strident critics - smiling and clasping hands with Mr Obama at the start of the summit.
  • Before the summit began Mr Chavez appeared to chastise the US for its approach to Cuba, which is not a member of the OAS. In a pre-summit statement, he also said that "there is more democracy in Cuba than in the United States". But he greeted the US president warmly when the opportunity arrived, gripping the Mr Obama's hand in welcome. "I greeted Bush with this hand eight years ago; I want to be your friend," Mr Chavez told Mr Obama, according to a Venezuelan presidential press office statement.
Argos Media

Deal by Deal, China Expands Its Influence in Latin America - NYTimes.com - 0 views

www.nytimes.com/...16chinaloan.html

Argentina Brazil China Economy Ecuador Inter-American Bank Latin America US Venezuela

shared by Argos Media on 16 Apr 09 - Cached
  • As Washington tries to rebuild its strained relationships in Latin America, China is stepping in vigorously, offering countries across the region large amounts of money while they struggle with sharply slowing economies, a plunge in commodity prices and restricted access to credit.
  • In recent weeks, China has been negotiating deals to double a development fund in Venezuela to $12 billion, lend Ecuador at least $1 billion to build a hydroelectric plant, provide Argentina with access to more than $10 billion in Chinese currency and lend Brazil’s national oil company $10 billion. The deals largely focus on China locking in natural resources like oil for years to come.
  • China’s trade with Latin America has grown quickly this decade, making it the region’s second largest trading partner after the United States. But the size and scope of these loans point to a deeper engagement with Latin America at a time when the Obama administration is starting to address the erosion of Washington’s influence in the hemisphere.
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  • Mr. Obama will meet with leaders from the region this weekend. They will discuss the economic crisis, including a plan to replenish the Inter-American Development Bank, a Washington-based pillar of clout that has suffered losses from the financial crisis.
  • Meanwhile, China is rapidly increasing its lending in Latin America as it pursues not only long-term access to commodities like soybeans and iron ore, but also an alternative to investing in United States Treasury notes.
  • One of China’s new deals in Latin America, the $10 billion arrangement with Argentina, would allow Argentina reliable access to Chinese currency to help pay for imports from China. It may also help lead the way to China’s currency to eventually be used as an alternate reserve currency. The deal follows similar ones China has struck with countries like South Korea, Indonesia and Belarus.
  • As the financial crisis began to whipsaw international markets last year, the Federal Reserve made its own currency arrangements with central banks around the world, allocating $30 billion each to Brazil and Mexico. (Brazil has opted not to tap it for now.) But smaller economies in the region, including Argentina, which has been trying to dispel doubts about its ability to meet its international debt payments, were left out of those agreements.
  • Details of the Chinese deal with Argentina are still being ironed out, but an official at Argentina’s central bank said it would allow Argentina to avoid using scarce dollars for all its international transactions. The takeover of billions of dollars in private pension funds, among other moves, led Argentines to pull the equivalent of nearly $23 billion, much of it in dollars, out of the country last year.
  • China is also seizing opportunities in Latin America when traditional lenders over which the United States holds some sway, like the Inter-American Development Bank, are pushing up against their limits.
  • Just one of China’s planned loans, the $10 billion for Brazil’s national oil company, is almost as much as the $11.2 billion in all approved financing by the Inter-American Bank in 2008. Brazil is expected to use the loan for offshore exploration, while agreeing to export as much as 100,000 barrels of oil a day to China, according to the oil company.
  • The Inter-American bank, in which the United States has de facto veto power in some matters, is trying to triple its capital and increase lending to $18 billion this year. But the replenishment involves delicate negotiations among member nations, made all the more difficult after the bank lost almost $1 billion last year. China will also have a role in these talks, having become a member of the bank this year.
  • In February, China’s vice president, Xi Jinping, traveled to Caracas to meet with President Hugo Chávez. The two men announced that a Chinese-backed development fund based here would grow to $12 billion from $6 billion, giving Venezuela access to hard currency while agreeing to increase oil shipments to China to one million barrels a day from a level of about 380,000 barrels
  • Mr. Chávez’s government contends the Chinese aid differs from other multilateral loans because it comes without strings attached, like scrutiny of internal finances. But the Chinese fund has generated criticism among his opponents, who view it as an affront to Venezuela’s sovereignty. “The fund is a swindle to the nation,” said Luis Díaz, a lawmaker who claims that China locked in low prices for the oil Venezuela is using as repayment.
  • “This is China playing the long game,” said Gregory Chin, a political scientist at York University in Toronto. “If this ultimately translates into political influence, then that is how the game is played.”
Argos Media

In Recruiting an Afghan Militia, U.S. Faces a Test - NYTimes.com - 0 views

www.nytimes.com/...15afghan.html

Afghanistan US

shared by Argos Media on 15 Apr 09 - Cached
  • For two hours, the meeting unfolded, laying bare the torments facing any Afghan Pashtuns who might be contemplating defying the Taliban — and the extraordinary difficulties facing American officers as they try to reverse the course of the war.
  • The meeting in Maidan Shahr, Wardak Province’s capital, tucked into the mountains about 30 miles southwest of Kabul, concerned one of the most unorthodox projects the Americans have undertaken here since the war began in 2001: to arm, with minimal training, groups of Afghan men to guard their own neighborhoods.
  • The military is borrowing a page from a similar program that helped bring about the recent calm to Iraq, where the Americans signed up more than 100,000 Iraqis, most of them Sunnis and many of them insurgents, to keep the peace.
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  • The hope here is that the militias will come to the aid of the overwhelmed Afghan Army and the police, which take longer to train and equip and number only about 160,000. Hundreds were killed last year in Taliban attacks.
  • The Americans said that although they were sympathetic to the Pashtuns’ fears, the time for bravery had come. In January, the Americans dispatched two battalions, about 1,600 men, to Wardak Province, a huge increase over what was here before. Afghans had to risk their lives, too.
  • “This is your last chance,” General Razik told the elders. “If you don’t take it, we are just going to associate you with the Taliban.”
Argos Media

The Waiting Game: How Will Iran Respond to Obama's Overtures? - SPIEGEL ONLINE - News -... - 0 views

www.spiegel.de/...0,1518,618764-2,00.html

Iran Israel Mir Hossein Mousavi Nuclear Proliferation Politics US

shared by Argos Media on 14 Apr 09 - Cached
  • Israel's new right-leaning government, with its Foreign Minister Avigdor Lieberman and his warmongering outbursts, is more or less openly threatening a strike -- even without American consent. The Israelis, who have their own nuclear weapons, cite the Iranian president's irrationality as justification. They assume that Ahmadinejad is planning a nuclear attack on the Jewish state, without consideration for Israel's certain vehement retaliation.
  • In fact, Ahmadinejad has made no secret of his desire to see Israel wiped off the map of the Middle East. But he has also repeatedly stressed that he has no intention to attack "the Zionist entity" with armed force.
  • The conservative Arab nations, with their Sunni majorities, are now just as concerned about Iran's nuclear ambitions as the fact that the Iraqi government now enjoys the best of relations with its fellow Shiites in Tehran. Tehran's increasing power also strengthens its militant clients in the Palestinian-Israeli conflict: Hamas and Hezbollah.
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  • Iran is not simply a medium-sized regional power that can be ordered around at will. Ironically, America's disastrous war in Iraq has allowed its fierce adversaries in Tehran to benefit from a massive shift of power in the Middle East.
  • Whether the internally divided Palestinians will manage to come to terms and form a unified government for the Gaza Strip and the West Bank is no longer in the hands of the inconsequential negotiators in Cairo, but will be decided instead by Hamas's patrons in Tehran. Tehran also decides whether the Lebanese Hezbollah or Hamas's extremists use primarily words to express their hostility toward Israel or, as is currently the case, resume their bloody terrorist attacks instead.
  • This places the Americans before the virtually impossible task of joining forces with Iran to resolve the classic Middle East conflict and its 30-year conflict with Tehran itself. For this reason, the Iraq question is also becoming increasingly urgent for Washington.
  • Obama knows that the United States could derive substantial benefits from cooperation with Tehran. Without Iran, for example, it will be almost impossible to bring peace to Afghanistan in the long term. In Afghanistan and Pakistan -- the center of conflict that Washington describes in its new strategic concept as a single unit known as "AfPak" -- the Americans and Shiite Iran have many interests in common. Tehran's rulers battled the Sunni Taliban radicals, whom they have always seen as dangerous neighbors and ideological foes, before the Americans did.
  • And Tehran, with the world's second-largest natural gas reserves and its third-largest oil reserves, has the capacity to do a great deal of damage to the international economy -- or help it overcome the global economic crisis.
  • Conversely, rapprochement with the United States and Europe would also bring enormous benefits to the Iranians. Without know-how from the West, the country will hardly manage to achieve the modernization it needs so urgently. With inflation approaching 30 percent and real unemployment exceeding 20 percent (12 percent, according to official figures), and more than a million drug addicts -- a distressing world record of addiction -- the country faces practically insurmountable problems.
  • Before his ascent to the office of president, not even diplomats stationed in Tehran and familiar with all of the ins and outs of Iranian politics were familiar with this short man with the sparse beard and piercing eyes. The fiery revolutionary, hardworking to the point of exhaustion and filled with contempt for earthly wealth, rose to power from humble beginnings and became the hope of all "Mostasafin," the disenfranchised millions without whom the Islamic Republic probably would not exist today and for whom Ahmadinejad has fashioned himself into an Iranian Robin Hood.
  • Ahmadinejad feels obligated to the permanently downtrodden members of society. As if he were one of them, he campaigned for president four years ago in Tehran's massive poor neighborhoods, traveled to the country's most remote places and promised the underprivileged their share of Iran's riches. He told them that he would fill their empty plates with the proceeds from the sale of oil, and that he would declare war on corruption and nepotism. The "era of oppression, hegemonic regimes, tyranny and injustice has reached its end," Ahmadinejad told supporters after his election.
  • But the political achievements of President Ahmadinejad have been more miserable than stellar. In addition to isolating his country even further in the world, he has ruined its economy with his chaotic economic policies. In the devastating assessment of Ali Larijani, the president of the Iranian parliament and Ahmadinejad's biggest domestic rival, whom he previously removed from his position as Iran's chief nuclear negotiator with the West: "The confusion is the result of the government arbitrarily dissolving offices and dismissing experts, ignoring parliamentary resolutions and stubbornly going its own way."
  • Nevertheless, it is quite possible that this man, who has probably done more damage to his country than any other president in the 30-year history of the Islamic Republic, will enter a second term this summer -- simply because he lacks a convincing and courageous opponent.
  • Moussavi is of a significantly more robust nature than Khatami. As prime minister during the years of the Iraq war, he successfully managed the country's wartime economy. Critics note, however, that Moussavi's tenure was marked by a sharp rise in arrests and repression. He has not held any public office in 20 years and is virtually unknown among younger Iranians, who make up about 60 percent of the population.
  • On the surface, the elegant Moussavi would undoubtedly represent Iran more effectively on the international stage than Ahmadinejad. He appears to be more open to negotiations with the Americans. And yet, when it comes to the central nuclear conflict, the new candidate is just as obstinate as the current president. At a press conference in Tehran just last Monday, he noted that he too would not back down on the issue.
  • Which candidate the powerful religious leader Khamenei ends up supporting will likely be the decisive question. When Ahmadinejad came into office, he kissed Khamenei's hand. The two men were long considered extremely close ideologically, although since then Khamenei has more or less openly criticized Ahmadinejad's economic policies. Only recently, however, the religious leader spoke so positively about the president that many interpreted his words as an endorsement of his candidacy. Many observers of Iranian politics believe Ahmadinejad, because of his lasting popularity in rural areas, will be elected to a second term.
  • There are no questions that the Iranian president does not answer with questions of his own. He insists, most of all, on a few core concepts. One of them is justice, but he defines what justice is. Another is respect. He claims that he and his country are not afforded sufficient respect. This desire for recognition seems almost insatiable.
  • In Ahmadinejad's view, "hagh chordan," or the act of trampling on the rights of the Iranians, is a pattern that constantly repeats itself and comes from all sides, leading to a potentially dangerous mix of a superiority and an inferiority complex -- but not the irrationality of which the president is so often accused, especially by the Israelis.
Argos Media

The Waiting Game: How Will Iran Respond to Obama's Overtures? - SPIEGEL ONLINE - News -... - 0 views

www.spiegel.de/...0,1518,618764,00.html

Iran US Nuclear Proliferation

shared by Argos Media on 14 Apr 09 - Cached
  • Ahmadinejad's program includes a visit to Isfahan's nuclear facilities on the outskirts of the city, where scientists are working on uranium enrichment. This is one of the mysterious factories the world fears, because it believes that the Iranians are building a nuclear bomb there.
  • This is the Iranian theocracy that sends shivers down the world's collective spine. For many, Iran is a nightmarish country, a combination of high-tech weapons and a religious ideology based on 1,400-year-old martyr legends that focuses on suffering. It is an isolated and unpredictable country, a wounded civilization whose leaders are taking their revenge on the West by striving to develop nuclear weapons and financing radical Islamists from Hamas to Hezbollah.
  • The Iranian president is currently under more pressure than usual. He is being asked to venture into new territory and respond to America's offer to relax tensions. Obama's predecessor, George W. Bush, threatened Tehran with "regime change" of the sort he announced and implemented in neighboring Iraq. Bush refused to so much as negotiate over the Iranian nuclear program and, with the arrogance of a superpower, helped unify the Iranian public against the "USA, the Great Satan." It was Bush who ensured that the relatively unpopular regime of mullahs, despite its mishandling of the economy, could stabilize itself.
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  • Since the election of the new American president, who promised a change in foreign policy, it is no longer as easy for Ahmadinejad to demonize the United States, especially now that Obama has lived up to his promise of a new beginning -- with a practically revolutionary gesture.
  • The initial reaction from the Iranian leadership was muted. In a televised address, the powerful religious leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, 69, said he was disappointed that Obama had not at least released Iran's frozen assets in the United States.
  • As hysterical as the Iranian leadership's anti-Americanism seems to be at times, it has valid historical reasons. In 1953, Washington's intelligence service brought down democratically elected Prime Minister Mohammed Mossadegh and then massively supported the Shah dictatorship for a quarter century. Iraqi dictator Saddam Hussein was only able to launch his war against Iran with the help of American weapons and logistical guidance from Washington. The war lasted eight bloody years and ended in stalemate.
  • Hostility to the United States has become one of the key pillars of the theocracy. Will it collapse under Obama's friendliness and potentially substantial American good will? Can an American "grand bargain," a mixture of comprehensive political and economic concessions, stop the Iranians from building the nuclear weapons many believe they are seeking to develop? The United States, at any rate, will participate in all nuclear talks in the future, Secretary of State Hillary Clinton announced Wednesday. The previous members of the negotiating group promptly invited Iran to enter a new round.
  • The US president is also under pressure to achieve progress on the nuclear issue. Time is running out for Obama, because the Iranians, according to a report released in February by the inspectors of the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) in Vienna, may already have reached "breakout capability." This means that with their centrifuges and more than 1,000 kilograms of low enriched uranium hexafluoride, the Iranians could soon be able to flip the switch in the direction of having their own bomb.
  • Tehran installed and placed into service about 6,000 centrifuges needed for uranium enrichment in its nuclear facilities.
  • Now the existing, low enriched uranium hexafluoride can be refined to make weapons-grade uranium, either in the country's known enrichment facilities or, as many experts assume, in a location that remains unknown. If one thing is clear, it is that once it becomes known that Iran has embarked on this next enrichment step -- which, until now, has apparently been held up by a political decision -- a military strike against the Iranian nuclear facilities will be all but unavoidable. Experts believe that once this decision is reached, it could take less than six months for the Iranians to build their first bomb.
Argos Media

BBC NEWS | Americas | Clinton admits Cuba policy failed - 0 views

news.bbc.co.uk/...8005153.stm

US Cuba Cuban Embargo Hillary Clinton Organization of American States Raul Castro

shared by Argos Media on 18 Apr 09 - Cached
  • US Secretary of State Hillary Clinton has said that US policy towards Cuba has failed, welcoming an offer to talk from the Cuban president.
  • She said the US was "taking a serious look" at how to respond to President Raul Castro's comments, which she called an "overture". Mr Castro had said he was ready for discussions covering human rights, political prisoners and press freedom. The US passed a law this week easing restrictions on Cuban Americans.
  • The move will allow Cuban Americans to visit relatives in Cuba and send money home more easily.
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  • Mrs Clinton made her comments about Cuba in the Dominican Republic, ahead of the Summit of the Americas that begins in Trinidad and Tobago later on Friday. "We are continuing to look for productive ways forward because we view the present policy as having failed," she said at a press conference.
  • Cuba is excluded from the summit, which includes 34 members of the Organisation of American States (OAS), though Latin American leaders have been calling for the communist country to be readmitted. OAS Secretary-General Jose Miguel Insulza said on Friday he would ask the organisation's members to readmit Cuba, 47 years after it was suspended.
  • Venezuelan President Hugo Chavez said he would veto the final declaration from the OAS summit because of Cuba's exclusion.
Argos Media

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

www.nytimes.com/...04nato.html

US NATO Europe Afghanistan ISAF

shared by Argos Media on 03 Apr 09 - Cached
  • 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

NSA collecting phone records of millions of Verizon customers daily | World news | The ... - 0 views

www.guardian.co.uk/...ne-records-verizon-court-order

US Privacy NSA FISA

shared by Pedro Gonçalves on 07 Jun 13 - No Cached
  • The National Security Agency is currently collecting the telephone records of millions of US customers of Verizon, one of America's largest telecoms providers, under a top secret court order issued in April.The order, a copy of which has been obtained by the Guardian, requires Verizon on an "ongoing, daily basis" to give the NSA information on all telephone calls in its systems, both within the US and between the US and other countries.The document shows for the first time that under the Obama administration the communication records of millions of US citizens are being collected indiscriminately and in bulk – regardless of whether they are suspected of any wrongdoing.The secret Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Court (Fisa) granted the order to the FBI on April 25, giving the government unlimited authority to obtain the data for a specified three-month period ending on July 19.Under the terms of the blanket order, the numbers of both parties on a call are handed over, as is location data, call duration, unique identifiers, and the time and duration of all calls. The contents of the conversation itself are not covered.
  • The unlimited nature of the records being handed over to the NSA is extremely unusual. Fisa court orders typically direct the production of records pertaining to a specific named target who is suspected of being an agent of a terrorist group or foreign state, or a finite set of individually named targets.
  • The order, signed by Judge Roger Vinson, compels Verizon to produce to the NSA electronic copies of "all call detail records or 'telephony metadata' created by Verizon for communications between the United States and abroad" or "wholly within the United States, including local telephone calls".
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  • The court order expressly bars Verizon from disclosing to the public either the existence of the FBI's request for its customers' records, or the court order itself.
  • The information is classed as "metadata", or transactional information, rather than communications, and so does not require individual warrants to access. The document also specifies that such "metadata" is not limited to the aforementioned items. A 2005 court ruling judged that cell site location data – the nearest cell tower a phone was connected to – was also transactional data, and so could potentially fall under the scope of the order.
  • The court order appears to explain the numerous cryptic public warnings by two US senators, Ron Wyden and Mark Udall, about the scope of the Obama administration's surveillance activities.For roughly two years, the two Democrats have been stridently advising the public that the US government is relying on "secret legal interpretations" to claim surveillance powers so broad that the American public would be "stunned" to learn of the kind of domestic spying being conducted.
  • In a letter to attorney general Eric Holder last year, they argued that "there is now a significant gap between what most Americans think the law allows and what the government secretly claims the law allows.""We believe," they wrote, "that most Americans would be stunned to learn the details of how these secret court opinions have interpreted" the "business records" provision of the Patriot Act.
  • The NSA, as part of a program secretly authorized by President Bush on 4 October 2001, implemented a bulk collection program of domestic telephone, internet and email records. A furore erupted in 2006 when USA Today reported that the NSA had "been secretly collecting the phone call records of tens of millions of Americans, using data provided by AT&T, Verizon and BellSouth" and was "using the data to analyze calling patterns in an effort to detect terrorist activity." Until now, there has been no indication that the Obama administration implemented a similar program.These recent events reflect how profoundly the NSA's mission has transformed from an agency exclusively devoted to foreign intelligence gathering, into one that focuses increasingly on domestic communications.
Pedro Gonçalves

NSA shares raw intelligence including Americans' data with Israel | World news | The Gu... - 0 views

www.theguardian.com/...personal-data-israel-documents

NSA US Israel Spying Intelligence ISNU

shared by Pedro Gonçalves on 12 Sep 13 - No Cached
  • The National Security Agency routinely shares raw intelligence data with Israel without first sifting it to remove information about US citizens, a top-secret document provided to the Guardian by whistleblower Edward Snowden reveals.
  • the US government handed over intercepted communications likely to contain phone calls and emails of American citizens. The agreement places no legally binding limits on the use of the data by the Israelis.
  • The deal was reached in principle in March 2009, according to the undated memorandum, which lays out the ground rules for the intelligence sharing.The five-page memorandum, termed an agreement between the US and Israeli intelligence agencies "pertaining to the protection of US persons", repeatedly stresses the constitutional rights of Americans to privacy and the need for Israeli intelligence staff to respect these rights.But this is undermined by the disclosure that Israel is allowed to receive "raw Sigint" – signal intelligence. The memorandum says: "Raw Sigint includes, but is not limited to, unevaluated and unminimized transcripts, gists, facsimiles, telex, voice and Digital Network Intelligence metadata and content."According to the agreement, the intelligence being shared would not be filtered in advance by NSA analysts to remove US communications. "NSA routinely sends ISNU [the Israeli Sigint National Unit] minimized and unminimized raw collection"
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  • a much stricter rule was set for US government communications found in the raw intelligence. The Israelis were required to "destroy upon recognition" any communication "that is either to or from an official of the US government". Such communications included those of "officials of the executive branch (including the White House, cabinet departments, and independent agencies), the US House of Representatives and Senate (member and staff) and the US federal court system (including, but not limited to, the supreme court)".
  • Although Israel is one of America's closest allies, it is not one of the inner core of countries involved in surveillance sharing with the US - Britain, Australia, Canada and New Zealand. This group is collectively known as Five Eyes.
  • In the top-secret 2013 intelligence community budget request, details of which were disclosed by the Washington Post, Israel is identified alongside Iran and China as a target for US cyberattacks.
  • another report, marked top secret and dated September 2007, states that the relationship, while central to US strategy, has become overwhelmingly one-sided in favor of Israel.
  • In another top-secret document seen by the Guardian, dated 2008, a senior NSA official points out that Israel aggressively spies on the US. "On the one hand, the Israelis are extraordinarily good Sigint partners for us, but on the other, they target us to learn our positions on Middle East problems," the official says. "A NIE [National Intelligence Estimate] ranked them as the third most aggressive intelligence service against the US."
Argos Media

Obama Ponders Outreach to Elements of Taliban - NYTimes.com - 0 views

www.nytimes.com/...08obama.html

Afghanistan David Petraeus Iraq Obama Pakistan Taliban US

shared by Argos Media on 09 Mar 09 - No Cached
  • Mr. Obama pointed to the success in peeling Iraqi insurgents away from more hard-core elements of Al Qaeda in Mesopotamia, a strategy that many credit as much as the increase of American forces with turning the war around in the last two years. “There may be some comparable opportunities in Afghanistan and in the Pakistani region,
  • Asked if the United States was winning in Afghanistan, a war he effectively adopted as his own last month by ordering an additional 17,000 troops sent there, Mr. Obama replied flatly, “No.”
  • Mr. Obama said on the campaign trail last year that the possibility of breaking away some elements of the Taliban “should be explored,
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  • now he has started a review of policy toward Afghanistan and Pakistan intended to find a new strategy, and he signaled that reconciliation could emerge as an important initiative, mirroring the strategy used by Gen. David H. Petraeus in Iraq.
  • “If you talk to General Petraeus, I think he would argue that part of the success in Iraq involved reaching out to people that we would consider to be Islamic fundamentalists, but who were willing to work with us because they had been completely alienated by the tactics of Al Qaeda in Iraq,” Mr. Obama said. At the same time, he acknowledged that outreach may not yield the same success. “The situation in Afghanistan is, if anything, more complex,” he said. “You have a less governed region, a history of fierce independence among tribes. Those tribes are multiple and sometimes operate at cross purposes, and so figuring all that out is going to be much more of a challenge.”
  • administration officials have criticized the Pakistani government for its own reconciliation deal with local Taliban leaders in the Swat Valley, where Islamic law has been imposed and radical figures hold sway. Pakistani officials have sought to reassure administration officials that their deal was not a surrender to the Taliban, but rather an attempt to drive a wedge between hard-core Taliban leaders and local Islamists.
  • During the interview, Mr. Obama also left open the option for American operatives to capture terrorism suspects abroad even without the cooperation of a country where they were found. “There could be situations — and I emphasize ‘could be’ because we haven’t made a determination yet — where, let’s say that we have a well-known Al Qaeda operative that doesn’t surface very often, appears in a third country with whom we don’t have an extradition relationship or would not be willing to prosecute, but we think is a very dangerous person,” he said.“I think we still have to think about how do we deal with that kind of scenario,”
  • The president went on to say that “we don’t torture” and that “we ultimately provide anybody that we’re detaining an opportunity through habeas corpus to answer to charges.”Aides later said Mr. Obama did not mean to suggest that everybody held by American forces would be granted habeas corpus or the right to challenge their detention. In a court filing last month, the Obama administration agreed with the Bush administration position that 600 prisoners in a cavernous prison on the American air base at Bagram in Afghanistan have no right to seek their release in court.
Pedro Gonçalves

When Did the American Empire Start to Decline? | Stephen M. Walt - 0 views

walt.foreignpolicy.com/...erican_empire_start_to_decline

US Iraq Iraq War Iran

shared by Pedro Gonçalves on 03 Aug 11 - No Cached
  • the Clinton administration entered office in 1993 and proceeded to adopt a strategy of "dual containment." Until that moment, the United States had acted as an "offshore balancer" in the Persian Gulf, and we had carefully refrained from deploying large air or ground force units there on a permanent basis. We had backed the Shah of Iran since the 1940s, and then switched sides and tilted toward Iraq during the 1980s. Our goal was to prevent any single power from dominating this oil-rich region, and we cleverly played competing powers off against each other for several decades. With dual containment, however, the United States had committed itself to containing two different countries -- Iran and Iraq -- who hated each other, which in turn forced us to keep lots of airplanes and troops in Saudi Arabia and Kuwait. We did this, as both Kenneth Pollack and Trita Parsi have documented, because Israel wanted us to do it, and U.S. officials foolishly believed that doing so would make Israel more compliant during the Oslo peace process. But in addition to costing a lot more money, keeping U.S. troops in Saudi Arabia for the long term also fueled the rise of al Qaeda. Osama bin Laden was deeply offended by the presence of "infidel" troops on Saudi territory, and so the foolish strategy of dual containment played no small role in causing our terrorism problem. It also helped derail several attempts to improve relations between the United States and Iran. Dual containment, in short, was a colossal blunder.
  • But no strategy is so bad that somebody else can't make it worse. And that is precisely what George W. Bush did after 9/11. Under the influence of neoconservatives who had opposed dual containment because they thought it didn't go far enough, Bush adopted a new strategy of "regional transformation." Instead of preserving a regional balance of power, or containing Iraq and Iran simultaneously, the United States was now going to use its military power to topple regimes across the Middle East and turn those countries into pro-American democracies. This was social engineering on a scale never seen before. The American public and the Congress were unenthusiastic, if not suspicious, about this grand enterprise, which forced the Bush administration to wage a massive deception campaign to get them on board for what was supposed to be the first step in this wildly ambitious scheme. The chicanery worked, and the United States launched its unnecessary war on Iraq in March 2003.
  • wrecking Iraq -- which is what we did -- destroyed the balance of power in the Gulf and improved Iran's geopolitical position. The invasion of Iraq also diverted resources away from the war in Afghanistan, which allowed the Taliban to re-emerge as a formidable fighting force. Thus, Bush's decision to topple Saddam in 2003 led directly to two losing wars, not just one. And these wars were enormously expensive to boot. Combined with Bush's tax cuts and other fiscal irresponsibilities, this strategic incompetence caused the federal deficit to balloon to dangerous levels and helped bring about the fiscal impasse that we will be dealing with for years to come.
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  • when future historians search for the moment when the "American Empire" reached its pinnacle and began its descent, the war that began 21 years ago would be a good place to start.
Pedro Gonçalves

US contractor can sue Donald Rumsfeld for alleged Iraq torture, judge rules | World new... - 0 views

www.guardian.co.uk/...s-donald-rumsfeld-iraq-torture

Iraq War Rumsfeld

shared by Pedro Gonçalves on 05 Aug 11 - No Cached
  • An American former military contractor who claims he was imprisoned and tortured by the US army in Iraq has been allowed by a judge to sue the former defence secretary Donald Rumsfeld personally for damages.
  • Mike Kanovitz, the Chicago lawyer representing the plaintiff, says it appears the military wanted to keep his client behind bars so he would be unable tell anyone about an important contact he made with a leading sheik while helping to collect intelligence in Iraq.The plaintiff says he was the first American to open direct talks with Abdul-Sattar Abu Risha, who became an important US ally and later led a revolt of Sunni sheiks against al-Qaida before being killed by a bomb."The US government wasn't ready for the rest of the world to know about it, so they basically put him on ice," Kanovitz said. "If you've got unchecked power over the citizens, why not use it?"
  • this is the second time a federal judge has allowed a US citizen to sue Rumsfeld personally.
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  • District judge Wayne Andersen in Illinois last year ruled that Donald Vance and Nathan Ertel, Americans who worked in Iraq as contractors and were held at Camp Cropper, could pursue claims that they were tortured using Rumsfeld-approved methods after they suspected the security firm they worked for of engaging in illegal activities.
Argos Media

World Watches for U.S. Shift on Mideast - NYTimes.com - 0 views

www.nytimes.com/...17prexy.html

US Israel Obama Rashid Khalidi Robert Malley Hamas Zbigniew Brzezinski Charles Freeman James Jones George Mitchell

shared by Argos Media on 17 May 09 - Cached
  • As a state senator in Chicago, Mr. Obama cultivated friendships with Arab-Americans, including Rashid Khalidi, a Palestinian-American scholar and a critic of Israel. Mr. Obama and Mr. Khalidi had many dinners together, friends said, in which they discussed Palestinian issues.
  • Mr. Obama’s predecessors, Presidents Bill Clinton and George W. Bush, came of age politically with the American-Israeli viewpoint of the Middle East conflict as their primary tutor, said Daniel Levy, a former Israeli peace negotiator. While each often expressed concern and empathy for the Palestinians — with Mr. Clinton, in particular, pushing hard for Middle East peace during the last months of his presidency — their early perspectives were shaped more by Israelis and American Jews than by Muslims, Mr. Levy said. “I think that Barack Obama, on this issue as well as many other issues, brings a fresh approach and a fresh background,” Mr. Levy said. “He’s certainly familiar with Israel’s concerns and with the closeness of the Israel-America relationship and with that narrative. But what I think might be different is a familiarity that I think President Obama almost certainly has with where the Palestinian grievance narrative is coming from.”
  • None of this necessarily means that Mr. Obama will chart a course that is different from his predecessors’. During the campaign he struck a position on Israel that was indistinguishable from those of his rivals Hillary Rodham Clinton and John McCain, going so far as to say in 2008 that he supported Jerusalem as the undivided capital of Israel. (He later attributed that statement to “poor phrasing in the speech,” telling Fareed Zakaria of CNN that he meant to say he did not want barbed wire running through Jerusalem.)
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  • Last year, for instance, Mr. Obama was quick to distance himself from Robert Malley, an informal adviser to his campaign, when reports arose that Mr. Malley, a special adviser to Mr. Clinton, had had direct contacts with Hamas, the militant Islamist organization that won the Palestinian legislative elections in 2006 and that controls Gaza. Similarly, he distanced himself from Zbigniew Brzezinski, a former national security adviser who was often critical of Israel, after complaints from some pro-Israel groups.
  • And Mr. Obama offered no public support for the appointment of Mr. Freeman to a top intelligence post in March after several congressional representatives and lobbyists complained that Mr. Freeman had an irrational hatred of Israel. Mr. Freeman angrily withdrew from consideration for the post.
  • But Mr. Freeman, in a telephone interview last week, said he still believed that Mr. Obama would go where his predecessors did not on Israel. Mr. Obama’s appointment of Gen. James L. Jones as his national security adviser — a man who has worked with Palestinians and Israelis to try to open up movement for Palestinians on the ground and who has sometimes irritated Israeli military officials — could foreshadow friction between the Obama administration and the Israeli government, several Middle East experts said.
  • The same is true for the appointment of George J. Mitchell as Mr. Obama’s special envoy to the region; Mr. Mitchell, who helped negotiate peace in Northern Ireland, has already hinted privately that the administration may have to look for ways to include Hamas, in some fashion, in a unity Palestinian government.
Argos Media

Commander's Ouster Is Tied to Shift in Afghan War - NYTimes.com - 0 views

www.nytimes.com/...12military.html

US Afghanistan David McKiernan Stanley McChrystal

shared by Argos Media on 12 May 09 - Cached
  • The top American commander in Afghanistan, Gen. David D. McKiernan, was forced out Monday in an abrupt shake-up intended to bring a more aggressive and innovative approach to a worsening seven-year war.
  • Defense Secretary Robert M. Gates announced the decision in terse comments at the Pentagon, saying that “fresh eyes were needed” and that “a new approach was probably in our best interest.” When asked if the dismissal ended the general’s military career, Mr. Gates replied, “Probably.”
  • Defense Department officials said General McKiernan, a respected career armor officer, had been removed primarily because he had brought too conventional an approach to the challenge.
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  • He is to be replaced by Lt. Gen. Stanley A. McChrystal, a former commander of the Joint Special Operations Command. He served in Afghanistan as chief of staff of military operations in 2001 and 2002 and recently ran all commando operations in Iraq.
  • Forces under General McChrystal’s command were credited with finding and capturing Saddam Hussein and with tracking and killing Abu Musab al-Zarqawi, the leader of Al Qaeda in Mesopotamia. His success in using intelligence and firepower to track and kill insurgents, and his training in unconventional warfare that emphasizes the need to protect the population, made him the best choice for the command in Afghanistan, Defense Department officials said.
  • At the same time, he will be confronted with deep tensions over the conduct of Special Operations forces in Afghanistan, whose aggressive tactics are seen by Afghan officials as responsible for many of the American mistakes that have resulted in the deaths of civilians.
  • Pentagon officials have begun to describe Afghanistan as the military’s top priority, even more important than the war in Iraq. President Obama announced a major overhaul of American strategy in Afghanistan in March. Planned troop levels are expected to reach more than 60,000 Americans.
Pedro Gonçalves

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

www.nytimes.com/...02diplo.html

US Iran China Latin America El Salvador Council on Foreign Relations Julia Sweig Venezuela Nicaragua Hillary Clinton

shared by Pedro Gonçalves on 02 Jun 09 - Cached
  • 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.
Pedro Gonçalves

Cuba Agrees to U.S. Talks in New Sign of a Thaw - NYTimes.com - 0 views

www.nytimes.com/...01cuba.html

US Cuba Organizaion of American States Hillary Clinton El Salvador

shared by Pedro Gonçalves on 01 Jun 09 - Cached
  • Cuba notified the Obama administration it was ready to resume talks on migration issues and to negotiate direct postal service between the countries for the first time in decades. It also agreed to cooperate with the United States on counterterrorism, drug interdiction and hurricane relief efforts.
  • The decisions, conveyed to the State Department on Saturday in diplomatic notes, represent another step in the gradual unlocking of relations under the Obama administration, after nearly 50 years of a trade embargo that many in the hemisphere say has outlived its usefulness.“Greater connections,” Mrs. Clinton said, “can lead to a better, freer future for the Cuban people. These talks are in the interest of the United States, and they are also in the interest of the Cuban people.”
  • Mrs. Clinton is in El Salvador for the presidential inauguration on Monday of the leftist leader Mauricio Funes. As one of his first acts, Mr. Funes has said he will restore diplomatic relations with Cuba, leaving the United States as the only country in the Americas without such ties.
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  • On Tuesday, Mrs. Clinton plans to attend a meeting in Honduras of the Organization of American States. Members of the group want to make an even clearer break with the past by moving to readmit Cuba, which the organization expelled in 1962, citing its alliance with the Communist bloc. Mrs. Clinton has fended off calls for Cuba to be offered membership until Havana moves to accept the group’s democratic principles. On Sunday, she reiterated that the United States would oppose the efforts of several Latin American countries to immediately reinstate Cuba.“We believe that membership in the O.A.S. comes with responsibility, and that we must all hold each other accountable,” she said. Cuba, for its part, has said it has no interest in returning to an organization that the official newspaper Granma referred to recently as “that decrepit old house of Washington.”
Argos Media

Doing Deals with Tehran: Why Iran Is Hungry for Business with the US - SPIEGEL ONLINE -... - 0 views

www.spiegel.de/...0,1518,621269,00.html

Iran Economy Renault

shared by Argos Media on 27 Apr 09 - Cached
  • Nestled in rocky hills about 40 minutes from Tehran, Pardis Technology Park is supposed to be Iran's answer to Silicon Valley. But these days, Pardis is deserted and forlorn, with many buildings standing unfinished, their exposed girders rusting. Foreign companies are reluctant to invest in the Islamic Republic, and domestic outfits are cash-strapped.
  • many Iranians like the prospect of working with US companies rather than the Europeans that have been the only game in recent years. "Iranian officials believe Americans are more straightforward in business deals," says Narsi Ghorban, managing director of Narkangan Gas to Liquid, a Tehran energy company. "They get what they want and give you your due."
  • If businesspeople do come to Tehran, a sprawling city built on steep hills that lead up to snow-capped mountains, they will find some conditions improved. Mobile telephones from other countries finally work, and several private hotels have sprung up. Since the 1979 revolution, social life has never been more liberal. Boys and girls hold hands in public, women show some hair outside their scarves, and checkpoints where police once searched cars for alcohol have all but disappeared. But there's still enough fear of the regime that many people decline to be interviewed.
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  • While President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad continues to make belligerent noises about Israel and the West, others in Tehran have hinted that they're ready for a change. In a Mar. 21 speech, Supreme Leader Ali Khamenei trotted out standard anti-American rhetoric but also indicated a willingness to talk. And Ahmadinejad's probable opponent in the June presidential election, former Prime Minister Mir Hossein Moussavi, favors negotiations with the US. "Obama has prompted Iranians to have an open debate about the relationship they want to have with the US," says Gary Sick, an Iran specialist at Columbia University in New York. "This is something that hasn't been seen in 30 years."
  • Most Iranian executives seem to be rooting for Moussavi. Although he is an old-guard leftist, businesspeople hope he would lead a reform-minded administration that could ease Iran's isolation. "Ahmadinejad has done serious damage to Iran's reputation and the reputation of Iranian business," says Mohammad Reza Behzadian, a former head of the Tehran Chamber of Commerce who runs Tondar Middle East, a trading company in Tehran.
  • Facing pressure from Washington, major European banks have stopped doing business in the country. So Iranians must pay exorbitant rates for trade financing from second- and third-tier banks in Europe, the Middle East, and Asia. Some Iranians work around the restrictions by setting up subsidiaries in the United Arab Emirates and playing cat-and-mouse with American inspectors. But such solutions are expensive, adding billions of dollars to Iran's soaring import bill-$57 billion for the year that ended in March. "It's a challenge finding banks that we can trust," says Parviz Aghili, CEO of Karafarin Bank in Tehran.
  • Sanctions also restrict the development of Iran's vital energy reserves. Tehran wants to boost oil production capacity by 25 percent, to 5 million barrels a day, but with little foreign help and aging fields in rapid decline, it's tough even to maintain current output. That's one reason Iranian oil officials are quick to say they want American help. "We don't have any problems with US investment," says M.A. Khatibi Tabatabaei, Iran's representative on OPEC's board of governors.
  • Ahmadinejad's erratic policies make things worse. The populist President has spent freely on everything from loans to small businesses of questionable viability to imported food and cash handouts for the poor. And he has pressured banks to shovel out easy credit, leading to a real estate boom. But worried that oil earnings will start to peter out, the central bank has tightened up, starving factories of capital and prompting a sharp fall in property prices.
  • Last year, when oil prices surged, the Iranian economy could shrug off its problems. With oil's steep decline and the global financial crunch, though, some fear social unrest. Many factories are months behind on salaries, says Ali Reza Mahjoub, a member of Parliament and head of Workers' House, a labor group. He estimates that unemployment, officially 12.5 oercent, is really closer to 17 oercent. As financing dries up, building is grinding to a halt, says developer Amir-Mohamad Mazaheri. "This is a very dangerous situation," he says, puffing on a cigarette in a new tower in North Tehran. "There will be 3-4 million construction workers looking to any activity to support themselves."
  • Even with sanctions in place, savvy foreigners have managed to make a mark in Iran-though it takes persistence. Renault, for instance, has a $200 million joint venture to build the Logan compact. But late payments from the Iranians and difficulties training enough suppliers to meet a requirement of 60 percent local content have slowed progress, Renault says. The venture, Renault Pars, has cut its output target for the Logan by 25 percent, to 150,000 cars per year. "You need a lot of time and energy," says Renault Pars chief Jean-Michel Kerebel. "What takes five hours in Europe could take five days here."
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