Ya Libnan – 4 Week Roundup – 9/23/09

http://yalibnan.com/site/archives/2009/08/wednesday_news_61.php

Wednesday News Briefs & Editorial
Published: Wednesday, 26 August, 2009 @ 12:04 PM in Beirut

Beirut – The Syrian regime of Bashar al Assad is back in action in Lebanon and is doing all it can to disrupt the formation of the cabinet through its allies the Hezbollah -led opposition. According to Syrian observers Syria is trying to make up for the loss of its allies in the polls by forcing on Lebanon’s majority the so called “ national Unity government “ in which the opposition will have the lion’s share of ministries through which they can control the country.

An Nahar political sources have reported that careful reading of the Syrian political stance towards Lebanon indicates that never before has an Arab country through its official media demanded that another Arab country should amend its constitution during the formation of a government .

An Nahar sources have also reported that Syria is allocating specific roles to its allies aimed at obstructing the formation of the cabinet unless their demands are met . While General Michel Aoun is charged with attacking the Prime minister designate and making impossible demands, Lebanon’s top Shiite cleric Grand Ayatollah Mohammed Hussein Fadlallah is charged with attacking Patriarch Nasrallah Boutros Sfeir who has been the most outspoken Christian spiritual leader against the obstruction of the Lebanese democratic institutions .

Yesterday Fadlallah slammed Maronite Patriarch Nasrallah Sfeir over calling for a cabinet based on the outcome of the parliamentary polls. In a remark aimed at changing the constitution Fadlallah said : “We call for a popular majority and popular referendum … so that people would have their say.”

FP 2009 Update – Week 31 – The Cable

Week 31 at Laura Rozen’s blog at Foreign Policy witnessed Secretary of State Hillary Clinton heading to Africa for an 11 day romp around the volatile continent, while her husband, President Bill Clinton ate up the Cameras, assisting in helping to free the two journalists from Al Gore’s Current TV who were captured for espionage and sentenced to hard labor by the North Korean judiciary.  Similarly, 3 more American journalists go hiking in Northern Iraq only to wind up missing and captured on the Iranian side of the border.  Hillary Clinton puts Iran hands into motion on the final round of preparation before the Afghanistan elections, making sure everything is in place to work on denuclearizing the regime through engagement – somehow – even though the Ayatollah’s responses to Obama’s private correspondence have been anything but confidence inspiring for the young administration.  Apparently everyone patted themselves on the back for how smoothly Obama’s team handled the tumult in the Iranian post-election street clashes between Moussavi opposition supporters and Ayatollah loyalists, striking the right tone somehow amid the violence by brooking no condemnations and focusing instead on raising international opprobrium over the activity of the Islamic Establishment in the oppression of the opposition voices and freedom of speech.  After a month of chilling reaction from the American people over healthcare reform, the Senate junkets are set for the recess, with John Kerry, who leads the Senate Foreign Relations Committee, jetting to Jordan and Pakistan to observe the realities on the ground in the Central Region for himself.  Dennis Ross’ crew was rather quiet this week, heeding Trita Parsi’s advice of a strategic pause in activity on the Iranian front.  Daniel Feltman was finally confirmed…and Carlos Pascual is now officially the Ambassador to Mexico.  More or less, week 31 at the Cable was a lead up to,  the counterterrorism czar, John Brennan’s CSIS speech, announcing a new approach to safeguarding America…   But more importantly, Foreign Policy Magazine launched what it is referring to as  ”The AfPak Channel” in which guest bloggers are tearing into the situation in the regional fiasco that is known as “the right war”.

-Gary H. Johnson, Jr. 8/13/09, 10:20pmEST)

 

http://thecable.foreignpolicy.com

Clinton hosts video conference with State Iran hands worldwide
Mon, 08/03/2009 – 1:36pm
This morning, U.S. Secretary of State Hillary Clinton hosted a secure video conference with 20 State Department officials worldwide, at about a half dozen locations.

Much of the substance of the 45-minute video conference is classified, but broad strokes were provided to Foreign Policy. Though the locations of the State Department officials participating in the call from abroad weren’t disclosed, the United States has in recent years opened Iran “watching” stations at U.S. embassies in Dubai, Azerbaijan, Berlin, Turkey, and London, among key foreign locations with large Iranian expatriate populations and traffic.

FP 2009 Update – Week 30 – The Cable

Week 30 at The Cable was wild.  Hillary Clinton and Tim Geithner start off out the shoot on the U.S.-China Economic future in what can be considered an unprecedented Wall Street Journal oped piece focusing on bilateral relations and a new strategy forward in a multipronged approach to stabilizing world markets, with three main areas of concern for dialogue: maintaining economic relations, climate change issues, and complementary security issues.   Secretary Clinton then hits Meet the Press to discuss the North Korea slight on her person and she discusses Iran and Afghanistan frankly…not two days later Secretary Clinton hit Thailand and raised the possibility of a “nuclear umbrella” for the Sunni World to defend against a nuclear Iran, which led Israelis to worry over whether the U.S. was conceding the nuclear weapons issue to the Iranian Establishment.   Gates heads to Israel to let everyone in the world know that the military option remains on the table on the Iranian Nuclear issue, to do top-brass damage control for Mitchell’s focus on halting Israeli settlements to achieve a two-state solution.  More or less, Gates’ announcement made clear that Iran’s window for establishing diplomatic talks with the United States is shrinking and has time limits.  Secretary Clinton’s team announces its Africa trip starting on the 5th of August, designed to increase trade relations; while the nominees for Latin American Ambassadorships, Valenzuela and Shannon are pushed through to the Senate.  Obama’s meeting with the progressive American Jewish groups like J Street, whose anti-Zionist focus has led them to announce that three quarters of American Jews favor a two-state solution for the future of a Palestinian resolution.   Judah Grunstein of WPR notes the engagement policy espoused by Clinton on Iran seeks an Iran who respects its “right to nuclear energy” but not a nuclear bomb, and Trita Parsi makes the case for a diplomatic pause with the Iranian regime out of a “wait and see” attitude over the Iranian Islamic Establishment’s resolution of its opposition anger boiling over onto its streets since the June 12th election results.    By far, the highlight of Week 30 at Laura Rozen’s Foreign Policy blog is found in the activity of Holbrooke and McChrystal in the AfPak theatre.  Holbrooke, who is in charge of the AfPak at the Obama Administration,  announces that he is tearing up the Bush policy of poppy eradication in the AfPak.  It was important to note that David Miliband, the Foreign Secretary for Britain, made the D.C. rounds and discussed the upcoming elections in Afghanistan in a State Department speakeasy with Hillary Clinton.   And McChrystal, who just assumed overall command in early June, discussed the US strategy to win the hearts and minds of the Afghani people, with a new focus on protecting civilians from harm, which is being put together in a Strategic Assessment group.  Laura Rozen immediately pounces and names the team of McChrystal’s advisors, which of course includes blogger Andrew Exum, who just happens to be a fellow over at the Center for New American Security (CNAS).   Holbrooke follows up his D.C. rounds with a Fort McNair policy shuffle for top insiders.   The week ends with more controversy on the settlement issue as the international community is angered by Israel’s eviction of 56 Palestinians from their East Jerusalem homes in preparation for demolition to increase settlement construction.

-Gary H. Johnson, Jr. (8/4/09, 8:57pmEST)

http://thecable.foreignpolicy.com

U.S.-China dialogue gets underway
Mon, 07/27/2009 – 12:05am
Tomorrow kicks off the first meeting of the U.S. China Strategic and Economic Dialogue, the Obama administration’s twist on a process started under former Treasury Secretary Henry Paulson. That process, known as the Strategic Economic Dialogue (no “and”), was primarily intended to address bilateral economic issues such as the dollar-renminbi exchange rate.

The two countries — which have become known as the “G-2″ in foreign-policy circles due to their preeminent size and geopolitical reach — will still be tackling economic issues like the global financial crisis. But this time, a State Department official tells Foreign Policy, the agenda is “much broader and more comprehensive,” encompassing global issues such as climate change, and regional ones such as North Korea, Afghanistan, and Pakistan.

Two top-ranking Chinese officials, Vice Premier Wang Qishan and State Councilor Dai Bingguo, will be in Washington for meetings Monday and Tuesday with Treasury Secretary Timothy Geithner and Secretary of State Hillary Clinton, who has just returned from meetings in India and Thailand.

Fp 2009 Update – Week 24 – The Cable

There is nothing light and easy about Week 24.  Iran went up in a frenzy of tweets and reporter arrests and hundreds of thousands of people marching on the streets for the right to an “election” rather than a “selection” process in the face of the Iranian Islamic Establishment.  It took Obama 10 days of riots and street beatings and killings and arrests to publicly come out and condemn the atrocities committed by Iran – the entire time, he was cautioning the Iranian Islamic Republic that the world was watching while sticking to his diplomacy engagement guns, leading certain reporters to believe that Obama was on the side of the Islamic Regime and Ahmadinejad.   The week started with Lieberman (of Israel) visited Washington.  Lieberman is a right wing Israeli with a penchant for saying exactly what is on his mind – a controversial leader of a partner that helped to solidify Netanyahu’s Prime Minister position, he made the D.C. rounds.  Mitchell stole much of the thunder of Lieberman’s visit with Secretary Clinton, since he returned from his 4th Jerusalem Shuttle and plans to meet with the Democrat Leadership of the House and Senate to discuss the Israeli-Arab peace possibilities.   The Ayatollah Khameini’s Friday speech left no one with any delusions about whether or not the election would stand, and Gary Sick’s commentary on the matter is well articulated.  Dennis Ross’ shift to the National Security Council is ruffling feathers across the board as he hops to the head of the line.  The Realist school, led by Mitchell over the Levant Theatre, is now face to face with the New Realist school of Ross in the Central Region – the differences are profound for those who have read the Ross/Markovsky new release, “Myths, Illusions, & Peace” – and Mitchell understands that he is in a competition of theory at the highest diplomatic level.  John Kyl tries to throw a monkey into the wrench of the State Department nominees over Obama’s idealism on the Nuclear disarmament/Russia front.  Barzun & Kaplan, huge Obama investors and advisors, cash in their support chips as slots in the Ambassador realm along with 5 career FSOs.  And as Tehran heats up with opposition members, a New York Times journalist escapes his Taliban kidnappers in Afghanistan after 7 months of captivity in which the NYT conveniently kept silent about the situation for the most part.  Robin Wright speaks eloquently in a Times article about the Iranian situation and the symbol of the opposition, Neda.  Hillary Clinton officially brings in Blumenthal under her wing and the United States officially opens diplomatic ties with Syria, by returning an Ambassador to Damascus after a 4 year spat.  Laura Rozen is at her best this week.   The Cable is, bar none, the best barometer for the pressures in the Washington D.C. scene that I have found.

Gary H. Johnson, Jr. (7/26/09 2:20pmEST)

http://thecable.foreignpolicy.com

Israeli FM Lieberman’s Washington meetings
Wed, 06/17/2009 – 10:43am
Israeli Foreign Minister Avigdor Lieberman, founder of the right wing Yisrael Beiteinyu party, has arrived in Washington and is scheduled to meet with his counterpart Secretary of State Hillary Clinton at 2pm this afternoon.

There is not a lot of publicity about his visit, no doubt because Lieberman is a controversial figure at home and abroad, who has said Israel’s Arab citizens should be required to sign loyalty oaths; numerous Israeli reports have indicated that Lieberman is the subject of an on-going corruption investigation.

Among his other planned Washington meetings, according to the Israeli Foreign Minister’s bureau: National Security Advisor General James L. Jones, the chairmen of the Senate and House Foreign Affairs Committees, Sen. John Kerry (D-MA) and Rep. Howard Berman (D-CA), the chairman of the Senate Homeland Security and Governmental Affairs Committee Sen. Joe Lieberman, House Minority Whip Rep. Eric Cantor (R-VA), Senate Minority Whip Sen. Jon Kyl (R-AZ) and unspecified other officials.  Lieberman also plans to visit the U.S. Holocaust Museum where a gunman killed a security guard last week, the bureau release said.

FP 2009 Update – Week 21 – The Cable

Week 21 at Laura Rozen’s The Cable was instructive in many ways…  Carl Levin holds up a key Middle East Diplomat’s nomination confirmation to bring light on an age old Libya reparations battle.   Egyptian and Palestinian leadership descend on DC.   Saudi Arabia is added to Obama’s stopover list for his overseas jaunt which is designed to continue building international G-20 support and Muslim Accomodation.  Paul Farmer’s name is added to the list of possible heads for USAID – his 20 year history of making water out of wine in the poverty laden world medical community is unmatched.   Netanyahu pragmatically offers a settlement freeze in exchange for unconditional support on Iranian issue – beyond that, his response was basically “What the Hell does Obama want from me?”   Saudi Arabia puts a leash on Western journalists following Obama’s trail.  Israeeli Foreign Minister Barak has an impromptu 15 minute meeting with Barack Obama, who drops in on his meeting with Gen. Jim Jones.  Sarkozy begins overtures and direct engagement with Iran as a lead up to Obama’s travel plans.

Gary H. Johnson, Jr. (2:57amEST)

http://thecable.foreignpolicy.com

Libya claim delays Feltman confirmation vote
Tue, 05/26/2009 – 3:18pm
A compensation claim regarding Libya appears to be delaying the confirmation vote of Jeffrey Feltman to become assistant secretary of state for Near Eastern affairs, The Cable has learned.

Feltman’s nomination was forwarded by the Senate Foreign Relations Committee to the full Senate last week. But last Friday, before they broke for Memorial Day, Sen. Carl Levin (D-MI), usually a reliable Obama White House ally, put a hold delaying a Senate vote on the nomination until after the week-long recess, apparently at the request of an unidentified constituent with an unspecified, Libya-related claim. The case does not have to do with the 1988 bombing of Pan Am flight 103 over Lockerbie Scotland, but officials would not specify what it was regarding.

FP 2009 Update – Week 19 – The Cable

Laura Rozen’s blog, The Cable, over at Foreign Policy Magazine, is by far and away the most informative blog on the in crowd of Washington D.C.  Week 19 witnessed Jon Huntsman taking off from Utah to tilt with the Chinese, the NIC chairman will be Kojm (worked with Lee Hamilton – Iraq Study Group), Matt Burrows, the Fatalist, will remain as the NIC No.3.  Obama’s July plans are released, planning to hit Italy, Russia, and Ghana as the Lebanese elections unfold.  The most important element of Rozen’s blog during Week 19 was the meeting that took place between Netanyahu and Obama.  Their meeting was constructive, but they locked horns on multiple issues, the Q&A segment seems to find two guys that speak the same language but don’t understand one another, except on one concept – linkage.  There is no link between the Israeli-Palestinian Peace and the Israeli-Arab Relations – Obama has been well versed in Dennis Ross’ diplomatic theory on this matter.  In a way, Week 19 began and ended with the Bilderberg Conference, considering Yost, a former Bilderberg Secretary General was tapped to direct the Long Range Analysis unit of the NIC to start the week, and questions loomed over Treasury Secretary Geithner’s attendance of the Bilderberg conference to close out the week. 

Gary H. Johnson, Jr.  (7/23/09, 4:40amEST)

http://thecable.foreignpolicy.com

U.S. Embassy in Beijing “decapitated”
Thu, 05/14/2009 – 12:31pm
Citing the desire to spend more time with his wife, the chargé d’affaires of the U.S. embassy in Beijing, Dan Piccuta, has announced his retirement, a notice issued to embassy employees and obtained by The Cable says. As the most senior U.S. official currently serving in China, Piccuta’s departure will leave the embassy “decapitated” as of July 1, a U.S. official source said. “If the process for selecting an ambassador to Beijing wasn’t in high gear before, we better hope it is now,” the official said. The U.S. embassy in Beijing will also need a formal, actual deputy chief of mission. One possibility — that Bill Weinstein, who has been the effective DCM in Beijing for four months now, would be able to drop the “acting” title.

Ya Libnan 11 Day Roundup – 6/30/09

http://yalibnan.com/site/archives/2009/06/friday_news_bri_53.php
Friday News Briefs
Published: Friday, 19 June, 2009 @ 9:22 AM in Beirut
Beirut – The top story today in Lebanon is the meeting between Hezbollah Secretary General Sayyed Hassan Nasrallah and Democratic Gathering parliamentary bloc leader and head of the Progressive Socialist party ( PSP) MP. Walid Jumblatt. The meeting took place overnight according to PSP sources.

They discussed the past problems and specifically the May 2008 violence and both praised the efforts of Talal Arslan during and after that period .

They also discussed the future prospects for Lebanon and the region, and stressed the need to work together to move Lebanon and the region from the crisis state to the state of cooperation for the sake of the people of Lebanon.

They also confirmed to continue to work together towards full reconciliation, and agreed to continue communication and consultation during the next phase.

As Safir newspaper said Friday that the agenda of the talks included the stage that followed the Doha agreement and the challenges that emerged after Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s latest speech.

According to As Safir, the two officials were also to discuss prospects of dialogue between Jumblatt and Damascus, in addition to relations between Hezbollah and the Progressive Socialist Party.

The location of the meeting will of course remain a top secret since Nasrallah has been hiding ever since the 2006 war begun

Where is Soroush?

The likelihood of Khameini losing power or influence or even the advancing of a progressive step toward a change in the sharing of power in the “Islamic Republic of Iran” as a result of the 2009 post-Presidential Election Protests is virtually nil.  Khameini, on the otherhand, has pushed forward a more likely scenario – the rise of a Shia Imamate to replace the Ottoman Caliphate that broke apart during World War I and then found its terminus after the Turks and Greeks battled it out – a trail of blood that led to Ataturk’s decision to abolish the caliphate in 1923. 

The decision of Khameini to writeoff the opposition’s demands for a new vote and his refusal to even offer a vote discrepancy investigation has led to a remarkable climax of Moussavi momentum, highlighted by electric prod and baton wielding uniformed and plainclothesed riot control troops cracking heads and jailing dissidents on behalf of the present administration of Ahmadinejad and the concerned echelons of the Mullocracy.  The confirmed deaths of 17 “Mousavi Martyrs” now have a symbolic face in the beautiful young Nada, while unconfirmed twitter reports are detailing the excesses of the Khameini’s police, including seemingly outlandish and inconceivable reports that the crowd control efforts had degraded to wildly wielded axes and the maiming of entire swaths of protestors, has literally silenced the Western Media.  The lack of confirmable, first hand sources and footage has shut out the Western Televised world. 

69 people die in a Market explosion in Iraq, yesterday, and it is not a highline feature on 24 hour news networks…80 Taliban soldiers die in Pakistan’s tribal region of South Waziristan due to US predator strikes…where is the focus of the Media?  On the news they can accurately cover…the South Carolina Governor’s indiscretions.  Domestic political corruption and people magazine styled filler plagues nightly newscasts alongside human interest and environmental think pieces.   

More than anything, what this Khameini choice of omission has achieved is the submission of Western Media.  More powerful than any propaganda could ever be, the blackout of Journalists and dissident voices from the intellectual sphere of Iranian thinkers is better, in the long run, than disinformation which will later be proven false due to the existence of leads for Westerners to trace and debunk.  No, Khameini has learned the omnipotent power of omission to silence public activism abroad…this he has learned from North Korea and China. 

To prove this point, where is Soroush?

In 2006, both Time and Foreign Policy magazines listed Abdul Karim Soroush as a notable top ten influential world thinker.  Listed as a dissident reformer by these publications, his history is intimately interwoven with the creation of the Islamic Establishment during the Khomeini Revolution.  After falling out with the Establishment of the Wilayat al Faqih in the first decade of the Revolution, Soroush’s theories of knowledge led him to reject, in principle, the infallibility of the clerical elite in their interpretation and application of Shariah Law and the dictates of Muhammad in the political sphere. 

As early as 1995 and 1996, commentators like Robin Wright were suggesting that Soroush may be the Martin Luther that Islam has been waiting for in the much opined reformation of Islam into a moderate force for democracy and peace.  It would seem that this influential Iranian intellectual should be in the mix on the streets and speakhards of Tehran beneath the green banners of this Moussavi counter-cultural Revolution if indeed the infallibility of the Ayatollah is to be questioned in full and in a manner that resounds with the crowds of opposition Moussavi supporters. 

So, where is Soroush?  Moreover, why is it important, moreso now than ever, that we, in the West, are updated to his whereabouts? 

Losing the Buck

Since Obama took office, his policy of “Engagement” with the Muslim world has leaned toward the brink of submission through an ever widening circle of  dhimmipolitik thinkers.  The reason for this is due to his perception of the “right” war.  In the Obama frame, Iraq was the wrong war to fight and the goal is to extract American troops from the effort.  The Democrat Mantra of “no occupation” is a kneejerk position guided by far left peaceniks – the same peaceniks who were marching in the streets during the first Gulf War, chanting “No blood for Oil”.  Indeed, whenever the Iraq situation is brought up, one can’t help but note that for the entirety of the second Bush term the left wing of America and Europe published articles featuring the word “Occupation”, knowing that the Muslim World perceives any infidel presence in their lands as a crime against Allah if that infidel is not in complete submission to the aims and purposes of the Islamic Leadership.  Iraq may not have been the right war; however, it is instructive to consider the Obama line on the war being the “wrong war” in this “submission” based position.  Why is the Afghanistan campaign considered the “right” war to our young President?  It deserves analysis and consideration on the surface; however, the perception’s actual manifestations have ended in the new Iranian pickle. 

A Basij Mutiny?

Are we witnessing a Mutiny of the Basij in the Iranian Streets?

Generally, experts and writers on any topic strive to demonstrate their grasp of crisis situations and intend to bring order out of the chaos of geopolitical turmoil by relying on their years of research and study of the regional or local stage in question. However, in terms of grasping the situation in the Iranian Street, following the election of Ahmadinejad over Moussavi and the Ayatollah’s blessing of the Islamic Establishment’s deliberation on the populist vote’s legitimacy, what is important are the unknowns, particularly in relation to the Basij Militia.

In the Ayatollah Khameini’s Friday Sermon of June 19th, 2009, the Ayatollah scolded Basij elements who perpetrated heinous crimes against humanity in their assault on homes and barracks in the name of the Khomeini Revolution. In addition, Khameini chastised those who believe in the possibility that the Islamic Establishment of the Wilayat al Faqih could make an 11 million vote counting error, while dressing down reformers such as Khatemi and Rafsanjani, who hold the ability direct and incite masses of their supporters to the will of the agitating protestors. The children of Rafsanjani were also recognized in the invective and given sharp warning over their activities. The problem is, the Western World, slowly finding itself in solidarity with the “democracy” seekers whose blood is running in the streets of Iran, is blind to the realities of the struggle.

On the surface, the reason for the blindness is because of the media blackout imposed by the Islamic Establishment, which has summarily blocked Western Journalists from taking notes or shooting footage at the street level; which has singled out and targeted Western Journalists and rounded them up into prisons for the crime of curiosity and truthseeking; which has jailed dissenting editors, thinkers and writers of the Persian, Arabic, and Muslim stripes without regard for anything but the Will of the Khomeinist Elite; which has blocked visas for Western and outsider journalists, who seek to cover the story inside the auspices of the Iranian borders. This blindness gave rise to the cyber guerillas on YouTube, FaceBook and Twitter, who seek, no doubt at their own peril and for a multiplicity of agendas and reasons, to open the closed system of totalitarian dictatorship and pierce the veil of the Ayatollah’s stomp grounds.