History > 2012 > USA > International (III)

A North Korean man clears snow from a path next to a monument

at the site of the Samjiyon Grand Monument

in Samjiyon, North Korea on April 3.

Photograph:

David Guttenfelder/Associated Press

North Korea marks 100th anniversary of founder's birth

Boston Globe > Big Picture

April 11, 2012

http://www.boston.com/bigpicture/2012/04/north_korea_marks_100th_annive.html

The Massacre at Houla

May 29, 2012
The New York Times

The decision on Tuesday by the United States, Britain, France and at least five other major nations to expel senior Syrian diplomats was a powerful sign of international revulsion at the massacre of more than 100 Syrians in the village of Houla. But it was still short of the tougher diplomatic and economic sanctions needed to put real pressure on President Bashar al-Assad and his cronies. Russia, in particular, can finally help, or continue to be a roadblock to tougher action.

Mr. Assad is responsible for killing an estimated 12,000 people during his reign of terror, now in its 14th month. Kofi Annan, the special envoy for the United Nations and the Arab League, was in Damascus on Tuesday trying to keep alive a peace plan under which Mr. Assad promised six weeks ago to end the violence. The massacre on Friday was just the latest evidence that he never intended to follow through.

According to a United Nations count, the victims included 49 children and 34 women. The government tightly controls access to the country, so there is some uncertainty about what happened. A spokesman for the United Nations high commissioner for human rights said fewer than 20 of the Houla victims were killed by artillery — weapons the government possesses and the opposition does not.

Syrian officials blamed “terrorists” for the attacks. We assign far more credibility to villagers who told United Nations monitors that “shabiha,” or government thugs associated with Mr. Assad’s Alawite sect, committed at least some of the killings by shooting people — including entire families — at close range.

It is significant that the United Nations Security Council acted quickly and unanimously on Sunday to condemn the bloodshed and censure the Syrian government for using heavy artillery against civilians, even though it did not actually assign blame. Too often in the past, China and Russia, Syria’s main enablers, delayed Council action and twice they vetoed sanctions. Officials from both countries complain that Council action could lead to foreign intervention in Syria, as in Libya.

But Gen. Martin Dempsey, the chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, warned on Sunday that it is continued atrocities that could make intervention more likely. Any outside intervention risks fueling a wider war. Iran is already meddling, and the increasingly sectarian conflict has begun spilling into Lebanon, Turkey, Jordan and Iraq.

Sanctions imposed by the United States, the European Union and others are having an effect. Still, a United Nations arms embargo and the toughest possible comprehensive economic sanctions are long overdue. Russia has the most leverage, but, inexcusably, it still sells arms and coal to Syria and uses its Mediterranean port of Tartus.

We can see no easy solutions to Syria, despite Mitt Romney’s facile criticism of President Obama. In a campaign statement issued on Tuesday, Mr. Romney called for “more assertive measures to end the Assad regime.”

But he fails to say how he could be more successful at getting Russia to “cease selling arms to the Syrian government” or how arming a fractious opposition could be effective. And there’s not a hint of what it means to “end the regime” and whether that would require American troops. Could he possibly be eager for another war? If Mr. Romney has good ideas, everyone would like to hear them.

    The Massacre at Houla, NYT, 29.5.2012,
    http://www.nytimes.com/2012/05/30/opinion/the-massacre-at-houla.html

Annan Arrives in Syria,

Urging Cease-Fire After Massacre

May 28, 2012
The New York Times
By NEIL MacFARQUHAR

BEIRUT, Lebanon — Kofi Annan, the United Nations special envoy for Syria, arrived Monday in Damascus, where he expressed horror at the massacre of more than 100 villagers in Houla and urged both sides to stop fighting.

"I am personally shocked and horrified by the tragic incident in Houla two days ago, which took so many innocent lives, children, women and men," Mr. Annan said from the lobby of his hotel in brief remarks that were broadcast by satellite television networks.

He stressed that respecting the cease-fire was the responsibility of all sides, saying his message of peace was intended "for everyone with a gun." Mr. Annan, a former secretary general of the United Nations, is scheduled to meet with Walid Mouallem, the Syrian foreign minister, later on Monday and with President Bashar al-Assad on Tuesday. He will also meet with opposition figures from within Syria.

The United Nations Security Council on Sunday unanimously condemned the Syrian government for its role in the massacre of at least 108 villagers, with new details emerging from international observers that appeared to prompt rare Russian cooperation in criticizing its ally in Damascus.

The 15-member Council approved a statement that, while not blaming the Syrian government directly for all the deaths, rebuked it for its use of tanks and artillery against civilians despite agreeing to the April 12 cease-fire.

“The evidence is clear — it is not murky,” Peter Wittig, the German envoy, told reporters after the emergency meeting. “There is a clear government footprint in those killings.”

The main point of Mr. Annan's talks will be to try to implement a six-point plan the government agreed to in March, which includes the cease-fire, political dialogue and the right of Syrians to demonstrate.

But Mr. Assad has repeatedly shown himself to be impervious to international pressure. A string of international leaders have criticized the Syrian leader for promising to respect the cease-fire while continuing to use force to try to put down the uprising. Indeed, there were reports of another case of Syrian shelling of civilians on Sunday and early Monday, this time at Hama, a center of resistance where activists said dozens had been killed. The details could not be confirmed.

Mr. Annan, the envoy of both the United Nations and the Arab League, comes with a new mandate from the Security Council — including Russia — to implement his plan. The council requested that the investigation into the Houla attacks proceed, he said, and noted that Syria has said it had also appointed a committee to look into the attacks.

"Those responsible for these brutal crimes must be held accountable,” Mr. Annan said. He also urged the Syrian government “to take bold steps to signal that it is serious in its intention to resolve this crisis peacefully and for everyone involved to help create the right context for a credible political process.”

From the beginning, his plan has been given slim chances of success. But it was seen as an acceptable means to try to bridge the differences over Syria between the West and the Arab states on one side and Russia, China and Iran on the other.

Some analysts have called it an international stalling measure, because the Western appetite for military intervention in the conflict is low even in the absence of Russian opposition.

In Moscow on Monday, the Russian foreign minister, Sergey V. Lavrov, and his British counterpart, William Hague, agreed on the need to fully implement the six-point peace plan negotiated under United Nations auspices.

Mr. Hague stressed that Russia had a special role in pressuring the Syrian government to implement the plan, while acknowledging some differences over Syria. “The absolute urgent priority is to have the Annan plan implemented,” Mr. Hague told a joint news conference, particularly getting a political process started.

Mr. Lavrov stressed that while Russia was not tied to Mr. Assad staying in power, the main point was that there be a transition that the Syrians themselves piloted. Russian policy on Syria has long been motivated by blocking any repeat of the outside interference that took place in Libya.

“It is not the most important thing who is in power in Syria, what regime has power,” Mr. Lavrov said. “For us, the main thing is to put an end to the violence among civilians and to provide for political dialogue under which the Syrians themselves decide on the sovereignty of their country.”

Without naming any countries, he also said that Syria’s immediate neighbors who opposed the Assad government were not helping the situation by pushing regime change. “We do exert pressure on the Syrian government daily,” Mr. Lavrov said, adding that supporters of the opposition should do the same in pushing toward a political solution.

The United Nations says at least 108 people, including 49 children and 34 women, died in Friday’s attacks in the area of Houla, a collection of Sunni villages 15 miles northwest of the central city of Homs. Villagers told the United Nations monitors that at least some of the killings had been committed by “shabiha,” or government thugs, at close range — those combatants tend to be Alawites, the same minority sect that includes Mr. Assad.

The Council’s statement is sure to be a factor in efforts by Mr. Annan to begin negotiating with the government to carry out the peace plan.

Some Syrian opposition figures have criticized Western efforts to push the cease-fire when it was clear that the government held it in contempt, and a few threatened vengeance against Alawites.

The issue also reverberated in partisan politics in the United States, with Mitt Romney, the presumed Republican presidential nominee, calling the massacre “horrific” and criticizing President Obama for backing the Annan plan.

“The Annan ‘peace’ plan — which President Obama still supports — has merely granted the Assad regime more time to execute its military onslaught,” the Romney statement said. “The United States should work with partners to organize and arm Syrian opposition groups so they can defend themselves.”

Russia has typically rejected any international effort to support the opposition in a way that might repeat the NATO military intervention in Libya, and despite strong statements, the West has avoided getting further embroiled in the Syria fighting out of fear of the long-term consequences.

In a three-page letter on Sunday, Ban Ki-moon, the United Nations secretary general, demanded a concrete attempt to censure Syria and endorse the cease-fire.

In his letter, Mr. Ban skated close to blaming Syrian government shelling for at least some of the deaths in Houla while carefully noting that the cause had not been completely determined. United Nations monitors “observed shotgun wounds and wounds consistent with artillery fire.”

The Russians seemed to be swayed by the arguments that it made little sense that the opposition, which is heavily Sunni Muslim, or even extremist jihadist elements would kill so many of their own faith in cold blood, said one Security Council diplomat, speaking anonymously about a closed-door session.

Over all, Mr. Ban's letter said the monitors found evidence of “appalling and brutal crimes, which involved indiscriminate and disproportionate use of force.”

One of the reasons that the Security Council had to act firmly, Mr. Ban said, is that ordinary Syrians are blaming the unarmed United Nations observers for not doing more to stop the violence, even if there are misconceptions about their role.

The Syrian government on Sunday rejected any tie to the massacre. “We unequivocally deny the responsibility of government forces for the massacre,” Jihad Makdissi, the spokesman for the Foreign Ministry, told a news conference. He reiterated government claims that the killings were the result of a terrorist attack, and he regretted that the United Nations and other foreign governments seemed to have accepted the opposition’s version of events.

Amateur videos said to be taken in the aftermath showed row after row of victims, many of them small children, with what appeared to be bullet holes in their temples or what the opposition said were stab wounds.

Mr. Makdissi said the army did not send any tanks into the town of Houla, that security forces did not leave their positions and remained in a defensive posture. Instead, he said, hundreds of gunmen armed with machine guns, mortars and antitank missiles began attacking government positions in a skirmish that lasted much of the day and well into the night. Three soldiers were killed and 16 wounded, he said.

Kuwait, which currently holds the presidency of the Arab League, announced an emergency meeting of Arab foreign ministers on the massacre. Syrian ties with the League were strained last year after its membership was suspended.

In Istanbul, Burhan Ghalioun, the president of the Syrian National Council, the main opposition group in exile, called on the international community to honor its commitment to protect Syrian civilians, saying if it did not, they would have no choice than to take matters into their own hands. “The international community suffers from a lack of will when it comes to protecting Syrian civilians,” Mr. Ghalioun, who is leaving the presidency, told a news conference. “The situation in Syria is truly explosive.”

Hwaida Saad contributed reporting from Beirut, and Ellen Barry from Moscow.

    Annan Arrives in Syria, Urging Cease-Fire After Massacre, NYT, 28.5.2012,
    http://www.nytimes.com/2012/05/29/world/middleeast/syria-pressed-on-peace-plan-after-un-condemnation.html

Attacks in Yemen Raise Concerns About Qaeda Affiliate

May 21, 2012
The New York Times
By ALAN COWELL and RICK GLADSTONE

LONDON — Yemen was rocked by its worst terrorist bombing in years on Monday when a suicide attacker disguised as a Yemeni soldier blew himself up in the midst of a military parade rehearsal near the presidential palace in Sana, the capital. The Yemen Defense Ministry said more than 90 people were killed and hundreds wounded.

News reports described scenes of horrific carnage on the parade grounds. Suspicions of responsibility immediately fell on an Al Qaeda affiliate in Yemen, the Middle East’s most impoverished country, which has endured months of protests and insurgency since the first stirrings of the Arab Spring revolts last year.

“This is a real massacre,” a soldier identified as Ahmed Sobhi was quoted by The Associated Press as saying. “There are piles of torn body parts, limbs and heads. This is unbelievable.”

The parade rehearsal bombing coincided with other news reports that Al Qaeda gunmen had fired on American Coast Guard instructors in the Yemen port city of Hodeida, with at least one American wounded. But the Coast Guard disputed the reports, saying it had no staff in Yemen. It was unclear if the suicide bombing and shooting were related.

The suicide bombing attack in Sana, which appeared to catch the Yemen defense forces totally by surprise, was easily the bloodiest in years and presented a major new challenge to President Abdu Rabbu Mansour Hadi. He took power in February from former President Ali Abdullah Saleh, the longtime autocratic ruler whose unwillingness to cede power had long been an underlying cause of the mayhem in the country.

News reports said the attacker looked like a soldier participating in the drill and that he detonated a suicide belt just before the defense minister, Nasser Ahmed, and his immediate subordinates had been expected to greet the troops. The BBC said most of the casualties were members of the Central Security Organization, a paramilitary force commanded by Yahya Saleh, a nephew of the former president.

The violence came at a particularly delicate time with Yemen drawing increased concern in the United States that it is unable to curb the influence of Islamic militants after the months of political instability.

Last week, the Yemeni government said that it had intensified efforts to take back southern towns from Islamist insurgents with airstrikes and ground assaults that left dozens of people dead, including some civilians, according to officials and witnesses on the ground.

The escalation came shortly after John O. Brennan, President Obama’s counterterrorism adviser, visited Sana, and less than a week after the disclosure of a foiled plot by Al Qaeda’s Yemen-based affiliate, Al Qaeda in the Arabian Peninsula, to smuggle a suicide bomber aboard a jetliner bound for the United States.

The United States has also stepped up drone strikes in Yemen in recent days.

The spread of Islamist control in southern Yemen has deeply embarrassed the Yemeni government and is seen by analysts as a source of grave concern to the United States and Saudi Arabia, the two chief targets of the local Qaeda affiliate. A group of donors known as Friends of Yemen is scheduled to meet Wednesday in Riyadh, the Saudi capital.

Alan Cowell reported from London and Rick Gladstone from New York.

    Attacks in Yemen Raise Concerns About Qaeda Affiliate, NYT, 21.5.2012,
    http://www.nytimes.com/2012/05/22/world/middleeast/suicide-attack-in-yemen.html

Can Islamists Be Liberals?

May 13, 2012
The New York Times
By MUSTAFA AKYOL

Istanbul

FOR years, foreign policy discussions have focused on the question of whether Islam is compatible with democracy. But this is becoming passé. In Tunisia and Egypt, Islamists, who were long perceived as opponents of the democratic system, are now promoting and joyfully participating in it. Even the ultra-Orthodox Salafis now have deputies sitting in the Egyptian Parliament, thanks to the ballots that they, until very recently, denounced as heresy.

For those concerned about extremism in the Middle East, this is good news. It was the exclusion and suppression of Islamists by secular tyrants that originally bred extremism. (Ayman al-Zawahri, Al Qaeda’s leading ideologue, was a veteran of Hosni Mubarak’s torture chambers.) Islamists will become only more moderate when they are not oppressed, and only more pragmatic as they face the responsibility of governing.

But there is another reason for concern: What if elected Islamist parties impose laws that curb individual freedoms — like banning alcohol or executing converts — all with popular support? What if democracy does not serve liberty?

This question is seldom asked in the West, where democracy is often seen as synonymous with liberalism. However, as Fareed Zakaria warned in his 2003 book “The Future of Freedom,” there are illiberal democracies, too, where the majority’s power isn’t checked by constitutional liberalism, and the rights and freedoms of all citizens are not secured. This is a risk for the post-Arab Spring countries, and even for post-Kemalist Turkey. The real debate, therefore, is whether Islam is compatible with liberalism.

The main bone of contention is whether Islamic injunctions are legal or moral categories. When Muslims say Islam commands daily prayers or bans alcohol, are they talking about public obligations that will be enforced by the state or personal ones that will be judged by God?

For those who believe the former, Saudi Arabia might look like the ideal state. Its religious police ensure that every Saudi observes every rule that is deemed Islamic: women are forced to cover themselves, men are forced to frequent the mosque, and everyone is barred from anything considered sinful. Yet members of the Saudi elite are also famous for trips abroad, where they hit wild nightclubs to commit the sins they can’t at home. And while this is their civil right, it raises the question of whether Saudi Arabia’s intense piety is hypocritical.

By contrast, rather than imposing Islamic practices, the ultra-secular Turkish Republic has for decades aggressively discouraged them, going so far as to ban head scarves. Yet Turkish society has remained resolutely religious, thanks to family, tradition, community and religious leaders. Hence in today’s Turkey, where one has the freedom to choose between the bar and the mosque, many choose the latter — based on their own consciences, not the dictates of the state.

Yet even in Turkey, where democracy is rapidly being consolidated under Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdogan’s Justice and Development Party, known as A.K.P., there are reasons to worry that illiberal democracy could emerge. For Turkey still suffers from a paranoid nationalism that abhors minority rights, a heavy-handed judiciary designed to protect the state rather than its citizens, and an intolerant political culture that regards any criticism as an attack and sees provocative ideas as criminal.

These obstacles to liberal democracy are unrelated to religion though; they are the legacy of years of secular but authoritarian politics. But the A.K.P., which has been in power for almost a decade and has introduced important liberal reforms, has lately let its progressivism wane. The party has absorbed some of the traditional illiberalism of the establishment in Ankara, the capital, that it now fully dominates. It has not been too Islamic; it is just proving to be too Turkish.

As the A.K.P.’s rule empowers Turkey’s religiously conservative majority, it is imperative that the new elite liberalize the political system, rather than simply co-opt it for their own advantage. And as new questions about religion and public life emerge — Should schools promote Islam? Should alcohol sales be restricted? Should the state instruct private TV channels to uphold “moral values”? — the government must protect civil liberties, including the “freedom to sin,” and constrain those who seek to use state power to impose their values on others.

If Turkey succeeds in that liberal experiment, and drafts its new constitution-in-the-making accordingly, it can set a promising example for Islamist-led governments in Tunisia, Egypt and elsewhere. All of these countries desperately need not only procedural democracy, but also liberalism. And there is an Islamic rationale for it as well: Imposed religiosity leads to hypocrisy. Those who hope to nurture genuine religiosity should first establish liberty.

Mustafa Akyol, a Turkish journalist,

is the author of “Islam Without Extremes: A Muslim Case for Liberty.”

    Can Islamists Be Liberals?, NYT, 13.5.2012,
    http://www.nytimes.com/2012/05/14/opinion/can-islamists-be-liberals.html

Behind Twists of Diplomacy

in the Case of a Chinese Dissident

May 9, 2012
The New York Times
By STEVEN LEE MYERS and MARK LANDLER

WASHINGTON — Over two days of meetings with China’s leaders in Beijing last week, Secretary of State Hillary Rodham Clinton had not uttered a word about Chen Guangcheng as her aides arranged to transfer the blind Chinese dissident from the United States Embassy to a hospital, only to have the plan unexpectedly blow up. Then, last Friday, she finally broached the subject with China’s senior foreign policy official, Dai Bingguo.

Mr. Chen, she said, should go to the United States after all.

The Chinese were furious. They considered Mrs. Clinton’s request a betrayal of American assurances made during 30 hours of talks. China had insisted on absolute secrecy, demanding no public confirmation that Mr. Chen was in the embassy by any Americans, even members of Congress, whom the Obama administration kept in the dark.

“I don’t want to talk to him anymore,” Cui Tiankai, the vice foreign minister, erupted after Mrs. Clinton intervened, gesturing toward Kurt M. Campbell, an assistant secretary of state and a crucial negotiator.

The confrontation was a pivotal moment in a diplomatic drama replete with unanticipated twists, threats and counterthreats, and at times comical intrigue. Mr. Campbell, for example, took to sneaking out of his hotel in Beijing through an entrance by the garbage bins to avoid public attention.

The Chinese security apparatus, meanwhile, aggressively tapped and blocked phone calls by embassy officials, with an agent at one point brazenly dialing into a conversation between Mr. Chen and his wife on the cellphone of the deputy chief of mission, Robert S. Wang. The Americans, fearing that the Chinese would restrict access to Mr. Chen’s hospital, even considered disguising an employee as a nurse to gain entry.

Mrs. Clinton’s intervention ultimately resulted in a second arrangement to allow Mr. Chen to study at New York University but not to seek asylum, which the Chinese considered an affront. Under terms that have not been disclosed, Mr. Chen is expected to leave in days. The outcome, said several officials who recounted the story, reflected a maturing relationship now able to weather a fraught diplomatic entanglement. The officials would discuss diplomatic talks only on the condition of anonymity.

“At a strategic level I think the two sides will quietly take some confidence from this,” a senior administration official said.

The agreement came at the cost of what the officials said was considerable strain on both sides, and it could still fall apart, though Mr. Chen said Tuesday that the authorities had accepted his application to travel abroad. Yet the frenzied days and sleepless nights seem to have averted a major embarrassment for the administration and defused a crisis that threatened to upend relations between the two countries.

Mr. Chen’s case highlighted what the Americans view as an intensifying struggle within the Chinese leadership between hard-liners and reformers. At one point during the talks, the State Department’s legal adviser, Harold H. Koh, encountered officials from China’s powerful Ministry of State Security arguing in the hallway with their counterparts from the Ministry of Foreign Affairs, saying Mr. Chen should be punished, not coddled by the Americans.

At the center of it was Mr. Chen, who after his harrowing escape from Chinese security officials and arrival at the embassy experienced wild mood swings — crying at times — even as he bargained with the cunning of the lawyer he had taught himself to be.

Once released to the hospital, he used three preprogrammed cellphones provided by the Americans to press his demands in public. He did not want asylum, he said, but rather an investigation by Chinese central government authorities into his mistreatment.

The use of technology — posts on Twitter, a dramatic call to a Congressional hearing — boxed in the Chinese but also left Americans scrambling. After speaking to his lawyer and his wife, Mr. Chen abruptly changed his mind and decided he could not stay in China. At that point the American officials were in the dark about his shift.

“It took us a little while — we were already unbelievably exhausted — to find our bearings,” the senior administration official said of Mr. Chen’s change of heart. What complicated the diplomacy was the fact that the Chinese considered the very notion of negotiations over a Chinese citizen unacceptable. They refused to make any binding commitments to the Americans, exposing the administration to criticism once Mr. Chen left the embassy. Even now, there is no official agreement, but simply a series of “understandings.”

One of the senior American officials likened it to the Shanghai Communiqué, the 1972 agreement that opened the door to relations between the United States and China but artfully left ambiguous the status of Taiwan.

President Obama, who was first notified when Mr. Chen was already in the embassy, refused to comment on his fate, even when asked directly. That and Mrs. Clinton’s avoidance of his case in her meetings with China’s leaders gave the Chinese space to resolve the matter quietly.

“Even if we had negotiated a text, which would have taken six months, the Chinese could have nullified it,” this official said. “Face is more important in Asian society than any contract.”

The Americans knew Mr. Chen’s plight well. He was jailed in 2006 after helping villagers in Shandong Province sue the local authorities for subjecting women to forced abortions and sterilizations. After his release in 2010, the authorities kept him under a form of extralegal house arrest.

Even so, the officials said they knew nothing of his preparations to escape from his farmhouse on the night of April 22.

They learned of it only when He Peirong, a rights advocate, called the embassy three days later and told officials there that he was in hiding on the outskirts of Beijing, his foot broken from a fall during the escape.

After a late-night meeting at the State Department on April 25, Mrs. Clinton approved a plan to spirit him into the embassy, an operation that involved hustling him from one car to another twice. “Everyone understood the magnitude of the decision, how unpredictable it was, and that there would be consequences,” the senior official said.

With Mr. Chen inside the embassy, the administration held a series of meetings in Washington to decide how to manage the crisis — with the State Department leading the effort and the White House overseeing it through frequent secure videoconference calls. On April 27, Mr. Campbell informed the Chinese ambassador in Washington, Zhang Yesui, of Mr. Chen’s whereabouts. The diplomat appeared stunned.

Mr. Campbell then flew to Beijing, where he joined Ambassador Gary Locke, who cut short a vacation in Bali, and Mr. Koh, who happened to be in China for a conference, to form the American negotiating team. Mr. Koh had been waiting to board a Yangtze River cruise when Mrs. Clinton’s chief of staff, Cheryl D. Mills, ordered him to find a secure phone. The closest one turned out to be four hours away in the United States Consulate in Chengdu.

An already complicated situation became grave when an embassy doctor examined Mr. Chen. In addition to the broken foot from his escape, he complained of severe abdominal pain. His stool contained so much blood that the doctor feared he might have colon cancer. That fueled the urgency to get him to a hospital.

The talks with the Chinese began on April 29, and did not start well. “We had to go through the process of him just ripping into us,” the senior official said, referring to Mr. Cui, who complained that the United States had violated diplomatic practice.

China’s negotiators suggested that they would cancel the Strategic and Economic Dialogue, which was scheduled to begin four days later with the arrival of Mrs. Clinton and Treasury Secretary Timothy F. Geithner. The Americans, in turn, hinted that they, too, were prepared to walk away, hoping to use the prospect of constructive talks as leverage.

Mr. Koh, who composed a memorandum that made the case for taking in Mr. Chen, proposed having him study at East China Normal University in Shanghai in a program sponsored by New York University. The Chinese objected, considering the program “too Western.” The Americans were soon holding parallels sets of talks, with Mr. Campbell meeting with the Chinese and Mr. Locke and Mr. Koh effectively negotiating with a mercurial Mr. Chen.

All along, the officials said, Mr. Chen said that he did not want to leave China, but that he feared leaving the embassy. At one point, Mr. Koh asked him if he was prepared to spend 30 years there, evoking the experience of other famous dissidents, like Daw Aung San Suu Kyi of Myanmar, and telling him about the travails of his own father, a diplomat, who fled South Korea for the United States in 1961.

Despite initial resistance, the Chinese appeared willing to consider options for Mr. Chen. One official said they wanted to resolve the case in 36 hours. They did not object to the possibility of his studying at seven other universities in China, but bristled at the idea of an investigation and were offended when the Americans presented a list of 13 people, including Mr. Chen’s brother and nephew, whom they wanted to protect from harassment. (Some have since been released.)

One Chinese official lashed out: “The whole thing could be resolved in 36 minutes, not 36 hours. Just turn him over.”

Mr. Chen, though, wanted a gesture. The Chinese authorities arranged for Mr. Chen’s wife, Yuan Weijing, and their two children to travel by train to Beijing. The American deputy chief of mission, Mr. Wang, met them and offered his phone to allow Mrs. Yuan to make the call that the Chinese agent monitored.

When Mr. Chen again hesitated, the Chinese indicated that they would send his family back, which critics have interpreted as a threat, saying it was conveyed to Mr. Chen by American officials effectively to coerce him to leave. Mr. Locke, Mr. Campbell and other officials have publicly denied that. Even so, one official acknowledged, “We told him very clearly that there was only so far we could go with assurances.”

The arrangement, reached hours after Mrs. Clinton arrived in Beijing that Wednesday, fell apart immediately. In the car, Mr. Chen called a lawyer, Teng Biao, who told him it was a mistake to leave the embassy. “No, no, I want to do this,” Mr. Chen replied, according to a person in the car. “It’s a good deal.”

The scene at the hospital quickly became confused. The Chinese did not object to allowing an American diplomat to stay overnight, contrary to reports that prompted the criticism. As with much of the story, the moment turned less on geopolitics than on human relations. The diplomat, in fact, left because he believed that Mr. Chen wanted privacy with his wife.

Thursday was chaotic, as reports that the agreement had fallen apart led Republican critics to castigate the administration. At the hospital, Mr. Chen underwent lengthy examinations, preventing the Americans from contacting him directly. Doctors found that he was suffering not from cancer, but from colitis.

In her meeting with Mr. Dai, the foreign policy official, on Friday, Mrs. Clinton never explicitly asked for anything. She made it clear, however, that she would have to speak about Mr. Chen when she appeared before the press. The subtlety worked: within hours, the Chinese released a statement that Mr. Chen could travel to study abroad like any citizen, and the State Department announced that it would expedite any request for a visa.

As one official put it, “The days of blowing up the relationship over a single guy are over.”

    Behind Twists of Diplomacy in the Case of a Chinese Dissident, NYT, 9.5.2012,
    http://www.nytimes.com/2012/05/09/world/asia/behind-twists-of-diplomacy-in-case-of-chen-guangcheng.html

Indians Host Clinton While Also Wooing Iran

May 8, 2012
The New York Times
By JIM YARDLEY

NEW DELHI — Admittedly, the timing was awkward. Secretary of State Hillary Rodham Clinton arrived in New Delhi this week after declaring that India should reduce imports of Iranian oil and comply with Western sanctions. Yet across town, India and Iran were trying to figure out ways to do business together.

In the main ballroom of a five-star hotel, an Iranian trade delegation met with Indian exporters, exchanging cards, sipping tea and nibbling on cookies. The Iranians met one Indian trade group on Monday, another on Tuesday and had more meetings planned in the country’s financial capital, Mumbai — a business courtship seemingly in open defiance of Mrs. Clinton’s hard line.

“I am sure the future of India-Iran trade is very good,” said Yahya Al Eshagh, president of the Tehran Chamber of Commerce, Industries and Mines and the leader of the Iranian delegation.

No doubt, this week’s diplomatic choreography — with the Americans on one side of the capital and the Iranians on the other — could easily have been interpreted as a deliberate provocation at a moment when the once-shiny partnership between India and the United States seems to have dulled. But if the scheduling was poorly planned, the situation actually provided an illuminating window into the realpolitik of Iranian sanctions and of how the United States and India, as well as China, are all trying to achieve their divergent goals.

The Obama administration, in trying to squeeze Iran by choking off foreign currency that might be used for its nuclear program, is pressuring Iran’s oil customers to reduce imports sharply or face punitive sanctions as soon as next month. Earlier this year, Mrs. Clinton announced exemptions for Japan and 10 European nations but provided no such waiver to India and China, the biggest importers of Iranian crude and the rising powers of Asia.

China and India had already rejected the threat of sanctions and vowed to act in their national interests. The Obama administration called on both countries to make significant reductions of imports. But behind the scenes, officials from all three countries were exploring ways to reduce Iranian oil exports while engineering workaround mechanisms so that India and China could pay for the oil they do buy. Indeed, both countries now have arrangements to buy Iranian oil in their domestic currencies — rather than the dollar — that could increase their exports to Iran and also make Iranian oil cheaper.

“It is a lot more complicated with India and China than with Japan or South Korea,” said Valerie Lincy, executive director of the Wisconsin Project on Nuclear Arms Control, which tracks Iran’s nuclear program. “The economies are structured differently, the amount of oil they are importing from Iran is different and the geopolitics are different.”

The Obama administration, which has courted India as a geopolitical partner, recognizes that India has its own interests to defend: Indian leaders want to maintain good relations with Washington, and avoid crippling sanctions, yet India is heavily dependent on foreign oil, meaning that drastic reductions could damage an already wobbling Indian economy.

Moreover, Indian politicians are loath to appear to be doing the bidding of Washington, even if quietly they are working to comply. Analysts say the Indian government has ordered domestic refineries to reduce imports of Iranian oil by more than 15 percent.

“India is clearly making an effort to reduce its dependence on Iran, and this is recognized by the U.S.,” said Harsh V. Pant, an India specialist at King’s College in London, in an e-mail. “But domestically, the Indian government cannot be seen to be buckling under any sort of U.S. pressure. So there is a lot of talk of expanding trade ties with Iran.”

Mrs. Clinton’s visit to India was the last stop in an Asian tour that began in China. Her agenda in China was overtaken by the plight of the blind dissident Chen Guangcheng, but Mrs. Clinton also spoke to Chinese leaders about their progress on reducing oil purchases from Iran.

In New Delhi, Mrs. Clinton discussed Iran and other issues with Prime Minister Manmohan Singh, while also meeting with Sonia Gandhi, president of the governing Indian National Congress Party. On Tuesday, she used a brief news conference to praise India as “a strong partner,” adding that India and the United States share a common goal of preventing Iran from getting a nuclear weapon.

“We commend India for the steps its refineries are taking to reduce its dependence on imports from Iran,” she said. “And we have been consulting with India, and working with them on some areas on alternative sources of supply. There’s no doubt that India and the United States are after the same goal.”

India’s external affairs minister, S. M. Krishna, appearing with Mrs. Clinton, portrayed India as acting in its own self-interest, while noting that Iran and India have longstanding cultural, economic and religious ties that cannot be reduced to the single issue of oil.

“It is natural for us to try and diversify our imports of oil and gas to meet the objective of energy security,” Mr. Krishna said.

Even as India reduces its oil imports from Iran, officials have been trying to figure out how to pay for its remaining Iranian oil purchases. Banking restrictions now make normal transactions with Iran almost impossible. This is why the Iranian trade delegation is in town: Iran has agreed to accept payment for 45 percent of oil sales to India in rupees, the Indian currency, much of which will be used to buy Indian exports.

Mrs. Clinton never mentioned the presence of the Iranian delegation, nor the rupee payment system, yet American officials do not seem to mind. Mark Dubowitz, an Iran specialist in Washington, said a primary purpose of sanctions is to starve Iran of the dollars and euros it needs to finance the country’s nuclear program. In the past, India paid for most of its oil purchases in dollars; under the new arrangement, India will buy nearly half its Iranian oil in rupees, which are not a fully convertible currency.

“This rupee account is very helpful,” said Mr. Dubowitz, executive director of Foundation for Defense of Democracies. “They can’t convert rupees into dollars or euros. They can’t repatriate rupees back to Iran. So the only thing they can do is buy Indian goods.”

At almost precisely the moment on Tuesday that Mrs. Clinton was speaking at her news conference, the Iranian trade delegation was a few miles away, in a basement conference hall of one of the city’s most prominent cultural centers, watching a slide show on Indian exports, including photos of Indian rice, tractors, auto spare parts, pharmaceuticals and more.

“We are very keen to work with you,” said Anil K. Agarwal, a businessman and officer with the Associated Chambers of Commerce and Industry of India.

In fact, the new payment arrangement for oil may help India reduce its enormous trade imbalance with Iran. Last year, India spent $988 million on Iranian imports, mostly on oil, more than 10 times the $91 million in goods that India exported to Iran.

Iranian leaders deny that they are developing nuclear weapons and say their nuclear program is for the peaceful development of energy. Mr. Eshagh, the leader of the Iranian delegation, never directly mentioned the sanctions, nor the fact that Mrs. Clinton was in town. But he did allude to “certain circumstances” and “some problems” that made trade more complicated. Still, he struck an upbeat tone.

“There is a vast potential for exports and imports between the two countries,” Mr. Eshagh told the audience, speaking through an interpreter. “We feel there is no difficulty regarding goods and their prices.”

It remains to be seen how extensively, or effectively, the new rupee payment system will be used. American officials will also be watching to ensure that no goods that are banned under the sanctions are exported to Iran under the system. Wheat, rice and pharmaceuticals are currently outside the sanctions, but sales of certain technologies, for example, are a cause of concern.

The question now is whether India has made the “significant reductions” required for exemptions. Indian officials believe they have now met the American demand, and many analysts expect the Obama administration officials to grant an exemption during a high-level Strategic Dialogue between the two countries next month in Washington.

Gardiner Harris and Hari Kumar contributed reporting.

    Indians Host Clinton While Also Wooing Iran, NYT, 8.5.2012,
    http://www.nytimes.com/2012/05/09/world/asia/india-and-iran-keep-economic-relations-despite-us-nudge.html

Chinese Dissident Is Released From Embassy,

Causing Turmoil for U.S.

May 2, 2012
The New York Times
By JANE PERLEZ and SHARON LaFRANIERE

BEIJING — In a series of dramatically conflicting developments on Wednesday, the Chinese dissident Chen Guangcheng left American custody under disputed circumstances, and what briefly looked like a deft diplomatic achievement for Secretary of State Hillary Rodham Clinton turned into a potential debacle.

Mr. Chen, who was inside the American Embassy compound here for six days as the Chinese and American governments negotiated over his fate, left Wednesday afternoon in a deal that American officials hailed as a breakthrough because it would fulfill his wish to live safely in China.

But even as Americans were releasing photographs of a celebratory send-off of Mr. Chen from the embassy, his friends questioned the reliability of any Chinese promises to allow him to live openly in China, and Mr. Chen later said his decision to give up American protection had not been fully voluntary.

In a telephone interview Thursday morning from his bed at Chaoyang Hospital here, where he was receiving treatment as part of the deal between the Americans and Chinese, Mr. Chen, a lawyer who is blind, said he had left the embassy on his own volition after the Chinese government guaranteed that his rights would be protected. But he also said he had felt some pressure because he was told that Chinese officials had threatened to beat his wife to death if he remained under American protection.

Asked if American officials had encouraged him to leave, he said, “To a certain degree.” While he was treated well there, he said, “the U.S. government was not proactive enough.”

He said American officials contacted him Thursday morning and said they would visit later in the day,

In interviews Wednesday with Western journalists, Mr. Chen, said he wanted to leave China, preferably for the United States, because “guaranteeing citizens’ rights in China is empty talk,” an assertion that sharply undermines the American rationale for releasing him from diplomatic protection.

“My safety and my family’s safety are not guaranteed even now,” he said. “Their promises have not been fulfilled.”

The turn of events left Mrs. Clinton to begin her strategic dialogue with her Chinese counterparts on Thursday under a cloud of confusion. It also exposed the Obama administration to criticism from Republicans and human rights groups that it had rushed to resolve a delicate human rights case so that it would not overshadow other matters on the bilateral agenda that Mrs. Clinton previously called more important, including the Iranian and North Korean nuclear programs and China’s currency and trade policies.

Earlier in the day, senior State Department officials who had negotiated on Mr. Chen’s behalf said that he had repeatedly insisted he wanted to remain in China, and that the Chinese authorities had made concessions to make that possible. The officials said the Chinese had agreed to allow him to start a new life in Tianjin, a port city near the capital, where he could study law and live with his family. There, he would be free of the harassment and intimidation he had suffered for years at the hands of security officials in a rural village of Shandong Province, they said.

Mrs. Clinton, who arrived in Beijing about six hours before Mr. Chen’s release, said after his departure that the Chinese government had given understandings about his future. “Making those commitments a reality is the next crucial task,” she said.

She also said she was “pleased that we were able to facilitate Chen Guangcheng’s stay and departure from the U.S. Embassy in a way that reflected his choices and our values.”

“I was glad to have the chance to speak with him today and to congratulate him on being reunited with his wife and children,” she said.

But the deal began coming apart almost immediately, as the Chinese government issued a blistering statement to domestic news media saying the role the United States had played in the matter “is totally unacceptable to China.” The Foreign Ministry statement insisted that Washington offer an apology and punish officials involved in taking Mr. Chen into American protection.

State Department officials disputed Mr. Chen’s assertion, made in interviews Wednesday with Western news media, that American officials had relayed threats against his family by the Chinese authorities.

The officials said that they had passed along a Chinese message that Mr. Chen’s wife, Yuan Weijing, would be sent back to Shandong if he remained under American care, and that American officials could do nothing to ensure her safety there.

“At no time did any U.S. official speak to Chen about physical or legal threats to his wife and children, nor did Chinese officials make any such threats to us,” Victoria Nuland, the State Department spokeswoman, said in an e-mailed statement. “U.S. interlocutors did make clear that if Chen elected to stay in the embassy, Chinese officials had indicated to us that his family would be returned to Shandong, and they would lose their opportunity to negotiate for reunification.”

Mr. Chen’s statement he no longer wanted to stay in China contradicted what American officials said he had told them while in their care, and public statements Mr. Chen had made before he sought American protection.

His reversal, perhaps the result of panic at being left alone in a big Beijing hospital after a long ordeal that had begun with a daring escape from house arrest nearly two weeks ago, or of true second thoughts, could turn out to be a reflection of the American rush to have the scheduled economic and security talks unimpeded by a messy human rights case.

Mrs. Clinton has mentioned Mr. Chen’s bravery in public as one of the most startling among China’s human rights dissidents. But she has also made clear during her tenure as secretary of state that the vital economic and strategic dealings with China cannot become captive to the human rights cases.

Mrs. Clinton left the details of the negotiations over Mr. Chen to two of her top officials, Kurt Campbell, the assistant secretary of state for East Asian and Pacific affairs, and Harold Koh, the State Department legal adviser, and appeared to give her final blessing to the arrangements they had worked out after she landed in Beijing Wednesday morning.

Mr. Campbell said he felt the agreement with the Chinese forged a new model for how Chinese dissidents could stay in China, if they wanted to, rather than seeking residence in another country and losing their voice inside their homeland. He said it was unrealistic to expect that a written accord outlining the Chinese assurances could have been completed.

The deal came under sharp criticism in the United States.

Representative Christopher H. Smith, a Republican from New Jersey and an outspoken critic of China’s human rights record, said that given Mr. Chen’s fears, the administration should have considered granting him asylum.

“There are no safe places in China for dissidents,” Mr. Smith said. “Going to the hospital is no different from going to the police station.”

An outspoken supporter in the United States of Chinese dissidents, Bob Fu, who heads the ChinaAid Association and was involved in Mr. Chen’s escape from security officials last week, said he feared the “U.S. side has abandoned Mr. Chen.”

The trouble for the Americans began to emerge soon after 7 p.m. Wednesday when American diplomats and doctors at the hospital with Mr. Chen, who had injured his foot while fleeing house arrest, were told to leave by the hospital authorities, in accordance with visiting hours, two American officials said.

Mr. Chen said his wife and two children were still with him in his room Thursday after being allowed to stay overnight, but he told friends and reporters who could get through to him on the phone that he had expected round-the-clock American protection. An American official involved in the negotiations said that the embassy called Mr. Chen at 9 p.m. and that he said he was fine.

Jerome A. Cohen, a New York lawyer and a friend of Mr. Chen’s, said the dissident appeared to have panicked after being taken to the hospital. The authorities had cordoned off the room, denied visitors access and apparently limited his phone calls, Mr. Cohen said.

“The trouble is nobody has appeared to stay with him,” Mr. Cohen said of the diplomats who escorted him to the hospital. “That must have produced panic. His friends couldn’t get through.”

Perhaps most difficult for the State Department was the statement by Mr. Chen’s lawyer, Teng Biao, that his client had “changed his mind” and did not feel secure.

Mr. Chen even chose to dispute an account by American senior officials that he was so ebullient in talking to Mrs. Clinton on the phone during his ride to the hospital that he had said in his broken English: “I want to kiss you.” Instead, Mr. Chen said in the interview Thursday, he had said he wanted to “see” her.

Though the outcome of his case remained unclear, American officials said they felt the Chinese had been surprisingly forthcoming in their willingness to discuss the terms of Mr. Chen’s remaining in the country.

Many experts had doubted after Mr. Chen sought American protection that the Chinese authorities would discuss the terms of a Chinese citizen’s rights under Chinese law with the United States, and that the standoff over his case could persist for a long time. Outlining the terms, American officials said the Chinese had agreed Mr. Chen could leave his home province, where he had suffered repeated abuses, and move to one of seven cities chosen by the two sides to study law.

A self-educated lawyer, Mr. Chen indicated he wanted to study law at Tianjin, a city about 40 minutes from Beijing, they said. The Americans pledged to find funds for Mr. Chen’s tuition and family expenses from private sources.

The Chinese also pledged to investigate the Shandong provincial authorities and their harsh treatment of Mr. Chen, something he was most anxious about, the American officials said.

Steven Lee Myers contributed reporting from Washington,

and Andrew Jacobs from New York. Edy Chin contributed research from Beijing.

This article has been revised to reflect the following correction:

Correction: May 2, 2012

An earlier version of this article misspelled

Hillary Rodham Clinton’s middle name as Rodman.

    Chinese Dissident Is Released From Embassy, Causing Turmoil for U.S., NYT, 4.5.2012,
    http://www.nytimes.com/2012/05/03/world/asia/chen-guangcheng-leaves-us-embassy-in-beijing-china.html

Blind Chinese Dissident

Leaves U.S. Embassy for Medical Treatment

May 2, 2012
The New York Times
By JANE PERLEZ

BEIJING — Chen Guangcheng, the blind Chinese dissident who fled house arrest last month in a dramatic escape from security forces, left the American Embassy in Beijing on Wednesday after securing assurances from the Chinese government that he would remain safe, American officials said in the first account of his diplomatically tense six-day stay there.

The officials described details of the negotiations between both governments and Mr. Chen as well as a telephone call to the dissident from Secretary of State Hillary Rodham Clinton after he left the embassy compound for treatment at a medical facility in Beijing.

Mrs. Clinton said in a statement that she was “pleased that we were able to facilitate Chen Guangcheng’s stay and departure from the U.S. Embassy in a way that reflected his choices and our values. I was glad to have the chance to speak with him today and to congratulate him on being reunited with his wife and children.”

“Mr. Chen has a number of understandings with the Chinese government about his future, including the opportunity to pursue higher education in a safe environment,” she added. “Making these commitments a reality is the next crucial task.”

Mr. Chen entered the United States Embassy six days ago with the assistance of American officials because of the “exceptional circumstances, including his disabilities,” a senior American official told American reporters traveling with Mrs. Clinton. “On humanitarian grounds we assisted him and allowed him to remain on a temporary basis,” the official said.

Mr. Chen, a lawyer who had campaigned against forced abortions and sterilizations conducted as part of China’s policy of limiting families to one child, suffered an injury to his foot during his escape from his house in Shandong province last week and was walking with the help of a crutch, the official said.

During his time at the embassy, Mr. Chen adhered to his position that he was not seeking asylum in the United States but wanted to stay with his family in China as a free person, said the official, who was involved in the three-way negotiations that involved Mr. Chen and officials from the United States China.

“He expressed his hope to stay in China and he never varied from that,” a second senior official involved in the negotiations, who briefed reporters, said.

On Wednesday afternoon, after Mrs. Clinton’s arrival about six hours earlier, and after the Chinese had made commitments to guarantee his safety, the Ambassador Gary Locke asked Mr. Chen if he was ready to leave the American Embassy.

Mr. Chen, who speaks broken English, said in Chinese: “‘Let’s go,’” one of the two American officials said.

As he left the embassy for the hospital, Mrs. Clinton phoned Mr. Chen in what the two American officials said was an emotional conversation since both Mrs. Clinton and Mr. Chen knew of each other but had never met.

At the end of the talk, according to one of the officials, Mr. Chen said to Mrs. Clinton: “I would like to kiss you.”

The officials said that during the negotiations inside the embassy, Mr. Chen at times would sit with the two main negotiators, the State Department’s legal adviser, Harold Koh, and the assistant secretary of State for East Asian and Pacific affairs, Kurt M. Cambpell, holding each one of them by the hand.

After driving a short distance to the Chaoyang Hospital from the embassy compound, Mr. Chen was reunited with his wife and children, whom he had not seen in some time, the officials said. He was being treated by American and Chinese doctors, the officials said. Mr. Chen had agreed that his medical records be given to the Chinese doctors, they said.

Under the arrangement agreed to by the United States, China and Mr. Chen, he would be relocated to a different part of China from his hometown in Shandong Province, where he was under house arrest and where he says his family had been physically attacked, the officials said.

Mr. Chen would be allowed to enroll at a university to pursue his law studies, a profession in which he is self-taught, the senior official said. “He will have several university options,” one of the officials said.

The American officials said they were satisfied with the pledges from the Chinese authorities that Mr. Chen, 40, would be allowed to live a normal life. The Chinese promised to report any actions against him, they said.

Precisely what the Chinese government offered as a way of protection for Mr. Chen was not immediately clear. The American officials went out of their way to praise the Chinese negotiators. They described them as working “intensely and with humanity.”

There appeared to be no similar case in which a high-profile Chinese dissident had sought protection at the American Embassy and then returned to Chinese custody. American human rights officials and lawyers have often questioned whether the Chinese would provide the protection they promised in such a situation.

“This was not easy for the Chinese government,” one of the senior American officials said.

Only hours earlier, the crisis that has swirled around Mr. Chen seemed far from abating as China accused the United States of interfering in its affairs and demanded an apology from Washington for taking a Chinese citizen into the embassy “via abnormal means.”

“The Chinese side is strongly dissatisfied with the move,” the official Xinhua news agency quoted a Foreign Ministry spokesman, Liu Weimin, as saying. “The U.S. Embassy in Beijing has the obligation to observe relevant international laws and Chinese laws and it should not do anything irrelevant to its function.”

The two American officials declined to address the demand that the United States apologize for sheltering Mr. Chen and that the United States investigate the circumstance in which the embassy was used in what the Chinese said was an “abnormal” way.

“Our actions were lawful,” one of the American officials said.

Mrs. Clinton is in China for two days of scheduled talks with senior Chinese officials on economic and security matters.

She landed in Beijing shortly before 9 a.m. local time. Whether she took charge of negotiations was not immediately clear but Mr. Chen was admitted to the medical facility some hours after her arrival. Mr. Chen’s case will continue to overshadow the talks, known as the Strategic and Economic Dialogue, which are scheduled to begin Thursday.

But movement toward a resolution may ease some of the pressure. The Obama administration and the Chinese government have been anxious to ensure the case did not dominate the talks, which will cover subjects from North Korea to the global economy.

The last Chinese dissident to take refuge in an American diplomatic compound was Fang Lizhi, an astrophysicist, who walked into the embassy in Beijing with his wife in 1989, the day after the People’s Liberation Army crushed pro-democracy protests in Tiananmen Square.

The Chinese government regards foreign criticism of its human rights policies and practices as undue interference in its internal affairs, and it will almost certainly use the occasion of the talks to drive that point home, diplomats in Beijing said.

    Blind Chinese Dissident Leaves U.S. Embassy for Medical Treatment, NYT, 2.5.2012, http://www.nytimes.com/2012/05/03/world/asia/chen-guangcheng-leaves-us-embassy-in-beijing-china.html

Missed Chance

May 1, 2012
The New York Times

President Obama gave his first speech on Afghanistan in nearly a year, speaking from Bagram Air Base on the anniversary of Osama bin Laden’s killing. The White House set it up as a big moment, but the president squandered the chance to fully explain his exit strategy from a war Americans are desperate to see brought to an end.

Mr. Obama repeated his commitment that American combat troops would be withdrawn by the end of 2014 and that Afghan troops would be ready long before that to take over prime responsibility for the fight against the Taliban.

But the speech was frustratingly short on specifics. Mr. Obama didn’t explain what the United States and its allies planned to do to improve the training of Afghan forces so they can hold off the Taliban. Nor did he explain what President Hamid Karzai plans to do to rein in the corruption and incompetence that are the hallmark of his leadership and that have alienated so many of his own people, playing into the hands of the Taliban.

We have long supported the war in Afghanistan as a painful but necessary fight to ensure that Al Qaeda does not again have a major launching pad for attacking the United States. But we are increasingly concerned that Mr. Obama does not have a clear policy to ensure that the country does not implode once the Americans are gone.

The president’s brief, unannounced trip did accomplish one thing. He signed a long-delayed strategic partnership agreement with Mr. Karzai that is intended to signal that the United States will not cut and run, even after the 2014 withdrawal. That agreement is also short on specifics, but American officials say that Washington — and, they hope, the NATO allies — will provide some number of troops for years to come and billions in military and economic aid.

That may be a disappointment to Americans. But the United States will need some presence there to keep pummeling Al Qaeda and the Taliban on either side of the Pakistan-Afghan border.

That longer-term commitment also sends an important message to Afghans that Washington will not abandon them as it did after the Soviets were driven out, and that it is worth taking a chance on their government despite its deficiencies. It also tells the Taliban that they can’t just wait out the West — and need to seriously consider Mr. Obama’s offer of negotiations. Pakistan has long believed that it has to hedge its bets by cutting side deals with the extremists. We don’t know if this will change minds in Pakistan, but it takes away a rhetorical excuse.

Although the timing of Mr. Obama’s visit on the anniversary of the Bin Laden kill was contrived, his speech, wisely, had only a tinge of triumphalism. He said Washington has “devastated Al Qaeda’s leadership,” and insisted “the goal that I set — to defeat Al Qaeda, and deny it a chance to rebuild — is now within our reach.”

Mr. Obama’s political message, and motivation, for this trip was undeniable. Still, he deserves enormous credit for going after Bin Laden and for the relentless pursuit of Al Qaeda’s leaders in Pakistan. He has made far more progress, with far less posturing, than his predecessor, President George W. Bush.

Mr. Obama’s strongest argument for staying in Afghanistan for another two years is that it is the main base for continuing that fight and that, by 2014, the United States will be able to withdraw without seeing it turn once again into a haven for Al Qaeda. He didn’t make the case Tuesday night.

    Missed Chance, NYT, 1.5.2012,
    http://www.nytimes.com/2012/05/02/opinion/missed-chance.html

In Bahrain, More Clashes, and Death of a Protester

April 21, 2012
The New York Times
By SOUAD MEKHENNET

MANAMA, Bahrain — After a night of clashes between antigovernment demonstrators and the police, a protester was found dead Saturday near this capital, as Bahrain struggled to restore calm before an international auto race on Sunday. Opposition groups blamed the police for the death.

Bahrain, a Sunni-ruled monarchy in the Persian Gulf, has beaten back persistent protests from the country’s Shiite majority for more than a year. The protesters have intensified their actions in recent days, and clashed with the police again on Saturday, hoping to use the international attention focused on the country during the Formula One Grand Prix race to press their grievances.

The protester who died, Salah Abbas Habib Musa, 36, was a local leader of the antigovernment demonstrations and had taken part in one on Friday afternoon, family members and colleagues said. His brother, Hussain Abbas Habib Musa, said that he had joined another protest on Friday night outside Manama.

A security official who said he had seen the body said it had gunshot wounds, but a government spokesman, Abdulaziz Mubarak al-Khalifa, would not comment on the cause of death until an autopsy was completed.

The chief of public security, Maj. Gen. Tariq al-Hassan, said Mr. Musa’s body was found in Shakoura, on the outskirts of Manama. He said “the death was determined to have happened under suspicious circumstances.” The Interior Ministry said it was investigating. A spokesman for Al Wefaq, the largest opposition group in the kingdom, said Mr. Musa had been among a group of protesters beaten by the police, and that the police had killed him.

Antigovernment protesters have been demonstrating for democratic reforms here since the Arab Spring revolts erupted across the Middle East and North Africa last year. The Bahrain government quashed the protests soon after, backed by troops from Saudi Arabia and the United Arab Emirates, but they have never entirely ended.

The United States, which bases its Fifth Fleet in Bahrain, has been relatively subdued in its criticism of Bahrain’s leaders. Bahrain’s government says it has taken steps to address some complaints, including what some officials acknowledge is the brutality of the security forces.

Mariam Isa Ali Jawad, 33, Mr. Musa’s wife, said that her husband had been attending the daily protests and was one of the leaders in the Shakoura area.

Ms. Jawad said that although the government had accused his group of encouraging protesters to throw homemade bombs at the police, her husband was opposed to the use of violence. She said that he had been politically active and had spent five years in prison for his opposition activities.

Thousands of protesters, some hurling homemade bombs, clashed again on Saturday with the police, who responded with tear gas.

    In Bahrain, More Clashes, and Death of a Protester, NYT, 21.4.2012,
    http://www.nytimes.com/2012/04/22/world/middleeast/in-bahrain-more-clashes-and-death-of-a-protester.html

Assad’s Lies

April 20, 2012
The New York Times

The United Nations Security Council gave Syria’s president, Bashar al-Assad, a chance to end the killing and avoid complete chaos with a plan that called for a cease-fire, a withdrawal of troops from embattled cities and a political transition. It is deplorable — but no surprise — that he reneged on nearly every promise.

On Friday, activists reported that Syrian troops fired tear gas and bullets on thousands of protesters. The government is thwarting U.N. cease-fire monitors by restricting their numbers and movement. The monitors got off to a bad start, sparking outrage from the opposition after they said they would not circulate on Friday, the normal day for mass rallies. And according to the United Nations secretary general, Ban Ki-moon, the government is failing to provide needed food and medicine to 230,000 displaced people, and refusing to allow outside agencies to help.

Mr. Assad’s cruelty and blindness were predictable. What is unfathomable is why Russia and China continue to protect him. They have blocked the Security Council from imposing any sanctions. Even now, Russian officials put much of the blame for the bloodshed on the fractured, mostly peaceful opposition forces, not the Syrian Army with its heavy weapons.

Russia sells arms to Syria and uses its Mediterranean port of Tartus. And after the events in Libya, both Russia and China seem determined to deny the West another “win,” so they keep hanging on to Mr. Assad. At this point it should be clear that for the sake of a pointless geopolitical game, both countries are further tarnishing their global reputations. They are alienating governments and people throughout the region. And when Mr. Assad falls — and he will — the people of Syria will blame them for their complicity in this bloodbath.

Their enabling just gives Mr. Assad more time to kill — the death toll exceeds 9,000 — and makes a wider war more likely. (Iran is also an Assad enabler but has long stood outside the norms of international probity.)

Eight months ago, President Obama said “the time has come for President Assad to step aside.” The international community is still scrambling to find a way to make that happen. There are no easy solutions. The place to start is to push Moscow and Beijing to cut their losses.

The best approach would be a United Nations arms embargo and the toughest possible economic sanctions — if China and Russia will not block the Council. On Friday, Russia was still opposing a European proposal for even minimal penalties like a travel ban and an asset freeze.

Sanctions imposed by the United States, the European Union and others are having an effect and should be tightened. On Monday, the European Union is expected to take aim at the Assad family and its cronies by blocking the sale to Syria of luxury goods.

Turkey, which is caring for thousands of Syrian refugees, has suggested creating humanitarian corridors inside Syria, where civilians can shelter. We are skeptical. It would require air patrols and possibly troops for protection. And any outside intervention runs the risk of sparking a wider war. After Syrian forces sent shells across the Turkish border last week, the Turkish government hinted that it might invoke NATO’s Article 5 on mutual protection.

Washington and its allies need to summon all of the pressure they can find — and direct it at Damascus, Moscow and Beijing. That is the only way to stop the killing and avoid another war.

    Assad’s Lies, NYT, 20.4.2012,
    http://www.nytimes.com/2012/04/21/opinion/bashar-al-assads-lies.html

North Korea Provocations Won't Be Tolerated,

U.S. Diplomat Says

April 16, 2012
The New York Times
By CHOE SANG-HUN

SEOUL — A senior U.S. diplomat said Monday that the United States and its allies were determined to prevent any further provocations from North Korea following the failure of its rocket launching last week.

The comment from Kurt M. Campbell, assistant secretary of state for East Asian and Pacific affairs, came as signs emerged from Pyongyang that despite its embarrassing rocket failure, North Korea has retained the officials believed to be in charge of the North’s missile and nuclear programs.

“We agreed that even though the launch was a failure, it was a provocative action that threatens international security,” said Mr. Campbell, the highest U.S. diplomat to travel to Northeast Asia since the North’s failed launching. “The international community is united in its strong determination to discourage any further provocations” from North Korea, he added.

Mr. Campbell made the comments to reporters in Seoul after meeting officials there on Monday. He also met Japanese officials in Tokyo on Sunday. His trip was to seek “very clear and firm coordination” with key U.S. allies in Asia over how to deal with the launching, which the three governments considered a violation of U.N. Security Council resolutions, and also how to prevent more provocative actions from the North, including a possible nuclear test.

The rocket failure prompted speculation that the North Korean leadership might engineer a purge to assign the blame. But video footage from the large military parade in Pyongyang on Sunday showed that all three party officials in charge of the North’s defense industries — including Pak To-chun, party secretary for munitions industries, and Ju Kyu-chang, director of the party’s department for machinery industries — were present in their military uniforms.

Another important player in the North’s nuclear and missile programs — Paek Se-bong, head of the country’s Second Economic Commission — was also in attendance.

The three retained their seats in the country’s powerful National Defense Commission during a parliamentary meeting held the same day the rocket failed. The parliamentary meeting elected Kim Jong-un, the supreme North Korean leader, as head of the defense commission, the North’s top governing agency.

Also on Monday, Choson Sinbo, a pro-North Korean newspaper in Japan that often speaks for the Pyongyang government, reported that North Korea would embark on developing a rocket much bigger than the Unha-3, which disintegrated in mid-air on Friday.

The Unha-3 took off from a newly built launching pad near the western border with China. Experts who have examined the site through satellite imagery have said that it was designed for bigger rockets than the Unha-3.

North Korea’s unprecedented decision to admit the rocket failure Friday was proof that the launching was part of a peaceful program intended to put a satellite into orbit, and not a cover, as Washington said, for developing intercontinental ballistic missile technology, Choson Sinbo said.

In Seoul, President Lee Myung-bak of South Korea again accused the North Korean government of wasting money developing rockets rather than spending it to improve the well-being of its people.

The money squandered in the failed launching could have bought 2.5 million tons of badly needed corn, Mr. Lee said during his regular radio speech.

    North Korea Provocations Won't Be Tolerated, U.S. Diplomat Says, NYT, 16.4.2012,
    http://www.nytimes.com/2012/04/17/world/asia/
    north-korea-provocations-wont-be-tolerated-united-states-diplomat-says.html

Echoes of the End of the Raj

April 16, 2012
The New York Times
By KWASI KWARTENG

London

THE Arab Spring, the threat of Iran as an emerging nuclear power, the continuing violence in Syria and the American reluctance to get involved there have all signaled the weakness, if not the end, of America’s role as a world policeman. President Obama himself said in a speech last year: “America cannot use our military wherever repression occurs.”

America’s position today reminds me of Britain’s situation in 1945. Deep in debt and committed to building its National Health Service and other accouterments of the welfare state, Britain no longer could afford to run an empire.

Moreover, Britain, which so proudly ruled the waves a generation ago, was tired; it lacked the willpower to pursue its imperial destiny. America’s role as an imperialist is even more fragile, as it never had Britain’s self-confident faith in its own imperial destiny. Americans have always been ambivalent about the role of global hegemon.

Today, American retreat is not motivated by traditional isolationism, but by practical necessity. Like post-World War II Britain, contemporary America no longer has the financial resources to maintain an empire — one which, in America’s case, was pursued only halfheartedly in the first place. Deficits and debt have been more damaging to dreams of empire than any genuine shift in ideology.

My own parents grew up in the Gold Coast of Africa, as British power ebbed, so I feel I have a direct connection with this phenomenon of collapsing empires. The Gold Coast, of course, became Ghana in 1957, the year after the Suez crisis. Today I am a member of Parliament, so I have a double perspective on empire.

Much as the Second World War has been identified as the end of the British Empire, future historians may well see the financial crisis of 2008 as the end of the American empire. Yet, the retreat of American power, particularly in the Middle East, has potentially left the world considerably more unstable and uncertain.

America is a much smaller figure than the colossus that seemed to bestride the world in 1989, when an article titled “The End of History?” could, paradox though it was, be taken seriously.

The suspicion has always lingered that America was a less than enthusiastic imperial power. It never sought to administer foreign lands directly and indefinitely, even though the presence of American bases in Japan, Germany, Britain and, more lately, in Saudi Arabia did look like soft imperialism.

During the cold war, America saw itself as the leader of the “free world,” a claim to moral leadership as bold as that of any empire in history. Its dominion relied on the force of alliance, direct assistance and social and economic example, rather than occupation. Only in the last 10 years has America intervened militarily to decide who rules in Iraq, Afghanistan and Libya. This assumption of responsibility as a global policeman was nothing if not the act of an empire. Yet Americans were always reluctant to admit this.

It was striking that, during this period, neoconservatives espoused a more overt imperialism. American reluctance to wield the sword of Britannia was the core of their irritation at their country’s foreign policy. They exhorted the United States, like a slow, sluggish pupil, to play a role for which it had no natural inclination.

A hesitancy to get involved in the messy details of international politics has been a feature of the American body politic since independence. George Washington’s famous admonition to “avoid foreign entanglements” is one of history’s most notorious false quotations — a three-word compression of a more subtle thought about avoiding Europe’s squabbles. Nowhere, in fact, does that phrase appear in the great Farewell Address of 1796. Yet subsequent leaders have followed the accepted version of Washington’s remarks. Later, Woodrow Wilson preached self-determination abroad, and the Vietnam War taught Americans that their powers were limited. Today, the neoconservatives seem like quaint figures from a past that many Americans would rather forget. In 23 years we have gone from the “end of history,” a world in which liberal capitalism and democracy seemed utterly dominant, to President Obama’s rather limp declaration about the limits on what America can do.

The financial crisis and mounting indebtedness have finally led to an end to American imperial behavior. It is unlikely, even if the economy recovers, that the country will enter campaigns with the buoyancy and naïveté of its invasion of Iraq in 2003.

The history of the British Empire suggests that any form of empire is misguided. First, empire is too expensive. The rise of China and the emerging world has meant that, even if America rebounds, its economy’s relative size will be smaller. Surely it will not be as preponderant as it was in 1945 and 1989. This alone makes multilateral action more likely than solitary leadership.

Second, as the British discovered, maintaining an empire requires too many calculations and too much knowledge — experience, even — for any one power in today’s world even to attempt it.

Iraq and Afghanistan should have taught America those lessons.

Kwasi Kwarteng, a Conservative member of the British Parliament,

is the author of “Ghosts of Empire: Britain’s Legacies in the Modern World.”

    Echoes of the End of the Raj, NYT, 16.4.2012,
    http://www.nytimes.com/2012/04/17/opinion/echoes-of-the-end-of-the-raj.html

How to Tell if the Iran Talks Are Working

April 12, 2012
The New York Times
By MARK HIBBS, ARIEL LEVITE and GEORGE PERKOVICH

AFTER a hiatus of more than a year, negotiations about Iran’s nuclear program are set to resume in Turkey on Friday between Iran and France, Germany, Britain, Russia, China and the United States. Though the participants foresee several rounds of discussions, all will be acutely aware that time to reach agreement peacefully may be running out.

So it is important to ask, at the start, how we will be able to tell whether the talks are moving forward.

Though talks that have taken place since 2004 have produced no real progress, recent developments suggest some grounds for cautious optimism. Sanctions are hurting Iran, and even tougher ones are expected to go into effect July 1. President Obama and other American officials have repeatedly warned Iran in recent weeks that the window for diplomacy is closing. Israel’s patience for a meaningful outcome from diplomacy is running thin. Iranian leaders presumably recognize that the likelihood of military action would be higher than ever if negotiations collapsed or began to stretch out aimlessly.

In addition, there are some indications that Iran’s attitude may have become more flexible. Iran still insists that its nuclear program is intended for peaceful use, and that it will not compromise on its right to enrich uranium. It continues to rebuff the International Atomic Energy Agency’s demands for greater cooperation, while threatening retaliation for sanctions imposed on it. But its leaders may be creating room for compromise. Iran sought the new negotiating round. It has done so in the past under severe pressure, only to step away from real compromise; but this time the supreme leader, Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, has twice reiterated his fatwa prohibiting acquisition of nuclear weapons. And some of his recent moves suggest that he is maneuvering to build a domestic political base of support for a possible deal over the nuclear program.

Still, tough and protracted negotiations undoubtedly lie ahead. Iran may never surrender some key elements of the hardware or material related to a bomb-making capacity, and its basic knowledge in this domain cannot be unlearned. At another level, any deal with the United States might ultimately run counter to preserving the clerical regime, for which opposition to America has long been a core political attitude. The United States, for its part, would be reluctant to let Iran leave the negotiations with a deal that left its nuclear option viable, bolstered the regime internally, and reinforced its regional influence and ambitions to the detriment of America’s allies.

In addition, the two sides distrust each other deeply, and their negotiating styles differ fundamentally. The Americans doubt that the Iranians ultimately can “deliver” on any deal, and Iran’s leadership has similar doubts about President Obama’s capacity to deliver in an election year.

Given these complexities, it won’t be easy to assess the progress of the coming talks. But we can suggest benchmarks:

Oil prices: The oil market is exceptionally sensitive to the possibility of a military escalation in the Persian gulf; the traders who set prices tend to be sophisticated, with sources of information among policy makers. Global oil prices, which have been above $100 a barrel all this year, are widely believed to reflect a risk premium of $20 to $25. Any significant decline in that premium following the new negotiation round would reflect optimism about the course of diplomacy. It would also further weaken Iran’s economy — putting even more pressure on Iran to negotiate seriously — while helping distressed Western economies and helping President Obama’s chances of re-election.

Access for verifiers: One urgent concession required of Iran is that it grant the International Atomic Energy Agency far greater access to its nuclear plans, facilities, records and personnel. In the absence of this, most other steps would ring hollow, making it unlikely that sanctions on Iran would be phased out — a goal high on Iran’s list of demands. Since time would be needed to test Iran’s sincerity about disclosures, and its cooperation with the atomic energy agency after years of delay and deceit, Iran’s willingness to undertake such steps early on would both be a prerequisite for, and a signal of, progress on the negotiations.

The bargaining issues: If the focus of talks remains stuck on an attempt to resurrect an earlier deal to trade a foreign supply of nuclear fuel for Iran’s agreement to ship its existing stockpile of enriched uranium out of the country, the diplomatic process will be headed in the wrong direction. Such a deal would fall short of what Iran and its counterparts across the table need in order to end the crisis. Anything less than early Iranian gestures on suspending higher levels of enrichment and conducting enrichment outside its commercial facility at Natanz would most likely doom the negotiations to failure. So would a refusal by the other side to suspend the implementation of new sanctions if Iran extended such gestures.

U.S.-Iran dialogue: In earlier rounds, Iran usually resisted conducting parallel direct discussions with the United States on the margins of the six-party talks. Yet such one-on-one dialogue is essential for success. Iranian willingness to relax its position, and American willingness to sustain bilateral dialogue in an election year, could indicate a prospect of resolving the nuclear crisis.

Frequency and duration of meetings: Previous unproductive negotiating rounds have been truncated and followed by long pauses. Such pacing would be inconsistent with the urgency of this round. Anything but frequent and prolonged negotiating rounds (though some might be unpublicized or employ back channels) would indicate that the negotiations were headed for failure.

A summer deadline: Sorting out all the issues associated with Iran’s nuclear program, let alone other issues that include Afghanistan, Iraq, support for terrorism and human rights, would take a long time. But in the absence of visible progress by the end of June, new sanctions will go into effect, making it even more painful for Iran to negotiate under pressure. Israel would be likely to conclude, in such a case, that the only option left was military. Diplomacy, in other words, has 11 weeks to yield results. Still, it is not unrealistic to think that most of the criteria described here could be met in the first round of renewed diplomacy — if Iran and its counterparts are determined to move from crisis to problem-solving.

Much more work would remain to be done, but the momentum toward war and economic hardship could at the very least be suspended.

Mark Hibbs and Ariel Levite are senior associates of the Carnegie Endowment

for International Peace’s Nuclear Policy Program, which George Perkovich directs.

    How to Tell if the Iran Talks Are Working, NYT, 12.4.2012,
    http://www.nytimes.com/2012/04/13/opinion/six-ways-to-measure-progress-in-the-iran-nuclear-talks.html

Rocket From Sinai Lands in Israel

April 5, 2012
The New York Times
By ISABEL KERSHNER

JERUSALEM — At least one rocket fired from the Sinai Peninsula in Egypt struck the southern Israeli resort city of Eilat overnight, causing alarm but no injuries, police officials said on Thursday.

Residents reported hearing several explosions shortly after midnight, and bomb-disposal experts located one rocket that fell in an open area close to buildings in a residential neighborhood.

Israeli security officials have been warning for some time about a growing threat from Sinai. They point to an erosion of Egyptian authority there, particularly in the year since the Egyptian revolution, and to increased efforts by Palestinian militant groups emanating from Gaza to use the vast expanses of desert as a staging ground for a new front against Israel. The rocket attack came just before the Passover holiday, traditionally one of the busiest seasons in Eilat, which is popular with Israeli and foreign tourists.

Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu said on Thursday that the Sinai Peninsula “has become a terrorism zone.”

“We are dealing with this. We are building a security fence, but it will not stop missiles,” he said. He added, “We will strike at those who attack us.”

Last August, eight Israelis were killed in a cross-border terrorist attack when gunmen and bombers ambushed a bus and several vehicles on a road just north of Eilat. The attackers’ identities were never established, but Israel blamed a small Palestinian militant group, the Popular Resistance Committees, based in Gaza, for the attack.

In August 2010, a number of rockets were fired from Sinai toward Eilat. One landed across the Jordanian border, striking the Red Sea resort of Aqaba and killing a Jordanian taxi driver.

An Israeli airstrike on Gaza last month killed the leader of the Popular Resistance Committees and his assistant. The military described the killings as a pre-emptive strike timed to thwart another attack being planned against Israelis from across the Egyptian border.

Israel is now rushing to complete a 150-mile, 16-foot-tall steel border fence that will stretch all the way from Eilat up to Gaza.

The unrest comes at a time when Israel’s 30-year peace with Egypt is under strain, after the ouster of President Hosni Mubarak, a former staunch Israeli ally, and the rise of Islamist political forces in Cairo. Israeli officials say that militant groups backed by Iran are trying to undermine Israeli-Egyptian relations further, perhaps by trying to drag Israel into the Sinai Peninsula, and that their actions could have strategic consequences.

“The Popular Resistance Committees is small, but it is financed by Iran,” Amos Gilad, a senior Israeli defense official, said this week. Briefing diplomats and reporters at the Jerusalem Center for Public Affairs, a research institute, Mr. Gilad said that aside from wanting to kill Israelis, “they want to complicate our relations with Egypt. This is their main goal.”

After the cross-border attack in August, Israeli forces killed three of the assailants who had crossed into Israeli territory, and five Egyptian officers were accidentally killed by Israeli security forces as they chased down the attackers. Enraged Egyptians then ransacked the Israeli Embassy in Cairo.

    Rocket From Sinai Lands in Israel, NYT, 5.4.2012,
    http://www.nytimes.com/2012/04/06/world/middleeast/rocket-from-sinai-lands-near-eilat-israel.html

U.S. Sees Iran in Bids to Stir Unrest in Afghanistan

April 4, 2012
The New York Times
By THOM SHANKER, ERIC SCHMITT and ALISSA J. RUBIN

WASHINGTON — Just hours after it was revealed that American soldiers had burned Korans seized at an Afghan detention center in late February, Iran secretly ordered its agents operating inside Afghanistan to exploit the anticipated public outrage by trying to instigate violent protests in the capital, Kabul, and across the western part of the country, according to American officials.

For the most part, the efforts by Iranian agents and local surrogates failed to provoke widespread or lasting unrest, the officials said. Yet with NATO governments preparing for the possibility of retaliation by Iran in the event of an Israeli attack on its nuclear facilities, the issue of Iran’s willingness and ability to foment violence in Afghanistan and elsewhere has taken on added urgency.

With Iran’s motives and operational intentions a subject of intense interest, American officials have closely studied the episodes. A mixed picture of Iranian capabilities has emerged, according to interviews with more than a dozen government officials, most of whom discussed the risks on the condition of anonymity because their comments were based on intelligence reports.

One United States government official described the Iranian Embassy in Kabul as having “a very active” program of anti-American provocation, but it is not clear whether Iran deliberately chose to limit its efforts after the Koran burning or was unable to carry out operations that would have caused more significant harm.

In offering an overall view of the threat from Tehran, Gen. John R. Allen, the senior allied commander in Afghanistan, told Congress in recent public testimony that Iran continued to “fuel the flames of violence” by supporting the Afghan insurgency. “Our sense is that Iran could do more if they chose to,” General Allen said. “But they have not, and we watch the activity and the relationships very closely.”

The most visible rioting that American officials say bears Iranian fingerprints occurred in Herat Province, along Afghanistan’s western border with Iran. In a melee after the Koran burning, 7 people were killed and 65 were wounded, Afghan and American officials said. That violence peaked when a police ammunition truck was hit by gunfire from a rioter and exploded.

Iran has denied any government-backed effort to foment unrest in Afghanistan, but American officials see a pattern of malign meddling to increase Iran’s influence across the Middle East and South Asia. Iran appears to have increased its political outreach and arms shipments to rebels and other political figures in Yemen, and it is arming and advising the embattled government of President Bashar al-Assad of Syria.

Those activities also reflect a broader campaign that includes what American officials say was a failed plot to assassinate the Saudi ambassador to the United States in October, and what appears to have been a coordinated effort by Iran to attack Israeli diplomats in India and Georgia this year. Iran has denied any role in the attacks, which caused several injuries but did not kill anyone.

But the absence of a sustained record of clear success in these plots, including Iran’s suspected role in the riots in Herat and in similar disturbances in Kabul, has stirred a vigorous debate among Western intelligence agencies about the country’s surprisingly low level of professionalism, and about whether Iran maintains the ability to carry out effective strikes against rivals beyond its traditional networks in the Middle East.

“The attacks failed, so clearly there are kinks in Iran’s planning and tradecraft,” one United States official said.

Intelligence analysts emphasize that Iran can still tap the formidable resources of Hezbollah, the Lebanese Shiite militant group. And some American officials are wary of viewing the plots as a sign of Iran’s diminishing ability to stir violence.

“They’re learning from each of these incidents and becoming more dangerous,” Representative Mike Rogers, a Michigan Republican who leads the House Intelligence Committee, said in a telephone interview.

Mr. Rogers said that Iran’s intelligence service and the Quds Force, an elite international operations unit within the country’s Islamic Revolutionary Guards Corps, appeared to be competing with each other for influence, increasing the risk to the West.

“The intent is not devastating operations, but raising the temperature to create deterrence,” said Vali Nasr, a former State Department official who worked on these issues and was recently named dean of the Johns Hopkins School of Advanced International Studies. “Amateurs are tougher to detect and catch. It caught our surveillance off guard. We were looking for pros. They went below the radar.”

The plots have also prompted American and other intelligence agencies to renew their focus on state-sponsored terrorism after a decade dominated by Al Qaeda, its regional affiliates and other shadowy terrorist networks.

American officials say they never took their eye off state-sponsored threats, but rising tensions with Iran have caused these organizations to re-emerge in the public eye. In Afghanistan, according to American officials, Iranian assistance to militants and insurgents is limited to training, money, explosive material, small arms, rockets and mortars.

But General Allen, in two days of testimony before Congress, disclosed that NATO forces were watching for an infusion of more-advanced weapons — in particular a high-powered roadway bomb called an explosively formed projectile, or E.F.P., which can pierce American armored vehicles. These bombs proved their deadly effectiveness when Iran funneled them to Shiite militants during the height of the sectarian violence in Iraq.

“So we’re going to keep a very close eye on those signature weapons,” General Allen said, “because we think that that will be an indicator of Iran’s desire to up the ante, in which case we’ll have to take other actions.”

Iran has long faced a quandary in shaping an Afghan policy. It has wanted to target the Americans fighting in Afghanistan, and the best mechanism for doing that is the Taliban insurgency. But at the same time, Iran has little interest in the return of a Taliban regime. When they were in power, the Taliban often persecuted the Hazara minority, who, like most Iranians, are Shiite, and whom Iran supports.

What Iran has pursued more relentlessly is an effort to pull the Afghan government away from the Americans, a strategy that has included payments to promote Iran’s interests with President Hamid Karzai.

One American intelligence analyst noted that Iran had long supported Afghan minorities, both Shiite and Sunni, and had built a network of support among Hazaras, Uzbeks and Tajiks. Iran has exercised other means of “soft power,” the analyst said, opening schools in western Afghanistan to extend its influence. The Iranians have also opened schools in Kabul and have largely financed a university attached to a large new Shiite mosque.

Iran is thought to back at least eight newspapers in Kabul and a number of television and radio stations, according to Afghan and Western officials. The Iranian-backed news organs kept fanning anti-American sentiment for days after the Koran burnings.

Thom Shanker and Eric Schmitt reported from Washington,

and Alissa J. Rubin from Kabul, Afghanistan.

    U.S. Sees Iran in Bids to Stir Unrest in Afghanistan, NYT, 4.4.2012,
    http://www.nytimes.com/2012/04/05/world/asia/irans-efforts-to-stir-afghan-violence-provoke-concern.html

An Arab War-Crimes Court for Syria

April 4, 2012
The New York Times
By ARYEH NEIER

THE United States and other governments don’t want to intervene militarily in Syria. That’s understandable; hardly anyone wants another Middle East war.

In seeking other ways to ensure that the Syrian government and its henchmen pay a price for slaughtering their citizens, United States officials are seeking ways to bring them to justice. A war crimes tribunal run by the Arab League could be the solution. The experience of war-torn countries like Bosnia has proved that such tribunals can work, if properly designed.

Last weekend, Secretary of State Hillary Rodham Clinton said that the United States would “support and train Syrian citizens working to document atrocities, identify perpetrators, and safeguard evidence for future investigations and prosecutions.” A difficulty with this plan, however, is how to use the evidence that is collected. Syria is not a party to the treaty for the International Criminal Court in The Hague, and Russia and China would most likely use their veto power to block any United Nations Security Council effort to refer the case to the court.

To overcome such obstructionism, another innovation is required: an Arab League tribunal to deal with the crimes against humanity that are taking place in Syria. Such a tribunal could have Arab judges, Arab prosecutors, Arab investigators and Arab defense attorneys and conduct its proceedings in Arabic. The Arab League could give it jurisdiction over crimes against humanity and war crimes as the treaty for the International Criminal Court defines them. And such a court should have jurisdiction over all crimes, including those committed by rebels. It is essential to uphold the principle that, no matter the justice of the cause or the crimes committed by one’s opponents, all must be held to the same standards.

Because it would take time to establish such a tribunal and because there is an urgent need to stop Syrian forces from committing more crimes, the Arab League could specify that prosecutions for crimes committed after the resolution’s adoption would have priority. That would put the forces of Syria’s president, Bashar al-Assad, on notice that the surest way to end up in the dock is to persist in the crimes they have been committing.

We should not grant them impunity for crimes committed up to now. But the urgent need to prevent further atrocities justifies giving them an incentive to stop. Of course, some of those responsible for crimes would imagine that they would never be apprehended and brought to justice. Yet the record of other international tribunals makes it increasingly necessary for them to take such courts seriously.

Something similar took place during the Bosnian war, which began 20 years ago this week. Neither the administration of President George Bush nor that of President Bill Clinton was ready to intervene militarily. But both expressed outrage at the crimes of ethnic cleansing in that conflict. That led to American support for the establishment of what became the International Criminal Tribunal for the Former Yugoslavia. At the time, few took it seriously.

It had no capacity on its own to get hold of those accused of crimes. Hardly anyone imagined that the leading perpetrators could be brought to justice. Yet the court has been remarkably successful. Of the 161 people on all sides of the Balkan wars whom the court indicted for war crimes, crimes against humanity and genocide, all were eventually apprehended and brought to The Hague except those who died or had their indictments withdrawn; 64 were convicted and sentenced, and 13 were acquitted. The rest are appealing their convictions, are still on trial, have died or have had their cases referred to courts at home.

Indeed, national courts in Serbia, Croatia and Bosnia have conducted scores of high-quality trials of lower-ranking defendants accused of war crimes.

As a result, most of those principally responsible for the ghastliest crimes in the former Yugoslavia, like the murder of 8,000 Muslim men and boys at Srebrenica in 1995, have been forced to serve long prison sentences. A process that some initially supported only as a substitute for more forceful action has turned out much better than expected. It provided a substantial measure of justice in the Balkan conflicts, and it has led to the establishment of several other ad hoc international criminal tribunals and the International Criminal Court. And it has contributed to national prosecutions, in many countries, of dictators, warlords and guerrilla leaders responsible for crimes against humanity.

Establishing the Balkan court in 1993 was an innovation in international law, and creating a tribunal for Syria today would be a bold decision for the Arab League — one that could ensure that those who committed atrocities would face consequences.

Aryeh Neier is president of the Open Society Foundations and the author,

most recently, of “The International Human Rights Movement: A History.”

    An Arab War-Crimes Court for Syria, NYT, 4.4.2012,
    http://www.nytimes.com/2012/04/05/opinion/an-arab-war-crimes-court-for-syria.html

Impact of Iran Sanctions Widens

April 4, 2012
The New York Times
By RICK GLADSTONE

The Iran sanctions effort led by the United States appeared to be causing new fractures in the Iranian economy on Tuesday, with leading oil companies in South Africa and Greece suspending imports of Iran’s crude oil, further signs of emergency self-reliance emerging in Iran, and an influential former Iranian president publicly challenging his country’s anti-American stoicism.

The latest signs of economic distress came as new questions arose about the date and location for resumed talks between Iran and the so-called P5-plus 1 countries — the five permanent members of the Security Council plus Germany — over Iran’s uranium enrichment activities. Iran contends the activities are peaceful but its adversaries suspect they are a cover to develop the capability to make nuclear weapons.

The talks, suspended more than a year ago, are supposed to resume in less than two weeks, but a host country has not been finalized, and Iranian news reports have suggested that the April 13 date may be changed.

On Wednesday, the Iraqi foreign minister, Hoshyar Zebari, told Reuters that a visiting Iranian delegation had suggested Baghdad as a venue, despite earlier indications from senior Iranian officials that they favored Istanbul — the venue of the last, failed talks on the nuclear issue in January 2011.

“The proposal came from them,” Mr. Zebari said, referring to the Iranians.

Mr. Zebari said he would discuss the idea with the ambassadors of the countries involved — the United States, Russia, China, France and Britain in addition to Germany — and would hand over a letter to them. Any further delay in resuming talks would almost certainly lead to Western charges that Tehran is playing for time while its scientists press ahead with uranium enrichment.

While Istanbul once seemed a middle ground between Iran and the outside powers, relations between Turkey and Iran have cooled because of Ankara’s alignment with nations pressing Syria — Iran’s closest regional ally — to end its bloody crackdown on dissent and open a political transition.

The maneuvers in advance of the proposed talks have been accompanied by a tightening array of sanctions aimed at stopping Tehran’s uranium enrichment. But Iran had called the measures a bullying tactic by the West that is doomed to fail. At the same time, Iranian leaders have acknowledged that the sanctions are causing deprivations in the country by severely restricting international financial transactions and sales of crude oil, Iran’s main export. The European Union will tighten the sanctions further starting July 1 with an embargo of Iranian crude oil.

In South Africa, Engen Petroleum, which has been South Africa’s biggest buyer of Iranian oil and is a leading marketer and refiner of petroleum products throughout southern Africa, said Tuesday it was no longer Iran’s customer. “Engen has suspended imports from Iran and our contingency sources are in play,” a company spokeswoman, Tania Landsberg, said in an email, confirming press reports of Engen’s decision.

South Africa, which historically has relied on Iran for a quarter of its imports, had been sending mixed messages regarding Western pressure to reduce Iranian purchases, with recent data suggesting that the country has been buying more crude oil from Iran this year. Engen’s decision to buy elsewhere suggested that the Western pressure was working.

In Greece, Hellenic Petroleum, the country’s leading refiner, also suspended purchases of Iranian crude oil — not because of the impending European Union embargo, but because banking payments to Iran have been rendered unworkable by the financial sanctions already in place, Reuters reported.

Those financial sanctions, including the recent expulsion of Iran’s central bank from a global financial communications network, have reverberated through Iran’s economy, most notably contributing to a sharp drop in the value of Iran’s currency, the rial, against the dollar. The pressure on the currency, which has caused the price of imported goods to soar in Iran, was an underlying theme in a New Year’s message by Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, the supreme leader, strongly urging Iranians to buy only goods made in Iran.

In what appeared to be a step toward enforcing the ayatollah’s exhortation, Iranian trade authorities have now banned 600 imported items. The ban, reported by Sharq, a reformist Iranian newspaper, did not specify the items but quoted Hamid Safdel, director of Iran’s Trade Promotion Organization, as saying Iranian manufacturers also make those items, rendering the imports unnecessary.

While Iranian leaders have presented a unified front of hostility to the sanctions, a disagreement surfaced on Tuesday, when Akbar Hashemi Rafsanjani, a former president who is now the chairman of the Expediency Council, an advisory panel to the supreme leader, suggested that Iran had erred by failing to befriend Saudi Arabia, the Middle East’s leading oil producer.

The Saudis, who are overwhelmingly Sunni Muslims and harbor wariness toward the Shiite majority in Iran, have pledged to increase their exports to compensate for any supply shortfall caused by the Iranian oil embargo. Saudi cooperation is crucial to the West’s strategy.

“If we had good relations with Saudi Arabia, would the West have been able to impose sanctions?” Mr. Rafsanjani said in the quarterly International Studies Journal, as translated by Agence France-Presse.

Mr. Rafsanjani, whose stature as a pragmatic force in Iranian politics diminished in recent years but now seems to be reviving, also reiterated his longstanding suggestion that Iran restore diplomatic relations with the United States, estranged since the 1979 revolution. His view is directly at odds with that of Ayatollah Khamenei, who appears to see any conciliatory gesture as a sign of weakness.

“”The meaning of negotiation is not that we submit to them,” Mr. Rafsanjani wrote in what seemed a rejoinder to the ayatollah. “We negotiate, and if they accept our positions or we accept theirs, then it is done.”

Artin Afkhami and Alan Cowell contributed reporting.

    Impact of Iran Sanctions Widens, NYT, 4.3.2012,
    http://www.nytimes.com/2012/04/05/world/middleeast/impact-of-iran-sanctions-widens.html

Obama Makes First Visit to Zone Separating Two Koreas

March 25, 2012
The New York Times
By MARK LANDLER

PANMUNJOM, South Korea — Squinting through binoculars from a forward observation post here, President Obama peered into North Korea on Sunday, getting a firsthand look at the secretive nuclear nation that has been a source of recurring angst for his administration.

On the far side of the demilitarized zone, beyond the grim watchtowers and concertina wire that separates North from South, a giant red-and-blue North Korean flag billowed at half-mast, marking the 100th day since the death of the country’s cultlike leader, Kim Jong- il.

It was Mr. Obama’s first visit to this heavily fortified border — Presidents George W. Bush, Bill Clinton and Ronald Reagan all made the trip — and it seemed both an echo of the cold war and a testament to new dangers in an age of nuclear proliferation.

The president arrived in Seoul earlier on Sunday to take part in a nuclear security summit meeting organized by South Korea. The meeting is devoted to preventing nuclear weapons and fuel from falling into the hands of terrorists, though the ambitions of nuclear states like North Korea and Iran were likely to dominate the discussions.

Already, North Korea’s announcement of plans to launch a satellite mounted on a long-range missile upended a fragile American diplomatic opening to Kim Jong-il’s son and successor, Kim Jong-un. Analysts say North Korea appears to be reverting to a familiar cycle of provocations, as an untested leader consolidates his grip on power in Pyongyang.

During his visit to the demilitarized zone, Mr. Obama paid tribute to the soldiers who have patrolled this frontier, saying they made it possible for South Korea to grow into a thriving democracy and market economy despite the constant threat of war from the North.

“You guys are at freedom’s frontier,” the president said to American troops in a dining hall at Camp Bonifas, the headquarters of the United Nations command that oversees the zone.

“The contrast between South Korea and North Korea could not be clearer, could not be starker, both in terms of freedom but also in terms of prosperity,” Mr. Obama said. That success is due to the resilience of its people, he said, “but it also has to do with you guys.”

There was time for levity, too. Mr. Obama thanked the soldiers for giving him a “spiffy jacket” and drew laughs when he talked about how a string of upsets in the N.C.A.A. men’s college basketball tournament were making a mess of the brackets chosen by people.

The president then greeted eight South Korean soldiers who keep watch at Observation Post Ouellette, one of the forward-most posts. As they waited for Mr. Obama to arrive, in a room with tightly drawn curtains and posters for target practice, the soldiers rehearsed their handshakes and barked greetings: “Very nice to meet you, sir.”

The pleasantries completed, Mr. Obama stepped out into a chilly, windswept bunker, ringed by sandbags and camouflage burlap and shielded by a wall of two-inch-thick bulletproof glass, where he was handed binoculars to survey the bleak North Korea countryside.

As a military escort pointed out landmarks, Mr. Obama could be heard asking where the line of demarcation was between the North and South in different directions, as well as the size of the nearby North Korean village, where the giant flag was flying.

Although the visit went smoothly, American officials warned that the North Koreans might sound a siren at noon to mark the 100-day milestone of the elder Mr. Kim’s death. Mr. Obama was at the observation post at that time, but no sirens were heard in the gusty wind.

Tensions with North Korea spiked after it announced the satellite launching. The United States said it would be a breach of Pyongyang’s international obligations and would lead Washington to scrap a recent agreement to supply North Korea with desperately needed food aid in return for preliminary talks over its nuclear program.

The timing of Mr. Obama’s visit was also symbolic, coming a day before the second anniversary of the sinking of a South Korean Navy warship, the Cheonan. An international investigation concluded that the ship was torpedoed by the North, though Pyongyang denies culpability.

Administration officials said the visit to the zone, where 28,500 American troops serve alongside South Korean troops, was also a way to honor the loss of the Cheonan, which they said had brought South Korea and the United States closer together.

After a little more than an hour at the border, Mr. Obama’s helicopter, Marine One, headed back to Seoul, where he met with Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdogan of Turkey to discuss the escalating violence in Syria, among other issues.

Later on Sunday, the president was scheduled to meet with South Korea’s president, Lee Myung-bak, who is playing host to more than 50 world leaders at the nuclear security summit meeting. Mr. Obama proposed the idea in 2009 of a biannual global meeting to discuss ways to prevent nuclear material from falling into the hands of terrorists.

    Obama Makes First Visit to Zone Separating Two Koreas, NYT, 25.3.2012,
    http://www.nytimes.com/2012/03/26/world/asia/president-obama-visits-south-korea.html

Once Imperiled, U.S. Aid to Egypt Is Restored

March 23, 2012
The New York Times
By STEVEN LEE MYERS

WASHINGTON — An intense debate within the Obama administration over resuming military assistance to Egypt, which in the end was approved Friday by Secretary of State Hillary Rodham Clinton, turned in part on a question that had nothing to do with democratic progress in Egypt but rather with American jobs at home.

A delay or a cut in $1.3 billion in military aid to Egypt risked breaking existing contracts with American arms manufacturers that could have shut down production lines in the middle of President Obama’s re-election campaign and involved significant financial penalties, according to officials involved in the debate.

Since the Pentagon buys weapons for foreign armed forces like Egypt’s, the cost of those penalties — which one senior official said could have reached $2 billion if all sales had been halted — would have been borne by the American taxpayer, not Egypt’s ruling generals.

The companies involved include Lockheed Martin, which is scheduled to ship the first of a batch of 20 new F-16 fighter jets next month, and General Dynamics, which last year signed a $395 million contract to deliver component parts for 125 Abrams M1A1 tanks that are being assembled at a plant in Egypt.

“In large part, there are U.S. jobs that are reliant on the U.S.-Egypt strong military-to-military relationship,” a senior State Department official said, speaking on condition of anonymity under rules set by the department. In deciding how to proceed, the official said, Mrs. Clinton and her colleagues “were looking at our overall national security goals, as well as any domestic issues.”

Mrs. Clinton’s decision to resume military assistance, which has been a foundation of United States-Egyptian relations for over three decades, sidestepped a new Congressional requirement that for the first time directly links arms sales to Egypt’s protection of basic freedoms. No new military aid had been delivered since the fiscal year began last October, and Egypt’s military has all but exhausted funds approved in previous years.

Mrs. Clinton’s decision provoked sharp criticism from lawmakers across the political spectrum, as well as human rights organizations. Senator Rand Paul, Republican of Kentucky, criticized it as “beyond the pale.”

Referring to Egypt’s recent decision to prosecute four American-financed international advocacy organizations, Mr. Paul added, “It sets a precedent that America will not punish its aggressors but instead give them billions of our taxpayers’ dollars.”

Mrs. Clinton used her authority under the new law to waive a requirement that she certify Egypt’s protection of human rights. That she would not certify that the military had complied was in itself a rebuke to Egypt’s transitional military leaders, who have moved slowly to yield power and to lift a decades-old state of emergency, but it nonetheless allows the Egyptian military to continue to arm and equip its forces.

“The secretary’s decision to waive is also designed to demonstrate our strong support for Egypt’s enduring role as a security partner and leader in promoting regional stability and peace,” the State Department’s spokeswoman, Victoria Nuland, said in a statement. Both the military assistance and an additional $250 million in economic and political assistance also required Mrs. Clinton to certify that Egypt was upholding the Camp David peace accords with Israel, which she did on Friday.

The statement and continuing military and other assistance to Egypt, senior administration officials said, rewarded the extraordinary progress the country has made since the overthrow last year of its autocratic president, Hosni Mubarak. Egypt has elected a new Parliament in a vote widely seen as free and fair, and it has scheduled a presidential election in May, with a runoff to follow in June.

“We’ve seen more progress in 16 months than we’ve seen in 60 years,” the senior State Department official said.

Even so, the debate within the administration was unusually fraught, officials said, especially after Egypt had imposed a travel ban on seven Americans who were charged as part of the case against the American organizations.

Some in the State Department, echoing the concerns from Capitol Hill and human rights advocates, argued that the administration should have withheld new military aid until the case was fully resolved and the presidential election held.

Mrs. Clinton, officials said, favored a partial waiver, allowing some, but not all, of the assistance to begin. That would maintain leverage over Egypt’s generals to transfer political power to a newly elected government without jeopardizing existing military contracts.

A looming deadline for payments, however, forced the issue before then, and the White House and Pentagon pressed for a waiver, officials said. A White House spokesman referred questions to the State Department, and the Pentagon did not respond to requests for comment.

The military assistance to Egypt underscores a point Mrs. Clinton and other officials have made when it comes to foreign aid in general: much of it comes back to American corporations and organizations for equipment or services.

“Lockheed Martin values the relationship established between our company and the Egyptian customer since the first F-16s were delivered in the early 1980s,” said Laura F. Siebert, a spokeswoman for the company, which is based in Fort Worth.

The M1A1 components are built in factories in Alabama, Florida, Michigan, Ohio and Pennsylvania, several of them battleground states in an election that has largely focused on jobs. Because the United States Army plans to stop buying new tanks by 2014, continued production relies on foreign contracts, often paid for by American taxpayers as military assistance.

Senator Patrick J. Leahy, Democrat of Vermont, who added the certification requirements to legislation authorizing military aid to Egypt, called the decision to waive them regrettable, and the resumption of aid “business as usual.”

Jennifer Steinhauer contributed reporting.

    Once Imperiled, U.S. Aid to Egypt Is Restored, NYT, 23.3.2012,
    http://www.nytimes.com/2012/03/24/world/middleeast/once-imperiled-united-states-aid-to-egypt-is-restored.html

Islamist Victors in Egypt Seeking Shift by Hamas

March 24, 2012
The New York Times
By DAVID D. KIRKPATRICK

CAIRO — As it prepares to take power in Egypt, the Muslim Brotherhood is overhauling its relations with the two main Palestinian factions in an effort to put new pressure on Israel for an independent Palestinian state.

Officials of the Brotherhood, Egypt’s dominant Islamist movement, are pressing its militant Palestinian offshoot, Hamas, which controls Gaza, to make new compromises with Fatah, the Western-backed Palestinian leadership that has committed to peace with Israel and runs the West Bank.

The intervention in the Palestinian issue is the clearest indication yet that as it moves into a position of authority, the Brotherhood, the largest vote getter in Egypt’s parliamentary elections, intends to both moderate its positions on foreign policy and reconfigure Egypt’s.

Brotherhood officials say that they are pulling back from their previous embrace of Hamas and its commitment to armed struggle against Israel in order to open new channels of communications with Fatah, which the Brotherhood had previously denounced for collaborating with Israel and accused of selling out the Palestinian cause. Brotherhood leaders argue that if they persuade the Palestinians to work together with a newly assertive Egypt, they will have far more success forcing Israel to bargain in earnest over the terms of statehood.

“Now we have to deal with the Palestinian parties as an umbrella for both of them, and we have to stand at an equal distance from each,” said Reda Fahmy, a Brotherhood leader who oversees its Palestinian relations and is now chairman of the Arab affairs committee in Egypt’s upper house of Parliament. “Any movement of the size of the Muslim Brotherhood, when it is in the opposition it is one thing and then when it comes to power it is something completely different.”

The shift in the Brotherhood’s stance toward neutrality between Hamas and Fatah — acknowledged by officials of both groups — may relieve United States policy makers, who have long worried about the Brotherhood’s relationship with the more militant Hamas. The United States considers the Palestinian group to be a terrorist organization. But the shift in Egypt’s policies may unnerve Israel, because it is a move away from former President Hosni Mubarak’s exclusive support for the Western-backed Fatah movement and its commitment to the peace process. Israeli officials have said they will not negotiate with a Palestinian government that includes Hamas.

But Mr. Fahmy said the Brotherhood believed that Palestinian unity could break the deadlock in talks with Israel. “A Palestinian negotiator will go the table and know that all the Palestinian people are supporting his project,” Mr. Fahmy said. “This will be a huge change and very important to both sides.” Jailed at times by the Mubarak government for his role in the Brotherhood, Mr. Fahmy spoke this month from an ornate hall of Parliament.

After decades of denunciations and enmity — Brotherhood texts still sometimes refer to the Jewish state as “the Zionist entity” — Brotherhood leaders have said that as members of the governing party they will honor Egypt’s 1979 peace accord with Israel. Some of its leaders say they believe that such coexistence can become a model for Hamas as well, if Israel moves toward accepting a fully independent Palestinian state.

He noted that Hamas had already made statements indicating that it would accept coexistence with Israel along its borders before the 1967 war. “It is true that it is like a person who is forced to drink poison or eat a dead animal, but they still made the statements,” he said, “so we support that, provided that this state within the ’67 borders is completely sovereign in air and in sea and in land.”

Already, Mr. Fahmy claimed, the Brotherhood’s new stance was making “a fundamental difference,” including jump-starting the stalled reconciliation talks between the two Palestinian groups.

The Brotherhood’s supreme guide, Mohammed Badie — effectively its chairman — had personally told Hamas’s top political leader, Khaled Meshaal, to be “more flexible,” Mr. Fahmy said, and at recent talks in Doha, Qatar, Hamas had agreed for the first time to let Fatah’s leader, Mahmoud Abbas, preside over the first six months of a unity government for the Palestinian territories until new elections could be held.

“Hamas never would have accepted that Abbas heads the government,” Mr. Fahmy said, “but now they are.”

Moussa Abu Marzook, a senior Hamas leader who has settled in Cairo after fleeing Damascus, said that the group was full of hope about the rise of the Brotherhood, from which Hamas originally sprang 25 years ago.

His circumstances attested to those hopes. In 1995, he was arrested the United States, and spent two years fighting an Israeli extradition request and until recently was permitted to enter Egypt only under the watchful eye of its intelligence service. Now he spoke from the large and sunny salon of the second-floor office above his well-fortified suburban villa here. He acknowledged that the rise of its fellow Islamists in Egypt had set off a deep debate inside Hamas.

Some argued against any compromise with Fatah, predicting that Hamas’s bargaining position would only grow stronger as its Islamist allies in Egypt took on new power. Fatah, on the other hand, had lost its primary regional sponsor, the government of Mr. Mubarak.

But Mr. Abu Marzook said that those who expected the new Egypt to back Hamas completely would be disappointed. “It’s normal that the Muslim Brotherhood will be more realistic than they used to be when they weren’t in power,” he said.

He said he favored more conciliations with Fatah. “Reaching reconciliation is in the best interest of the Palestinian people,” he said.

Fatah officials, for their part, say that so far they have been pleased with the Brotherhood’s neutral approach to both factions. “The Muslim Brotherhood in Egypt is doing everything it can to end the Palestinian division,” said Saeb Erekat, Fatah’s chief negotiator.

Mr. Fahmy said that the Brotherhood still believed that United Nations resolutions still qualified Hamas’s armed struggle as a legitimate movement of resistance to an armed occupation. “The texts of all religions guarantee the right to self-defense,” he said.

But he said that the Brotherhood’s support would never extend to supplying weapons. “Foolishness,” he said. “Turning the region into an arms market is not good for anyone. We are against the distribution of weapons anywhere or supporting such a movement, even if we are biased towards it in defending people’s rights. We are careful about the region’s stability.”

Fatah has gone much further than both Hamas and the Brotherhood in seeking peaceful coexistence with Israel. But Mr. Erekat suggested that the differences between the parties may not be as great now as they were in the past. “The Muslim Brothers are the majority party now in Egypt; they are the masters of themselves,” he said. “If they think it’s in the best interest of Egypt, let them abolish the Camp David treaty. But this isn’t what I heard.”

Israel, for its part, rejects the 1967 borders as insufficiently defensible for its security.

But some in Israel are watching the shifts. “Hamas is showing indications that it’s moving towards a more responsible position,” said Shlomo Brom, an analyst and retired brigadier general in the Israeli military. “But because of Hamas’s bloody history, it will be very difficult for the Israeli government to accept this reality. I don’t know how long it will take.”

Mr. Fahmy, though, predicted continued “tranquillity” between Hamas and Israel, in part because Hamas understands that the Brotherhood needs to stability to manage Egypt’s political transition.

“Hamas considers the Muslim Brotherhood a strategic extension of itself,” he said. “And I think that this in itself is a strong guarantee that the situation will not explode in the area.”

Mayy el Sheikh contributed reporting.

    Islamist Victors in Egypt Seeking Shift by Hamas, NYT, 24.3.2012,
    http://www.nytimes.com/2012/03/24/world/middleeast/egypts-election-victors-seek-shift-by-hamas-to-press-israel.html

U.S. War Game Sees Perils of Israeli Strike Against Iran

March 19, 2012
The New York Times
By MARK MAZZETTI and THOM SHANKER

WASHINGTON — A classified war simulation held this month to assess the repercussions of an Israeli attack on Iran forecasts that the strike would lead to a wider regional war, which could draw in the United States and leave hundreds of Americans dead, according to American officials.

The officials said the so-called war game was not designed as a rehearsal for American military action — and they emphasized that the exercise’s results were not the only possible outcome of a real-world conflict.

But the game has raised fears among top American planners that it may be impossible to preclude American involvement in any escalating confrontation with Iran, the officials said. In the debate among policy makers over the consequences of any Israeli attack, that reaction may give stronger voice to those in the White House, Pentagon and intelligence community who have warned that a strike could prove perilous for the United States.

The results of the war game were particularly troubling to Gen. James N. Mattis, who commands all American forces in the Middle East, Persian Gulf and Southwest Asia, according to officials who either participated in the Central Command exercise or who were briefed on the results and spoke on condition of anonymity because of its classified nature. When the exercise had concluded earlier this month, according to the officials, General Mattis told aides that an Israeli first strike would be likely to have dire consequences across the region and for United States forces there.

The two-week war game, called Internal Look, played out a narrative in which the United States found it was pulled into the conflict after Iranian missiles struck a Navy warship in the Persian Gulf, killing about 200 Americans, according to officials with knowledge of the exercise. The United States then retaliated by carrying out its own strikes on Iranian nuclear facilities.

The initial Israeli attack was assessed to have set back the Iranian nuclear program by roughly a year, and the subsequent American strikes did not slow the Iranian nuclear program by more than an additional two years. However, other Pentagon planners have said that America’s arsenal of long-range bombers, refueling aircraft and precision missiles could do far more damage to the Iranian nuclear program — if President Obama were to decide on a full-scale retaliation.

The exercise was designed specifically to test internal military communications and coordination among battle staffs in the Pentagon, Tampa, Fla., where the headquarters of the Central Command is located, and in the Persian Gulf in the aftermath of an Israeli strike. But the exercise was written to assess a pressing, potential, real-world situation.

In the end, the war game reinforced to military officials the unpredictable and uncontrollable nature of a strike by Israel, and a counterstrike by Iran, the officials said.

American and Israeli intelligence services broadly agree on the progress Iran has made to enrich uranium. But they disagree on how much time there would be to prevent Iran from building a weapon if leaders in Tehran decided to go ahead with one.

With the Israelis saying publicly that the window to prevent Iran from building a nuclear bomb is closing, American officials see an Israeli attack on Iran within the next year as a possibility. They have said privately that they believe that Israel would probably give the United States little or no warning should Israeli officials make the decision to strike Iranian nuclear sites.

Officials said that, under the chain of events in the war game, Iran believed that Israel and the United States were partners in any strike against Iranian nuclear sites and therefore considered American military forces in the Persian Gulf as complicit in the attack. Iranian jets chased Israeli warplanes after the attack, and Iranians launched missiles at an American warship in the Persian Gulf, viewed as an act of war that allowed an American retaliation.

Internal Look has long been one of Central Command’s most significant planning exercises, and is carried out about twice a year to assess how the headquarters, its staff and command posts in the region would respond to various real-world situations.

Over the years, it has been used to prepare for various wars in the Middle East. According to the defense Web site GlobalSecurity.org, military planners during the cold war used Internal Look to prepare for a move by the Soviet Union to seize Iranian oil fields. The American war plan at the time called for the Pentagon to march nearly six Army divisions north from the Persian Gulf to the Zagros Mountains of Iran to blunt a Soviet attack.

In December 2002, Gen. Tommy R. Franks, who was the top officer at Central Command, used Internal Look to test the readiness of his units for the coming invasion of Iraq.

Many experts have predicted that Iran would try to carefully manage the escalation after an Israeli first strike in order to avoid giving the United States a rationale for attacking with its far superior forces. Thus, it might use proxies to set off car bombs in world capitals or funnel high explosives to insurgents in Afghanistan to attack American and NATO troops.

While using surrogates might, in the end, not be enough to hide Iran’s instigation of these attacks, the government in Tehran could at least publicly deny all responsibility.

Some military specialists in the United States and in Israel who have assessed the potential ramifications of an Israeli attack believe that the last thing Iran would want is a full-scale war on its territory. Thus, they argue that Iran would not directly strike American military targets, whether warships in the Persian Gulf or bases in the region.

Their analysis, however, also includes the broad caveat that it is impossible to know the internal thinking of the senior Iranian leadership, and is informed by the awareness that even the most detailed war games cannot predict how nations and their leaders will react in the heat of conflict.

Yet these specialists continue their work, saying that any insight on how the Iranians will react to an attack will help determine whether the Israelis carry out a strike — and what the American position will be if they do.

Israeli intelligence estimates, backed by academic studies, have cast doubt on the widespread assumption that a military strike on Iranian nuclear facilities would set off a catastrophic set of events like a regional conflagration, widespread acts of terrorism and sky-high oil prices.

“A war is no picnic,” Defense Minister Ehud Barak told Israel Radio in November. But if Israel feels itself forced into action, the retaliation would be bearable, he said. “There will not be 100,000 dead or 10,000 dead or 1,000 dead. The state of Israel will not be destroyed.”

    U.S. War Game Sees Perils of Israeli Strike Against Iran, NYT, 19.3.2012,
    http://www.nytimes.com/2012/03/20/world/middleeast/
    united-states-war-game-sees-dire-results-of-an-israeli-attack-on-iran.html

To Save Israel, Boycott the Settlements

March 18, 2012
The New York Times
By PETER BEINART

TO believe in a democratic Jewish state today is to be caught between the jaws of a pincer.

On the one hand, the Israeli government is erasing the “green line” that separates Israel proper from the West Bank. In 1980, roughly 12,000 Jews lived in the West Bank (excluding East Jerusalem). Today, government subsidies have helped swell that number to more than 300,000. Indeed, many Israeli maps and textbooks no longer show the green line at all.

In 2010, Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu of Israel called the settlement of Ariel, which stretches deep into the West Bank, “the heart of our country.” Through its pro-settler policies, Israel is forging one political entity between the Jordan River and the Mediterranean Sea — an entity of dubious democratic legitimacy, given that millions of West Bank Palestinians are barred from citizenship and the right to vote in the state that controls their lives.

In response, many Palestinians and their supporters have initiated a global campaign of Boycott, Divestment and Sanctions (B.D.S.), which calls not only for boycotting all Israeli products and ending the occupation of the West Bank but also demands the right of millions of Palestinian refugees to return to their homes — an agenda that, if fulfilled, could dismantle Israel as a Jewish state.

The Israeli government and the B.D.S. movement are promoting radically different one-state visions, but together, they are sweeping the two-state solution into history’s dustbin.

It’s time for a counteroffensive — a campaign to fortify the boundary that keeps alive the hope of a Jewish democratic state alongside a Palestinian one. And that counteroffensive must begin with language.

Jewish hawks often refer to the territory beyond the green line by the biblical names Judea and Samaria, thereby suggesting that it was, and always will be, Jewish land. Almost everyone else, including this paper, calls it the West Bank.

But both names mislead. “Judea and Samaria” implies that the most important thing about the land is its biblical lineage; “West Bank” implies that the most important thing about the land is its relationship to the Kingdom of Jordan next door. After all, it was only after Jordan conquered the territory in 1948 that it coined the term “West Bank” to distinguish it from the rest of the kingdom, which falls on the Jordan River’s east bank. Since Jordan no longer controls the land, “West Bank” is an anachronism. It says nothing meaningful about the territory today.

Instead, we should call the West Bank “nondemocratic Israel.” The phrase suggests that there are today two Israels: a flawed but genuine democracy within the green line and an ethnically-based nondemocracy beyond it. It counters efforts by Israel’s leaders to use the legitimacy of democratic Israel to legitimize the occupation and by Israel’s adversaries to use the illegitimacy of the occupation to delegitimize democratic Israel.

Having made that rhetorical distinction, American Jews should seek every opportunity to reinforce it. We should lobby to exclude settler-produced goods from America’s free-trade deal with Israel. We should push to end Internal Revenue Service policies that allow Americans to make tax-deductible gifts to settler charities. Every time an American newspaper calls Israel a democracy, we should urge it to include the caveat: only within the green line.

But a settlement boycott is not enough. It must be paired with an equally vigorous embrace of democratic Israel. We should spend money we’re not spending on settler goods on those produced within the green line. We should oppose efforts to divest from all Israeli companies with the same intensity with which we support efforts to divest from companies in the settlements: call it Zionist B.D.S.

Supporters of the current B.D.S. movement will argue that the distinction between democratic and nondemocratic Israel is artificial. After all, many companies profit from the occupation without being based on occupied land. Why shouldn’t we boycott them, too? The answer is that boycotting anything inside the green line invites ambiguity about the boycott’s ultimate goal — whether it seeks to end Israel’s occupation or Israel’s existence.

For their part, American Jewish organizations might argue that it is unfair to punish Israeli settlements when there are worse human rights offenses in the world and when Palestinians still commit gruesome terrorist acts. But settlements need not constitute the world’s worst human rights abuse in order to be worth boycotting. After all, numerous American cities and organizations boycotted Arizona after it passed a draconian immigration law in 2010.

The relevant question is not “Are there worse offenders?” but rather, “Is there systematic oppression that a boycott might help relieve?” That Israel systematically oppresses West Bank Palestinians has been acknowledged even by the former Israeli prime ministers Ehud Barak and Ehud Olmert, who have warned that Israel’s continued rule there could eventually lead to a South African-style apartheid system.

Boycotts could help to change that. Already, prominent Israeli writers like David Grossman, Amos Oz and A. B. Yehoshua have refused to visit the settlement of Ariel. We should support their efforts because persuading companies and people to begin leaving nondemocratic Israel, instead of continuing to flock there, is crucial to keeping the possibility of a two-state solution alive.

Others may object to boycotting settlements near the green line, which will likely be incorporated into Israel in the event of a peace deal. But what matters is not the likelihood that a settler will one day live in territory where all people enjoy the right to citizenship regardless of ethnicity, but the fact that she does not live there yet. (That’s why the boycott should not apply to East Jerusalem, which Israel also occupied in 1967, since Palestinians there at least have the ability to gain citizenship, even if they are not granted it by birth.)

If moderate settlers living near the green line resent being lumped in with their more ideologically driven counterparts deep in occupied territory, they should agitate for a two-state solution that would make possible their incorporation into democratic Israel. Or they should move.

As I write this, I cringe. Most settlers aren’t bad people; many poor Sephardic, Russian and ultra-Orthodox Jews simply moved to settlements because government subsidies made housing there cheap. More fundamentally, I am a committed Jew. I belong to an Orthodox synagogue, send my children to Jewish school and yearn to instill in them the same devotion to the Jewish people that my parents instilled in me. Boycotting other Jews is a painful, unnatural act. But the alternative is worse.

When Israel’s founders wrote the country’s declaration of independence, which calls for a Jewish state that “ensures complete equality of social and political rights to all its inhabitants irrespective of religion, race or sex,” they understood that Zionism and democracy were not only compatible; the two were inseparable.

More than six decades later, they look prophetic. If Israel makes the occupation permanent and Zionism ceases to be a democratic project, Israel’s foes will eventually overthrow Zionism itself.

We are closer to that day than many American Jews want to admit. Sticking to the old comfortable ways endangers Israel’s democratic future. If we want to effectively oppose the forces that threaten Israel from without, we must also oppose the forces that threaten it from within.

Peter Beinart, a professor at the City University of New York

and the editor of the Daily Beast blog Zion Square,

is the author of “The Crisis of Zionism.”

    To Save Israel, Boycott the Settlements, NYT, 18.2.2012,
    http://www.nytimes.com/2012/03/19/opinion/to-save-israel-boycott-the-settlements.html

Coptic Pope Dies in Egypt Amid Church’s Struggles

March 17, 2012
The New York Times
By KAREEM FAHIM

CAIRO — Pope Shenouda III, who led the Coptic Orthodox Church in Egypt for four decades, expanding the church’s presence around the world as he struggled, often unsuccessfully, to protect his Christian minority at home, died on Saturday after a long illness, state media reported.

Pope Shenouda, who was 88, had suffered from cancer and kidney problems for years.

His death comes at a time of rising fears for Egypt’s 10 million Coptic Christians, who have felt increasingly vulnerable since the fall of President Hosni Mubarak and amid attacks on churches by hard-line Islamists and repression by Egypt’s security forces.

The rise to power of conservative Islamist parties has also raised concerns that Egyptian national identity is becoming more closely bound to Islam.

“It’s an injection of uncertainty for Copts at a time of transition in the country,” said Michael Wahid Hanna, a fellow at the Century Foundation. “Whether people were fond of him or not, this will cause anxiety.”

On Saturday night, hundreds of Coptic Christians gathered at Cairo’s main cathedral to grieve.

Samir Youssef, a physician, called the pope “an intellectual, a poet — strong, charismatic.”

“On a personal level, I’m worried about the future. I think there will be a conflict, the same chaos that followed the 25th of January,” he added, referring to the start of the uprising last year.

In a statement, President Obama praised Pope Shenouda as a beloved “advocate for tolerance and religious dialogue.” Egypt’s interim rulers, the Supreme Council of the Armed Forces, called on Egyptians to “come together in solidarity and be tolerant, to take Egypt toward security and stability.”

Pope Shenouda, who became patriarch in 1971, was known as a charismatic, conservative leader for Egypt’s Copts, who make up about 10 percent of the population in the majority Sunni nation.

He filled a leadership vacuum as Copts — along with most Egyptians — retreated from public life under authoritarian rule, and he expanded the church’s reach, especially in North America. At the same time, he was criticized for what were seen as his autocratic tendencies, which stifled internal church changes, and his support for Mr. Mubarak’s government, given in return for a measure of protection that Copts increasingly felt was insignificant.

The failure to distance the church from Mr. Mubarak led to greater disillusionment with the pope after the revolution, especially among younger and more secular Copts.

Pope Shenouda was born on Aug. 3, 1923, as Nazeer Gayed in the city of Asyut, Egypt, according to a biography of the patriarch posted on the church’s Web site. He attended Cairo University and became a monk in 1954.

In 1981, Pope Shenouda was sent into internal exile by President Anwar Sadat, with whom he clashed after complaining about discrimination against the Copts. Mr. Mubarak ended that exile in 1985, with an informal understanding that Pope Shenouda would be less vocal in pointing out discrimination, according to Mariz Tadros, a researcher at the University of Sussex and the author of a forthcoming book on the Copts.

That understanding was severely strained in the past decade after a series of deadly clashes between Copts and Muslims, and charges that the state, and especially its security services, stoked the sectarian divide. After 21 people were killed in a church bombing last year, some Copts criticized the pope for not confronting the government.

The Coptic Church’s own policies, including its almost total ban on divorce, have also increased tensions. Some have left the church specifically to divorce, either choosing another denomination or officially converting to Islam, then sometimes converting back after the split.

The conversions have incited rumors that have led to episodes of Muslim-Christian violence.

The next pope will face a growing desire among many Copts to expand the community’s leadership, analysts said. Under Pope Shenouda, “the church became the de facto political representative of the Copts,” Mr. Hanna said. “That became increasingly problematic.

Mayy El Sheikh contributed reporting.

    Coptic Pope Dies in Egypt Amid Church’s Struggles, NYT, 17.3.2012,
    http://www.nytimes.com/2012/03/18/world/middleeast/coptic-pope-dies-in-egypt-amid-churchs-struggles.html

U.S. Faces a Tricky Task in Assessment of Data on Iran

March 17, 2012
The New York Times
By JAMES RISEN

WASHINGTON — While American spy agencies have believed that the Iranians halted efforts to build a nuclear bomb back in 2003, the difficulty in assessing the government’s ambitions was evident two years ago, when what appeared to be alarming new intelligence emerged, according to current and former United States officials.

Intercepted communications of Iranian officials discussing their nuclear program raised concerns that the country’s leaders had decided to revive efforts to develop a weapon, intelligence officials said.

That, along with a stream of other information, set off an intensive review and delayed publication of the 2010 National Intelligence Estimate, a classified report reflecting the consensus of analysts from 16 agencies. But in the end, they deemed the intercepts and other evidence unpersuasive, and they stuck to their longstanding conclusion.

The intelligence crisis that erupted in 2010, which has not been previously disclosed, only underscores how central that assessment has become to matters of war and peace.

Today, as suspicions about Iran’s nuclear ambitions have provoked tough sanctions and threats of military confrontation, top administration officials have said that Iran still has not decided to pursue a weapon, reflecting the intelligence community’s secret analysis. But if that assessment changes, it could lift a brake set by President Obama, who has not ruled out military options as a last resort to prevent Iran gaining nuclear arms.

Publicly and privately, American intelligence officials express confidence in the spy agencies’ assertions. Still, some acknowledge significant intelligence gaps in understanding the intentions of Iran’s leaders and whether they would approve the crucial steps toward engineering a bomb, the most covert aspect of one of the most difficult intelligence collection targets in the world.

Much of what analysts sift through are shards of information that are ambiguous or incomplete, sometimes not up to date, and that typically offer more insight about what the Iranians are not doing than evidence of what they are up to.

As a result, officials caution that they cannot offer certainty. “I’d say that I have about 75 percent confidence in the assessment that they haven’t restarted the program,” said one former senior intelligence official.

Another former intelligence official said: “Iran is the hardest intelligence target there is. It is harder by far than North Korea.

“In large part, that’s because their system is so confusing,” he said, which “has the effect of making it difficult to determine who speaks authoritatively on what.”

And, he added, “We’re not on the ground, and not having our people on the ground to catch nuance is a problem.”

Iran says its nuclear program is for peaceful civilian purposes, but American intelligence agencies and the International Atomic Energy Agency have picked up evidence in recent years that some Iranian research activities that may be weapons-related have continued since 2003, officials said. That information has not been significant enough for the spy agencies to alter their view that the weapons program has not been restarted.

Mossad, Israel’s intelligence service, agrees with the American intelligence assessments, even while Israeli political leaders have been pushing for quick, aggressive action to block Iran from becoming what they describe as an existential threat to the Jewish state.

“Their people ask very hard questions, but Mossad does not disagree with the U.S. on the weapons program,” said one former senior American intelligence official, who, like others for this article, would speak only on the condition of anonymity about classified information. “There is not a lot of dispute between the U.S. and Israeli intelligence communities on the facts.”

In trying to evaluate the potential perils of Iran’s nuclear program, the United States’ spy agencies have spent years trying to track its efforts to enrich uranium and develop missile technology, and watching for any move toward weaponization — designing and building a bomb.

Hunting for signs of the resumption of a weapons program is more difficult than monitoring enrichment and missile-building activities, both of which require large investments in plants, equipment and related infrastructure. American intelligence officials said that the conversations of only a dozen or so top Iranian officials and scientists would be worth monitoring in order to determine whether the weapons program had been restarted, because decision-making on nuclear matters is so highly compartmentalized in Iran.

“Reactors are easier to track than enrichment facilities, but obviously anything that involves a lot of construction is easier to track than scientific and intellectual work,” said Jeffrey T. Richelson, the author of “Spying on the Bomb,” a history of American nuclear intelligence. “At certain stages, it is very hard to track the weapons work unless someone is blabbing and their communications can be intercepted.”

The extent of the evidence the spy agencies have collected is unclear because most of their findings are classified, but intelligence officials say they have been throwing everything they have at the Iranian program.

While the National Security Agency eavesdrops on telephone conversations of Iranian officials and conducts other forms of electronic surveillance, the National Geospatial-Intelligence Agency analyzes radar imagery and digital images of nuclear sites. Outside analysts believe high-tech drones prowl overhead; one came down late last year deep inside Iranian territory, though American officials said they lost control of it in Afghanistan.

Meanwhile, clandestine ground sensors, which can detect electromagnetic signals or radioactive emissions that could be linked to covert nuclear activity, are placed near suspect Iranian facilities. The United States also relies heavily on information gathered by inspectors with the International Atomic Energy Agency who visit some of Iran’s nuclear-related facilities.

But collecting independent human intelligence — recruiting spies — has been by far the most difficult task for American intelligence. Some operational lapses — and the lack of an embassy as a base of operations ever since the hostage crisis three decades ago — have frequently left the C.I.A. virtually blind on the ground in Iran, according to former intelligence officials.

In 2004, for example, the C.I.A. put a whole network of Iranian agents in jeopardy after a technological mistake by an agency officer, according to former intelligence officials.

In 2005, a presidential commission that reviewed the prewar failures of the intelligence on Iraq’s supposed weapons programs faulted American intelligence on Iran, saying it included little valuable information from spies.

More recently, the C.I.A. suffered a setback in efforts to question Iranian exiles and recruit nuclear scientists. Two years ago, agency officials had to sort through the wreckage of the strange case of Shahram Amiri, an Iranian scientist who apparently defected to the United States in 2009 and then returned to Iran in 2010 after claiming he had been abducted by the C.I.A.

His case is eerily similar to that of Vitaly Yurchenko, a K.G.B. officer who defected to the United States in 1985 and went back to the Soviet Union later that year, claiming he had been drugged and kidnapped by the C.I.A.

Like Mr. Yurchenko, Mr. Amiri’s case has provoked debate within the agency about whether he was a genuine defector, and whether any of the information he provided could be trusted.

The United States and Israel share intelligence on Iran, American officials said. For its spying efforts, Israel relies in part on an Iranian exile group that is labeled a terrorist organization by the United States, the Mujahedeen Khalq, or M.E.K., which is based in Iraq. The Israelis have also developed close ties in the semiautonomous region of Kurdistan in northern Iraq, and they are believed to use Kurdish agents who can move back and forth across the border into Iran.

American intelligence officials, however, are wary of relying on information from an opposition group like the M.E.K., particularly after their experience in Iraq of relying on flawed information provided by the Iraqi National Congress, an exile group run by Ahmad Chalabi.

“I’m very suspicious of anything that the M.E.K. provides,” said David A. Kay, who led the C.I.A.’s fruitless effort to find weapons program in Iraq. “We all dealt with the Chalabis of the world once.”

Just as in 2010, new evidence about the Iranian nuclear program delayed the National Intelligence Estimate in 2007, the last previous assessment. Current and former American officials say that a draft version of the assessment had been completed when the United States began to collect surprising intelligence suggesting that Iran had suspended its weapons program and disbanded its weapons team four years earlier.

The draft version had concluded that the Iranians were still trying to build a bomb, the same finding of a 2005 assessment. But as they scrutinized the new intelligence from several sources, including intercepted communications in which Iranian officials were heard complaining to one another about stopping the program, the American intelligence officials decided they had to change course, officials said. While enrichment activities continued, the evidence that Iran had halted its weapons program in 2003 at the direction of the supreme leader, Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, was too strong to ignore, they said.

One former senior official characterized the information as very persuasive. “I had high confidence in it,” he said. “There was tremendous evidence that the program had been halted.”

And today, despite criticism of that assessment from some outside observers and hawkish politicians, American intelligence analysts still believe that the Iranians have not gotten the go-ahead from Ayatollah Khamenei to revive the program.

“That assessment,” said one American official, “holds up really well.”

    U.S. Faces a Tricky Task in Assessment of Data on Iran, NYT, 17.3.2012,
    http://www.nytimes.com/2012/03/18/world/middleeast/
    iran-intelligence-crisis-showed-difficulty-of-assessing-nuclear-data.html

Syria's Faceless Voices Risk Their Lives by Speaking Out

March 14, 2012
The New York Times
By KRISTEN MCTIGHE

CAIRO — Rami Jarrah knew the consequences he could face if he were caught, so he spent more than six months hiding his identity to expose the violence and bloodshed he saw at the hands of the Syrian regime.

When he was finally confronted by a group of men at a kiosk near his house just two days after being stopped at a checkpoint in Damascus, he knew something was wrong.

“They said, ‘If you don’t keep your mouth shut, we’ll kill you,”’ said Mr. Jarrah, 28, in an interview in Cairo. “It was just a normal sentence, but I thought, ‘Could it be? Could they have been sent because they knew I was talking to the media?”’

To the world, Mr. Jarrah was known as Alexander Page, a faceless voice with flawless English who told a detailed account of a brutal government crackdown at a time when nearly all foreign media were banned. But at a time when international intervention remains in question and violence shows little sign of abating, Mr. Jarrah’s involvement and narrow escape have underscored the risks Syrian activist-journalists have taken to document and bring the events of the nearly yearlong uprising to the rest of the world.

Born in Cyprus and raised in London, Mr. Jarrah’s long stay in Syria was not one he had planned. With the intention of visiting family for the first time, he returned in 2004 and was detained.

“They accused me of forging my passport and of being some sort of spy,” said Mr. Jarrah, the son of Syrian activists who had fled the country before his birth. Mr. Jarrah had obtained his passport through the Syrian Embassy in London, but because his parents were married outside of the country and because of miscommunication on the part of the embassy, he was not registered in Syria. What was supposed to be a one-week trip turned into three years of legal battles. He was released during this battle under the condition that he would complete paperwork to prove he was Syrian, and he was not allowed to leave the country.

As he awaited his paperwork, he found work as an import-export consultant for a trading company in Damascus. When his ordeal was over, he decided to stay.

“I just figured I could work for a few years then move elsewhere,” he said.

He became frustrated at what he felt was a lack of courage among Syrians to speak out, so he planned to leave the country in 2011. Then in mid-March of last year, things began to change. When residents in a small southern city took to the streets to protest the torture of students who had put up anti-government graffiti, the government responded with heavy-handed force and demonstrations spread across the country. Mr. Jarrah joined the Local Coordination Committees of Syria and decided to stay. The committees are a network of local groups tracking the Syrian protests.

He began communicating online, but he was careful to remain anonymous, even among activists. On March 18, when a protest was planned following Friday afternoon prayers, Mr. Jarrah joined.

“I was looking around and people were yawning, and I thought, ‘Nothing’s going to happen,”’ he said of that day in the mosque. “Then, suddenly, someone runs up and yells, ‘My two children are in prison. I haven’t seen them for years,’ then, ‘I want freedom.’ Then everyone got up.” In a country deemed “a kingdom of silence” just months before, the protest movement was gaining momentum.

“Everything changed in that moment,” he said. “We’ve all spoken to each other about the first time demonstrating, and they all say they have that feeling where, suddenly, everything is a bit easier, you can do it again.”

So he continued, and on March 22, he participated in a demonstration in Damascus. This time, government troops responded with force, killing nine people and arresting dozens. Though Mr. Jarrah escaped unscathed, the emotional toll was heavy.

“Walking away we cried like little children, feeling useless and helpless. I had no doubt I was going to be told it was not my fault and that there was nothing I could have done,” he wrote on his blog. “But to have seen the massacre of innocent people right in front of my eyes, and standing only a few meters away from the murderers that were doing it, I could not help but assure myself that I was a coward.”

Distraught, he returned home. When members of the Local Coordination Committees found out he had witnessed the events and was fluent in English, he was asked to speak to foreign media. Late that night, he went on Al Jazeera and described what had happened.

Unable to show his face or reveal his name, he called himself Alexander Page, an artist he had come across at random online just minutes before. When he was contacted again by CNN, they asked him to use the name and it stuck.

“Every time I had a news outlet contact me, I had to go out and film something to prove that I was in Syria,” he said. And filming soon brought danger, when at a protest on March 25 he was caught recording on his iPhone. Arrested and detained for three days, he was stripped to his boxers, forced to stand, deprived of food and water, not allowed to sleep, and endured repeated beatings. Before he was released, he had to confess to being a terrorist.

“At the time it was severe for what I was doing, but it doesn’t compare to what happens now,” Mr. Jarrah said. “We have over 10,000 missing people in Syria and we are almost sure they have been tortured to death.”

After his release, Mr. Jarrah found himself at odds with his work. He was the employee of a company with close ties to the regime, so he was required to participate in a pro-government rally in April. He refused and quit.

Now jobless, Mr. Jarrah went on blogging and using Twitter and Facebook to tell the story of what he witnessed, all under the name of Alexander Page. He continued giving interviews and became one of the most sought after figures to report on the violence, but it came at a price.

At a protest in Damascus in October, Mr. Jarrah was stopped at a government checkpoint and caught carrying a 3G wireless router used to provide wireless Internet access to the crowds. Two days later, he was confronted by a group of men at a kiosk near his house and a scuffle broke out in which the men told him to keep quiet or he would be killed. Fearing the incidents were related, he reported it to the authorities to avoid looking suspicious. Still uneasy, he asked a contact with connections in the Syrian intelligence to run a check on his pseudonym.

At 4 a.m. that night, his contact called. The name Rami Jarrah was associated with Alexander Page and he was wanted. “I was out of the house in about two hours,” Mr. Jarrah said. He fled with his wife and baby daughter, crossing into Jordan and making his way to Cairo. Once there, he continued giving interviews with media and using his pseudonym on Twitter and Facebook. But with his identity now known, his project with Alexander Page changed.

“There are thousands of people in Syria who were doing exactly what I was doing, so I just thought that the ‘Page project’ would be something that represented them,” he said. “When I was outed, it became me, so we began the Activists News Association.”

Working out of a small apartment in Cairo, the association he founded alongside fellow exiled activists connects activists in Syria with mainstream journalists. They are organizing the videos flowing out of Syria, compiling information of the dead and spreading it all via Twitter and Facebook. In the future, they plan to forward everything to the International Criminal Court.

“We want to document Assad crimes. To do that, we have to gather up every video that was taken in Syria,” Mr. Jarrah said as he sat in the office alongside a wall of televisions projecting newscasts in which many of the activists’ videos were being used. “You have over 1,000 videos filmed every day, maybe more. What we see on TV is really just a small percentage of what is filmed.”

Other activists have followed what Mr. Jarrah is doing. The Syrian Network for Human Rights, another activist network, has also set up system of gathering and verifying crude information received from activists on deaths and human rights violations.

Dr. Mousab Azzawi, a consultant pathologist and activist based in London who serves as the group’s chairman, said they have a team of 231 verifiers inside Syria consisting of medical doctors, lawyers and other highly trained professionals. With his own pathology expertise, he has also helped train activists on the ground.

“We give them rules they must stick to,” Dr. Azzawi said. “If someone is killed we need the name, the father’s name, the family name, the age, the place, what happened, a statement from a family member, and then we will add it to the database.”

Syria has become an example of the ways in which citizen journalists can step up when foreign media have been restricted. “Activists in Syria have networks of information that have been developed over the past month that no foreign media could ever dream of,” said Lucie Morillon, head of the new media desk at Reporters Without Borders. “We talk about citizen journalists, but they are activists as well, so what they want to do is get the story out about the repression and the massacre that is going on.”

Ms. Morillon said such people were highly motivated. “They are willing to risk everything and believe that if they want this to stop, they have to alert the international community,” she said.

While activists continue to take risks to get the attention of the international community, the frustration that people like Mr. Jarrah express after months of stalemate and what he perceives as continued misconceptions is clear.

“There is no such thing as civil war. That’s the game the government is playing and they’re trying to provoke that idea,” Mr. Jarrah said. “What’s happening is the army is attacking people and they are detaining people and people have feelings. They’re not just going to sit and watch people get massacred.”

And Mr. Jarrah sees an urgency in the situation. “The whole international community is moving slow and we don’t know how long the Syrian people can hold this off, how long they cannot be provoked into civil war, not be provoked into sectarian violence, or whatever else,” he said. “It’s been a year.”

Mainstream journalists who have recently escaped the country have also felt a necessity to speak out.

Paul Conroy, a photographer with The Sunday Times of Britain who recently escaped after being wounded in the same attack that killed a colleague, Marie Colvin, spoke to Sky News from a hospital bed in London. “People brought me half a baby in and say, ‘Save my baby, where’s the help?’ And I have no answer,” Mr. Conroy said. “I don’t know how we can stand by and watch this. It’s not a war. It’s a massacre, an indiscriminate massacre of men women and children.”

He added: “Once the cameras are gone, which they are now, god knows what is happening.”

After Rami Al Sayid, a 26-year-old activist who told the world about the life he lived in Homs, was killed last month, his last words typed on Skype just hours earlier were posted online.

“The people of Baba Amr are now facing genocide,” he wrote. “I don’t want anyone to say, ‘Our hearts are with you.’ We know that. We want campaigns everywhere, inside and outside the country, right now... After an hour there will be no such thing as Baba Amr and I expect this to be my last message ... We will not forgive you.”

Despite all the despair, activists groups have begun going beyond reporting to presenting solutions.

“We can tell people all the casualties, but this is the top priority right now,” said Dr. Azzawi, whose network has presented a plan of international intervention involving humanitarian aid through United Nations organizations that does not require a Security Council approval and a buffer zone on the border with Turkey to be set up for those trapped to escape and to offer a safe haven for soldiers to defect.

“Seventy five to 80 percent of the main body of the Syrian Army are conscripts,” Dr. Azzawi said. “These are ordinary people, not professional soldiers. They are not ready to kill their own people.”

He added that the Syrian Network for Human Rights had received many signals that mass defections would occur, but that many soldiers feared military aircraft, so the group has also proposed a no-flight zone.

“People see only black and white,” Dr. Azzawi said. “It’s either military intervention or leave the Syrians aside. But here, there would be less bloodshed because the main axis of the regime, the army, will fall down very quickly, and the Syrians can free themselves by their own hands.”

    Syria's Faceless Voices Risk Their Lives by Speaking Out, NYT, 14.3.2012,
    http://www.nytimes.com/2012/03/15/world/middleeast/15iht-m15-syria-blog.html

Syria Expands Assault,

Hitting Rebel Enclaves in City in North

March 13, 2012
The New York Times
By ANNE BARNARD and RICK GLADSTONE

BEIRUT, Lebanon — Emboldened by faltering diplomacy and a Russian pledge to keep supplying weapons, Syria’s armed forces assaulted insurgent enclaves in the northern part of the country on Tuesday, invading the city of Idlib in an expanded campaign to crush the year-old uprising against President Bashar al-Assad.

Opposition activists reported heavy shelling by army tanks and artillery both in areas around Idlib in the north and around Homs, the city in central Syria that government forces claimed to have already pacified after weeks of shelling.

There were unconfirmed reports that Syrian forces had seized all or part of Idlib, a haven for the Free Syrian Army, an insurgent group of former soldiers. Hundreds of refugees were reported to be fleeing for the borders of Lebanon and Turkey, activists said.

In ominous new barometers of the conflict, the United Nations reported a surge in Syrian refugees and displaced civilians, Human Rights Watch accused Syria’s military of placing mines at the borders with Turkey and Lebanon, and Amnesty International released a report documenting what it described as systematic detentions and torture of civilians.

By early evening, Syrian troops controlled the main roads in Idlib, while opposition fighters kept up resistance within several neighborhoods, said the head of the Syrian Observatory for Human Rights, an opposition group based in London, who goes by the pseudonym Rami Abdul-Rahman for reasons of personal safety.

In an interview, he said that both sides were engaged in “a media war,” with each claiming control, but that the situation was similar to what had prevailed in Homs, where government forces controlled about two-thirds of the city and some central neighborhoods were in rebel hands.

A Syrian television channel, Addounia, showed scenes of destruction in Idlib, for which it blamed “foreigners and terrorists,” and showed interviews with nervous-looking residents who praised the Syrian Army for protecting them.

The Syrian military’s expanded campaign in the north came after days of seemingly fruitless diplomatic pressure on Mr. Assad to reach some accommodation with the array of opposition groups aligned against him. Kofi Annan, the former United Nations secretary general appointed by the United Nations and the Arab League as a special emissary to meet with Mr. Assad, left Damascus this past weekend without an agreement.

At the Security Council on Monday, there was no sign that efforts to reach consensus on a Syria cease-fire resolution had made any progress, with Russia resisting Western efforts to portray Mr. Assad as responsible for the violence that has left more than 7,500 people dead. Russia maintains that the opposition has equal responsibility for the violence.

Reinforcing Russia’s support for Mr. Assad, a senior official in Moscow dismissed requests by Western and Arab governments for a halt in weapons shipments to the Syrian Army. Russia is supplying them under existing contracts, the official, Anatoly I. Antonov, a deputy defense minister, said at a briefing for foreign journalists in Moscow.

“We have specialists in Syria and we cooperate militarily with Syria,” he said. “This is not a secret. We have good, solid, military and technical cooperation with Syria. And today, we don’t have a basis to reconsider this military cooperation.”

Syria’s restriction on foreign news coverage of the conflict has made it impossible to independently assess the fighting and differing accounts of casualties and blame. But it was clear from witnesses and activists reached by Skype and telephone on Tuesday that the military’s campaign was intensifying in and around Idlib.

An activist contacted via Skype in the border town of Khan Shaykhoun, about 40 miles from Idlib, reported heavy fighting there. The activist, who gave his name as Derar, said the town had been under heavy shelling since the morning and that he had seen about two dozen soldiers defect and burn a seized tank.

Another activist reached in Syria via Skype, Sami Ibrahim of the London-based Observatory group, said soldiers had stopped a car in Idlib Province and killed all seven occupants, including a child and two men wounded by shelling en route to a private hospital, because the nearest hospital was working with security forces.

Mr. Assad has portrayed the uprising as a crime wave by foreign-backed terrorist gangs, while opposition groups have insisted that his promises of reform and compromise are lies and that he must leave power as part of any cease-fire or peace proposal. The struggle, already the most violent of the Arab uprisings, has increasingly taken on the appearance of a civil war.

Reinforcing that appearance, the main United Nations refugee agency said at least 30,000 Syrians had fled to neighboring countries since the conflict began last March, and at least 200,000 more had been internally displaced.

Illustrating a further danger to fleeing civilians, Human Rights Watch reported that Syrian forces had planted antipersonnel land mines banned by an international treaty on the borders, and that the mines had already caused civilian casualties. Syria is among 37 countries — including Russia and the United States — that are not signatories to that treaty.

An Amnesty International report on Syria released late Tuesday, based on interviews with Syrians who had fled to Jordan, described what it called a system of widespread detention and torture of civilians suspected of antigovernment activity, which the organization said amounted to crimes against humanity that should be prosecuted. The report also noted that armed opposition groups had also committed some abuses.

While his forces were assaulting Idlib, Syrian state television reported that Mr. Assad had issued a decree setting parliamentary elections for May 7, the latest in his series of proffered political reforms. Opposition groups and their supporters called the election announcement a farce.

The announcement came as Mr. Annan said in a statement that he was expecting a response from Mr. Assad to proposals he had made to end the fighting. Mr. Annan has not publicly discussed the specifics of those proposals.

“Once I receive their answer we will know how to react,” Mr. Annan said in a statement. “The killings and violence must cease. The Syrian people have gone through a lot and they deserve better.”

The main exile opposition group, the Syrian National Council, had issued an urgent call on Monday for international military intervention, after activists said soldiers and pro-government thugs had executed dozens of civilians in Homs. The government said its opponents were responsible for those killings.

Internal struggles continue within the Syrian National Council, though, with Reuters reporting Tuesday that three prominent members had resigned because they felt the group was not effective enough. A group member told Reuters that others could leave as well.

But the council also seemed to be having some success overcoming its differences with other groups. A commander of the Free Syrian Army told Al Jazeera that it had agreed to coordinate actions with the Syrian National Council. Riyadh al-Assad, the commander, said that the Free Officers, an armed group that had been closer to the council, had joined the Free Syrian Army.

Anne Barnard reported from Beirut and Rick Gladstone from New York. Reporting was contributed by Hwaida Saad and Hala Droubi from Beirut and Andrew E. Kramer from Moscow.

    Syria Expands Assault, Hitting Rebel Enclaves in City in North, NYT, 13.3.2012,
    http://www.nytimes.com/2012/03/14/world/middleeast/syrian-forces-press-assault-on-northern-city.html

Caught in Egypt’s Political Cross-Fire

March 13, 2012
The New York Times
By ERIC TRAGER

Washington

THE Egyptian government’s prosecution this winter of seven American democracy workers catalyzed a two-month crisis in American-Egyptian relations. But after Washington threatened to withhold $1.3 billion in annual military aid to Egypt, the standoff swiftly subsided. The presiding judge resigned from the case, travel bans on the Americans were lifted, and most of the Americans were on their way home by the beginning of March.

This rapid turn of events surprised many Americans, but it shouldn’t have. The prosecutions targeted the Americans, but they weren’t really about them. The democracy workers had merely become pawns in a bitter domestic power struggle over Egypt’s future, in which rival groups competed by appealing to anti-Americanism.

For that reason, the crisis didn’t change America’s core interests in Egypt. But it should prompt Washington to develop a strategy for persuading the various political forces in Egypt to cooperate in pursuit of those interests rather than allowing American-sponsored efforts to become political footballs there.

Since the cold war, the United States government has promoted democracy abroad by supporting pro-democratic organizations, two of which — the International Republican Institute and the National Democratic Institute — were among those targeted in the crisis. Both institutes, which Congress founded in 1983, train political parties, monitor elections and help build civil society. The support they offer dissidents, however, often leads autocratic regimes to restrict their activities and claim they violate the host country’s sovereignty.

In Egypt, the point person targeting such pro-democratic groups has been the minister of planning and international cooperation, Fayza Abul Naga, a holdover from the Mubarak era. Since 2004, she has sought to ensure that all foreign funding for non-governmental institutions flows through her ministry. That empowered her to limit the resources available to Egyptian activists, including many of the protesters whose demonstrations toppled Hosni Mubarak from Egypt’s presidency a year ago. She began an inquisition against foreign-financed non-governmental organizations last summer and, on Dec. 29, security forces raided 10 of them, including 4 American groups.

By many accounts, Egypt’s ruling military junta was unaware that the prosecutor had placed travel bans on American democracy-promotion workers until Jan. 21, when Sam LaHood, the son of Secretary of Transportation Ray LaHood and the International Republican Institute’s Egypt director, was prevented from boarding a flight to Qatar. Even as a diplomatic outcry mounted, the junta saw an opportunity to portray the activists, whom it considered a threat to its legitimacy, as foreign-backed agitators.

In doing so, the junta put itself out in front of one rival for power, the Muslim Brotherhood, which won Egypt’s parliamentary elections. In recent months, the Brotherhood has increasingly blamed the junta for Egypt’s increasing instability and demanded complete civilian control by June 30. The junta has responded by blaming “foreign fingers” for the decline in order and has positioned itself as the only institution capable of defending Egyptians from the supposed plots against them.

So the crackdown on American nongovernmental organizations played right into the junta’s story line: Egypt’s state-run press published sensationalist stories claiming that the groups were “fomenting chaos,” which made the junta appear effective in confronting threats.

But that impression put the Muslim Brotherhood in a quandary. Traditionally anti-Western, it wasn’t inclined to defend the Americans. On the other hand, it wasn’t happy that the prosecutions were burnishing the junta’s domestic image.

Ultimately, the Brotherhood came out against both the military and the pro-democracy groups. Shortly after the December raids, a Brotherhood legislator, Essam el-Erian, told me that he and his colleagues were concerned about “the illegal funds” given to nongovernmental organizations and political groups. But he rejected the way in which the raids were conducted. “Everything must be done according to law,” he said. This balancing act was later reflected in Brotherhood statements.

Once the United States began objecting to the inquisition against the democracy workers, however, the Brotherhood shifted gears. To enhance its own international image, it took on the role of conciliator. A Senate delegation led by John McCain commended it later, saying it had played a “constructive role” in getting the travel ban lifted.

But once most of the American workers had left Egyptian airspace, the Brotherhood changed its tune again, this time criticizing the junta for succumbing to “humiliating pressure” from Washington and calling on the cabinet to resign. Meanwhile, secularist activists, including the Nobel laureate Mohamed ElBaradei, accused the junta of interfering in Egypt’s judicial process. Now 6,000 miles away, the democracy workers remain a political football.

The fact that the Americans’ ordeal wasn’t really about them but about Egypt’s own internal power struggle leaves American interests in Egypt essentially unchanged. The greatest interest remains ensuring that the next government maintains Egypt’s peace treaty with Israel, counters violent extremism and upholds pluralism and minority rights.

But to avoid being trapped again as a pawn among Egypt’s squabbling parties, Washington should condition future economic aid to Egypt on an agreement by all parties to respect these interests. There is good reason to believe that this conditionality could work: Egypt is approaching bankruptcy, and Washington has unique leverage over Cairo through its influence in international financial institutions.

Indeed, since no party will want to be blamed for scuttling a deal in which desperately needed aid is acquired in exchange for partnering with Washington, it may be possible to unite Egypt’s competing players in support of such a bargain. In that way, American interests could be immunized from becoming Egyptian political footballs again.

Executing this strategy requires quiet persistence. On one hand, Washington must demonstrate its desire to help an Egypt that is willing to be friendly. On the other, it must also demonstrate its willingness to watch a hostile Egypt try to survive on its own — without any Americans to blame for its troubles.

Eric Trager is a fellow at the Washington Institute for Near East Policy.

    Caught in Egypt’s Political Cross-Fire, NYT, 13.3.2012,
    http://www.nytimes.com/2012/03/13/opinion/caught-in-egypts-political-cross-fire.html

Israeli Airstrikes Kill Militants in Gaza

March 9, 2012
The New York Times
By FARES AKRAM and ISABEL KERSHNER

GAZA — Israeli airstrikes killed up to 10 Palestinians, most of them militants, in the Gaza Strip on Friday and early Saturday, and militants fired barrages of rockets at southern Israel in the worst cross-border fighting in months.

Web sites affiliated with Hamas, the Islamic group that controls Gaza, reported early Saturday that the death toll in the Palestinian enclave had risen to 10.

The first airstrike, which killed a leader of a Palestinian militant group and his assistant, came soon after Gaza militants fired two rockets into southern Israel, causing no injuries or damage, but the military said that it was timed to thwart a terrorist strike that the militants were planning against Israelis from across the border in Egypt.

In the hours after the first strike, at least 20 rockets were fired at Israeli territory. Three civilians were wounded, one seriously, according to the police and emergency services. Israel Radio reported that they were Thai workers. Two rockets were intercepted by Israel’s Iron Dome antirocket missile defense system, one crashed into a village near the Israeli port city of Ashdod, damaging a house, while others landed in open areas or the sea.

Palestinian residents of Gaza said they heard the distinctive sound of longer-range Grad rockets being launched from within built-up areas of Gaza City.

As a result of the sudden escalation, the Israeli authorities called for the cancellation of all outdoor public activities in southern Israel that were scheduled for Saturday.

The militant leader who was killed, Zuhair al-Qissi, was the secretary general of the Popular Resistance Committees, the group that Israel holds responsible for the deadly attack last August from across the border with Egypt in which eight Israelis were killed.

The P.R.C. came into being after the start of the second uprising, or intifada. It was founded by a group of militants who split with older factions like Hamas, Fatah and the Islamic Jihad. The group maintains good relations with Hamas and joined it to seize an Israeli soldier, Gilad Shalit, in a cross-border raid in 2006. Mr. Shalit was released last year in exchange for more than 1,000 Palestinian prisoners.

Hours after the first airstrike, Israeli aircraft struck in eastern Gaza City, killing three other militants. Witnesses said they were on a hilly area near the security fence between Gaza and Israel and were apparently preparing to fire rockets at Israeli communities around Gaza.

The two militants were members of the armed wing of Islamic Jihad, the group said in a statement.

The Israeli military said that it had targeted two squads as they prepared to fire rockets into Israel. Other airstrikes followed in response to rocket attacks.

Friday’s strikes came after months of relative calm. The Israeli military said that it “does not seek an escalation in the region,” but that it was ready to defend Israeli citizens and would “respond with strength and determination” against any terrorist activity. The military added that the strike against the militants was intended to disrupt a planned attack that was to be launched from the Sinai Peninsula in the coming days.

Israel has recently strengthened its fortifications along its long and porous western border, warning of an increased threat of terrorist attacks planned in Gaza and executed by way of the loosely policed Sinai Peninsula.

Mr. Qissi was appointed as leader of the P.R.C. after Israel killed his predecessor, Awad al-Nirab, and five other militants with an airstrike on a house in southern Gaza immediately after the August attack. The Israeli military said that Mr. Qissi had also been involved in planning that attack.

In January, Mr. Qissi had been reported killed, but another militant died in that episode.

Mr. Qissi’s assistant was Mahmoud Hnani, a senior militant who came from the West Bank and settled in Gaza more than four years ago, the P.R.C. said in a statement.

The two men were traveling in a car when they were hit. Yasmeen Nabeeh, a resident of the southern Gaza City neighborhood of Tal al-Hawa, said she heard a powerful blast and, from her window, saw a blue Volkswagen car burning on the street. A spokesman for an ambulance service said that a bystander was seriously wounded in the bombing.

Mr. Hnani masterminded attacks against Israelis during the second Palestinian uprising that broke out in 2000. The Israeli military said that he had been involved in sending a suicide bomber into Israel. Mr. Hnani spent six years in an Israeli prison and then traveled to Jordan and Egypt. From there he entered Gaza and married Mr. Qissi’s daughter, according to members of the P.R.C.

After the first Israeli strike on Friday, a spokesman for the P.R.C. known as Abu Mujahed said that his group was no longer committed to the shaky cease-fire with Israel that has been largely observed by Hamas, the Islamic group that controls Gaza.

“The response to this crime is open,” Abu Mujahed told reporters.

Fares Akram reported from Gaza, and Isabel Kershner from Jerusalem.

This article has been revised to reflect the following correction:

Correction: March 10, 2012

The Times learned of the error when Mr. al-Qissi was reported killed on Friday in an Israeli airstrike. A brief report about his death is on Page A5. And more information can be found at nytimes.com/foreign.

    Israeli Airstrikes Kill Militants in Gaza, NYT, 9.3.2012,
    http://www.nytimes.com/2012/03/10/world/middleeast/israeli-airstrike-kills-a-militant-leader-in-gaza.html

Top Pentagon Officials Stress Risks in Syria

March 7, 2012
The New York Times
By ELISABETH BUMILLER and RICK GLADSTONE

WASHINGTON — The Pentagon’s top two officials said Wednesday that President Obama had asked for preliminary military options to respond to the increasingly violent Syria conflict, but they emphasized the risks and said that the administration still believed that diplomatic and economic pressure was the best way to protect Syrians from the Assad government’s repression.

The appraisal by Gen. Martin E. Dempsey, chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, and Defense Secretary Leon E. Panetta, in Senate testimony, reflected increased concern about the year-old uprising in Syria, in which more than 7,500 people have been killed, according to United Nations estimates. Their comments also reflected the politicization of the Syria conflict in the United States during a presidential election year. Mr. Obama, who ended the war in Iraq and is moving to do the same in Afghanistan, has expressed reluctance to enter a new military conflict and characterized statements by his Republican adversaries as hawkish.

General Dempsey and Mr. Panetta spoke two days after Senator John McCain, Republican of Arizona, who lost to Mr. Obama in 2008, became the first senator to call for American airstrikes on Syria as “the only realistic way” to stop what he called a slaughter there. Both General Dempsey and Mr. Panetta faced sharp questions during their testimony before the Senate Armed Services Committee from Mr. McCain, who is the panel’s ranking Republican.

Their exchanges came as the conflict in Syria took some striking new turns. The United Nations’ top relief official, Valerie Amos, visited the ravaged Syrian city of Homs — the first inspection there by an independent outside observer since President Bashar al-Assad ordered a military assault of the city’s armed resistance more than a month ago. Syrian activist groups reported ominous signs on Wednesday that Mr. Assad’s forces would now direct their campaign northward to Idlib Province, where the Free Syrian Army, a group composed mostly of army defectors, is challenging his authority.

General Dempsey told senators that the options under review included humanitarian airlifts, naval monitoring, aerial surveillance of the Syrian military and the establishment of a no-fly zone. Specifically, he said that “the president of the United States, through the national security staff, has asked us to begin the commander’s estimate,” a term for an initial assessment of a situation and potential courses of military action.

Mr. Panetta, who spoke alongside General Dempsey, told the committee that military review was in the earliest stages. “We have not done the detailed planning because we are waiting for the direction of the president to do that,” he said. Modern commanders in chief have routinely asked for military options during foreign crises, and the Pentagon as part of its daily business draws up contingency plans for a wide range of potential conflicts.

Mr. Panetta and General Dempsey spent much time explaining the difficulties of military action. Mr. Panetta said intervention could expedite a civil war in the country and make an explosive situation worse. He said bluntly that the Obama administration recognized “that there are limitations of military force, especially with U.S. boots on the ground.” He added that “it doesn’t make sense” for the United States to act alone, without a coalition of allies, as was the case in Libya.

Ms. Amos, the United Nations under secretary general and emergency relief coordinator, arrived in Syria for a two-day visit to assess the country’s relief needs. She accompanied a team from the Syrian Arab Red Crescent into the Baba Amr neighborhood of Homs, which had suffered enormous destruction and where activists have reported hundreds of civilian deaths.

She made no statement about what she observed, but a spokeswoman at the United Nations, Amanda Pitt, said that Ms. Amos had told her via telephone that the neighborhood was “pretty devastated,” largely devoid of people and punctuated by occasional gunfire.

“She wanted to go to Homs and Baba Amr to try and get a sense for herself of the impact of the fighting — and of the lack of humanitarian access — and to get there as soon as possible,” Ms. Pitt said in an e-mail. She said Foreign Minister Walid al-Moallem of Syria, her host, had told Ms. Amos that she “would be able to go wherever she wanted.”

The state-run Syrian Arab News Agency made no mention of Ms. Amos’s visit to Homs, but reported her arrival in Syria earlier on Wednesday and quoted Mr. Moallem as saying that the government was trying to respond to emergency civilian needs “despite the burdens it faces because of the unfair sanctions imposed by some Arab and Western countries on Syria.”

Accounts of torture and deprivation in Homs, conveyed by fleeing civilians, have been denounced as enemy propaganda by the government of Mr. Assad, who has belittled the mass demonstrations against him and insisted that his forces have been battling foreign-backed terrorism. While China and Russia, his biggest foreign supporters, have defeated attempts by the United Nations Security Council to condemn Mr. Assad and hold him accountable, fractures have surfaced.

On Monday, Russia’s prime minister and president-elect, Vladimir V. Putin, reaffirmed his support for Mr. Assad but said he did not know how much longer Mr. Assad’s government would last. On Wednesday, China announced it was withdrawing most of its workers from Syria, reflecting what appeared to be declining confidence in Mr. Assad’s powers of governance.

Syria’s deputy oil minister, Abdo Hussameldin, announced his defection on a YouTube video, Reuters reported early Thursday, which would make him first high-ranking civilian official to abandon the Assad government since the uprising began.

The authenticity of the video, which was filmed at an undisclosed location, could not be confirmed.

“I Abdo Hussameldin, deputy oil and mineral wealth minister in Syria, announce my defection from the regime, resignation from my position and withdrawal from the Baath Party. I join the revolution of this dignified people,” Mr. Hussameldin says in the video, which was uploaded Wednesday and seen early on Thursday.

“I say to this regime: you have inflicted on those who you claim are your people a whole year of sorrow and sadness, denying them basic life and humanity and driving Syria to the edge of the abyss,” he says, adding that the country’s economy is “near collapse.”

Mr. Assad appointed Mr. Hussameldin, 58, to his position through a presidential decree in 2009.

Wearing a suit and tie, Mr. Hussameldin looked relaxed as he stared directly into the camera in a tight head and shoulders shot, appearing to read from a prepared statement on his lap as he sat on a dark gray chair against a yellow background.

”I have been in government for 33 years,” he said. “I did not want to end my career serving the crimes of this regime. I have preferred to do what is right although I know that this regime will burn my house and persecute my family.”

Public defections have remained rare among the civilian branches of the state, which Mr. Assad’s opponents attribute to the tight control of the secret police and the fear of retribution against families of any would-be defectors.

In late August, the attorney general of Hama Province, Mohammad al-Bakkour, declared in a YouTube video that he had resigned in protest against the suppression of street demonstrations and the storming of the city of Hama by tanks, according to Reuters. Mr. Bakkour has not been heard from since and some opposition sources say the video was made under pressure from rebels.



Elisabeth Bumiller reported from Washington, and Rick Gladstone from New York. Reporting was contributed by Neil MacFarquhar, Hwaida Saad and an employee of The New York Times from Beirut, Lebanon, Edward Wong from Beijing, and Alan Cowell from London.

    Top Pentagon Officials Stress Risks in Syria, NYT, 7.3.2012,
    http://www.nytimes.com/2012/03/08/world/middleeast/un-official-scheduled-to-arrive-in-syria.html

Obama Scolds G.O.P. Critics of Iran Policy

March 6, 2012
The New York Times
By JACKIE CALMES and MARK LANDLER

WASHINGTON — President Obama on Tuesday forcefully rebuked Republicans on the presidential campaign trail and in Congress for “beating the drums of war” in criticizing his efforts to find a diplomatic solution to the crisis over Iran’s nuclear program, underscoring how squarely the national security issue had entered the election-year debate.

Mr. Obama’s comments, in which he suggested without naming Iraq that the United States had only recently gone to war “wrapped up in politics,” came in a televised news conference. The White House scheduled it on a day when leading Republicans were addressing an influential pro-Israel lobbying group, the American Israel Public Affairs Committee, known as Aipac, at its annual conference.

There, the two leading Republican presidential candidates, Rick Santorum and Mitt Romney, assailed Mr. Obama’s foreign policy as ineffective and weak in their appeals to the group. The Senate Republican leader, Mitch McConnell of Kentucky, called for Congress to authorize the use of force against Iran.

The president was withering in his retort. “Those folks don’t have a lot of responsibilities,” Mr. Obama said. “They’re not commander in chief. When I see the casualness with which some of these folks talk about war, I’m reminded of the costs involved in war” — for those who go into combat, for national security and for the economy. “This is not a game,” he added. “And there’s nothing casual about it.”

“If some of these folks think that it’s time to launch a war, they should say so, and they should explain to the American people exactly why they would do that and what the consequences would be,” he said.

While the debate over Iran is unlikely to overshadow the economy as the predominant election issue, the heated back-and-forth this week — and the international tension over suspicions that Iran may seek to build nuclear weapons — ensure that it is now a part of the presidential contest.

The spark was the Aipac meeting, where members of both parties sought to show their support for Israel, especially against the potential threat of a nuclear-armed Iran. Mr. Obama spoke on Sunday, and Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu of Israel addressed the conference on Monday night after meeting earlier with Mr. Obama at the White House. The president, in his speech to Aipac, said military force was one option on the table for dealing with Iran. At the White House, Mr. Netanyahu told Mr. Obama that he had not made a decision on an Israeli strike, officials said, though he expressed deep skepticism that the president’s strategy of diplomatic and economic sanctions would force Iran to change course.

In his speech to Aipac, Mr. Santorum, a former Pennsylvania senator, accused Mr. Obama of allowing Iran “another appeasement, another delay, another opportunity for them to go forward while we talk.” When he addressed the group, Mr. Romney, a former Massachusetts governor, said, “The only thing respected by thugs and tyrants is our resolve, backed by our power and our readiness to use it.”

For a president who inherited wars in Iraq and Afghanistan, and has spent three years trying to wind them down, the talk of war plainly rankled. Mr. Obama’s early opposition to the Bush administration’s war against Iraq helped him to win the Democratic presidential nomination in 2008 over Hillary Rodham Clinton, who had voted to authorize force against Iraq as a senator, and he seemed to recall the period in drawing parallels to the current debate on Iran.

Citing the costs in lives lost or forever changed at his news conference, Mr. Obama said: “Sometimes we bear that cost, but we think it through. We don’t play politics with it. When we have in the past — when we haven’t thought it through and it gets wrapped up in politics — we make mistakes. And typically it’s not the folks who are popping off who pay the price.”

The politics aside, Mr. Obama struck a markedly more circumspect note on Iran a day after he expressed solidarity with Mr. Netanyahu. He reiterated at the news conference the need for time to allow diplomacy and sanctions to work, and rejected suggestions that Iran was so close to a nuclear weapon that the situation needed to be resolved “in the next week or two weeks or month or two months.”

The president added that sanctions were starting to squeeze Iran’s oil industry and central bank, and would intensify in coming months. He said that Iran was now signaling that it wanted to return to the negotiating table over its nuclear program, and he emphasized the risks of what he called premature military action.

“It’s also not just an issue of consequences for Israel if action is taken prematurely,” he said. “There are consequences to the United States as well.” As a friend of Israel, he said, it is the job of the United States “to make sure that we provide honest and unvarnished advice.”

Finally, Mr. Obama made clear that when he said the United States “has Israel’s back” — a phrase he used in his speech on Sunday and in the Oval Office with Mr. Netanyahu — it should not be interpreted to mean that he was giving Israel any kind of go-ahead for a pre-emptive strike on Iran.

His statement, Mr. Obama said, was a more general expression of American support for an ally, like Britain or Japan. “It was not a military doctrine that we were laying out for any particular military action,” he said.

Mr. Netanyahu and other Israeli officials attached great importance to Mr. Obama’s statement, on Sunday and at the White House, that Israel had a sovereign right to defend itself.

It was one of four remarks the president made that Israeli officials said they thought had drawn the United States closer to Israel in recent days. The others were Mr. Obama’s vow to prevent Iran from getting a nuclear weapon, his rejection of a policy aimed at containing a nuclear-armed Iran and his explicit reference to military force as an option on the table.

Mr. Netanyahu, in his address to Aipac on Monday, appeared comfortable with the results of his meeting with the president, even as he rejected warnings voiced by Mr. Obama and others that a strike on Iran could unleash even more dangerous consequences for Israel and the United States.

“It’s about time we start talking about the cost of not stopping Iran,” said Mr. Netanyahu, at one point holding up copies of letters from 1944, in which the War Department, the precursor of what is now the Defense Department, rebuffed an appeal by the World Jewish Congress to bomb Auschwitz because, the American officials said, it might drive Nazi Germany to even more “vindictive action.”

    Obama Scolds G.O.P. Critics of Iran Policy, NYT, 6.3.2012,
    http://www.nytimes.com/2012/03/07/world/middleeast/obama-rebukes-gop-critics-of-his-iran-policy.html

Israel’s Best Friend

March 6, 2012
The New York Times
By THOMAS L. FRIEDMAN

The only question I have when it comes to President Obama and Israel is whether he is the most pro-Israel president in history or just one of the most.

Why? Because the question of whether Israel has the need and the right to pre-emptively attack Iran as it develops a nuclear potential is one of the most hotly contested issues on the world stage today. It is also an issue fraught with danger for Israel and American Jews, neither of whom want to be accused of dragging America into a war, especially one that could weaken an already frail world economy.

In that context, President Obama, in his interview with The Atlantic’s Jeffrey Goldberg and in his address to Aipac, the pro-Israel lobby, offered the greatest support for Israel that any president could at this time: He redefined the Iran issue. He said — rightly — that it was not simply about Israel’s security, but about U.S. national security and global security.

Obama did this by making clear that allowing Iran to develop nuclear weapons and then “containing” it — the way the U.S. contained the Soviet Union — was not a viable option, because if Iran acquires a nuclear bomb, all the states around it would seek to acquire one as well. This would not only lead to a nuclear Middle East, but it would likely prompt other countries to hedge their commitments to the global Nuclear Nonproliferation Treaty. The global nuclear black market would then come alive and we would see the dawning of a more dangerous world.

“Preventing Iran from getting a nuclear weapon isn’t just in the interest of Israel, it is profoundly in the security interests of the United States,” the president told The Atlantic. “If Iran gets a nuclear weapon, this would run completely contrary to my policies of nonproliferation. The risks of an Iranian nuclear weapon falling into the hands of terrorist organizations are profound. ... It would also provide Iran the additional capability to sponsor and protect its proxies in carrying out terrorist attacks, because they are less fearful of retaliation. ... If Iran gets a nuclear weapon, I won’t name the countries, but there are probably four or five countries in the Middle East who say, ‘We are going to start a program, and we will have nuclear weapons.’ And at that point, the prospect for miscalculation in a region that has that many tensions and fissures is profound. You essentially then duplicate the challenges of India and Pakistan fivefold or tenfold.” In sum, the president added, “The dangers of an Iran getting nuclear weapons that then leads to a free-for-all in the Middle East is something that I think would be very dangerous for the world.”

Every Israeli and friend of Israel should be thankful to the president for framing the Iran issue this way. It is important strategically for Israel, because it makes clear that dealing with the Iranian nuclear threat was not Israel’s problem alone. And it is important politically, because this decision about whether to attack Iran is coinciding with the U.S. election. The last thing Israel or American friends of Israel — Jewish and Christian — want is to give their enemies a chance to claim that Israel is using its political clout to embroil America in a war that is not in its interest.

That could easily happen because backing for Israel today has never been more politicized. In recent years, Republicans have tried to make support for Israel a wedge issue that would enable them to garner a higher percentage of Jewish votes and campaign contributions, which traditionally have swung overwhelmingly Democratic. This has led to an arms race with the Democrats over who is more pro-Israel — and over-the-top declarations, like Newt Gingrich’s that the Palestinians “are an invented people.”

And it could easily happen because money in politics has never been more important for running campaigns, and the Israel lobby — both its Jewish and evangelical Christian wings — has never been more influential, because of its ability to direct campaign contributions to supportive candidates.

As such, no one should want domestic electoral politics mixed up with the Iran decision, which is why it was so important that the president redefined the Iran problem as a global proliferation threat and grounded his decision-making in American realism, not politics.

Reports from the Aipac convention this week indicated that those advocating military action were getting the loudest cheers. I’d invite all those cheering to think about all the unintended and unanticipated consequences of the Iraq war or Israel’s 1982 invasion of Lebanon. That’s not a reason for paralysis. It’s a reason to heed Obama’s call to give diplomacy and biting sanctions a chance to work, while keeping the threat of force on the table.

If it comes to war, let it be because the ayatollahs were ready to sacrifice their whole economy to get a nuke and, therefore, America — the only country that can truly take down Iran’s nuclear program — had to act to protect the global system, not just Israel. I respect that this is a deadly serious issue for Israel — which has the right to act on its own — but President Obama has built a solid strategic and political case for letting America take the lead.

    Israel’s Best Friend, NYT, 6.3.2012,
    http://www.nytimes.com/2012/03/07/opinion/friedman-israels-best-friend.html

Iran, Israel and the United States

March 5, 2012
The New York Times

President Obama and Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu of Israel share responsibility for the strains in their relationship. But there should be no doubt about Mr. Obama’s commitment to Israel’s security. When he warns that an Israeli attack on Iran could backfire, and that “there is still a window” for diplomacy, he is speaking for American and Israeli interests.

Iran’s nuclear appetites are undeniable, as is its malign intent toward Israel, toward America, toward its Arab neighbors and its own people. Israel’s threats of unilateral action have finally focused the world’s attention on the danger. Still, there must be no illusions about what it would take to seriously damage Iran’s nuclear complex, the high costs and the limited returns.

This would not be a “surgical” strike like the Israeli attack in 1981 that destroyed Iraq’s Osirak reactor, or the 2007 Israeli strike on an unfinished reactor in Syria. Iran has multiple facilities, and the crucial ones are buried or “hardened.” Pentagon analysts estimate that even a sustained Israeli air campaign would set back the program by only a few years, drive it further underground and possibly unleash a wider war.

It would also cast the Iranian government as the victim in the eyes of an otherwise alienated Iranian public. It would tear apart the international coalition and undermine an increasingly tough sanctions regime, making it even easier for Iran to rebuild its program.

Israelis have every right to be fearful and frustrated. For too long the world ignored Iran’s misdeeds and shrugged off Israel’s alarms. But while President George W. Bush blustered and made no progress, Mr. Obama — with a sharp nudge from Israel and Congress — has had increasing success rallying the international community to isolate and punish Tehran.

Mitt Romney’s claim that “if Barack Obama gets re-elected, Iran will have a nuclear weapon” is purely cynical; his own prescription for “crippling sanctions” and “military options” barely differs from Mr. Obama’s policy. The president’s offer to negotiate with Tehran has made it easier to persuade others to ratchet up the pressure.

We don’t know if there is any mix of sanctions and diplomacy that can persuade the mullahs to abandon their nuclear ambitions. American officials are right not to overpromise. Iran is feeling the bite from stiff restrictions on its banking system, and the pressure and pain should rise significantly in coming months as the European Union imposes an embargo on Iranian oil imports.

Tehran’s recent offer to return to the negotiations is almost certainly another feint, but must be tested.

What if sanctions and diplomacy are not enough?

Mr. Obama has long said that all options are on the table. In recent days his language has become more pointed — urged on, undoubtedly, by Israel’s threats to act alone.

Last week he told The Atlantic, “when the United States says it is unacceptable for Iran to have a nuclear weapon, we mean what we say.” In a speech on Sunday to the American Israel Public Affairs Committee, he declared that his policy is not to contain Iran, it is “to prevent Iran from obtaining a nuclear weapon.”

The United States military is far more capable of doing serious damage to Iran’s facilities than the Israeli military, but the cost would still be high, with many of the same dangers and uncertainties.

Mr. Obama is right that military action should only be the last resort, but Israel should not doubt this president’s mettle. Neither should Iran.

    Iran, Israel and the United States, NYT, 5.3.2012,
    http://www.nytimes.com/2012/03/06/opinion/iran-israel-and-the-united-states.html

Obama Presses Netanyahu to Resist Strikes on Iran

March 5, 2012
The New York Times
By MARK LANDLER

WASHINGTON — With Israel warning of a possible military strike on Iran’s nuclear facilities, President Obama urged Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu at the White House on Monday to give diplomacy and economic sanctions a chance to work before resorting to military action.

The meeting, held in a charged atmosphere of election-year politics and a deepening confrontation with Tehran, was nevertheless “friendly, straightforward, and serious,” a White House official said. But it did not resolve basic differences between the two leaders over how to deal with the Iranian threat.

Mr. Netanyahu, the official said, reiterated that Israel had not made a decision on striking Iran, but he expressed deep skepticism that international pressure would persuade Iran’s leaders to forsake the development of nuclear weapons. Mr. Netanyahu, according to the official, argued that the West should not reopen talks with Iran until it agreed to a verifiable suspension of its uranium enrichment activities — a condition the White House says would doom talks before they began.

Speaking later on Monday to an influential pro-Israeli lobbying group, the American Israel Public Affairs Committee, Mr. Netanyahu said, “We waited for diplomacy to work; we’ve waited for sanctions to work; none of us can afford to wait much longer.”

Mr. Obama, the official said, had maintained during their Oval Office meeting that the European Union’s impending oil sanctions and the blacklisting of Iran’s central bank could yet force Tehran back to the bargaining table — not necessarily eliminating the nuclear threat but pushing back the timetable for the development of a weapon.

“We do believe there is still a window that allows for a diplomatic resolution to this issue,” the president said as Mr. Netanyahu sat next to him before the start of their three hours of talks.

Both leaders agreed to try to tamp down the heated debate about Iran in their countries, officials said. Mr. Obama said the talk of war was driving up oil prices and undermining the effect of the sanctions on Iran. Mr. Netanyahu expressed frustration that statements by American officials about the negative effects of military action could send a message of weakness to Tehran.

Keeping a measured tone may be challenging, however. At the Aipac conference under way in Washington, speakers have delivered fervent calls for tougher action on Iran.

The Senate minority leader, Mitch McConnell, used his speech to lay out conditions under which he would introduce a bill in the Senate authorizing the use of military force against Iran. “We have now reached the point where the current administration’s policies, however well-intentioned, are simply not enough,” the Kentucky Republican said. An Aipac official noted that this idea originated with Mr. McConnell, not with Aipac.

When Mr. Obama spoke to the group on Sunday, he articulated many themes that he and Mr. Netanyahu discussed the following day in their meeting. Despite their sometimes acrimonious relationship over the Middle East peace process, Israeli and American officials said the two leaders were in sync about the need to stop Iran from joining the ranks of nuclear states.

“My policy here is not going to be one of containment,” Mr. Obama said before the meeting on Monday. “My policy is prevention of Iran obtaining nuclear weapons.” He added, “When I say all options are on the table, I mean it.”

Mr. Netanyahu, noting that Iran’s leaders vilify the United States as the “Great Satan” and Israel as the “Little Satan,” said there was no difference between the two countries. “We are you, and you are us,” he said. “We are together.”

The prime minister thanked Mr. Obama for affirming, in his speech on Sunday, that “when it comes to security, Israel has the right, the sovereign right to make its own decisions.”

An American official said the president was trying to avoid the perception that he was publicly pressuring the Israeli leader, though supporters of Israeli interpreted it as a signal that the United States recognized Israel’s right to make its own decision on military action. Whether Israel could, in fact, carry out an effective strike on Iran without American support is unclear.

“My supreme responsibility as prime minister of Israel is to ensure that Israel remains the master of its fate,” Mr. Netanyahu said.

Israeli officials said they were gratified by the president’s explicit reference to military force as an option, his rejection of a containment policy and his reaffirmation of Israel’s right to make decisions on its national security.

Still, beneath the tableau of shoulder-to-shoulder solidarity, the differences in their views were on display in their statements before the meeting. Mr. Netanyahu said nothing about diplomacy and the sanctions that Mr. Obama has advocated. And while the president repeated his vow that “all options are on the table” to halt Iran’s pursuit of a weapon, he did not explicitly mention military force, as he had on Sunday.

Nor has the president embraced another crucial Israeli demand: that military action come before Iran acquires the capability to manufacture a bomb, as opposed to before it actually builds one. The two men did not close the gap on this issue, the official said, though he added that Mr. Netanyahu did not press Mr. Obama on it.

Mr. Netanyahu also did not push Mr. Obama to lay down sharper “red lines,” or conditions, that would prompt American action, as had been rumored last week, Israeli and American officials said.

Indeed, in his speech to Aipac, Mr. Netanyahu did not speak of preventing Iran from achieving nuclear weapons capability, only a nuclear weapon itself. “For the sake of our prosperity, for the sake of security, for the sake of our children, Iran must not be allowed to acquire nuclear weapons,” he said.

As he has in previous speeches, Mr. Netanyahu dwelled on the threat posed by a nuclear-armed Iran. Tehran, he said, was the world’s leading sponsor of terrorism, trying in the past year to murder the Saudi ambassador to Washington. Iran, he said, plotted to destroy the state of Israel “every day, each day, relentlessly.”

Israeli officials seemed most gratified with Mr. Obama’s explicit refusal to follow a policy of containing a nuclear-armed Iran. The president said Iran’s acquisition of nuclear weapons would ignite an arms race in the Middle East, raise the specter of nuclear weapons falling into the hands of terrorists, and allow Iran to behave with impunity in the region.

The mood in the Oval Office was somber and businesslike, as it usually is in meetings between Mr. Obama and Mr. Netanyahu. But the chemistry was better than it had been in previous meetings, officials said.

In their last Oval Office encounter, in May 2011, Mr. Netanyahu summarily rejected a proposal by the president to revive moribund peace negotiations between the Israelis and the Palestinians. With a stone-faced Mr. Obama sitting next to him, Mr. Netanyahu said Israel would not pursue a “peace based on illusions.”

This time, the peace process barely figured in the discussions.

    Obama Presses Netanyahu to Resist Strikes on Iran, NYT, 5.3.2012,
    http://www.nytimes.com/2012/03/06/world/middleeast/obama-cites-window-for-diplomacy-on-iran-bomb.html

U.S. Backers of Israel Pressure Obama Over Policy on Iran

March 3, 2012
The New York Times
By MARK LANDLER

WASHINGTON — On the eve of a crucial visit to the White House by Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu of Israel, that country’s most powerful American advocates are mounting an extraordinary public campaign to pressure President Obama into hardening American policy toward Iran over its nuclear program.

From the corridors of Congress to a gathering of nearly 14,000 American Jews and other supporters of Israel here this weekend, Mr. Obama is being buffeted by demands that the United States be more aggressive toward Iran and more forthright in supporting Israel in its own confrontation with Tehran.

While defenders of Israel rally every year at the meeting of the pro-Israel lobbying group, the American Israel Public Affairs Committee, this year’s gathering has been supercharged by a convergence of election-year politics, a deepening nuclear showdown and the often-fraught relationship between the president and the Israeli prime minister.

Mr. Obama and Mr. Netanyahu will both speak to the group, known as Aipac, as will the three leading Republican presidential candidates, who will appear via satellite from the campaign trail on the morning of Super Tuesday. Republicans have seized on Iran’s nuclear ambitions to accuse Mr. Obama of being weak in backing a staunch ally and in confronting a bitter foe.

The pressure from an often-hostile Congress is also mounting. A group of influential senators, fresh from a meeting with Mr. Netanyahu in Jerusalem, has called on Mr. Obama to lay down sharper criteria, known as “red lines,” about when to act against Iran’s nuclear ambitions.

“We’re saying to the administration, ‘You’ve got a problem; let’s fix it, let’s get back on message,’ ” said Senator Lindsey Graham, Republican of South Carolina, who took part in the meeting with Mr. Netanyahu and said the Israeli leader vented frustration at what he viewed as mixed messages from Washington.

“It’s not just about the Jewish vote and 2012,” Mr. Graham added. “It’s about reassuring people who want to avoid war that the United States will do what’s necessary.”

To give teeth to the deterrent threat against Iran, Israel and its backers want Mr. Obama to stop urging restraint on Israel and to be more explicit about the circumstances under which the United States itself would carry out a strike.

Specifically, Israeli officials are demanding that Iran agree to halt all its enrichment of uranium in the country, and that the suspension be verified by United Nations inspectors, before the West resumes negotiations with Tehran on its nuclear program.

The White House has rejected that demand, Israeli and American officials said on Friday, arguing that Iran would never agree to a blanket ban upfront, and to insist on it would doom negotiations before they even began. The administration insists that Mr. Obama will stick to his policy, which is focused on using economic sanctions to force the Iranian government to give up its nuclear ambitions, with military action as a last resort.

Despite the position of the Israelis and Aipac, the American intelligence agencies continue to say that there is no evidence that Iran has made a final decision to pursue a nuclear weapon. Recent assessments by American spy agencies have reaffirmed intelligence findings in 2007 and 2010 that concluded that Iran had abandoned its nuclear weapons program.

In his tone, at least, Mr. Obama is working to reassure Israel. In an interview published on Friday, Mr. Obama reiterated his pledge to prevent Iran from acquiring a nuclear weapon — with force, if necessary — and ruled out a policy of accepting but seeking to contain a nuclear-armed Iran. The Israeli government, he said, recognizes that “as president of the United States, I don’t bluff.”

The White House’s choice of interviewer — Jeffrey Goldberg, a national correspondent for the magazine The Atlantic — was carefully calculated. Mr. Goldberg is closely read among Jews in America; in 2010, he wrote an article exploring the situations under which Israel would attack Iran.

American Jews are anything but monolithic. More dovish groups, like J Street, are trying to make a case against a pre-emptive Israeli strike. But for the next few days, Aipac will set the tone for an intense debate over the Iranian nuclear threat.

Mr. Obama will not lay down new red lines on Iran, even if he discusses them with Mr. Netanyahu, administration officials said. And he is not ready to accept a central part of Israel’s strategic calculation: that an attack on Iran’s nuclear facilities would be warranted to stop it from gaining the capability to build a nuclear weapon, rather than later, to stop it from actually manufacturing one.

In the interview, Mr. Obama warned Israel of the consequences of a strike and said that it would delay but not prevent Iran from acquiring a weapon. He also said he did not know how the American public would react.

Israel’s supporters said they believed that a majority of Americans would support an Israeli military strike against Iran. But polling data paints a murkier picture: while close to 50 percent of Americans say in several polls that they would support Israel, a slightly larger number say they would stay neutral. In some surveys, there is strong support for continuing diplomacy.

Supporters of Israel argue that in the American news media, Iran’s nuclear program has been wrongly framed as Israel’s problem, rather than as a threat to the security of the whole world.

“This is about the devastating impact on U.S. and Western security of a nuclear-armed Iran bent on bullying the region into submission,” said Josh Block, a former spokesman for Aipac.

Turnout for this year’s Aipac conference is expected to surpass all previous records. And the roster of speakers attests to the group’s drawing power. In addition to Mr. Obama, Defense Secretary Leon E. Panetta will speak, as will Congressional leaders including Senator Mitch McConnell, the chamber’s Republican leader, and former Speaker Nancy Pelosi, the Democratic leader in the House.

On Tuesday, the screens in the Washington convention center will light up with the Republican presidential contenders Mitt Romney, Newt Gingrich and Rick Santorum, who are likely to fault Mr. Obama as not doing enough to prevent Iran from getting a weapon.

“Aipac is the spearhead of the pro-Israel community’s efforts to move the American government’s red lines closer to Israel’s red lines,” said Martin S. Indyk, a former American envoy to Israel.

Officials at Aipac declined to comment about the conference or their strategy. But Mr. Block and other former Aipac officials said that, as in previous years, the group would blanket Capitol Hill with its members — all of whom will carry a message about the Iranian nuclear threat.

They will be pushing on an open door. Democrats and Republicans, divided on so much, are remarkably united in supporting Israel and in ratcheting up pressure on Iran. The Senate voted 100 to 0 last year to pass legislation isolating Iran’s central bank, over the objections of the White House.

There are four bills in the House and Senate that call for tougher action against Iran or closer military cooperation between Israel and the United States. Mr. Graham is one of 32 Republican and Democratic sponsors of a resolution that calls on the president to reject a policy of containing Iran.

“The Senate can’t agree to cross the street,” Mr. Graham said. “Iran has done more to bring us together than anything in the world.”

To counter Aipac’s message, J Street has circulated a video on Capitol Hill, highlighting American and Israeli military experts who have voiced doubts about the efficacy of a strike on Iran.

“We are saying there needs to be time for enhanced sanctions and diplomacy to work,” said Jeremy Ben-Ami, the president of J Street. “We’re trying to calm down the drumbeat of war.”

 

David E. Sanger contributed reporting.

    U.S. Backers of Israel Pressure Obama Over Policy on Iran, NYT, 3.3.2012,
    http://www.nytimes.com/2012/03/04/world/middleeast/israels-backers-in-aipac-press-obama-to-harden-iran-policy.html

Bearing Witness in Syria: A War Reporter’s Last Days

March 3, 2012
The New York Times
By TYLER HICKS

It was damp and cold as Anthony Shadid and I crossed in darkness over the barbed-wire fence that separated Turkey from Syria last month. We were also crossing from peace into war, into the bloodiest conflict of the Arab Spring, exploding just up the rocky and sparsely wooded mountain we had to climb once inside.

The smugglers waiting for us had horses, though we learned they were not for us. They were to carry ammunition and supplies to the Free Syrian Army. That is the armed opposition group, made up largely of defectors from President Bashar al-Assad’s brutal army, we had come to interview, photograph and try to understand.

The ammunition seemed evidence of the risk we were taking — a risk we did not shoulder lightly. Anthony, who passionately documented the eruptions in the Arab world from Iraq to Libya for The New York Times, felt it was essential that journalists get into Syria, where about 7,000 people have been killed, largely out of the world’s view. We had spent months planning to stay safe.

It turned out the real danger was not the weapons but possibly the horses. Anthony was allergic. He did not know how badly.

He had a terrible allergic attack that first night after we crossed over the barbed wire. He had another attack a week later, as horses led us out of Syria, just 45 minutes from safety. He died during that attack, at only 43, his wife and nearly 2-year-old son waiting for him in Turkey.

He did not write his articles from our eventful week of reporting and shooting pictures in Syria; his notes, taken obsessively, are barely decipherable. But he would have wanted a record of this final trip, some hint of the questions we sought to answer: Who were these fighters, and did they have any chance of beating the Syrian government? How were they armed and organized? Was the conflict, as in Iraq, worsening sectarian tensions? Just who supported whom?

Unlike Anthony, I do not speak Arabic. I’m a photographer who was most interested in capturing images from an expanding war zone. But I will do my best to convey a sense of what Syria, on edge, was like — in a week that invigorated Anthony as a reporter and witness. He could not wait to get back to write.

Getting the News

Syrian tanks blocked the roads leading in and out of the towns scattered across Idlib Province, a center for the insurgents, and we were surprised by how close we had to pass them on the drive into town. “This is really threading the needle,” Anthony said as we navigated a small, unguarded road that the insurgents considered safe. The men driving us described passable roads as “clean.”

Our journey in took us to a group of men who would be our guides in Syria. They call themselves activists, and unlike the fighters, they’re the civilian side of the revolution. They, too, are risking their lives to tell the world what is happening to their country.

Almost all of them have been jailed and tortured. One showed the marks on his legs where he had been tortured with electricity. Another had scars on his wrists from being tightly bound for so long in a cell. None have seen their families for months, and they routinely change where they sleep as a safety measure.

It was clear that they understood the importance of having Anthony there. Foreign journalists are valuable for getting news out of Syria and into a wider world that might be able to help them (though that wider world seems uncertain about how to do so). His Arabic allowed him to speak directly to people without the buffer of an interpreter. As always, he conveyed a genuine interest that made people open up to him; everyone was equal, no story insignificant.

Most fighters we met had recently defected from the Syrian Army, some just days earlier. I was surprised by how open they were. Only rarely would one cover his face or ask that I not take a picture. Most proudly displayed their military ID cards, holding them up like trophies. They said they defected because they refused to obey orders to kill their own people. Anthony and I talked often about what would happen if this struggle did not go their way. As defectors, capture would mean certain death.

There have been many reports of jihadis or other foreign fighters flowing into Syria, as if it were the next Afghanistan or Iraq. That is the story the Assad government has used as a justification for cracking down so violently. We saw no evidence of that in Idlib — only Syrians.

Anthony was not a thrill seeker, but he understood that the truth had to be found at the source. This is a war, and barracks interviews could not replace the firsthand accounts of battle. A battle came to us unexpectedly while making a routine stop at a base during an otherwise quiet day in Saraqib, in northwestern Syria.

Several dozen insurgent Free Syrian Army fighters rushed to gather all the weapons they could scrounge from their small compound. “They’re going on an attack,” Anthony told me. My reaction was mixed; I wanted the pictures to tell the story but felt uneasy about what was clearly going to be an uneven fight.

They were moving fast to get into place after learning that a column of tanks would be passing on the highway on their way to fortify the city of Idlib. We had to make a quick decision, and we agreed that we would go with them. The fighters were hugely outgunned for the battle ahead; firing an AK-47 rifle against an armored tank would amount to throwing a handful of stones at a Mack truck. They told Anthony that they would try to hit one of the tanks with a homemade bomb, their most effective weapon, already set in the road. Then they planned to attack the disabled convoy with their rifles.

The fighters, most in everyday clothes, some still wearing the uniforms that were issued to them in the Syrian Army before they had defected, waited hidden along a small street next to the highway. A single row of houses, some built from cinder block, others from stone, was the only concealment separating the fighters from the highway. A fighter warned us to stay behind the old stone houses because they would withstand a tank round better than cheap cinder block.

A small number of civilians trickled from their homes to discover the fighters preparing to launch an attack from their neighborhood. It was clear from their body language that they were not accustomed to seeing fighters there, but they took it as a sign to relocate to safer ground.

A distant rumble was the only sign that announced the approach of the tanks. Two tanks passed before the fighters detonated the bomb. The large explosion, missing its target, was the cue for the others to engage with their rifles, and the quiet neighborhood erupted into gunfire. The more cautious fired their rifles around the corners of houses, while others took turns to shoot more effectively from the exposed alleyways before retreating for cover.

A call went out to stop firing. The fighters said they received a message that a soldier from one of the tanks wanted to defect and join them. There had been stories of similar brazen, risky defections in the past, so the request was not out of the question. One fighter told Anthony that a tank had pointedly turned its gun away from the attack, and in a show of support, a soldier raised his hand from the turret to display the “victory” sign. More fighting interrupted the hope for spontaneous recruits, and three civilians were wounded when a bomb hit a house farther in town.

The attack ended as abruptly as it had begun, and when the fighters returned to their base, I drove with Anthony to a makeshift office that had been set up by the activists. The activists suggested that we keep a low profile because of how exposed we had been in town that day. Informants would be keeping an eye out for us, they said, and there was no reason to push it. We were offered dark Arabic coffee, and we accepted enthusiastically. Anthony not only loved his coffee, he also needed it.

Making a Connection

That evening I read a book while Anthony walked down the street to interview some fighters we had been with that day. A while later an activist returned to tell me that Anthony wanted me to follow him and to bring my cameras. I arrived back at the base where we had seen them prepare their weapons, and as is the custom I took off my shoes before entering. There I found a carpeted room full of the fighters, now familiar to us, singing and playing traditional music, some clapping as one sang.

Directly across from me, amid cigarette smoke and sitting among them, was Anthony with a huge smile on his face. This was exactly the kind of connection that made him most happy as a reporter; his great warmth and intelligence were part of what made him the most important journalist covering the Arab world.

He put his arms out and said gleefully, “Tyler, look at this!” I found a seat next to him. Always wanting to share the experience, he told me that when they started singing he immediately sent for me. They served a dessert of sweet cheese, doused in a sticky syrup. They ad-libbed to incorporate us into the lyrics of one of their songs, thanking us for coming to Syria to witness their struggle.

What did we learn? The Free Syrian Army is much more organized than the rebel fighters in Libya. Because of the growing number of defectors, there’s a stock of able, trained soldiers and officers mounting in Syria. As the attack on the tanks showed, they don’t yet have the weapons to put up a realistic fight.

Their strength lies inside the towns. The regular Syrian Army, which has proved to be unreliable and already stretched thin, is reluctant to storm the towns and consolidate control. What it can do, and what the population fears most, is indiscriminately shell the towns and cities — as has been happening fearsomely in Homs to the south. While effective, the tactic is increasing condemnation against the Assad government, which is accused of disregarding completely the lives of women, children and other noncombatants.

Life goes on in these towns despite the violence there. For most people, the only safe way to drive out of town is to use their knowledge of the area to traverse the back roads in the countryside. Free Syrian Army fighters claim to completely own those roads, but when pressed, they admit that no one really knows for certain where the Syrian Army is at a given time. Most shops in the towns are open, and people are on the street.

But the problems are deeper than those that first meet the eye. The hospitals and clinics are barely functioning and have almost no supplies. Some patients have to recover in homes and in secrecy. Power cuts are constant, and there is a serious shortage of fuel. The people living here will suffer more as time goes on.

There are mixed emotions among the civilians living in these towns. Most say they favor the revolution and want Mr. Assad out of power. While hundreds of people gather daily to protest in some towns, with Friday gatherings for prayers swelling into the thousands, their rally to the cause is bittersweet. People know that the fighters, and the revolt, will draw the army to them, and some are not shy about saying they do not want to invite a crisis to their doorstep. They know what happened in Homs. The images on Arabic news channels are a constant stream of bloody scenes. They also know that they are probably next on the list as the Syrian Army tries to crush the rebellion.

The Road Home

Anthony was eager to get back to Turkey. Our work was done, and there was no need to prolong the risk. But there were at least two more worries before we could feel safe. The first was reaching the top of the mountain that led back to Turkey.

The more direct route, which we had taken on the way in, was no longer safe because the Shabeeha, armed thugs loyal to the Assad government, had set up a checkpoint there. We had to take a much longer patchwork of back roads that were not entirely familiar to the men driving us. They told us that without us they might be able to talk their way out of an encounter, but with foreigners in the car we would be in serious trouble. I could feel Anthony’s tension, which I shared, when our car stopped and turned around to find a different road.

“This is the worst,” I said.

“I don’t think I’ll ever get over these checkpoints,” Anthony replied, referring to our capture at a checkpoint in Libya 11 months earlier. A gunfight had erupted then, killing our 21-year-old driver and ending with four Times journalists held for nearly a week by Col. Muammar el-Qaddafi’s forces.

We felt huge relief when we finally reached the mountain. In an hour we would be across, and soon after that, celebrating a successful reporting trip back across the border.

But there was the second worry: Because of Anthony’s bad allergic reaction to the horses on the way in, we had often discussed whether there should be horses on the way out — and what we would do if there were. And now two smugglers were waiting for us, again with their horses.

Anthony’s health had been good during the week and he prepared himself for the trip down with antihistamines and a supply of inhalers. He had a black and white kaffiyeh covering his face to filter the air, the same one he had worn around his neck throughout the assignment. He told the young men he wouldn’t ride a horse and to walk ahead with them at a distance.

“Should we walk in front of the horses?” I asked Anthony.

“No, they need to guide us,” he said.

The pace down was faster and easier than coming up a week earlier, and this time our bags were carried by horses instead of on our backs. But then I could hear that Anthony’s breathing became strained, and within a mile he was asking to rest. He will get through this as he did on the much more strenuous hike in, I thought, and with one of my arms around his waist, and the other holding his forearm, we continued to walk.

Soon after, Anthony stopped and leaned against a large boulder, and unlike the first time, when he had merely labored for breath, now he collapsed onto the ground. I called out his name, but he was already unconscious and his breathing had stopped completely. I performed CPR for half an hour while begging the smugglers to find a doctor. I hoped for a miracle. Turkey was now out of the question, and backtracking would only return us to a remote border village. Finally, a small covered truck drove quietly within sight of us and we carried Anthony, whose death I could still not come to terms with, into the back, where I climbed in with him.

I urged the driver to hurry and we finally arrived in a small town at what looked like a medical clinic. I rushed inside and found a doctor. He checked Anthony’s vital signs and confirmed that he was dead. He said he was sorry.

The doctor spoke to me in English. “I’ve taken a huge risk helping you already,” he told me. I understood. Since the beginning of the conflict, many doctors have been arrested, tortured and killed for helping wounded fighters or opponents of the Assad government, and a foreign journalist was not an exception. I thanked him for his help, and then left with Anthony’s body and the smugglers.

They took me to a farmhouse on a dirt road. Negotiation and money finally got us back to the mountain where we had started. Anthony was secured to one of the same horses for the journey down. I walked in front of him, in shock, as we neared the Turkish border.

We carried Anthony’s body from the horse, back across the same barbed wire, and passed him to another group of men waiting hidden on the other side. Now inside Turkey, we joined more men who took us to a fire department where the Turkish police were called. Anthony’s body was out of Syria, but the sadness for his family, friends and colleagues had only begun.

Just a few hours before he died, some activists asked to videotape an interview with him. Those are now the last images of him. In Arabic, he cheerfully commented on how busy the activists against the Assad government were in all walks of life — public services, media and, of course, security.

“Do you expect the regime will fall?” the interviewer asked him.

“I think it will,” he said. “But I think it will take a long time.”

    Bearing Witness in Syria: A War Reporter’s Last Days, NYT, 3.3.2012,
    http://www.nytimes.com/2012/03/04/world/middleeast/bearing-witness-in-syria-a-war-reporters-last-days.html

Crushing Homs

March 2, 2012
The New York Times

After a month of merciless bombardment, the forces of President Bashar al-Assad of Syria have taken Homs, the main rebel stronghold. Many of the brave residents have fled the city or been killed, adding to a death toll now estimated at more than 7,500 since the unrest began.

There is no doubt that Mr. Assad will keep on killing. The international community must keep stepping up the pressure for him to go.

On Thursday, there seemed to be some progress when the government told the Red Cross it could deliver food and medical supplies to the besieged Baba Amr neighborhood. On Friday, authorities blocked a relief convoy without explanation. There were unconfirmed reports that security forces were conducting house-to-house searches and summary executions.

The situation is so horrifying that even Russia and China — two of Assad’s main enablers — are beginning to express doubts. After vetoing two anti-Assad initiatives at the United Nations Security Council, on Thursday they joined the rest of the Council in approving a statement demanding immediate access for humanitarian workers. In an interview published on Friday, Prime Minister Vladimir Putin of Russia claimed “we have no special relationship with Syria.”

His cynicism knows no limits. Russia is a main arms supplier to the regime (along with Iran, which knows no shame at all) and is clearly eager to preserve access for its navy to the Syrian port of Tartus. The Times reported on Friday that Russia and Iran are both helping Mr. Assad replenish his foreign reserves that have been badly squeezed by the instability and international sanctions.

If Russia and China really want to preserve their influence in the region, they need to stop handing the Syrian dictator economic, military and diplomatic lifelines. The only way to repair their reputations is to end their complicity. The only way to end the killing is for Mr. Assad to go. Moscow and Beijing need to use all of their leverage to make that happen.

The United States, Europe, the Arab League and Turkey need to make that case to China and Russia every chance they have. And they need to keep tightening their own sanctions. At some point, the Syrian military and business elites will decide that backing the dictator is a losing proposition. The United States and its allies also need to use all of their influence and coaching to help the opposition form a credible, multiethnic government, one that will respect all Syrians.

Washington and many others have rightly ruled out military intervention, fearing that it could unleash an even bloodier civil war and possibly spread beyond Syria’s borders. Some gulf states are talking about arming the rebel forces, also a risky proposition. The United States and its allies should consider providing the rebels with communications equipment, intelligence and nonlethal training.

Mr. Assad must go. And the world must keep pushing until he does.

    Crushing Homs, NYT, 2.3.2012,
    http://www.nytimes.com/2012/03/03/opinion/crushing-homs.html

Syria Blocks Red Cross Aid to Rebel Enclave in Homs

March 2, 2012
The New York Times
By NEIL MacFARQUHAR and ALAN COWELL

BEIRUT, Lebanon — The Syrian authorities on Friday blocked without explanation an officially sanctioned Red Cross convoy laden with food and medical supplies from entering a devastated neighborhood in the central city of Homs, one day after the army overwhelmed the main rebel stronghold there after a brutal monthlong siege.

There were unconfirmed reports that Syrian security forces were conducting house-to-house searches and summary executions in the neighborhood, Baba Amr, while the convoy of seven Red Cross trucks was parked at the edge of the neighborhood, where military sentries refused to grant it entry despite official approval 24 hours earlier.

It was unclear why the Syrian military had blocked the convoy. But the convoy organizers said officials had told them that the Baba Amr neighborhood was still not safe. There was possibly a legitimate concern about mines and other booby traps, organizers said, but they were not given a precise reason.

The Red Cross angrily rebuked the Syrian government in a statement that reflected the growing international frustration with delays on funneling help to civilians whose lives have been upended by the uprising in Syria, which is now nearly a year old.

“It is unacceptable that people who have been in need of emergency assistance for weeks have still not received any help,” Jakob Kellenberger, president of the International Committee of the Red Cross, said in a statement from its headquarters in Geneva.

He said the Red Cross and the Syrian Arab Red Crescent Society, which together had sent the convoy to Homs in the morning, waited all day to enter Baba Amr. “We are staying in Homs tonight in the hope of entering Baba Amr in the very near future,” Mr. Kellenberger said. “In addition, many families have fled Baba Amr, and we will help them as soon as we possibly can.”

He said the “humanitarian situation was very serious then, and it is worse now.”

The convoy’s arrival in Homs came as at least 12 people, including children, were killed in an apparent rocket or mortar attack by the Syrian Army on antigovernment protesters in Rastan, another central Syrian city roiled by the uprising. Graphic video posted online showed hundreds of people protesting, then fleeing in panic at the rocket explosion, which sent body parts flying.

If it succeeds in entering Baba Amr, the relief convoy will give international officials an opportunity to make a detailed assessment of the fighting there since dissident forces withdrew on Thursday. The retreat set the stage for elite government soldiers to turn their attention, and superior firepower, to other insurgent redoubts farther north, despite the increasing international pressure for a cease-fire.

The seven-truck convoy was the fourth in the last two weeks sent by the Red Cross to Homs in conjunction with the Red Crescent Society, which has 10 distribution points across the city. But the violence in Baba Amr had prevented the establishment of one there.

There were only sketchy details of what was actually needed because communications were so poor, organizers said. “We don’t have any concrete information about what is going on inside,” said Hicham Hassan, a Red Cross spokesman.

Friday has traditionally been the day for mass protests across the country, and they even took place in some Homs neighborhoods despite the violence. With all the talk by Saudi Arabia, Qatar and others of providing arms to the opposition, demonstrators chose the collective name this week of “The Friday of Equipping the Free Syrian Army.”

A heavy security presence in central Damascus kept the city completely shut down, with no buses or other mass transportation vehicles allowed downtown. Similar restrictions were imposed on the suburbs, but several demonstrations erupted that were quickly dispersed by government thugs, the shabeeha, witnesses said.

“The Assad regime wants to frighten us by making big massacre in Baba Amr,” said Subhi, 24, a protester in the suburb of Midan who gave only one name because of fear of retribution. “I want to say to Bashar, if you kill more, we will demonstrate more. We will not return to our homes after a year of uprising. “

In more distant suburbs like Saqba, hundreds managed to gather to demonstrate, and an activist reached by telephone in Aleppo said numerous small protests had been scattered around the city, Syria’s largest. He said the security services had gathered around mosques to prevent any demonstrations and that four tanks were deployed on the main highway leading into Aleppo from the north.

France, meanwhile, became the latest Western nation to close its embassy in Damascus in a gesture of protest directed at President Bashar al-Assad.

The fighting in Syria has spurred deep international division, with China and Russia vetoing a United Nations Security Council resolution, promoted by Arab and Western nations, that called on Mr. Assad to step aside.

There were new signs on Friday, however, that even Russia’s patience with Mr. Assad was wearing thin. In an interview with six foreign newspapers in Moscow, Prime Minister Vladimir V. Putin of Russia distanced himself somewhat from Mr. Assad, refusing to answer the question of whether he could survive as a leader.

“I don’t know. I can’t make this kind of assessment,” he said. “It is perfectly obvious that there are serious domestic problems. The reforms that were proposed obviously should have been implemented long ago. I don’t know whether Syrian society — the government forces and the opposition — can come to an agreement, find some consensus that is acceptable to everyone, but that would have been the best solution.

“The first thing that we should do now is to end the armed conflict and bloodletting,” he said, accusing the West of siding with the Syrian opposition against Mr. Assad.

Two French journalists who had been smuggled out of Baba Amr on Thursday as resistance collapsed, Edith Bouvier of Le Figaro and the photographer William Daniels, were flown out of Beirut on Friday and returned home.

Ms. Bouvier was wounded in the attack last week that killed Marie Colvin, an American war correspondent working for The Sunday Times of London, and the French photographer Rémi Ochlik. The bodies of Ms. Colvin and Mr. Ochlik have been turned over to the Red Cross and the Red Crescent and were taken to a Damascus hospital, where they will be stored awaiting repatriation, said Mr. Hassan, the Red Cross spokesman.

Neil MacFarquhar reported from Beirut, and Alan Cowell from London. Reporting was contributed by Hwaida Saad and an employee of The New York Times from Beirut; an employee of The New York Times from Damascus, Syria; J. David Goodman and Rick Gladstone from New York; Maïa de la Baume from Villacoublay, France; Ellen Barry from Moscow; and Paul Geitner from Brussels.

    Syria Blocks Red Cross Aid to Rebel Enclave in Homs, NYT, 2.3.2012,
    http://www.nytimes.com/2012/03/03/world/middleeast/syria-rebels-are-forced-from-homs-stronghold.html

Chain of Avoidable Errors Cited in Koran Burning

March 2, 2012
The New York Times
By ALISSA J. RUBIN

KABUL, Afghanistan — American and Afghan officials investigating the Koran-burning episode that has brought relations between the countries to a new low say that the destruction could have been headed off at several points along a chain of mishaps, poor judgments and ignored procedures, according to interviews over the past week.

Even as Americans have raced to ease Afghan outrage over the burning, releasing information on Friday that American service members could face disciplinary action, accounts from more than a dozen Americans and Afghans involved in investigating the incineration laid out a complex string of events that will do little to assuage an Afghan public that in some quarters has called for deaths to avenge the sacrilege.

The crisis over the burning, carried out by American soldiers near the detention center in Parwan on Feb. 20, brought a short-term halt to cooperation between the Americans and Afghans and has complicated almost every aspect of planning and negotiation for a military withdrawal. The burning touched off nationwide rioting and the increased targeting of American troops, leaving at least 29 Afghans and 6 American soldiers dead in the past week.

On Friday, an American official close to a joint Afghan-American investigation into the episode noted that the final report would call for disciplinary review for at least six people involved in the Koran burning, including American military “leaders” and an American interpreter. Afghans familiar with the case described the interpreter as an Afghan-American.

The same day, the pre-eminent body of Afghan religious leaders, the Ulema Council, which conducted its own inquiry, demanded that the United States immediately hand over prison operations to the Afghan government and publicly punish those involved in the Koran burning. There is also a formal United States military inquiry.

The responses highlighted continuing and deep differences between American and Afghan concepts of justice: American officials insist that no deliberate insult was intended and that the military justice system and apologies should suffice, while the Afghan religious leaders demand that public identification and punishment of the offenders is the only path to soothe the outrage of Afghans over what they see as an unforgivable desecration of God’s words.

“There are some crimes that cannot be forgiven, but that need to be punished,” said Maulavi Khaliq Dad, a member of the Ulema Council. “This is not any book; this is the book of the whole Muslim nation, and if a few people are punished, America will not be destroyed. But if that doesn’t happen, it will create animosity and enmity between America and the Muslim world.”

Some officials found the current case particularly troubling because it followed more than 10 years at war in the Muslim world, in which outrage over even the rumor of American defacement of Korans has caused previous crises in Afghanistan and Iraq. Several of the officials spoke on the condition of anonymity to discuss details of the investigations.

An American military official familiar with the joint investigation somberly described the burning as a “tragedy,” but rejected any suggestion that it was intentional. He said that the joint commission of three senior Afghan security officials and an American military officer was convinced that the military personnel involved in making the decision to get rid of the Korans and those who carried out the order did not set out to defile the Muslim holy book.

“There was no maliciousness, there was no deliberateness, there was not an intentional disrespect of Islam,” he said.

At the very least, the accounts of the Americans and the Afghans involved in the investigation offer a parable of the dire consequences of carelessness about Afghan values, despite the cultural training required for most American service members serving in Afghanistan.

The account begins about a week before the burning, when officers at the detention center in Parwan became worried that detainees were secretly communicating through notes scribbled in library books, possibly to plot an attack.

“There was a suspicion that this was being used as a means to communicate, internal and external,” said the American military official familiar with the investigation, adding that the fear was that the detainees might “organize.”

Two Afghan-American interpreters were assigned to sift through the library’s books and set aside those that had writing that might constitute a security risk, said Maulavi Dad and other members of the Ulema Council team who visited the detention center and were briefed by the military.

By the time the interpreters were finished, 1,652 books were stacked on the floor and tables for removal, including some Korans, many other religious or scholarly texts, and a number of secular works, including novels and poetry.

Whether the inscriptions were a security risk is a matter of debate. Members of the Ulema Council doubted that the writings were anything other than personal notations, and American military officials and Afghan security officials were unsure because so many books were involved that they had not been able to review them all.

“We saw some notes on the margins of the books in which some of the detainees had written memories of their imprisonment, their name, their father’s name, location and the place where they were arrested,” said Qazi Nazir Ahmad Hanifi, a member of Parliament from Herat who is a mullah and was on the Ulema’s investigating team.

He and others said that in some of the books, including Korans, words were occasionally written in the margins, translations of difficult Arabic words into Pashto or Dari. “These had nothing to do with terrorism or criminal activities,” he said.

The American military official did not go into details, but said only that “we overly rely around here on linguists,” the military term for interpreters and translators. “None of the U.S. soldiers can read this.”

But the linguists were responsible only for the sorting of the books, not for the decision to burn them. It was in asking why the books were not simply stored that one of several faulty decisions became apparent, the official said.

“You have separated a huge number of books — it will come out 1,652,” he said, “and those that are in charge say, ‘We don’t have the storage capacity; this is sensitive material.’ ”

“So the decision is ‘We are going to burn these books,’ ” he continued. “It is part of their procedures to do that, but there’s a process in place that that is the last thing. Things should be retained for a while, but in this case they don’t.”

Sometime on Monday, Feb. 20, the books were transported by a work detail of several soldiers to the truck that would ultimately take them to the incinerator. That posed another missed opportunity.

As the books lay in boxes waiting to be piled in the truck, some Afghan Army soldiers saw them and recognized them as religious books, and they became worried, Maulavi Dad said. They asked where the books were being taken and were told by soldiers that the books were destined for storage. Worried that Korans might be among the books and that something wrong might happen to them, the Afghan soldiers reported to their commanding officer, Lt. Col. Safiullah, who, like many Afghans, uses only one name.

The American military official corroborated that account and said the problem was that by the time the Afghan officer relayed the concerns to his American counterpart, who came to check the truck, the vehicle and its cargo were already on the way to the incinerator.

Both Afghan and American officials believed that the three soldiers driving the holy books to their destination had little or no understanding of what they were carrying. “For those three soldiers, this was nothing more than a work detail,” one military official said.

Just minutes later, when the work detail began to heave the books into the flames, an Afghan laborer standing nearby offered to help. But when he drew close, he realized what was happening and began to scream.

For him and others it was a nightmare come to life. “One of my friends called to me, ‘The Americans are burning our holy books,’ and we rushed over there,” said Mohammed Zafar, 24, who has worked for five years as a laborer near the gate.

As the Afghan laborers tried to extinguish the flames with their water bottles, at least one laborer plunged into the smoldering ashes to retrieve the books, Mr. Zafar said.

The Americans immediately stopped, but not before at least four books had been badly burned, according to a notice from the presidential palace shortly afterward.

What should have happened was far different, Maulavi Dad said. He gently lifted up his Koran, a beautifully bound one with dark blue ornamentation, and described the religiously approved way one would dispose of it if it were damaged or too old to use.

“We have two suggestions: You can cover it with a clean cloth and bury it on holy ground, a shrine or a graveyard, a place where people don’t walk,” he said.

“Or you can wrap it and place it in the sea, the river, in flowing water.”

He added, “You see, we believe the earth and the water are the two cleanest elements on the planet, and since we give great value to holy books and papers, this is where we bury them.”

Graham Bowley and an employee of The New York Times contributed reporting.

    Chain of Avoidable Errors Cited in Koran Burning, NYT, 2.3.2012,
    http://www.nytimes.com/2012/03/03/world/asia/
    5-soldiers-are-said-to-face-punishment-in-koran-burning-in-afghanistan.html

Starving Iran Won’t Free It

March 2, 2012
The New York Times
By HOOMAN MAJD

THERE’S an old saying, attributed to the British Foreign Office in colonial days: “Keep the Persians hungry, and the Arabs fat.” For the British — then the stewards of Persian destiny — that was the formula for maintaining calm; it still is for Saudi Arabian leaders, who simply distribute large amounts of cash to their citizens at the first sign of unrest at their doorstep.

But in the case of Iran, neither America nor Britain seems to be observing the old dictum. Keeping the Persians hungry was a guarantee that they wouldn’t rise up against their masters. Today, the fervent wish of the West appears to be that they do exactly that. Except that the West is doing everything in its power to keep the Iranians hungry — even hungrier than they might ordinarily be under the corrupt and incompetent administration of Mahmoud Ahmadinejad.

It is no surprise that the March 2 election — Iran’s first national poll since the disputed one of 2009 — was held without any excitement on the part of middle-class voters or the participation of liberals opposed to the regime. Such candidates have been systematically eliminated from the political scene, accused of being Western stooges or traitors.

Western sanctions, once “targeted” and now blanket, are turning into a form of collective punishment. They are designed, we are told, to force the Islamic government to return to the nuclear negotiating table. Western politicians also seem to believe that punishing the Iranian people might lead them to blame their own government for their misery and take it upon themselves to force a change in the regime’s behavior, or even a change in the regime itself. But as the old British maxim recognized, deprivation in Iran is a recipe for the status quo.

Iran’s government and its people have never been isolationists. But as sanctions take their toll on the livelihoods of Iranians who want to continue to do business and communicate with the outside world, their energy to question their government’s policies and to agitate for change is waning. That means far fewer opportunities to promote American values and win minds, if not hearts (which we’ve had but are now in danger of losing).

Over the past year, while I was living in Tehran, I witnessed a faltering economy and a population hungry not just for protein but for change. Businesses that are closing or laying off workers for lack of commerce or new opportunities affect everyone from the office tea boy to the middle manager whose salary, if he or she still has it, might no longer be sufficient to feed a family.

The change that most Iranians are hungry for is economic, and while they are consumed with the struggle to make ends meet, work second and third jobs, and in some cases send their children into the streets to beg or sell knickknacks, they are less concerned with their secondary hunger: political change.

In Iran, political change cannot be brought about by coercion, sanctions or exiles and their enablers, despite what American politicians might think. Instead, it will come slowly — too slowly for an American election cycle, to be sure. And it will come only after Iranians are no longer hungry and the government has no excuses left, including national security, to deny the people’s civil rights.

Only when Iran’s educated, sophisticated and talented people “get fat” will they confront their leaders and demand their right to pursue a happiness beyond life and the satiated stomach. Allowing Iran to function normally in the economic sphere would empower ordinary Iranians more than the government and eliminate from its narrative the one mantra it knows resonates with all Iranians: that the West wants to dictate to Iran.

Iranians do not take kindly to being dictated to. It reminds a proud people of their nation’s weakness in the face of greater powers. Iranians will neither blame their own government for the effects of sanctions simply because we tell them to, nor will they overthrow the ayatollahs, however much we prod them to.

But with a strong economy, the middle class will return to a more influential political role in society. After all, it was most visible during the reformist years when relations with the West, political and economic, were at their best and when the government, under virtually no foreign threats, found it hard to completely ignore their demands.

Indeed, it was that same middle class, still well fed even after four years of Mr. Ahmadinejad’s rule, that rose up in 2009, demanding their civil rights. And it is what’s left of that middle class that continues to protest human and civil rights abuses today.

The ever more stringent sanctions imposed on Iran may be “biting,” but they are also stifling voices for change — voices that simply cannot be heard at a time when the population is threatened with an economic chokehold or, worse, with being bombed.

Sanctions will neither change the regime’s behavior nor ignite a Persian Spring — not as long as the Persians are hungry, and scared.

 

Hooman Majd, an Iranian-American journalist,

is the author of “The Ayatollah Begs to Differ” and “The Ayatollahs’ Democracy.”

    Starving Iran Won’t Free It, NYT, 2.3.2012,
    http://www.nytimes.com/2012/03/03/opinion/starving-iran-wont-free-it.html

Only Crippling Sanctions Will Stop Iran

March 2, 2012
The New York Times
By EMANUELE OTTOLENGHI

Brussels

IMAGINE two men planning for years to escape from a high-security mental institution that is surrounded by 100 walls. On the night of their escape, they reach the 99th wall, and one asks the other, “Are you tired yet?”

“Yes,” says the second one. And so they go back to their cells.

Are Iran’s leaders that crazy?

In the current standoff over Iran’s nuclear program, Western policy is guided by a key assumption: Iran’s decision makers are rational actors, and their calculations about their nuclear program are driven by cost-benefit analyses. By gradually increasing the costs of Iran’s nuclear pursuit, Western decision makers believe, Tehran will eventually concede.

They are only half right. Western expectations that Iran will behave rationally and agree to a compromise under the increasing pressure of sanctions ignore Iran’s perspective on the costs already incurred, the price of completing the journey and the advantages of turning back. For Iran, it is far more rational at this point to accelerate the program and reject any agreement the West would be prepared to sign.

Historical precedents demonstrate that Iran’s decision makers are not impervious to cost-benefit analysis. One such instance was the decision, by Ayatollah Ruhollah Khomeini, to agree to a cease-fire with Iraq in the summer of 1988.

Ayatollah Khomeini had previously refused to entertain such a possibility — for him, defeating Saddam Hussein’s Iraq was a religious duty. Yet he was able to reverse the religious imperative to avoid greater damage. But he could have made that calculus in 1982, when, two years into the bloody conflict, Iran had managed to reconquer all Iranian territory that Iraq had initially captured following its surprise attack in September 1980.

Iran’s leaders knew their army was woefully unprepared and underequipped to conduct a war of conquest against a vastly superior Iraqi Army. But they chose to sacrifice hundreds of thousands of young lives in pointless trench warfare reminiscent of World War I because they understood that under the cover of conflict they could consolidate the still fragile government and defeat all residual opposition to Islamic rule — a rational choice at the time.

Ayatollah Khomeini ended the war when it became clear that the front was collapsing and discontent was undermining his rule. In short, letting the war go on was rational in 1982, and so was ending it in 1988; the difference was half a million dead and the fact that Iran was on its knees.

Paranoia played a part as well. The accidental downing of an Iranian commercial airliner over the Persian Gulf by an American warship convinced Iran’s leaders that the United States was prepared to commit any evil in order to guarantee Iran’s defeat. That tragic episode was not intentional. Yet, in Iranian leaders’ paranoid worldview, it was evidence that America was prepared to commit murder on a grand scale to defeat their country. Their paranoia was then, and remains now, integral to their cost-benefit analysis.

The Iran-Iraq war was not the only instance when Iran’s leaders made the right choice after exhausting all other alternatives. In 1997, the Iranian regime realized that murdering its exiled opponents abroad was counterproductive. But Iran reversed itself only after its direct responsibility in a chain of brazen murders across Europe could no longer be denied.

After a German court indicted Iranian hit men and Iran’s then intelligence minister, Ali Fallahian, for a 1992 massacre at a Berlin restaurant, European countries withdrew ambassadors from Tehran and severed diplomatic relations. Iran, again, was on its knees. Only then did a sensible decision occur.

What lessons can one learn from these precedents?

In their long and labyrinthine path to nuclear weapons, Iran’s leaders have gone as far as the men who reached the 99th wall. No matter how hard, painful and difficult the last jump may be, it is but a stroll compared with the arduous journey undertaken by Iran in its nearly 30-year pursuit of nuclear weapons.

Why, then, should anyone expect Iran to renounce its aspirations now, when the goal appears within reach? And why would the prospect of some economic hardship alone persuade Iran to turn around, when the end of its journey is in sight?

As tough as the current sanctions against Iran are, they will work only if Iran is brought to its knees once again. The pain inflicted must be far greater for the country to see backtracking as preferable. Iran is a rational actor; and it cannot be dissuaded at this point, barring extreme measures.

If Western nations wish to avoid a military confrontation in the Persian Gulf and prevent a nuclear Iran, they must adopt crippling sanctions that will bring Iran’s economy to the brink of collapse. That means a complete United Nations-imposed oil embargo enforced by a naval blockade, as well as total diplomatic isolation. And they must warn Iran that if it tries to jump the last wall, the West is willing and capable of inflicting devastating harm.

Otherwise, Iran’s leaders will rationally conclude that it is better to make a run for their money rather than stop at the last wall and pull back.

Emanuele Ottolenghi, a senior fellow at the Foundation for Defense of Democracies,

is the author of “The Pasdaran: Inside Iran’s Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps.”

    Only Crippling Sanctions Will Stop Iran, NYT, 2.3.2012,
    http://www.nytimes.com/2012/03/03/opinion/only-crippling-sanctions-will-stop-iran.html