EFTA01770685

From: Office of Terje Rod-Larsen Sent: Friday, February 24, 2012 3:40 PM Subject: February 24 update Articl= 2. <https://mail.google.com/mail/./0/html/compose/static_filesiblank_quirks.htmItth> Wall Street Journal America's Alibis for Not Helping S=ria Fouad Ajami <http://online.wsj.com/searchAerm.html?KEYWORDS=FOUAD+AJAMIStbylinesearch=true> Articl= 4. <https://mailgoogle.com/mailhi/0/html/compose/static_filesiblank_quirks.htmItld> NYT How to Halt the Butchery in Syriaaspan> Anne-Marie Slaughter Articl= 6. <https://mail.google.com/mail/40/html/compose/static_filesiblank_quirks.html#f> Agence Global Russia's Return to the Middle Ea=t Patrick Seale Article 7. The Atlantic Monthly AIPAC and the Push Toward War Robert Wright EFTA_R1_00081907 EFTA01770685 Ar=icle 1. The Economist Bombing Iran<=span> Feb 25th 2012 -- FO= years Iran has practised denial and deception; it has blustered and playe= for time. All the while, it has kept an eye on the day when it might be a=le to build a nuclear weapon. The world has negotiated with Iran; it has balanced the pain of economic sanctions w=th the promise of reward if Iran unambiguously forsakes the bomb. All the =hile, outside powers have been able to count on the last resort of a milit=ry assault. Today this stand-off looks as if it is about to fail. Iran has continued enriching uranium. It =s acquiring the technology it needs for a weapon. Deep underground, at For=ow, near the holy city of Qom, it is fitting out a uranium-enrichment plan= that many say is invulnerable to aerial attack. Iran does not yet seem to have chosen actually to procur= a nuclear arsenal, but that moment could come soon. Some analysts, especi=lly in Israel, judge that the scope for using force is running out. When i= does, nothing will stand between Iran and a bomb. The air is thick with the prophecy of war. Leon Pan=tta, America's defence secretary, has spoken of Israel attacking as earl= as April. Others foresee an Israeli strike designed to drag in Barack Oba=a in the run-up to America's presidential vote, when he will have most to lose from seeming weak. A decision t= go to war should be based not on one man's electoral prospects, but on =he argument that war is warranted and likely to succeed. Iran's intentio=s are malign and the consequences of its having a weapon would be grave. Faced by such a regime you should never pe=manently forswear war. However, the case for war's success is hard to ma=e. If Iran is intent on getting a bomb, an attack would delay but not stop=it. Indeed, using Western bombs as a tool to prevent nuclear proliferation risks making Iran only more determ=ned to build a weapon—and more dangerous when it gets one. A shadow over the M=ddle East Make no mistake, an Iran armed with the bomb would p=se a deep threat. The country is insecure, ideological and meddles in its =eighbours' affairs. Both Iran and its proxies—including Hizbullah in Lebanon and Hamas in Gaza—might act even more brazenly than=they do now. The danger is keenly felt by Israel, surrounded by threats an= especially vulnerable to a nuclear bomb because it is such a small land. =ran's Supreme Leader, Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, recently called the "Zionist regime" a "cancerous tumour t=at must be cut out". Jews, of all people, cannot just dismiss that as so=much rhetoric. Even if Iran were to gain a weapon only f=r its own protection, others in the region might then feel they need weapons too. Saudi Arabia has said it will arm—and Pakist=n is thought ready to supply a bomb in exchange for earlier Saudi backing =f its own programme. Turkey and Egypt, the other regional powers, might co=clude they have to join the nuclear club. Elsewhere, countries such as Brazil might see nuclear arms as vital =o regional dominance, or fear that their neighbours will. Some=experts argue that nuclear-armed states tend to behave responsibly. But im=gine a Middle East with five nuclear powers riven by rivalry and sectarian feuds. Each would have its fingers permanen=ly twitching over the button, in the belief that the one that pressed firs= would be left standing. Iran's regime gains legitimacy by demonising fo=eign powers. The cold war seems stable by comparison with a nuclear Middle East—and yet America and the Soviet =nion were sometimes scarily close to Armageddon. No wonder some peop=e want a pre-emptive strike. But military action is not the solution to a =uclear Iran. It could retaliate, including with rocket attacks on Israel f=om its client groups in Lebanon and Gaza. Terror cells around the world might strike Jewish and American targe=s. It might threaten Arab oil infrastructure, in an attempt to use oil pri=es to wreck the world economy. Although some Arab leaders back a strike, m=st Muslims are unlikely to feel that way, further alienating the West from the Arab spring. Such costs of =n attack are easy to overstate, but even supposing they were high they mig=t be worth paying if a strike looked like working. It does not. = Striking Iran would be much harder than Israel's successful solo missions against the weapons programmes of Iraq= in 1981, and Syria, in 2007. If an attack were easy, Israel would have go=e in alone long ago, when the Iranian programme was more vulnerable. But l=an's sites 2 EFTA_R1_00081908 EFTA01770686 are spread out and some of them, hardened against strikes, demand repeated hits. America has more =ilitary options than Israel, so it would prefer to wait. That is one reaso= why it is seeking to hold Israel back. The other is that, for either air =orce, predictions of the damage from an attack span a huge range. At worst an Israeli mission might fail a=together, at best an American one could, it is said, set back the programm= a decade (see articl= <http://www.economist.com/node/21918228> ). But uncertainty wou=d reign. Iran is a vast, populous and sophisticated country with a nuclear=programme that began under the shah. It may have secret sites that escape =nscathed. Even if all its sites are hit, Iran's nuclear know-how cannot be bombed out of existence. Nor can =ts network of suppliers at home and abroad. It has stocks of uranium in va=ious stages of enrichment; an unknown amount would survive an attack, whil= the rest contaminated an unforeseeable area. Iran would probably withdraw from the Nuclear Non-Proliferation Trea=y, under which its uranium is watched by the International Atomic Energy A=ency. At that point its entire programme would go underground— literally =nd figuratively. If Iran decided it needed a bomb, it would then be able to pursue one with utmost haste an= in greater secrecy. Saudi Arabia and the others might conclude that they,=too, needed to act pre-emptively to gain their own deterrents. =Perhaps America could bomb Iran every few years. But how would it know when and where to strike? And how would it ju=tify a failing policy to the world? Perhaps, if limited bombing is not eno=gh, America should be aiming for an all-out aerial war, or even regime cha=ge. Yet a decade in Iraq and Afghanistan has demonstrated where that leads. An aerial war could dramatically raise =he threat of retaliation. Regime change might produce a government that th= West could do business with. But the nuclear programme has broad support =n Iran. The idea that a bomb is the only defence against an implacable American enemy might become stronge= than ever. That does not mean =he world should just let Iran get the bomb. The government will soon be st=rved of revenues, because of an oil embargo. Sanctions are biting, the fin=ncial system is increasingly isolated and the currency has plunged in value. Proponents of an attack argue that =ilitary humiliation would finish the regime off. But it is as likely to ra=ly Iranians around their leaders. Meanwhile, political change is sweeping =cross the Middle East. The regime in Tehran is divided and it has lost the faith of its people. Eventually, =opular resistance will spring up as it did in 2009. A new regime brought a=out by the Iranians themselves is more likely to renounce the bomb than on= that has just witnessed an American assault. Is there a danger t=at Iran will get a nuclear weapon before that happens? Yes, but bombing mi=ht only increase the risk. Can you stop Iran from getting a bomb if it is =etermined to have one? Not indefinitely, and bombing it might make it all the more desperate. Short of occupation, =he world cannot eliminate Iran's capacity to gain the bomb. It can only =hange its will to possess one. Just now that is more likely to come about =hrough sanctions and diplomacy than war. Articl= 2. Wall Street Journal=/span> America's Ali=is for Not Helping Syria Fouad Ajami <http://o=line.wsj.com/search/term.html?KEYWORDS=FOUAD+AJAM l&bylinesearch=3Dtrue> February 23, 2012 -= There are the Friends of Syria, and there are the Friends of the Syrian R=gime. The former, a large group—the United States, the Europeans and the=bulk of Arab governments—is casting about for a way to end the 3 EFTA_R1_00081909 EFTA01770687 Assad regime's assault on its own people. In their ra=ks there is irresolution and endless talk about the complications and the =niqueness of the Syrian case. No such uncertainty detains the Friends of the Syrian Regime=97Russia, Iran, Hezbollah and to a lesser extent China. In this camp, ther= is a will to prevail, a knowledge of the stakes in this cruel contest, and material assistance for the Damascus dic=atorship. In the face of the barbarism unleashed on the helpless people=of Homs, the Friends of Syria squirm and hope to be delivered from any mea=ingful burdens. Still, they are meeting Friday in Tunis to discuss their options. But Syrian dictator Bashar al-As=ad needn't worry. The Tunisian hosts themselves proclaimed that this convo=ation held on their soil precluded a decision in favor of foreign military=intervention. Syria is not Libya, the mantra goes, especially in Washington= The provision of arms to the Syrian opposition is "premature," =en. Martin Dempsey, chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, recently stated. We don't know the Syrian opposition, another al=bi has it—they are of uncertain provenance and are internally divided. O=r weapons could end up in the wrong hands, and besides, we would be "=ilitarizing" this conflict. Those speaking in such ways seem to overlook the disparity in=firepower between the Damascus ruler with his tanks and artillery, and the=civilian population aided by defectors who had their fill with official terror. The borders of Syria offer another exculpation for passivity.=Look at the map, say the naysayers. Syria is bordered by Lebanon, Iraq, Jo=dan, Turkey and Israel. Intervention here is certain to become a regional affair. Grant the Syrians sympathy, their struggle unfolds in the mid=t of an American presidential contest. And the incumbent has his lines at =he ready for his acceptance speech in Charlotte, N.C. He's done what he had promised during his first presidenti=l run, shutting down the war in Iraq and ending the American presence. Thi= sure applause line precludes the acceptance of a new burden just on the o=her side of the Syria-Iraq frontier. The silence of President Obama on the matter of Syria reveals=the general retreat of American power in the Middle East. In Istanbul some=days ago, a Turkish intellectual and political writer put the matter starkly to me: We don't think and talk muc= about America these days, he said. Yet the tortured dissertations on the uniqueness of Syria's s=rategic landscape are in fact proofs for why we must thwart the Iran-SyriarHezbollah nexus. Topple the Syrian dictatorship and the access of Iran to the Mediterranean is severed, leaving the brigan=s of Hamas and Hezbollah scrambling for a new way. The democracies would d=monstrate that regimes of plunder and cruelty, perpetrators of terror, hav= been cut down to size. Plainly, the Syrian tyranny's writ has expired. Assad has imp=icated his own Alawite community in a war to defend his family's reign. Th= ambiguity that allowed the Assad tyranny to conceal its minority, schismatic identity, to hide behind a co-opted Su=ni religious class, has been torn asunder. Calls for a jihad, a holy war, =gainst a godless lot have been made in Sunni religious circles everywhere. Ironically, it was the Assad tyranny itself that had summoned=those furies in its campaign against the American war in Iraq. It had prov=ded transit and sanctuary for jihadists who crossed into Iraq to do battle against the Americans and the Shiites; =t even released its own Islamist prisoners and dispatched them to Iraq wit= the promise of pardon. Now the chickens have come home to roost, and an A=awite community beyond the bounds of Islam is facing a religious war in all but name. This schism cannot be viewed with American indifference. It i= an inescapable fate that the U.S. is the provider of order in that region= We can lend a hand to the embattled Syrians or risk turning Syria into a devil's playground of religious extre=ism. Syria can become that self-fulfilling prophesy: a population abandone= by the powers but offered false solace and the promise of redemption by t=e forces of extremism and ruin. 4 EFTA_R1_00081910 EFTA01770688 We make much of the "opaqueness" of the Syrian rebe=lion and the divisions within its leadership. But there is no great myster= that attends this rebellion: An oppressed people, done with a tyranny of four decades, was stirred to life and conquered its=fear after witnessing the upheaval that had earlier overtaken Tunisia, Egy=t, Libya and Yemen. In Istanbul this month, I enrountered the variety, and the normalcy, of this rebellion in extended disc=ssions with prominent figures of the Syrian National Council. There was the senior diplomat who had grown weary of bei=g a functionary of so sullied a regime. There was a businessman of means, =rom Aleppo, who was drawn into the opposition by the retrogression of his =ountry. There was a young prayer leader, from Banyas, on the Syrian c=ast, who had taken up the cause because the young people in his town had pressed him to speak a word of truth in the face of evil. Even the leader of the Muslim Brotherhood, Riad al•Shagf=, in exile for three decades, acknowledged the pluralism of his country an= the weakness of the Brotherhood, banned since 1980. We frighten ourselves with phantoms of our own making. No one=is asking or expecting the U.S. Marines to storm the shores of Latakia. Th=s Syrian tyranny is merciless in its battles against the people of Homs and Zabadani, but its army is demoraliz=d and riven with factionalism and sectarian enmities. It could be brought =own by defectors given training and weapons; safe havens could give disaff=cted soldiers an incentive, and the space, to defect. Meanwhile, we should recognize the Syrian National Council as=the country's rightful leaders. This stamp of legitimacy would embolden th= opposition and give them heart in this brutal season. Such recognition would put the governments of Lebanon and I=aq on notice that they are on the side of a brigand, lawless regime. There=is Arab wealth that can sustain this struggle, and in Turkey there is a sy=pathetic government that can join this fight under American leadership. The world does not always oblige our desires for peace; some =truggles are thrown our way and have to be taken up. In his State of the U=ion address last month, President Obama dissociated himself from those who preach the doctrine of America's declin=. Never mind that he himself had been a declinist and had risen=to power as an exponent of America's guilt in foreign lands. We should tak= him at his word. In a battered Syria, a desperate people await America's help and puzzle over its leader's passi=ity. Mr. Ajami is a s=nior fellow at Stanford University's Hoover Institution and co-chairman of=the Working Group on Islamism and the International Order. Articl= 3. NYT After a Year,=Deep Divisions Hobble Syria's Opposition Neil MacFarquhar <http://t=pics.nytimes.com/top/reference/timestopics/people/m/neil_madarquhar/index=html?inlinernyt-per> 5 EFTA_R1_00081911 EFTA01770689 February 23, 2012 -= BEIRUT, Lebanon — Syria <http://topics.nytimes.comitopinews/international/countriesandter=itories/syria/index.html?inline=nyt-geo> 's downward spiral into more hellish conflict in cities like Hom= has provoked a new surge of outrage around the world, with Arab and many =estern countries searching for new ways to support protesters and activist=groups coming under the government's increasingly lethal assault. But as diplomats fr=m about 80 countries converge on Tunisia chttp://topics.nytimes.com/topinews/international/countriesandter=itoriesitunisiatindex.html?inline=nyt-geo> on Friday in search of a strategy to provide aid to Syria's b=leaguered citizens, they will find their efforts compromised even before t=ey begin by the lack of a cohesive opposition leadership. Nearly a year after=the uprising began, the opposition remains a fractious collection of polit=cal groups, longtime exiles, grass-roots organizers and armed militants, a=l deeply divided along ideological, ethnic or sectarian lines, and too disjointed to agree on even the rudimen=s of a strategy to topple President Bashar al-Assad's government. The need to build a=united opposition will be the focus of intense discussions at what has bee= billed as the inaugural meeting of the Friends of Syria. Fostering some s=mblance of a unified protest movement, possibly under the umbrella of an exile alliance called the Syrian National Council, will be a theme hovering in the background. </=pan> The council's int=rnal divisions have kept Western and Arab governments from recognizing it =s a kind of government in exile, and the Tunis summit meeting will probabl= not change that. Russia, Syria's main international patron, is avoiding the meeting entirely. The divisions and s=ortcomings within the council were fully on display last week when its 10-=ember executive committee met at the Four Seasons Hotel in Doha, Qatar —=its soaring lobby bedecked with roses and other red flowers left over from Valentine's Day. The council has bee= slow on critical issues like recognizing the transformation of the Syrian=uprising from a nonviolent movement to an armed insurrection, according to=members, diplomats and other analysts. Aside from represen=ing only about 70 percent of a range of groups opposing Mr. Assad, the cou=cil has yet to seriously address melding itself with the increasingly inde=endent internal alliances in Horns and other cities across Syria trapped in an uneven battle for survival, they s=id, warning that the council runs the risk of being supplanted. "They were in a c=nstant, ongoing struggle, which delayed anything productive and any real w=rk that should be done for the revolution," said Rima Fleihan, an activi=t who crawled through barbed wire fences to Jordan from Syria last September to escape arrest. She was representing=Syria's Local Coordination Committees, an alliance of grass-roots activi=ts, on the council until she quit in frustration this month. "They fight more =han they work," Ms. Fleihan said. "People are asking why they have fai=ed to achieve any international recognition, why no aid is reaching the pe=ple, why are we still being shelled?" Even by comparison =ith Libya, where infighting among rival militias and the inability of the =ransitional National Council to exert authority fully created turmoil afte= the successful uprising there, Syria's opposition appears scattered. Well before NATO in=ervened in Libya, groups hostile to Col. Muammar el•Qaddafi leveraged the =uge chunk of eastern Libya they held around Benghazi into the attempt to c=aim the whole country. A unified focus on the rebellion submerged most overt political differences for a time. </=pan> The United States a=d other Western governments are also wary of the uncertain role of Islamis=s in Syria. The Muslim Brotherhood and other organized Islamist groups wer= more thoroughly suppressed in Syria than in Egypt, and their 6 EFTA_R1_00081912 EFTA01770690 leaders are less well known. Some diplomats fear =hat Syrian Islamists could ride to power amid the turmoil, imposing an age=da that might clash with Western goals. That may be one rea=on the United States is hoping the Syrian National Council can overcome it= divisions and shortcomings. Secretary of State Hillary Rodham Clinton, in a press conference in London<=a>, moved the United States a step closer to recognizing the council. <http://www.state.govisecretary/rm/2012/02/184577.htm> "They will have a=seat at the table as a representative of the Syrian people," Mrs. Clinto= said. "And we think it's important to have Syrians represented.=And the consensus opinion by the Arab League and all the others who are working and planning this conference is that the S.=.C. is a credible representative." Council members des=ribe opposition divisions as a natural result of trying to forge a working=organization that encompasses wide diversity from a complex society that h=s known only oppression. Indeed, the men at =he Four Seasons in Doha ranged from the various Islamist representatives w=th suits, ties and neatly trimmed beards to the one Christian on the execu=ive committee, a longtime university professor in Belgium who wandered around in flip-flops. The council members=contend that progress has been made among a group of people who were virtu=l strangers when they first gathered in Istanbul in September, and that sn=ping about their unrepresentative nature is mostly a disinformation campaign by Damascus. "This is a manufa=tured problem," said Burhan Ghalioun, the council president, in a brief =nterview outside an executive committee meeting last week. "Some indepen=ent people don't want to join the S.N.C., but there is no strong opposition power outside the national council." <=span> He said lack of mon=y was the group's most acute problem. Although the Qatari government pic=ed up the bill for the Doha meeting and for frequent travel, council membe=s said that no significant financial support from Arab or Western governments had materialized despite repeated=promises, so they must rely on rich Syrian exiles. They hope Friday's me=ting in Tunis will begin to change that. After communicating=via Skype with activists in embattled cities like Homs, Hama and Idlib, co=ncil members admitted sheepishly that those activists just flung accusatio=s at them, demanding to know why they seemed to swan from one luxury hotel to the next while no medical supplies=or other aid flowed into Syria. The bickering takes=place in plain sight. "Is this any way to work?" yelled Haithem al-Mal=h, an 81-year-old lawyer and war horse of the opposition movement, as he c=me barreling out of one Doha meeting, only to be corralled back in. "They are all stupid and silly, but what can I =o?" The 310-member coun=il remains Balkanized among different factions; arguments unspool endlessl= over which groups deserve how many seats. The mostly secular, liberal rep=esentatives and those from the Islamist factions harbor mutual suspicions. No one from Syria=92s ruling Alawite community, the small religious sect of Mr. Assad, sits =n the executive committee, despite repeated attempts to woo a few prominen= dissidents. The fight over Kurdish seats remains unsettled even though Massoud Barzani, a leading Kurd in neighbori=g Iraq, tried to mediate. The council has als= not reconciled with members of another opposition coalition, the Syrian N=tional Coordination Committee, some of whom remain in Syria and who have g=nerally taken a softer line about allowing Mr. Assad to shepherd a political transition. 7 EFTA_R1_00081913 EFTA01770691 "Time is running =ut for the Syrian opposition to establish its credibility and viability as=an effective representative of the uprising," said Steven Heydemann, who=focuses on Middle East issues at the United States Institute of Peace, a research group financed partly by Congress. <=span> Even the council'= diplomatic efforts remain troubled. The council has yet to appoint an off.cial envoy in Washington, and jockeying over who should lobby the United N=tions Security Council earlier this month was so intense, diplomats and analysts said, that the council sent an unwi=ldy delegation of some 14 members who continued arguing in New York over w=o would meet which ambassador. The key issue the c=uncil is grappling with right now is how to coordinate an increasingly arm=d opposition. The council says it supports the defensive use of weapons. But exiled Syrian A=my officers who formed the Free Syrian Army, based in Turkey, have stayed =Ioof from the council, and even they do not really control the many local =ilitias that adopt the army's name alone. Steven Lee Myers=contributed reporting from London, and an employee of The New York Times f=om Beirut. Articl= 4. NYT How to Halt t=e Butchery in Syria Anne-Marie Slaughte= February 23, 2012 -= FOREIGN military intervention in <http://topics.nytimes.comflopinews/international/countrie=andterritories/syria/index.html?inline=nyt-geo> offers the best hope for curtailing a long, bloody and destabilizing civil=war. The mantra of those opposed to intervention is "Syria is not Libya.=94 In fact, Syria is far more strategically located than Libya, and a leng=hy civil war there would be much more dangerous to our interests. America has a major stake in helping Syria's=neighbors stop the killing. Simply arming the opposition, in many wa=s the easiest option, would bring about exactly the scenario the world sho=ld fear most: a proxy war that would spill into Lebanon, Turkey, Iraq and Jordan and fracture Syria along sectarian I=nes. It could also allow Al Qaeda and other terrorist groups to gain a foo=hold in Syria and perhaps gain access to chemical and biological weapons. There is an alterna=ive. The Friends of Syria, some 70 countries scheduled to meet in Tunis to=ay, should establish "no- kill zones" now to protect all Syrians regard=ess of creed, ethnicity or political allegiance. The Free Syrian Army, a growing force of defectors from the government's=army, would set up these no-kill zones near the Turkish, Lebanese and Jord=nian borders. Each zone should be established as close to the border as po=sible to allow the creation of short humanitarian corridors for the Red Cross and other groups to bring food, w=ter and medicine in and take wounded patients out. The zones would be mana=ed by already active civilian committees. 8 EFTA_R1_00081914 EFTA01770692 Establishing these =ones would require nations like Turkey, Qatar, Saudi Arabia and Jordan to =rm the opposition soldiers with anti-tank, countersniper and portable anti=ircraft weapons. Special forces from countries like Qatar, Turkey and possibly Britain and France could offer t=ctical and strategic advice to the Free Syrian Army forces. Sending them i= is logistically and politically feasible; some may be there already. Cruc=ally, these special forces would control the flow of intelligence regarding the government's troop moveme=ts and lines of communication to allow opposition troops to cordon off pop=lation centers and rid them of snipers. Once Syrian government forces were=killed, captured or allowed to defect without reprisal, attention would turn to defending and expanding the no-k=ll zones. This next step woul= require intelligence focused on tank and aircraft movements, the placemen= of artillery batteries and communications lines among Syrian government f=rces. The goal would be to weaken and isolate government units charged with attacking particular towns; this wou=d allow opposition forces to negotiate directly with army officers on truc=s within each zone, which could then expand into a regional, and ultimatel= national, truce. The key condition for all such assistance, inside or outside Syria, is that it be used defen=ively — only to stop attacks by the Syrian military or to clear out gove=nment forces that dare to attack the no-kill zones. Although keeping inter=ention limited is always hard, international assistance could be curtailed if the Free Syrian Army took the offensive. =he absolute priority within no-kill zones would be public safety and human=tarian aid; revenge attacks would not be tolerated. Syria's president= B=shar al-Assad thttp://topics.nytimes.comitopireferenceitimestopics/peo=le/a/bashar_al_assad/index.html?inline=nyt-per> , is increasingly depe=ding on government-sponsored gangs and on shelling cities with heavy artil=ery rather than overrunning them with troops, precisely because he is conc=rned about the loyalty of soldiers forced to shoot their fellow citizens at point-blank range. If government =roops entered no-kill zones they would have to face their former comrades.=Placing them in this situation, and presenting the option to defect, would=show just how many members of Syria's army — estimated at 300,000 men — were actually willing to fight for M=. Assad. Turkey and the Arab=League should also help opposition forces inside Syria more actively throu=h the use of remotely piloted helicopters, either for delivery of cargo an= weapons — as America has used them in Afghanistan — or to attack Syrian air defenses and mortars in order t= protect the no-kill zones. Turkey is rightfully cautious about depl=ying its ground forces, an act that Mr. Assad could use as grounds to decl=re war and retaliate. But Turkey has some of its own drones, and Arab League countries could quickly lease others. A= in Libya, the international community should not act without the approval=and the invitation of the countries in the region that are most directly a=fected by Mr. Assad's war on his own people. Thus it is up to the Arab League and Turkey to adopt a plan of=action. If Russia and China were willing to abstain rather than exercise a=other massacre-enabling veto, then the Arab League could go back to the Un=ted Nations Security Council for approval. If not, then Turkey and the Arab League should act, on their own=authority and that of the other 13 members of the Security Council and 137=members of the General Assembly who voted last week to condemn Mr. Assad=92s brutality. The power of the Syrian protesters over the past 11 months has arisen from their determination to =ace down bullets with chants, signs and their own bodies. The internationa= community can draw on the power of nonviolence and create zones of peace =n what are now zones of death. The Syrians have the ability to make that happen; the rest of the world mu=t give them the means to do it. Anne-Marie Slaughter <http://www=princeton.edu/%C2%98slaughtrk , a professor of politics and international affairs at Princeton, was director of policy planning at the State Departm=nt from 2009 to 2011. Articl= 5. 9 EFTA_R1_00081915 EFTA01770693 The Independent (Lo=don) US raises ale=t over possible chemical weapons arsenal as world leaders meet<=b> Charlotte Mcdonald-=ibson February 24, 2012&n=sp; -- World leaders struggling to force Syria's President from power will=gather in Tunisia today armed with fresh evidence that his regime ordered =rimes against humanity, including the killing of children, but calls for military intervention remain firmly off the age=da. Despite a growing b=dy of evidence that President Bashar al-Assad is personally culpable for t=e atrocities inflicted upon his own people - the rationale for military in=ervention in Libya - William Hague, the Foreign Secretary, said yesterday that a repeat of the Nato action tha= helped topple Colonel Muammar Gaddafi was unlikely. His comments come a=id rising concern that the splintered, disunited opposition may be infiltr=ted by extremist Sunni and al-Qa'ida fighters. American officials are also=concerned that President Assad is sitting on a cache of chemical weapons that could wind up in extremists' hands if =is regime fell. "We are operat=ng under many more constraints than we were in the case of Libya," Mr=Hague told BBC Radio 4's Today programme. "Syria sits next to Lebanon= Israel, Jordan, Turkey, Iraq - what happens in Syria has an effect on all of those countries and the consequences of any outsid= intervention are much more difficult to foresee." Instead, he said, w=rld leaders including the US Secretary of State Hillary Clinton and leader= from the Arab League meeting under the Friends of Syria banner in Tunis t=day would focus on "tightening a diplomatic and economic stranglehold" on the regime. A new UN report on =yrian atrocities made public yesterday said that 500 children had been kil=ed in the violence. The panel of UN human rights experts has also compiled=a list of Syrian officials who could face investigation for crimes against humanity, which will be passed to th= UN High Commissioner for Human Rights. The experts have indicated that th= list goes all the way up to the President himself. Any move to refer S=rian officials to the International Criminal Court in The Hague, however, =ould be likely to face opposition from Russia and China, who on 4 February=vetoed a UN resolution calling on President Assad to step aside. Activists hope this is one area where the Friends of =yria group could have some influence, even though Russia is not sending a =elegate. "They need to =hink of how to exert more pressure, not just on Syria, but on its allies,&=uot; said Nadim Houry, the Human Rights Watch deputy director for the Midd=e East. "I would hate to think the option is whether to bomb or not to bomb." So far, just a smal= fraction of the many armed and unarmed opposition groups has openly calle= for intervention, and many military analysts believe it would be disastro=s. "The great ris= is that the situation in Syria resembles that in Iraq and the entire gove=nment force and government authority disintegrates," said Shashank Jo=hi, an associate fellow from the Royal United Services Institute. "You are already seeing international actors star= to enter Syria from Iraq and other places, many of them are Sunni fundame=talist and have links to al-Qa'ida." Yesterday CNN cited=a US military report speculating that 75,0O0 ground troops could be needed=to secure Syria's chemical weapons sites. But unlike Iraq, where the alleg=d presence of chemical weapons and al-Qa'ida was used as a 10 EFTA_R1_00081916 EFTA01770694 rationale for going to war, in Syria these factors=are being used to make the case for caution. "If the ulterior motive =ould be to justify some sort of intervention, it is operating in complete'= the other direction - it has been suggested that the presence of al-Qa'ida means that any intervention could see the s=tuation worsen and we would be trapped in a civil war from which we couldn=t escape," said Mr Joshi. WHAT NEXT? THE OPTI=NS Military interve=tion FOR: Assad so far a=pears immune to diplomatic pressure for him to hand power to his deputy an= stop his brutal crackdown. Military strikes could take out the tanks that=are causing dozens of deaths in the opposition stronghold of Homs. AGAINST: Even Syria= opposition groups are largely against any Libya-style air strikes in Syri=. The country still has powerful backers including Russia and Iran and mil=tary action without international consensus could spark a broader conflict that would spill into the nation's already =nstable neighbours such as Iraq and Lebanon. Arming the rebel= FOR: The armed oppo=ition groups are mostly made up of defecting soldiers, but they are out-gu=ned by Assad's forces. Giving weapons to the rebels and providing training=would help them take on Assad's army and get around the minefield of direct military intervention. AGAINST: The rebel =roups are divided and there are reports that Islamist extremists have infi=trated the opposition. The West remains scarred from its experience in Afg=anistan in the 1980s, when some of the men they armed to fight the Soviet occupation turned their weapons and=training on the West. Humanitarian cor=idor FOR: Temporary ceas=fires and the creation of a humanitarian corridor from neighbouring countr=es would allow aid to get to the worst-hit areas such as Horns and facilita=e the evacuation of the injured. This will be a key issue discussed at the Tunisia summit today. AGAINST: The Syrian=regime would need to adhere to any ceasefire or humanitarian workers would=be put at grave risk. It is also very difficult to enforce such safe passa=e without foreign military boots on the ground for protection - something Assad is unlikely to agree to unless=under pressure from Russia. More economic sa=ctions FOR: Many analysts =ay that as the regime is gradually squeezed by sanctions including an oil =mbargo, the business community and middle class will turn against Assad as=they are hit in the pocket. One Western diplomat said yesterday that the regime's foreign currency reserves will r=n out in three to five months. 11 EFTA_R1_00081917 EFTA01770695 AGAINST: As with an= sanctions, some argue that it is the people of Syria that are hurting the=most, with crippling inflation and power cuts every day. Thousands more ci=ilians could also be killed as diplomats wait for the sanctions to work even as the regime continues its slaughter.=/span> Articl= 6. Agence Global Russia's Re=urn to the Middle East Patrick Seale 21 Feb 2012 -- After a long absence, Russia is now demanding a =eat for itself at the top table of Middle East affairs. It seems determine= to have its say on the key issues of the day: the crisis in Syria; the threat of war against Iran; Israel's e=pansionist ambitions; and the rise of political Islam across the Arab worl=. These were among the topics vigorously debated at a conference at Sochi =n Russia's Black Sea coast, held on 17.18 February in the grandiose marble halls of a 22-hectare resort -- =ith its own elevator to the beach below -- once the playground of Soviet l=aders. Attended by over 60 participants from a score of countries, the conference =as organised by Russia's Valdai Discussion Club on the theme of "Trans=ormation in the Arab World and Russia's Interests." Among the Russians=defending these interests were Mikhail Bogdanov, Deputy Minister of Foreign Affairs, Vitaly Naumkin, Director of =he Institute of Oriental Studies at the Russian Academy of Sciences, Alexe= Vasiliev, Director of the Institute of African and Arab Studies of the Ru=sian Academy of Sciences, and Andrey Baklanov, head of the International Affairs Department of Russia's Feder=l Assembly. Seen from Moscow, the Middle East lies on its very doorstep. With 20 millio= Muslims in the Northern Caucasus, Russia feels that its domestic stabilit= is linked to developments in the Arab world, especially to the rise of Is=amist parties. If these parties turn out to be extreme, they risk inflaming Muslims in Russia itself and i= Central Asia. Professor Vitaly Naumkin -- the man who sits at the summit =f oriental studies in Russia -- declared that "I believe democracy will =ome to the Arab world by the Islamists rather than by Western intervention." He admitted, however, that we woul= have to wait to see whether Islamist regimes in Arab countries proved to =e democratic or not. Moscow's first reaction to the Arab revolutions has tended to be wary, no=doubt because it suffered the assaults of the Rose Revolution in Georgia, =he Orange Revolution in Ukraine, the Tulip Revolution in Kyrgyzstan, and s= forth. Yet it is now fully aware of the need to build relations with the new forces in the Arab world. Even=s in the Middle East may 12 EFTA_R1_00081918 EFTA01770696 even impinge on Russia's presidential elections= giving a boost to Vladimir Putin's ambitions. Ever since his historic v=sit to Saudi Arabia and the Gulf in 2007 -- the first ever by a Russian leader -- Putin has claimed to know ho= to handle Middle East affairs. The situation in Syria is a subject of great preoccupation in Moscow. Deput= Foreign Minister Mikhail Bogdanov was very firm, issuing what seemed like=a warning to the Western powers: "Russia cannot tolerate open interventi=n on one side of the conflict," he thundered. It was wrong to force Bashar al-Asad, "the President of a sov=reign state" to step down. Russia was seeking to institute a dialogue wi=hout preconditions. It was continuing its contacts with the opposition. Bu=, in the meantime, he cautioned, the opposition had to dissociate itself from extremists. In thinking about Syria, the Russians are clearly much influenced by what h=ppened in Libya. The Western powers, Bogdanov charged, had made many mista=es in the violent overthrow of Qadhafi. "There is a need," he insisted= "to investigate the civilian casualties caused by NATO airstrikes." Professor Naumkin explained: "Russia feels=that it was cheated by its international partners. The no-fly zone mandate=in Libya was transformed into direct military intervention. This should no= be repeated in Syria." Arming the opposition would only serve to increase the killing. There was now the thrrat of civil war. Reforms had to be given a chance. The majority of the Syr=an population did not want Bashar al-Asad to stand down. External armed fo=ces should not intervene. Although Naumkin did not say so, there were rumours at the conference that =ussia had advised Asad on the drafting of the new Syrian Constitution, whi=h strips the Ba'th Party of its monopoly as "leader of State and socie=y." The Constitution is due to be put to a referendum on 26 February, followed by multi-party elections. As was to be expected, several Arab delegates at the conference were critic=l of Russia's role in protecting President Asad, in particular of its ve=o on 4 February at the UN Security Council of the Resolution calling on hi= to step down. Professor Naumkin put up a vigorous defence. "We are seeking a new strategy of partnership=between Russia and the Arab world," he declared. "We are determined to=take up the challenge against those who do not respect our interests." H= stressed that Russia's interests in the Middle East were not mercantile. It had no special relations with anyone (=y this he seemed to mean the Asad family); it had no proxies or puppets in=the region. Russia was a young democracy. It listened to public opinion. 1= was defending its vision of international relations based on respect for the sovereignty of states and a rejection o= foreign armed intervention. Of all the Arabs present, it was the Palestinians who, not surprisingly, we=e most eager for Russian support in their unequal struggle with Israel. No= that Russia was returning to the international arena as a major player, t=ey called for it to put its full weight in favour of the peace process and of Mahmoud Abbas, "the last mo=erate Palestinian leader." America's monopoly of the peace process had=merely provided a cover for Israeli expansion. Speaker after speaker deplored the ineffective peace-making of the Quartet =the United States, European Union, Russia and UN). Indeed, an Israeli spea=er reminded the conference that the discovery of large gas reserves off th= Israeli coast meant that Israel -- soon to be "a major partner in the energy market" once gas started =o flow next year -- would be less motivated to talk peace. The world would=be confronted, he seemed to be saying, by a "Greater Israel with gas!"=br> Some Palestinians called for the toothless Quartet to be dismantled altoget=er and replaced by enhanced UN involvement. Some Israelis conceded that th=ir country had made strategic errors in expanding West Bank settlements an= laying siege to Gaza. Nevertheless, the Israel public had turned against the peace process, while the goal of =rime Minister Benyamin Netanyahu was to rule out the possibility of a two-state solution. This prompted Ambassador Andrey Baklanov to argue for the n=ed to re-launch a multilateral Middle East peace process to replace the failed bilateral talks. Indeed, perhaps the clearest message of the conference was the appeal for a=greater role for the BRICS (Brazil, Russia, India, China and South Africa)=in establishing a new multilateral mechanism for regional security. To hal= the killing in Syria or to ward off a U.S.-Israeli war against Iran, would Russia sponsor a mediation proc=ss in conjunction with its BRICS partners? Would it seek to revive the mor=bund Arab-Israeli peace process by sponsoring an international conference =n Moscow? These questions remained unanswered. Russia's ambition to play a greater role in international affairs is clea=. But can it deliver? Patrick Seale is a leading British writer on the Middle East. His latest=book is The Struggle for Arab Independence: Riad el-Solh and the Makers of=the Modern Middle East (Cambridge University Press). 13 EFTA_R1_00081919 EFTA01770697 Articl= 7. The Atlantic Monthl= AIPAC and the=Push Toward War Robert Wright Feb 21 2012 -- Late last week, amid little fanfare= Senators Joseph Lieberman, Lindsey Graham, and Robert Casey introduced a =esolution that would move America further down the path toward war with Ir=n. The good news is th=t the resolution hasn't been universally embraced in the Senate. As Ron Ka=peas of the Jewish Telegraphic Agency reports <http://www.jta.org/news/article/2012/02/17/3091713/iran-resoluti=ns-bumpy-road- reveals-senate-dems-war-jitters> , the resolution has "provoked jitters among Democrats anxi=us over the specter of war." The bad news is that, as Kampeas also re=orts, "AIPAC is expected to make the resolution an 'ask' in three wee=s when up to 10,000 activists culminate its annual conference with a day of Capitol Hill lobbying."In standard media acc=unts, the resolution <http://thomas.loc.gov/cgi-bin/query/z?r112:516FE2-004=1> is being described as an attempt to move the "red line&=uot;--the line that, if crossed by Iran, could trigger a US military strik=. The Obama administration has said that what's unacceptable is for Iran t= develop a nuclear weapon. This resolution speaks instead of a "nuclear weapons capability." In other words= Iran shouldn't be allowed to get to a point where, should it decide to pr=duce a nuclear weapon, it would have the wherewithal to do so. By itself this lang=age is meaninglessly vague. Does "capability" mean the ability t= produce a bomb within two months? Two years? If two years is the standard= Iran has probably crossed the red line already. (So should we start bombing now?) Indeed, by the two-year standard, Iran m=ght well be over the red line even after a bombing campaign--which would a= most be a temporary setback, and would remove any doubt among Iran's lead=rs as to whether to build nuclear weapons, and whether to make its nuclear program impervious to future Amer=can and Israeli bombs. What do we do then? Invade? In other words, if =nterpreted expansively, the "nuclear weapons capability" thresho=d is a recipe not just for war, but for ongoing war--war that wouldn't ult=mately prevent the building of a nuclear weapon without putting boots on the ground. And it turns out that the authors of =his resolution want "nuclear weapons capability" interpreted ver= expansively. The key is in the w=y the resolution deals with the question of whether Iran should be allowed=to enrich uranium, as it's been doing for some time now. The resolution de=ines as an American goal "the full and sustained suspension" of uranium enrichment by Iran. In case you'=e wondering what the resolution's prime movers mean by that: In a letter s=nt to the White House on the same day the resolution was introduced, Liebe=man, Graham and ten other senators wrote <http://menendez.senate.gov/imo/media/doc/2012%2002-17,%20Letter%=0to%20President%20Obama.pdf> , "We would strongly oppose any proposal that recognizes a 'r=ght to enrichment' by the current regime or for [sic) a diplomatic endgame=in which Iran is permitted to continue enrichment on its territory in any =orm." This notwithstandin= the fact that 1) enrichment is allowed under the Nuclear Nonproliferation=Treaty; (2) a sufficiently intrusive monitoring system can verify that enr=chment is for peaceful purposes; (3) Iran's right to enrich its own uranium is an issue of strong national prid=. In a poll <http://www.worldpublicopinion.org/pipa/pdf/feb10/IranElection_Fe=10_rpt.pdf> published in 2010, after sanctions had already started to bite, 86=percent of Iranians said Iran should not "give up its nuclear activit=es regardless of the 14 EFTA_R1_00081920 EFTA01770698 circumstances." And this wasn't about building a=bomb; most Iranians said Iran's nuclear activities shouldn't include producing weapons. Even Dennis Ross--w=o has rarely, in his long career as a Mideast diplomat, left much daylight=between his positions and AIPAC's, and who once categorically opposed <http://www.lobelog.com/top-obama-adviser-signs-on-to-roadmap- to-=ar-with-iran/> Iranian enrichment--now realizes that a diplomatic solution may=have to include enrichment. Last week in a New York Times op-ed, he said chttp://www.nytimes.com/2012/02/15/opinion/give-diplomacy-with-ir=n-a- chance.html> that, contrary to pessimistic assessments, it may still be possibl= to get a deal that "uses intrusive inspections and denies or limits =ranium enrichment [emphasis added)..." The resolution play= down its departure from current policy by claiming that there have been &=uot;multiple" UN resolutions since 2006 demanding the "sustained=quot; suspension of uranium. But the UN resolutions don't actually use that term. The UN has demanded suspension as a confidence-bui=ding measure that could then lead to, as one resolution puts it, a "n=gotiated solution that guarantees Iran's nuclear program is for exclusivel= peaceful purposes." And various Security Council members who voted on these resolutions have made it clear that Ira=ian enrichment of uranium can be part of this scenario if Iran agrees to s=fficiently tight monitoring. Indeed, that Iran's=right to enrich uranium could be recognized under those circumstances is, =illary Clinton has said <http://www.gpo.gov/fdsys/pkg/CHRG-112hhrg64869/pdf/CHRG-112hhrg6=869.pdf> , "the position of the international community, along with the=United States." If the Lieberman-Graham-Casey resolution guides US po=icy, says George Perkovich of the Carnegie Endowment for International Pea=e, that would "preclude" fulfillment of the UN resolutions and isolate the US from the international coalition that ba=ked them. The Congressional r=solution goes beyond the UN resolutions in another sense. It demands an en= to Iran's ballistic missile program. Greg Thielmann of the Arms Control A=sociation notes that, "Even after crushing Iraq in the first Gulf War, the international coalition only imposed a 150=kilometer range ceiling on Saddam's ballistic missiles. A demand to elimin=te all ballistic missiles would be unprecedented in the modern era--removi=g any doubt among Iranians that the United States was interested in nothing less than the total subjugatio= of the country." On the brighter sid=: Maybe it's a good sign that getting significant Democratic buy-in for th=s resolution took some strong-arming. According to <http://peacenow.org/entries/legislative_round-up_february_13-17_=012> Lara Friedman of Americans for Peace Now, the resolution g=t 15 Democratic supporters only "after days of intense AIPAC lobbying= particularly of what some consider 'vulnerable' Democrats (vulnerable in =erms of being in races where their pro-Israel credentials are being challenged by the candidate running against them).&q=ot; What's more, even as AIPAC was playing this hardball, the bill's spons=rs still had to tone down some particularly threatening language in the re=olution. But, even so, the r=solution defines keeping Iran from getting a nuclear weapons "capabil=ty" as being in America's "vital national interest," which =s generally taken as synonymous with "worth war." And, though this "sense of Congress" resolution is nonbinding, AIPAC =ill probably seek unanimous Senate consent, which puts pressure on a presi=ent. Friedman says this "risks sending a message that Congress suppor=s war and opposes a realistic negotiated solution or any de facto solution short of stripping Iran of even a peaceful nuclea= capacity." What's more, says F=iedman, the non-binding status may be temporary. "Often AIPAC-backed =ongressional initiatives start as non-binding language (in a resolution or=a letter) and then show up in binding legislation. Once members of Congress have already signed on to a policy in non-binding=form, it is much harder for them to oppose it when it shows up later in a =ill that, if passed, will have the full force of law." No wonder Democrats=who worry about war have the "jitters." 15 EFTA_R1_00081921 EFTA01770699 Robert Wright is=a senior editor at The Atlantic and the author, most recently, o= The Evolution =f God <http://www.evolutionofgod.net/> , a New York Times bestseller and a finalist for the Pulitzer Pri=e. 16 EFTA_R1_00081922 EFTA01770700