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Posted on Sustainabilitank.info on September 4th, 2012
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Posted on Sustainabilitank.info on April 8th, 2012 Let us start first with a Thomas Friedman article-conclusion first! If you ask “what are the real threats to our security today,” said Lester Brown of The Earth Policy Institute, “at the top of the list would be climate change, population growth, water shortages, rising food prices and the number of failing states in the world. As that list grows, how many failed states before we have a failing global civilization, and everything begins to unravel?” Hopefully, we won’t go there. But, then – we should all remember that quote attributed to Leon Trotsky: “You may not be interested in war, but war is interested in you.” —- Well, you may not be interested in climate change, but climate change is interested in you. Folks, this is not a hoax. We and the Arabs need to figure out — and fast — more ways to partner to mitigate the environmental threats where we can and to build greater resiliency against those where we can’t. Twenty years from now, this could be all that we’re talking about. Please go to the link for a very interesting article that tells us that the Arab Spring did happen in part because of the lack of attention to climate change on the part of government officials that were racking it all in to themselves – those official rapists of their countries. Thomas Friedman is not the only one asking why Arab Spring now, and why the Arab World has not produced any democracies like other Islamic Countries – non-Arabs – actually did. Why is there no Arab State like Turkey, Indonesia, Malaysia, or Bangladesh? This last version of the Question was posed by Fareed Zakaria on today’s CNN/GPS show. Seemingly – all Arab States that are within the huge North-Africa Middle-East area of the Arab conquests in the 12th and 13th Centuries have no real Civil Society. In all these States the economy is run by the people of the ruling Monarchy or by those close to the Government. To above obervation by Fareed Zakaria we see the add-on by Thomas Friedman: “The Arab awakening was driven not only by political and economic stresses, but, less visibly, by environmental, population and climate stresses as well. If we focus only on the former and not the latter, we will never be able to help stabilize these societies.” Thomas Friedman tells us of draught in Syria and North Africa and how this draught pushed the societal lid and was part of the reason for this present day upheaval. And a Warning – 12 of the world’s 15 most water-scarce countries — Algeria, Libya, Tunisia, Jordan, Qatar, Saudi Arabia, Yemen, Oman, the United Arab Emirates, Kuwait, Bahrain, Israel and Palestine — are in the Middle East, and after three decades of explosive population growth these countries are “set to dramatically worsen their predicament. Then think also about the observatio – “Alot more mouths to feed with less water than ever. As Lester Brown, the president of the Earth Policy Institute and author of “World on the Edge,” notes, 20 years ago, using oil-drilling technology, the Saudis tapped into an aquifer far below the desert to produce irrigated wheat, making themselves self-sufficient. But now almost all that water is gone, and Saudi wheat production is, too. So the Saudis are investing in farm land in Ethiopia and Sudan, but that means they will draw more Nile water for irrigation away from Egypt, whose agriculture-rich Nile Delta is already vulnerable to any sea level rise and saltwater intrusion.
The Link to Thomas Friedman: www.nytimes.com/2012/04/08/opinion/sunday/friedman-the-other-arab-spring.html?pagewanted=1&_r=1&nl=todaysheadlines&emc=edit_th_20120408
The Other Arab Spring.By THOMAS L. FRIEDMAN, Published in The New York Times April 7, 2012 as an OP-ED Column.ISN’T it interesting that the Arab awakening began in Tunisia with a fruit vendor who was harassed by police for not having a permit to sell food — just at the moment when world food prices hit record highs? And that it began in Syria with farmers in the southern village of Dara’a, who were demanding the right to buy and sell land near the border, without having to get permission from corrupt security officials? And that it was spurred on in Yemen — the first country in the world expected to run out of water — by a list of grievances against an incompetent government, among the biggest of which was that top officials were digging water wells in their own backyards at a time when the government was supposed to be preventing such water wildcatting? As Abdelsalam Razzaz, the minister of water in Yemen’s new government, told Reuters last week: “The officials themselves have traditionally been the most aggressive well diggers. Nearly every minister had a well dug in his house.” ### |
Posted on Sustainabilitank.info on March 19th, 2012 Israel, Iran, Jordan and Turkey join forces for multimillion-dollar science project. Each of the four countries has pledged $5 million toward the SESAME facility, which is being built near Amman.By Asaf Shtull-Trauring, Published 15.03.2012 by HAARETZ of Israel. www.haaretz.com/print-edition/new… In an extraordinary act of regional cooperation, Israel, Iran, Jordan and Turkey are to jointly provide funds for a particle accelerator as part of their commitment to a UNESCO-sponsored scientific project, it was announced on Wednesday. Each of the four countries has pledged $5 million toward the SESAME facility, which is being built near Amman. SESAME stands for Synchrotron-light for Experimental Science and Applications in the Middle East.
According to the UNESCO website, the project aims to “foster scientific and technological excellence in the Middle East and neighboring countries (and prevent or reverse brain drain ) by enabling world-class research,” and to “build scientific and cultural bridges between neighboring countries.” The project is slated to go online in 2015. Egypt was originally meant to be one of the sponsors, but the past year’s instability there made it difficult to secure its commitment. From Wednesday’s announcement, it appears that Iran is taking Egypt’s place. The $20 million isn’t enough to cover the accelerator project. Another $15 million is being sought from Europe and the United States. The SESAME center will ultimately cost $100 million. “This announcement is a breakthrough in terms of the financial infrastructure,” said Prof. Eliezer Rabinovici, a physicist at the Hebrew University of Jerusalem, who has attended SESAME planning meetings. “SESAME had enough money to build the building to house the accelerator, and to install its first components, which are being donated by the Germans. Now this commitment will enable the purchase of a light source for the accelerator,” he said. Moshe Vigdor, who heads the Planning and Budgeting Committee of Israel’s Council for Higher Education, said that without this agreement the project would have collapsed. As for Iran’s involvement, he said, “Science crosses borders and Israel participates in many international scientific forums that include Iran.” SESAME also includes representatives from the Palestinian Authority, Pakistan, Bahrain and Cyprus. According to Rabinovici, SESAME’s seeds were sown at a meeting that took place in Dahab, Sinai, three weeks after Prime Minister Yitzhak Rabin was assassinated. Scientists from Egypt, Israel, Jordan and Morocco, as well as Palestinian scientists, were at the meeting. While terror attacks in the late 1990s moved the working meetings to Europe, work on the project continued, getting a major boost with the donation of a German synchrotron, which will serve as the base for the new accelerator. Unlike accelerators such as the Large Hadron Collider in Switzerland, the synchrotron is not based on particle collisions but on the cyclic beaming of electrons within the accelerator. When the electrons are accelerated they radiate, and this radiation can be used for screening in archaeology, physics, life sciences, pharmacology and other fields. There are 60 such synchrotrons in the world, but none in the Middle East. ===================================================== Israeli Vice Premier Silvan Shalom says cutting Iran off from SWIFT clearinghouse will almost totally paralyze Iranian imports and exports, hours after most severe sanctions ever leveled against a sovereign country take effect in Iran • “Everything is done through international clearinghouses these days. What will they do? Carry gold in suitcases?” says Shalom. Shalom spoke less than a day after the most severe sanctions ever leveled against a sovereign country went into effect as Iran’s banking system was disconnected from the international SWIFT (Society for Worldwide Interbank Financial Telecommunication) network – a secure electronic system used by banks all over the world to communicate money transfers and other transactions. Officials in Jerusalem have said that the impact of this move should become apparent within a few weeks. Many officials voiced satisfaction with the move. “This is a real ratcheting up of the pressure,” Shalom told Israel Radio on Friday. “Israel has wanted this for a long time.”
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Posted on Sustainabilitank.info on January 4th, 2012 Bahrain king meets with rabbiDecember 30, 2011 (JTA) — The king of Bahrain met with a visiting rabbi in his palace. Rabbi Marc Schneier, vice president of the World Jewish Congress, met in Bahrain Wednesday with King Hamad bin Isa Al Khalifa. Schneier is also the president of the Foundation for Ethnic Understanding. Schneier said that he welcomed a suggestion by King Hamad to host a gathering of Jewish and Muslim clerics in Bahrain in 2012. “Bahrain is a role model in the Arab world for coexistence and tolerance of different faith communities, including a small Jewish community. I am deeply honored to be the first rabbi to be hosted by the King of Bahrain at his palace, and I am excited that he and his government are fully committed to building bridges between our two communities,” Schneier said in a statement. “I am looking forward to working with King Hamad and his government to bring our two communities closer together,” he also said. ————— Rabbi Lauds Bahrain King Despite AbusesMarc Schneier Calls Gulf State a ‘Model’ for Dialogue![]() Crackdown King: Rabbi Marc Schneier meets Bahrain’s King Hamad bin Isa Al Khalifa. The Gulf State’s ruler has been criticized for cracking down on opponents but Schneier praises him as a model of interfaith dialogue.
Schneier rejected the notion that the openness demonstrated by the Bahraini monarch could be an attempt to win over the sympathy of American Jews at a time when international support for his action is in decline. The New York rabbi explained that dealing with Bahrain’s internal strife was not part of his mission and that he was focused solely on the issue of Jewish-Muslim dialogue. “I was somewhat myopic in my goals over there,” he conceded. “This wasn’t a fact-finding mission for me,” he added. “I came with a very focused mission and, thank God, I was able to accomplish it.” Schneier’s mission was, to a great extent, unprecedented. While Jewish–Muslim dialogue forums are common in the U.S. and Europe, he succeeded in recruiting King Hamed to host such a meeting in a Muslim country. At the end of the 45-minute meeting, which took place in the royal palace in Manama, an agreement was reached to hold a meeting in 2012 in which 10 Jewish and 10 Muslim leaders will convene to discuss relations between the two faiths in Bahrain under the auspices of King Hamed. “I see this as a natural extension of the journey we’ve been on to strengthen relations between Jews and Muslims,” said Schneier, who also serves as vice president of the World Jewish Congress. Bahrain has a tiny Jewish community with some 30 members. One of them, Houda Ezra Nonoo, serves as the country’s ambassador to the United States. ————————
BAHRAIN
König empfängt Vizepräsidenten des Jüdischen Weltkongresses.29. Dezember 2011
Hamad bin Isa al Khalifa will 2012 in Manama eine Konferenz jüdischer und muslimischer Geistlicher abhalten.
Rabbi Marc Schneier, Vizepräsident des Jüdischen Weltkongresses, ist am Mittwoch in Manama, der Hauptstadt des Golfstaates Bahrain, vom dortigen König Hamad bin Isa al Khalifa empfangen worden.
Während des 45minütigen Gesprächs im Königspalast begrüsste Schneier, der aktiv um die Förderung des muslimisch-jüdischen Dialogs und der Kooperation zwischen den beiden Gruppen bemüht ist, den Vorschlag des Monarchen, 2012 in Bahrain ein Treffen zwischen jüdischen und muslimischen Geistlichen abzuhalten.
Schneier meinte: «Bahrain, das selber über eine kleine jüdische Gemeinde verfügt, ist ein Vorbild in der arabischen Welt für Koexistenz und Toleranz zwischen Gemeinden unterschiedlicher Glaubensbekenntnisse.»
Rabbi Schneier ist als erster Rabbiner überhaupt im Königspalast von Manama empfangen worden und kam auch mit den bahrainischen Ministern für Justiz und islamische Angelegenheiten und Handel und Industrie zusammen. [TA]
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Posted on Sustainabilitank.info on December 27th, 2011
Why the US Should Withdraw From the Entire Persian Gulf.By Toby C. Jones, The Atlantic 26 December 2011
Today, it’s still not clear what the United States’ strategic priorities are in the Gulf. Are we there to secure access to oil? Protect friendly regimes from unfriendly ones? American policymaking is muddled, a combination of concern about energy security, Iranian aggression, and terrorism. This uncertainty is perilous. And the reality is that none of these challenges really require a significant military presence. Indeed, if recent history is any guide, a large military footprint in the Gulf will generate more rather than less risk. Historically, oil and “energy security” have been at the heart of American strategy in the Gulf. It is home to the richest oil and natural gas deposits on the planet. It was President Jimmy Carter who most clearly made protecting the flow of oil to global markets a national priority. Carter declared oil a “vital interest” and that any assault on it would “be repelled by any means necessary, including military force.” Protecting oil meant protecting its producers. Indeed, much of the war-fighting of the last two decades has been rationalized as necessary to defend Kuwait and Saudi Arabia, and their oil, from neighborhood threats. The economic logic that has underpinned all this is based mostly on an assumption that oil is a scarce resource, that there is a tight gap between supply and demand, that ensuring supply is essential to stabilize prices and to protect the global economy from potentially devastating disruptions. None of that is really true. For most of the 20th century, oil companies and oil producing states regularly collaborated to regulate supply in order to limit competition and control prices. There never has been a global oil market. Instead, oil’s production and delivery has been managed by a small network of corporate and national energy elites, whose primary concern has been serving their own interests and maintaining their bottom line. Among the few to benefit from high oil prices are global weapons manufacturers. Oil states have recycled hundreds of billions of dollars in oil revenues through Western economies by purchasing high-tech and expensive weapons systems. A year ago, Saudi Arabia committed to purchasing a staggering $60 billion in new weapons from the United States. In spite of spending outlandish amounts to procure of some of the world’s most modern weapons, Saudi Arabia has not been able to defend itself. Instead, the burden of protecting Saudi Arabia falls on the United States. Advocates of this arrangement argue that the influx of cash is good for the American economy and that it creates jobs in parts of the country that need them. Oil money also helps pay for expensive military research and development projects, deflecting some of the cost of weapons design from American taxpayers. This may all be true, but it also contributes to the militarization and destabilization of the Gulf. The world today is awash in oil and natural gas. Protecting the flow of oil from the Persian Gulf to global markets is far less necessary than it once was. Over the past generation, Saudi Arabia, Iran, and the other oil producers in the region have grown accustomed to bloated national budgets and expensive state-run, cradle-to-grave welfare services, which means that there is greater pressure on them to sell oil than to horde it. Since the fall of the Shah in 1979, U.S. policy of containing Iran has arguably been linked to its energy security. Of course there’s been more at stake than just oil, and since the 2003 invasion of Iraq, concerns about Iran’s growing assertiveness and influence in the region have eclipsed those about energy security, at least in public political discourse. It is difficult to untangle where American concerns about Iran overlap with its desire to protect regional allies, and whose interests are primarily being served by the United States’ policy of non-engagement. Led by Saudi Arabia, the Arab Gulf states claim that their fears of Iranian ambition are existential. It is certainly true that Tehran is locked in a regional balance of power struggle with Saudi Arabia and that Iran seeks greater influence. But Iran does not seek the destruction of Saudi Arabia or the overthrow of Arab world’s political order. In spite of claims to the contrary by the Saudi and Bahraini governments, Iran’s revolutionary imperative is a relic of the past. Israel expresses a similar anxiety about Iran as a security threat. And Iran’s leaders have played their part in fostering Israeli uncertainty. Iran’s potential acquisition of nuclear weapons is a source of concern, of course, as is its support for Hezbollah and Syria. The challenge of how best to deal with Iranian ambition, however, is mainly a political problem, one that has for too long been treated almost entirely through the lens of security and militarism. The presence of the American military in the Gulf has not only done little to deter Iran’s ambitions, it has emboldened them. Surrounding Iran militarily and putting it under the constant threat of American or Israeli military action has failed to deter the country. Instead this approach has strengthened hardliners within Tehran and convinced them that the best path to self-preservation is through defiance, militarism, and the pursuit of dangerous ties across the Middle East. The rivalry between Iran, the U.S., and its regional partners has turned into a political and military arms race, one that could easily spin out of control. Less obvious, the United States’ military posture has also emboldened its allies, sometimes to act in counterproductive ways. Saudi Arabia and Bahrain justify their brutal crackdown of Bahrain’s pro-democracy movement by falsely claiming Iranian meddling. While American policymakers support democratic transitions in the Middle East rhetorically, their unwillingness to confront long-time allies in the Gulf during the Arab Spring is partly the product of the continued belief that the U.S. needs to keep its military in the Gulf, something that requires staying on good terms with Gulf monarchies. The result is that Saudi Arabia and its allies have considerable political cover to behave badly, both at home and abroad. If the Arab Spring has demonstrated anything, it is that the old political order is vulnerable to domestic political pressure. The Middle East is moving to an era of mass politics, in which mobilized publics demand greater rights and greater influence. While many observers believe that the oil states are less susceptible to such pressures, this seems far from certain. In fact, Saudi Arabia, the world’s most important oil producer, shares many of social and political-economic characteristics of its beleaguered neighbors, including high unemployment, widespread poverty, popular disillusion with corruption, and an increasingly sophisticated network of grassroots organizations committed to political change. Even flush with considerable oil revenue and the capacity to throw money at its many internal problems, Saudi Arabia has still been forced to unleash its police and security forces to quell unrest. The United States, because of its relationship with Saudi Arabia and Bahrain and its apparent preference for preserving the political status quo in the Gulf, is increasingly seen by the region’s citizens as conflated with the violent forces of counterrevolution. Should revolutionaries and would-be revolutionaries in the Gulf force political transitions in the future, the United States could pay a political price for its long-standing military entanglements. Now, even the White House no longer believes our large military presence in the Gulf is good for combating the big threat we’re supposedly there to contain: terrorism. Ben Rhodes, the deputy national security adviser for strategic communications, remarked last week that the U.S. will seek to reduce the American military footprint there. This would allow “us in many respects to demilitarize elements of our foreign policy and establish more normal relationships,” he said, to bring the U.S. security posture in the region more “in line with where we were before 1990.” Rhodes apparently did not comment on either energy security or Iran. While his comments strike the right tone, there may be less to them than meets the eye. Last week’s statement directly contradicted an October New York Times report that administration officials plan to reallocate military resources and combat troops from Iraq to elsewhere in the Gulf, Kuwait in particular. There are compelling reasons to believe that the Obama administration will not demilitarize the Gulf to pre-1990 levels, as Rhodes said. The majority of U.S. military facilities, including the al-Udeid airbase in Qatar and the headquarters of the Navy’s Fifth Fleet in Bahrain, were built after 1990. New military spending and new construction are planned for 2012. The State Department has requested around $26 million dollars for new construction at the Fifth Fleet’s Bahrain headquarters. This is not a huge sum, but it was requested as Bahraini security forces carried out a brutal crackdown on its own people. American priorities are, sadly, all too clear. The status quo is never easy to change, especially when it comes to institutions as risk-averse as the Pentagon and State Department and to practices as entrenched as the 25-year U.S.-Gulf alliance. A new strategic approach, one that relies less on the projection of military power, will seem replete with risk. Skeptics will warn that Iran would be emboldened, that terrorists would seek a foothold, and that the flow of oil would be imperiled. But these fears are exaggerated. To the extent that these dangers are plaudible at all, it’s because our current policy makes them possible. The greatest risk is proceeding ahead with the status quo. To disengage from our fraught and increasingly counterproductive Gulf presence would require the U.S. to begin withdrawing its military personnel from the region, reduce its spending on existing infrastructure, put an end to the weapons pipeline, and look for places from which it can depart immediately, such as moving the Fifth Fleet out of the Gulf and reducing the Navy’s burden in patrolling the Gulf. This would not mean abandoning the region altogether. Given its global reach, the United States will always retain the capacity to project military power, but the terms should be limited. The challenge is less about finding friendly ports to station personnel than it is about charting clearer and more effective terms of political engagement with allies and rivals. And this requires a new strategic doctrine, one that makes clear to regional actors that the era of open security guarantees — which have proven so dear to both Americans and to the hundreds of thousands who have died since the United States began its military build-up — is over. This would not mean the loss of leverage or influence, but in fact the opposite. Once it is clear that the United States is not solely committed to preserving the status quo, regional states will no longer believe they can ignore American calls for reform, restraint, and respect for human rights. Indeed, it is the belief in the Gulf States that they have “special relationships” with the United States. Where the presence of the military has constrained American leverage, its removal will increase its power in other ways. After all, even with a struggling economy, the United States will for the foreseeable future remain the world’s greatest military and economic superpower. The Gulf states are wealthy and resource rich, but they are beholden to the free movement of labor, capital, and oil. Once oil has to flow in a free market, rather than in one controlled by producers who operate under Western military protection, they will be subject to a range of “normal” kinds of political and economic leverage. Using these sources of leverage would prove less problematic for an America that is struggling with the gap between its interests and values in the less-than-democratic Gulf. Since the 2003 invasion of Iraq, the limits of American power and the constraining effects of the United States’ Gulf alliances have been clear. It would be better for us, and better for them, to end our failed three-decade experiment in the Gulf. ———————————— Toby C. Jones is assistant professor of history at Rutgers University. He is author of “Desert Kingdom: How Oil and Water Forged Modern Saudi Arabia” and an editor at Middle East Report. ### |
Posted on Sustainabilitank.info on December 26th, 2011 Gandhian-style tactics still relevant in Arab Spring times. By Reuters, Thursday, 22 December 2011, posted by Arab Business News. The most electrifying event of the year, for me, was the Egyptian revolution. I’d long had an interest in Gandhian-style struggles. Here was a nonviolent struggle unfolding in real-time against Hosni Mubarak’s repressive regime. Tens of millions of people were gaining their freedom. The media coverage of the events in Tahrir Square focused on the Facebook revolution. But when I went to Cairo shortly after, I discovered that the use of social media was only part of the reason why the dictator had been toppled. Behind the protests was a cadre of activists who had been trained in the techniques of nonviolent struggle. This realisation was a eureka moment. If it was possible to overthrow dictators with comparatively little bloodshed – less than a thousand died in Egypt’s revolution – many millions more elsewhere might be able to gain their freedom given proper planning and training. 2011 was a banner year for nonviolent struggle. Not only did it witness the successful Arab Spring revolutions against dictators in Egypt, Tunisia and Yemen; it also saw three Arab kings – in Morocco, Jordan and Kuwait – liberalise their political systems to head off similar protests. And the brave people of Syria went out on the streets again and again, despite being arrested, tortured and killed in their thousands. Further afield, the Burmese regime started to reach an accommodation with pro-democracy activist, Aung San Suu Kyi, after two decades of nonviolent opposition; China experienced increasing stirrings of protest, for example when citizens posted nude photos of themselves on the internet after the authorities ruled that a photo of Ai Weiwei, the dissident artist, was pornographic; and even Vladimir Putin had to face demonstrations after seemingly widespread vote-rigging in Russia’s parliamentary elections. The techniques of nonviolent struggle have also been used for purposes other than bringing down dictatorships. A man called Anna Hazare led a successful campaign against corruption in India. Meanwhile, the West had to contend with the Indignant anti-austerity movements in Spain, Greece and Italy as well as the anti-banker Occupy movements in the United States and Britain. And don’t forget Leymah Gbowee, one of the winners of this year’s Nobel Peace Prize. She helped end Liberia’s civil war in 2003. 2011 was the most successful year for nonviolent struggle since 1989 when peaceful revolutions led by the likes of Poland’s Lech Walesa and Czechoslovakia’s Vaclav Havel, who died at the weekend, swept away the old communist regimes of Eastern Europe. But nonviolent struggle hasn’t mown down everything in its path this year. The Occupy movements haven’t achieved much apart from raising consciousness. The transition to democracy in Egypt is still uncertain. Pro-democracy protests in Bahrain were snuffed out with the help of Saudi tanks. Bashar Assad is still in power in Damascus. And Libya’s Colonel Muammar Gaddafi was brought down by a bloody civil war and foreign military intervention, not by unarmed protesters. Over the past year, whenever I could tear myself away from the unfolding drama in the euro zone, I turned my attention to nonviolent struggle. How were these movements organised? Did they draw inspiration from common sources? And what were the ingredients of success? The trail began in early January, several weeks before the Tahrir Square demonstrations. I was in Delhi meeting Kiran Bedi, a key member of Hazare’s anti-corruption campaign. I wanted to know whether Mohandas Gandhi, the leader of India’s independence struggle against the British in the first half of the 20th Century, was still relevant today. Of course, she replied, explaining that they had chosen January 30, the anniversary of Gandhi’s assassination, to hold their anti-corruption demonstration. It wasn’t until August, though, that the campaign gathered momentum. The decisive moment came when Hazare announced he would go on a public hunger strike, a classic Gandhian technique, until the government agreed to create a tough anti-corruption watchdog. This posed a dilemma for the authorities. Either they would let the 74-year-old man go on strike and they would look weak; or they wouldn’t and they would look brutal. The police chose the latter option, arresting Hazare and over a thousand of his supporters on the grounds that they were holding an illegal demonstration. Indians came out in their millions in protest. Some kids in an orphanage even staged a hunger strike in sympathy. The so-called dilemma action was perfected by Gandhi in his salt march in 1930. At the time, salt-making was a British government monopoly. Gandhi declared he was going to march to the sea and make his own salt, daring the authorities either to arrest him or display their impotence. After weeks of dithering, the British arrested Gandhi – triggering a massive civil disobedience campaign which led to over 80,000 people being put behind bars and paved the way for the end of British rule. Today’s Indian authorities made the same mistake as their British predecessors. But this is moving too fast. Long before Hazare’s victory, Zine El Abidine Ben Ali had fled Tunisia and Mubarak had resigned in Egypt. When I went to Cairo a month later, I met Saad Bahaar, a former engineer who had been training activists in the techniques of nonviolent struggle for six years. I was stunned. How had he learned what to do? He pointed, among other things, to the work of Gene Sharp, a frail 83-year-old Boston-based academic who has been studying and proselytising this type of warfare for about 60 years. I’d never heard of Sharp, who runs a small think-tank called the Albert Einstein Institution. But I sought him out and devoured a clutch of his books, including his classic treatise, The Politics of Nonviolent Action. Sharp had analyzed how the pillars on which dictators’ power rests could be undermined systematically by nonviolent struggle. He also listed 198 tactics that could be used. Sharp had taken the insights of Gandhi and others and developed them into a quasi-science. One of Sharp’s concepts – political jujitsu – is particularly powerful. This is the idea that violence inflicted by a dictatorship on peaceful protesters could boomerang on the regime and destroy it. Bystanders would abandon their neutrality; the regime’s pillars of support would become shaky; if the activists had the courage to maintain their struggle, the tyrant would ultimately collapse. But – and this was a crucial “but” – the revolutionaries had to maintain their nonviolent discipline, according to Sharp. Otherwise, they would lose the active support of the masses and, in a trial of strength, the regime would overwhelm them. Boston is one node in a loose network of activists involved in nonviolent struggle. Another is Belgrade, home of Srdja Popovic, a 38-year-old Serb who was a founder of the resistance movement which helped bring down Slobodan Milosevic in 2000. Popovic now runs Canvas, a group that trains activists around the world in nonviolent struggle. The tall angular Serb has simplified and popularised Sharp’s work, adding a huge dose of energy and humor as well as real-life experience. Then there are academics who have helped refine the techniques of nonviolent warfare by studying past campaigns. For example, Erica Chenoweth and Maria Stephan studied 323 liberation struggles between 1900 and 2006 in their new book Why Civil Resistance Works. They discovered that 53 percent of the nonviolent campaigns succeeded in bringing about regime change, roughly double the 26 percent success rate for violent ones. The nonviolent struggles were also faster – taking on average three years to reach their goal rather than nine. And such campaigns had a good chance of ushering in democracies whereas regime changes brought about through violence tended to lead to new dictatorships. The overall message of these activists and academics can be boiled down to several simple points. Success comes from having a clear and powerful goal, unity among the opposition, good strategic planning, tactical innovation and nonviolent discipline. The first point can be illustrated by comparing Hazare’s anti-corruption campaign to the less successful Occupy movements. Hazare had a precise goal that resonated with a huge swathe of Indian society. The Occupy movements and their close relations, the Indignant movements, haven’t yet articulated clear goals nor have they yet achieved anything concrete. The perils of abandoning nonviolent discipline are also shown by Italy’s Indignati and Greece’s Aganaktismenoi. In the former case, protests were hijacked by a group of anarchists called the Black Bloc; in the latter by demonstrators throwing Molotov cocktails. Almost all the media coverage focused on the fringe violent elements rather than the peaceful masses. Colonel Gaddafi’s bloody overthrow is, of course, the supposed counter-example from 2011 to the merits of pursuing a nonviolent struggle. It seems to suggest that violence pays. As such, some members of the Syrian opposition are advocating it as a model they should follow – although the main umbrella body, the Syrian National Council, is still pushing the nonviolent approach. But the lessons from the Libyan revolution aren’t clear-cut. For a start, it’s unknowable what would have happened if the people had pursued a nonviolent campaign: they might eventually have got their way with less bloodshed. Although estimates of the Libyan death toll vary widely, the Transitional National Council has used a number of 25,000. If the same proportion of Syria’s larger population was killed in a conflict, its death toll would be 89,000 – much higher than the 5,000 so far estimated by the United Nations. The Libyan campaign also relied on France, Britain, America and other countries attacking Gaddafi’s forces from the air. That can’t easily be repeated in Syria. Foreign powers aren’t always willing to play the role of global policeman – and, when they are, they typically want something in return such as control of a country’s natural resources. How the Syrian conflict plays out will determine many people’s perceptions of the value of nonviolent struggle. At the moment, it looks like there is a significant risk of it descending into civil war. But even if such a tragedy unfolds this won’t prove that Gandhian-style campaigns are worthless. 2011 has already shown the power of the technique in other countries. As more people learn the strategy and tactics of nonviolent struggle, it will become more powerful still. (Hugo Dixon is a Reuters Breakingviews colunist. The opinions expressed are his own.) ————————————————————————————————————————————————
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Posted on Sustainabilitank.info on November 9th, 2011 Bahrain Foreign Minister Sheikh Khalid bin Ahmed al-Khalifa and US Secretary of State Hillary Clinton. Clinton urges Saudi, Bahrain to embrace Arab Spring.By Bloomberg, Tuesday, 8 November 2011. www.arabianbusiness.com/clinton-u… Secretary of State Hillary Clinton, saying that the US has a role in democracy movements that continue to roil the Middle East, urged Saudi Arabia and Bahrain to embrace reform and Syria to accept protesters’ demands. “These revolutions are not ours – they are not by us, for us, or against us, but we do have a role,” Clinton said in remarks to the National Democratic Institute, a democracy support organization based in Washington. “Fundamentally, there is a right side of history. We want to be on it. And without exception, we want our partners in the region to reform so that they are on it as well.” — Clinton addressed skepticism in both the Arab world and at home about US motives and commitments since the Arab Spring began with a Tunisian fruit vendor’s protest self-immolation in December 2010. Developments in the months since then have raised the possibility of Islamic groups gaining political power in Egypt, highlighted differences in the way the US has approached protest movements in places like Bahrain and Syria and drawn questions about US opposition to unilateral Palestinian attempts to gain recognition. While there is no “one-size-fits-all” approach to democracy in the Arab world, such a movement is firmly in US interests and is a strategic necessity, Clinton declared. — “The greatest single source of instability in today’s Middle East is not the demand for change,” she said, “It is the refusal to change.” Clinton said that held true for allies as well as others. She warned that, if the most powerful political force in Egypt remains a roomful of unelected officials, there will be future unrest. She decried Iranian hypocrisy, saying that contrary to its claims to support democracy abroad, the gulf between rulers and the ruled is greater in Iran than anywhere else in the region. Syria’s Bashar al-Assad and others “trying to hold back the future at the point of a gun should know their days are numbered,” Clinton said. To the king of Bahrain, where the US Fifth Fleet is based as a bulwark against Iranian aggression in the Gulf, Clinton said that reform was in the kingdom’s interest. Officials there have used mass arrests to counter protests by majority Shiites demanding greater rights in the Sunni-led nation. Members of Congress have demanded an inquiry into human rights abuses before a planned arms sale to the kingdom goes through. — The US will hold Bahrain to its commitments to allow peaceful protest and release political prisoners, Clinton said. While reforms and equality are “in Bahrain’s interests, in the region’s interest and in ours,” Clinton said, “endless unrest benefits Iran.” — Palestinians also “deserve dignity, liberty and the right to decide their own future,” Clinton said. The only way to achieve that is through negotiations with Israel, Clinton said. — The Middle East’s protest movements may bring to power groups and parties that the US disagrees with, Clinton acknowledged. She said she is asked about this most often in the context of Islamic political parties. “The suggestion that faithful Muslims cannot thrive in a democracy is insulting, dangerous and wrong,” she said. — While “reasonable people can disagree on a lot,” Clinton said the crucial factor will be adherence to basic democratic principles. Parties must reject violence, abide by the rule of law and respect freedom of speech, association and assembly, as well as the rights of women and minorities, she said. “In other words, what parties call themselves is less important than what they do,” Clinton said. The US has the resources, capabilities and expertise to support those trying to make the transition to democracy, Clinton said. Groups like National Democratic Institute can help with the nuts and bolts of democracy, teaching people how to form a political party, how to ensure women participate in government and how to foster civil society. Mindful of the economic roots of the unrest, the Obama administration is also promoting trade, investment and regional integration, Clinton said. “With so much that can go wrong and so much that can go right, support for emerging Arab democracies is an investment we can’t afford not to make,” she said. ### |
Posted on Sustainabilitank.info on October 12th, 2011 AIC Statement on Alleged Assassination Plot in Washington D.CThe American Iranian Council is deeply disturbed with the news regarding the alleged murder plot against the Saudi Ambassador to the United States. We strongly condemn this despicable act and stand with all Americans seeking an end to violence and acts of terrorism. We are pleased that the plot was foiled by the law enforcement agencies before it could lead to bloodshed.
The Iranian-American community has been an integral and successful part of the American society and shares the security concerns we face and categorically condemns this plot. Furthermore we appeal to the wider American community and the media not to draw generalizations in the wake of this alleged plot involving an Iranian-American. The American Iranian Council denounces any and all acts of terrorism, irrespective of the target or motive. We ask that the Obama Administration allow adequate time for more clarity on the plot before it rushes into any punishing decision or action against those alleged to have been involved including the Islamic Republic of Iran. We ask the Iranian government to go beyond denying involvement and take all necessary steps to condemn such acts and offer the US government all the help it needs to investigate the case in detail. Furthermore, AIC suggests the American and Iranian security institutions to establish a working group to assess all the details of the alleged plot and through their findings bring the perpetrators to justice. Unfortunately plots of this despicable nature play into the hands of those who want to escalate conflict in the region, and they strengthen the war mongers. In these times of anger and annoyance, we must more than ever before advocate for peace and understanding. We believe that the only way to reverse the spiral conflict between Washington and Tehran is through peaceful avenues to settle disputes. As before, we ask the American and Iranian governments to listen to voice of reason calling for changing their enmity into cooperation. —— and – By Reza Marashi & Trita Parsiwww.huffingtonpost.com/reza-marashi/the-come-to-jesus-moment-_b_1006804.html
The “Come to Jesus” Moment in US-Iran Relations.
With news of an alleged Iranian plot to assassinate the Saudi ambassador in Washington, U.S.-Iran relations have reached a new low. If the allegations are true, this deplorable act should be strongly condemned. To that end, the Beltway is already buzzing with calls for a “robust response” that will “send a strong message to Iran.” But how?
As policymakers, pundits and the American people process this alleged bombshell, it is important to remember that nations have often rushed into conflicts (see: Iraq circa 2003), and we would be wise to let the investigation run its course and gather all the facts. Indeed, the Justice Department’s accusations have been met with skepticism by some experts. Robert Baer, a former CIA case officer in the Middle East,said that the “Quds Force has never been this sloppy, using untested proxies, contracting with Mexican drug cartels, sending money through New York bank accounts, and putting its agents on U.S. soil where they risk being caught… The Quds Force is simply better than this.” Max Fisher at the Atlantic questions what Iran possibly could get out of the terror plot. And Muhammad Sahimi at Tehran Bureau raises important questions about why a Quds force operative could enter U.S. soil in the first place. Trita Parsi is President of the National Iranian American Council and author of A Single Roll of the Dice – Obama’s Diplomacy with Iran (Yale University Press, 2012). Reza Marashi joined NIAC in 2010 as the organization’s first Research Director. He came to NIAC after four years in the Office of Iranian Affairs at the U.S. Department of State. . ### |
The “OIL FOR SECURITY” US – SAUDI DEAL at a time of Arab people awakening and ongoing Saudi bluster. Posted on Sustainabilitank.info on July 17th, 2011 Empty Words: Saudi Blustering and US-Saudi Realities.
by Dr. Joshua Teitelbaum
BESA Center Perspectives Paper No. 147, July 17, 2011
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EXECUTIVE SUMMARY: The Saudis are truly angry at the Obama Administration, and are threatening to turn away from their alliance with Washington. But the Saudis are all bark and no bite. Despite occasional public “outrage” from Saudi officials about US policy regarding the Arab unrest, Israel, Iraq, Iran, or Afghanistan, Riyadh and Washington are still very distant from the parting of the ways threatened by some Saudi officials.
As the British might say, Prince Turki al-Faisal, former Saudi Ambassador to Washington, has got his knickers in a twist.
In June he published an op-ed in the Washington Post excoriating President Obama for his support of Israel and abandonment of the Palestinians in his May 19 speech (which many pro-Israel forces believed was anything but pro-Israel). But the Arabs also have a word for what Prince Turki and some other Saudi talking heads have been saying lately: kalam fadi — empty words.
With Saudi Arabia challenged by the “Arab Spring” and accused of leading the counter-revolutionary forces, Turki sought to boost the legitimacy of the Saudi ruling family by taking up the Palestinian cudgel and waving it at the US. In doing so he was following a time-honored practice of Arab leaders: divert attention from domestic shortcomings by talking up the Palestinian issue.
According to Turki, Saudi Arabia was a “bulwark of the Middle East”; if Americans thought that Israel was an indispensible ally, “[t]hey will soon learn that there are other players in the region…. The game of favoritism toward Israel has not proven wise for Washington, and soon it will be shown to be an even greater folly.”
“There will be disastrous consequences for U.S.-Saudi relations if the United States vetoes U.N. recognition of a Palestinian state,” huffed Turki.
Turki’s op-ed came about a month after Saudi security consultant Nawaf Obaid ominously declared that Saudi Arabia, angered over American’s “ill-conceived response” to the Arab protests and support for Israel, had brought the “oil for security arrangement” between the countries to an end. Obaid works for Turki at the King Faisal Center for Research & Islamic Studies in Riyadh. Saudi Arabia, he concluded, would “recalibrate the partnership.”
So what’s going on here? Basically, the Saudis are upset about the U.S. handling of the Arab unrest, and the lack of support for the Saudi move into Bahrain to hold down majority Shiite protests again the ruling minority Sunni Al Khalifa family. They view the U.S. as ungrateful when the chips are down for its main Arab ally.
Turki has often taken an abrasive approach to the US, as has his employee Obaid. In answer to a question about religious persecution of Christians in Saudi Arabia at the Council on Foreign Relations in 2006, Turki parried, choosing instead to suggest that Christians accept Muhammad as a prophet and the Koran as divine. Which means, if you know something about Islam, that they would become Muslims. According to Turki then, Christians should either convert to Islam or shut up.
When the US was discussing drawing down in Iraq, Turki and Obaid struck again, warning the US against a withdrawal: “Since America came into Iraq uninvited, it should not leave Iraq uninvited,” Turki told a conference in 2006. Obaid threatened that Saudi Arabia would intervene on the side of the Sunnis should a US withdrawal leave the Shiites on top.
Turki also had no compunction about attacking US policy in Afghanistan as inept.”
The problem is the Saudis are all bark and no bite. They have been complaining openly about US policy in the Middle East since before the establishment of Israel, but did not hesitate to reassure US officials privately that these policies would not jeopardize the relationship with Washington.
The reason? Defense and energy relations are simply so deep that petulant Saudi princes and their minions cannot take them apart.
First, Washington is far and away the main arms supplier to Saudi Arabia, and continues to train its troops. In addition to an arms deal worth over $60 billion announced to Congress in October 2010, from November 2010 to June 2011 an additional $3.7 billion in weapons sales were announced, ranging from Patriot air and missile defense systems to cluster bombs. As of March 2011, there are over 250 active duty military personnel in the kingdom, and countless other civilian personnel under military contract.
As oil prices climbed to over $120 a barrel in May-June, Saudi and US fundamental interests intersected once again. The Saudis were worried that consumers would cut use or move to alternative energy, while Washington was concerned that high prices would impede economic recovery. In secret meetings between US and Saudi officials in May, the Saudis initially refused to increase production. Ahead of the June OPEC meeting, the US also proposed putting urgently needed high quality crude from its Strategic Petroleum Reserve on the market, to be replaced by low-quality Saudi crude. The Saudis initially refused both. But in the end, Riyadh did increase production, and the US opened the SPR. Oil prices dropped.
To be sure, the Saudis are particularly exasperated this time around. But although Saudi Arabia and the US are neither friends nor allies, they have shared interests with regard to oil and security for many decades, leading to economic and military relations that are unlikely to change in the foreseeable future. Therefore, despite occasional public “outrage” from Saudi officials about US policy regarding the Arab unrest, Israel, Iraq, Iran, or Afghanistan, Riyadh and Washington are still very distant from the parting of the ways threatened by some Saudi officials.
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Dr. Joshua Teitelbaum is a senior lecturer in Middle Eastern History, and a research associate at the Begin-Sadat Center for Strategic Studies, at Bar-Ilan University. His latest book is Saudi Arabia and the New Strategic Landscape (Stanford: Hoover Press).
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Posted on Sustainabilitank.info on June 2nd, 2011 From Alex Wilk of www.Avaaz.com: Red Bull has built a reputation as a sporty, fun drink — but by this Friday, it and other leading F1 teams may become better known for endorsing government torture and murder. Formula One has 24 hours to decide whether to hold its already-delayed race in Bahrain, site of one of the most brutal crackdowns in the Middle East. If Red Bull refuses to race in Bahrain, other teams will pull back as well — and the Formula One race could be taken off the schedule, sending shock waves through Bahrain’s brutal government and sending an unmistakeable message that the world will not ignore state brutality. Sports boycotts have piled pressure on other regimes such as apartheid South Africa — we can do it again. Red Bull will only act if enough of us join together to make clear that its brand, its very reputation, is on the line. Let’s raise a cry that Bahrain’s government thugs can’t silence, and call on Red Bull to say it won’t race in Bahrain this year. If 300,000 of us sign the petition, Avaaz will run hard-hitting adverts carrying our messages to Red Bull executives. Just one day remains — sign now and pass this message along: www.avaaz.org/en/no_f1_in_brutal_bahrain/?vl The Bahraini government has booted out the world’s media — even torturing a female journalist working for a French TV channel. Under cover of this blackout it is claiming that all is calm and orderly. That’s a blatant lie. Early one morning last week tear gas bombs were shot through a window of a leading human rights activist. He only just rescued his brother, wife and daughter, who were close to suffocation. He now appeals to Avaaz “to do whatever you can to stop the government from attacking me and my family”. Bahrain has even sacked and abused a quarter of the workers at its F1 race track. One badly bruised track worker says that a policeman “put my head between his legs, flipped me on to the floor – and then the beatings really began”. Many people are still missing — such as a student who was injured during attack on university of Bahrain. Doctors, journalists and others have given harrowing accounts of torture and abuse at the hands of the police. Earlier this year – before other uprisings pushed Bahrain off our front pages – the Bahrain race was postponed. But now Formula 1’s boss wants to go ahead with it. He says it isn’t his business to play politics, but knows that racing in Bahrain in front of the world’s cameras would play into the the blood-soaked government’s hands. Let’s stand up for the Bahraini nurses, students and others who’ve been felled and injured by telling Red Bull to say no to F1 in brutal Bahrain. If Red Bull agrees, other teams will follow. Sign the petition now and send to everyone: www.avaaz.org/en/no_f1_in_brutal_bahrain/?vl The sports we play and watch can uplift us, but can also be used as pawns in political games. Together we can show that people standing for human rights everywhere, trump money and brutality anywhere. With hope and determination, Alex, Sam, Ricken, Mia, Pascal and the whole Avaaz team ————————————————————————— Bahrain doctors to be tried for helping protesters F1 boss hopes to reinstate Bahrain Bahraini female doctors recount detention ‘horror’ France 24 correspondent tortured for covering pro-democracy demonstrations Letter to Federation Internationale de l’Automobile and Formula One Teams Association Regarding Bahrain Event Citizens’ videos of Bahrain clampdown Bahrain races to restore normality ### |