Rosa april 7 2012 Cover
posted by Hanan Elbadry at 10:46 PM
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Saturday, April 07, 2012
Storm Continues After German Writer’s Poem Against Israel
April 6, 2012
NYT
By NICHOLAS KULISH and ETHAN BRONNER
BERLIN — Günter Grass, Germany’s most famous living writer, tried Friday to quell the growing controversy over a poem critical of Israel that he published this week, saying that he did not mean to attack the country wholesale but only the policies of the current government.
However, three days of worldwide debate, including a stinging personal rebuke from Israel’s prime minister, Benjamin Netanyahu, show no sign of subsiding.
The nine-stanza, 69-line poem, “What Must Be Said,” appeared Wednesday on the front of the culture section of the Munich-based newspaper Süddeutsche Zeitung. Mixing lyrical turns of phrase with discussions of the need for international supervision of both Israel’s and Iran’s nuclear programs, it bluntly called Israel a threat to world peace for its warnings that it might attack Iran’s nuclear facilities. By supplying weapons to Israel, including submarines, Germany risked being complicit in “a foreseeable crime,” Mr. Grass wrote.
“Why do I say only now, aged and with my last drop of ink, that the nuclear power Israel endangers an already fragile world peace?” his poem asks. “Because that must be said which may already be too late to say tomorrow.”
In an interview with Süddeutsche Zeitung published Friday, Mr. Grass said he did not mean to attack Israel, but Mr. Netanyahu’s policies. “I should have also brought that into the poem,” he said.
Several leading publications reacted to the poem by calling Mr. Grass an anti-Semite, while others dismissed it as nonsense.
Israel reacted with widespread condemnation and fury. Mr. Netanyahu issued a statement on Thursday calling Mr. Grass’s comparison of Israel and Iran “shameful,” saying that it said more about Mr. Grass than about Israel.
“It is Iran, not Israel, that is a threat to the peace and security of the world,” Mr. Netanyahu said. “It is Iran, not Israel, that threatens other states with annihilation.”
Long a self-proclaimed conscience of the German nation, urging Germans to confront the Nazi past, Mr. Grass was branded a hypocrite after he revealed in 2006 for the first time that he served in the Waffen-SS at the end of World War II, when he was 17.
Referring to that admission, Mr. Netanyahu said it was “perhaps not surprising” that Mr. Grass “cast the one and only Jewish state as the greatest threat to world peace and to oppose giving Israel the means to defend itself.”
Germany’s strong support for Israel in its foreign policy is just one way that the country has tried to make up for the crimes of the Holocaust. But the lessons of World War II also made many Germans strongly pacifist and thus uncomfortable with the hawkish tone and threatening language emanating from Mr. Netanyahu’s government.
“He’s focusing the fears of Germans now around Israel as a danger,” Gary Smith, executive director at the American Academy in Berlin, said of Mr. Grass. “I’m afraid this could be a turning point in the way part of the German public speaks about Israel.”
Writing on the popular news Web site Spiegel Online, Jakob Augstein, the publisher of the weekly magazine Der Freitag, said that it was neither a great poem nor brilliant political analysis, but that “one should thank Grass” for starting the debate about the threat Israel poses to peace.
Others said that it was not a coincidence that Mr. Grass so often found himself at the center of controversy, but that controversy was instead his goal in the first place.
“He wrote this poem knowing from the way he wrote it that there would be condemnation,” said Frank Schirrmacher, co-publisher of the Frankfurter Allgemeine Zeitung, who was interviewing Mr. Grass when he made his revelation about the Waffen-SS membership. “He needs the condemnation to move on to the next step, which is to say that it is impossible in Germany to criticize Israel.”
Mr. Grass, the author of plays and essays as well as novels and poems, was awarded the Nobel Prize in Literature in 1999. He admitted that he was a member of the Hitler Youth as a boy and believed at the time in the group’s aims, but long claimed that he was drafted into an antiaircraft unit, never mentioning the Waffen-SS until he was 78.
In the left-leaning Israeli newspaper Haaretz, Anshel Pfeffer, a weekly columnist, devoted his Friday essay to Mr. Grass under the headline “The Moral Blindness of Günter Grass.”
“Logic and reason are useless when a highly intelligent man, a Nobel laureate no less, does not understand that his membership in an organization that planned and carried out the wholesale genocide of millions of Jews disqualified him from criticizing the descendants of those Jews for developing a weapon of last resort that is the insurance policy against someone finishing the job his organization began,” Mr. Pfeffer wrote.
He added, “Having served in the organization that tried, with a fair amount of success, to wipe the Jews off the face of the earth he should keep his views to himself when it comes to the Jews’ doomsday weapon.”
NYT
By NICHOLAS KULISH and ETHAN BRONNER
BERLIN — Günter Grass, Germany’s most famous living writer, tried Friday to quell the growing controversy over a poem critical of Israel that he published this week, saying that he did not mean to attack the country wholesale but only the policies of the current government.
However, three days of worldwide debate, including a stinging personal rebuke from Israel’s prime minister, Benjamin Netanyahu, show no sign of subsiding.
The nine-stanza, 69-line poem, “What Must Be Said,” appeared Wednesday on the front of the culture section of the Munich-based newspaper Süddeutsche Zeitung. Mixing lyrical turns of phrase with discussions of the need for international supervision of both Israel’s and Iran’s nuclear programs, it bluntly called Israel a threat to world peace for its warnings that it might attack Iran’s nuclear facilities. By supplying weapons to Israel, including submarines, Germany risked being complicit in “a foreseeable crime,” Mr. Grass wrote.
“Why do I say only now, aged and with my last drop of ink, that the nuclear power Israel endangers an already fragile world peace?” his poem asks. “Because that must be said which may already be too late to say tomorrow.”
In an interview with Süddeutsche Zeitung published Friday, Mr. Grass said he did not mean to attack Israel, but Mr. Netanyahu’s policies. “I should have also brought that into the poem,” he said.
Several leading publications reacted to the poem by calling Mr. Grass an anti-Semite, while others dismissed it as nonsense.
Israel reacted with widespread condemnation and fury. Mr. Netanyahu issued a statement on Thursday calling Mr. Grass’s comparison of Israel and Iran “shameful,” saying that it said more about Mr. Grass than about Israel.
“It is Iran, not Israel, that is a threat to the peace and security of the world,” Mr. Netanyahu said. “It is Iran, not Israel, that threatens other states with annihilation.”
Long a self-proclaimed conscience of the German nation, urging Germans to confront the Nazi past, Mr. Grass was branded a hypocrite after he revealed in 2006 for the first time that he served in the Waffen-SS at the end of World War II, when he was 17.
Referring to that admission, Mr. Netanyahu said it was “perhaps not surprising” that Mr. Grass “cast the one and only Jewish state as the greatest threat to world peace and to oppose giving Israel the means to defend itself.”
Germany’s strong support for Israel in its foreign policy is just one way that the country has tried to make up for the crimes of the Holocaust. But the lessons of World War II also made many Germans strongly pacifist and thus uncomfortable with the hawkish tone and threatening language emanating from Mr. Netanyahu’s government.
“He’s focusing the fears of Germans now around Israel as a danger,” Gary Smith, executive director at the American Academy in Berlin, said of Mr. Grass. “I’m afraid this could be a turning point in the way part of the German public speaks about Israel.”
Writing on the popular news Web site Spiegel Online, Jakob Augstein, the publisher of the weekly magazine Der Freitag, said that it was neither a great poem nor brilliant political analysis, but that “one should thank Grass” for starting the debate about the threat Israel poses to peace.
Others said that it was not a coincidence that Mr. Grass so often found himself at the center of controversy, but that controversy was instead his goal in the first place.
“He wrote this poem knowing from the way he wrote it that there would be condemnation,” said Frank Schirrmacher, co-publisher of the Frankfurter Allgemeine Zeitung, who was interviewing Mr. Grass when he made his revelation about the Waffen-SS membership. “He needs the condemnation to move on to the next step, which is to say that it is impossible in Germany to criticize Israel.”
Mr. Grass, the author of plays and essays as well as novels and poems, was awarded the Nobel Prize in Literature in 1999. He admitted that he was a member of the Hitler Youth as a boy and believed at the time in the group’s aims, but long claimed that he was drafted into an antiaircraft unit, never mentioning the Waffen-SS until he was 78.
In the left-leaning Israeli newspaper Haaretz, Anshel Pfeffer, a weekly columnist, devoted his Friday essay to Mr. Grass under the headline “The Moral Blindness of Günter Grass.”
“Logic and reason are useless when a highly intelligent man, a Nobel laureate no less, does not understand that his membership in an organization that planned and carried out the wholesale genocide of millions of Jews disqualified him from criticizing the descendants of those Jews for developing a weapon of last resort that is the insurance policy against someone finishing the job his organization began,” Mr. Pfeffer wrote.
He added, “Having served in the organization that tried, with a fair amount of success, to wipe the Jews off the face of the earth he should keep his views to himself when it comes to the Jews’ doomsday weapon.”
posted by Hanan Elbadry at 12:53 PM
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Egyptian protesters rally to support Islamist presidential hopeful who faces disqualification
By Associated Press,
CAIRO — Thousands of people are rallying in Cairo in support of an ultraconservative Islamist presidential hopeful who may be disqualified from the race after it was announced that his mother was an American citizen.The Egyptian election commission ruling has angered Hazem Abu Ismail’s supporters, who were marching Friday to the capital’s Tahrir Square, a focal point for protests.
Abu Ismail has said he faces a “plot.” His campaign chief Gamal Saber says that the country’s military rulers were looking for ways to disqualify the candidate.
If Abu Ismail cannot run, Muslim Brotherhood candidate Khairat el-Shater would lose his main competitor for the powerful Islamist vote.
The presidential elections end of May are the first since the fall of Hosni Mubarak in last year’s uprising.
posted by Hanan Elbadry at 12:50 AM
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Area Egyptian Americans view Islamic party’s rise, U.S. visit with hope, suspicion
By Pamela Constable, Friday, April 6, 2012
The Washington Post
When Egypt’s autocratic regime collapsed early last year amid an unstoppable wave of protest, Sherif Mansour leaped at the chance to help promote and shape a nascent democracy in his Muslim-majority homeland. Mansour, who works at the District-based human rights group Freedom House, traveled to Cairo, applied for a government permit, opened an office and hired local staff.
But in December, the new Freedom House branch was forcibly shut down by Egypt’s interim government, along with 16 other international nonprofits, and its staff was charged with the crime of running an illegal foreign operation. Ever since, Mansour has watched with growing concern as conservative Islamist groups capture more and more of the political space that burst open with the Arab spring.
“I know what a stolen revolution looks like,” said Mansour, 32, whose wife’s family is from Shiite-ruled Iran, and whose father was forced to flee Egypt a decade ago for his moderate Muslim teachings. “The liberals in Iran made so many sacrifices for their revolution, and the Islamists stole it,” he said. “I see signs of that happening in Egypt. We need to keep fighting to make sure it doesn’t.”
But lately, things have gotten more complicated and nuanced in Egypt’s fast-changing political scene. The Muslim Brotherhood, a once-banned extremist Sunni movement, recently won nearly half the seats in Parliament and has adopted a new, democratic vocabulary. Last week the group announced it was running a candidate for president, and this week it sent a delegation to Washington, where it has been presenting a moderate-sounding agenda to U.S. officials, journalists and academics.
Among the Washington region’s Egyptian Americans, this flurry of unexpected moves by Egypt’s most influential Islamist group has aroused a mixture of suspicion and hope. The well-educated community includes many democracy activists, such as Mansour, as well as several thousand Coptic Christians, a religious minority in Egypt that has long been persecuted by both dictatorial regimes and Islamic extremists.
“People here in D.C. have a lot of questions and concerns — about women, about minority rights, about how the new constitution will be written. I hope they will provide some good answers,” said Mohammed el Menshawy, an Egyptian American scholar at the Middle East Institute. “It was easy for them to say Islam is the solution when they were in the opposition. Now they will have to find solutions for health care, jobs, education, and speak the language of the globalized world.”
Many Egyptian immigrants are deeply skeptical of the Brotherhood’s apparent transformation, embodied by its newly formed Freedom and Justice Party. These doubters are convinced that the group, long known for its secrecy, discipline and iron commitment to Islamic rule, is simply changing its stripes because it sees a chance to win power at the polls amid growing competition from other forces. Presidential elections in Egypt are expected in June.
Members of the area’s Coptic community are among the most suspicious, in part because their community in Egypt has been ostracized for so long. They say such harassment has intensified as political unrest unleashed ugly rivalries among a gamut of forces — religious and secular, military and civilian. On New Year’s Eve 2011, a Coptic church service in Egypt was firebombed, killing 21.
“The new leaders of the Brotherhood are shrewd, pragmatic and slimy,” said Halim Meawad, a retired diplomat in Northern Virginia and co-founder of the Coptic Solidarity movement here. He warned that it would be a mistake for American officials to buy into the Brotherhood’s purported political reinvention. “They are not exactly in love with Washington,” he said, “but they want to drum up any support they can get, even from their enemies.”
Nermien Riad, who runs an educational charity called Coptic Orphans in Fairfax, was more circumspect. Like Freedom House and 16 other nonprofits, her group’s office in Cairo was raided in December and she was later summoned there to face prosecution for operating an illegal foreign agency. Now her staff has been confined to teaching from private homes, but Riad said she is determined to stay in business.
“This has shaken civil society to the core,” Riad said. “Everyone is looking over their shoulder. For the Copts, there is no clear future. The Facebook generation spurred the revolution, but they may have handed it over to the Islamists without meaning to. We will face a lot more difficulties ahead, but we will get through,” she added. “We have been persecuted for 2000 years. This is just another wave.”
In a packed public forum Wednesday at Georgetown University, members of the Brotherhood delegation insisted that they seek to help build a “new Egypt” based on democracy, freedom, equality and justice. While stressing their devotion to Islamic principles, they distanced themselves from the more radical Salafist parties in Egypt, which advocate full sharia rule, and said they hope to establish friendly relations with the United States.
A series of questioners challenged these assertions. Several Copts in the audience asked about the persecution of Christians and pointed out that the Brotherhood had also once called for an Islamic state. But Abdul Dardery, a newly elected legislator from Luxor in the delegation, pushed back. He noted that the deputy head of their party is a Christian, and he vowed, “I tell you all now, if someone wants to build a new church in Luxor, I will help them build it.”
Another event planned for the group in Washington on Tuesday was canceled at the last minute, and the delegation’s explanation differed sharply from that of the sponsors, a national Muslim American organization. The Brotherhood visitors said there had been a misunderstanding and scheduling conflict, but the hosts complained that the delegation had demanded to approve or reject who would attend.
“We want to have an open conversation. We did not feel comfortable with their demands to vet the attendance list,” said Haris Tarin, District chapter president of the Los Angeles-based Muslim Public Affairs Council. “This group is in the vanguard of a first-ever experiment with Islam and government, and we are extremely concerned over how it will play out. To be honest, a lot of us are very skeptical,” Tarin said. “If it goes sour, it will have a major impact on Muslims in America and all over the world.”
For Mansour, 32, the political rise of the Brotherhood is a confusing new twist in a long saga of family activism, repression, exile and repeatedly dashed hopes. His father, Ahmed Subhy Mansour, was once a prominent scholar in Egypt who promoted a modern, liberal version of Islam. Forced to flee into exile, he was granted asylum in the U.S. in 2001 and now preaches via the Internet from his home in Northern Virginia.
Since the closure of Freedom House’s office in Cairo, Mansour has intently monitored the uncertain course of post-revolutionary Egypt from afar, though last week he took off a day to celebrate becoming an American citizen. His instinct is not to trust the new face of the Brotherhood, but he is glad to see its leaders — once radicalized under dictatorship — being exposed to America.
“This visit is an attempt to do propaganda, but I hope it can also change some of the misconceptions they have about us,” Mansour said. “They need to learn about candidate financing, about the role of NGOs, about how an independent judiciary works. Maybe they will open their eyes and see how democratic society really functions.”
The Washington Post
When Egypt’s autocratic regime collapsed early last year amid an unstoppable wave of protest, Sherif Mansour leaped at the chance to help promote and shape a nascent democracy in his Muslim-majority homeland. Mansour, who works at the District-based human rights group Freedom House, traveled to Cairo, applied for a government permit, opened an office and hired local staff.
But in December, the new Freedom House branch was forcibly shut down by Egypt’s interim government, along with 16 other international nonprofits, and its staff was charged with the crime of running an illegal foreign operation. Ever since, Mansour has watched with growing concern as conservative Islamist groups capture more and more of the political space that burst open with the Arab spring.
“I know what a stolen revolution looks like,” said Mansour, 32, whose wife’s family is from Shiite-ruled Iran, and whose father was forced to flee Egypt a decade ago for his moderate Muslim teachings. “The liberals in Iran made so many sacrifices for their revolution, and the Islamists stole it,” he said. “I see signs of that happening in Egypt. We need to keep fighting to make sure it doesn’t.”
But lately, things have gotten more complicated and nuanced in Egypt’s fast-changing political scene. The Muslim Brotherhood, a once-banned extremist Sunni movement, recently won nearly half the seats in Parliament and has adopted a new, democratic vocabulary. Last week the group announced it was running a candidate for president, and this week it sent a delegation to Washington, where it has been presenting a moderate-sounding agenda to U.S. officials, journalists and academics.
Among the Washington region’s Egyptian Americans, this flurry of unexpected moves by Egypt’s most influential Islamist group has aroused a mixture of suspicion and hope. The well-educated community includes many democracy activists, such as Mansour, as well as several thousand Coptic Christians, a religious minority in Egypt that has long been persecuted by both dictatorial regimes and Islamic extremists.
“People here in D.C. have a lot of questions and concerns — about women, about minority rights, about how the new constitution will be written. I hope they will provide some good answers,” said Mohammed el Menshawy, an Egyptian American scholar at the Middle East Institute. “It was easy for them to say Islam is the solution when they were in the opposition. Now they will have to find solutions for health care, jobs, education, and speak the language of the globalized world.”
Many Egyptian immigrants are deeply skeptical of the Brotherhood’s apparent transformation, embodied by its newly formed Freedom and Justice Party. These doubters are convinced that the group, long known for its secrecy, discipline and iron commitment to Islamic rule, is simply changing its stripes because it sees a chance to win power at the polls amid growing competition from other forces. Presidential elections in Egypt are expected in June.
Members of the area’s Coptic community are among the most suspicious, in part because their community in Egypt has been ostracized for so long. They say such harassment has intensified as political unrest unleashed ugly rivalries among a gamut of forces — religious and secular, military and civilian. On New Year’s Eve 2011, a Coptic church service in Egypt was firebombed, killing 21.
“The new leaders of the Brotherhood are shrewd, pragmatic and slimy,” said Halim Meawad, a retired diplomat in Northern Virginia and co-founder of the Coptic Solidarity movement here. He warned that it would be a mistake for American officials to buy into the Brotherhood’s purported political reinvention. “They are not exactly in love with Washington,” he said, “but they want to drum up any support they can get, even from their enemies.”
Nermien Riad, who runs an educational charity called Coptic Orphans in Fairfax, was more circumspect. Like Freedom House and 16 other nonprofits, her group’s office in Cairo was raided in December and she was later summoned there to face prosecution for operating an illegal foreign agency. Now her staff has been confined to teaching from private homes, but Riad said she is determined to stay in business.
“This has shaken civil society to the core,” Riad said. “Everyone is looking over their shoulder. For the Copts, there is no clear future. The Facebook generation spurred the revolution, but they may have handed it over to the Islamists without meaning to. We will face a lot more difficulties ahead, but we will get through,” she added. “We have been persecuted for 2000 years. This is just another wave.”
In a packed public forum Wednesday at Georgetown University, members of the Brotherhood delegation insisted that they seek to help build a “new Egypt” based on democracy, freedom, equality and justice. While stressing their devotion to Islamic principles, they distanced themselves from the more radical Salafist parties in Egypt, which advocate full sharia rule, and said they hope to establish friendly relations with the United States.
A series of questioners challenged these assertions. Several Copts in the audience asked about the persecution of Christians and pointed out that the Brotherhood had also once called for an Islamic state. But Abdul Dardery, a newly elected legislator from Luxor in the delegation, pushed back. He noted that the deputy head of their party is a Christian, and he vowed, “I tell you all now, if someone wants to build a new church in Luxor, I will help them build it.”
Another event planned for the group in Washington on Tuesday was canceled at the last minute, and the delegation’s explanation differed sharply from that of the sponsors, a national Muslim American organization. The Brotherhood visitors said there had been a misunderstanding and scheduling conflict, but the hosts complained that the delegation had demanded to approve or reject who would attend.
“We want to have an open conversation. We did not feel comfortable with their demands to vet the attendance list,” said Haris Tarin, District chapter president of the Los Angeles-based Muslim Public Affairs Council. “This group is in the vanguard of a first-ever experiment with Islam and government, and we are extremely concerned over how it will play out. To be honest, a lot of us are very skeptical,” Tarin said. “If it goes sour, it will have a major impact on Muslims in America and all over the world.”
For Mansour, 32, the political rise of the Brotherhood is a confusing new twist in a long saga of family activism, repression, exile and repeatedly dashed hopes. His father, Ahmed Subhy Mansour, was once a prominent scholar in Egypt who promoted a modern, liberal version of Islam. Forced to flee into exile, he was granted asylum in the U.S. in 2001 and now preaches via the Internet from his home in Northern Virginia.
Since the closure of Freedom House’s office in Cairo, Mansour has intently monitored the uncertain course of post-revolutionary Egypt from afar, though last week he took off a day to celebrate becoming an American citizen. His instinct is not to trust the new face of the Brotherhood, but he is glad to see its leaders — once radicalized under dictatorship — being exposed to America.
“This visit is an attempt to do propaganda, but I hope it can also change some of the misconceptions they have about us,” Mansour said. “They need to learn about candidate financing, about the role of NGOs, about how an independent judiciary works. Maybe they will open their eyes and see how democratic society really functions.”
posted by Hanan Elbadry at 12:46 AM
0 comments
Mubarak loyalist to run for president
A supporter of Egypt’s former vice president Omar Suleiman walks past his images in Cairo. The presidential election scheduled for May will mark the beginning of a handover of power by the ruling military to an elected civilian leader.
By Ernesto Londoño,
The Washington Post
CAIRO — Egypt’s powerful spy chief under deposed President Hosni Mubarak roiled the country’s presidential race Friday by announcing his candidacy and presenting himself as the best choice for restoring security and prosperity.
Omar Suleiman’s announcement was widely seen as a game changer in the landmark election scheduled for next month. The prospect of his return to power would have been laughable a year ago, when he vanished from public view after somberly announcing that the country’s longtime autocratic ruler was stepping down.
But much has changed since that afternoon of Feb. 11, 2011. Islamists have thrived in the country’s newly open political system, alarming secular Egyptians and Western nations that would like to see non-Islamists leading Egypt. In addition, a large segment of Egyptian society has come to yearn for the safety and relative prosperity that prevailed until the popular uprising sent the economy into a tailspin and eroded the pillars of the country’s police state.
Suleiman’s candidacy broadens a field of front-runners dominated by Islamists. Political analysts said his entry, coming just days after he publicly ruled out a presidential bid, suggests that the ruling military council opted to anoint him as a contender, possibly in response to the Muslim Brotherhood’s decision to field a candidate and robust support for more hard-line Islamist candidates. It offers Egyptians their clearest choice yet between the old order and the new: a contender who is an old hand of the Mubarak-era security establishment facing off against Islamists who were banned from politics under the government he served.
“It just became a more interesting race, because it has become increasingly clear the regime has not collapsed,” said Khaled Fahmy, chairman of the history department at the American University in Cairo. “This represents the realization that the standoff with Islamists in parliament is very serious to them.”
Suleiman, a former army general, has remained largely invisible since the final days of Mubarak’s rule, during which he served briefly as vice president. Unlike the ousted president and several of his senior loyalists, Suleiman has not been put on trial, and the ruling military council has shown no sign of wanting to hold him to account for any of the abuses of the old government.
The former spy master was among Washington’s closest backers in the Middle East in recent years, championing Egypt’s unpopular alliance with neighboring Israel. The agency he ran played a key role in the rendition of U.S. terrorism suspects, a program in which suspects were secretly flown to countries around the world for interrogation after the Sept. 11, 2001, attacks, according to leaked diplomatic cables and news reports.
Suleiman announced his decision to run for president in a statement published Friday afternoon on the Web site of the state-run newspaper al-Ahram. He attributed his change of heart to a mass show of support at a rally in the Abbasiya district of Cairo earlier in the day.
“I was touched by your strong stance and your insistence on changing the status quo,” Suleiman’s statement said. He added that he was running in response to Egyptians’ desire for “security, stability and prosperity.”
Shadi Hamid, an Egypt expert at the Brookings Doha Center, said Suleiman could emerge as a strong candidate if the military council, which continues to command widespread backing, manages to galvanize support for the former Mubarak loyalist among pro-military Egyptians and those wary of the prospect of a fundamentalist leader.
“He’ll have a chance of winning if SCAF puts its weight around the candidate,” Hamid said, referring to the Supreme Council of the Armed Forces. “We’ll have to wait and see how much coordination there is between Suleiman and SCAF.”
If his candidacy was, in fact, engineered by the country’s military chiefs, the move could prove a risky gamble, opening up a once-shadowy figure to close scrutiny.
“I’m excited because now all the atrocities he committed over the years will be under the spotlight for the next two months,” said Hossam Bahgat, a prominent human rights activist. “He is the only member of Mubarak’s close circle who has not only not been indicted, but is not even being questioned over anything.”
To get on the ballot for the May 24 vote, Suleiman, 75, must gather 30,000 signatures or secure an endorsement from 30 lawmakers by Sunday, the deadline to register.
The announcement marked the latest surprise in a presidential race that a year ago had just three presumed front-runners: well-known former Egyptian diplomats Amr Moussa and Mohamed ElBaradei; and Abdel Moneim Aboul Fotouh, a moderate Islamist.
ElBaradei dropped out, and two prominent Islamists — the Muslim Brotherhood’s Khairat el-Shater and Hazem Abu Ismail, who enjoys the support of many in Egypt’s conservative Salafist community — emerged as credible rivals.
An opinion poll released this month by the al-Ahram Center for Political and Strategic Studies — which didn’t list Shater or Suleiman — has Moussa, the former head of the Arab League, in the lead with the support of 31 percent of the 1,200 Egyptians polled. Ismail ranked second, with the backing of 10 percent. Ismail is fighting to stay in the race amid allegations that his late mother was a U.S. citizen, which under Egyptian law would bar him from the country’s highest office.
Thousands of Ismail’s supporters thronged Tahrir Square after Friday prayers to demand that he be allowed to stay on the ballot. Many in the crowd said they saw Washington’s hand in the attempt to disqualify him.
“America is the number one player in what is happening in Egypt right now,” said Mohammed Hamdi, 45, an accountant who supports Ismail. “America wants a president under its wings that abides by its orders.”
Special correspondent Haitham Mohamed contributed to this report.
posted by Hanan Elbadry at 12:06 AM
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Friday, April 06, 2012
Our Men in Iran?
April 6, 2012
From the air, the terrain of the Department of Energy’s Nevada National Security Site, with its arid high plains and remote mountain peaks, has the look of northwest Iran. The site, some sixty-five miles northwest of Las Vegas, was once used for nuclear testing, and now includes a counterintelligence training facility and a private airport capable of handling Boeing 737 aircraft. It’s a restricted area, and inhospitable—in certain sections, the curious are warned that the site’s security personnel are authorized to use deadly force, if necessary, against intruders.
It was here that the Joint Special Operations Command (JSOC) conducted training, beginning in 2005, for members of the Mujahideen-e-Khalq, a dissident Iranian opposition group known in the West as the M.E.K. The M.E.K. had its beginnings as a Marxist-Islamist student-led group and, in the nineteen-seventies, it was linked to the assassination of six American citizens. It was initially part of the broad-based revolution that led to the 1979 overthrow of the Shah of Iran. But, within a few years, the group was waging a bloody internal war with the ruling clerics, and, in 1997, it was listed as a foreign terrorist organization by the State Department. In 2002, the M.E.K. earned some international credibility by publicly revealing—accurately—that Iran had begun enriching uranium at a secret underground location. Mohamed ElBaradei, who at the time was the director general of the International Atomic Energy Agency, the United Nations’ nuclear monitoring agency, told me later that he had been informed that the information was supplied by the Mossad. The M.E.K.’s ties with Western intelligence deepened after the fall of the Iraqi regime in 2003, and JSOC began operating inside Iran in an effort to substantiate the Bush Administration’s fears that Iran was building the bomb at one or more secret underground locations. Funds were covertly passed to a number of dissident organizations, for intelligence collection and, ultimately, for anti-regime terrorist activities. Directly, or indirectly, the M.E.K. ended up with resources like arms and intelligence. Some American-supported covert operations continue in Iran today, according to past and present intelligence officials and military consultants.
Despite the growing ties, and a much-intensified lobbying effort organized by its advocates, M.E.K. has remained on the State Department’s list of foreign terrorist organizations—which meant that secrecy was essential in the Nevada training. “We did train them here, and washed them through the Energy Department because the D.O.E. owns all this land in southern Nevada,” a former senior American intelligence official told me. “We were deploying them over long distances in the desert and mountains, and building their capacity in communications—coördinating commo is a big deal.” (A spokesman for J.S.O.C. said that “U.S. Special Operations Forces were neither aware of nor involved in the training of M.E.K. members.”)
The training ended sometime before President Obama took office, the former official said. In a separate interview, a retired four-star general, who has advised the Bush and Obama Administrations on national-security issues, said that he had been privately briefed in 2005 about the training of Iranians associated with the M.E.K. in Nevada by an American involved in the program. They got “the standard training,” he said, “in commo, crypto [cryptography], small-unit tactics, and weaponry—that went on for six months,” the retired general said. “They were kept in little pods.” He also was told, he said, that the men doing the training were from JSOC, which, by 2005, had become a major instrument in the Bush Administration’s global war on terror. “The JSOC trainers were not front-line guys who had been in the field, but second- and third-tier guys—trainers and the like—and they started going off the reservation. ‘If we’re going to teach you tactics, let me show you some really sexy stuff…’ ”
It was the ad-hoc training that provoked the worried telephone calls to him, the former general said. “I told one of the guys who called me that they were all in over their heads, and all of them could end up trouble unless they got something in writing. The Iranians are very, very good at counterintelligence, and stuff like this is just too hard to contain.” The site in Nevada was being utilized at the same time, he said, for advanced training of élite Iraqi combat units. (The retired general said he only knew of the one M.E.K.-affiliated group that went though the training course; the former senior intelligence official said that he was aware of training that went on through 2007.)
Allan Gerson, a Washington attorney for the M.E.K., notes that the M.E.K. has publicly and repeatedly renounced terror. Gerson said he would not comment on the alleged training in Nevada. But such training, if true, he said, would be “especially incongruent with the State Department’s decision to continue to maintain the M.E.K. on the terrorist list. How can the U.S. train those on State’s foreign terrorist list, when others face criminal penalties for providing a nickel to the same organization?”
Robert Baer, a retired C.I.A. agent who is fluent in Arabic and had worked under cover in Kurdistan and throughout the Middle East in his career, initially had told me in early 2004 of being recruited by a private American company—working, so he believed, on behalf of the Bush Administration—to return to Iraq. “They wanted me to help the M.E.K. collect intelligence on Iran’s nuclear program,” Baer recalled. “They thought I knew Farsi, which I did not. I said I’d get back to them, but never did.” Baer, now living in California, recalled that it was made clear to him at the time that the operation was “a long-term thing—not just a one-shot deal.”
Massoud Khodabandeh, an I.T. expert now living in England who consults for the Iraqi government, was an official with the M.E.K. before defecting in 1996. In a telephone interview, he acknowledged that he is an avowed enemy of the M.E.K., and has advocated against the group. Khodabandeh said that he had been with the group since before the fall of the Shah and, as a computer expert, was deeply involved in intelligence activities as well as providing security for the M.E.K. leadership. For the past decade, he and his English wife have run a support program for other defectors. Khodabandeh told me that he had heard from more recent defectors about the training in Nevada. He was told that the communications training in Nevada involved more than teaching how to keep in contact during attacks—it also involved communication intercepts. The United States, he said, at one point found a way to penetrate some major Iranian communications systems. At the time, he said, the U.S. provided M.E.K. operatives with the ability to intercept telephone calls and text messages inside Iran—which M.E.K. operatives translated and shared with American signals intelligence experts. He does not know whether this activity is ongoing.
Five Iranian nuclear scientists have been assassinated since 2007. M.E.K. spokesmen have denied any involvement in the killings, but early last month NBC News quoted two senior Obama Administration officials as confirming that the attacks were carried out by M.E.K. units that were financed and trained by Mossad, the Israeli secret service. NBC further quoted the Administration officials as denying any American involvement in the M.E.K. activities. The former senior intelligence official I spoke with seconded the NBC report that the Israelis were working with the M.E.K., adding that the operations benefitted from American intelligence. He said that the targets were not “Einsteins”; “The goal is to affect Iranian psychology and morale,” he said, and to “demoralize the whole system—nuclear delivery vehicles, nuclear enrichment facilities, power plants.” Attacks have also been carried out on pipelines. He added that the operations are “primarily being done by M.E.K. through liaison with the Israelis, but the United States is now providing the intelligence.” An adviser to the special-operations community told me that the links between the United States and M.E.K. activities inside Iran had been long-standing. “Everything being done inside Iran now is being done with surrogates,” he said.
The sources I spoke to were unable to say whether the people trained in Nevada were now involved in operations in Iran or elsewhere. But they pointed to the general benefit of American support. “The M.E.K. was a total joke,” the senior Pentagon consultant said, “and now it’s a real network inside Iran. How did the M.E.K. get so much more efficient?” he asked rhetorically. “Part of it is the training in Nevada. Part of it is logistical support in Kurdistan, and part of it is inside Iran. M.E.K. now has a capacity for efficient operations that it never had before.”
In mid-January, a few days after an assassination by car bomb of an Iranian nuclear scientist in Tehran, Secretary of Defense Leon Panetta, at a town-hall meeting of soldiers at Fort Bliss, Texas, acknowledged that the U.S. government has “some ideas as to who might be involved, but we don’t know exactly who was involved.” He added, “But I can tell you one thing: the United States was not involved in that kind of effort. That’s not what the United States does.”
New Yorker
From the air, the terrain of the Department of Energy’s Nevada National Security Site, with its arid high plains and remote mountain peaks, has the look of northwest Iran. The site, some sixty-five miles northwest of Las Vegas, was once used for nuclear testing, and now includes a counterintelligence training facility and a private airport capable of handling Boeing 737 aircraft. It’s a restricted area, and inhospitable—in certain sections, the curious are warned that the site’s security personnel are authorized to use deadly force, if necessary, against intruders.
It was here that the Joint Special Operations Command (JSOC) conducted training, beginning in 2005, for members of the Mujahideen-e-Khalq, a dissident Iranian opposition group known in the West as the M.E.K. The M.E.K. had its beginnings as a Marxist-Islamist student-led group and, in the nineteen-seventies, it was linked to the assassination of six American citizens. It was initially part of the broad-based revolution that led to the 1979 overthrow of the Shah of Iran. But, within a few years, the group was waging a bloody internal war with the ruling clerics, and, in 1997, it was listed as a foreign terrorist organization by the State Department. In 2002, the M.E.K. earned some international credibility by publicly revealing—accurately—that Iran had begun enriching uranium at a secret underground location. Mohamed ElBaradei, who at the time was the director general of the International Atomic Energy Agency, the United Nations’ nuclear monitoring agency, told me later that he had been informed that the information was supplied by the Mossad. The M.E.K.’s ties with Western intelligence deepened after the fall of the Iraqi regime in 2003, and JSOC began operating inside Iran in an effort to substantiate the Bush Administration’s fears that Iran was building the bomb at one or more secret underground locations. Funds were covertly passed to a number of dissident organizations, for intelligence collection and, ultimately, for anti-regime terrorist activities. Directly, or indirectly, the M.E.K. ended up with resources like arms and intelligence. Some American-supported covert operations continue in Iran today, according to past and present intelligence officials and military consultants.
Despite the growing ties, and a much-intensified lobbying effort organized by its advocates, M.E.K. has remained on the State Department’s list of foreign terrorist organizations—which meant that secrecy was essential in the Nevada training. “We did train them here, and washed them through the Energy Department because the D.O.E. owns all this land in southern Nevada,” a former senior American intelligence official told me. “We were deploying them over long distances in the desert and mountains, and building their capacity in communications—coördinating commo is a big deal.” (A spokesman for J.S.O.C. said that “U.S. Special Operations Forces were neither aware of nor involved in the training of M.E.K. members.”)
The training ended sometime before President Obama took office, the former official said. In a separate interview, a retired four-star general, who has advised the Bush and Obama Administrations on national-security issues, said that he had been privately briefed in 2005 about the training of Iranians associated with the M.E.K. in Nevada by an American involved in the program. They got “the standard training,” he said, “in commo, crypto [cryptography], small-unit tactics, and weaponry—that went on for six months,” the retired general said. “They were kept in little pods.” He also was told, he said, that the men doing the training were from JSOC, which, by 2005, had become a major instrument in the Bush Administration’s global war on terror. “The JSOC trainers were not front-line guys who had been in the field, but second- and third-tier guys—trainers and the like—and they started going off the reservation. ‘If we’re going to teach you tactics, let me show you some really sexy stuff…’ ”
It was the ad-hoc training that provoked the worried telephone calls to him, the former general said. “I told one of the guys who called me that they were all in over their heads, and all of them could end up trouble unless they got something in writing. The Iranians are very, very good at counterintelligence, and stuff like this is just too hard to contain.” The site in Nevada was being utilized at the same time, he said, for advanced training of élite Iraqi combat units. (The retired general said he only knew of the one M.E.K.-affiliated group that went though the training course; the former senior intelligence official said that he was aware of training that went on through 2007.)
Allan Gerson, a Washington attorney for the M.E.K., notes that the M.E.K. has publicly and repeatedly renounced terror. Gerson said he would not comment on the alleged training in Nevada. But such training, if true, he said, would be “especially incongruent with the State Department’s decision to continue to maintain the M.E.K. on the terrorist list. How can the U.S. train those on State’s foreign terrorist list, when others face criminal penalties for providing a nickel to the same organization?”
Robert Baer, a retired C.I.A. agent who is fluent in Arabic and had worked under cover in Kurdistan and throughout the Middle East in his career, initially had told me in early 2004 of being recruited by a private American company—working, so he believed, on behalf of the Bush Administration—to return to Iraq. “They wanted me to help the M.E.K. collect intelligence on Iran’s nuclear program,” Baer recalled. “They thought I knew Farsi, which I did not. I said I’d get back to them, but never did.” Baer, now living in California, recalled that it was made clear to him at the time that the operation was “a long-term thing—not just a one-shot deal.”
Massoud Khodabandeh, an I.T. expert now living in England who consults for the Iraqi government, was an official with the M.E.K. before defecting in 1996. In a telephone interview, he acknowledged that he is an avowed enemy of the M.E.K., and has advocated against the group. Khodabandeh said that he had been with the group since before the fall of the Shah and, as a computer expert, was deeply involved in intelligence activities as well as providing security for the M.E.K. leadership. For the past decade, he and his English wife have run a support program for other defectors. Khodabandeh told me that he had heard from more recent defectors about the training in Nevada. He was told that the communications training in Nevada involved more than teaching how to keep in contact during attacks—it also involved communication intercepts. The United States, he said, at one point found a way to penetrate some major Iranian communications systems. At the time, he said, the U.S. provided M.E.K. operatives with the ability to intercept telephone calls and text messages inside Iran—which M.E.K. operatives translated and shared with American signals intelligence experts. He does not know whether this activity is ongoing.
Five Iranian nuclear scientists have been assassinated since 2007. M.E.K. spokesmen have denied any involvement in the killings, but early last month NBC News quoted two senior Obama Administration officials as confirming that the attacks were carried out by M.E.K. units that were financed and trained by Mossad, the Israeli secret service. NBC further quoted the Administration officials as denying any American involvement in the M.E.K. activities. The former senior intelligence official I spoke with seconded the NBC report that the Israelis were working with the M.E.K., adding that the operations benefitted from American intelligence. He said that the targets were not “Einsteins”; “The goal is to affect Iranian psychology and morale,” he said, and to “demoralize the whole system—nuclear delivery vehicles, nuclear enrichment facilities, power plants.” Attacks have also been carried out on pipelines. He added that the operations are “primarily being done by M.E.K. through liaison with the Israelis, but the United States is now providing the intelligence.” An adviser to the special-operations community told me that the links between the United States and M.E.K. activities inside Iran had been long-standing. “Everything being done inside Iran now is being done with surrogates,” he said.
The sources I spoke to were unable to say whether the people trained in Nevada were now involved in operations in Iran or elsewhere. But they pointed to the general benefit of American support. “The M.E.K. was a total joke,” the senior Pentagon consultant said, “and now it’s a real network inside Iran. How did the M.E.K. get so much more efficient?” he asked rhetorically. “Part of it is the training in Nevada. Part of it is logistical support in Kurdistan, and part of it is inside Iran. M.E.K. now has a capacity for efficient operations that it never had before.”
In mid-January, a few days after an assassination by car bomb of an Iranian nuclear scientist in Tehran, Secretary of Defense Leon Panetta, at a town-hall meeting of soldiers at Fort Bliss, Texas, acknowledged that the U.S. government has “some ideas as to who might be involved, but we don’t know exactly who was involved.” He added, “But I can tell you one thing: the United States was not involved in that kind of effort. That’s not what the United States does.”
posted by Hanan Elbadry at 8:00 PM
0 comments
Sunday, April 01, 2012
Maikel Nabil Sanad draws back the curtain on Egypt’s military
By Jackson Diehl, Sunday, April 1, 7:03 PM
The Washington Post
Democrats as well as Republicans in Congress protested when the Obama administration announced that it was handing the Egyptian military the full $1.3 billion of its annual U.S. aid despite its blatant violations of human rights. Organizations such as Freedom House argued that the United States was breaking faith with the Americans and Egyptians facing criminal trial in Cairo this month for promoting democracy.
But I doubt that staffers at the State Department and National Security Council heard a more scalding indictment of their decision than that delivered last week by a 26-year-old Egyptian blogger named Maikel Nabil Sanad. “The statement” announcing the decision “was a series of lies,” Nabil told them, and repeated to me. “It was a way of accepting the blackmailing of the Egyptian military, by trying to say the relationship is good, when relations are going in the wrong direction and Egypt is going in the wrong direction.”
Who is this skinny guy, with his thick shock of swept-back hair, and what makes him think he can lecture American policymakers so impertinently? Well, Nabil earned his Washington meetings the hard way: by spending 302 days in prison during the past year. He had the distinction of being the first person jailed on political charges after the downfall of Hosni Mubarak supposedly put an end to dictatorship in Egypt.
Nabil turned out to be right about where the Egyptian generals were headed. In March of last year, just weeks after the revolution, the activist posted an essay on his blog contending that, contrary to the slogan shouted in Cairo’s Tahrir Square during the revolution, “the Army and the people were never one hand.” In deposing Mubarak, Nabil argued, the military was merely protecting its own interests — and seeking to preserve its preeminent position of power in Egypt.
For writing this, Nabil was arrested, hauled before a special military court and summarily sentenced to three years in prison, for “insulting the armed forces.” At first, few Egyptians supported him: Like the Obama administration, they believed that the Supreme Military Council that replaced Mubarak was committed to establishing a democracy and yielding to civilians.
Moreover, Nabil was an outlier, even among Egypt’s secular democrats. He is not just of Coptic Christian origin but an avowed atheist; not just anti-military, but a conscientious objector who refused to serve; not just pro-Western, but pro-Israel — a stance than almost no one in Egypt dares to espouse.
“There are still 20 beliefs in Egypt that are considered crimes,” Nabil told me. When I asked how many of them he held, he grinned: “Probably the majority of them.”
Yet over the course of his imprisonment last year — as the military staged thousands more summary trials, censored the press, tolerated the sacking of the Israeli embassy, opened fire on a peaceful march by Christians, and finally raided and shut down pro-democracy nongovernmental organizations (NGOs) — “people realized that I was right,” Nabil said. “Lots of people moved to my side and started to support me. I turned into a hero — and the military hated to see their opponent turned into a hero.” In January, after 130 days of a hunger strike, Nabil was released.
Now he is trying to explain to Americans why it is wrong to continue funding the generals. Start, he says, with the first sentence of the State Department’s explanation, that Egypt “is meeting its obligations under its peace treaty with Israel.” Actually, Nabil points out, the military is systematically whipping up hostility to Israel inside Egypt and using the treaty to “blackmail both Egyptians and U.S. taxpayers” by hinting that the loss of aid — or a democratic government’s control of the military — will mean its rupture.
What about the “strategic partnership” that State says it wants to preserve with Egypt? “Another lie,” says Nabil: How can a military council that is lacing state media with vile anti-American propaganda and prosecuting U.S. NGOs be a strategic partner?
Most dangerous, says Nabil, is the administration’s conviction that Egypt is headed toward democracy. In fact, he says, “the same dictatorship of the last 60 years is still in power.” Even if the generals hand over titular authority in July to an elected president, as promised, “they will continue to be the most powerful force in Egypt. They control 40 percent of the economy. They have about one-third of the budget. They control the media and the judiciary. They have five intelligence agencies.”
U.S. aid — especially when granted unconditionally — simply reinforces the military’s position and encourages the persecution of genuine pro-American liberals such as Nabil. His D.C. escorts said that the officials he met didn’t say much in answer to him. Perhaps they were ashamed.
diehlj@washpost.com
The Washington Post
Democrats as well as Republicans in Congress protested when the Obama administration announced that it was handing the Egyptian military the full $1.3 billion of its annual U.S. aid despite its blatant violations of human rights. Organizations such as Freedom House argued that the United States was breaking faith with the Americans and Egyptians facing criminal trial in Cairo this month for promoting democracy.
But I doubt that staffers at the State Department and National Security Council heard a more scalding indictment of their decision than that delivered last week by a 26-year-old Egyptian blogger named Maikel Nabil Sanad. “The statement” announcing the decision “was a series of lies,” Nabil told them, and repeated to me. “It was a way of accepting the blackmailing of the Egyptian military, by trying to say the relationship is good, when relations are going in the wrong direction and Egypt is going in the wrong direction.”
Who is this skinny guy, with his thick shock of swept-back hair, and what makes him think he can lecture American policymakers so impertinently? Well, Nabil earned his Washington meetings the hard way: by spending 302 days in prison during the past year. He had the distinction of being the first person jailed on political charges after the downfall of Hosni Mubarak supposedly put an end to dictatorship in Egypt.
Nabil turned out to be right about where the Egyptian generals were headed. In March of last year, just weeks after the revolution, the activist posted an essay on his blog contending that, contrary to the slogan shouted in Cairo’s Tahrir Square during the revolution, “the Army and the people were never one hand.” In deposing Mubarak, Nabil argued, the military was merely protecting its own interests — and seeking to preserve its preeminent position of power in Egypt.
For writing this, Nabil was arrested, hauled before a special military court and summarily sentenced to three years in prison, for “insulting the armed forces.” At first, few Egyptians supported him: Like the Obama administration, they believed that the Supreme Military Council that replaced Mubarak was committed to establishing a democracy and yielding to civilians.
Moreover, Nabil was an outlier, even among Egypt’s secular democrats. He is not just of Coptic Christian origin but an avowed atheist; not just anti-military, but a conscientious objector who refused to serve; not just pro-Western, but pro-Israel — a stance than almost no one in Egypt dares to espouse.
“There are still 20 beliefs in Egypt that are considered crimes,” Nabil told me. When I asked how many of them he held, he grinned: “Probably the majority of them.”
Yet over the course of his imprisonment last year — as the military staged thousands more summary trials, censored the press, tolerated the sacking of the Israeli embassy, opened fire on a peaceful march by Christians, and finally raided and shut down pro-democracy nongovernmental organizations (NGOs) — “people realized that I was right,” Nabil said. “Lots of people moved to my side and started to support me. I turned into a hero — and the military hated to see their opponent turned into a hero.” In January, after 130 days of a hunger strike, Nabil was released.
Now he is trying to explain to Americans why it is wrong to continue funding the generals. Start, he says, with the first sentence of the State Department’s explanation, that Egypt “is meeting its obligations under its peace treaty with Israel.” Actually, Nabil points out, the military is systematically whipping up hostility to Israel inside Egypt and using the treaty to “blackmail both Egyptians and U.S. taxpayers” by hinting that the loss of aid — or a democratic government’s control of the military — will mean its rupture.
What about the “strategic partnership” that State says it wants to preserve with Egypt? “Another lie,” says Nabil: How can a military council that is lacing state media with vile anti-American propaganda and prosecuting U.S. NGOs be a strategic partner?
Most dangerous, says Nabil, is the administration’s conviction that Egypt is headed toward democracy. In fact, he says, “the same dictatorship of the last 60 years is still in power.” Even if the generals hand over titular authority in July to an elected president, as promised, “they will continue to be the most powerful force in Egypt. They control 40 percent of the economy. They have about one-third of the budget. They control the media and the judiciary. They have five intelligence agencies.”
U.S. aid — especially when granted unconditionally — simply reinforces the military’s position and encourages the persecution of genuine pro-American liberals such as Nabil. His D.C. escorts said that the officials he met didn’t say much in answer to him. Perhaps they were ashamed.
diehlj@washpost.com
posted by Hanan Elbadry at 11:21 PM
0 comments
Sunday Dialogue: How We Decide When to Go to War
March 31, 2012
NYT
Readers debate how recent military interventions abroad have swayed public sentiment.
The Letter
To the Editor:
In “Falling In and Out of War” (column, March 19), Bill Keller laudably seeks to pin down the “right questions” a president should ask before deciding on war. He comes up with no fewer than five, each with multiple caveats.
In fact, America’s role in the world on big issues of war and peace can often be pared down to a simpler calculation: whether the American people deem foreign threats worth the risks of overseas military entanglements.
America’s involvement in foreign wars has typically corresponded with stark public perceptions of threat — German submarine warfare brought the United States into World War I; Pearl Harbor did the same in World War II; North Korea’s invasion of South Korea legitimized cold-war containment.
When threats seem diminished, Americans renew their age-old demand for limits in foreign policy. America’s failed humanitarian experiment in Somalia elicited loud calls to disengage from the world in the 1990s.
The 9/11 attacks renewed America’s militarism in foreign affairs. But now, after a decade of enormous costs in blood and treasure, and visible successes against Al Qaeda, the nation is again insisting on a more modest global role.
While there may be the occasional limited humanitarian action (as in Libya), it will be difficult to win public support even for military endeavors linked to tangible security interests.
As Mr. Keller points out, global dangers are swirling — from Iran’s nuclear program, to emboldened affiliates of Al Qaeda, to a rising, more assertive China.
The risk is that America will default back into a 1930s or 1990s complacency, only to be forced back into the world at a time, place and manner not of its own choosing.
STUART GOTTLIEB
New York, March 26, 2012
The writer, a former Senate foreign policy adviser and speechwriter, teaches international affairs and public policy at Columbia University.
Readers React
As Mr. Gottlieb notes, there is a real danger that the pendulum representing America’s global involvement could swing back to 1930s isolation or 1990s complacency. Such are the consequences of our ill-conceived military campaign and occupation of Iraq and the overextended occupation of Afghanistan.
Foreign engagement must always be related to our national security interests, with military action reserved for those occasions when diplomacy has failed and the threat leaves us with no choice. Our failure, after the 9/11 attacks, to bring a disciplined approach to our response to stateless terrorism as personified by Al Qaeda cost us dearly in lives lost and permanently damaged, as well as treasure. Without a doubt, it weakened our financial capacity and the willingness of the American people to respond to international entanglements.
But there is no way to rewrite our lost decade. We can only hope to recognize our mistakes and trust that our government will call for national sacrifice when, and only when, the circumstances require it, and when, and only when, we are responding to real threats and not, as was true with Iraq, for the sake of flexing our military might against imagined enemies.
JAY N. FELDMAN
Port Washington, N.Y., March 28, 2012
While Mr. Keller and Mr. Gottlieb have started a welcome dialogue, they both make the dire mistake of overemphasizing the military’s role in national security. The United States and other great powers face existential threats to basic security that military commitments do almost nothing to combat. They include a changing global climate that is already producing extreme disruptions to the climate norms that have allowed humans to flourish with reliable food and water.
Two decades after the cold war ended, we have also failed to secure the greatest weaponized threat to civilization: the enormous and costly stockpiles of nuclear weapons and explosive material.
If New York City is struck by nuclear terror or submerged by rising seas, Americans will rightly ask: Where were the leadership and investment in long-term security when the United States was busy fighting wars of choice and drilling for more climate-altering fossil fuels?
LUKAS HAYNES
New York, March 28, 2012
The writer, a former State Department speechwriter, is an adviser to the Center for Climate and Security.
John Quincy Adams was right in 1821 when he said of America: “Wherever the standard of freedom and independence has been or shall be unfurled, there will her heart, her benedictions and her prayers be. But she goes not abroad, in search of monsters to destroy.” And he is still right today.
It is long past time that we paid attention to our own defense and ceased playing at world policeman and behavior dictator. We have saved Kuwait and freed Iraq, neither of which benefited us one bit. What should have been a quick and limited cleansing of Al Qaeda in Afghanistan became an overlong, costly and muddled mixture of revenge and a failed attempt to nation build. Iran threatens us not a bit. Let it and Israel work out their problems.
Drawing back into self-defense and self-interest need not mean a regression to helplessness.
We must stop inventing monsters to destroy and settle back down to being an America that speaks softly and carries a really big stick only in defense of its own territory and vital interests. Mr. Keller provided a very good outline for doing just that. Mr. Gottlieb would rather continue to create nonexistent monsters for future destruction by dwelling on false historical comparisons and predictions.
BILL BARRY
Huntsville, Ala., March 28, 2012
In this age of expanded presidential powers, a factor that often goes overlooked is our constitutionally mandated process for making decisions about war. Article I of our Constitution is clear: Congress “shall have the power ... to declare war.”
The founders understood the implications of such a decision and sought to decentralize it and tie the process to the will of the people as expressed through their representatives.
It seems that the only way Mr. Keller’s five questions on whether to go to war can be answered is through the process of Congressional debate. We saw the failure of that process with President Lyndon B. Johnson in Vietnam and President George W. Bush in Iraq. In the former, Congress was simply lied to, and in the latter, a military timetable for invasion was established by the president and Congress was bullied into meeting it. Both proceeded to entangle our nation in lengthy wars based on Congressional resolutions that fell short of a full declaration of war while having the same dire implications. We deserve better than that.
As our conflicts with Iran continue to fester, Congress must uphold its constitutional mandate to defend the country and take the nation to war only after full and open debate. All members of Congress must be prepared to be accountable to their constituents and to the country as a whole for their vote on a declaration of war.
VICTOR M. GOODE
Flushing, Queens, March 28, 2012
The writer is an associate professor at City University School of Law.
What Mr. Gottlieb omits in his letter is that the “fear” he associates with the public’s willingness to support military intervention is largely manufactured. In many of America’s military interventions since the Spanish-American War, elites have fanned, manufactured and exploited public fears to shore up support for interventions that are utterly unrelated to any national security interests but have everything to do with American corporate interests.
Indeed, the foreign policy makers are very often once and future officers of the very corporate interests that the military is deployed to protect. Confusing economic interests with national security interests is nothing new, but as long as corporate interests dominate the policy-making apparatus, we will witness the discovery of endless enemies in need of policing.
DANA WARD
Claremont, Calif., March 28, 2012
The writer is a professor of political studies at Pitzer College.
Every few years, the American foreign policy establishment solemnly warns of the return of isolationism. Although public opinion polls have certainly shown that the American public is weary after a decade in Iraq and Afghanistan, the specter of American disengagement from the world remains severely overstated.
Since the American National Election Studies first asked Americans in 1956 whether they thought the country would be better off if it didn’t concern itself with problems in other parts of the world, isolationists have always been outnumbered by at least 2 to 1, and among Americans with at least a high school diploma, the gap is even starker, with isolationists being outnumbered on average by 4 to 1.
To be sure, when economic conditions sour, or when foreign policy misadventures mount, public support for an outward-looking foreign policy dips, but the public’s foreign policy mood has been remarkably stable.
Indeed, my own research done with colleagues has found that isolationism is still very much a dirty word in American politics. When we present Americans with their scores from the standard questions political scientists use to measure foreign policy attitudes, many of our isolationists dispute the results, taking pains to protest that they are, as one participant put it, “in no way, shape or form an isolationist.”
JOSHUA KERTZER
Columbus, Ohio, March 28, 2012
The writer is a Ph.D. candidate in political science at Ohio State University.
Mr. Gottlieb writes, “America’s role in the world on big issues of war and peace can often be pared down to a simpler calculation: whether the American people deem foreign threats worth the risk of overseas military entanglements.” I submit it is time for a different calculation.
As Leo Tolstoy made clear in “War and Peace,” wars invariably lead to unintended consequences. United States forces ousted Saddam Hussein only to leave behind an autocratic ruler and a society fractured by religious and ethnic violence. In Libya, Col. Muammar el-Qaddafi’s dictatorship has been replaced by continuing tribal rivalries and revenge killings. We rid Afghanistan of Al Qaeda but it is flourishing elsewhere, and the Afghan people show increasing anger at our presence. Meanwhile the number of dead, injured and displaced people resulting from our military interventions can hardly be estimated.
It is time to ask whether any objective is worth the enormous human suffering that modern warfare involves and to seek a more rational method of dealing with our adversaries before it is too late.
RACHELLE MARSHALL
Mill Valley, Calif., March 28, 2012
The Writer Responds
I would like to thank the responders for their engaging insights. The letters may be placed into two categories: those that expect too much of America’s foreign policy decision-making system, and those that expect too little of America’s role in the world.
In the first category, Mr. Feldman and Mr. Goode assert that smarter foreign policy can be found through improved policy making — presidential deference to Congress; acting “when, and only when,” certain metrics are met; and so on.
This all sounds reasonable in the calm light of day, but in moments of strategic uncertainty decision making becomes far less cohesive, and presidential power (for better or worse) assumes the mantle of leadership.
On the broader question of America’s global role, Mr. Haynes accurately points out that nonmilitary initiatives are sorely needed. But threats do exist, such as terrorism and the proliferation of weapons of mass destruction, that cannot be solved by soft power alone.
Lastly, Mr. Barry’s invocation of John Quincy Adams is most welcome, as he is the standard-bearer of America’s prudent unilateralism. But do his words hold true as much today, in an age of American global power, as they did in 1821?
Winston Churchill cautioned, “The price of greatness is responsibility.” And for more than a century, each of America’s attempts to return to a more modest role in the world has been interrupted by gathering global dangers.
It is precisely the tension between the embedded wisdom of John Quincy Adams and the practical realities of global leadership that makes America’s role in the world so unique — troubling, inconsistent and invaluable.
STUART GOTTLIEB
New York, March 30, 2012
NYT
Readers debate how recent military interventions abroad have swayed public sentiment.
The Letter
To the Editor:
In “Falling In and Out of War” (column, March 19), Bill Keller laudably seeks to pin down the “right questions” a president should ask before deciding on war. He comes up with no fewer than five, each with multiple caveats.
In fact, America’s role in the world on big issues of war and peace can often be pared down to a simpler calculation: whether the American people deem foreign threats worth the risks of overseas military entanglements.
America’s involvement in foreign wars has typically corresponded with stark public perceptions of threat — German submarine warfare brought the United States into World War I; Pearl Harbor did the same in World War II; North Korea’s invasion of South Korea legitimized cold-war containment.
When threats seem diminished, Americans renew their age-old demand for limits in foreign policy. America’s failed humanitarian experiment in Somalia elicited loud calls to disengage from the world in the 1990s.
The 9/11 attacks renewed America’s militarism in foreign affairs. But now, after a decade of enormous costs in blood and treasure, and visible successes against Al Qaeda, the nation is again insisting on a more modest global role.
While there may be the occasional limited humanitarian action (as in Libya), it will be difficult to win public support even for military endeavors linked to tangible security interests.
As Mr. Keller points out, global dangers are swirling — from Iran’s nuclear program, to emboldened affiliates of Al Qaeda, to a rising, more assertive China.
The risk is that America will default back into a 1930s or 1990s complacency, only to be forced back into the world at a time, place and manner not of its own choosing.
STUART GOTTLIEB
New York, March 26, 2012
The writer, a former Senate foreign policy adviser and speechwriter, teaches international affairs and public policy at Columbia University.
Readers React
As Mr. Gottlieb notes, there is a real danger that the pendulum representing America’s global involvement could swing back to 1930s isolation or 1990s complacency. Such are the consequences of our ill-conceived military campaign and occupation of Iraq and the overextended occupation of Afghanistan.
Foreign engagement must always be related to our national security interests, with military action reserved for those occasions when diplomacy has failed and the threat leaves us with no choice. Our failure, after the 9/11 attacks, to bring a disciplined approach to our response to stateless terrorism as personified by Al Qaeda cost us dearly in lives lost and permanently damaged, as well as treasure. Without a doubt, it weakened our financial capacity and the willingness of the American people to respond to international entanglements.
But there is no way to rewrite our lost decade. We can only hope to recognize our mistakes and trust that our government will call for national sacrifice when, and only when, the circumstances require it, and when, and only when, we are responding to real threats and not, as was true with Iraq, for the sake of flexing our military might against imagined enemies.
JAY N. FELDMAN
Port Washington, N.Y., March 28, 2012
While Mr. Keller and Mr. Gottlieb have started a welcome dialogue, they both make the dire mistake of overemphasizing the military’s role in national security. The United States and other great powers face existential threats to basic security that military commitments do almost nothing to combat. They include a changing global climate that is already producing extreme disruptions to the climate norms that have allowed humans to flourish with reliable food and water.
Two decades after the cold war ended, we have also failed to secure the greatest weaponized threat to civilization: the enormous and costly stockpiles of nuclear weapons and explosive material.
If New York City is struck by nuclear terror or submerged by rising seas, Americans will rightly ask: Where were the leadership and investment in long-term security when the United States was busy fighting wars of choice and drilling for more climate-altering fossil fuels?
LUKAS HAYNES
New York, March 28, 2012
The writer, a former State Department speechwriter, is an adviser to the Center for Climate and Security.
John Quincy Adams was right in 1821 when he said of America: “Wherever the standard of freedom and independence has been or shall be unfurled, there will her heart, her benedictions and her prayers be. But she goes not abroad, in search of monsters to destroy.” And he is still right today.
It is long past time that we paid attention to our own defense and ceased playing at world policeman and behavior dictator. We have saved Kuwait and freed Iraq, neither of which benefited us one bit. What should have been a quick and limited cleansing of Al Qaeda in Afghanistan became an overlong, costly and muddled mixture of revenge and a failed attempt to nation build. Iran threatens us not a bit. Let it and Israel work out their problems.
Drawing back into self-defense and self-interest need not mean a regression to helplessness.
We must stop inventing monsters to destroy and settle back down to being an America that speaks softly and carries a really big stick only in defense of its own territory and vital interests. Mr. Keller provided a very good outline for doing just that. Mr. Gottlieb would rather continue to create nonexistent monsters for future destruction by dwelling on false historical comparisons and predictions.
BILL BARRY
Huntsville, Ala., March 28, 2012
In this age of expanded presidential powers, a factor that often goes overlooked is our constitutionally mandated process for making decisions about war. Article I of our Constitution is clear: Congress “shall have the power ... to declare war.”
The founders understood the implications of such a decision and sought to decentralize it and tie the process to the will of the people as expressed through their representatives.
It seems that the only way Mr. Keller’s five questions on whether to go to war can be answered is through the process of Congressional debate. We saw the failure of that process with President Lyndon B. Johnson in Vietnam and President George W. Bush in Iraq. In the former, Congress was simply lied to, and in the latter, a military timetable for invasion was established by the president and Congress was bullied into meeting it. Both proceeded to entangle our nation in lengthy wars based on Congressional resolutions that fell short of a full declaration of war while having the same dire implications. We deserve better than that.
As our conflicts with Iran continue to fester, Congress must uphold its constitutional mandate to defend the country and take the nation to war only after full and open debate. All members of Congress must be prepared to be accountable to their constituents and to the country as a whole for their vote on a declaration of war.
VICTOR M. GOODE
Flushing, Queens, March 28, 2012
The writer is an associate professor at City University School of Law.
What Mr. Gottlieb omits in his letter is that the “fear” he associates with the public’s willingness to support military intervention is largely manufactured. In many of America’s military interventions since the Spanish-American War, elites have fanned, manufactured and exploited public fears to shore up support for interventions that are utterly unrelated to any national security interests but have everything to do with American corporate interests.
Indeed, the foreign policy makers are very often once and future officers of the very corporate interests that the military is deployed to protect. Confusing economic interests with national security interests is nothing new, but as long as corporate interests dominate the policy-making apparatus, we will witness the discovery of endless enemies in need of policing.
DANA WARD
Claremont, Calif., March 28, 2012
The writer is a professor of political studies at Pitzer College.
Every few years, the American foreign policy establishment solemnly warns of the return of isolationism. Although public opinion polls have certainly shown that the American public is weary after a decade in Iraq and Afghanistan, the specter of American disengagement from the world remains severely overstated.
Since the American National Election Studies first asked Americans in 1956 whether they thought the country would be better off if it didn’t concern itself with problems in other parts of the world, isolationists have always been outnumbered by at least 2 to 1, and among Americans with at least a high school diploma, the gap is even starker, with isolationists being outnumbered on average by 4 to 1.
To be sure, when economic conditions sour, or when foreign policy misadventures mount, public support for an outward-looking foreign policy dips, but the public’s foreign policy mood has been remarkably stable.
Indeed, my own research done with colleagues has found that isolationism is still very much a dirty word in American politics. When we present Americans with their scores from the standard questions political scientists use to measure foreign policy attitudes, many of our isolationists dispute the results, taking pains to protest that they are, as one participant put it, “in no way, shape or form an isolationist.”
JOSHUA KERTZER
Columbus, Ohio, March 28, 2012
The writer is a Ph.D. candidate in political science at Ohio State University.
Mr. Gottlieb writes, “America’s role in the world on big issues of war and peace can often be pared down to a simpler calculation: whether the American people deem foreign threats worth the risk of overseas military entanglements.” I submit it is time for a different calculation.
As Leo Tolstoy made clear in “War and Peace,” wars invariably lead to unintended consequences. United States forces ousted Saddam Hussein only to leave behind an autocratic ruler and a society fractured by religious and ethnic violence. In Libya, Col. Muammar el-Qaddafi’s dictatorship has been replaced by continuing tribal rivalries and revenge killings. We rid Afghanistan of Al Qaeda but it is flourishing elsewhere, and the Afghan people show increasing anger at our presence. Meanwhile the number of dead, injured and displaced people resulting from our military interventions can hardly be estimated.
It is time to ask whether any objective is worth the enormous human suffering that modern warfare involves and to seek a more rational method of dealing with our adversaries before it is too late.
RACHELLE MARSHALL
Mill Valley, Calif., March 28, 2012
The Writer Responds
I would like to thank the responders for their engaging insights. The letters may be placed into two categories: those that expect too much of America’s foreign policy decision-making system, and those that expect too little of America’s role in the world.
In the first category, Mr. Feldman and Mr. Goode assert that smarter foreign policy can be found through improved policy making — presidential deference to Congress; acting “when, and only when,” certain metrics are met; and so on.
This all sounds reasonable in the calm light of day, but in moments of strategic uncertainty decision making becomes far less cohesive, and presidential power (for better or worse) assumes the mantle of leadership.
On the broader question of America’s global role, Mr. Haynes accurately points out that nonmilitary initiatives are sorely needed. But threats do exist, such as terrorism and the proliferation of weapons of mass destruction, that cannot be solved by soft power alone.
Lastly, Mr. Barry’s invocation of John Quincy Adams is most welcome, as he is the standard-bearer of America’s prudent unilateralism. But do his words hold true as much today, in an age of American global power, as they did in 1821?
Winston Churchill cautioned, “The price of greatness is responsibility.” And for more than a century, each of America’s attempts to return to a more modest role in the world has been interrupted by gathering global dangers.
It is precisely the tension between the embedded wisdom of John Quincy Adams and the practical realities of global leadership that makes America’s role in the world so unique — troubling, inconsistent and invaluable.
STUART GOTTLIEB
New York, March 30, 2012
posted by Hanan Elbadry at 9:18 PM
0 comments
Why Nations Fail
March 31, 2012
NYT
By THOMAS L. FRIEDMAN
I’M reading a fascinating new book called “Why Nations Fail.” The more you read it, the more you appreciate what a fool’s errand we’re on in Afghanistan and how much we need to totally revamp our whole foreign aid strategy. But most intriguing are the warning flares the authors put up about both America and China.
Co-authored by the M.I.T. economist Daron Acemoglu and the Harvard political scientist James A. Robinson, “Why Nations Fail” argues that the key differentiator between countries is “institutions.” Nations thrive when they develop “inclusive” political and economic institutions, and they fail when those institutions become “extractive” and concentrate power and opportunity in the hands of only a few.
“Inclusive economic institutions that enforce property rights, create a level playing field, and encourage investments in new technologies and skills are more conducive to economic growth than extractive economic institutions that are structured to extract resources from the many by the few,” they write.
“Inclusive economic institutions, are in turn supported by, and support, inclusive political institutions,” which “distribute political power widely in a pluralistic manner and are able to achieve some amount of political centralization so as to establish law and order, the foundations of secure property rights, and an inclusive market economy.” Conversely, extractive political institutions that concentrate power in the hands of a few reinforce extractive economic institutions to hold power.
Acemoglu explained in an interview that their core point is that countries thrive when they build political and economic institutions that “unleash,” empower and protect the full potential of each citizen to innovate, invest and develop. Compare how well Eastern Europe has done since the fall of communism with post-Soviet states like Georgia or Uzbekistan, or Israel versus the Arab states, or Kurdistan versus the rest of Iraq. It’s all in the institutions.
The lesson of history, the authors argue, is that you can’t get your economics right if you don’t get your politics right, which is why they don’t buy the notion that China has found the magic formula for combining political control and economic growth.
“Our analysis,” says Acemoglu, “is that China is experiencing growth under extractive institutions — under the authoritarian grip of the Communist Party, which has been able to monopolize power and mobilize resources at a scale that has allowed for a burst of economic growth starting from a very low base,” but it’s not sustainable because it doesn’t foster the degree of “creative destruction” that is so vital for innovation and higher incomes.
“Sustained economic growth requires innovation,” the authors write, “and innovation cannot be decoupled from creative destruction, which replaces the old with the new in the economic realm and also destabilizes established power relations in politics.”
“Unless China makes the transition to an economy based on creative destruction, its growth will not last,” argues Acemoglu. But can you imagine a 20-year-old college dropout in China being allowed to start a company that challenges a whole sector of state-owned Chinese companies funded by state-owned banks? he asks.
The post-9/11 view that what ailed the Arab world and Afghanistan was a lack of democracy was not wrong, said Acemoglu. What was wrong was thinking that we could easily export it. Democratic change, to be sustainable, has to emerge from grassroots movements, “but that does not mean there is nothing we can do,” he adds.
For instance, we should be transitioning away from military aid to regimes like Egypt and focusing instead on enabling more sectors of that society to have a say in politics. Right now, I’d argue, our foreign aid to Egypt, Pakistan and Afghanistan is really a ransom we pay their elites not to engage in bad behavior. We need to turn it into bait.
Acemoglu suggests that instead of giving Cairo another $1.3 billion in military aid that only reinforces part of the elite, we should insist that Egypt establish a committee representing all sectors of its society that would tell us which institutions — schools, hospitals — they want foreign aid to go to, and have to develop appropriate proposals.
If we’re going to give money, “let’s use it to force them to open up the table and to strengthen the grass-roots,” says Acemoglu.
We can only be a force multiplier. Where you have grass-roots movements that want to build inclusive institutions, we can enhance them. But we can’t create or substitute for them. Worse, in Afghanistan and many Arab states, our policies have often discouraged grass-roots from emerging by our siding with convenient strongmen. So there’s nothing to multiply. If you multiply zero by 100, you still get zero.
And America? Acemoglu worries that our huge growth in economic inequality is undermining the inclusiveness of America’s institutions, too. “The real problem is that economic inequality, when it becomes this large, translates into political inequality.” When one person can write a check to finance your whole campaign, how inclusive will you be as an elected official to listen to competing voices?
NYT
By THOMAS L. FRIEDMAN
I’M reading a fascinating new book called “Why Nations Fail.” The more you read it, the more you appreciate what a fool’s errand we’re on in Afghanistan and how much we need to totally revamp our whole foreign aid strategy. But most intriguing are the warning flares the authors put up about both America and China.
Co-authored by the M.I.T. economist Daron Acemoglu and the Harvard political scientist James A. Robinson, “Why Nations Fail” argues that the key differentiator between countries is “institutions.” Nations thrive when they develop “inclusive” political and economic institutions, and they fail when those institutions become “extractive” and concentrate power and opportunity in the hands of only a few.
“Inclusive economic institutions that enforce property rights, create a level playing field, and encourage investments in new technologies and skills are more conducive to economic growth than extractive economic institutions that are structured to extract resources from the many by the few,” they write.
“Inclusive economic institutions, are in turn supported by, and support, inclusive political institutions,” which “distribute political power widely in a pluralistic manner and are able to achieve some amount of political centralization so as to establish law and order, the foundations of secure property rights, and an inclusive market economy.” Conversely, extractive political institutions that concentrate power in the hands of a few reinforce extractive economic institutions to hold power.
Acemoglu explained in an interview that their core point is that countries thrive when they build political and economic institutions that “unleash,” empower and protect the full potential of each citizen to innovate, invest and develop. Compare how well Eastern Europe has done since the fall of communism with post-Soviet states like Georgia or Uzbekistan, or Israel versus the Arab states, or Kurdistan versus the rest of Iraq. It’s all in the institutions.
The lesson of history, the authors argue, is that you can’t get your economics right if you don’t get your politics right, which is why they don’t buy the notion that China has found the magic formula for combining political control and economic growth.
“Our analysis,” says Acemoglu, “is that China is experiencing growth under extractive institutions — under the authoritarian grip of the Communist Party, which has been able to monopolize power and mobilize resources at a scale that has allowed for a burst of economic growth starting from a very low base,” but it’s not sustainable because it doesn’t foster the degree of “creative destruction” that is so vital for innovation and higher incomes.
“Sustained economic growth requires innovation,” the authors write, “and innovation cannot be decoupled from creative destruction, which replaces the old with the new in the economic realm and also destabilizes established power relations in politics.”
“Unless China makes the transition to an economy based on creative destruction, its growth will not last,” argues Acemoglu. But can you imagine a 20-year-old college dropout in China being allowed to start a company that challenges a whole sector of state-owned Chinese companies funded by state-owned banks? he asks.
The post-9/11 view that what ailed the Arab world and Afghanistan was a lack of democracy was not wrong, said Acemoglu. What was wrong was thinking that we could easily export it. Democratic change, to be sustainable, has to emerge from grassroots movements, “but that does not mean there is nothing we can do,” he adds.
For instance, we should be transitioning away from military aid to regimes like Egypt and focusing instead on enabling more sectors of that society to have a say in politics. Right now, I’d argue, our foreign aid to Egypt, Pakistan and Afghanistan is really a ransom we pay their elites not to engage in bad behavior. We need to turn it into bait.
Acemoglu suggests that instead of giving Cairo another $1.3 billion in military aid that only reinforces part of the elite, we should insist that Egypt establish a committee representing all sectors of its society that would tell us which institutions — schools, hospitals — they want foreign aid to go to, and have to develop appropriate proposals.
If we’re going to give money, “let’s use it to force them to open up the table and to strengthen the grass-roots,” says Acemoglu.
We can only be a force multiplier. Where you have grass-roots movements that want to build inclusive institutions, we can enhance them. But we can’t create or substitute for them. Worse, in Afghanistan and many Arab states, our policies have often discouraged grass-roots from emerging by our siding with convenient strongmen. So there’s nothing to multiply. If you multiply zero by 100, you still get zero.
And America? Acemoglu worries that our huge growth in economic inequality is undermining the inclusiveness of America’s institutions, too. “The real problem is that economic inequality, when it becomes this large, translates into political inequality.” When one person can write a check to finance your whole campaign, how inclusive will you be as an elected official to listen to competing voices?
posted by Hanan Elbadry at 9:15 PM
0 comments
Islamist Group Breaks Pledge to Stay Out of Race in Egypt
March 31, 2012
NYT
By DAVID D. KIRKPATRICK
CAIRO — The Muslim Brotherhood nominated its chief strategist and financier Khairat el-Shater on Saturday as its candidate to become Egypt’s first president since Hosni Mubarak, breaking a pledge not to seek the top office and a monopoly on power.
Mr. Shater, 62, a millionaire business tycoon, was a political prisoner until just a year ago. Because of the Brotherhood’s unrivaled grass-roots organization and popular appeal, he is now a presidential front-runner.
He is being nominated at a moment of escalating tension between the Brotherhood and Egypt’s military rulers. The Brotherhood, an Islamist group outlawed under Mr. Mubarak, already dominates the Parliament and the assembly writing a new Constitution. It is now demanding to replace the military-led cabinet and is tussling with the military council over questions like the degree of civilian oversight of the military under the new charter.
His candidacy is likely to unnerve the West and has already outraged Egyptian liberals, who wonder what other pledges of moderation the Brotherhood may abandon.
The Brotherhood’s entry into the race also turns the election into a debate over the future of the Islamist political movement that is sure to resonate in the region. Mr. Shater faces Islamist rivals to his left and right — one a more liberal former Brotherhood leader, the other an ultraconservative Salafist. Indeed, the Brotherhood may have entered the race in part because a strong showing by either rival could undercut the group’s authority as the predominant voice of Islam in Egyptian politics.
Mr. Shater is considered a conservative but a pragmatist. He has argued that Islam demands tolerance and democracy, has championed free trade and open markets and has guided the Brotherhood through its first public commitment to uphold the peace agreement with Israel.
But he also argues for an explicitly Islamic government. And while some in the group have argued that it should tolerate diverse approaches to Islamist politics from its own members, he has helped enforce the authority of the Brotherhood’s executive committee over its members, stirring allegations from liberals that it is undemocratic.
Doubts about the strength of the Brotherhood’s commitment to its promises raise particular concerns in the United States and Israel, which considered the Mubarak government’s commitment to the peace agreement a linchpin of regional stability.
An Israeli official, speaking on condition of anonymity, declined to comment specifically on Mr. Shater, but called the nomination worrisome. “Obviously this is not good news,” the official said. “The Muslim Brotherhood is no friend of Israel’s. They do not wish us well.” The official added: “The big question will be how pragmatic they will be once in power. It could go in either direction.”
In Washington, the State Department declined to comment. But many American officials who have met with Mr. Shater on visits to Cairo, including top State Department officials and Congressional delegations, have praised his moderation, business savvy and effectiveness.
At a news conference announcing the nomination, officials of the Brotherhood and its political arm insisted they were forced to offer a candidate because of the urgent needs left by more than a year of military-led transitional government. They alluded to a mounting economic crisis as well as unspecified “threats to the revolution.”
“We decided that Egypt now needs a candidate from us to bear this responsibility,” said Mohamed el-Morsi, president the Brotherhood’s Freedom and Justice Party. “We have no desire at all to monopolize power.”
Mr. Shater was not present at the news conference. Instead, the Brotherhood’s supreme guide, Mohamed Badie, read a letter from Mr. Shater resigning his post as deputy supreme guide to run for president. “Although I never thought of occupying any executive position in the state or running for it, I can’t help but comply with the decision of the group,” Mr. Shater wrote, according to Mr. Badie.
The Brotherhood, an 84-year-old religious and anticolonialist movement that became the wellspring of Islamist ideologies around the world, was outlawed but intermittently tolerated under Mr. Mubarak, and most of its senior leaders have spent time in prison.
Mr. Shater was a favorite target because of his role as a major donor and financial manager for the group, as well as an increasingly influential strategist; he spent a total of about 12 years behind bars, more than any other Brotherhood leader. He was released last year on a suspended sentence, but his conviction was not overturned, leaving him with a record that would appear to bar him from running for office. But the Brotherhood leaders said they did not expect any legal obstacles, suggesting a deal was in the works.
After the ouster of Mr. Mubarak, it was Mr. Shater who explained to the news media that the Brotherhood had pledged not to field a presidential candidate, to avoid repeating the experience of the short-lived Islamist victory in the 1991 Algerian elections, which elicited a military crackdown and the start of a decade-long civil war.
“When Islamists there reached power quickly,” Mr. Shater said then, “the military establishment turned against them.”
On Saturday some fellow Islamists criticized the Brotherhood for abandoning its pledge. Kamal El Helbawy, an ex-spokesman for the group in Europe, resigned, saying that the Brotherhood looked like “liars” and that its political mission had taken precedence over the religious one.
Abdel Rahman Ayyash, a former member who used to work closely with Mr. Shater, accused him of merely seeking political power. “For the first time since I was a Muslim Brother, I’m certain of bad intentions,” he said.
Mr. Shater was considered a hero of Brotherhood reformers. He helped chart the group’s steps into electoral democracy, both in professional associations and as the only real opposition in the Mubarak-dominated Parliament. And he led the creation of the Brotherhood’s Web sites in Arabic and English, spawning a generation of bloggers.
In prison and out, Mr. Shater served as the Brotherhood’s chief liaison for negotiations or other exchanges with the Mubarak security services, and since Mr. Mubarak’s ouster he has continued that role with the generals.
Since the ouster of Mr. Mubarak, however, many younger and reform-minded members have said they have grown disappointed with Mr. Shater. They say he has enforced an insular and hierarchical culture left over from the group’s decades underground. Mr. Shater led a push to bar Brotherhood members from dissenting from the political stands of its Freedom and Justice Party, and he led the expulsion of those who sought less conservative Islamist politics.
One of those Mr. Shater helped expel is now among the other front-runners in the presidential campaign, Abdel Moneim Aboul Fotouh, a former senior leader of the Brotherhood and a liberal reformer within the group. Mr. Aboul Fotouh was expelled for defying the Brotherhood’s decision, now reversed, not to allow any of its members to run for president. He has continued to try to rally Brotherhood members and Islamists, as well as more liberal and secular Egyptians, to his banner.
He argues that no one has a monopoly on the application of Islam to political life, so the Islamist movement should have room for liberals and leftists as well as conservatives.
The Brotherhood has now dropped the pledge that Mr. Aboul Fotouh was expelled for violating, but the group has continued to oppose his candidacy because of his insubordination, even threatening to expel members who support him.
On the other side, Mr. Shater faces competition from an ultraconservative populist, Hazem Salah Abu Ismail, who has built a national following with an old-school Islamist platform, including vigorous attacks on Israel and the West, as well as an emphasis on restoring strict Islamic law. His success would seriously discredit the Brotherhood’s efforts to portray Egypt’s Islamists as moderate and unthreatening.
But Mr. Badie, the supreme guide, warned Mr. Shater’s opponents to watch out, reminding them that Mr. Shater’s prayers in prison for the end of the Mubarak government were answered. “To all those who will slander engineer Khairat el-Shater, his prayers against those who slander him are answered — literally by the way,” Mr. Badie said.
Mayy El Sheikh contributed reporting from Cairo, Ethan Bronner from Jerusalem and Helene Cooper from Washington.
NYT
By DAVID D. KIRKPATRICK
CAIRO — The Muslim Brotherhood nominated its chief strategist and financier Khairat el-Shater on Saturday as its candidate to become Egypt’s first president since Hosni Mubarak, breaking a pledge not to seek the top office and a monopoly on power.
Mr. Shater, 62, a millionaire business tycoon, was a political prisoner until just a year ago. Because of the Brotherhood’s unrivaled grass-roots organization and popular appeal, he is now a presidential front-runner.
He is being nominated at a moment of escalating tension between the Brotherhood and Egypt’s military rulers. The Brotherhood, an Islamist group outlawed under Mr. Mubarak, already dominates the Parliament and the assembly writing a new Constitution. It is now demanding to replace the military-led cabinet and is tussling with the military council over questions like the degree of civilian oversight of the military under the new charter.
His candidacy is likely to unnerve the West and has already outraged Egyptian liberals, who wonder what other pledges of moderation the Brotherhood may abandon.
The Brotherhood’s entry into the race also turns the election into a debate over the future of the Islamist political movement that is sure to resonate in the region. Mr. Shater faces Islamist rivals to his left and right — one a more liberal former Brotherhood leader, the other an ultraconservative Salafist. Indeed, the Brotherhood may have entered the race in part because a strong showing by either rival could undercut the group’s authority as the predominant voice of Islam in Egyptian politics.
Mr. Shater is considered a conservative but a pragmatist. He has argued that Islam demands tolerance and democracy, has championed free trade and open markets and has guided the Brotherhood through its first public commitment to uphold the peace agreement with Israel.
But he also argues for an explicitly Islamic government. And while some in the group have argued that it should tolerate diverse approaches to Islamist politics from its own members, he has helped enforce the authority of the Brotherhood’s executive committee over its members, stirring allegations from liberals that it is undemocratic.
Doubts about the strength of the Brotherhood’s commitment to its promises raise particular concerns in the United States and Israel, which considered the Mubarak government’s commitment to the peace agreement a linchpin of regional stability.
An Israeli official, speaking on condition of anonymity, declined to comment specifically on Mr. Shater, but called the nomination worrisome. “Obviously this is not good news,” the official said. “The Muslim Brotherhood is no friend of Israel’s. They do not wish us well.” The official added: “The big question will be how pragmatic they will be once in power. It could go in either direction.”
In Washington, the State Department declined to comment. But many American officials who have met with Mr. Shater on visits to Cairo, including top State Department officials and Congressional delegations, have praised his moderation, business savvy and effectiveness.
At a news conference announcing the nomination, officials of the Brotherhood and its political arm insisted they were forced to offer a candidate because of the urgent needs left by more than a year of military-led transitional government. They alluded to a mounting economic crisis as well as unspecified “threats to the revolution.”
“We decided that Egypt now needs a candidate from us to bear this responsibility,” said Mohamed el-Morsi, president the Brotherhood’s Freedom and Justice Party. “We have no desire at all to monopolize power.”
Mr. Shater was not present at the news conference. Instead, the Brotherhood’s supreme guide, Mohamed Badie, read a letter from Mr. Shater resigning his post as deputy supreme guide to run for president. “Although I never thought of occupying any executive position in the state or running for it, I can’t help but comply with the decision of the group,” Mr. Shater wrote, according to Mr. Badie.
The Brotherhood, an 84-year-old religious and anticolonialist movement that became the wellspring of Islamist ideologies around the world, was outlawed but intermittently tolerated under Mr. Mubarak, and most of its senior leaders have spent time in prison.
Mr. Shater was a favorite target because of his role as a major donor and financial manager for the group, as well as an increasingly influential strategist; he spent a total of about 12 years behind bars, more than any other Brotherhood leader. He was released last year on a suspended sentence, but his conviction was not overturned, leaving him with a record that would appear to bar him from running for office. But the Brotherhood leaders said they did not expect any legal obstacles, suggesting a deal was in the works.
After the ouster of Mr. Mubarak, it was Mr. Shater who explained to the news media that the Brotherhood had pledged not to field a presidential candidate, to avoid repeating the experience of the short-lived Islamist victory in the 1991 Algerian elections, which elicited a military crackdown and the start of a decade-long civil war.
“When Islamists there reached power quickly,” Mr. Shater said then, “the military establishment turned against them.”
On Saturday some fellow Islamists criticized the Brotherhood for abandoning its pledge. Kamal El Helbawy, an ex-spokesman for the group in Europe, resigned, saying that the Brotherhood looked like “liars” and that its political mission had taken precedence over the religious one.
Abdel Rahman Ayyash, a former member who used to work closely with Mr. Shater, accused him of merely seeking political power. “For the first time since I was a Muslim Brother, I’m certain of bad intentions,” he said.
Mr. Shater was considered a hero of Brotherhood reformers. He helped chart the group’s steps into electoral democracy, both in professional associations and as the only real opposition in the Mubarak-dominated Parliament. And he led the creation of the Brotherhood’s Web sites in Arabic and English, spawning a generation of bloggers.
In prison and out, Mr. Shater served as the Brotherhood’s chief liaison for negotiations or other exchanges with the Mubarak security services, and since Mr. Mubarak’s ouster he has continued that role with the generals.
Since the ouster of Mr. Mubarak, however, many younger and reform-minded members have said they have grown disappointed with Mr. Shater. They say he has enforced an insular and hierarchical culture left over from the group’s decades underground. Mr. Shater led a push to bar Brotherhood members from dissenting from the political stands of its Freedom and Justice Party, and he led the expulsion of those who sought less conservative Islamist politics.
One of those Mr. Shater helped expel is now among the other front-runners in the presidential campaign, Abdel Moneim Aboul Fotouh, a former senior leader of the Brotherhood and a liberal reformer within the group. Mr. Aboul Fotouh was expelled for defying the Brotherhood’s decision, now reversed, not to allow any of its members to run for president. He has continued to try to rally Brotherhood members and Islamists, as well as more liberal and secular Egyptians, to his banner.
He argues that no one has a monopoly on the application of Islam to political life, so the Islamist movement should have room for liberals and leftists as well as conservatives.
The Brotherhood has now dropped the pledge that Mr. Aboul Fotouh was expelled for violating, but the group has continued to oppose his candidacy because of his insubordination, even threatening to expel members who support him.
On the other side, Mr. Shater faces competition from an ultraconservative populist, Hazem Salah Abu Ismail, who has built a national following with an old-school Islamist platform, including vigorous attacks on Israel and the West, as well as an emphasis on restoring strict Islamic law. His success would seriously discredit the Brotherhood’s efforts to portray Egypt’s Islamists as moderate and unthreatening.
But Mr. Badie, the supreme guide, warned Mr. Shater’s opponents to watch out, reminding them that Mr. Shater’s prayers in prison for the end of the Mubarak government were answered. “To all those who will slander engineer Khairat el-Shater, his prayers against those who slander him are answered — literally by the way,” Mr. Badie said.
Mayy El Sheikh contributed reporting from Cairo, Ethan Bronner from Jerusalem and Helene Cooper from Washington.
posted by Hanan Elbadry at 9:14 PM
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Egypt’s Muslim Brotherhood nominates presidential candidate
By Ingy Hassieb and Leila Fadel, Published: March 31, 2012
The Washington Post
CAIRO — Egypt’s most powerful Islamist organization on Saturday nominated one of its members for president, breaking a promise that it would not enter the race and angering critics who called the decision an attempt to control the country.
The Muslim Brotherhood announced at a news conference that Khairat el-Shater, the group’s top financier and arguably its most influential member, would be the candidate of its political wing, as a rift grows between the Islamist group and the country’s ruling military leaders.
The group recently said it was considering fielding a candidate in the May election only because it was concerned that former regime figures backed by the ruling military council would win if it did not.
The Muslim Brotherhood is the most powerful political force in Egypt, and its political wing won nearly half the seats in the newly elected parliament. But at least two other prominent Islamists are running for president, and the Brotherhood’s move could split the vote.
Since the ouster of Hosni Mubarak more than a year ago, the Brotherhood had said it would not nominate a candidate. When a progressive member of the organization, Abdel Moneim Aboul Fotouh, announced his intent to run last year, he was ousted from the group for breaking the rules.
Critics of the Brotherhood and some within its ranks said that nominating Shater, a business tycoon and the group’s top strategist, would chip away at the organization’s credibility.
Analysts also said that the move is potentially dangerous for the Brotherhood. The next year will be a difficult period of transition as Egypt moves from military to civilian rule, and the economy has continued to stagger. If Shater becomes president, the Brotherhood could be blamed for the growing economic woes and other problems.
“Everything is risky for them now,” said Issandr El Amrani, a prominent Cairo-based blogger and analyst. “I suspect they decided to do this because they want to maximize their ability to govern and were unable to find either a consensus candidate or a trusted proxy.”
The presidential election is scheduled to begin May 23, but the parliament has only just appointed the panel tasked with writing a new constitution, which would delineate the powers of parliament and the president. But even that is controversial, with non-Islamists angry about the number of Islamists on the body. The constitution will most likely not be completed by the time the president is elected.
Shater, who was imprisoned multiple times under Mubarak, resigned his post in the Brotherhood on Saturday to become the Freedom and Justice Party’s candidate.
“We affirm that the Muslim Brotherhood does not seek power in order to reach a position or to achieve wealth or status, but seeks to fulfill the purpose it was created and worked for in the past year, which is satisfying God,” said Mahmoud Hussein, the group’s secretary-general.
The Washington Post
CAIRO — Egypt’s most powerful Islamist organization on Saturday nominated one of its members for president, breaking a promise that it would not enter the race and angering critics who called the decision an attempt to control the country.
The Muslim Brotherhood announced at a news conference that Khairat el-Shater, the group’s top financier and arguably its most influential member, would be the candidate of its political wing, as a rift grows between the Islamist group and the country’s ruling military leaders.
The group recently said it was considering fielding a candidate in the May election only because it was concerned that former regime figures backed by the ruling military council would win if it did not.
The Muslim Brotherhood is the most powerful political force in Egypt, and its political wing won nearly half the seats in the newly elected parliament. But at least two other prominent Islamists are running for president, and the Brotherhood’s move could split the vote.
Since the ouster of Hosni Mubarak more than a year ago, the Brotherhood had said it would not nominate a candidate. When a progressive member of the organization, Abdel Moneim Aboul Fotouh, announced his intent to run last year, he was ousted from the group for breaking the rules.
Critics of the Brotherhood and some within its ranks said that nominating Shater, a business tycoon and the group’s top strategist, would chip away at the organization’s credibility.
Analysts also said that the move is potentially dangerous for the Brotherhood. The next year will be a difficult period of transition as Egypt moves from military to civilian rule, and the economy has continued to stagger. If Shater becomes president, the Brotherhood could be blamed for the growing economic woes and other problems.
“Everything is risky for them now,” said Issandr El Amrani, a prominent Cairo-based blogger and analyst. “I suspect they decided to do this because they want to maximize their ability to govern and were unable to find either a consensus candidate or a trusted proxy.”
The presidential election is scheduled to begin May 23, but the parliament has only just appointed the panel tasked with writing a new constitution, which would delineate the powers of parliament and the president. But even that is controversial, with non-Islamists angry about the number of Islamists on the body. The constitution will most likely not be completed by the time the president is elected.
Shater, who was imprisoned multiple times under Mubarak, resigned his post in the Brotherhood on Saturday to become the Freedom and Justice Party’s candidate.
“We affirm that the Muslim Brotherhood does not seek power in order to reach a position or to achieve wealth or status, but seeks to fulfill the purpose it was created and worked for in the past year, which is satisfying God,” said Mahmoud Hussein, the group’s secretary-general.
posted by Hanan Elbadry at 1:24 AM
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