27 February 2006 Events in Iraq and in the Region

22:01 Washington. The US praised the unfreezing of 120 million euros in Palestinian assisatance by the European Union.

22:13 Washington. The Pentagon has refused to comment on a report in the New York Times that the German intelligence service, BND, supplied information to the US military on the defenses of Baghdad.

22:15 Baghdad. The US ambassador to Iraq, Zalmay Khalilzad, declared that the situation was improving following sectarian riots over the last few days. Khalilzad was also optimistic on the release of kidnapped reporter Jill Carroll.

20:58 Kuwait. The Kuwaiti Oil Minister announced exceptional security measures for the country's oil installations following a thwarted al-Qaeda attack on a Saudi oil installation on 24 February.

19:10 Moscow. Negotiations between Iran and Russia on Iran's nuclear ambitions made no headway.

15:50 Ramadi. A Syrian accused of links to al-Qaeda, Abu Farook, was arrested.

16:18 Brussels. EU decides to unblock assistance to the Palestinians to prevent financial collapse.

16:18 Moscow. Russia will meet with Hamas leaders in Moscow on March 3.

16:10 Samarra. Work to restore the Golden Mosque will take five years and will require the assistance of UNESCO experts. The dome was made up of 70,000 golden tiles of very great value.

15:47 Berlin. Germany denied a report by the New York Times that BND, the German intelligence against, passed information to the US military on the defense of Baghdad. The agency itself has also denited the story.

15:19 Rome. Green Party politician Paolo Cento says Italy with withdraw its troops form Iraq immediately after the April 9-10 national elections should the opposition win.

08:19 Baghdad. Saddam Hussein ends hunger strike.

02:22 Iraq: Baghdad. US soldier killed by small arms fire in the capital.

Last Train to Quantico

Interview with Pierre-Jean Luizard, researcher at the National Center for Scientific Research and author of "La Question irakienne" [The Iraqi Question], published by Fayard.

LEMONDE.FR | 24.02.06 |

Q. Wednesday’s attack on a Shi’ite mosque set off a wave of rioting and violence. In Baghdad, no less, dozens of Sunnis have been found dead. How do these recent events figure in the history of cohabitation between the two Iraqi communities?
For the last two years now there has been a latent civil war between the Shi’ite majority in power and the Sunni minority, representing approximately 20% of the Iraqi population. The war was set off by the Sunni fundamentalist movement, which is linked to al-Qaeda. This movement chose to wage war on Iraqi Shi’ites, that is, war waged against the United States vicariously through an Iraqi community. The war has already caused tens of thousands of deaths, mostly Shi’ites, the victims of waves of attacks.

In retaliation, there is state-sponsored terrorism by death squads linked to the Interior Ministry, which is controlled by the Shi’ites. They have become notorious through arbitrary detentions, torture and summary executions of Sunni Iraqis.

The provinces where here are areas of contact between the two communities have become the front lines in this war, especially Baghdad. The curfew is an acknowledgement on the part of the Shi’ite leaders of the dimension of this inter-religious war.

Q. To what is the recent flare-up of violence owed?
The worsening violence is the result of a political process which has broken down. The process, fostered by the Americans, assumes the reconstruction of Iraq along communitarian lines. This is a system that excludes many Iraqis, especially the Sunnis. The status conferred on the Sunnis is one of a minority deprived of wealth and power.

Moreover, the most recent elections have enshrined the movement led by Moqtada al-Sadr as a premier political party. As we may be seeing today, the Shi’ites are becoming increasingly aware of the confessional and communitarian impasse in which Ayatollah Sistani has placed the country. Moqtada al-Sadr is certainly the best placed to bring about a Sunni-Shia reconciliation. And this union will take place in a spirit of anti-Americanism.

Q. What could be the consequences of these recent events?
The spiral of violence will produce no result or partition, as some suggest, between Sunnis and Shi’a. With so much bloodshed, it will require time to put the pieces back together and to restore confidence.

Today, several demonstrations called for the unity of Iraqis beyond confessional differences. The protesters denounced the lack of sovereignty of the Iraqi government. They believe that the country’s status as an occupied nation is at the heart of the communitarian impasse.

Because of the difficulty in forging a consensus for a new government, one of the first resolutions passed by Iraqi Parliament could be a demand that the Americans to establish a schedule for withdrawal. And if the Americans are smart, they will seize the occasion to pull out with their heads held high without a moment to lose.

Interview conducted by Constance Baudry and Cécile Fandos.

Christian Merville on the Samarra Bombing

A Lebanese political analysts looks at the bombing of the Golden Mosque and its consequences (via L'Orient-LeJour, 23 Feb 06):

An unstable mixture

On Tuesday, a series of attacks targeting in succession a minibus, truck drivers, a restaurant, and police. Yesterday, a bombing of one of the four most important Shi’ite sanctuaries. In Iraq, violence on the ground always accompanies political negotiations, whether they concern elections, alliance-building or even, as has been the case for the last few days, putting together a government team following the December 15 popular elections, which, though meant to define the contours of a new state, have been completely warped by the political process that the Americans have been attempting for months to set in motion and that continues to hobble along precariously.

Pressured by US Ambassador Zalmay Khalilzad and by the chief of the British Foreign Office, Jack Straw, to form a cabinet of national unity including members of the Sunni community (more than 20% of the population), the courageous Ibrahim Jaafari does what he can to accomplish a task that is visibly beyond his means –but which would be equally impossible for any other political figure in his place. Destroyed on Wednesday at dawn, the golden dome of the Samarra mosque, a masterpiece of Islamic architecture completed in 1905, sheltered the tombs of the last two visible imams of the community, Ali al-Hadi and his son Hassan al-Askari. According to tradition, the sanctuary is near the place where the last of the Shi’ite imams, Mohammad el-Mahdi, disappeared.

Without a doubt, the men in police uniform who planted the explosive charges inside mausoleum knew what the reaction would be. Two hours later, from Sadr City in the heart of the capital to the holy city of Najaf via Kut al-Amara, the worst was feared as angry crowds took to the streets, shouting slogans hostile not only at the “takfiri terrorists” but at the Americans, whom they accused of fomenting sedition despite the innumerable calls for calm by Grand Ayatollah Ali Sistani and the exhortations of the Prime Minister “to prevent the terrorists from undoing national unity”. But in fact, by the end of the day there were murders and burning mosques in several locations in the capital. The scenario that is being drawn --if it is pursued to the ends planned by the authors of the attack-- will bring heavy consequences to bear on the Bush Administration.

The recent incidents only feed the fires of sectarianism, the fruit of dozens of years of oppression. The shadow of the Ba’ath, in power for forty uninterrupted years, continues to darken daily life even if Iraqis are becoming accustomed the absence of the ghosts of the past. Of course, the exhortations of religious leaders and the pleas for reason on the part of political leaders do much to prevent the situation from deteriorating. But a solution must still be found to the crisis into which Iraq has been plunged since the ill-fated US misadventure of March 2003 (already three years ago!). A solution is nowhere in sight for now. But it will not be the GIs, with their huge SUVs, their heavy artillery, and their notorious heavy-handedness or the politicians in Washington, as they look towards the next Congressional elections, to provide the solution –assuming there is one. Since the times of Noury as-Saïd, we already guessed that Iraq was not ripe for Western democracy or even the democracy of Haroon al-Rashid. The hand of the one-party state was too heavy and passed laws to the advantage of a single sect for far too long. It is not by installing a different sect in power that political balance acceptable to all the parties can be struck.

There is also the omnipresence of black gold, which fuels greed that is difficult to satisfy, especially since it lies in predominately Kurdish or Shi’ite areas, where they plan to distribute revenue according to a system of incomprehensible quotas. What else? Oh, plenty of things, like the prurient atavism of Turks towards the Kurds or dangerous Iranian proselytism about to acquire the atomic bomb. The mixture is highly unstable and could explode very soon –as long as the Americans continue to shake the container.

Stealth reclassification

Off-topic, but the Central Intelligence Agency, the Defense Intelligence Agency (DIA), the Defense Department, the military services, and the Department of Justice, have been secretly engaged in a vast historical document reclassification program.

Read the report here.

Golden Mosque Bombing Reprisals

Forty-seven Sunnis were murdered in Baghdad and another six in Abu Dshier, south of the capital.

A woman reporter for al-Arabiya, Atwar Bahjat, was kidnapped and slain in Samara, together with cameraman Adnan Abdallah sound technician Khaled Morsen.

In Baghdad, an imam was kidnapped and 27 Sunni mosques were attacked. One mosque was burned to the ground.

In Karbala, a Sunni mosque was looted.

In Basrah, a muezzin was shot dead as Sunni mosques were targeted by gunfire. Also in Basrah, 10 Egyptian and Saudi prisoners held on charges of terrorism were kidnapped from their jail cells and murdered.

In Nassiriya, the headquarters of the Islamic Party was burned down.

The fractures exposed by the Mohammed affair

An analysis by Sylvie Kauffman for Le Monde

LE MONDE | 20.02.06 | 13h31

The clash of civilizations? It is certainly taking place, but who is involved? Three weeks after the outbreak of the troubles that transformed the controversy of the Danish cartoons of the Prophet Mohammed in to a spiral of violence across the globe, the debate has gone beyond the simplified theory of a clash between Islam and the West. In displaying the progression of values in Europe and in the United States, it exposes two other fractures: one in the midst of Western society and the other between the Muslims of Europe and those of the East, whether moderate or extremist.

Like the debate on the Muslim headscarf in French schools two years ago and like the murder of filmmaker Theo Van Gogh in the Netherlands in November 2004, the cartoons of the Prophet Mohammed go directly to the heart of questions raised by the demographic transformations which Europe has undergone in the last twenty years. Muslims are now a crucial element of our societies: fifteen million Muslims now live in the European Union. France alone is home to nearly five million. But since September 11, 2001, the rules of this cohabitation obey other constraints.

The United States has not digested this evolution. At first, the reactions of governments and Western media revealed a profound gap between Continental Europe and the United States which later actions have not covered over. Moved by its neoconservative convictions, the Bush Administration spontaneously and clearly expressed its religious solidarity with the Muslims, offended by the caricatures and its regret at their publication in Europe. The reaction can be considered startling, given that the First Amendment permits one to say and to write more or less anything one wants --more so than in Europe. But the expression of solidarity comes from a country where religious expression is increasingly a constituent element of public discourse and where the status of the Fourth Estate has been seriously eroded over the last five years. London, where religion is less in decline than in France, reacted in the same way. Neither the British press nor the authorities wished to jeopardize the fragile truce which has reigned among its different communities since the bombings of July 2005. It was only several days later that Condoleezza Rice (who is not a Neoconservative), who, noticing the political exploitation of the scandal on the part Damascus and Tehran, began to denounce violence of the reaction in the streets of several countries instead of the publication of the caricatures. But from Bill Clinton to The Washington Post, the American establishment, including the Democrats, continued to condemn the publishing of the Danish cartoons.

In Continental Europe, several newspapers, from the shores of the Atlantic to the Ukraine, published some or all of the Danish cartoons; governments were clearly more attuned to the defense of freedom of the press. Influenced by its Voltairean culture and its ancient tradition of freedom of anticlerical criticism, France took up the challenge. And despite Danish Prime Minister Anders Fogh Rasmussen’s bitter assessment of foot dragging by his counterparts in offering a public expression of solidarity, on February 16th he received the explicit support of European Commission President José Manuel Barroso, who vigorously defended European “values” in an interview with the International Herald Tribune: We cannot accept fear in our society, he said.

RESPECT FOR A GOVERNMENT OF LAWS

To the West, the cartoon scandal raised the question of a government of laws as a democratic value. Entangled in the effort to strike a balance between freedom and responsibility, the public authorities, both national and international, preferred to forget that laws in a democracy are meant to be enforced. Washington condemned the publication of the cartoons –which were certainly offensive– but perfectly legal in the country where they were published. But it did not say a word on the flagrant violation of international law constituted by the attacks on diplomatic delegations and the lack of protection. Anxious to cool things off, Javier Solana, High Representative of the Common Foreign and Security Policy of the European Union, departed on a tour of the Arab world and commented favorably on a draft amendment by the 57-member Organization of Islamic Conferences to be presented to the United Nations making “defamation of religions and prophets incompatible with the right to freedom of expression”. But just how many countries respect “the right to freedom of expression”? And how many journalists are in jail? What is the significance of existing law within the Western democracies represented in the United Nations?

On another front, the debate has excavated a trench between moderate and fundamentalist Muslims and between European and Eastern Muslims. Researcher Olivier Roy underscores that major Muslim organizations in Europe have distanced themselves from the tempest unleashed by the cartoons: It is in the disconnection between Islam in Europe and crises in the Middle East where the key to the management of inevitable tensions should be sought, he wrote in the Le Monde on February 9th. It is necessary to “treat the Muslims of Europe like citizens, as we do with Christians and Jews, even if it is necessary to regularly issue a reminder on the principles of freedom of expression and secularism."

Contrary to the impression created by the images of radical Islamists demanding the death of the cartoonists during a demonstration in London, Islam in Europe is essentially moderate. In Germany, where most Muslims are Turks, in Spain, in France and in Great Britain, calls for calm have multiplied. The effort of several European Muslim organizations to bring the matter before a court of law represents the desire to obey the law in the societies in which they live and to make use of their lawful institutions. Those who are organizing the violent protests show that their complaint is not based in respect: what they demand is to impose Muslim rules (Mohammed may not be drawn) on secular societies. It is up to the Europeans to encourage Western Muslims and to give them the chance to integrate themselves fully into European society. By its excess and its violence, the reaction to the cartoons of Mohammed have at least helped us to illuminate the landscape.

Valley of the Wolves

So this is what happens after 40 years of NATO membership. The US partnership and its nuclear umbrella are ripped to shreds in this film --one you'll never see in North America but it is showing in all cinemas in Turkey.

Breaking every box office record in the history of the country, the film is about a Turkish avenger who punishes the US military for the humiliating arrest and expulsion of a small Turkish contingent discovered near Sulaymaniyeh in spring 2003. The filmmakers spare no outrage to the audience, showing the US military engaged in defiling mosques, bombing wedding feasts and running a brisk organ trade out of Abu Ghraib prison.

If this film is any indication, the Turkey-Israeli axis is about to crumble. We shouldn't be surprised that Turkey has invited Hamas leaders to Ankara.

A tip of the hat to blogger Au fil de Bosphore

T-Shirt of Destruction

From La Repubblica:
The Italian Minister for Reform, knuckle dragger and Northern League politician Roberto Calderoli, liked the anti-Muslim cartoons in the Danish Paper Jyllands-Posten so much that he could not resist printing up a T-shirt with them.

Today, rioters in Bengazi, Libya (a former Italian colony), burned down the Italian consulate. 11 protesters were killed. But it doesn’t end there. Threatening sermons were delived in mosques in Herat, Afghanistan and in Najaf, Iraq where Italian regiments are serving.

Calderoli resigned today but only after being forced to do so by Northern League kingmaker Umberto Bossi.

Ignoble Enterprise

The price of the US failure to control [Iraq] is patent economic failure. But it doesn’t end there. The cost of the war has exploded. Bush estimated that it would cost between 50 and 60 billion dollars. But $251 billion has already been spent according to a study by economists Laura Bilmes and Nobel prizewinner Joseph Stiglitz cited by Martin Wolf in the Financial Times. If the Bush administration decides to keep its troops in Iraq for another five years, it will cost $200 to $270 billion more. To this must be added the cost of care for the wounded, military pensions, and the replacement of military matériel estimated at 700 billion to 1.2 trillion dollars: ten times more than the annual net contribution by rich nations towards development assistance. For good measure, the decline in Iraq’s petroleum production has contributed to short supplies and has pushed the price upwards. This may be interpreted as a $5.00 surcharge per barrel of oil. Finally, Bilmes and Stiglitz admit that they did not estimate other consequences, such as the price of enraging the worldwide Muslim community and the stain upon the reputation of the United States caused by the Guantanamo prison camp.

Eric Le Boucher, Le Monde | 18.02.06 | Link.

Precious Subversion

That's right. Subversion is a precious thing and essential to Western culture. Yet today we seem to be embarked on a campaign to stamp it out. Jean-Claude Guillebaud argues the point in today's Le Monde:

Western modernity tends to malign those who resist it and to ignore those who question it....The late philosopher Cornelius Castoriadis was right to ask the question in these terms: Why have affluent, liberal societies become incapable of exerting an emancipating influence on the rest of the world? Why is modernity, of which we are all the messengers, rejected or violently resisted almost everywhere on the planet? In other words, what doesn't work?

Each one of us, in our heart of hearts, knows the answer. If the West is in crisis, it is because it has ceased to exercise self-criticism --one of the West's own essential components. Modernity and liberal globalization are not to be questioned. They are privileges and injunctions. They no longer represent precious subversion, but an ideology of conquest.

Abu Ghraib, Part 2

The Austrian public televison network SNS broadcast new, shocking photos of abuse and torture carried out the by US military at Abu Ghraib. The photos had been released following a suit by the ACLU but the US Administration threatened US broadcasters to prevent them from being seen by the US public.

SNS's Dateline aired the images during its February 15 broadcast. Corriere della Sera has a photo gallery of the photos, censored in the USA.

Cartoon Wars

Iran has made good on its threat to publish satirical cartons targeting Israel, the Holocaust and Christians in retaliation for the publication of caricatures of the Prophet Mohammad in the Western press. Irancartoon.com has published the first submissions.

But in fact one cartoon, depicting an Arab in a concentration camp, was drawn by Australian Michael Leunig. The prisoner wears the serial number 7256, which is the number of Palestinians held in Israeli prisons. The contest is sponsored by the Iranian newspaper Hamshahri.

A second artist, Moroccan Derkaoui-Abdellah, has drawn the hand of Islam sketching the dove of peace, while the hand of Denmark erases it.

The most controversial cartoon compares interned Jews in Auschwitz with Israel's current role as occupier (and camp prison guard) of the West Bank. View the cartoon here.

Moscow Steps in Where Madmen Fear to Tread

In his book, the Geopolitics of the Apocalypse, written before the invasion of Iraq, French geostrategist Frédéric Encel wrote that if Bush went into Iraq, it would be to challenge Russia's hegemony in the area. And this in spite of Russia's rapprochement with the US after 9-11 and the possibility for a grand Moscow-Washington alliance against terrorism.

But Bush did go into Iraq. He also backed anti-Russian politics in Georgia and Ukraine, challenged Russian influence in Moldava and threatens to escalate the Iran nuclear crisis into war. With the arrival of Hamas to power, the United States rushed to isolate the new political masters of Palestine.

Perhaps Russia has grown tired of Cheney's ideologically-driven policies and has opted for pragmatism. In any case, at the conclusion of a two-day visit to Madrid, Russia announced that it would invite Hamas leaders to Moscow for talks --much to the ire of Washington.

Below is a Agence France Presse analysis (translated --sorry, no link, it's in the subscribers' section). There is also a columnin in Madrid's El Mundo concerning the announcement.

ANALYSIS Putin raises the prestige of Russia at little cost
Reuters 10.Feb.06 | 14:42

In issuing a sudden invitation to Moscow, Vladimir Putin has become personally involved in the Middle East in the hope that his audacious initiative will rebuild Russia's prestige on the world stage. Israel and his Quartet partners - The United States, the European Union and the UN, which do not dispose of a similar margin for maneuvre because of their refusal to have any contact with a movement, categorized as "terrorist" - were caught off guard. Putin underscored that Russia had not blindly classified Hamas as a terrorist movement and that his country was legitimately entitled to initiate talks with Hamas, which had come "to power in autonomous Palestine through democratic and free elections". Taken by surprise, the United States has urged that Russia adhere, in its public or private dialogue with the radical Islamic movement, to the position adopted by the Quartet in London on 30 January: Hamas must renounce armed struggle and accept coexistence with Israel. The Russian envoy to the Middle East, Alexander Kalugin, rushed to reassure the West on this point: We shall insiste on a change in policy from Hamas. Everyone tells Hamas that it must adopt a moderate stance because it will not go far with its radical attitude...We are seeking that Hamas respect past agreements and and that it desist from committing acts of terrorism. And of course, to nudge them towards recognition of the State of Israel, underscored the Russian diplomat, whose statements were reported Friday by the press agency, Interfax.

A SECOND BREATH.
The Russian initiative was warmly welcomed by Hamas leaders in Palestine and in exile. The movement had already implicity accepted the Oslo Accords by participating in the January 5th elections and had extended sine die a truce which it has observed for a year. Putin has kicked over the anthill while careful to reaffirm its respect for the principles established by the Quartet. This has caused turmoil in the diplomatic community, where observers believe that the Russian President is not far from taking over the peace process. In a situation in which all the other mediators are paralyzed, we have, in Russian, seized the occasion to impart a second breath into the peace process, observes analyst Sergei Markov, a Kremlin insider. A spokesman for France's Quai d'Orsay, Denis Simonneau, said that it shares with Russia the goal of bring Hamas towards positions which will allow the two states to live in peace and security and believes that Russia's initiative can contribute to move things forward if it does not stray beyond the framework put in place by the Quartet. However, according to one Western diplomat in Moscow, Putin's initiative, considered in Israel as "a stab in the back" will likely push the limits of the Quartet's position. Russia has gone well beyond the Quartet in inviting Hamas to Moscow without precondition of principles to be observed. But, the diplomat adds, Putin can always reverse course if Hamas, once in power, does not revise its hostility towards Israel. Finally, it is not Russia but the European Union and the United States which hold the purse strings and therefore they may exercise greater pressure. But the rabbit which Putin has pulled out of the hat with raise the prestige of Russia on the international stage, which is the intent of the Russian President, adds the diplomat.

i-Muftis and Tele-Imams

Note: Translation cleaned up and republished on 11 Feb 2006, 10:45 EST.

The Religion columnist for Le Monde is the incredibly well-prepared Henri Tincq. His normal beat is the Vatican, but today he writes on the Jyllands-Posten Cartoon Scandal. Tincq believes that Arab governments have domesticated the Islamic academy by undermining its authority and finally silencing it, leaving fertile ground for lunatics and mavericks: the Arab version of the televangelists. The Umma has been cast adrift, and left to the lone wolves of fanaticism. And there's more...

Muhammad: The Clash of Ignorance
Henri Tincq LE MONDE 10.02.06

Once again, we’re back to the same old story. Twenty years after the Rushdie affair, the clash between the West, bent on defending its freedoms, and Islam, rising up against the blasphemy, is repeating itself. It’s as if no one learned a lesson from that major crisis, which, already in 1989, opposed the heirs of Voltaire, Rousseau, and the Rights of Man to the fanatics of Islamic obscurantism. Within the span of twenty years, neither the escalation of terrorism, nor diplomatic efforts nor bridges built to facilitate dialog have had the slightest impact on the misunderstanding, ignorance and hysterical blindness on the one side and the rejection of all self-criticism on the other.

In the 1989 Rushdie affair, the anger of the mosques began in Manchester (Great Britain) and spread from there to Pakistan, even before being politicized by Khomeini’s Iran. The shockwave of the caricatures of Mohammad originated in Norway — where the cartoons printed six months earlier in a Danish tabloid appeared in the January issue of the Norwegian Christian magazine, [Magazinet] — and hit Saudi Arabia first. In both cases, the spark was the same. The novelist Salman Rushdie and the Danish caricaturists dared to challenge the taboo par excellence: the sacred, which, according [French philosopher, historian and philologist] René Girard, has always served to justify, legitimize and regulate the violence of every society, ancient or modern.

Should freedom of expression end at the frontier of what is sacred or not? Whether for the sake of fiction or derision, symbols and figures like that of The Prophet cannot be manipulated without consequence. The prophetic figure is a paradigm common to all theologies based on divine Revelation. The proof was seen in the rapidity with which Christian and Jewish officials leapt to the defense of Muslims, outraged by the caricatures of their Prophet. In the reaction, the “corporatist” reflex of religious institutions or their solidarity in confronting secularized societies, which, right or wrong, are perceived as hostile, are not the sole elements. Thus, we are back to the repetition of the same conflict that took place twenty years ago between two imaginary entities, two mutually exclusive systems founded on ignorance. On the one hand, there is the ignorance of the mainsprings of Islam. On the other, creative freedom inside the Arab-Islamic world, where rights and democracy are denied, is unknown. Compounding the conflict are the aggravating circumstances of terrorism, Islamophobia and the decline of traditional regulating institutions of the Muslim faith.

The freedom of the artist or the writer is sacrosanct in the West, but Muslims object to the proposition of the superiority of Western thought, which is incapable of evolving, they say, outside of historical models which it alone has put in place and which took centuries before taking root. “Mental time” is not the same in the West as in Islam. The memory of colonization continues to weigh on these countries, which, for example, feel distanced in relation to their own history since the Christian West, followed by the capitalist and secular West, began to propel into distant orbit and to marginalize the peoples and cultures of the Mediterranean and later, the entire world.

The clash between two types of memory and representation is kept alive by an entire arsenal of images and arguments which explain and legitimize the confrontations of the present. Mohamed Arkoun, an academic and specialist in the history of Islamic thought, is surprised that the representation of Christian Europe inside the Muslim mind — fed by the memory of the Crusades — occupies more space than the English and French revolutions, which enshrined a decisive rupture with religious symbolism and led to the coming of Reason and The Enlightenment, as yet unpondered in Muslim thought.

The disproportionate reaction in the affair of the cartoons of the Prophet Muhammad is due to the extreme febrility of Muslim societies, where, following the nationalist and socialist phase, religion with all its explosive force has become a substitute identity. Islam has become the prime crystallizing element of solidarity in the defense against political oppression, war, misery, and stigmatization. In this context, only the ulema, the scholars and jurisprudents can treat with questions posed by the right to caricaturize, by the status of the figurative image in Islam, by blasphemy and its punishment and with all the questions associated with the integration of the Muslim religion into Western, secularized societies.

But who is there today who can say “enough” to the wretched state of theological reflection in Islam? The “Doctors of the Law” keep their heads down and remain silent. Once all-powerful in the interpretation of texts, they have become domesticated by political authorities and are but a mere shadow of themselves. Today, any individual with an Internet server and network access believes himself authorized to preach, to comment on events or even to pronounce fatwas. They are known as the i-muftis or tele-imams, who issue injunctions at the demand of their clientele. They are beyond the control of traditional institutions (universities, etc.) where ijma, the search for consensus among the doctors of the law, once reigned supreme. In the current situation, ijtihad, — that is, the individual establishment of norms where the texts are silent — has disappeared. It is commonplace to hear that the gates of ijtihad, that is, the rational interpretation of revealed text, have been closed since fourteenth century. Today, religious Islam is confronted by multiple crises of interpretation and authority in the worst political conditions possible.

Western derision on the one hand and the paralyzed state of thought on the other can only stoke the sense of victimization by the Umma (the worldwide Muslim community) which is the bread and butter of the radicals. The affair of the caricatures has served above all to reveal the accumulation of suffering and frustration, with no end in sight, churned by place-names which read like a litany: Iraq, Palestine, Chechnya, Kosovo, Bosnia. However, in each case, the political and religious circumstances are different. Osama bin Laden has become a master at mobilizing this suffering and humiliated Islam. In the absence of any intellectual challenge, the game played by the extremists consists of pursing the clash of civilizations, cultures, and religions by anchoring themselves in the historicity of the acts of the Prophet, in raw interpretation of the most bellicose verses of the Koran, and in the void of historical and critical interpretation. A speed challenge has emerged between the radicals and so-called moderate Islam, which would like to appropriate the best of Islam’s humanist tradition from its classical age. Today it no longer has the means, but it would be perilous hold moderate Islam hostage of cartoons in bad taste.

When Israel Backed Hamas

Note: Unfortunately, the original of this article is now found in the archives of Le Monde, accessible to subscribers only.

In the game of "Prostrate the Palestinians", the geniuses within Labour and Likud gave material and political backing to the radical Islamists in order to discredit the PLO and the Palestinian Left. Clever bastards, huh...and doubtlessly high-fived in Washington.

However, for those of us who are uninformed of Dubya's and Ohlmert's darkest intentions, now that they've pushed the secular moderates in the Arab world off the stage, what's next? Personally, I don't see how permanently annexing all of Jerusalem and the Jordan River Valley, which Ehud Olmert announced yesterday, is going to bring about peace.

When Israel backed Hamas
LE MONDE | 4 February 2006 | CHARLES ENDERLIN |

Some lonely Cassandras had already sounded the alarm: Israeli policies contribute to the Islamization of Palestinian society.

In 1976, Israeli leaders were incapable of understanding reality. Shimon Perez was then Defense Minister in the first Rabin government. Hoping for a victory by pro-Jordanian candidates, Israel allowed municipal elections on the West Bank on April 12. Unhappily for them, their calculations proved wrong. Voters cast their ballots in a landslide for the PLO and the secular Palestinian Left.

A few days later, to promote the emergence of a new political force in Gaza, the Israeli military approved the creation of the “Islamic Association”, whose declared aim was to propagate Islam through cultural activities and sport. The spiritual leader of the movement, linked to the Muslim Brotherhood, was an ailing 40 year-old sheikh: Ahmed Yassin. Military governors made regular visits to Yassin as a token of honor. The generals explained: It is better for Palestinians if they stay out of politics. The arrival of Likud to power will not change Israel's protective attitude towards the Brotherhood.

Following the assassination of Anwar el-Sadat in 1981, the Egyptian authorities expelled dozens of Islamist Palestinian students, whom Ariel Sharon, Minister of Defense, permitted to settle in Gaza. They grew to become the leaders of Hamas and Islamic Jihad. The next year Israel gave the green light –and according to sources, material assistance— for the construction of a building to house the Islamic Association, whose members regularly vandalized the offices of the Palestinian Red Crescent, headed by Haidar Abd al-Shafi, who was close to the Communist Party and the PLO. Israeli protection would go so far as to put a stranglehold on opposition to the Islamists. When Palestinian students dared to speak out against the cynical policy in public debates, they would wind up behind bars. The students were led by Mohammad Dahlan, future head of Security for the Palestinian Authority. At that time, Dahlan was the Gaza organizer for Shabiba, the Fatah youth movement, and was arrested eleven times. His West Bank counterpart, Marwan Barghouti, was a student at Bir Zeit University. He also received a number of prison sentences.

In 1984, the Israeli security services had a bad surprise. The Islamists were not innocent religious men. During a search of Ahmed Yassin’s home, the Israelis discovered dozens of assault rifles. The Sheikh had achieved the next phase of his secret project: the formation of militant cells. Yassin was sentenced to 13 years in prison, but was released in 1985 in a prisoner exchange between Israel and Ahmed Jibril’s Palestinian organization. The deal was brokered by Yitzak Rabin, then Minister of Defense.

In December 1987 the Second Intifada broke out. Israeli leaders believed that the PLO might make some political gains from the insurrection. The priority of Israel’s response was therefore given to dismantling Fatah’s popular committees. Barghouti and Dahlan, considered dangerous agitators, were expelled to Jordan. In Gaza, Sheikh Yassin organized Hamas, which the Israeli military at first ignored. Yassin will be arrested the following year, after the murder of an Israeli soldier, kidnapped by the Azzedin el-Qassem commando brigade, the armed wing of Hamas. At the time, the brigade counted only a few dozen members.

It is in 1993, after the signature of the Oslo Accords, that Israel changes it policy and backs Fatah. Yassir Arafat’s organization takes over the administration of the West Bank and Gaza on every level. PLO officials from Tunis take power and distribute key positions as well as the purse strings to its supporters. Hamas, opposed to all negotiation with Israel, decides to torpedo the peace process by particularly bloody campaign of anti-Israeli suicide bombings in 1995 and 1996. The attacks produce double consequences. Israeli public opinion switches and elects Benjamin Netanyahu of Likud, the principal opponent to the Oslo Accords, while the Israeli Army tightens its grip on the West Bank and Jordan.

For the average Palestinian, the arrival of Fatah to power translates into long lines at checkpoints while the men at the top distribute the spoils, obscured by their opaque management, while the Israelis reinforce colonization. The popularity of Hamas grows even faster in 1997 when, following a monumental blunder by Mossad in Jordan, Benjamin Netanyahu releases Sheikh Yassin.

The pivotal moment will take place at the end of 2000 with the collapse of Oslo and the outbreak of the Second Intifada. Faced with another Palestinian uprising, the Israeli Army will adopt new tactics to “bore into the minds” of Palestinians that they will attain nothing through violence. Cities are hermetically sealed, curfews are enforced, and vehicular traffic is forbidden. At the same time Tsahal put military pressure on the Palestinian Authority and Fatah militants to force them to end the bombings [for which they were not responsible--Nur].

Result: The population of the West Bank and Gaza is faced with an economic and social crisis, which they had not experienced since the 1950’s. Meanwhile, Israel systematically dismembers the institutions built by the Palestinian Authority leaving no space for alternative political prospects. The Jewish state and the international community considerably weaken the Palestinian security services, which might have, if they had been given the means, been able to restore order.

According to Israeli intelligence, Hamas is now more powerful than Mahmoud Abbas’ police force in Gaza. Some Shin Beth and military intelligence analysts had warned of the consequences. They were ignored.

In February 2006, faced with a moth-eaten Fatah, frayed by power and corruption, the arguments presented by Hamas could only convince the population, which had been bled dry. The process commenced in 1976 has reached its conclusion. The policies of all Israeli governments and the errors and missteps of the PLO and Fatah have handed power over to the Muslim Brotherhood.

Palestine: Improvisational Politics

The political analyst for L'Orient Le Jour, Christian Merville, looks at the Palestinian Elections. The surprise (well, maybe not so surprising) is that the US wanted Abbas to cancel the election results when things went off script. Hypocrisy all the way.

The courage for peace

It’s a narrative of improvisational policies in three acts. The final act is being played now and things are beginning to go awry.

Act I. Organization of legislative elections in the most complete transparency, part of the George W. Bush’s Greater Middle East Initiative, insisted the international community to Mahmoud Abbas. And the Palestinian President began shoveling down double mouthfuls to carry out his mission. Out of conscientious concern, he obliviously insisted upon and obtained the participation of Hamas in the January 25th elections. That’s when things began to sour.

Act II. On the evening of the elections comes an unexpected catastrophe with incalculable consequences. Contrary to all expectations, the Islamic Resistance Movement wins an absolute majority on the Legislative Council, with 76 seats of a total of 132, overtaking Fatah.

Act III. Panic in the diplomatic chancelleries where, in the absence of a plan of action covering all eventualities –any decent plan would have included them– contradictory statement abound. Short statements striving to affirm one thing and its opposite, coupled with threats. Obviously, the West, which didn’t see it coming, now refuses to play the game, denouncing the very rules which it established. Free elections, they told Fatah, but on the condition that you win them!

With the big bad Islamist wolf now among the peaceful sheep, what would you expect to happen? The United States, which does not intend to let the insult go unchallenged, wants to cut the lifeline to that insolent ruffian, hoping that the European Union doesn’t put up an objection. The official story? Khaled Meshaal and his companions are terrorists who have sworn to wipe Israel from the map. They must change their ways and agree to cooperate in the peace processes if they wish to be associated with. Supporting these demands is an argument which would cause anyone to stop and think. Pushing things to their logical extreme, one would say that the Quartet had intended to continue financing the heirs of Yassir Arafat, who had, like any man in a keffieh, raised corruption to a veritable art. But today, the Quartet is attempting to punish the people who chose the other camp following a legitimate vote. Oh, but this kind of opinion could only be held by evil-intentioned persons who see only bungling by the crowned arbiters of correct thinking.

The rest of the situation is grave –even desperate, some say. The envoy of the Quartet and former World Bank President James Wolfensohn, a man well known for his frankness, is categorical. The Palestinians are on the verge of bankruptcy, he told the World Economic Forum in Davos last Friday. Explanation? The coffers are empty as 135,000 public employees, including 58,000 police, await their paychecks. These workers are responsible for 30% of all income among Palestinians. Clearly, things point to chaos at the gates of the Occupied Territories. Of an annual budget of a billion dollars, the deficit totals to between $600 and $700 million. Nearly $350 million is covered by donations from the United States ($270 million in 2005), the Gulf States and Europe. A short while ago, Abbas went to lobby for increased aid from certain Arab countries and met with mitigated success. Initially, a Fatah victory, of which everyone was confident, was to be followed up by a request to Salam Fayad, former Finance Minister, to form a government to clean up house after carrying out harsh cuts and thinning out the ranks of the Administrative octopus with too many tentacles. One can imagine the damaging consequences of carelessly manipulated scissors.

There was a moment when, upon the advice of Washington, canceling the election results was considered. But the example of Algeria is still too fresh in most minds. In 1992, the election victory of the Islamic Salvation Front was cancelled by the authorities, resulting in bloodshed that lasted ten years. Now that we are back to undeclared intentions, one can bet thtat Hamas is preparing con dolce a the kind of course correction for which Arabs alone hold the secret. It is going to happen for the sake of its political survival –and for the survival of the people of Palestine.

Progression of Islamism in Syria

From last week's L'Orient Le-Jour, a peek at Islamist inroads in Syria courtesy of Agence France Presse. Here's the translation.

Islamism in Damascus

Despite its secular political system, Syrian society is being more and more overtaken by Islamism, which is beginning to penetrate the Arab world.

The increasing participation of young people in Friday prayers, private Koranic lessons for women and spreading adoption of the veil are manifestations of the resurgence of Islam in the Syrian street. Syrian legislator and Director of the Center for Islamic Studies, Mohammad Habash, tells AFP that nearly 30% of Syrians now attend Friday prayers in Syria’ 9,000 mosques. If women and children are counted, the number of faithful is 12 million, out of a population of 18 million. We are witnessing a religious revival, which presages the return of Islamic values, says Habash.

The Muslim Brotherhood, which defied the Ba’ath Party (a secular and pan-Arab movement), were harshly oppressed in February 1982 in Hama, north of Damascus. The repression resulted in thousands of dead and arrests in the city, which was besieged by the army.

In another sign of the resurgence of Islam, restaurants along the Barada River, a zone reserved for leisure and relaxation near Damascus, no longer offer alcoholic beverages. Dining areas are now reserved for families –an Islamic tradition.

Traditionally secular bookstores have gradually given up terrain to stores specializing in the distribution of works on Sharia, Islamic law. Islamic cultural centers and charities are multiplying, especially in conservative cities of Aleppo, Idleb and Hama, north of Damascus.

The worsening economic and social situation, corruption and dictatorship feed the Islamic movement and guarantees it a wide audience, says a former Communist militant, on the condition of anonymity.

Political analyst Akram al-Bounni believes that by blocking the opening up of politics to religious movements, the government drives youth into the arms of the Islamists and increases their audience. Following the 1980's repression of the Muslim Brotherhood, the authorities have been encouraging moderate, apolitical Islam to avoid being labeled hostile toward Islam by the Sunni majority. Islamism will weaken with an opening towards democracy, says al-Bounni.

Following their defeat in Hama, the Islamists have adopted the strategy of penetrating society from the bottom up, thanks to its network of associations and to financial assistance from the Salafists, says Rami, a student at Damacus University’s School of Journalism. The Saudis have financed the construction of hundreds of mosques, especially in Christian and Druze areas, where minarets are have sprouted up all over, he adds. To counter this tendency, Syrian authorities are making a media event out of their participation in religious rites.

A moderate Islamist movement led by Salah Kaftaro (son of the Mufti of the Republic) and Mohammad Habash has been born. The movement is working towards official Islam, whose objective is to contain the influence of radical religious movement, which is spreading through the country in areas where Sufi Islam is traditionally practiced by the majority. In pursuing this strategy, the government has approved the opening of 300 theological institutes. Besides providing a specialized and conformist Koranic education, these institutes allow the security services to identify and to monitor extremists elements. Since 1980, membership Muslim Brotherhood can be punished by the death penalty but hundreds of Islamist prisoners, most of whom are leaders Brotherhood, have been granted amnesty. Most exiles returned to Syria in the 1990’s.

After having failed to topple the government by armed insurrection, the weakened and divided Muslim Brotherhood no longer dissimulates its objectives. They hope one day to take power through the ballot box and to participate in a future democratic government.

Fundamentalist democracy vs. Islamism

Mezri Haddad, a professor of Political Science in France, pens an OP-ED for Le Monde, questioning the President's Middle East Initiative. Haddad claims that the Islamists are exploiting "democracy" for their own ends, playing Dubya for a fool.

Haddad criticizes the neocons for their appalling naiveté in their rapports with Islamists and looks askance the President's Greater Middle East Initiative, which in its wishful thinking, ignores the hard historical, cultural and religious facts on the ground. Haddad is barely able to stifle his bitterness as the neocons, following their misadventures with Shi'ism in Iraq, find themselves in the trap of their own making with Hamas.

I don't know much about Haddad, but I assume he is originally Lebanese. He has penned opinion pieces before with Antoine Sfeir, who bears the surname of Cardinal Nasrallah Boutros Sfeir, the Maronite Patriarch of Lebanon, so you can guess the perspective. But Haddad's analysis is worthwhile.

Islamism and Democracy: Who is dissolving whom?

The “democratic” elections which brought the Islamist movement, Hamas, to power in a state that is both real and virtual has created a previously unseen situation and one among the most monstrous: how will United States, Europe and Israel collaborate with a movement which has been put on the list of terrorist organizations? And beyond the local dilemma —probably surmountable with a declaration of principle or two from Hamas— how are the US neoconservatives going to wriggle out of yet another major dilemma borne along by the Greater Middle East Initiative: to force Muslim Arab states to democratize while avoiding tipping them into the nightmarish universe of Hamas green totalitarianism. In other words, should “democratic fundamentalism” —to use an expression found in the work of Garcia Marquez —continue now that we now that Islamist fundamentalism is the sole beneficiary?

Whether it is in Iran, where “democratic” elections propelled Mahmoud Ahmadinejad to the presidency of the Republic, or in Iraq, in Egypt, in Pakistan, in Kuwait, in Saudi Arabia, in Morocco, in today's Palestine or, which we are apt to forget, in Turkey, we are witnessing the spectacular return of Islamism. The groundswell is confirmed with every election. Because we have difficulty in comprehending the phenomenon as it truly is, we have fallen into the habit of varnishing this complex reality with concepts drawn from Western political sociology: a vote of sanction, a protest vote, centrist Islamism, moderate Islamists opposing radical Islamists…. This veneer of exogenous concepts may alter one’s analysis and dissimulate the real stakes buried in the wave of Islamism.

It should be recalled at the outset that the Islamist phenomenon is not at all recent but continuous and gradual. Contrary to the leitmotif, Islamism was not born in 1928 with the emergence of the Muslim Brotherhood in Egypt –a movement which attempted to galvanize the feeling of resentment among Muslims after the abolition (1924) of the caliphate of Mustafa Kemal. Its origins stem from Arabia, the cradle of Islam…and Islamism. In modern history, the Saudi kingdom is the first incarnation of a state founded on political Islam. It is the first model of Sunni theocracy which will enthrall Hassan al-Banna, the founder of the Muslim Brotherhood. One has to wait until 1979 when, under the leadership of Imam Khomeini, we are able to witness firsthand the birth of the second theocracy, this time Shiite. Since that date, Islamism, principally inspired by the doctrine of the Muslim Brotherhood and financed in turn by Saudi Arabia and Iran, hasn’t faltered in scoring points against the nationalist states –the heirs of colonialism– which it accuses of apostasy.

There exists a fundamental ideological and political divergence between Islamism and Arab nationalism. Recall that Sayed Qutb, the successor to Hassan al-Banna at the head of the Muslim Brotherhood, was condemned to death by Nasser and hanged on August 26, 1966. This execution engendered the hate of the Islamists towards pan-Arabism in general and to Nasserism in particular. The assassins of Anwar Sadat in October 1981 avowed that they sought revenge for the death of their “first martyr”, Sayed Qutb. The hatred is reinforced by betrayal: prior to 1952, Sadat was a member of the Muslim Brotherhood and Nasser had been a fervent sympathizer.

The electoral contest which just took place in Palestine between Hamas and Fattah is part of the continuity of the old political and ideological struggle played out between the pan-Islamists and the pan-Arabists. But it was an uneven contest between those who had become “resisters” and those who had become “collaborators”. Deprived of its charismatic leader, Yassir Arafat, and having received next to nothing from the Israelis, Fattah officials could not have won the elections. In addition to the sympathetic capital earned from the wide social network woven first with the help of money from the Saudis and then from the Iranians, the Palestinian Islamists benefit from “Koranic legitimacy” and the “legitimacy of martyrdom”. Crime pays. The numerous terrorist actions targeting Israeli citizens were not in vain. That is the lesson which Fattah activists will not easily forget.

We often hear it repeated that Islamism is fed by economic misery and by political exclusion. This may be, but its inexhaustible reservoir remains the holistic and hegemonic culture which stirs Allah into all sauces and reduces the Koran to a political manifesto. It is by a return to its “sources” and by its prophetic teachings that Islam rediscovers its lost golden age, as taught by Ibn Abdelwahab [a fundamentalist preacher in 18th century Arabia who is the inspiration behind Wahhabism], Hassa al-Banna, Sayed Qutb and Khomeini. It is from this kind of mythology, shared by the majority of Muslims, that the Islamists were able to construct their messianic ideology.

In a democratic contest, no political discourse, no matter how humanist, progressive or emancipating, can rival this kind of well-worn but extremely mobilizing rhetoric. It is on the rubbish pile of ignorance that Islamism thrives. For this ideology, democracy is not global system of universal and immutable values. It is an instrument, a short-term means in the service of a speculative end: the installation of a medieval theocracy. With this in mind, the question is not to know if Islamism can blend with democracy or if Islamism is compatible with secularism: the question is to know if democracy is a saving vaccine or a fatal poison for profoundly heterogenic societies completely in the thrall of fundamentalist religious zealots.

When one is ripe for Islamism, can one also be ripe for democracy? The answer is important to neoconservatives, assuming they wish to resolve this great dilemma: how to democratize the Arab world while preventing it from landing in the lap of the Islamists.

Iran Will Get The Bomb

Promoting this post from February 2005.

Iran Will Get the Bomb, by Jean-Michel Boucheron
LE MONDE | 21.02.05 | 15h14

Iran aspires to become a pillar of stability and a beacon of regional influence. To realize this aim, Iran proposes to assure its stability and therefore intends to acquire a nuclear deterrent.

Everyone is able to follow Iranian reasoning concerning the nuclear question and understands that it may carry the international community towards a new and dangerous impasse.

The matter is quite uncomplicated on its face: the Non-Proliferation Treaty forbids Iran from acquiring the materials necessary for the construction of an atomic weapon yet there are compelling indications to believe that Iran is secretly building one. The IAEA has encountered significant difficulty in monitoring Iran. President George W. Bush has employed menacing rhetoric towards Iran; the Europeans are attempting to negotiate and, given the ambiguity on the part of Iran, may be forced to bring the matter before the UN Security Council, which may in turn condemn Iran and bestow UN legitimacy on America’s plans for air strikes on Iranian nuclear facilities with at best the blind eye and at worst the approval of the international community.

Some of George W. Bush's most influential advisors* dream of manipulating the European Union into military action intended to topple the Iranian régime in favor of the Mujahedeen-e-Khalq, who themselves have been declared terrorists by the European Union.

If they are carried out, American air strikes will be ineffective in destroying all Iran's hidden sites and in the end will unite the Iranian people behind the most conservative and hard–line elements in that country, who will certainly retaliate through their relationships in the region to render the Iraqi crisis intractable and to reignite tensions in Lebanon and Palestine, thereby destroying the new and already fragile peace process. This worrisome course of events is not at all out of the question today.

So what exactly is the situation? Since Israel has come into the possession of a nuclear deterrent, it is no longer threatened by its neighbors. The peace deal concluded between Israel and Egypt and later between Israel and Jordan was the result of a state of non-war created by the presence of nuclear weapons. In the example of Western Europe during the second half of the 20th century, nuclear arms have become a purely defensive instrument, unusable for aggression. They impose a state of non-war in the area concerned. Their presence has permanently dissuaded Israel’s enemies from terminating its existence in the same way that it dissuaded the ex-Soviet Union from unleashing its tanks across Western Europe. An atomic deterrent has repeatedly demonstrated its role in regional stability.

Of course, this strategic equilibrium hasn’t resolved the Israeli-Palestine conflict nor has it stopped acts of terrorism or the stone-throwing Intifada. It simply imposes a maximum threshold of conflict intensity beyond which no belligerent may go. In this manner, war between India and China has become impossible, as well as a major conflict between Pakistan and India, despite the battles in the mountains of Kashmir. All parties in that part of the world have understood the stabilizing role of the nuclear deterrent.

Iran is using precisely the same reasoning. A thousands year-old civilization with its own religion surrounded by four nuclear powers of which three obtained nuclear weapons in violation of the Non-Proliferation Treaty, aggressed in a major fashion by one of its neighbors and seriously menaced by the desire of Bin Laden to spread the influence of Sunni fundamentalism, Iran aspires to become a pillar of stability and a beacon of regional influence.

For this aim, Iran wishes to permanently guarantee its stability by acquiring a nuclear defensive capability. There is no doubt about it. AIEA inspections don’t provide any tangible proof, but there is evidence that this is the case.

Iran manufactures and disposes of mid-range ballistic missiles but their accuracy is so poor that armed with conventional explosives they are a ridiculous proposition, both militarily and strategically. But these missiles are meant to be dissuasive, and that means they will be eventually be armed with a nuclear payload. There’s the evidence.

To tell the truth, can the Iranians be blamed for pursuing this strategy? If the Americans or the French were the Iranians caught in similar circumstances, they would certainly build the bomb. In actuality, the USA and France did find themselves in similar strategic circumstances.

But should we permit them do it? To rephrase the question, can we dissuade Iran from obtaining a nuclear deterrent? What can we do? Dissuade Iran using diplomatic, economic and military leverage? I don’t believe for a moment that we can successfully dissuade them. Iran wants the bomb and Iran will get the bomb.

Alternatively, we can apply effective pressure on Iran to force it to join the concert of nations. Our ability to apply such pressure is great but perhaps insufficient to persuade the Iranians to entirely abandon the idea of acquiring the bomb. But it is sufficient to oblige Iran to use some sense in developing its foreign policy.

Iran, which wants to join the WTO, cannot afford to become a pariah nor to sacrifice its economic ties to the West. We can impose a condition on Iran for WTO membership —that it recognize the existence of Israel and its right to live in peace with its neighbors. The anti-Jewish slogans shouted at street demonstrations in Teheran are certainly meant to galvanize the crowds rather than to represent concrete policy. But the Iranian authorities must demonstrate that such rhetoric is part of the past.

This is a sine qua non in attaining the status of respected partner to which Iran aspires and which it deserves. Iran has no desires along the lines of annexation or aggression towards its neighbors. Shi’a Islam does not share the global ambition of radical Sunni Islam. The nature of the Iranian regime is not at issue —Iranian democracy doesn’t need lessons from Chinese democracy. The condition to be set for Iran is one of a demonstration of peaceful intentions. The pressures we apply should be concentrated on engagements towards peace in the region. Iran must understand that that it cannot play an international role until it normalizes and improves its relations with Israel. If we concentrate our efforts on this, we can climb down from the spiraling Iranian crisis and avoid setting off a new and tragic conflagration in that part of the world.

Obviously, the crisis has collateral effects and underlines once again the obsolescence of the Non-Proliferation Treaty. Of the four nuclear powers in the region, three nations–-India, Pakistan and Israel--acquired their nuclear deterrent in violation of the treaty. It is unwise to maintain a legality divorced form reality and to apply its principles with variable insistence depending on the nationality of the rule breakers.

We must agree on a new definition for proliferation which does not confuse contrasting situations--that of a great power which acquires a nuclear deterrent versus that of trafficking material and technology among dubious alliance partners; and above all that of trafficking fissionable materials needed for nuclear devices that come within the technological grasp of terrorist groups. We must adopt a non-proliferation treaty aiming at those who represent a real menace to world peace today—and above all, tomorrow.

The spiraling of the Iranian crisis has not really begun. The worst is not unavoidable. But Iran and the international community both have significant concessions to make in order at last enter a virtuous circle.

Jean-Michel Boucheron is a French Socialist legislator representing Ille-et-Vilaine and a member of the National Assembly Defense Commission.

*Wolfowitz, Feith and Bolton – along with Rumsfeld and Cheney - whom Seymour Hersh has termed, the crazies.

Tits and Ass Villa in Baghdad

From the BBC's story on corrupt CPA official Robert Stein:

He also received ...sexual favours lavished on him at a special villa in Baghdad.

2 February 2006 Events in Iraq and in the Region

Jerusalem. The Israeli army has withdrawn its defense of the Jewish colony in Yitzar, near Nablus, on the West Bank following attacks on troops by the colonists themselves.

Beirut. Bomb explodes outside the Emir Bachir Lebanese Army barracks in Ramlet el-Baïda, slightly wounding one soldier.

Dubai. Danish products were pulled from the shelves of French-owned Carrefour supermarket in Dubai and from all its stores in the region.

Kuwait. The Kuwaiti Danish Dairy Company printed and distributed large posters saying that its butter was imported from New Zealand, processed in Kuwait and packaged in Jeddah to prevent consumer confusion with Danish butter.

Washington. [Off-topic but newsworthy] US Secretary Donald Rumsfeld compared Venezuelan President Hugo Chavez to Adolf Hitler.

Washington. U.S. officials did not apologize Wednesday for a "regrettable" incident in which US soldiers fired at a car carrying four Canadian diplomats in Baghdad. Canadians are disputing a U.S. version of events, saying a military convoy fired at them without warning, with one bullet coming dangerously close. The event took place Tuesday, involving two convoys in the city's heavily fortified Green Zone. The vehicle was reported outfitted with Canadian flags.

Najaf. Angry Shi'ites protested the Danish tabliod Jyllands-Posten for its affont to Islam. Protesters burnt the Danish flag before the tomb of Imam Ali.

Tunis. Distribution of the French tabloid, France Soir, prohibited after the paper published an anti-Muslim political cartoon.

Rabat. Authorities ban distribution of the French tabloid, France Soir, after publication of a politicial cartoon offensive to Muslims.

Paris. The Grand Rabbi of France, Joseph Sitruk, announced that he shared Muslim outrage at the publication of political cartoons offensive to the Prophet Muhammad in several European tabloids.

Beirut. Lebanese authorities prepared a complaint to the UN following the slaying of a Lebanese shepherd in southern Lebanon. UN Special Representative Geir Pedersen has been summoned by Prime Minister Fuad Siniora.

Baghdad. 14 bodies showing signs of torture discovered by police.

Baghdad. The US military announced that four US soldiers killed in attacks by insurgents on Wednesday. Three of the soldiers were killed when a roadside bomb exploded near their patrol south of Baghdad, while another was shot dead in the southwest of the capital.

Fallujah. US marine dies of wounds he sustained in armed clashes in the central Iraqi city of Fallujah.

Sadr City. The father of Ikhlas Abd al-Hussein said his 20-year-old daughter had been killed when a US combat helicopter fired a missile at her house, blasting a hole through the roof. Abd al-Hussein Shanuf said another woman and a two-year-old child had also been injured. The US military insisted it had been hunting a Sunni Islamist militant [in Sadr City?? Yeah, right!--Nur] but many residents believed the real target had been members of the al-Mahdi Army, the militia of the Sadr City-based radical Shia cleric Moqtada Sadr. Iraqi Transport Minister Salam al-Maliki, a representative of Mr Sadr, condemned the attack and demanded compensation for the victims.

Basrah. A police intelligence officer responsible for an area south of Basra was wounded and his driver killed in an assassination attempt.

Kirkuk. Insurgents attacked at pumping station 45km (30 miles) west of the northern city of Kirkuk, triggering a massive fire. Deliveries of oil to Ceyhan, in Turkey, had already been halted after the sabotage of two oil pipelines last week.

23:28 Beirut. Five Shi'ite Muslim ministers on Thursday ended a boycott that has paralyzed Lebanon and rejoined government after the prime minister deemed Hizbollah guerrillas to be national resistance fighters -- a term that would allow them to retain arms. The Shi'ite ministers include Energy Minister Mohammad Fneish, a Hizbollah member and its ally Labour Minister Trad Hamadeh. Foreign Minister Fawzi Salloukh and two ministers from Amal were also involved in the boycott.

22:42 Washington. Former Coalition Provisional Authority administrator Robert Stein, former financial controller for South-Central Iraq, pleaded guilty of charges of money laundering and other crimes. Stein and another accomplice awarded more than $8 million in contracts to an American front company in Hillah. Stein and co-conspirators stole more than $1 million in cars, cash and jewels and another $2 million in cash which they smuggled into the United States aboard commercial airliners. Stein also received gifts and sexual favours lavished on him at a special villa in Baghdad.

21:26: Baghdad. Police sources said bombs went off at a petrol station and a market in the al-Amin district of the capital. At least n16 were killed and 65 wounded. One car blew up at a service station and another in an outdoor market.

18:43 Doha. The emirate of Qatar called upon the international community to respect the rights of the Palestinian people.

16:46 Gaza. Islamist groups angrily denounce European political cartoons disrespectful to the Prophet Muhammad. Al-Aqsa Martyrs Brigades warns that any Norwegian, Dane or Frenchman present on their territory could be a target of reprisal. Armed supporters of Fatah and Islamic Jihad blocked the entrance to the offices of the EU in Gaza in protest. The 30 September publication in the Danish tabloid Jyllands-Posten printed 12 caricatures of the Prophet Muhammad which has stoked anger across the Muslim world.

08:48 Baghdad. Industry Ministry official kidnapped by armed men. Mrs. Mary Hamza al-Roubaï, Director General, was kidnapped in the Yarmouk quarter of west Baghdad. Her car was surrounded by armed men as she left for work. Her chauffeur was later released.

08:23 Beirut. A Lebanese adolescent was shot dead by Israeli troops near the Lebanese-Israeli border. The body of Ibrahim Youssef Rahil, a 15 year-old shepherd was found near Bastara. Hezbollah has promised reprisals. This is the most serious incident to have occurred since November, when Hezbollah and Israeli troops fought, killing four Shi'ites and wounding 11 Israeli soldiers.

08:00 Baghdad. Encounter between US forces and Shi'ite supporters of Moqtada Sadr kills one woman and wounds five other civilians as Iraq's Shi'ite community celebrated Ashura. A firefight broke out at 02:00 am and lasted until 04:00 am. Noise from explosions was echoed across the capital.

03:49 Washington. A bipartisan group of House of Representatives members introduced legislation on Thursday to halt U.S. aid to the Palestinian Authority because the militant group Hamas, dedicated to destroying Israel, was expected to form a new Palestinian government. Sponsors are Ileana Ros-Lehtinen, a Florida Republican and California Democratic Rep. [The representatives from Israel--Nur]

01 February 2006 Events in Iraq

Tehran. Iranian President Ahmadinejad attacked Mr. Bush, on the day after his State of the Union address. Bush had criticized a small circle of clerical elite which isolates and oppresses its people. The Iranian president lashed out at those who have their hands stained by blood up to their elbows, involved in wars and oppression...in Asia and Africa, killing people by the millions.

Washington. President George W. Bush promised to stay in Iraq until "victory" and dismissed the possibility of a pullout of US troops.

Washington. President Bush's State of the Union address was seen as a sampler of the rhetoric to be used during this year's Republican Congressional electoral campaign.

Ramallah. Humanitarian organizations in the Occupied Terrorities fear funds will dry up following the victory by Hamas.

Beirut. A Lebanese shepherd, Ibrahim Youssef Rahil, was kidnapped by Israeli troops along with a fisherman. Fawzi Salloukh, the fisherman, was released several hours later. The incident took place at Mazraat Bastara.

New York. Seriously concerned by the outbreak of violence along the Blue Line between Lebanon and Israel, the UN Security Council has extended the mission of UNIFIL, the United Nations Interim Force in Lebanon, until 31 July.

Copenhagen. Denmark pursued diplomatic and media efforts to end the crisis kicked off by cartoons of the Prophet Muhammad in the Danish tabloid Jyllands-Posten.

Beirut. Hezbollah chief Sheikh Hassan Nasrallah declares that if the fatwa againt British writer Salman Rushdie had been enforced, no one would have dared to insult the Prophet.

Paris. In solidarity with the Danish tabloid Jyllands-Posten, several European papers printed cartoons of the the Prophet Mohammad, including the French tabloid France Soir.

Rome. The Vatican newspaper, L'Osservatore Romano, commented on the victory of Hamas in Palestine. The Vatican called for new Mideast talks fixing reasonable objectives. The Vatican underscored the impasse of the current situtation and noted that the international community was insufficiently prepared to respond to the Hamas victory at the polls.

Jerusalem. The head of the Churches of the Holy Land, Latin Patriarch Michael Sabbah, said church leaders were ready to cooperate with Hamas while insisting on non-violence and religious freedom.

Baghdad. Several low-intensity bombs detonated near Lebanese Army outposts outside the Palestinian refugee camp at Aïn el- Heloué near Saïda.

Baghdad. Another chaotic day in the he trial of Saddam Hussein. After a three-hour wait, the trial of Saddam Hussein resumed after judge Rauf Rasheed Abdel Rahman tried to resolve an procedural imbroglio as Saddam's attorneys boycotted the courtroom session. Meanwhile, three women and two men gave testimony on the Dujail massacre from behind a beige curtain in the courtroom.

Baghdad. Six Iraqis were killed in a series of attacks in Baghdad and northeast of the capital.

Baghdad. A suicide bombing took place in the al-Jadida district of south Baghdad amid a group of day laborers seeking work. Three were killed and sixty wounded.

Cairo. After meeting in Cairo, Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas and Egyptian President Hosni Mubarek have agreed to pressure Hamas into recognizing Israel and to end violence. Mubarek also met with Israeli Foreign Minister Tzipi Livni. However, a source says Abbas will not force Hamas to recognize Israel as a pre-condition to forming a government. Earlier in the day, Abbas was in Amman for talks with King Abdullah II.

Damascus. Moussa Abu Marzuk, a Hamas official based in Damascus, announced that the movement was ready for talks with the international community concerning a truce with Israel.

Gaza. Hamas says it will appoint technocrats to key positions to make its government more acceptable to the West.

Gaza. Hamas politician Ismaïl Haniyeh rejected President Bush's demand to disarm the movement. Mr. Haniyeh aslo suggested that the new Palestinian Prime Minister may not be a Hamas member.

Ramallah. Mohammad Dahlan, Minister of Public Affairs, has rejected the idea of a national unity cabinet of Fatah and Hamas ministers.

Vienna. The IAEA board of governors will meet to discuss referring Iran to the UN Security Council for its nuclear activities. To appease Russia, Western powers promised to defer any action before the Security Council until March.

Moscow. Russia has dispatched emissaries to Iran to request that it cooperate with the IAEA.

23:26 Washington. Bush says US will use troops to defend Israel.

20:02 Baghdad. Two Iraq TV women reporters, Reem Zeid and Marwan Khazal, were kidnapped by armed men in the Yarmouk quarter of Baghdad.

19:15 Egypt. Israeli Foreign Minister Tzipi Livni hopes Hamas will not be permitted to govern.

18:48 Washington. Bush says yes to peaceful nuclear development in Iraq.

14:51 Baghdad. A homemade bomb destroys pipeline linking a Baghdad refinery to a southern power generation plant.

11:07 Jerusalem. Israeli freezes $30 million in Palestinian Authority funds following the victory of Hamas.

10:54 Cairo. Abu Mazen says Hamas must recognize Israel.

10:01 Iraq. Roadside bombs in Amiriyah and Baquba kill 2 and wound 5.

07:15 Ramallah. Israeli police and colonists clash at the settlement of Amona. Nine illegal habitations will be destroyed.

06:49 Baghdad. Saddam's lawyers demand new judge to replace Kurdish Justice Rauf Rashid Abdel Rahman.

06:16 Baghdad. Eight people killed in a suicide bombing in east Baghdad. Thirty others were injured.

04:02 Washington. The US will cut 75% of its oil imports by 2025.

03:02 Washington. Cindy Sheehan was arrested before she was able to enter the Capitol as in invited guest at the President's State of the Union Address.

02:15 Washington. Patriot Act extended for one month.

00:37 Copenaghen. Two bomb scares at the offices of the Danish tabloid Jyllands-Posten.

01 February 2006 Events in Iraq

Tehran. Iranian President Ahmadinejad attacked Mr. Bush, on the day after his State of the Union address. Bush had criticized a small circle of clerical elite which isolates and oppresses its people. The Iranian president lashed out at those who have their hands stained by blood up to their elbows, involved in wars and oppression...in Asia and Africa, killing people by the millions.

Washington. President George W. Bush promised to stay in Iraq until "victory" and dismissed the possibility of a pullout of US troops.

Washington. President Bush's State of the Union address was seen as a sampler of the rhetoric to be used during this year's Republican Congressional electoral campaign.

Ramalllah. Humanitarian organizations in the Occupied Terrorities fear funds will dry up following the victory by Hamas.

Beirut. A Lebanese shepherd, Ibrahim Youssef Rahil, was kidnapped by Israeli troops along with a fisherman. Fawzi Salloukh, the fisherman, was released several hours later. The incident took place at Mazraat Bastara.

New York. Seriously concerned by the outbreak of violence along the Blue Line between Lebanon and Israel, the UN Security Council has extended the mission of UNIFIL, the United Nations Interim Force in Lebanon, until 31 July.

Copenhagen. Denmark pursued diplomatic and media efforts to end the crisis kicked off by cartoons of the Prophet Muhammad in the Danish tabloid Jyllands-Posten.

Beirut. Hezbollah chief Sheikh Hassan Nasrallah declares that if the fatwa againt British writer Salman Rushdie had been enforced, no one would have dared to insult the Prophet.

Paris. In solidarity with the Danish tabloid Jyllands-Posten, several European papers printed cartoons of the the Prophet Mohammad, including the French tabloid France Soir.

Rome. The Vatican newspaper, L'Osservatore Romano, commented on the victory of Hamas in Palestine. The Vatican called for new Mideast talks fixing reasonable objectives. The Vatican underscored the impasse of the current situtation and noted that the international community was insufficiently prepared to respond to the Hamas victory at the polls.

Jerusalem. The head of the Churches of the Holy Land, Latin Patriarch Michael Sabbah, said church leaders were ready to cooperate with Hamas while insisting on non-violence and religious freedom.

Baghdad. Several low-intensity bombs went off near Lebanese Army outpots outside the Palestinian refugee camp at Aïn el-Heloué near Saïda.

Baghdad. Another chaotic day in the he trial of Saddam Hussein. After a three-hour wait, the trial of Saddam Hussein resumed after judge Rauf Rasheed Abdel Rahman tried to resolve an procedural imbroglio as Saddam's attorneys boycotted the courtroom session. Meanwhile, three women and two men gave testimony on the Dujail massacre from behind a beige curtain in the courtroom.

Baghdad. A suicide bombing took place in the al-Jadida district of south Baghdad amid a group of day laborers seeking work. Three were killed and sixty wounded.

Cairo. After meeting in Cairo, Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas and Egyptian President Hosni Mubarek have agreed to pressure Hamas into recognizing Israel and to end violence. Mubarek also met with Israeli Foreign Minister Tzipi Livni. However, a source says Abbas will not force Hamas to recognize Israel as a pre-condition to forming a government. Earlier in the day, Abbas was in Amman for talks with King Abdullah II.

Damascus. Moussa Abu Marzuk, a Hamas official based in Damascus, announced that the movement was ready for talks with the international community concerning a truce with Israel.

Gaza. Hamas says it will appoint technocrats to key positions to make its government more acceptable to the West.

Gaza. Hamas politician Ismaïl Haniyeh rejected President Bush's demand to disarm the movement. Mr. Haniyeh aslo suggested that the new Palestinian Prime Minister may not be a Hamas member.

Ramallah. Mohammad Dahlan, Minister of Public Affairs, has rejected the idea of a national unity cabinet of Fatah and Hamas ministers.

Vienna. The IAEA board of governors will meet to discuss referring Iran to the UN Security Council for its nuclear activities. To appease Russia, Western powers promised to defer any action before the Security Council until March.

Moscow. Russia has dispatched emissaries to Iran to request that it cooperate with the IAEA.

23:26 Washington. Bush says US will use troops to defend Israel.

20:02 Baghdad. Two Iraq TV women reporters, Reem Zeid and Marwan Khazal, were kidnapped by armed men in the Yarmouk quarter of Baghdad.

19:15 Egypt. Israeli Foreign Minister Tzipi Livni hopes Hamas will not be permitted to govern.

18:48 Washington. Bush says yes to peaceful nuclear development in Iraq.

14:51 Baghdad. A homemade bomb destroys pipeline linking a Baghdad refinery to a southern power generation plant.

11:07 Jerusalem. Israeli freezes $30 million in Palestinian Authority funds following the victory of Hamas.

10:54 Cairo. Abu Mazen says Hamas must recognize Israel.

10:01 Iraq. Roadside bombs in Amiriyah and Baquba kill 2 and wound 5.

07:15 Ramallah. Israeli police and colonists clash at the settlement of Amona. Nine illegal habitations will be destroyed.

06:49 Baghdad. Saddam's lawyers demand new judge to replace Kurdish Justice Rauf Rashid Abdel Rahman.

06:16 Baghdad. Eight people killed in a suicide bombing in east Baghdad. Thirty others were injured.

04:02 Washington. The US will cust 75% of its oil imports by 2025.

03:02 Washington. Cindy Sheehan was arrested before she was able to enter the Capitol as in invited guest at the State of the Union Address.

02:15 Washington. Patriot Act extended for one month.

01:44 Washington. Capitol police apologize for the arrest of Cindy Sheehan.

00:37 Copenaghen. Two bomb scares at the offices of the Danish tabloid Jyllands-Posten.