Tag Archives: George W Bush

Elliott Abrams predicts Obama, Bibi faceoff

Elliott Abrams, former deputy national security advisor to President Bush, speaking Saturday morning in Fort Lauderdale at the winter meeting of the Republican Jewish Coalition, said he thinks the Obama administration may be able to successfully employ sanctions against Iran now that oil prices have dropped, especially if President Obama is able to secure cooperation from China and Russia.

However, Abrams predicted friction between Obama and Netanyahu on the issue of Israeli settlements. And he said that if sanctions fail to arrest Iran’s march toward nuclear capability, both Obama and Netanyahu will face a historic decision as to whether to allow “this regime whose stated intention is to destroy Israel” to acquire nuclear weapons.

Abrams, senior fellow for middle eastern studies at the Council on Foreign Relations, said President Obama has a better chance of effectively employing sanctions against Iran than President Bush did due to two factors: the drop in cost of oil and the possibility of increased cooperation from Russia and China.

During the Bush years, high oil prices offset the sanctions’ effect. But now that oil prices have significantly dropped, sanctions could be more effective in halting Iran’s progress toward nuclear capability, according to Abrams.

“Our sanctions [during the Bush years] were having an impact but weren’t overcoming the money Iran was getting from selling oil,” according to Abrams. “In the course of this year, though, sanctions could work.”

The second factor in making sanctions effective would be greater international cooperation. If President Obama can garner more cooperation from China and Russia than President Bush was able to, then that cooperation, combined with reduced oil prices, might mean the U.S. could effectively squeeze Iran’s leadership, Abrams believes.

If sanctions fail, and should Iran acquire nuclear weapons, “then we’d be forcing the hand of Arabs in the region also to acquire nuclear weapons …then the possibility of terrorists acquiring a nuclear weapon becomes five or ten times as great,” he said.

In terms of a military option to prevent Iran from acquiring nuclear capability, Abrams said two questions on the table for both Obama and Netanyahu are whether they can successfully target Iran’s nuclear facilities, and if they do so, how far it will set Iran back.

“‘The question is, ‘How much can you destroy?’” he said. “It’s not like Osirak, they’ve spread things around. Also, what about the secret plant we’ve never heard about?

“How far can you set them back? If it’s five months, it won’t be worth it. But if it’s ten years? [The U.S.] has a larger air force and better capability than Israel. We could do a better job.”

Abrams also questioned the conventional wisdom that a military strike against Iran would provoke a nationalistic response from the Iranian people.

Most Iran experts say in the event of a military attack on Iran’s nuclear facilities, Iranians
“would immediately rally, there will be a nationalistic reaction and you will see solidarity and support,” said Abrams. But, he reflected, in the aftermath of the Israeli attack on Iraq’s nuclear facility at Osirak in 1981, it would appear Saddam Hussein did not react by rebuilding his nuclear facility, and there was not a widespread nationalistic response. Similarly, he cited the lack of response on the part of Syria to a 2008 U.S. military attack against terror suspects crossing from Iraq into Syria.

If the U.S. attacked Iran’s nuclear facility, Abrams questioned, “Would the Iranian people rally behind the regime, or would they say… ‘How did we get into this?’ I’m not sure what most Iran experts [predict would happen] would be true.”

Abrams critiqued the appeal President Obama delivered Friday to Iran for providing reassurance to Iran’s leadership.

““It was a speech to the Iranian people … combined with a message of reassurance to [the mullahs who] we should not be reassuring,” he said. “If you were an Iranian dissident I think you’d have been disappointed with what you heard yesterday.”

On the subject of Israel, Abrams predicts some friction in the near term between Obama and Netanyahu because the Obama administration believes that the main problem in brokering an Israeli/Palestinian final status agreement is Israel’s settlement expansion. This, according to Abrams, is false.

“I can illustrate why [this is false] very simply,” said Abrams. “Look at what [Ehud] Barak proposed ten years ago. Look at what Olmert offered recently. Olmert offered more.”

In other words, what has repeatedly made a final status agreement between Israelis and Palestinians impossible is Palestinians’ refusal to accept a deal, not settlement expansion, since the latter has coincided with more generous offers of land for peace, according to Abrams.

Abrams said he is unsure how much friction there will be between Obama and Netanyahu on the issue of settlements. Nonetheless, he predicts American Jewish organizations will side with Obama in political battles.

“I hope I’m wrong, but I think [Jewish and other security-minded organizations] will have a tough time making the case for what Netanyahu wants to do,” he said.

Abrams also talked about media coverage of the incoming Netanyahu government, saying The New York Times has already begun a “campaign to de-legitimize” the incoming Israeli government before it even takes power, “as if there is something illicit about democratically electing a right-of-center government.” This campaign has taken the form of interviewing IDF forces about alleged improprieties in Gaza during Operation Cast Lead, according to Abrams, who characterized this reporting as highly questionable.

“You’ll notice these IDF officers are never saying, ‘I did it,’ or ‘I saw it,’” said Abrams, but "’I heard about it.’”

Asked by an audience member whether there is any hope for recognition by the Obama administration and the world that the lack of Arab states’ acceptance of Israel is the major obstacle to peace in the Mideast, Abrams responded by saying, “We are decades away but [acceptance of Israel’s right to exist] could happen.”

While some governments like that of Iran still institutionalize hatred of Israel, others have shifted toward acceptance, he believes. But he maintains the “Arab street” is still far from accepting.

“The governments of Jordan, Lebanon, Morocco and Tunisia don’t want to destroy Israel [but] they can’t bring their own people along [to accept Israel],” Abrams said. “For decades, as a means of distracting their own people from the lack of freedom and democracy, they have instilled massive propaganda against Israel,” and now that it may no longer be in their interests to whip up hatred against Israel, they can’t easily undo it.

The anti-Israel prejudice is exacerbated, Abrams believes, by Al Jazeera and a worldwide surge of Islamism, which he believes has reached its apex and will probably start to wane in its virulence, but will take several decades to do so.

 

The myth of America’s ‘tough’ Iran policy

The Obama administration has disclosed plans to shift U.S. policy toward Iran from the "policies of the past" to a policy of  "constructive dialogue" and "mutual respect," in hopes that Iran will become benevolent and "unclench their fist."

As futile as the idea of talking to the Ayatollahs seems to sober Americans and our allies today, we must first set the record straight on those policies of the past that Obama is determined to change: America has never had a "tough" policy toward the Islamic Republic of Iran.

Iran has been allowed to kidnap and kill Americans for decades, whether directly or by proxy, without fear of severe repercussions.  For years the US State Department has declared that Iran is the world’s "most active" sponsor of terrorism, yet the Ayatollahs have not been forced to pay a significant price. Iran has armed and aided our enemies-including Al Qaeda-and threatened our allies and has gotten away with it.

Now, the Iranians are developing nuclear weapons along with the ballistic missiles with which to deliver them and, still, there is no tough policy toward Iran.

Though it may seem to many Americans as if the Iranian nuclear program has only come about in the past few years, it has actually been known to policymakers for a very long time.

Consider that over 15 years ago in the January 4, 1994 edition of USA Today, Clinton administration Undersecretary of State Lynn Davis had this to say about Iran’s nuclear program: "Iran’s actions leave little doubt that Tehran is intent upon developing a nuclear weapons capability. They are inconsistent with any rational civil nuclear program."

What did the Clinton administration do to head off Iran’s nuclear program after this startling admission about Iran’s nuclear intentions? Virtually nothing.

For nearly three decades now since Iranian "students" invaded the US embassy in Tehran and took US hostages, sanctions against Iran have been a widely believed urban legend-and nothing more.

Even during that hostage crisis of 1979-81, President Carter was unsuccessful in convincing our closest NATO allies and Japan to participate in economic sanctions against Iran. Not even Great Britain was willing to cut off trade with Iran during that crisis period.

The US has had to "go it alone" on Iran for decades.  But even the US has imposed only limited unilateral sanctions against Iran and never broad, far-reaching sanctions. Two successive administrations, Clinton and Bush, didn’t even bother to enforce our own sanctions against Iran.

The Iran Sanctions Act, authored by Senator Alphonse D’Amato of New York passed both houses of Congress with virtually no opposition back in 1996. That bill would have placed any foreign oil company with over $20 million in investments in Iran’s oil and gas sector under U.S. sanctions. Companies like Shell and Total would have been forced to choose between doing business in America or in Iran. President Clinton signed it into law-and promptly issued waivers by executive order to every single oil company that would have been affected. Unfortunately, President Bush, on the advice of the geniuses at the State Department, continued that same waiver policy during his 8 years in office.

Moreover, America has allowed our own corporations to bypass US sanctions laws by using foreign cut-outs and subsidiaries to do business with the Ayatollahs. In fact, during the 8 years of the Bush administration, US trade with Iran actually expanded. This is especially shocking given that during much of this period Iran was operating directly in support of Jihadist insurgents in Iraq and Afghanistan who were killing American soldiers, sailors, airmen and Marines, providing the terrorists with training, logistics, safe haven and advanced weaponry.

Companies like GE and H-P only ceased such activity after the news media scrutinized their "end around" operations with the Iranians. Unfortunately, other US companies continue to do business with Iran and multinational firms such as Siemens, Alcatel-Lucent and Nokia have even provided Iran with advanced communications technology.

Two organizations, the American Enterprise Institute and United Against Nuclear Iran, have published excellent online databases of companies who provide corporate life support to the Ayatollahs.

As for sanctions imposed by the UN Security Council, they have been even more limited to certain aspects of nuclear technology and arms, with virtually no impact on the Iranian economy. Even these limited sanctions have no teeth at all, which is why Iran’s largest arms suppliers, Russia and China, were willing to allow them to pass in the first place.

The fact is, Iran has felt little economic pressure due to sanctions since that day 15 years ago in January 1994 when the Clinton State Department admitted to USA Today that Iran was working on nuclear weapons.

Our government has failed us. Our leaders have failed us. Nevertheless, Iran is in trouble economically, mostly due to the recent collapse in the price of oil.

What is so frustrating to those of us who are worried about the Iranian threat and have for years sought a peaceful means of addressing Iran’s nuclear program and its sponsorship of terrorism, is the fact that there have never been any meaningful measures taken to bring pressure on Iran.

It is especially disappointing that America and the rest of the Free World are not willing to apply economic leverage on Iran right now because Iran’s economy is hurting very badly, leaving them vulnerable to an effective sanctions regime. "Talk" in and of itself is unlikely to produce results without accompanying pressure.

Iran’s economic desperation was recently illustrated in stark terms when its central bank gave the go-ahead to issue interest-bearing debentures on the international markets in direct violation of the Shariah law by which the Ayatollahs rule.

Shariah is a comprehensive body of laws governing all aspects of Islamic society, including politics, economics, finance, business, warfare and even individual dress codes and diet. It is understood in the Muslim world to be "Allah’s law." Such an unprecedented move to ignore Shariah had to have come with the blessing of Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, the supreme leader of Iran and an authority on Shariah.

Khamenei could not have granted permission to issue bonds eagerly. Something had to have forced his hand. That something is Iran’s weak economic and financial condition. If truly comprehensive and tough economic sanctions were imposed on Iran now-for the very first time-Iran might very well be forced to make tough decisions on issues such as its nuclear program and support for Jihadist terrorism.

Given that the ayatollahs are now willing to overlook Shariah-the sacred code of Allah-in an effort to keep their economy afloat, they may be forced to cut back their nuclear program and reduce funding for Jihadist terrorists if  their economy is dealt a blow by truly tough sanctions.

 

Christopher Holton is a Vice President with the Center for Security Policy and directs its Divest Terror Initiative and Shariah Risk Due Diligence Project.

Garbage in, garbage out

The announcement last week that the Obama administration would turn over the job of preparing National Intelligence Estimates to a man whom Saudi Arabia, China, Iran and Hamas surely consider an agent of influence calls to mind an old axiom about Charles "Chas" Freeman’s new line of work:  "Garbage in, garbage out."

The expression captures an immutable reality.  The quality of the output of intelligence collection and analysis is only as good the inputs.  

So, if you have a spymaster who unwittingly relies on double agents feeding the CIA enemy disinformation rather than accurate intelligence, conclusions drawn from such data will be erroneous, possibly dangerously so.

Similarly, if the chairman of the National Intelligence Council (NIC) – the organization responsible for producing the National Intelligence Estimates (NIEs) that are supposed to reflect the best insights of the intelligence community as a whole and that usually guide U.S. government security decision-making – has a well-established and anti-American policy agenda, he will likely try to discount or exclude insights from NIEs that conflict with his biases.  Such a politicization of intelligence would have far-reaching implications for American interests and security.

Could this happen?  In fact, it did in 2007 under the Bush administration.  In December of that year, the National Intelligence Council – then under the leadership of another product of the State Department, Thomas Fingar – produced an NIE that declared "with high confidence" that the Iranian mullahs had halted their nuclear weapons program in 2003. An unclassified summary of that estimate was made public with much fanfare, and with a transparent political purpose: To deny President Bush grounds for attacking Iran so as to prevent the regime there from getting the bomb.

At the time, many intelligence and defense experts challenged the Iran NIE’s much-ballyhooed conclusion as preposterous and misleading. It was even belied by findings elsewhere in the estimate. Today, however, no sentient being thinks this National Intelligence Estimate’s principal finding was accurate. 

Indeed, the Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, Admiral Mike Mullen, declared in recent days that the mullahs now have enough enriched uranium to produce a nuclear weapon and are working to do so. Maybe that development would have occurred in the absence of a flawed NIE.  Given Tehran’s announced ambition to "wipe Israel off the map" and bring about "a world without America," though, it was entirely predictable once such a skewed estimate was publicly released with the desired effect.

Unfortunately, the December 2007 NIE may look like the gold standard compared with what we can expect from a NIC process run by Chas Freeman.  Like his boss, Director of National Intelligence Dennis Blair, and CIA Director Leon Panetta, Freeman has long been a consumer of intelligence, but not a professional in the spy business. In fact, in the course of a long career in the Foreign Service, Freeman served in capacities – notably as ambassador to Saudi Arabia and as the number two man in Embassy Beijing – where the job often is seen as representing the host government to his own, rather than the other way around.

Worse yet, in the years since he left government service, Freeman has repeatedly espoused policy views that are profoundly troubling in their own right and that should simply be disqualifying for the position of objective arbiter of the most sensitive national intelligence assessments.

For example, Freeman has view the Middle East through the prism of one of Foggy Bottom’s most successful Arabists.  He justifies Arab enmity towards us on the grounds that we are associated with Israel.  He decries the liberation of Iraq for having "catalyzed anarchy, sectarian violence, terrorism, and civil war in that country." He makes excuses for "democratically elected" Hamas and urges its embrace by the United States.

Worse yet, through his organization, the Middle East Policy Council, he has been a paid shill for Saudi Arabia – from whence millions of dollars have flowed to pay for Freeman’s excuse-making for the Saudis. Freeman has also served on the board of the Chinese National Offshore Oil Corporation (CNOOC), a notorious state-owned arm of Chinese colonialism in Africa and Asia – a vantage point from which he could and did flak for Communist China.

Then, as is made clear in a paper by Clare Lopez about what Tehran calls "the Iran Lobby" in America released by the Center for Security Policy last week, Amb. Freeman has been a frequent apologist for Iran, as well.  Like others who make up that "lobby," Freeman has repeatedly and in numerous forums parroted the mullahs’ party line, insisting that the United States must engage diplomatically with Iran, not attack it.

It strains credulity that a man with such pronounced – and anti-American – policy views can serve effectively, let alone objectively, as the arbiter of National Intelligence Estimates. Perhaps they are not really his views and that he was simply what amounted to a paid lobbyist for deeply problematic causes and countries. The evidence suggests that he is what he appears to be: an aggressive partisan in the service of many of America’s most dangerous actual or potential adversaries.

Either way, it is malfeasance to entrust the National Intelligence Council to him. It speaks volumes about Barack Obama’s judgment and policy proclivities that he would even consider such an appointment.

After all, this is a vital post at the very pinnacle of the U.S. national security establishment.  It is not a job for a garbage collector – or purveyor.

 

Frank J. Gaffney, Jr. is President of the Center for Security Policy and a columnist for the Washington Times.

 

Obama, the appeaser?

President Obama’s broad scheme for foreign policy has been something of a puzzle, short on specifics and long on talk about forging alliances, extending hands and "engaging."

In his first address to a joint session of Congress on Tuesday evening, Obama offered a further hint–repeating the gist of the argument with which, as one of his first acts in office, he ordered the closing of Guantanamo Bay: "Living our values doesn’t make us weaker. It makes us safer, and it makes us stronger."

So far, there’s not much reason to feel safer. If anything, the world seems to be getting less safe, at speed. On Wednesday, just hours after Obama delivered his speech, Iran began its first test-run of the nuclear reactor built with Russian help at Bushehr.

Barring forcible intervention of some kind, it’s highly likely Iran will fire up this reactor in earnest later this year–and start cranking out, on an industrial scale, spent fuel that can be processed into plutonium for nuclear bombs. That’s in addition to Iran’s uranium enrichment, another route along which Iran, according to U.N. officials, has now traveled far enough to have the makings of a bomb.

The Bushehr test run follows a month, post-Inauguration, in which Iran has launched a satellite, underscoring its interest in long-range missile capability. North Korea in short order announced its aim to soon do the same. Russia has been flexing its muscles in its continuing bid to reassert hegemony in what Moscow considers the "near abroad."

Pakistan released from house arrest the godfather of its nuclear program and chief broker-dealer of its proliferation networks, A.Q. Khan. The International Atomic Energy Agency released a report confirming the finding last year of unexplained "uranium particles" at the site of Syria’s secret nuclear reactor.

Syria has just replied by denying the reactor’s existence, but telling diplomats that the site now hosts a missile launching facility. On a related note, rockets hit Israel again this week, out of both Hamas-controlled Gaza and Hezbollah-infested Lebanon.

So what are the values with which Obama plans to address this landscape?

Are they the values now on display in U.S. policy toward Gaza, run by the terrorist group Hamas? There, despite overwhelming evidence of the Iranian-backed terror nest that Gaza has become, the U.S. seems less interested in ending the terrorist reign of Hamas than in bankrolling its territorial base.

Reports earlier this week, citing an unnamed U.S. official, said Secretary of State Hillary Clinton plans to attend a funding conference in Cairo next week where she will pledge $900 million in U.S. aid for Gaza. At a Tuesday press briefing, a State Department spokesman confirmed that while details, including the exact amount, are still being worked out, a whopping pledge is indeed in the offing: "It’ll be, you know, several hundred million."

Or does Obama have in mind the values articulated by Clinton when she sidelined human rights during her visit last week to China? There, our prematurely jaded new Secretary told reporters that America and China already know each other’s stands on human rights, so needn’t bother with ritual recitations; and in any event, such issues as human rights "can’t interfere with the global economic crisis, the global climate change crisis and security crises."

Will we be living by the values implied in the Obama administration’s decision to "engage" in preparations for the United Nations Durban II conference scheduled this April in Geneva. This conference, convened in the name of fighting "racism," is actually an exercise in censorship and condemnation directed at the free world, starting with Israel.

Durban II is a pet project of the despotic lobbying bloc that controls the 192-member UN General Assembly, which is led most of the time by the 57-member Organization of the Islamic Conference, or OIC (headquartered in Saudi Arabia), which overlaps with the 130-member Group of 77 (currently chaired by Sudan). The Durban II conference preparations were captured from the start by such nations as Libya, Iran and Pakistan (on behalf of the OIC).

The Durban II conference is already configured to savage Israel and endorse a global gag-order on free speech about Islam. It is styled as a "review" of the U.N.’s 2001 conference in Durban, South Africa. That played out as such a bacchanal of bigotry that then-Secretary of State Colin Powell told the U.S. delegation to walk out.

Under President Bush, America declined to legitimize Durban II by taking part in the plans. Obama this month reversed that decision and sent a delegation to a planning session in Geneva. Now is the moment that the U.S. might usefully mount a boycott and invite other decent governments to join. Instead, Obama’s administration has been coy–which suggests he’s going to lend a U.S. stamp of legitimacy to the sordid doings of Durban II.

And then there are the values implicitly endorsed by Obama’s new Special Representative to Afghanistan and Pakistan, Richard Holbrooke. He’s been talking about Iran’s reach into Afghanistan not as part of the problem, but as part of the solution. Despite allegations, some by NATO officials, that Iran has been helping Taliban "extremists"– as Obama labels the terror-dedicated Taliban — Holbrooke opined recently on an Afghan TV station that Iran (yes, the same Iran run by the totalitarian mullahs who applaud Palestinian suicide-bombers, jail and torture dissident bloggers, and execute children and homosexuals) has a "legitimate role to play in this region, as do all of Afghanistan’s neighbors."

Or will America be living the values suggested by Obama’s plan to appoint as head of the National Intelligence Council, crafting the influential National Intelligence Estimates, Charles "Chas" Freeman, sharp critic of democratic Israel and head of a Washington think-tank endowed by the King of Unfree Saudi Arabia. Freeman is also a critic of China’s 1989 Tiananmen Square uprising, in which Chinese demonstrators built their own Statue of Liberty–or, as they called it, Goddess of Democracy.

Writing in Wednesday’s Wall Street Journal, Gabriel Schoenfeld quotes a 2006 posting on a confidential Internet site, in which Freeman offered his view of "the truly unforgivable mistake of the Chinese authorities"–which apparently was not the decision by China’s despots to order in China’s own army to shoot China’s own people–but "the failure to intervene on a timely basis to nip the demonstrations in the bud."

For that matter, will America be engaging abroad on the terms of the values displayed by Obama’s Attorney General, Eric Holder, who from his high national pulpit recently denounced America as "a nation of cowards"–with no public rebuke from Obama.

Holder was speaking about race in a speech to a domestic audience. But is anyone in the Obama administration paying attention to how such talk might feed the aggressive ambitions of America’s enemies abroad? For that matter, in appointing Timothy Geithner as Secretary of the Treasury, despite the tax-cheat scandal, has Obama considered what kind of signal that sends not only to Americans but beyond our shores, regarding the value placed by the current White House on integrity in financial dealings?

What are we to make of the values involved in Obama’s signing, with fanfare, an order to shut down Guantanamo Bay, our holding tank for alleged terrorists–while holding out olive branches to assorted despotisms that specialize in consigning democratic dissidents to some of the world’s worst dungeons?

If the world is one, and Obama is a citizen, how do we reconcile the showmanship over Guantanamo with the sidelining of issues that lead to the doors of Syria’s horrific Tadmor Prison, Iran’s Evin Prison, Libya’s Abu Salim or the labor and death camps of North Korea?

On two fronts, Obama has displayed sharp concern for "values" over realpolitik–or whatever we might call the above mix. Guantanamo, as just mentioned, and Darfur, on which Obama and Vice President Biden recently held an evening pow-wow in the White House with actor George Clooney.

These are not equivalent issues. What they do have in common, however, is that, unlike the dissidents of Iran and Syria, the vanished dissenters of North Korea, the smothered voices of democracy in China, they are favorite causes of the American media and Hollywood.

Obama has been described, at least in his speech delivery, as Reaganesque. But had Ronald Reagan lived by such values, it’s a good bet he never would have delivered the mortal blows he did to the Soviet Union and its satrapies, summed up in his 1987 demand in West Berlin: "Mr. Gorbachev, tear down this wall." Instead, we might have heard something like "We’ve made our share of mistakes, and there are times when our actions around the world have not always lived up to our best intentions"… Oh, wait! We did hear that, not so long ago. That was Obama, speaking last July, in Berlin.

It is one thing to tear down a wall that imprisons people within a tyranny. It is another to tear down distinctions between democratic and despotic governments, ignoring profound differences of principle in the hope that appeasing and engaging, with maybe some cash thrown in, will bring peace.

In Obama’s defense, it might be said that no government is entirely consistent in such matters. The world is too complex for that. Reagan stood up to the Soviets but flinched when Iran-backed Hezbollah bombed the marine barracks in Beirut.

George W. Bush talked big about democracy, and wrestled it through to where it stands a chance in Iraq, but otherwise tilted heavily in his second term toward engagement–negotiating with North Korea, hosting Syria at Annapolis, attending the Beijing Olympics and largely turning over the urgent matter of Iran’s nuclear ambitions to the feckless care of the European Union and the UN. If America’s values are freedom, democracy, individual liberty and justice for all, then every presidency has come freighted with some big exceptions.

But by lights of American values, the Obama presidency at its outset is charting a course in which such exceptions look more like the rule. To the great benefit of both the wider world and its own people, America has stood and prospered for a long time as a beacon of freedom. Is the future as bright with America transforming itself into a beacon of "engagement"?

Claudia Rosett, a journalist-in-residence with the Foundation for Defense of Democracies, writes a weekly column on foreign affairs for Forbes.com.

 

Rise of the ‘Iran Lobby’

Tehran’s front groups move on—and into— the Obama Administration

Clare M. Lopez

25 February 2009

A complex network of individuals and organizations with ties to the clerical regime in Tehran is pressing forward in seeming synchrony to influence the new U.S. administration’s policy towards the Islamic Republic of Iran. Spearheaded by a de facto partnership between the National Iranian-American Council (NIAC), the Council on American Islamic Relations (CAIR) and other organizations serving as mouthpieces for the mullahs’ party line, the network includes well-known American diplomats, congressional representatives, figures from academia and the think tank world.

This report documenting the rise of what can accurately be described as the “Iran Lobby” in Washington, D.C. is derived entirely from unclassified open sources and describes in detail the activities, linkages, and objectives of this alarming alliance between NIAC, CAIR and others that is aimed at co-opting America’s foreign policy in the Middle East and specifically with Iran. Understanding the involvement of the Tehran regime in the foundation and continuing activities of organizations like these and their allies will become increasingly important to understanding the extent of the regime’s influence on American foreign policy decisions regarding Iran.

As these organizations expand, multiply and, in the process, intensify their efforts to promote a shared and ominous agenda, it is imperative to recognize the role being played by what amount to their interlocking (or at least overlapping) boards of directors, donations from the same foundations and growing access to some key members of Congress and top levels of US policymaking circles.  Of special concern is the growing penetration of the Obama administration by a number of individuals with such associations.

To be sure, efforts at influencing U.S. decision-making are common among a host of legitimate interest groups, including many foreign countries. But in this context, where the guiding force behind such influence operations emanate from the senior-most levels of a regime like Iran’s – which holds the top spot on the State Department list of state-sponsors of terror, makes no secret of its hatred and enmity for the United States and its ally, Israel, and acts in myriad ways to support those who have assassinated, held hostage, kidnapped, killed and tortured American civilians and military personnel over a 30-year period – such operations must be viewed with serious concern.

Specifically, the de facto alliance between CAIR, one of the Muslim Brotherhood affiliates named by the U.S. Department of Justice as an unindicted co- conspirator in the 2007 and 2008 Holy Land Foundation trials, and groups such as NIAC and its predecessor, the American-Iranian Council (AIC), which long have functioned openly as apologists for the Iranian regime, must arouse deep concern that U.S. national security policy is being successfully targeted by Jihadist entities hostile to American interests.

Background

This paper is meant to provide a Who’s Who-style catalogue of the organizations and individuals associated with the Iran Lobby in America.  Some of the most influential figures involved are surely witting that their actions serve to support the objectives of the mullahs in Tehran, while others may not realize that their actions inevitably result in such consequences. Either way, the group as a whole is openly portrayed in the Iranian media as the regime’s “Iranian lobby” in the United States.1

Some of these entities also share another connection – to Iranian and international business interests, especially in the oil industry. Whatever their differences, the members of the Iran lobby have one thing in common: They insist that the United States must adopt a new policy towards Iran of conciliatory negotiations without preconditions. 

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Hail to the Chiefs

"He kept us safe." 

At this writing, it seems likely that, when the history of the presidency of George W. Bush is written, that statement will be one of its most laudable achievements.  All of us – Republicans, Democrats, independents and others alike – can only hope that the same will be said of our new Commander-in-Chief, Barack Obama, as well.

I had thought even the inveterate Bush-haters would give the outgoing president his due on this score.  Imagine my surprise when, in the course of an appearance I made last Wednesday on MSNBC’s "Hardball," host Chris Matthews seemed determined to diminish, if not dismiss altogether, this legacy of the Bush 43 presidency.

Matthews’ argument was that, if safety is the test, Mr. Bush actually failed.  After all, he allowed 9/11 to happen on his watch.  There can be no disputing the fact that nearly 3,000 Americans killed on that terrible day in 2001 were not kept safe.

The truth of the matter is that the Bush team can fairly be critiqued for what amounts to its failure to abandon during the administration’s first few months defective counter-terrorism, intelligence and law enforcement policies inherited from the Clinton administration.  With the benefit of hindsight, we now know that, had it heeded various warnings – some of which were also ignored by President Clinton – and acted more aggressively, the hijackers who perpetrated their murderous plot on 9/11 might have been kept from doing so.

Having said that, it is churlish, not to say obtuse, to deny that many corrective actions were taken after September 11, 2001, with salutary effect.  An enormous investment has been made in myriad aspects of homeland security at the federal, state and local levels.  The notorious "wall" that once prevented cooperation between intelligence agencies and their law enforcement counterparts has been dismantled.  Legislation essential to monitoring the enemy’s communications, intercepting his funding streams and detaining his operatives has been enacted, closing serious pre-9/11 gaps that our foes proved to be skilled at exploiting.

Not least, the United States went on the offensive, attacking terrorist safe-havens in Afghanistan and Iraq and working with many other countries around the world to root out the cells, training camps and other operations associated with or emulating al Qaeda.

Thanks, in part to these measures, a succession of known terrorist plots meant to inflict further loss of American lives and destruction of property were prevented.  It seems likely, if unprovable, that still others were deterred.

Some, like Chris Matthews, seemed determined to trivialize these accomplishments by suggesting that the damage the prevented attacks would have inflicted was far less than the murderous airplane-delivered blows of September 11. They also aver that the costs of adopting a more robust homeland security posture here and our offensive strategy abroad have surpassed the benefits.

There is, of course, no way to evaluate such assertions.  My guess, though, is that most Americans would strongly disagree.  They quite reasonably and overwhelmingly believe that their government has a responsibility to do whatever it can to keep us safe.  Had the Bush administration done otherwise in the wake of 9/11 and its lapses been exploited at a cost of more death and destruction here, there would have been hell to pay.

It is a credit to President Bush and his subordinates that they did as much as they did on this score and they deserve our thanks for the extent to which their efforts to secure our country proved successful.
Having said all that, we are not as safe as we should be.  The Bush team has not fully understood, and certainly has not communicated authoritatively to the American people, the true nature of the danger we are confronting.  Unless we are clear about what animates our most immediate enemies – the theo-political-legal code authoritative Islam calls Shariah – we will not understand their threat doctrine, nor be able to counter it as we must, both comprehensively and effectively.

This failure is not only deeply problematic in its own right.  A public uninformed, a Congress inattentive and various institutions – including what’s left of Wall Street, our prisons, our campuses and our government – heedless of the menace posed by Shariah’s adherents are giving rise to extremely ominous conditions.  They portend an America that will be in due course, as Europe is today, at risk of penetration, subversion, sedition and ultimately destruction at the hands of those who seek to replace our form of government with a repressive Shariah-governed global theocracy.

It will fall to Barack Obama’s administration to rectify this serious blight on its predecessor’s record of keeping us safe.  Will our 44th president appreciate the danger here at home from the likes of the Muslim Brotherhood and its myriad front organizations – including the Islamic Society of North America and the Council on American Islamic Relations, a danger the Bush team largely failed to perceive?

Or will Mr. Obama compound this error, by embracing the Brotherhood, acquiescing to its demands for serial submission to Shariah in the name of "respecting Islam" and diversity, and perhaps employing its operatives?  Should such mistakes be made, it is predictable that we will not be able to say down the road of the man whose inauguration we honor today that "he kept us safe."

How conservatives lose elections

It would seem that in recent years conservative candidates in both Israel and the U.S. have forgotten how to win an election.
To win an election, a political party must identify and satisfy its political base. It must also identify and attract potential swing voters. To accomplish the latter task, a party has to identify the strengths and weaknesses of their opponents and co-opt their strengths while highlighting their weaknesses.
One of the most difficult challenges of running a campaign is figuring out how to attract undecided voters without alienating or demoralizing a party’s base. On the face of it, doing so should be easier for conservatives than for liberals in the U.S. and Israel because a majority of voters in both countries define themselves as right-leaning.
As Karl Rove noted recently in The Wall Street Journal, in spite of the Democrats election victory, the U.S. remains a center-right country. According to pre-election and post-election surveys of American voters last month, 34% consider themselves conservatives, 45% say they are moderate, and only 21% call themselves liberal.
In Israel, consistent polling shows that more than 60% of Israelis reject making territorial concessions on Jerusalem and the Golan Heights and do not believe it is possible to reach a credible peace accord with the Palestinians. Moreover, the vast majority of Israeli Jews are socially conservative; 80% of Israelis, for example, classify themselves as religiously observant or traditional.
These numbers go a long way in explaining why liberal candidates in both the U.S. and Israel seek to portray themselves as conservative hawks during electoral campaigns. In the U.S., Democratic presidential candidates from Jimmy Carter to Barack Obama have run as moderates with conservative tendencies. In Israel, leftist politicians from Yitzhak Rabin to Shimon Peres to Ehud Barak to Tzipi Livni, have all portrayed themselves as security hawks ahead of elections.
As candidates, these politicians (and their supporters) understood that to win, it was necessary for them to go to the right – where the voters are. Once elected, of course, they have governed as liberals — that is, until they began considering their reelection prospects.
While it makes sense for left-leaning liberals to move to the right in elections, it makes little sense for their opponents to move to the left. After all, the voters are on the right. Yet for some reason, moving to where the voters aren’t is becoming common practice in both the U.S. and Israel.
As we saw in the U.S. presidential election and in the current Israeli Knesset campaign, by moving to the left, right-leaning candidates demoralize their base. And far from convincing swing voters to support them, they make swing voters feel comfortable supporting their opponents.
During the presidential campaign, Republican nominee Senator John McCain believed that to win, he needed to convince voters he was the "anti-Republican" Republican. McCain believed President Bush’s low approval ratings meant the public had rejected the Republican Party.
But McCain’s analysis was wrong. Americans had rejected Bush and his policies, not his party as a whole. Had McCain campaigned as the anti-Bush candidate by attacking Bush’s passivity on issues like illegal immigration and the Iranian and North Korean nuclear programs, and had he attacked Bush’s big government policies, he would have successfully distanced himself from an unpopular president and rallied his base.
Moreover, he would have been able to attack Obama for pushing immigration, foreign policy and economic policies identical to or even more extreme than Bush’s failed policies.

By incorrectly identifying the object of both Republican dissatisfaction and swing-voter concerns, McCain demoralized his base and convinced undecided voters it was okay to support Obama. Indeed, it was McCain’s anti-Republican campaign more than Obama’s change campaign that brought a majority of voters to Obama. As polling data indicates, Obama did not move many Republican voters to his side.

What enabled Obama to win the election was not a massive voter shift from right to left. Rather, Obama owes his victory in large part to the fact that McCain’s anti-Republican campaign convinced a lot of Republicans that they had no one to vote for and so 4.1 million Republican voters stayed home on Election Day.

As Rove reported, Obama’s crucial victory in Ohio came despite the fact that he won 32,000 fewer votes in the state than John Kerry did in 2004. It wasn’t that Obama was loved. He won because McCain’s base hated McCain. In Ohio, McCain’s anti-Republican campaign caused him to win 360,000 fewer votes in the state than Bush won in 2004.

In Israel, Likud under Benjamin Netanyahu today has the advantage of running against Kadima, whose strategic and diplomatic programs have been largely rejected by voters. On the other hand, Netanyahu is running against Foreign Minister Tzipi Livni who is quite reasonably playing down her radical and failed policies and basing her campaign on her undeserved reputation for competence and her dubious public persona as a clean politician.
To win, Netanyahu and Likud should be doing two things. They should be continuously pointing out Kadima’s record of failure in office and they should be attacking Livni. They should be emphasizing Livni’s personal failures in office and focus the public’s attention on the fact that she owes her political rise to her association with corrupt politicians like Ariel Sharon and Ehud Olmert.
Instead, Netanyahu is pointing his guns at his own party. For three precious weeks, he staged an ugly campaign against his intra-Likud adversary Moshe Feiglin. And in so doing, he angered a significant portion of his political base.
Then too, rather than emphasizing the policy distictions between likud and Kadima, Netanyahu has sought to blur those distinctions by promising to form a unity coalition with Kadima after the elections and pledging to continue the government’s negotiations with the Fatah terror movement toward an Israeli withdrawal from Judea, Samaria and Jerusalem. As well, Netanyahu has opted not to highlight his own oft-stated refusal to withdraw from any part of Jerusalem or the Golan Heights.
As to political integrity, rather than highlight Livni’s ties to crooked pols, Netanyahu has tried to "out-integrity" her by bringing a political enemy, former justice minister and dovish Kadima supporter Dan Meridor, back into Likud.
Far from harming Livni’s prospects, Netanyahu’s actions have increased the public’s appreciation for her supposed attributes and so made fence sitters feel comfortable supporting Kadima.
On the other hand, his actions have angered Likud’s core supporters. Many are now willing to consider other options for voting. Some are moving to other rightist parties. Some are moving to Kadima. And some are declaring their intention not to vote. This is the reason that over the past two weeks, Likud has lost its 10-15 seat lead in the polls and is currently in a dead heat with Kadima.
Both McCain’s failed campaign for the presidency and Netanyahu’s current campaign in Israel may be partly attributable to the profound leftist bias of the media in both countries. It is possible that due to the media’s overwhelming support for left-leaning candidates, right-leaning candidates have drawn the incorrect conclusion that their societies and their potential voters lean left.
Whatever has caused the state of affairs in which conservative candidates feel compelled to turn to their political opponents for support that will never come rather than rely on their voters who comprise the majority of their electorates, it can only be hoped that both in Israel today and the U.S. in the future, conservative politicians will reverse course.
It does no one any good when voters elect politicians who do not share their views because politicians who do share their views insult and anger them.
Originally published in The Jewish Press.

The ‘realist’ fantasy

Both Iran and its Hamas proxy in Gaza have been busy this Christmas week showing Christendom just what they think of it. But no one seems to have noticed.

On Tuesday, Hamas legislators marked the Christmas season by passing a Shari’a criminal code for the Palestinian Authority. Among other things, it legalizes crucifixion.

Hamas’s endorsement of nailing enemies of Islam to crosses came at the same time it renewed its jihad. Here, too, Hamas wanted to make sure that Christians didn’t feel neglected as its fighters launched missiles at Jewish day care centers and schools. So on Wednesday, Hamas lobbed a mortar shell at the Erez crossing point into Israel just as a group of Gazan Christians were standing on line waiting to travel to Bethlehem for Christmas.

While Hamas joyously renewed its jihad against Jews and Christians, its overlords in Iran also basked in jihadist triumphalism. The source of Teheran’s sense of ascendancy this week was Britain’s Channel 4 network’s decision to request that Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad give a special Christmas Day address to the British people. Ahmadinejad’s speech was supposed to be a response to Queen Elizabeth II’s traditional Christmas Day address to her subjects. That is, Channel 4 presented his message as a reasonable counterpoint to the Christmas greetings of the head of the Church of England.

Channel 4 justified its move by proclaiming that it was providing a public service. As a spokesman told The Jerusalem Post, "We’re offering [Ahmadinejad] the chance to speak for himself, which people in the West don’t often get the chance to see."

While that sounds reasonable, the fact is that Westerners see Ahmadinejad speaking for himself all the time. They saw him at the UN two years in a row as he called for the countries of the world to submit to Islam; claimed that Iran’s nuclear weapons program is divinely inspired; and castigated Jews as subhuman menaces to humanity.

They saw him gather leading anti-Semites from all over the world at his Holocaust denial conference.

They heard him speak in his own words when he called for Israel to be "wiped off the map."

And of course, over the years Ahmadinejad has often communicated directly to the British people. For instance, in 2007 he received unlimited airtime on UK television as he paraded kidnapped British sailors and marines in front of television cameras; forced them to make videotaped "confessions" of their "crime" of entering Iranian territorial waters; and compelled them to grovel at his knee and thank him for "forgiving" them.

The British people listened to Ahmadinejad as he condemned Britain as a warmongering nation after its leaders had surrendered Basra to Iranian proxies. They heard him – speaking in his own voice – when he announced that in a gesture of Islamic mercy, he was freeing their humiliated sailors and marines in honor of Muhammad’s birthday and Easter, and then called on all Britons to convert to Islam.

Yet as far as Channel 4 is concerned, Ahmadinejad is still an unknown quantity for most Britons. So they asked him to address the nation on Christmas. And not surprisingly, in his address, he attacked their way of life and co-opted their Jewish savior, Jesus, saying, "If Christ was on earth today, undoubtedly he would stand with the people in opposition to bullying, ill-tempered and expansionist powers."

He then reiterated his call for non-Muslims to convert to Islam saying, "The solution to today’s problems can be found in a return to the call of the divine prophets."

THE FACT of the matter is that Channel 4 is right. There is a great deal of ignorance in the West about what the likes of Ahmadinejad and his colleagues in Iran, Syria, Hizbullah and Hamas stand for. But this isn’t their fault. They tell us every day that they seek the destruction of the Jews and the domination of the West in the name of Islam. And every day they take actions that they believe advance their goals.

The reason that the West remains ignorant of the views and goals of the likes of Hamas and Iran is not that the latter have hidden their views and goals. It is because the leading political leaders and foreign policy practitioners in the West refuse to listen to them and deny the significance of their actions.

As far as the West’s leaders are concerned, Iran and its allies are unimportant. They are not actors, but objects. As far as the West’s leading foreign policy "experts" and decision-makers are concerned, the only true actors on the global stage are Western powers. They alone have the power to shape reality and the world. Oddly enough, this dominant political philosophy, which is based on denying the existence of non-Western actors on the world stage, is referred to as political "realism."

The "realist" view was given clear expression this week by one of the "realist" clique’s most prominent members. In an op-ed published Tuesday in Canada’s Globe and Mail titled, "We must talk Iran out of the bomb," Richard Haass, the president of the Council on Foreign Relations, argued that given the dangers of a nuclear-armed Iran and the dangers of a US or Israeli strike against Iran’s nuclear installations, the incoming Obama administration must hold direct negotiations with the mullahs to convince them to end their nuclear weapons program.

In making this argument, Haass ignores the fact that this has been the Bush administration’s policy for the past five years. He also ignores the fact that President George W. Bush adopted this policy at the urging of Haass’s "realist" colleagues and at the urging of Haass himself.

Moreover, Haass bizarrely contends that in negotiating with the mullahs, the Obama administration should offer Iran the same package of economic and political payoffs that the Bush administration and the EU have been offering, and Teheran has been rejecting, since 2003.

Even more disturbingly, Haass ignores the fact that Teheran made its greatest leaps forward in its uranium enrichment capabilities while it was engaged in these talks with the West.

So in making his recommendation to the Obama administration – which has already announced its intention to negotiate with the mullahs – Haass has chosen to ignore Iran’s statements, its actions, and known facts about the West’s inability to steer it from its course of war by showering it with pay-offs.

Haass and his colleagues in the US, Europe and on the Israeli Left are similarly unwilling to pay attention to Hamas. In an article in the current issue of Foreign Affairs, Haass and his colleague Martin Indyk from the Brookings Institute call on the Obama administration to either ignore Hamas, or, if it abides by a cease-fire with Israel, they suggest that the Obama administration should support a joint Hamas-Fatah government and "authorize low-level contact between US officials and Hamas." The fact that Hamas itself is wholly dedicated to Israel’s destruction and Islamic global domination is irrelevant.

Similarly, Haass and Indyk assume that Damascus can be appeased into abandoning its support for Hizbullah and Hamas, and its strategic alliance with Iran. Syrian President Bashar Assad’s views of how his interests are best served are unimportant. Both Assad’s statements of eternal friendship with Iran and his active involvement in Iran’s war effort against the US and its allies in Israel, Iraq and Lebanon are meaningless. The "realists" know what he really wants.

MUSLIMS AREN’T the only ones whose views and actions are dismissed as irrelevant by these foreign policy wise men. The "realists" ignore just about every non-Western actor. Take Iran’s principal Asian ally, North Korea, for example.

This week North Korea’s official news agency threatened to destroy South Korea in a "sea of fire," and "reduce everything treacherous and anti-reunification to debris and build an independent, reunified country on it," if any country dares to attack its nuclear installations.

North Korea made its threat two weeks after Kim Jung Il’s regime disengaged from its fraudulent disarmament talks with the Bush administration. Those talks – the brainchild of foreign policy "realists" Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice and Assistant Secretary Christopher Hill – were based on the "realist" belief that the US can appease North Korea into giving up its nuclear arsenal. (That would be the same nuclear arsenal that the North Koreans built while engaged in fraudulent disarmament talks with the Clinton administration.)

After Pyongyang agreed in February 2007 to eventually come clean on its plutonium installations (but not its uranium enrichment programs), and to account for its nuclear arsenal (but not for its proliferation activities), Rice convinced President Bush to remove North Korea from the State Department’s list of state sponsors of terror and to end its subjection to the US’s Trading with the Enemy Act this past October. And then, after securing those massive US concessions, on December 11 Pyongyang renounced its commitments, walked away from the table and now threatens to destroy South Korea if anyone takes any action against it.

North Korea’s behavior is of no interest to the "realists," however. As far as they are concerned, the US has no option other than to continue the failed appeasement policy that has enabled North Korea to develop and proliferate nuclear weapons and ballistic missiles. As the Council on Foreign Relations’ Gary Samore said, "I think we’re sort of condemned to that process, because we don’t really have any alternative."

Samore and his colleagues believe there are no other options because all other options involve placing responsibility for contending with North Korea on non-Western powers like China, South Korea and Japan. More radically, they involve holding North Korea accountable for its actions and making it pay a price for its poor behavior.

As the "realists" claim that the US has no option other than their failed appeasement policies, back in the real world, this week military officials from the US’s Pacific Command warned that North Korea may supply Iran with intercontinental ballistic missiles. These warnings are credible given that North Korea has been the primary supplier of ballistic missiles and missile technology to Iran and Syria and has played a major role in both countries’ nuclear weapons programs.

Defending Channel 4’s invitation to Ahmadinejad, Dorothy Byrne, the network’s head of news and current affairs, said, "As the leader of one of the most powerful states in the Middle East, President Ahmadinejad’s views are enormously influential. As we approach a critical time in international relations, we are offering our viewers an insight into an alternative world view."

When you think about it, broadcasting Ahmadinejad really would have been a public service if Byrne or any of the delusional "realists" calling the shots were remotely interested in listening to what he has to say. But they aren’t. So far from a public service for Britain, it was a service for those who, unbeknownst to most Britons, are dedicated to destroying their country.

Originally published in The Jerusalem Post.

Victory for Chavez in Panama?

It is no secret that Venezuelan President Hugo Chavez is mobilizing politically and militarily to create an anti-U.S. climate in Latin America.   Chavez has now turned his attention to the upcoming elections in Panama; a small but strategically placed country connecting Central and South America. Panama is vital to U. S. economic and military interests. As stated in the August 14th edition of the Americas Report, "the United States is the largest user of the Panama Canal and 15-20% of U.S. trade including 40% of grain exports and 670,000 barrels of oil a day come through the canal." [i]   At present, the favored winner of the Panamanian presidential elections in May, 2009 is Balbina Herrera of the Democratic Revolutionary Party (PRD).   What we know of Herrera bodes poorly for the U.S.   Her behavior, which bears a striking resemblance to that of Chavez, combined with past ties to Noriega, casts a potentially dark shadow on the future of the United States- Panamanian relationship.

Herrera represents the left wing of the PRD.   She is clearly comfortable with dictatorial rule, remaining loyal to her party through two modern dictators; Omar Torrijos and Manuel Noriega. Herrera used to refer to herself as a "Torrejista de Verdad" or true Torrejista.   Yet, she perhaps owes more of her political success to Manuel Noriega. [ii]   Noriega, himself, claims to have hidden in her house during the 1989 U.S. invasion.   As a professional politician educated in Cuba, she has served as head of the National Assembly and as Housing Administrator in the current government of Martin Torrijos, the moderate son of the late dictator Omar Torrijos. As mayor of San Miguelito, during the Noriega years, she became known for threatening to kill protesters on sight using the catch phrase, "protesters seen, and protesters dead." [iii]  

The name "Manuel Noriega" conjures dark memories for most Panamanians.  One of his political opponents was savagely tortured and beheaded.   Noriega’s rule was characterized by violence, corruption, and poverty for those not in the military elite.   Most Panamanians would rather forget him.   Some might like to see him returned to stand trial for crimes against humanity. He has been tried and convicted in Panama for murder, embezzlement, and corruption in absentia.   Political science professor, Miguel Antonio Bernal, believes that there are small pockets among Panama’s political elite who remain sympathetic, if not loyal, and who hope to learn something of Noriega’s fabled hidden fortunes.   According to him, "If Noriega returns to Panama, it’s certain the great number of ‘Noriegists’ that are in the government disguised as ministers, lawmakers, judges, and prosecutors will want to do everything possible to ensure that Noriega doesn’t go to jail,". [iv]   Whether Noriega returns to Panama or not, former friend, Balbina Herrera, has secured her parties nomination despite allegations that she has received money from Hugo Chavez for her campaign.   

Like Hugo Chavez, Herrera won her parties’ primary by drawing an overwhelming number of votes from poor communities.   She told Reuters that, "We are reaching levels of growth of 10 percent, but we need to generate wealth, as well as employment, so we can redistribute it." [v]   Chavez was able to consolidate and build power with the same promises long before he began to deliver results in the form of his now questionable poverty programs.   Thus far, Herrera has distanced herself from Chavez and most likely will continue do so.  Herrera wants to appear as a moderate towards the U.S. given the benefit of Panamanian/U.S. economic relations. Since she needs the support of Panama’s business class, she has vowed to choose a young businessman for her running mate.  As a career politician, Herrera has never participated in the business community and must now create a semblance of economic credibility.

[More]During the primary it was easy for Herrera’s camp to dismiss insinuations of a Chavez connection.   It was obvious that her competition would try to tie her to Venezuela’s leader.   Now, evidence of a money trail is emerging.  Opponents of Chavez in Venezuela are reporting that Chavez is selling oil to Panamanian businessmen well below market price, who in turn, sell it in Panama for huge profits. 

These profits, in turn, have found their way to finance the Herrera campaign. The source of these reports, Mega TV, promises that more details are to come. [vi]   Those who write off concerns of Balbina Herrera’s Chavez like behavior should be reminded that the state of Panama’s democratic institutions are most likely not strong enough to withstand a leader determined to follow the Chavez model.   USAID describes Panamanian democracy as follows:

Panama’s constitution grants strong executive powers to the central government, and gives considerable immunity to legislators, judges, and high-ranking executive branch officials. There are no clear or accessible points of entry for citizens or civil society organizations to influence decision making. Concepts of conflict of interest and transparency are virtually absent from political discourse and practices. Corruption is prevalent and public opinion surveys place corruption as a primary concern, second only to unemployment. In the meantime, press gag laws remain in effect while leadership of the judiciary reform movement falls to a nascent civil society. [vii]

Though a multi-party system, executive power has only been shared among two parties since 1990.   Power is brokered by political elites of which Herrera has been a part for the duration of Panama’s struggle for democracy.   In a best case scenario, electoral realities might keep Herrera moderate and pragmatic for a time.   Due to the popularity of her opponent for the presidency, Ricardo Martinelli, Herrera may be forced to forge some kind of alliance with him in order to win the election. Yet, Herrera has two major advantages.   The PRD party membership makes up almost exactly 20% of the 3.3 million population.   Further, the PRD holds 47 of 78 seats in the unicameral National Assembly.   Martinelli, of the Democratic Change party, rivals her in the polls but comes from a very small party with only 3 seats in the National Assembly.   His differences with important potential allies in the Panamenista Party make an alliance unlikely.   With 47 of 78 seats in the National Parliament, election cycle alliances will not hold much sway over a Herrera administration.

There are three issues of concern that tie Panama to U. S. national security. The first and most vital is the Panama Canal which is now under the control of the Chinese shipping company, Hutchinson Whampoa.  With their close ties to the Chinese military, Hutchinson Whampoa has fifty year leases which give them control over both ends of the Canal.   A strategic Chinese advantage at a global choke point is ominous and in times of conflict could put the U.S. at a serious military disadvantage.   For example:

Admiral Moore, a former chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, claims that in case of military conflict in the Pacific, a large number of logistic ships need uninterrupted access to the canal to support deployed forces.    If the use of the canal were denied, those ships would need to travel an extra 9,000 miles around South America and would not be able to sustain combat effectiveness in the Pacific.   "It is not ‘managing traffic’ under normal circumstances with which I am concerned," said Moore, "it is the ability of a potential enemy to disrupt traffic so as to block military supply, which in times of conflict is 80 to 90 percent dependent upon sea lift capability for there to be any sustained forward effort. [viii]

The strategic importance of the Panama Canal is a clear indication of the seriousness of Panama’s coming May 3rd 2009 election.   In the almost ten years that Hugo Chavez has been in power he has actively forged strong economic and military alliances with China, Russia and Iran.   Even without the flamboyant anti-American rhetoric of Chavez, a Chavista-like leader in Panama could further strengthen the Chinese, Russian, and Iranian influence in a region vital to our economic and military interests.

Secondly, Panama has become fertile ground for drug trafficking, money laundering and gang activity both on land and at sea and could potentially provide a haven for terrorist groups.   If this doesn’t seem urgent, reconsider the implications of Chavez’s fast growing military and economic relationship with Iran.   With Iranian ties comes the same terrorist trade craft and networks that Iran uses in Syria, Lebanon, and Iraq to provide terrorists with training and equipment to wage war on Israel and on American soldiers.   Now consider these executives of terror working together in a synergistic relationship with the FARC and a host of other associates that Chavez is financing throughout the hemisphere.

Finally, the Panamanian/U.S. economic relationship is significant and should be nurtured.   According to current information:

Between 2003 and 2007, U.S. exports of merchandise to Panama grew 102 percent from $1.8 billion in 2003 to $3.7 billion in 2007, outperforming overall U.S. merchandise export growth, which was 60 percent for the same period. The market access and trade disciplines provided by the Agreement offer an opportunity to further expand U.S. exports to a region that is already seeing high export growth rates. In 2007, U.S. – Panama total trade amounted to $4.1 billion with the United States registering a sizable trade surplus of $3.4 billion. U.S. exports in 2007 were $3.7 billion, up 38 percent from the previous year. [ix]

U.S. business leaders with strong ties to Panama should be apprehensive about dealing with someone whose political rhetoric obligates her to fulfill anti-capitalist campaign promises.   Furthermore, US/Panamanian relations have been strained by the delayed ratification of the bilateral Trade Promotion Agreement that President Bush negotiated with Panama which was signed last year.  The agreement stands to greatly improve relations by encouraging greater transparency, accountability, property rights, and customs enforcement.   While the possibility of ratification has been put off until the next U.S. administration, Panama, in the meantime, will likely strengthen ties with Canada, Mexico, and Guatemala.   

Thus far, Herrera has been politically expedient in her quest to gain power.   In order to ally fears, she has distanced herself from Chavez and Noriega.   She is reassuring the business class with her promises of a business-friendly vice-presidential nominee while at the same time promising wealth redistribution to the poor.   With all necessary parties satisfied, the way to the Presidency is opening.   Yet, on what basis should we try to predict how Herrera will behave in office?   Any politician is better judged by past behavior and ideological tendencies than campaign season rhetoric.   The former betrays what a candidate truly wants.   An ideological twin of Chavez and the political child of an aggressor like Noriega will not be friendly to free market principles or to the United States.   Balbina Herrera will join Venezuela’s strategic alliance with China, Russia, and Iran against the United States while continuing to give lip service to the pro-business, U.S. friendly electorate in Panama.

 

Nicholas Hanlon is an intern at the Center for Security Policy in Washington, D.C. He is a graduate of Georgia State University and has a BA in Political Science with a concentration in International Affairs and a Minor in French.

 

NOTES

[i] The Americas Report China’s Control of the Panama Canal Revisited  Yojiro Konno with Nancy Menges Vol. Nº 4 – Issue 33–August 14, 2008  

[iv] CNN.com/world, Panama braces for Noriega release Associated Press, 08/14/2007
[v] www.boston.com, Early Panama election favorite has anti-U.S. past   Andrew Beatty, 0527/2008
[vii] USAID Budget Panama 06/16/20005
[viii] The Americas Report China’s Control of the Panama Canal Revisited  Yojiro Konno with Nancy Menges Vol. Nº 4 – Issue 33–August 14, 2008
[ix] www.export.gov expanded economic opportunities U.S.-Panama Trade Promotion Agreement

 

Pirate outlaws, outlaw state

An almost perfect metaphor for one of the world’s greatest threats came sailing out of the front pages of the world’s newspapers a couple of weeks ago. A Saudi supertanker, the MV Sirius Star with $100 million in oil aboard, had been hijacked by a small band of Somali pirates likely armed with not much more than AK-47s and rocket propelled grenades.

The piracy is a symbol of the anarchy in Somalia and other failed states that has made even the smallest and most primitive lands a threat to the most powerful and sophisticated nations.

But even if the dilemma of Somalia is insoluble, it should not deter Western nations from efforts to defeat the pirates or at least render them impotent to threaten Western interests. The anarchy on land is divisible from that at sea.

In May 2003, President Bush announced the Proliferation Security Initiative (PSI) under which eleven nations joined together to work outside the UN to interdict and seize illegal shipments of weapons of mass destruction and missiles on the high seas, in the air and on the ground. The PSI soon proved its worth when Libya was caught shipping nuclear weapons technology. The PSI provides a model in which the concerned nations – not just the United States – can unite to use military force to suppress piracy and protect shipping.

That approach is important: the United States should not — alone — be responsible for the safety of shipping.

Ship hijacking off the Horn of Africa has been on the upswing for the past two years and has finally come to the forefront of international attention with the taking of the Sirius Star. There have been close to 100 attempted hijackings this year, forty of which were successful, with fifteen ships and close to 300 crewmen remaining in pirate hands.

So far the pirates have claimed $30 million in ransom, but the real significance (beyond the threat to crews) is that ships are increasingly avoiding the region, abandoning the short cut to Europe through the Suez Canal in favor of the much longer and more expensive route around South Africa.

The pirates typically operate from Puntland, a largely independent region in Somalia’s north. Not surprisingly, officials there have been accused of assisting the pirates; even less surprising is that they say they are powerless to stop the kind of bandits and terrorists (prominently including Al Qaeda) who inevitably thrive in the interstices of power in Muslim states.

As Afghanistan is proving, foreign powers are unable or unwilling to respond effectively. Nation-building doesn’t work and the West has — thankfully — outgrown colonialism. It would require prodigies of blood and money to stabilize Somalia economically and police effectively, even if the international community could agree on a plan.

Breezy suggestions to “send in the Marines” to the ports sheltering hijackers are as fatuous as they are irresponsible; the entire country — almost the size of Texas — is a sanctuary for the pirates, who can launch their small craft from a coast line of over 2,000 miles. They wouldn’t oblige us by waiting in their pirate dens for capture and out of impoverished desperation — and spurred by the Islamists who control vast parts of Somalia and share the booty — the pirates would undoubtedly develop new techniques to elude any raiders.

That on- and off-shore anarchy might be halted by a temporary government imposed under UN mandate remains an improbable ideal. The UN’s Blue Helmets are not only overstretched, but have marred their reputation with ineffectiveness and bad conduct, and have been manhandled or fired upon by indigenous forces. And they cannot be counted on to fight.

But even as the Security Council has condemned the piracy with Resolution 1838, close to 1,100 words of the usual mush, slush and gush, an informal international consensus for action outside the fatuous auspices of the UN may finally be emerging.

Major trading powers have recently increased their naval presence and become more aggressive. In October NATO sent seven warships to patrol the Horn of Africa; India deployed a warship in the region in early November; Arab states have finally been stirred by the taking of the Saudi supertanker; and, Russia has recently joined the international flotilla (possibly paving the way for China, which recently saw one of its fishing boats attacked).

This concert of nations might be institutionalized along the lines of the Proliferation Security Initiative, which aims to stop trafficking in WMD and their related materials and delivery systems.

Efforts to subdue piracy may even have an advantage over PSI, as the Somalis operate in a very circumscribed area compared to the global scope of proliferators; and, as the pirates are the aggressors, the tricky issue of boarding other nations’ trading vessels to search for WMD is avoided, which may also mean that — unlike with PSI — private security may also be regularly engaged.

Moreover, the status of piracy in international law is long-established; law governing activity on the high seas is already quite extensive; the hijacking is more commercial than political in its implications; its continuation offers no advantage to East, West, North or South; and, arresting it does not involve the controversial issue of foreign troops on the African continent.

As many maritime powers as possible should be arrayed around NATO, Russia and India. Like PSI it should be a low-key operation, stripped as much as possible of politics and entanglement with bureaucracy.

Suppressing piracy off the Horn of Africa won’t be easy. The Horn of Africa and the Indian Ocean constitute a vast area that swallow up the small boats of the innumerable desperate tribesmen willing to take a chance for riches. But “sending in the Marines” to get at the root causes in Somalia is a practical impossibility. The world will have to either wait for a strong man to pacify the country or for some terrorist outrage, likely by Al Qaeda, that — as with Afghanistan — will force a massive international response.

Turn a supertanker on a dime, anyone? In the meantime, we can turn back the piracy.

Originally published in Human Events