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The nexus of evil

By Robert T. McLean

Fifteen years after the end of the Cold War, many remain surprised that a coalition of states has not formed to balance the power of the United States.  Authors such as Randall L. Schweller of Ohio State University continue to offer theories towards explaining the supposed state of affairs and attribute much of the unbalance to domestic political factors that discourage the necessary efforts to ultimately challenge American primacy.  But the last decade has witnessed something quite different as two powerful states have emerged to present the first post-Cold War challenge to a United States centered unipolar world.

Both Russia and China have exceedingly different foreign policy aims than the United States, and domestic complexities inevitably have distanced Moscow and Beijing from Washington on a series of pressing international matters.  The common aspiration to produce a multipolar world has driven Russia and China to effectively align against the United States incorporating a skilled approach of realpolitik that often results in support for actors that undermine the global security environment.  

One must look no further than the present crisis with Iran to come to terms with the fact that Moscow and Beijing have been rather unhelpful in pressuring the world’s most nefarious regimes to behave in a more responsible manner.  The unwillingness to apply sanctions or even mention the use of force only emboldens Tehran, giving the impression that serious negotiations are unnecessary because serious consequences will likely be avoided.  Likewise, North Korea’s nuclear threats may have never materialized had the Russians and, to a greater extent, the Chinese not provided economic aid and diplomatic protection to this communist holdover.  Unfortunately, the contemporary struggles in reaching a consensus on Iran and North Korea are neither new nor unusual.  In fact, from the time of its inception, the Sino-Russian alliance has been the facilitator of not only rogue regimes, but also the world’s most dangerous terrorist organizations.

The Origins of the Nexus

In 1996 Russia saw a fundamental shift in its foreign policy.  Yevgeny Primakov assumed the reign of the Foreign Ministry, and Boris Yeltsin wrestled with a Russian Federation weakened by the war in Chechnya.  Apprehensions over territorial integrity and the eastward march of NATO provided an impetus for the Kremlin to refocus its energies on promoting its national interests in more assertive tones.   

At the same time Beijing was experiencing a heightening of tensions in the Taiwan Strait resulting in President Clinton’s eventual deployment of two carrier battle groups in an effort to clearly warn the mainland against any escalation of military provocations toward Taipei.  Having observed the advances of the United States in missile technology during the Gulf War, the Chinese were also becoming desperate to obtain the advanced weapons and technology needed to modernize their military forces.  

While Russia resumed selling arms to China in 1990 as a product of improved relations derived from an altered Soviet foreign policy towards the end of the Cold War, it was not until 1996 that mutual suspicions began to seriously thaw.   This was essentially reflected in the transfers of Russian arms and technology to China.  According to the U.S. General Accounting Office (GAO), in the seven years from 1990 through 1996 Moscow exported $3.8 billion in arms to Beijing, with $2.5 billion of that occurring in 1996 alone.  This trend has largely continued as China currently accounts for about forty-five percent of Russian arms sales.  

The event that likely contributed more than any other to the strengthening of ties between Russia and China, however, was the NATO intervention in Kosovo in 1998 and 1999.  Moscow and Beijing maintained a position that is rather consistent with how they have approached recent international exigencies.  An emphasis on diplomacy and consensus was the order of the day, and any action taken without a UN Security Council resolution was deemed illegal.  However, such denunciations of the use of force appear rather hollow when analyzing the rapid deployment of Russian forces to Chechnya just several months later.    

Yet the motivations for the Russians and Chinese were palpable.  Besides Moscow’s close relations with Yugoslav President Slobodan Milosevic, both the Kremlin and the Chinese Communist Party (CCP) feared ethnic separatist movements in their own respective countries and neither had the desire to set a precedent for uninvited foreign intervention.  The rapid escalation of ethnic conflict and the subsequent intervention by foreign powers provided a paradigmatic illustration of the fate that could fall on their own respective countries should such a likely scenario emerge.

If not the decisive turning point, it is clear that Kosovo represented a catalyst for pushing the leaders in Beijing and Moscow toward the conclusion that mutual cooperation to counter the West would be needed in the future.  Dr. Sergei Troush, a NATO Democratic Institute Fellow, stated at the time: "If earlier, foreign policy elites in both Russia and China had serious reservations to the thesis of ‘strategic partnership’ and different understanding of this partnership, now, the necessity to develop such partnership for countering ‘hegemonism’ and ‘military dictate’ of NATO outweighs all other arguments." Thus, the alliance was solidified, as was the policy of ending the American-led international order.  

This is a point that has largely been missed by both security policy practitioners and their observers in the media and academia.  Whereas a resurgence of proclamations reminiscent of those following the collapse of the Soviet Union labeling the United States an unchallenged superpower of the sheer dominance not seen since the Roman Empire occurred after September 11, 2001, it has become increasingly popular in the last several years to declare that America’s reign as the leader of a unipolar world will inevitably come to an end in the not-too-distant future.  

In fact, Coral Bell, a widely respected authority on power politics in the international arena, made the case in the Winter 2006 issue of The American Interest that we have indeed reached the "twilight of the unipolar world."   However, while Bell accurately stated that a foreign policy based on balance of power is both dangerous and likely to produce informal alliances against the United States, while acknowledging that such a scenario "would be the worst possible outcome for Washington’s diplomacy," she – reminiscent of countless other analysts – fails to recognize that this is precisely what has been taking place for the last several years.  This, along with the prevalence of colliding national interests, has inevitably provided the basis for the diplomatic difficulties experienced by both the Clinton and Bush Administrations when dealing with Moscow and Beijing.  

Guardians of the Rogues

Perhaps the most recognized element of Russia and China’s disturbing behavior has been their support for rogue regimes.  However, most references of the inability to get the Russians and the Chinese to side with the United States in the Security Council fail to include the dynamics behind the deadlock.  Rarely are the motivations of Beijing and Moscow articulated, and even less frequent have been any offerings of the dramatic impact that these nations’ policies have on the world. 

While the vast majority of publicized differences between the permanent members of the West and our eastern counterparts in Security Council relate to the weapons programs of both Iran and North Korea, the problem runs much deeper than that.   In an extensive list of rogue regimes that either or both Russia and China support it is apparent that many of these would certainly have their days numbered without the political and economic support of Moscow and Beijing.  The unfortunate fact is that these two powers have used their vast resources to sustain some of the world’s worst regimes in an effort to both serve their interests and to ensure that the United States is undermined wherever possible.  The scope of these relationships is far too vast to copiously encompass in this essay; nevertheless, it is worth examining just a few of the more noteworthy examples.

In Latin America Hugo Chavez has used his oil wealth and anti-American rhetoric to establish rather concrete partnerships with Russia and China.  Besides for an arms supplier in Russia and an alternative energy market to the "American fascists" provided by China, Chavez’s anti-American positions and anti-imperialist rhetoric made him the favorite in both Beijing and Moscow to a assume Latin America’s de facto designated seat on the UN Security Council.  The well documented sale of Russian arms to Caracas and Chinese investment in Venezuela’s hydrocarbon infrastructure only partially explain the motivations behind Moscow and Beijing’s expanding ties with Hugo Chavez’s regime.  

Commenting on the PRC’s view of its involvement in the Western Hemisphere, Chinese senior legislator Cheng Siwei told Xinhua in early October: "All being developing countries, China shares many common ground with Latin American countries."  He then clarified with a rather palpable reference to the United States: "We have all experienced the fight against imperialism and colonialism and the struggle for independence. All of these have forged the political basis for bilateral cooperation."  Just months prior, while referring to Chavez’s late July visit to Russia, Russian Foreign Ministry spokesman Mikhail Kamynin expressed similar sentiments emanating from the Kremlin as he told the Moscow-based news agency Interfax that the "two countries’ positions on most international issues are similar or identical."  Considering the exhaustive list of outrageous public pronouncements by the Venezuelan leader, such a claim by a Russian spokesperson should be ample evidence that Moscow shares few of the same interests as the United States and envisions a quite different international order.

Beyond North Korea in Asia, the dictatorships in Burma and Uzbekistan have maintained their firm grip on power as a result of powerful relationships with both Beijing and Moscow.  After Uzbek President Islam Karimov had demonstrators massacred in Andijon in May 2005, the United States decisively responded and condemned the government’s actions.  This turn of events presented Russia and China with the opportunity to consolidate their relations with Karimov and have United States forces expelled from Uzbekistan.  However, the human rights situation in Burma is far more severe, and Washington has had sanctions on the military junta for the most of nineteen years to virtually no avail.  On January 12, the United States and its allies were finally able to put the issue to a vote at the UN Security Council. The failed draft resolution called for the Burmese regime to restore fundamental freedoms and engage in political reforms.  It is of little surprise, however, that it was both Russia and China that joined to veto the resolution.  

In Africa, the regimes in Sudan and Zimbabwe continue to receive political, economic, and military support from Beijing and Moscow.  The sense of vulnerability without Russian and Chinese support was illustrated when Zimbabwe’s president Robert Mugabe thanked the two countries in last year’s Heroes’ Day ceremony "for standing by us in the Security Council and fending off the threats from the West."  China, likewise, currently maintains that no United Nations peacekeeping forces should enter Sudan until the genocidal regime extends an invitation. Meanwhile, Mugabe continues to be propped up by Beijing’s financial assistance despite a disastrous economic policy that has resulted in the confiscation of land from both the country’s poor urban and white farming communities, thus resulting in inflation rates soaring above 1,000 percent.  

In Sudan hundreds of thousands are raped, murdered, and forced from their villages as the West’s efforts to improve the situation are undermined by unconditional support for the regime in Khartoum from Beijing and Moscow.  While Russia has refused to abandon its aid to the Sudanese military, China continually matches this effort with political and diplomatic endeavors of its own.  In fact, just as outgoing UN Secretary General Kofi Annan called for a hearing on the human rights abuses in Darfur in late November, the PRC had officials stationed in Khartoum for a meeting of the Sino-Arab Friendship Association celebrating the shared policy of "no interfering in internal affairs of other countries."  

Further north, despite the political assassinations in Lebanon likely conceived in Damascus, the Kremlin has maintained its traditionally strong relations with Syria and continues to provide them with various weapons systems and their components.  The sale of advanced SA-18 surface-to-air missiles in late 2005 is just one example.  Similarly, prior to Libya’s late 2003 disclosure and abandonment of its weapons of mass destruction programs, China and Russia fostered strong political and economic ties with the distinguished terror master Colonel Muammar Gaddafi.  As a consequence of its continued defiance of international norms, Libya fell under harsh penalties in the mid 1990’s with Congress and the Bush Administration deciding to renew the 1996 Iran and Libya Sanctions Act in the summer of 2001.  This drew sharp criticism from Russia, whose companies faced penalties for continued cooperation with Tehran and Tripoli.  A source in the Russian Foreign Ministry told Interfax at the time that Washington was "once again trying to give its internal legislation an extra-territorial character and put pressure on the other countries on an invented pretext."  The official also accurately claimed that these sanctions would not stop cooperation with either regime.  

Indeed, both Beijing and Moscow continue to maintain extensive economic ties with Iran.  Hard currency, natural resources, arms, and diplomatic support are the basis for this strategic triangle.  In 2005, Russia ran an approximate $1.8 billion trade surplus with Iran through the export of primarily arms, technology, heavy machinery, and steel.  While bilateral trade decreased in the first quarter of 2006, Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov has gone on the record to state that any possible placement of sanctions on Iran will fail to dissuade Moscow from continuing its military cooperation with Tehran.

To provide a glimpse into the military assistance the Iranians are receiving from Moscow, it is worth offering just a few examples in this vast arena of advanced weapons that have been, and continue to be, transferred to the increasingly problematic regime in Tehran.  In November 2005, Russia agreed to sell Iran 29 Tor-M1 air defense systems capable of destroying both aircraft and cruise missiles.  These were only one part of a reported $1 billion package that also included MIG fighter jets and patrol boats.  Moscow has also recently engaged in negotiations with Tehran regarding the S-300PMU1 long range air defense systems, radar stations, and T-90S tanks.  The British defense journal Jane’s Intelligence Digest reported in the spring that the Russian sale of highly advanced S-300PS surface-to-air missiles to Belarus may windup being secretly transferred to Iran as part of a trilateral agreement between Moscow, Minsk, and Tehran.  

But what is it that drives Moscow and Beijing to provide such substantial assistance to regimes such as that in the Islamic Republic of Iran?  The CCP Central Committee in a subsidiary publication of the People’s Daily published an article on in late August that makes all too clear the position held in Beijing on a series of international issues.  The newspaper, Huanqiu Shibao, has strong ties to the Chinese military, and lucidly makes the case that the United States is on the decline.  Commenting on the current difficulties with Iran, the publication celebrates that "Iran has seen through the US strategic situation and her pragmatic nature of ‘bullying the weak’ and ‘fearing the strong."  Such conclusions by Beijing are not only worrisome because they demonstrate a sense of solidarity with Tehran, but they also could be dangerous for the fact that a display of impotence with Iran on Washington’s part could well lead the PRC to the conclusion that the United States may be little more than a paper tiger.  

Again, it is worth emphasizing that the Russians and Chinese are not driven purely by national interests irrespective of the United States.  In fact, as was noted above, the interests of the nexus not only happen to differ from those of the United States on myriad international issues, but those interests are often centered upon the goal of weakening the United States’ relative power.  The bipartisan U.S.-China Economic and Security Review Commission presented similar conclusions in November with the release of its annual report to congress when it noted the following:

China’s regional activities in Latin America, Africa, and the Middle East and around East Asia are beginning to assume the character of a counterbalancing strategy vis-à-vis the United States.  That is, China’s support for rogue regimes and anti-American governments and groups in vital regions serves an international purpose: to balance American power, create an alternative model of governance, and frustrate the ability of the international community to uphold its norms.

What the report fails to mention, however, is that Beijing’s regional initiatives are all the more potent and ominous with Moscow acting as co-chair of this global enterprise.  This has not only been demonstrated in both bilateral and trilateral relationships, but also in well established multilateral institutions.  The Russian and Chinese led Shanghai Cooperation Organization (SCO) is the most alarming example of these as this expanding alliance has both in its stated objectives and in practice demonstrated its desire to create a new world order based on multipolarity.  While one of the stated central objectives of the SCO is to counter regional terrorism, Iran has not only become an observer nation in the organization, but the alliance is contemplating offering Tehran full-member status despite its widely held reputation as the world’s leading state sponsor of terror.  The contradictory nature of Iran’s association with the SCO is just one of the many illustrations of Russian and Chinese complicity with both rogue regimes, and even more critically, terrorists and their supporters.

Terrorism and Realpolitik

The basic presumption for most in the West is that while Beijing and Moscow may not be the most helpful partners, they at least share the common goal with the United States of eradicating terrorism.  Sadly, this is not true.

Hamas, Hezbollah, and even al Qaeda have benefited from actions out of the Kremlin and the Chinese security establishment.  It is no secret that Yaser Arafat and the Palestinian Liberation Organization were heavily supported by the Soviet Union in the seventies and eighties, and Moscow’s healthy relationship with Palestinian leadership is one of the many elements that survived the death of the Soviet Union.  The Kremlin’s rapid recognition of the Hamas dominated government in the Palestinian territories drew sharp criticism in various circles in the West, but it was the diplomatic support of Hezbollah in its recent standoff with Israel that all too clearly demonstrated Russian President Vladimir Putin’s willingness to work with terrorists if it improves Russia’s position in the Middle East and helps undermine the United States and its allies.

In fact, Hezbollah’s use of the Russian made Kornet-E anti-tank laser-guided missiles against Israeli forces in Lebanon displays that Moscow’s promiscuity in its arms export’s to rogue regimes has a direct impact on the forces terrorist organizations can employ.  Russia is know to have sold Syria these weapons and claimed to be shocked when the Israel Defense Forces (IDF) provided substantial evidence that Hezbollah used them in the July and August fighting in Southern Lebanon.  As noted above, Moscow also provides Tehran with advanced weapons despite the fact that Iran is a major supporter of Hezbollah.  The Russian foreign ministry has defended such weapons sales by stating: "Russia always limits its exports to Iran to arms used only for defense and [they are] not capable of destabilizing the situation in the region."  As we have seen, this explanation is rather unconvincing as many of these rogue states simply act as intermediaries in forwarding those weapons to third parties, not excluding terrorist organizations.  

Regrettably, Beijing has been an even greater enabler of terrorism than Moscow.   This was most clearly established after the United States fired cruise missiles into Afghanistan and Sudan following the bombing of U.S. embassies in Kenya and Tanzania in August 1998.  A significant number of the missiles that landed in Afghanistan never exploded and Osama bin Laden and his cohorts were left with valuable technology that they had little capability of capitalizing on themselves.   Fortunately for al Qaeda, a buyer quickly emerged.   

Although Beijing denies the claims, European intelligence sources believe that the Chinese purchased several Tomahawk missiles from bin Laden to reverse engineer soon after the unexploded missiles landed in Afghanistan.  Both the Washington Post and The Guardian reported in October 2001 that Italian counter-terrorism officers essentially confirmed earlier reports through the bugging of an apartment of a local al Qaeda cell.  The papers obtained a transcript of the secretly recorded conversation in which the al Qaeda operative revealed that several "Chinese businessmen" paid as much as $10 million for the missiles.  

While the CIA has revealed little publicly on this matter, after the stories broke in the fall of 2001 a spokesman for the agency admitted that unsubstantiated evidence about this transaction had circulated since 1998, but it was unlikely that bin Laden received $10 million.  This explanation is far from comforting.  Beijing’s desire to obtain state-of-the-art missile technology coupled with their support of the Taliban at the United Nations – on December 19, 2000, China elected to abstain from UNSC Resolution 1333 which called on states to end their assistance to the Taliban – provide a solid foundation for the plausibility that the intelligence was accurate.  If indeed true, such a wanton act of providing Osama bin Laden with millions of dollars to further fund his terror campaign certainly needs to be addressed more thoroughly when examining who are Washington’s real partners in the War on Terror.   Considering the 9/11 Commission Report’s assessment that the operations that led to that fateful day cost about $400,000 to $500,000, it is not inconceivable that some of the money that may have been provided by Beijing could well have later helped finance the planning and execution of al Qaeda operations since 1998.  

It is also worth bearing in mind that bin Laden, Ayman al-Zawahiri and other wanted terrorists are believed to be hiding in northwest Pakistan.  While the regime of Pervez Musharraf has consistently refused to permit American military operations in the region or take strong actions themselves, it is also true that the Chinese have more influence than anyone in Islamabad.  Were Beijing to apply pressure on Musharraf to cooperate to a greater degree with the United States and join Washington in its criticisms of the placating peace treaty with the Taliban in Waziristan, the Pakistani leader might become a little more accommodating to plans to capture or kill bin Laden and his associates rather than claiming that such wanted terrorists persist in hiding out in Afghanistan.  It is more likely, in fact, that Beijing has been obstructive in this regard as they neither want a United States military presence in neighboring Pakistan, nor do they want offensive operations in Waziristan to lead toward instability throughout the country.  As long as Beijing can keep its approximate ten million Muslims in Xinjiang relatively isolated from extremist groups – as is the case with Moscow, the fear of ethnic separatism remains prevalent – the Chinese will have little concern with appeasing America’s enemies in Pakistan.  

While the United States is winning the War on Terror, things could be going considerably more smoothly had Russia and China truly been on our side.  Weapons, foreign terrorists, and Iranian agents have obstructed coalition efforts in Iraq – an integral part of the War on Terror – facilitated by Moscow and Beijing’s continued support of Tehran and Damascus.  

Neither Russia nor China desires to see a United States defeat in Iraq and for that country to descend into chaos and civil war.  Such a scenario would destabilize the entire region and provide a launching ground for future terrorist attacks throughout the region and the world.  However, Presidents Vladimir Putin and Hu Jintao are cautiously satisfied as the United States has been drawn into a counterinsurgency that challenges the vary foundations of an internationally assertive United States, let alone one that seeks to transform the Middle East through the promotion of democracy.  As Fyodor Lukyanov stated in The Moscow Times in mid-September, "Moscow bases its modus operandi exclusively on national interests and a balance of power more appropriate to the classical geopolitics of the 19th century," and thus, "[h]umanitarian and ideological motivations behind the actions of others are interpreted as an attempt to conceal the genuine intent."  This is as true in Iraq as it is in Russia’s near-abroad.  Whether Beijing’s suspicions are as real as Moscow’s in this regard is somewhat hard to determine, but the CCP’s one-party rule inevitably puts it at odds with a Washington that supports human freedom and democracy.

IT HAS NOW BECOME UNMISTAKABLE that from the last dictatorship in Europe to the first major foreign attacks on the continental United States since the War of 1812, both rogue regimes and terrorist entities have witnessed the benefits of a Sino-Russian effort to create a multipolar world.  While Moscow and Beijing rarely actively encourage rogue states and their terrorist counterparts to initiate regional or global confrontations, their failure to join responsible nations in efforts to confront and curb dangerous behavior provides encouragement enough.  When measured by historical standards, Russia, and even China, fall nowhere near the level of others that could truly be classifieds as evil states.  Thus, it would certainly be inappropriate to label them as such.  Yet, it must be kept in mind that every regime that has earned itself that distinction has the support of at least one, if not both, of the members of the nexus.  

The aforementioned August commentary published by the CCP Central Committee eerily warned when referring to a perceived relative deterioration of American power: "The mantis stalks the cicada, unaware of the oriole behind.   And the hunter is even targeting the oriole.  A new ‘hunter’ has shown up."  Regrettably, a majority of those in the West remain unaware of the predators that seek to destroy the current American-led international order.  The United States will not hypothetically be faced with competition for primacy at some uncertain time in the future; rather, it is being challenged at the current moment led by both Russia and China.  As long as this remains the case, Washington will continue to experience immeasurable difficulties in implementing a largely successful foreign policy.  The first step in meeting these challenges will be realizing that other major powers often have conflicting interests with the United States and some, regrettably, actively labor towards assisting its decline.  Democrats by and large fail to recognize that foreign policy difficulties reach beyond the current White House, while the Bush Administration, for its part, has failed to formulate creative policies for dealing with these complex dynamics.  It is in America’s interests that both parties come to fully understand that this nexus knows few limitations in the means in which they will employ to advance their interests and recreate a multipolar world.  

This essay by CSP Research Associate Robert T. McLean appeared on January 31, 2007 in Global Politician.

Chavez and the Iranian connection

In the aftermath of the Chavez electoral victory on December 3, 2006 , the Venezuelan President proceeded to deepen the Bolivarian revolution he initiated in 1998. Most recently, he announced the nationalization of the phone and the electric companies as well as deciding not to renew broadcasting rights to a TV station critical of his regime.

Moreover, Chavez has turned himself into the regional leader of "revolutionary populism". As such he has formed coalitions with newly elected populist leaders including Evo Morales of Bolivia and Rafael Correa of Ecuador . Both have looked to Chavez as a source of inspiration and as an ally regarding specific policies. Nothing epitomizes more this spirit than the speech delivered by Rafael Correa in his inauguration ceremony. In a well written, somewhat academic speech Correa lays out these policies including the reformulation of the state constitution and the creation of a Constituent assembly. While rejecting traditional parties and institutions, President Correa supports the development of regional alliances and South American integration, which include the development of an economy independent of foreign investment. It is also clear he wishes to form a political alliance against US influence.

While these countries face numerous social problems, it is also very important to stress the fact that these new regimes include dimensions that go well beyond the legitimate desire to solve the problems of poverty and social integration. Their leaders, particularly Hugo Chavez, have made the United States the target of an obsessive and hostile ideology that is often translated in real attempts to undermine American power not only in the region but in other parts of the world as well. Chavez has an ambitious international agenda that goes well beyond a socialist revolution.

One of the most common mistakes made by analysts of Chavez is to see him as a young version of Fidel Castro. Some have even asserted that Chavez is nothing but a Castro stooge. The reality is that Castro, even before his recent illness, was already a weak leader. Cuba has been in very poor shape since the Soviet Union ceased to "subsidize" the country. In addition, the ongoing US boycott and the insufficiency of natural resources, made Cuba into a feeble entity. In recent years, Castro has been busy trying to survive and most likely has been comforted by the rise of Chavez who he sees as a partner in supporting Marxist guerilla movements across Latin America . Even though Castro has provided help to Chavez in education and medicine and provided proscriptions for indoctrination and political control, the Cuban leader remained primarily a symbol of anti-imperialism and an inspiration for Chavez.

Since Venezuela has been a member of OPEC for a long time, Chavez knows perfectly well the value of oil as a means of increasing his power inside the country and abroad. Hence, nothing served as a better "role model", in Chavez’s own words, than the Arab and Middle Eastern tyrannies whose multi-billion dollar revenue enabled them to create welfare dictatorships on the one hand, and, on the other hand conferred them tremendous international leverage. Thus, Chavez chose to strengthen relations with Middle Eastern countries. He reinforced his ties with Iran and with its arch-enemy, Saddam Hussein’s Iraq . Lybia’s Gaddafi was another one. Chavez was fascinated from the outset by these petro-tyrannies, their tightly controlled populations, and the fact that the world’s dependence on oil enabled them "to get away with murder".

However, there was also an ideological dimension. Anti-Americanism generates solidarity with other regions of the world that share the same antipathy towards America and their sense that they are victims of western arrogance.   The Arab world and Iran seemed to be natural allies for Chavez and his partners of the Latin American radical left. The group that gathers this radical left is the "Foro de Sao Paulo". "Foro", as it is commonly known, is an inter-American organization founded in 1990 by the then leader of the Brazilian Workers party and now President of Brazil Luiz Inacio Lula Da Silva. "Foro" was founded with the aid of Cuban leader, Fidel Castro and promised to provide an alternative against the Washington consensus and The Organization of American States as well as to the Third Way policies of the European left. "Foro" was built as a Latin American network of solidarity between socialist, communists, and groups, including some guerillas, to strengthen themselves in the aftermath of the collapse of the Soviet empire. "Foro", originally included Hugo Chavez, Daniel Ortega, the Sandinista leader and current President of Nicaragua,   as well as leaders from guerilla movements such as the Fuerzas Armadas Revolucionarias de Colombia (FARC) and others. The "Foro" holds an ardent anti-globalization and anti-American posture and also speaks for the rights of indigenous populations and promotes Indian separatism from the (Latin American) national states. Anti-Americanism is a fervently used slogan by the indigenous rebellious movements in Bolivia and Ecuador . These groups have never been properly represented before and now have been politically mobilized and radicalized by these new regimes.

Even though Latin American leaders in power today have been rather pragmatic, most notably Brazilian President Lula Da Silva, there is no question that the "Foro" has helped consolidate an anti-American sentiment and solidarity that greatly benefits Chavez in the international arena. For example, the declaration of the XI annual conference of the "Foro" condemns not only the war in Iraq but also the economic boycott carried in the twelve previous years. It accuses the United States of going to war only to secure control over energy resources. The declaration also attacks American allies, notably Israel , which is accused of carrying out genocide in Palestine . The "Foro" spirit seeks international allies in its revolution. The Middle Eastern countries are almost a natural choice for them.   

Most Middle Eastern leaders, like the "Foro" which defines oppression in a one-sided way, views democracy as being secondary, and ignore the rule of law. The Middle Easterners reject western colonialism and western influence, making the State of Israel their main scapegoat. They tend to ignore their own oppression of human beings (e.g. the Sudanese-sponsored genocide in Darfur ) and define justice in terms of de-colonization only.  The Latin American radical left, on the other hand, values socialist dictatorship over capitalistic democracies and social justice above the rule of law. Both groups share a relativistic concept of terrorism, as the US and Israeli military operations are considered to be on equal grounds with Islamic terrorism. Both groups also share the colonialist legacy of resentment that tends to overstate the culpability of the developed world for their own miseries. Identity based on resentment sets the ideological tone that strengthens the ties of solidarity between the two groups. The influence of the spirit of "Foro" will dramatically increase in Latin America as leaders such as Morales and Correa continue to win elections.

In practical terms Chavez has been the leader in forging an alliance with Middle Eastern rogue states and with Iran , in particular, and is now trying to draw new populist leaders into such an alliance. The visit of Iranian president, Mahmoud Ahmadinejad to Venezuela, Nicaragua and Ecuador as well as his meeting with Evo Morales reflects not just a mere Iranian initiative to break its international isolation. It is very much encouraged by Hugo Chavez’s affinity with the Islamic Republic’s tyranny.

 

In March 2005, Venezuela and Iran signed an agreement of commercial and technological cooperation during the visit of Iranian President Mohammed Khatami to Caracas .  On that occasion, Chavez defended Iran ‘s right to produce atomic energy and continue research in the area of nuclear development. Chavez spoke about his aspirations to develop nuclear weapons "for peaceful purposes" and his intention to seek cooperation with Latin American countries and Iran in this regard.

An additional deal was signed between Venezuela and Iran in March 2006. The two countries established a $200 million development fund and signed bilateral deals to build homes and exploit petroleum. The Venezuelan opposition raised the possibility that the deal could involve the transfer of Venezuelan uranium to Iran . This seems to be corroborated by a report published by a Venezuelan paper in which the Israeli Mossad provided exact locations of sources of uranium production in Venezuela . A Venezuelan nuclear expert confirmed that the Israeli report is credible and that in Venezuela there are important quantities of nuclear fuel.  It has also been reported that Iranian and Cuban geologists are working with a team of Chavez loyalists in the exploration for uranium deposits. Moreover, Venezuela voted in the United Nations against reporting Teheran to the U.N. Security Council for its uranium –enrichment program confirming the complicity and mutual sympathy of both regimes.

 

All this takes place amid reports on Chavez’s alleged relation with radical Islamic groups including the Iranian-backed Hezbollah, and allegations of government anti-Semitism in Venezuela , following a typical Iranian pattern. Since 2003 there have been reports on the presence of Islamic terrorist groups in Margarita Island . The US Southern Command stated that Isla Margarita is one of the most important centers of terrorist gathering and money laundering activities for Hamas and Hezbollah.

 

The Chavez regime is giving out Venezuelan passports to foreigners from countries such as Iran, Syria, Pakistan, Egypt and Lebanon . The Miami Herald reported in November 2004 that the agency in charge of issuing these passports is called "Onidex" and the people in charge of the agency include an ardent supporter of Saddam Hussein and the son of the representative of the Iraqi Baath party in Venezuela.

  

Venezuelan state radio accused Venezuelan Jews of trying to influence the US Administration in opposing Hugo Chavez. Jewish schools and institutions were victims of a raid after a Chavista prosecutor was found murdered.  The reason for such a raid follows the logic of the elders of Zion in Czarist Russia and now its Islamist followers: The Israeli Mossad was supposedly one of the crime’s suspects, not based on any evidence, but on an unfounded anti-Semitic conspiracy theory. These charges were mostly made by Venezuelan state radio and TV.  Of course the raid did not advance the investigation. However, it unmasked a regime, which like Iran , is hostile to the Jewish minority. Most recently an Argentinean federal prosecutor found the Iranian Embassy in Buenos Aires and Hezbollah operatives in Latin America mainly responsible for the attacks against the Jewish community headquarters in 1994. 

 

Chavez has spoken publicly about adoption of methods such as suicide bombers in case a war is forced upon Venezuela by the US . This is what he calls an "asymmetric war", the kind of war Iran has promoted via its terrorist proxies and protégées in the Middle East. This doctrine calls for a long-term "asymmetric war" in which Chavez loyalists and foreign individuals (such as from the Middle East ) would wage a "war of the people" on all fronts against the invading U.S. military forces. This doctrine, whose intellectual author is Jorge Verstrynge, a Spanish radical, is a technical treatise on terrorism, and praises Islamic terrorism as a most effective warfare method since it involves fighters willing to sacrifice their lives to kill the enemy. This was Iran’s basic philosophy in its eight year old war with Iraq .

 

Now that Ahmadinejad has visited these Latin American countries, reports talk about expanding economic relations between Venezuela and Iran , and a common fund to help developing countries. They also talked about energy issues and their goal to de-value the American dollar.  With Nicaragua , the discussion is about re-opening the embassies in Teheran and Managua as well as signing a number of agreements on matters related to energy, technology, and commerce. The meetings with President Correa were not reported. It is not clear why.

 

There are many things that make Iran a threat: Iran could encourage terrorism in the region via a Hezbollah-FARC partnership, which could de-stabilize Colombia and beyond. Correa and Chavez are friendly to the FARC and ideologically close. Iran ‘s presence could also spread Radical Islam in the area that could have the same threatening effects it has today in Europe . Like Venezuela these countries may provide citizenship to potential terrorists willing to perpetrate attacks in the US . Nothing is evident but everything is possible. Even while the crisis in the Middle East continues it is crucial for American decision makers to think about strategies to contain the Iranian influence in our hemisphere as well as Hugo Chavez, himself.  

 

Dr. Luis Fleischman is an advisor to the Menges Hemispheric Security Project at the Center for Security Policy in Washington Dc. He is also an adjunct professor of Political Science and Sociology at Wilkes Honor College at Florida Atlantic University .

Driving While Defeatist

Sorry Senator, I’m afraid I can’t let you continue to legislate in this condition.

Members of the 110th Congress are behaving like drunken drivers with respect to the conflict in Iraq, veering wildly all over the road, seemingly oblivious to the risk they pose to others.   Before they do actual harm by voting on various resolutions aimed at repudiating President Bush and further undermining his wartime leadership, they should be obliged to sit through the sort of sobering, behavior-modification program to which courts assign those found operating heavy equipment while inebriated.

Typically, such "Driving While Intoxicated" (DWI) courses feature grisly films about accidents, injuries, deaths and other life traumas inflicted by drunk drivers.   They convey forcefully the unvarnished truth:   Irresponsible behavior has a high cost. 

A ‘DFI’ Program

The centerpiece of the "Defeat for Iraq" (DFI) remediation program I have in mind would be a couple of videos, too.   Any sentient being will be affected by these films – perhaps even partisan Democrats whose antipathy to President Bush is so profound that they are willing to have the country lose a war in order to hand him a defeat.

The first of these video therapies would be "Obsession: Radical Islam’s War Against the West."   (Copies may be obtained from www.ObsessiontheMovie.com.) This documentary dissects the phenomenon of Islamist totalitarianism, drawing on the words of its practitioners and promoters in Saudi Arabia, Iran, Lebanon, the Palestinian Authority and in Western nations.   While other experts, both Muslim and non-Muslim, provide important context and texture, the vivid counterparts in "Obsession" to the gruesome gore of the DWI movies are the bloodcurdling calls to jihad and "death to America" emanating from our enemies’ pulpits, television outlets and other propaganda instruments.

Viewers of this film can harbor no illusion that the war we are in is confined to Iraq.   It is, instead, a truly global conflict with an ideology, Islamofascism, that is determined to destroy us.   Should those animated by this ideology succeed in defeating America in Iraq, they will be one step closer to achieving their avowed goal: global domination.

It would be a good thing if some judge would require clueless aging celebrities like Jane Fonda and wannabes like Cindy Sheehan to see "Obsession" now that they are behind the wheel of a nascent anti-war movement.   But such folks are like the hardened repeat-offenders for whom DWI school is but a speed bump, an inconvenience on the way to their next irresponsible act.

One would hope, however, that many – if not all – Members of Congress would behave better if confronted with the reality of the determined and implacable enemy we face in this War for the Free World.   To be sure, there are the equivalent of unrepentant drunks on Capitol Hill – members whose indifference to the far-reaching strategic consequences of their actions is a matter of record.   (In some cases, they actually are unrepentant, or at least unreformed, drunks.)  

A Double Feature

Still, it seems unlikely that the majority of legislators would be willing to be associated with defeatism in Iraq, let alone to champion it, were they absolutely clear about the stakes.   If, however, sitting through "Obsession" does not induce senators and congressmen to understand how high the costs of such behavior would be for the country, the DFI course would take a page from DWI programs’ playbook:   Show them another film.

The next one should be a terrific short video produced late last year by one of Hollywood’s most successful directors, David Zucker, and his partner, Myrna Sokoloff.   It can be viewed on YouTube (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-w77sLtz754).  

Entitled "the Fabulous Baker Boy," it treats with appropriate contempt – and hilarious sight gags – the centerpiece of the 79 recommendations served up by the Iraq Study Group (ISG, better known as the Iraq Surrender Group): the idea of having the future of Iraq determined in negotiations with Iran and its wholly owned subsidiary, Syria.   ISG co-chairman James Baker is parodied as a hapless, sycophantic appeaser of Iranian President Mahmoud Amedinejad, playing Neville Chamberlain to his Hitler.

Amazingly, the idea of negotiating with the Islamofascist regime most responsible for the mayhem in Iraq – Iran – has increasingly become a staple of the defeatists in Congress.   Virginia Senator Jim Webb featured it in his party’s response to the President’s State of the Union.   Most, if not all, of the Democratic presidential candidates have embraced it, as, of course, has that dark horse contender for the Democrats’ nomination, Republican Sen. Chuck Hagel.

The Bottom Line

For most legislators, the prospect of having their face and name – rather than Jim Baker’s – ridiculed for believing we can safely and usefully negotiate with Iran our surrender of Iraq may be enough to sober them up.   They certainly should be on notice:   They will be held to account, later if not sooner, if they recklessly ignore General David Petraeus’ testimony that he will be unable to succeed in Iraq if the Congress denies him the manpower and wherewithal called for by the President.  

What is more, such legislators will in due course be held responsible for favoring defeat over victory in the Iraqi theater and making our triumph infinitely harder in Afghanistan and elsewhere.   At some point, like incorrigible drunk drivers, they will have their license to enact legislation revoked by an electorate that did not vote last November for a "change" that makes things far worse.

Where Israel Went Wrong








IDF Lt. Gen. Dan Halutz
The following column by Caroline B. Glick, the Center’s Senior Fellow for Middle Eastern Affairs, appeared recently in the Jerusalem Post.


There are two reasons that IDF chief of General Staff Lt.-Gen. Dan Halutz’s resignation this week was essential. First, during the war last summer with Hizbullah, Halutz failed to conceive of a war fighting plan for the IDF. Having failed, he needed to go. Second, both during the war and in the six months since its cessation, Halutz lost the faith of his officers and soldiers. A commander cannot function without the faith of his men, and so, again, he had to go.

There is every reason to expect that Halutz’s replacement will win the faith of troops and officers. And it is essential that he do so quickly for as the war made clear, the IDF
needs to undergo a massive, painful and rapid process of
reform and overhaul if it is to meet the wide-ranging and
acute challenges it faces.

[More]

Yet even if Halutz’s replacement is an Israeli version of General George Patton, it is doubtful that he will have the opportunity to apply his military talents to the conceptualization and implementation of a fighting doctrine capable of defeating Israel’s enemies. The IDF’s doctrinal discussions are framed by the larger national debates in Israel. And today those debates remain captive to the same fantasies and lies that since 1993 have prevented the IDF from planning properly for war – whether in Lebanon, Gaza, Judea and Samaria or even Iran.

US Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice’s visit to Israel this week reinforced this untenable situation. In an interview with The Jerusalem Post, US Ambassador Richard Jones explained that during her visit, Rice “picked up” Foreign Minister Tzipi Livni’s plan to hold “discussions” with Fatah terror group commander and PA Chairman Mahmoud Abbas about the establishment of a Palestinian state in spite of the fact that the PA is ruled today by the Hamas terror group.

According to Jones, Livni convinced Rice that it is necessary to provide a “political horizon” to convince the Palestinians to replace Hamas with Fatah. After the Palestinians overthrow Hamas, he explained, it will be possible to implement the agreement and handover Judea and Samaria to Fatah (and Hamas).

That is, the Israeli government is pushing a national strategy that is based on a total lie. While Abbas plans his visit this weekend with Hamas terror master Khaled Mashaal in Syria in the hopes of facilitating the formation of an Iranian-Syrian sponsored Fatah-Hamas unity government, the Israeli government wishes to “strengthen” him.

A revitalized IDF will be unable to secure Israel under these conditions. As long as the guiding strategic principle dictating Israel’s policies is that Israel must establish a Palestinian state, and to that end, the policy debate revolves around issues such as whether protecting the residents of Sderot from rocket attacks will strengthen or weaken Abbas, the IDF will be incapable of defending Israel regardless of who its leaders are.

SINCE THE inauguration of the 1993 Oslo peace process, Israel’s national debate has largely ignored the only question that should be guiding it: How are we to advance Israel’s national interests? Rather, since 1993, our national debate has been anchored around the question of how best to establish a Palestinian state. This question, rooted in the false Arab narrative which consciously rejects the morality of the Zionist revolution, has brought us to a position where the IDF is cognitively barred from rationally approaching Israel’s security challenges.

Things needn’t be this way. The Israeli public is quite sick of hallucinatory peace processes and is keen to reignite a Zionist national discussion. Consistent opinion polls show that the overwhelming majority of the public knows there is no possibility of achieving peace with the PA and that any Palestinian state will be a terror state. Moreover, in poll after poll, the Israeli public expresses its patriotism and its desire to strengthen and preserve the Jewish, democratic character of the State of Israel.


And there are options other than delusion. On Wednesday, one such option was presented in Washington at the American Enterprise Institute. There, the American-Israel Demographic Research Group (AIDRG) presented a plan for Israel’s future called “The Fourth Way.”

Led by American economist Bennett Zimmerman and former Israeli diplomat Yoram Ettinger, the AIDRG first burst onto the screen in early 2005 when it presented the first comprehensive analysis of Palestinian population data.

Since 1997, Israel’s leaders have based their policies towards the Palestinians on what was perceived as a madly ticking Palestinian demographic time bomb. The public was told that the Palestinian population in Jerusalem, Gaza, Judea and Samaria was rapidly expanding and that by 2015, Jews would lose our majority west of the Jordan River. If we didn’t hurry up and hand over Judea, Samaria and Gaza and partition Jerusalem, we would find ourselves forced to choose between a Jewish state and a democratic one.

The AIDRG took it upon itself to do what no Israeli governmental body had considered doing: Its members just started counting heads. It worked out that the doomsday scenario was based on a massive fabrication. In 1997, the PA published census figures that exaggerated its population figures in Judea, Samaria, Gaza and Jerusalem by nearly 50 percent. The PA double counted Arab Jerusalemites, included hundreds of thousands of emigrants to its population rolls, asserted mass immigration when in fact there has been net emigration from the PA since 1995. It exaggerated fertility rates and underplayed mortality rates. In all, the PA added approximately 1.4 million people who did not exist to its population rolls.

Rather than 3.8 million Palestinians, the team found there were likely no more, and perhaps less than 2.4 million Palestinians. Jews, who make up an 80 percent majority within sovereign Israel, make up a 59% majority of the population of Israel with Gaza and Judea and Samaria and a 67% majority of the population with Judea and Samaria without Gaza.

Last year, the group analyzed fertility trends in Israel and Judea and Samaria among Jews and Arabs. They found that in contradiction to the Palestinian and Israeli Central Bureau of Statistics forecasts, while Jewish fertility rates are on a steep and consistent incline, Arab fertility rates are steadily declining.

The significance of these actual trends is obvious: Not only is there no Palestinian demographic time bomb necessitating the immediate handover of Judea and Samaria to Palestinian terrorists. Israel’s actual demographic position is its ace in the hole.

This year the team members took their data to the next logical step by offering their best shot at a national strategy for Israel, based on true population data. While one can agree or disagree with the viability of their strategy, the fact that it is based on truth rather than lies already places it in a different league from the “peace” plans that have held Israel intellectually hostage since 1993.

The plan is predicated on electoral reform in Israel that will set the course for a democratic absorption of all or parts of Judea and Samaria into Israel while securing the political rights of all Israelis – both Jewish and Arab. Israel today is governed by a proportional electoral system that treats the entire country as a unitary voting district. The plan recommends changing the electoral system to a direct, district-based voting system divided along the lines of the Interior Ministry’s administrative partition of the country.


Given Israel’s 80 percent Jewish majority outside Judea and Samaria, it is unsurprising that Jews form massive majorities in every administrative district in the country except the northern district. In the North, Arabs comprise a bare 52% majority. But the internal migration of just 52,000 Jews to the North would overturn that majority.

Within Judea and Samaria, the sparsely populated sub-districts of Western Samaria and the Jordan Valley are vital for Israel’s national defense. As the study shows, an internal migration of approximately 150,000 Jews to these areas would give them strong Jewish majorities. Given that the Tel Aviv district has a 99% Jewish majority and the central region of the country has a 92% Jewish majority, a national plan for populating the areas could easily facilitate such a migratory trend.

In the Jerusalem district, the population trends are in flux. The erection of the separation fence has driven tens of thousands of Arabs from Judea and Samaria into the city to avoid PA rule. Conversely, the high real estate prices in Jewish neighborhoods are forcing Jews to leave the city.

Today Jews make up a 67% majority in the capital. The researchers demonstrated that if the capital’s boundaries are extended to include Jerusalem’s western suburbs, the Etzion bloc, the Adumim bloc, and the Givon bloc on the Jewish side as well as Abu Dis, Beit Hanina and the north Jerusalem bloc on the Arab side, the Jewish majority of the expanded city would be 66%. The flow of Arabs into the city’s center to get away from the PA would abate. Real estate prices throughout the city would drop with the increase of land supplies and so the capital would again be affordable to young Jewish families. If Bethlehem is added to the municipal boundaries of the capital, the Jewish majority would be reduced to 62%.

On the other hand, with the separation fence bringing about an effective partition of the city, “Arab Jerusalem” around its truncated and walled-off boundaries will enjoy a 72% Arab majority and the Jewish population within the shrunken, expensive capital will continue to dwindle.

NEXT WEEK Israel’s premiere policy conference, the 7th Annual Herzliya Conference, will take place. The “Who’s Who” of Israel will again present their “visions” for the country. In most cases, the speakers will regale us with tales of how they will make peace with the PLO and will warn us that we have to be nice to Abbas, (and eat our peas and carrots,) or be destroyed by Iranian nuclear bombs.

At last year’s conference, the AIDRG team presented the data they had painstakingly compiled. They were greeted with unabashed hostility. Many walked out in the middle. Others groaned or chatted loudly with their friends trying to drown out the presentation. The audience of elitists didn’t want to hear proof that for the past decade, Israel’s national debate – which they themselves have led – has been based on a lie aimed at destroying the Zionist idea.

This year the team will return to the conference. But rather than being allowed to present their newest data and their plan, they were given a mere three minutes to speak at the end of a session about something else entirely.

Halutz’s resignation was a good and necessary thing. But in and of itself, it will have little significance for Israel if it remains a lone incident. For Halutz’s exit from the scene to be a harbinger for a better, safer future, it needs to be followed not only by the resignations of Prime Minister Ehud Olmert, Foreign Minister Tzipi Livni and Defense Minister Amir Peretz.


Our failed and delusional leaders must take their mendacious and defeatist national debate along with them. As they depart, we must regain control over our national conversation and build it upon the firm foundations of reality and a renewed commitment to advancing and securing Israel’s national interests.


 

Next Steps in the Iran Crisis

Below is the prepared statement of Center for Security Policy Advisory Council Co-Chariman R. James Woolsey’s testimony before the House Committee on Foreign Affairs on 11 January 2007.

Mr. Chairman, Representative Ros-Lehtinen, Members of the Committee, I was honored to be asked to testify before you today on this important issue. By way of identification I am currently a Vice President of the consulting firm, Booz Allen Hamilton; I principally work in the field of energy. Earlier, during a twenty-two year career of practicing law in Washington, I served in the federal government on five occasions, holding Presidential appointments in two Republican and two Democratic administrations, most recently as Director of Central Intelligence for two years during the first Clinton administration.  Today I am expressing solely my personal views.

The Iranian Regime

In a sense, Mr. Chairman, the Iran Crisis now enters its 28th year. The totalitarian and corrupt regime in Tehran does not differ in any fundamental way from that which took power in the aftermath of the collapse of the Shah’s regime in 1979. 

It is true that beginning in the late nineties during the first year of the Khatami presidency there was a period of a year or so when the optimistic could believe that the forces of moderation might make substantial progress in Iran. But the crackdown in the spring of 1998 on students and journalists, including the imprisonment and killing of many, should have signaled clearly that these hopes had been dashed. Khatami was always a creature of the regime. He had passed the test of regime approval to be permitted to run for President, a test honorably failed by dozens of more truly reform-minded and brave Iranian political figures. He made no substantial changes in the nature of the regime during his time in office.

Now the camouflaged mantle of “moderate” has passed from Khatami to Rafsanjani, who during his time in office was responsible for the execution and imprisonment of a great many regime opponents, and the murder abroad of a large number as well. If President Khatami might be compared to Prime Minister Kosygin in the Soviet Union – a man who was labeled “moderate” largely because he didn’t use excessive rhetoric and smiled more than his colleagues – then Mr. Rafsanjani’s current characterization as a moderate or pragmatist might be compared to the image of Mr. Andropov that the KGB successfully sold to much of the world’s press: the evidence for Mr. Andropov’s moderation was that he listened to jazz and drank Scotch. Mr. Rafsnjani, for example, like President Ahmadinejad, has threatened the destruction of Israel; has noted he is responsible for many deaths of decent people; he is also famously corrupt.

The regime’s threats to destroy Israel and, on a longer time-scale, the United States are part and parcel of its essence. Recent official statements to this effect represent not a shift in policy – Iran’s regime has defined itself by its fundamental hostility to the West, and especially Israel and the US, for nearly three decades (“Great Satan” etc.) – but rather a greater degree of public and explicit candor. 

This fundamental hostility is now seasoned by a more pointed expression of the views of the circle of fanatic believers around Ayatollah Mesbah-Yazdi in Qum, including Ahmadinejad himself. This group expressly promotes the idea that large-scale killing should be welcomed because it will summon the return of the 12th Imam, the Mahdi, which in turn will lead to the end of the world. Recently the Islamic Republic of Iran Broadcasting web site  has begun to assert that the world is in its “last days” and that, as the world ends, Jesus will appear with the Mahdi, as a Shi’ite and as his lieutenant. This rhetoric is not limited to a small circle. Rafsanjani, e.g., has utilized it as well. To us, of course, it sounds bizarre – but we ignore such ideology at our peril. As Enders Wimbush points out in the current Weekly Standard “Iran’s leadership has spoken of its willingness – in their words – to “martyr” the entire Iranian nation, and it has even expressed he desirability of doing so as a way to accelerate an inevitable, apocalyptic collision between Islam and the West . . . .” Those in decision-making roles in the Iranian regime who believe such things are certainly not going to be very inclined to negotiate in good faith with us about Iraq, their nuclear program, or indeed anything at all. Even deterrence is questionable, much less arms control agreements.

The Iranian regime does not restrict itself to hideous speech. As President  Bush noted last night, the regime is assisting terrorists to infiltrate into Iraq and is providing material support to attacks on the US.  It is clear, for example, that the increasingly effective Improvised Explosive Devices (IEDs) are not so improvised any more – many now include sophisticated shaped charges that penetrate armor. And they are of Iranian manufacture. Over the years, directly and through its controlled assets such as Hezbollah, Iran has killed and murdered hundreds of Americans – in Beirut, at Khobar Towers – and large numbers of Israelis, French, and Argentinians as well. Torture has often also been part of the picture. 

The Persians invented chess and if I were to characterize Iran’s international behavior today in those terms I would say that they are actively utilizing a number of pieces. One might call their nuclear weapons development program their queen – their most lethal and valuable piece. No one should, by the way, discount their intention to obtain nuclear weapons. The traces of highly-enriched (not just fuel-grade) uranium, their deception, their heavy water plant and other indicators brand their program as one designed to develop nuclear weapons even in the absence of considering their rhetoric about destroying Israel and ending the world. The Sunni states of the region have become extremely alarmed at the Iranian regime’s nuclear weapons program and six of them, including Saudi Arabia and Egypt, have recently announced their intent to move toward nuclear programs themselves, allegedly solely for electricity generation.  t seems remarkable that six states, several of them with substantial reserves of oil and gas, would simultaneously determine that these reserves would be inadequate for their energy needs and that adequate electricity can only be obtained by their simultaneously moving to develop nuclear power. What has in fact, of course, happened is that Iran has now begun a Shi’ite-Sunni nuclear arms race in this volatile region.

I do not believe that any degree of international disapproval — or sanctions such as the tepid ones that can be obtained through the UN process in the face of Russian and Chinese opposition to strong ones – will lead this regime to abandon its nuclear weapons program. And even if it should be two-to-three more years before Iran could have enough fissile material through the operation of its own centrifuges to fashion an entirely home-built nuclear weapon, one must not forget its co-conspirator North Korea.  North Korea’s principal exports today are counterfeit American currency, heroin, and ballistic missile technology (the Iranian Shahab and the North Korean No Dong and Taepo Dong essentially constitute a joint missile development program). Why would North Korea refrain from selling Iran either fissile material or a crude nuclear weapon?  Either is easily transported by air.  Such a purchase would substantially shorten the time before Iran could have a nuclear weapon.

Iran moves four chess pieces of lesser value from time to time in part to keep the US and Israel off balance, in part to protect their nuclear queen: Hamas, Hezbollah, and Moqtadh al Sadr’s forces in Iraq might be said to be pawns; Syria perhaps rises to the level of rook, since it is a nation-state and has a mutual defense treaty with Iran. It is of no particular importance to the regime that the Alawite Syrian regime needed special Iranian theological dispensation to be regarded as part of Shi’ite Islam nor that Hamas is Sunni.  The Iranian regime, going back to the training of the very Shi’ite Revolutionary Guards in the early seventies in Lebanon by Yasser Arafat’s secular Fatah, is quite willing to work with terrorist organizations, including al Qaeda, that have all sorts of different ideological DNA.  In recent years this has included visits with and even mutual travel by Ahmadinejad with Venezuela’s Hugo Chavez. 

Some believe that Shi’ites will not cooperate with Sunnis, or either with secular groups – that, e.g., there could have been no collaboration of any kind by secular Baathist Iraq or Shi’ite Iran with Sunni al Qaeda. Seventy years ago it was the conventional wisdom was that Communists and Nazis would never cooperate, and that was largely true – until the Stalin-Hitler Pact.  The Iranian regime doesn’t just appreciate but more or less lives the old Middle Eastern saying:  “Me against my brother. Me and my brother against our cousin.  Me, my brother, and our cousin against the stranger.”

Some Suggested Courses of Action

Given the nature of the Iranian regime, what should we do?

I agree that this is a difficult matter and that there are no easy answers. But since I am convinced that the Iranian regime is fundamentally incorrigible, and since I am not yet ready to propose an all-out use of military force to change the regime and halt its nuclear program, in my judgment we should opt for trying to bring about, non-violently, a regime change. I admit that the hour is late since we have wasted much time trying to engage and negotiate with the regime, and I understand that in the context of an effort to change the regime without using force the effort could get out of hand. Yet I am convinced that the least bad option if for us to state clearly that we support a change of regime in Iran because of the irremediable theocratic totalitarian nature of the current regime as it has been demonstrated over nearly three decades, together with its interference with the peace and security of its neighbors – currently especially Iraq and Lebanon – and its nuclear weapons program. I also believe that restiveness among Iranian minorities – Arab, Kurdish, Azeri, and Baluch – and the sullen opposition of many young people indicate that there is some chance of success in stimulating regime change. In a poll taken at the behest of the Iranian government some three years ago over 70 per cent of those polled said that they wanted improved relations with the US. The Iranian government, of course, imprisoned the pollsters.

To implement this policy I would suggest that we begin by rejecting the recommendation of the Iraq Study Group (ISG) that we should try to “engage [the Iranian regime] constructively”, i.e. seek to negotiate with them. As Senator John Kyl and I wrote just over a month ago in an open letter to the President (in our capacities as Honorary Co-Chairmen of the National Security Advisory Council of the Center for Security Policy) opening negotiations with Iran, and Syria, would legitimate those regimes, embolden them and their affiliated terrorist groups, help the Iranian regime buy time for its nuclear weapons program, create the illusion of useful effort and thus discourage more effective steps. We added that no regional conference should take place without including Israel.  I would point out that the able analyst of these matters, Kenneth Pollack, in his book The Persian Puzzle (2004) sets it out clearly. Iran is not really interested:  “…Iran is simply not ready for a meaningful relationship with the United States…From America’s side, our dislike of this regime should not prevent the conclusion of a comprehensive settlement of our differences, but from Iran’s side it has and it likely will for quite some time…” (pp. 396-97).

Second, we should indeed engage, but with the Iranian people, not their oppressors. 

Along the lines of recommendations made a year ago by the Committee on the Present Danger (which I co-chair with former Secretary of State George Shultz), and by Iran experts such as Michael Ledeen, we should target sanctions – travel and financial – on the Iranian leadership, not on the Iranian people, and draw a sharp line between them. One possibility in this regard is to seek to bring charges against President Ahmadinejad in an international tribunal for violation of the Genocide Convention in calling publicly for the destruction of Israel. Our precedent would be the charges brought against Charles Taylor while President of Liberia for crimes against humanity before a special international tribunal in Sierra Leon.  Iran’s protectors in the United Nations would doubtless block the establishment of such a tribunal, but clarity and principle have a force of their own – Natan Sharansky and other Soviet dissidents then in the Gulag have told us of the electrifying effect of President Reagan’s declaration that the USSR was an “evil empire”.

We should also engage in ways similar to those techniques we used in the 1980’s to engage with the Polish people and Solidarity —  by communicating directly, now via the Web and modern communications technology, with Iranian student groups, labor unions, and other potential sources of resistance. 

We should abandon the approaches of Radio Farda and the Farsi Service of VOA and return to the approach that served us so well in the Cold War. Ion Pacepa, the most senior Soviet Bloc intelligence officer to defect during the Cold War (when he was Acting Director of Romanian Intelligence) recently wrote that two missiles brought down the Soviet Union: Radio Free Europe and Radio Liberty. Our current broadcasting does not inform Iranians about what is happening in Iran, as RFE and RL did about matters in the Bloc. Privately-financed Farsi broadcasts from the US follow the RFE-RL model to some extent, but exist on a shoestring. Instead we sponsor radio that principally broadcasts music and brief world news, and television that, I suppose seeking a bizarre version of balance, sometimes utilizes correspondents with remarkable views: one VOA correspondent, on another network, last year characterized the arrest in the UK of 21 individuals accused of plotting to blow up transatlantic airliners with liquid explosives as “a conspiracy against Islam” by the US and alleged that the US and the UK fabricated the plot to deflect attention from “Hezbollah victories”.  (Richard Benkin in Asian Tribune Aug. 12, 2006, vol. 6 no. 41.)

Our current broadcasting is a far cry from RFE and RL’s marvelous programming of news, cultural programs, investigative reporting (in the Eastern Bloc), and satire.  (As an example of what could be done with satire I have attached to this testimony an article published some months ago by me and my family about one, admittedly quite unorthodox, possibility.)

Finally Iran’s economy is driven by oil exports. This leaves it open to several measures.  Although Iran has reaped substantial financial rewards from today’s high oil prices we have begun to have some effect on its oil production by our campaign to dry up its oil and gas development. The Iranians are very worried about this. Deputy Oil Minister Mohammed Hadi Nejad-Hosseinian recently said in an interview that:

[i]f the government does not control the consumption of oil products in Iran….and at the same time, if the projects for increasing the capacity of the oil and protection of the oil wells will not happen, within ten years there will not be any oil for export.(Daneshjoo publishers, Current News, article 9303.)

At the appropriate time we could move toward a step that, although drastic, is potentially very effective relatively quickly – namely cutting off Iran’s imports of refined petroleum products (Iran has built no refineries in many years and must import around 40 per cent of its gasoline and diesel fuel). 

And finally, by moving toward technology that can reduce substantially the role of oil in our own economy and that of the world’s other oil-importing states, we can help deprive oil exporters – Iran, Saudi Arabia, Russia, Venezuela, and others – of much of their leverage in international affairs. As Tom Friedman of the NY Times puts it, the price of oil and the path of freedom run in opposite directions.  The attached op-ed piece of mine, published in the Wall Street Journal December 30, notes the possibility of plug-in hybrid vehicles soon making it possible for consumers to get around 500 miles per gallon of gasoline (since almost all propulsion would come from much less expensive electricity and renewable fuels, the latter mixed with only 15 per cent gasoline). This may seem an extraordinary number. But when General Motors last Sunday joined Toyota in the plug-in hybrid race to market and unveiled its new Chevrolet Volt, one of its executives used a figure of 525 miles per (gasoline) gallon.  Five hundred and twenty-five miles per (gasoline) gallon should give Minister Nejad-Hosseinian and his colleagues a bracing degree of  concern.

Scapegoating our friends

There is something insidious about half-truths. To accept a half-truth demands accepting also a lie.

Last week, readers of The Wall Street Journal were presented with a particularly insidious half-truth along with a lie in the form of an op-ed by University of Haifa professor and prominent Israeli intellectual Fania Oz-Salzberger.

Oz-Salzberger’s article, "With Friends like These…Jews, beware of Islamophobes bearing gifts," was a broadside against Israel’s supporters in Europe.

The column began with a breezy recognition and cool condemnation of European hostility toward Israel. Oz-Salzberger went on to elegantly deride the opportunistic and sleazy embrace of the Holocaust by the same European elites who reject Israel’s right to exist.

Then, having duly expressed the self-evident truth of European moral corruption, Oz-Salzberger moved on to her lies. She turned her attention to Israel’s tiny group of ardent supporters in Europe and their little umbrella organization, the European Coalition for Israel (ECI). These people, she alleged, are no-good bigots motivated purely by their racism against Muslims, or the view that "The enemies of Israel are also a threat to Europe."

In her most devastating paragraph, Oz-Salzberger wrote, "I, for one Israeli, would be grateful to my newfound buddies if their sympathy for me did not rely on trashing another religion. Unlike them, I am touched by the sight of young Muslim women on European university campuses. They remind me of my own grandmother, a student in Prague who had to flee after the Nazi rise to power, and of all the other young and hopeful Jews whose dreams and lives were shattered by the European culture they so admired. I will therefore not solicit support based on unqualified dislike of other human groups, least of all on the continent that kicked out my grandparents."

Is it really possible that her grandmother or any Jewish student in European universities before the Holocaust would accept her comparison of them with Muslim students in European universities today?

NO DOUBT, the Jewish students in European universities – like European Jewry in general – would have broken down and cried in exultation had the treatment they received from the Europeans then been even vaguely similar to that which European Muslims receive today. Indeed, drawing parallels between the subjugation and genocide of European Jewry during the Holocaust and the treatment of European Muslims today runs dangerously close to Holocaust denial.

Aside from the vast difference between Europe’s treatment of its Muslims today and its Jews 60 years ago, there is the issue Oz-Salzberger’s protestation that those Jews and today’s Muslims are comparable in and of themselves. For while she notes that European Jews "admired" European culture, and identified with it, it is far from clear that Muslim students share their admiration.

According to a Pew Research Center poll taken last spring, 81 percent of British Muslims identify with their religion, while only 7 percent identify with Britain. In Germany, 13 percent of Muslims identify themselves as Germans while 66 percent identify as Muslims. Similar numbers were recorded in Spain. In France, Muslims are almost evenly split, with 42 percent identifying as French citizens and 46 percent identifying as Muslims.

PERHAPS THE greatest disparity between European Jewry in the 1930s and European Muslims today is their disparate views of Jews. While European Jews overwhelmingly liked Jews European Muslims don’t like Jews. The Pew poll showed that only 32 percent of British Muslims, 38 percent of German Muslims, and 28 percent of Spanish Muslims have a favorable view of Jews. While 71 percent of French Muslims professed a favorable view of Jews, the 29 percent who did not state such a view no doubt include, among others, Ilan Halimi’s murderers.

As is the case throughout Europe, in Prague itself – the city of Oz-Salzberger’s memory – evidence suggests that jihadists are making inroads. A 2005 Czech documentary film, I Muslim included candid camera footage from inside a Prague mosque. The film showed Muslims proclaiming their support for Islamic terror and for the replacement of civil law with Shari’a law – including the death penalty for adultery – throughout the Czech Republic.

And Sorbonne professor Guy Milliere wrote recently: "In many French cities with a growing radical Islamist population, no teenage girl can go out in the evening, at least without a full burqa – otherwise she’s admitting that she’s worse than a whore and asking to be raped."

Yet Oz-Salzberger ignores all of this in her bid to publicly malign Israel’s supporters in Europe for their alleged racism – a racism whose sole alleged manifestation lies in their insistence on warning about the rising jihadist threat to European civilization. Ignoring that threat herself, Oz-Salzberger unfairly conflates those who bravely express the need to confront the danger of jihad with racists.

Oz-Salzberger’s analysis devolves rapidly from the vindictive to the bizarre. In her conclusion, she recommends that Israelis act as Islam’s defenders in Europe by pointing out irrelevantly that 1,000 years ago Jews flourished under Islamic rule.

THE ODDEST thing about Oz-Salzberger’s attacks is that during the European Coalition for Israel’s fourth annual conference last September, which she invokes as proof of its members’ racism, no hateful diatribes against Islam were issued.

In fact, a review of the 28 pages of minutes from their conference – available on the ECI’s Web site – shows that during the two-day affair, European funding of the Palestinian Authority, and UNWRA was scrutinized. EU commissioners were asked to justify their statements against European newspapers that published the cartoons of Muhammad last year. The European media was criticized for its inherent hostility toward Israel. The EU’s policy of ignoring the persecution of Christian communities in the Palestinian Authority, Lebanon and the Arab world in general was criticized.

In this vein, the ECI hosted Palestinian Greek-Orthodox pastor Naim Khoury from Bethlehem. After telling the conference how his church was firebombed repeatedly by jihadists, Khoury noted that Israel is the only country in the Middle East where Christians are not persecuted for their religious beliefs. Khoury demanded to know why the EU has refused to defend Christians in the PA, Lebanon and the Middle East.

So too, a Lebanese Christian spokesman, who, fearing Hizbullah, spoke incognito, told the attendees that Hizbullah has prevented Christian villagers from the south from returning to their homes after this summer’s war with Israel. He demanded to know why the Europe’s UNIFIL forces are doing nothing to prevent Hizbullah’s persecution of Christians and reassertion of control over south Lebanon.

As to European Muslims, ECI members called for funds to be raised to begin an outreach program to Muslim youth in high school to give them an option other than jihad early on. So too, they called for a public awareness campaign to inform Europeans about Muslim Brotherhood activities on the continent.

That is, far from engaging in racist attacks, ECI conference participants called for the tools of liberal democracy – deliberation and debate – to be used to launch a war of ideas against the ideology of jihad that is swiftly gaining currency over an ever-growing proportion of European Muslims.

SO WHY Oz-Salzberger’s unfathomable broadside against ECI? The only readily available explanation is the identity of its members. ECI is made up of a handful of Christian groups: Bridges for Peace; Christian Friends of Israel, Christians for Israel; the International Christian Embassy in Jerusalem, and Operation Exodus.

Oz-Salzberger laments the fact that Israel’s European friends are not leftist atheists like the late Orianna Fallaci, "whose commitment to the Jews stemmed from her heroic anti-Fascist youth, and whose harsh critique of Islam came from an enraged liberal soul."

But if she had bothered to listen to what the members of the ECI said she would see that their commitment to Jews stems from their enraged liberal souls too. Like Fallaci, their liberalism arouses their commitment to the preservation of the Judeo-Christian foundations of Europe. Unlike Fallaci, at least until her later years, the root of their commitment to human freedom is their Christian faith.

AND SO, at last, we discover the true irony in Oz-Salzberger’s attack on Israel’s European friends. In attacking these courageous European Christians she is attacking, rather than upholding, the liberal values of tolerance she professes.

There is nothing liberal about attacking Christian supporters of Israel simply because their religious beliefs are different from ours.

Moreover, morality is inverted and corrupted by the likes of Oz-Salzberger who, on the one hand, purport to "respect" Muslims while denying the xenophobia, bigotry, misogyny and anti-Semitism that dominates so many European Muslim communities today; and, on the other hand, decry Christian faith that is coupled with amity, calls for dialogue, and the moral courage to confront true evil.

Israel’s friends deserve better than this.

Israelis deserve better than this. And we all deserve the full truth.

Memo to the President

Mr. President:

By now you have been getting lots of free advice about what to say – and what not to say – in your remarks Wednesday about a new strategy for Iraq.  Some of it, like Jim Baker’s recommendations that would have translated into our defeat, you have wisely rejected.  You have evidently decided to accept others reflecting your laudable determination to prevail, including staff shake-ups and surging of forces. 

The leaks depicting your decisions to date seem, however, to reflect the same miasma that has afflicted many of your critics – namely, the perception that strategic adjustments are in order only vis a vis Iraq.  A variation on the theme is the mistaken belief that we can make changes in policy or strategy towards Iraq without acknowledging, let alone reckoning with, the fact that it is but one front in a far wider war.

Key Recommendations

In case the free advice you have taken aboard to date hasn’t addressed these points directly, I would respectfully suggest that you factor into your thinking the following suggestions:

  • First, at this moment of critical redefinition, you have to root your strategy for Iraq in the context of the larger, truly titanic and global conflict being waged against us by a totalitarian ideology.  In the interest of clarity and a new sense of direction, you must give new names to the war and to the enemy we confront.  It is no longer enough to describe the former as "the war on terror" and the latter as "terrorists."

Today, we are engaged in " the War for the Free World," a formulation that makes clear that nothing less than the future of freedom and Western civilization is at stake.  And our principal enemies at the moment are adherents to " Islamofascism," a term you have used twice before.  Most Muslims want no more than the rest of us to live under the sort of repressive theocracy such ideologues seek.  But unless the Islamists are stopped, most immediately – but not exclusively – in Iraq, we will surely confront their violent bids for power elsewhere, including here.

To be sure, you have made such points from time to time in the past.  But it has never been more important to underscore this central reality behind the changes you will be announcing Wednesday.  Not least, by so doing, you can make clear why it is impossible simply to acquiesce in the face of congressional criticism and negative polls to alternative strategies that will result in a terrible loss for the Free World in Iraq – and further embolden its enemies and their enablers.

  • As you know, chief among these foes at the moment is Iran.  Again, the problem is not confined to Iraq, although Tehran is certainly making every effort to ensure freedom’s defeat there.  The Iranian mullahocracy is also actively engaged in international terrorism, destabilizing Lebanon, explicitly threatening Israel and the United States and amassing the nuclear weapons and ballistic missiles needed to carry out such threats.

Consequently, your new strategy must make clear that it is being designed to counter Islamofascist Iran both in terms of its subversion in Iraq and with a view to working with the Iranian people to bring down a government that they hate as much as we do.  Toward that end, in your speech Wednesday, you should call attention to three further initiatives:

  • Millions of Americans can help the war effort by investing terror-free – that is, by ensuring that their money is not invested in companies that do business with Iran and other terrorist-sponsoring regimes.  Call for the Nation’s public pension funds, mutual funds and other institutional and private investors to deny resources to our enemies and, thereby, to reduce fiduciary risks associated with such investments.
  • On Sunday, General Motors unveiled a new hybrid electric vehicle called the Chevrolet Volt which could allow many drivers to avoid using gasoline at all.  The widespread application of this "E-flex" technology – essentially an electric vehicle which uses its gas-powered internal combustion engine only to recharge its batteries – could dramatically reduce our "addiction to oil" evident in the U.S. transportation sector’s dependence on foreign sources of petroleum.  By so doing, we can further cut into the wealth our enemies use to threaten us.

For the promise of approaches like "E-flex" to be realized, though, America is going to have to have a reliable and large-scale source of lithium-ion batteries such vehicles require.  Mr. President, make addressing this requirement a key part of a new, bipartisan energy security component to your new strategy.

  • Finally, you need to make clear the importance of America’s freedom of action to defending this country.  Under your leadership, we have enlisted dozens of countries in a U.S.-led Proliferation Security Initiative (PSI).  It facilitates joint action to detect and defeat the spread of weapons of mass destruction. 

Unfortunately, the new Democratic leadership of the House of Representatives has included language in its so-called "9/11 implementation legislation" (scheduled for floor action [today]) a sense of the Congress resolution that PSI should be subjected to the approval of the UN Security Council.  This would have the effect of giving Russia and China a chance to veto, or otherwise adulterate, this important program – possibly denying us counter-proliferation tools more needed today than ever before.  Draw the line on this sort of woolly-headed thinking now.

The Bottom Line

In short, Mr. President, your speech tomorrow must show the American people and their elected representatives that you are squarely addressing the challenge of our time – of which Iraq is but one part – in a comprehensive, multifaceted and determined way.  Your intention to win must be forcefully communicated, not just because it is preferable to losing, but because the alternative to victory in this War for the Free World is unacceptable.

The new groupthink

We are, as the saying goes, between Iraq and a hard place. Unfortunately, events this week seem likely to drive us inexorably closer to the hard place – one that is going to be a lot worse than what we have seen in Iraq so far.

Coming Distractions

These events include a two-day trip to the woodshed in Amman, Jordan with President Bush for Iraqi Prime Minister Nuri al-Maliki. They will be considering ways in which al-Maliki can prevent the collapse of his government and his country’s slide into full-scale civil war. Presumably, the two leaders will be factoring in the results of Vice President Cheney’s three-hour visit to Riyadh to appeal to the Saudi king, Abdullah, for help with Iraq.

Mr. Bush is also expected to hold talks with NATO allies in Latvia, where he will surely get an earful not just about the latters’ unhappiness over the rising level of violence in Afghanistan but about what he is doing wrong in Iraq, as well. We have already heard from Britain’s Tony Blair on the matter. Expect more of the same from him and his European counterparts.

Iraqi President Jalal Talabani will be meeting with his Iranian counterpart, Mahmoud Ahmadinejad, in Tehran to discuss bilateral relations. Presumably, among the topics for discussion will be the success Iran’s regime is having in its efforts to destroy a Free Iraq.

Finally, there will be two days of deliberations by the Iraq Study Group, co-chaired by former Secretary of State James Baker and former Rep. Lee Hamilton. This panel, which was commissioned by Congress to examine alternatives to the present approach in Iraq, is reportedly considering a proposed report drafted largely at Mr. Baker’s direction.

The ‘Regional’ Deus ex Machina

What all these events have in common is the notion that the "solution" to Iraq lies in a "regional" approach. The leitmotif is that U.S. unilateralism is dead, long live multilateralism. A chastened America will be brought to its senses by the collective wisdom of Jim Baker, Mahmoud Ahmadinejad and Kings Abdullah of Jordan and Saudi Arabia.

But what, exactly, does this regional approach portend?

Reduced to its essence, the regional strategy is a euphemism for throwing Free Iraq to the wolves in its neighborhood: Iran, Syria and Saudi Arabia. The vehicle for doing so will presumably be some sort of international conference attended by such powers, together with others in the region (like Jordan and Egypt), and augmented by interested parties from elsewhere – including Britain, France, Russia and China.

Unfortunately, past experience has taught that such a conclave would not be good for freedom-loving people. The Iraqis would, of course, be toast. The best they could hope for is a new autocratic ruler whose repressive behavior will enjoy the support of the tyrants next door. They will no longer have the United States to kick around, and those who foolishly stood with us for a better future will meet an unpleasant fate.

If we are lucky, the regional "process" will afford American forces a fig-leaf behind we might obscure our strategic defeat. Heliborne evacuations from the Green Zone a la the fall of Saigon three decades ago may be avoided, provided our enemies allow us to effect a dignified "strategic redeployment." More likely, we will be bloodied on the way out by terrorists, insurgents and others intent on compounding the ignominy insofar as it will serve their larger purpose: our destruction in the world beyond Iraq, including ultimately here at home.

Among the other predictable casualties of the regional strategy will be the people of Israel. Jim Baker’s hostility towards the Jews is a matter of record and has endeared him to Israel’s foes in the region. What could be more appealing to the latter than an international conference that will simultaneously undo the experiment in freedom in Iraq and compel Israel to make further territorial concessions. Of course, these will not mitigate conflicts in Iraq and Lebanon that have nothing to do with Israel. They will, however, allow the Mideast’s only bona fide democracy, the Jewish State, to be snuffed in due course.

What’s Wrong with this Picture?

We are, in short, poised to stand the U.S. Marine’s motto "No better friend, no worse enemy" on its head. If the Baker regional strategy is adopted, we will prove to all the world that it is better to be America’s enemy than its friend.

If these undesirable outcomes are so predictable, why are we slouching towards the hard place of the "regional solution"?

It comes down to a lack of seriousness on the part of too many elected leaders of both parties – exhibited in a failure themselves to understand the gravity of a global war in which Iraq is but one front, and a failure to educate their constituents about the stakes associated with such a war. This superciliousness has translated into political circumstances in the United States (including delegating great responsibility to unelected and unaccountable commissions) and strategic conditions elsewhere that make diplomatic options appear more real and appealing than they are.

The Bottom Line

Of late, it has become fashionable to assess blame for failures of intelligence and policy to "groupthink." The term describes the phenomenon whereby lots of smart people feel pressure to conform to a consensus view and, in the process, lose (or at least suppress) their willingness to observe that the emperor has no clothes.

Rarely has the pressure to go along with such groupthink been greater than is increasingly the case with respect to the idea of relying on one or the other of our foes – Iran, Syria or Saudi Arabia – to solve our problems in Iraq. And rarely has it been more important that this strategy of appeasement, and the very hard place to which it will lead us, be rejected.

Postcards from Saigon

By Caroline B. Glick

(Jerusalem): Apropos of nothing, Wednesday night Channel 2 news broadcast a jihadi snuff film. The video, produced by an Iraqi group called the Islamic Army of Allah, shows a jihadi sniper knocking off American soldiers one by one.

Being a propaganda flick whose goal is to demoralize Americans and their allies and recruit new soldiers to the army of jihad, not surprisingly the video doesn’t show how the US forces reacted to the sniper fire. The American forces in the film are powerless victims. If they are smart, they will cut and run before it is too late.

The video is effective because it effectively tells a complete lie. US forces in Iraq are far from helpless. They have won nearly every engagement they have fought with insurgent forces in Iraq. And their capabilities get better all the time.

Today, the public debate in the US revolves around one question: When are we leaving Iraq? The conventional wisdom has become that US operations in Iraq are futile. Due in large part to politically driven press coverage, Americans have received the impression that the US cannot succeed in Iraq and that consequently, their leaders ought to be concentrating their efforts on building an exit strategy. Comparisons between the war in Iraq and the Vietnam War are legion.

Last Wednesday, President George W. Bush was asked whether it is possible to make a comparison between the recent sharp rise in violence in Iraq and the Tet offensive in Vietnam in January 1968. Bush responded by noting that then as now, “There’s certainly a stepped-up level of violence, and we’re heading into an election.”

During the Tet offensive, the North Vietnamese attacked 40 South Vietnamese villages simultaneously with a massive force of 84,000 troops. The offensive failed utterly. 45,000 North Vietnamese soldiers were killed, no ground was taken. Yet, when then US president Lyndon Johnson declared victory, the American people didn’t believe him. Walter Cronkite, the all-powerful anchorman of the CBS Evening News had told them that the US had lost the offensive. Who was the president to argue with Cronkite? In March 1968 Johnson announced that he would not seek reelection.

So when the media wonder if one can compare the battles in Iraq today to the Tet offensive, what they really want to know is if they have successfully convinced the American public that its military has lost the war in Iraq.

Over the past several weeks, Bush has been waging a political offensive to convince the public that their military is winning the war in Iraq. On Wednesday, the president gave a press conference on Iraq and later reinforced his message in a meeting with conservative columnists.

Bush made four major points in those appearances. First, he explained that the US is at war and described the nature of the war. Iran, he said stands at the helm of enemy forces. Iran’s senior role was made clear he said, through its sponsorship of this summer’s Hizbullah and Palestinian war against Israel. One of Iran’s central goals – shared with Syria and its terrorist proxies – is to destroy the forces of moderation and democracy in the Middle East.

Secondly, Bush asserted that Iraq is a vital front in this war. In his view, the only way the US can lose that war is if it leaves, “letting things fall into chaos and letting al-Qaida have a safe haven.” Bush argued that if the US leaves Iraq, Iraq will come to the US, to Iraq’s neighbors and indeed to the entire world.

Thirdly, Bush argued that the US can only win the war if the American public supports it. The only way to ensure the public’s support is by showing that America is winning. Bush said that showing success is difficult because while its benchmarks for victory – political freedom, economic development and social progress – are amorphous, “the enemy gets to define victory by killing people.”

Finally, Bush argued that to defeat Iran, Syria and North Korea, the US must have international support for its efforts. Countries like Russia, China and France must understand the dangers and agree to isolate these regimes with effective international sanctions.

WHILE BUSH clearly knows what he wants to do, he is hard-pressed to succeed. Not only are the Democrats and the media trying to undercut him, members of his own administration – and particularly Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice and her colleagues at the State Department – are subverting the president’s agenda.

For example, there is Alberto Fernandez, the Director of Public Diplomacy in the Bureau of Near Eastern Affairs. Fernandez’s job is to defend the US in the Arabic media. Yet, in an interview with Al Jazeera last week, Fernandez said that the US had been “arrogant” and “stupid” in Iraq. In September he reportedly said that Americans and others “are trying intentionally to encourage hell in the Arab world.”

Then there is Rice herself. Rather than promoting US victories in Iraq, Rice is turning the Iraqi government into a scapegoat for the ongoing jihad. If the government doesn’t get its act together, she intimates, the US will feel free to wash its hands of the matter. It won’t be a US defeat, but an Iraqi failure. That is, far from extolling American success, she is paving the way to justify an American defeat.

At the same time, rather than explain Iran’s central role in the war, Rice courts the mullahs. Ignoring Iran’s sponsorship of the Palestinians, Rice waxes poetic comparing the Palestinians – who chose Hamas to lead them – to the American founding fathers and to the civil rights movement.

On Wednesday Bush explained that the relative level of violence is not a determinate of victory or defeat because the enemy can use cease-fires to rearm. In his words, “If the absence of violence is victory, no one will ever win, because all that means is you’ve empowered a bunch of suiciders and thugs to kill.”

Yet contrary to Bush’s clear view on the matter, State Department officials work around the clock negotiating cease-fires. Indeed, one of the capstones of Rice’s diplomatic efforts is the August cease-fire in Lebanon under which Israel is prevented from defending itself and Hizbullah is moving swiftly to rebuild its forces.

In Iraq, this dangerous penchant for negotiations is what enabled Muqtada al-Sadr’s pro-Iranian, pro-Hizbullah Mahdi Army to emerge from its April 2004 offensive against Coalition forces intact and free to become the power broker in Shii’te politics that it is today. The fact that Iraqi Prime Minister Nouri al-Maliki felt it necessary to condemn the joint US-Iraqi attack against al-Sadr’s forces in Baghdad Tuesday is a testament to al-Sadr’s power.

Today the only high-level US diplomat who believes that the purpose of diplomacy is to advance US national interests and not to achieve agreements for their own sake is US Ambassador to the UN John Bolton. Just this week Bolton effectively prevented Venezuela from being elected to the Security Council.

Rice does not support Bolton. According to Senate sources, Rice played a major role in preventing Bolton from receiving Senate confirmation for his appointment. As a result, he will likely be forced to leave the UN next month.

Rice’s machinations have made her popular with the media. But her popularity comes at the expense of public and international support for the US’s war goals. Her actions and those of her State Department colleagues have contributed to the anomalous situation where while US forces improved their capabilities in Iraq, the American public became convinced that the war is going badly. Rather than fearing the US, Iran, Syria and North Korea behave as though the US is a paper tiger. Rather than support America, European “allies” increasingly see their national interests best served by distancing themselves from the US as much as possible.

THE SITUATION can be reversed. The media are no longer the power they were in Cronkite’s day. Were the administration to challenge the networks, the networks would be forced to adjust their coverage to reality.

Last week CNN broadcast the Iraqi sniper video.

The Chairman of the House Armed Services Committee, Congressman Duncan Hunter reacted by blasting the broadcast and calling for the military to bar CNN reporters from embedding with US forces in Iraq. Hunter said that by showing the film CNN was collaborating with America’s enemies and consequently, CNN reporters should enjoy no support from US forces in Iraq. His attacks were widely reported and there can be little doubt that CNN will think long and hard before broadcasting another enemy propaganda movie.

For Israel, the results of the American debate over the future of the war in Iraq are of critical importance. A US retreat will place Israel in grave danger. The eastern front, whose demise the military “experts” were quick to announce in 2003 to justify slashing the defense budget, will make a comeback – replete with massive quantities of arms and tens of thousands of trained jihadi soldiers who will believe that they just won their jihad against the US. Moreover, if the US retreats, the IDF will find itself facing a US-armed and trained Shi’ite army. That is, if the US withdraws, Israel could potentially find itself facing an enemy force better trained and equipped than the IDF.

The leaders of the Democratic Party today compete amongst themselves to see who can be more defeatist. If in the November 7 elections the Democrats take control of both houses of Congress, or even just one of them, the push for a US retreat will grow stronger.

Whatever the results of the elections, Israel must hope that for his last two years in office, President Bush will take firm control of his administration – first and foremost by curbing Rice and her State Department associates – and lead a concerted, unabashed diplomatic and public opinion offensive.

If Bush does this, he will gain wide public support and sufficient support from the international community to move ahead in the war.

If Bush does not take control of his administration, the Vietnam War analogy will become an accurate one for Iraq, and Israel will find itself playing the role of Cambodia.

What, me worry?

(Washington, D.C.): In a recent press conference, U.S. Ambassador to Turkey Ross Wilson dismissed as “political cacophony” concern about the Islamist agenda of Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdogan‘s Justice and Development Party (known in Turkish as the AKP). “There is nothing that worries me,” Mr. Ross stated, “with regards to Turkey’s continuation as a strong, secure, stable and secular democracy.”

In a trenchant op.ed. for yesterday’s Wall Street Journal, however, Michael Rubin underscores foreboding changes to Turkish society since the assumption of power in 2002 by a man who once explained that “Democracy is like a streetcar. You ride it until you arrive at your destination and then you step off.” Dr. Rubin asks us to consider the assault on the secular nature of the following institutions:

Education. The government now equates degrees from religious academies (known as Imam-Hatips) with high school degrees, thus allowing Islamist students to enter university and qualify for government jobs having been taught only to memorize the Koran and to embrace a radical, Wahhabi interpretation thereof, not the sorts of skills that afford them or their society a successful future.

The Judiciary. The AKP passed legislation lowering the mandatory retirement age of civil servants, potentially resulting in the near-term replacement of many, including perhaps 4,000 out of 9,000 judges. Similarly, the AKP has warned that it might abolish constitutional courts if judges hamper its legislation, and Erdogan has refused to implement certain Supreme Court decisions levied against his government.

Banking. Erdogan has replaced nearly every member of the banking regulatory board with officials from the Islamic banking sector. In the first six months of this year, money entering the Turkish economy for which regulators cannot account has increased almost eightfold compared to 2002, the year the AKP came to power. Worryingly, it is widely believed some of this money flows from Saudi Arabia to subsidize the AKP.

In light of such evidence of the AKP’s Islamist maneuvering, the rosy view of Turkey’s future expressed by Mr. Ross may be the result of hopeful ignorance. More than likely, however, he – like others in the State Department – is deliberately discounting evidence that there is no such thing as a moderate Islamist. As is true in other cases, at home and abroad, no good can come of official Washington’s endemic inability to distinguish between Muslims who are genuinely tolerant and supportive of democracy and Islamofascists like Erdogan just riding the “streetcar.”

Unfortunately, the State Department’s position only facilitates Turkey’s slide toward Islamism under the AKP by undermining those working for the triumph of Turkey’s traditional democratic and liberal values, including Chief of the Turkish General Staff Gen. Yasar Buyukanit and his service commanders, who have lately asserted with increasing insistence the tremendous security threat posed by Islamism in Turkey. Pressure from those in uniform that has traditionally provided a bulwark against Islamic extremism will be significantly lessened if representatives from Turkey’s strongest military ally continue to question the generals’ assessment of the threat. The State Department would do well to heed Mr. Rubin’s warning: “When a country faces an Islamist challenge, PC platitudes do far more harm than good.”


 


Mr. Erdogan’s Turkey
By Michael Rubin
Wall Street Journal, 19 October 2006

Five years into the war on terror, inept U.S. diplomacy risks undercutting a key democracy (and ally) that President Bush once called a model for the Muslim world. The future of Turkey as a secular, Western-oriented state is at risk. Just as in Gaza and Lebanon, the threat comes from parties using the rhetoric of democracy to advance distinctly undemocratic agendas. Turkey has overcome past challenges from terrorism and radical Islam; always its system has persevered. But now, as Turkish politicians and officials work to defend the Turkish constitution, U.S. diplomats interfere to dismiss Turkish concerns and downplay the Islamist threat.

A crisis has simmered for months, but earlier this month Ankara erupted. On Oct. 1, President Ahmet Necdet Sezer warned parliament, “The fundamentalist threat has not changed its goal to change the basic characteristics of the state.” The next day, as Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdogan visited the Oval Office, Gen. Yasar B?y?kanit, chief of Turkey’s armed forces, warned cadets of growing Islamic fundamentalism and promised “every measure will be taken against it.” Usually such warnings are enough to keep those transgressing on the constitutional separation of mosque and state in check.

Enter U.S. Ambassador Ross Wilson. At an Oct. 4 press conference he said: “There is nothing that worries me with regards to Turkey’s continuation as a strong, secure, stable and secular democracy.” He dismissed opposition concern about the Islamism of Mr. Erdogan’s ruling Justice and Development Party (known in Turkish as the AKP) as “political cacophony.” His remarks were consistent with those of his State Department superiors. Last autumn, Daniel Fried, assistant secretary of state for European Affairs, said “The development of the AKP into a democratic party . . . has mirrored and supported the development of Turkish political society as a whole in a liberal and democratic direction.” He described the AKP as “a kind of Muslim version of a Christian Democratic Party.”

Why are so many Turks angry at Washington’s dismissal of their concerns? While democrats fight for change within a system, Islamists seek to alter the system itself. This has been the case with the AKP. Over the party’s four-year tenure, Mr. Erdogan has spoken of democracy, tolerance and liberalism, but waged a slow and steady assault on the system. He endorsed, for example, the dream of Turkey’s secular elite to enter the European Union, but only to embrace reforms diluting the checks and balances of military constitutional enforcement. After the European Court of Human Rights upheld a ban on headscarves in public schools, he changed course. “It is wrong that those who have no connection to this field [of religion] make such a decision . . . without consulting Islamic scholars,” he declared. Then in May 2006, his chief negotiator for accession talks ordered the removal, from a negotiating paper, of reference to Turkey’s educational system as secular.

The assault on the secular education system has been subtle but effective. Traditionally, students had three choices: enroll at religious academies (so-called Imam Hatips) and enter the clergy; learn a trade at vocational schools; or matriculate at secular high schools, attend university and pursue a career. Mr. Erdogan changed the system: By equating Imam Hatip degrees with high-school degrees, he enabled Islamist students to enter university and qualify for government jobs without ever mastering Western fundamentals. He also sought to bypass checks and balances. After the Higher Education Board composed of university rectors rejected his demands to make universities more welcoming of political Islam, the AKP-dominated parliament proposed to establish 15 new universities. While Mr. Erdogan told diplomats his goal was to promote education, Turkish academics say the move would enable him to handpick rectors and swamp the board with political henchmen.

Such tactics have become commonplace. At Mr. Erdogan’s insistence and over the objections of many secularists, the AKP passed legislation to lower the mandatory retirement age of technocrats. This could mean replacement of nearly 4,000 out of 9,000 judges. Turks are suspicious that the AKP seeks to curtail judicial independence. In May 2005, AKP Parliamentary Speaker B?lent Arin? warned that the AKP might abolish the constitutional court if its judges continued to hamper its legislation. Mr. Erdogan’s refusal to implement Supreme Court decisions levied against his government underline his contempt for rule of law. Last May, in the heat of the AKP’s anti-judiciary rhetoric, an Islamist lawyer protesting the head scarf ban shouted “Allahu Akbar,” opened fire in the Supreme Court and murdered a judge. Thousands attended his funeral, chanting pro-secular slogans. Mr. Erdogan was absent from the ceremony.

There have been other subtle changes. Mr. Erdogan has replaced nearly every member of the banking regulatory board with officials from the Islamic banking sector. Accusations of Saudi capital subsidizing AKP are rampant. According to Turkish Central Bank statistics, in the first six months of this year, the net error — money entering the Turkish economy for which regulators cannot account — has increased almost eightfold compared to 2002, the year the AKP came to power. According to the opposition parliamentary bloc, debt amassed under Mr. Erdogan’s administration is equal to total debt accrued in Turkey between 1970 and 2000. Erkan Mumcu, a former AKP minister who now heads the center-right Motherland Party, accused the AKP in June of interfering in Central Bank operations. Accordingly, President Bush’s Oval Office statement, based on State Department talking points — congratulating “the prime minister and his government for the economic reforms that have enabled the Turkish economy to be strong” — may have hampered transparency, if not reform.

In the past year, the AKP anti-secular agenda has grown bolder. AKP-run municipalities now ban alcohol. Turkish Airlines recently surveyed employees about their attitudes toward the Quran. On July 11, Mr. Erdogan publicly vouched for the sincerity of Yasin al-Qadi, a Saudi financier identified by both the U.N. and U.S. Treasury Department as an al Qaeda financier.

When Mr. Erdogan began his political career, he did not hide his agenda. In September 1994, while mayor of Istanbul, he promised, “We will turn all our schools into Imam Hatips.” Two months later he said, “Thank God Almighty, I am a servant of the Shariah.” In May 1996, he called for a ban on alcohol. In the months before his dismissal from the mayoralty, his cynicism was clear. “Democracy is like a streetcar,” he quipped. “You ride it until you arrive at your destination and then you step off.”

Diplomacy should not just accentuate the positive and ignore the negative. When a country faces an Islamist challenge, PC platitudes do far more harm than good. At the very least, U.S. diplomats should never intercede to preserve the status quo at the expense of liberalism. Nor should they even appear to endorse a political party as an established democracy enters an election season. It is not good relations with Ankara that should be the U.S. goal, but rather the triumph of the democratic and liberal ideas for which Turkey traditionally stands.

Mr. Rubin is a resident scholar at the American Enterprise Institute