Syria, Iran, and Hezbollah’s friends in London

Above: cartoon by protesters in Kafranbel, Syria. They see Obama trading away Syria under the table in order to get his Iran deal. Read more on Kafranbel’s history of protest in Rising Up and Rising Down, Amal Hanano’s October article for Foreign Policy.

A suspicion similar to the one expressed in the above cartoon appears in an article by Politico editor Susan B Glasser, The Price of Smart Power: Will Obama’s nuclear deal with Iran come at the cost of Syrian lives?

At Now Lebanon, Michael Weiss gives his version of this analysis, The Invisible Rider on the Deal: Syria has been ceded to Iran in exchange for a six-month pause on Tehran’s nuclear program.

The core of the analysis is this:

1. Obama’s aim is to keep the US out of any major war. This requires avoiding direct involvement in the war in Syria, and avoiding war with Iran.
   
   
2. The greatest risks that might lead the US into war are WMD proliferation in Syria or Iran, or an outright Al Qaeda victory in Syria.
   
   
3. The deal to contain and remove chemical weapons in Syria requires the survival of the Assad regime, and the deal to contain nuclear development in Iran requires the co-operation of the Iranian regime. Both of those factors weigh against a strategy of building up non-Al Qaeda rebel forces in Syria in order to counter Al Qaeda, instead they weigh in favour of allowing Iran to continue to support the Assad regime in order to contain Al Qaeda and force the rest of the Syrian opposition to negotiate a settlement.

In essence Obama’s strategy seems to seek a cold peace by allowing Iran to consolidate a Tehran Bloc from Lebanon to.. Afghanistan? The eastern limit is not yet clear. What is clear is that while Iran negotiates on its nuclear program, its proxy force Hezbollah, along with other forces armed and trained by Iran, has a relatively free hand to keep Assad in power in Syria.

Lebanon update

With all that’s happening in Egypt, we mustn’t take our eyes off Lebanon. Sietske in Beirut has an update on the crisis in this dangerous hotspot.

Waiting for Spring

Fall in Lebanon.

In Van, Turkey, looking to Iran and waiting for the thaw.

A woman in exile, reading.

Out from the Basij, in with Hezbollah.

Released by the regime, but still not free.

Speaking out.


Illustration by Bahman Dadkhah from the book Poems for Children, Iran 1972. More drawings at A Journey Round My Skull. Copyright © Bahman Dadkhah.

REWIND << ERASE

Last month’s post on Prof. Judith Butler concerned her view of feminism as only valid when tied to a narrowly anti-Western form of anti-imperialism. For her, feminists in places like Afghanistan must be hobbled like an entry for a three-legged race, while running against a murderous opposition burdened with no such restrictions.

Amongst other utterances, the post pointed to her statement on Hamas and Hezbollah in 2006. From the Radical Archives blog, a long extract with video:

This is Judith Butler’s reply to a bundle of four questions asked in Q&A during a 2006 teach-in at UC Berkeley about the war between Israel and Hezbollah. Audience members asked:

1. Since Israel is an imperialist, colonial project, should resistance be based on social movements or the nation-state?

2. What is the power of the Israel Lobby and is questioning it antisemitic?

3. Since the Left hesitates to support Hamas and Hezbollah “just” because of their use of violence, does this hurt Palestinian solidarity?

4. Do Hamas and Hezbollah actually threaten Israel’s existence, as portrayed in some media?

Judith Butler:

“Ok, well, I would just briefly say: I think its imperative to figure out what the mechanisms are of the various lobbies in the US – the American Jewish Congress, the American Jewish Committee, the Anti-Defamation League – how they work to help to formulate US foreign policy toward Israel. I think there’s no question we need an honest, rigorous appraisal. I think there are some versions of it that strike me as perhaps a little too easily subscribing to conspiracy theories, and I think that there can be an antisemitic version, and there can be a really useful, critical version as well. I have no doubt it’s a very powerful lobby – I actually think of it as multifaceted – and I think we need more careful, rigorous analyses of it.

So you know the short answer is: one neither has to dispute the existence of such a lobby, or its power, to prove that one is not antisemitic; but neither does one have to accept every version of that, given that some versions are, I think, problematically bound up with conspiracy theories.

Similarly, I think: Yes, understanding Hamas, Hezbollah as social movements that are progressive, that are on the Left, that are part of a global Left, is extremely important. That does not stop us from being critical of certain dimensions of both movements. It doesn’t stop those of us who are interested in non-violent politics from raising the question of whether there are other options besides violence. So again, a critical, important engagement. I mean, I certainly think it should be entered into the conversation on the Left. I similarly think boycotts and divestment procedures are, again, an essential component of any resistance movement.”

[[ audience claps]]

= = =

Thanks to Camila Bassi for pointing out this video in her essay “The Anti-Imperialism of Fools’: A Cautionary Story on the Revolutionary Socialist Vanguard of England’s Post-9/11 Anti-War Movement”

NOTE: The questions start at 10:30 and Butler starts her answer at 14:55.

Today I read (via here and here) that Prof. Butler is claiming that she has been misrepresented. The following is from an interview this month with AVIVA-Berlin:

AVIVA-Berlin: How do you feel about the accusation that you have perhaps taken an anti-Semitic position concerning your statement about the Hamas and the Hezbollah as progressive social movements? Does that bother you more as a philosopher or on a personal level?

Judith Butler: Unfortunately, that clip was cut short and did not include all of my response. What I actually said was that although groups like Hamas and Hezbollah should be described as left movements, that like all left movements, one has to choose which ones one supports and which ones one refuses. They are "left" in the sense that they oppose colonialism and imperialism, but their tactics are not ones that I would ever condone. I have never supported either group, and my very public affiliation with a politics of non-violence would make it impossible for me to support them. The editing of my response was obviously an effort to distort my view, and I am very sorry that the distortion has been able to circulate as it has. Thank you for giving me the chance to clarify what I actually said and what I have always thought.

It is very strange, but I find it impossible to find any evidence in that clip of the Professor’s comments being edited in any way. What do you think?

_

Added: The comments of the Professor’s that kicked off my first post were made when she refused a prize at the 2010 Christopher Street Day Parade in Berlin, declaring that the organisers were complicit in racism. It seems difficult to find specifics on what is at the centre of this allegation. In her statement she said that “Some of the organizers explicitly made racist statements or did not dissociate themselves from them,” but I haven’t seen any examples given of these racist statements. In a comment at Bully Bloggers she goes into a little more detail, but without giving sources or references:

I was asked by the organizers to supply evidence for my charge of racism, so I showed them several sites where their members and sponsors referred to the archaic and pre-modern character of “arab cultures” as a way of explaining putatively high rates of attacks on gay people on the part of arab youth. Groups like Maneo have actively sought to institute racial profiling as a police practice. They see this as part of “self-defense” rather than as explicit racism. Their framework assumes that there are queers and there are migrants, which means that they efface migrant queers in their very way of thinking. I suggested in one interview that maybe they should do some studies on the rise of right-wing racism in Germany, its links with homophobia, or indeed concentrate on homophobia in the Catholic Church.

Without knowing what sites and comments she’s talking about, it’s hard to know what to make of it all, other than to note that she isn’t as worried about anti-Catholic sectarianism as she is about racism and anti-Muslim bigotry.

I haven’t yet found any other references online to Maneo advocating racial profiling, so don’t know the truth of it. Maneo did contribute comments to this 2008 Spiegel Online story on migration and homophobia in Germany, and without sounding to my ears like a gang of racist nationalists. I’d be interested in hearing other views, particularly with sources.

Related, via Bob: Gay Imperialism, and Israeli Pinkwashing., and in Gay City News, Berlin based journalist Benjamin Weinthal writes What Drives Gays and Lesbians to Bash Israel?

_

Added: Meanwhile in Afghanistan . . .

Anti-imperialism über alles

Via Harry’s Place, read philosophy prof Judith Butler on how war-waging types are instrumentalising people, specifically gay, bisexual, lesbian, trans and queer people. (My spell-checker doesn’t dig that coinage, let’s try it in American: instrumentalizing? Nope. Guess this machine is out of date.)

The context for this was the 2010 Christopher Street Day Parade in Berlin, which Judith Butler felt was not cool, at least not as cool as the alt. edition, Transgenialer CSD. On that I have no opinion. But on the instrumentalificationising business? Ah yes. First, here’s the relevant paragraph from her Berlin speech, refusing a prize on Christopher Street Day:

We all have noticed that gay, bisexual, lesbian, trans and queer people can be instrumentalized by those who want to wage wars, i.e. cultural wars against migrants by means of forced islamophobia and military wars against Iraq and Afghanistan. In these times and by these means, we are recruited for nationalism and militarism. Currently, many European governments claim that our gay, lesbian, queer rights must be protected and we are made to believe that the new hatred of immigrants is necessary to protect us. Therefore we must say no to such a deal.

And from last year, here’s Judith Butler talking to Nina Power:

NP: To the horror of many on the left, feminism and (to a lesser extent) gay rights were invoked as democratic values in the case for war in Afghanistan and Iraq (‘freeing’ women from the burka, for example). How do you understand the contemporary relationship between feminism (and gay rights) and war?

JB: There are at least two problems here. The one has to do with the sudden instrumentalization of “gay rights” or “women’s rights” to fight the wars in Afghanistan and Iraq, a move that suggests that we are actually fighting a culture, a religion, or an entire social structure rather than a particular state or its government. The notions of emancipation instrumentalized for such purposes are clearly imperialist, and assume that liberation means adopting certain kinds of cultural norms as the most valuable. But this argument is really treacherous in my view, since it overrides the actual political movements already underway in such countries that are working out specific political vocabularies and claims for rethinking gender, sexuality, and domination.

The second problem is that lesbian/gay rights, and the rights of sexual minorities, need to join with feminist, anti-racist, and anti-war movements and are, in many instances, already joined together. There is no bona fide feminism, for instance, that is not also anti-racist. Similarly, there is no struggle for the rights of sexual minorities that is worthy of the name that does not affirm the cultural diversity of sexual minorities. Further, it is important to understand “minoritization” strategies as effecting both sexual and religious minorities - another reason why complex alliances are crucial.

To try and understand what is meant here, I’m going to start with the sentence “There is no bona fide feminism, for instance, that is not also anti-racist.” This seems clear enough. Feminism, the struggle for women’s rights, must be a struggle for universal women’s rights unlimited by race. But this is presented as a “for instance” in relation to the preceding sentence, declaring “lesbian/gay rights, and the rights of sexual minorities, need to join with feminist, anti-racist, and anti-war movements.” The implication then would seem to be that those not joined with anti-war movements are not bona fide lesbian/gay rights campaigners, are not bona fide feminists, not bona fide anti-racists.

So Judith Butler’s answer to the question on the contemporary relationship between feminism and gay rights and war is that there are no real feminists who are not part of the anti-war movement.

And continuing to work backwards to the previous paragraph, where arguments on women’s rights are deployed in relation to the war in Afghanistan, then “the notions of emancipation instrumentalized for such purposes are clearly imperialist, and assume that liberation means adopting certain kinds of cultural norms as the most valuable.” Let’s be clear what notions these are: the struggle for women’s education, for the right to vote, the struggle to stop forced marriages of young girls, in short the struggle for equal political and economic rights. These notions, because they have been deployed in support of the war against the Taliban, they are now regarded by Judith Butler as imperialist. They are no longer bona fide feminist notions, because they are not anti-war.

Forget that the Taliban are a deadly repressive misogynist organisation created, nay instrumentalised, by little imperialists in Pakistan’s military, because the only imperialism Judith Butler recognises is Western Imperialism: worse than the lash, worse than acid in the face, worse than public execution in the football stadium.

In her Berlin speech, Judith Butler says, “In these times and by these means, we are recruited for nationalism and militarism.” Hum. On nationalism and militarism then . . .

First on nationalism:

In his essay, Notes on Nationalism, George Orwell presented a view of nationalism as something other than just allegiance to one’s country of birth or residence. He defined it as, “the habit of identifying oneself with a single nation or other unit, placing it beyond good and evil and recognising no other duty than that of advancing its interests.” He pointed out that “nationalist feeling can be purely negative. There are, for example, Trotskyists who have become simply enemies of the USSR without developing a corresponding loyalty to any other unit.” And further, “transferred nationalism has been a common phenomenon among literary intellectuals. With Lafcadio Hearne the transference was to Japan, with Carlyle and many others of his time to Germany, and in our own age it is usually to Russia.”

I think all this clearly applies to contemporary anti-imperialism. It is a Western phenomenon that is overwhelmingly anti-Western, with little or no interest in any imperialism that can’t be blamed on the US, with no coherent positive alternative to promote, and to its adherents all other arguments are secondary. Judith Butler adheres to this negative transferred nationalism of anti-Western anti-imperialism.

And now on militarism:

Here, via the Radical Archives, is Judith Butler on Hamas and Hezbollah:

Similarly, I think: Yes, understanding Hamas, Hezbollah as social movements that are progressive, that are on the Left, that are part of a global Left, is extremely important. That does not stop us from being critical of certain dimensions of both movements. It doesn’t stop those of us who are interested in non-violent politics from raising the question of whether there are other options besides violence. So again, a critical, important engagement. I mean, I certainly think it should be entered into the conversation on the Left.

So, Hamas and Hezbollah, two military organisations backed by a murderous and extremely misogynist authoritarian theocratic state; these she can be just a little bit critical of while embracing them as part of a global left. But a military that helps the Afghan government in a struggle against murderous misogynist thugs operating across their southern border, a struggle that is backed by the overwhelming majority of the population of Afghanistan; for such a military the only word she has is ‘imperialist’.

_

To learn about some of the feminists of Afghanistan that Judith Butler regards as not bona fide, read Terry Glavin’s articles on the women of Parwan, Shamsia Sharifi, Yasameen and Raziea, Afghan Soccer Heroes, and Sitara Achakzai.

_

Earlier on this blog: interviews with helpless Afghan women instrumentalised by Western Imperialism here.

More on how Western anti-war feminists can’t deal honestly with Afghanistan here.

More on post-modern anti-imperialists unable to think straight here and here and here and here.

An old favourite: an anti-imperialist on fluffy issues in Afghanistan.

UPDATE: The prof says she didn’t say what she said. As they say in our house, “Ha ha, very funny, my name’s Bugs Bunny.”

. . . and little fishes

In the last week or so:

Sietske helped her daughter learn Arabic.

Michael Barrier came closer to the Ur-Dumbo. See also Barrier on Dumbo and race, Michael Sporn on Dumbo and socialism, and arguments about pink elephants, but Dumbo on Broadway I can do without.

Potkin Azarmehr and Peyvand Khorsandi challenged Galloway and his strange associates in the Palace of Westminster. Video here.

Eric Lee decided to save Amnesty from itself. Here’s one reason why, for those who missed it. More on Eric Lee here.

Oliver Kamm added another to the list of useful John Pilger links.

Related to that, Bob considered a night out in the neighborhood.

Ronald Searle turned 90. More here.

And Stephen Kroninger posted some great pictures by and of George Grosz in America.

Iran, Israel, Palestine

(image from Raye Man Kojast)

The Guardian News Blog is covering today’s Green Movement protests during Quds Day in Iran.

The Guardian's former Iran correspondent Robert Tait is monitoring events from Istanbul. He writes: Ahmadinejad was giving a live interview on IRIB's Channel Two from the scene of Quds Day. As he spoke, viewers could clealy the chants of "Ahmadi, Ahmadi, resign, resign" - this all over live TV. Apparently Ahmadinejad was aware of the chants and their effect on the interview. He is said to have become flustered and quickly wrapped up the interview.

Much more, including snippets of Ahmadinejad’s speech today blaming the formation of Israel on the British (huh?) and again denying the Holocaust.

New York Times News Blog coverage.

BBC News on today’s events.

From Raye Man Kojast, Moussavi’s recommended slogan for Quds Day demonstrations:

Put down your gun For I am weary from seeing this bloodshed Whether in Lebanon or Gaza Whether in Quds or Iran

Lots more today from Raye Man Kojast.

From Pedestrian, chants heard today in Iran:

argh bar Roosiyeh - Death to Russia Roosiyeh Haya Kon, Keshvaremoon ro raha kon - Russia, leave our country alone! Na Ghazeh, na Lobnan, janam fadayeh Iran - My life belongs to neither Gaza nor Lebanon - but Iran Che Ghazeh, che Iran, margh bar zaleman - Whether in Gaza or in Iran, death to tyrants

More. Also from Pedestrian, Today, and What We Are After, while her friend Naj has a laugh at the official version, and shows the early editions of tomorrow’s front pages.

From Tehran Bureau, Co-opting Quds Day, and Quds Day Updates.

Via Azarmehr, a message of solidarity to the people of Iran by Mubarak Awad:

My Dear People of Iran, For the past thirty years, the Iranian regime has used the cause of the Palestinian people as a way to distract from its own oppressive rule. I thank the people of Iran for showing their support over the years with the people of Palestine, especially because on this day of Qods, the people of Iran suffer under the kind of unelected oppression that is comparable in some ways to that suffered by Palestinians. As a Palestinian, life-long fighter for the freedom and independence of Palestine and a leader of the first Palestinian intifada, I strongly condemn the Iranian regime’s violations of human rights and repeated use of violence against the nonviolent Iranian protesters, activists and prisoners. I stand in complete solidarity with and support for the Iranian people and am confident that with their resilience, they will achieve a free and democratic Iran to raise their children in and have a good life. In unity, Mubarak Awad

More on Mubarak Awad at Nonviolence International, International Peace & Conflict Resolution at American University, and Wikipedia.

Azarmehr also links to videos of today’s events, here, here, here, and here.

The Times has a report today on the degree of violence unleashed by the regime in response to the post-election protests:

The Times has been given access to 500 pages of documents - a small fraction of the total - that include handwritten testimony by victims, medical reports and interviews. They suggest that security forces have engaged in systematic killing and torture to try to break the opposition.

[...] The documents suggest that at least 200 demonstrators were killed in Tehran, with 56 others still unaccounted for, and that 173 were killed in other cities. These are several times higher than the official figures. Just over half of the 200 were killed on the streets. They were beaten around the head or shot in the head or chest as part of an apparent shoot-to-kill policy - there are no reports of demonstrators being shot in the legs.

The rest here.

More posts on today’s protests at From Tehran With Love, ModernityBlog, Harry’s Place, Francis Sedgemore, Fat Man on a Keyboard, Enduring America.

Update: for morning after coverage in english language mainstream press, see the SWJ Roundup for 19 September, with 68 matches for the word ‘Iran’.

Update 21 September: Harry’s Place points to a video of demonstrators in Iran tearing down a Hezbollah banner with the headline Hezbollah: More Popular With Elderly British Trots Than With Young Iranians.

_

Some interesting background on the ongoing issue of Iran’s nuclear programme, and the question of whether Israel might attempt military action to impede it:

Joshua Pollack at Arms Control Wonk puts together a brief history of military missions to prevent nuclear weapons development, beginning with World War II actions in Telemark, Norway, and including Iranian and Israeli air attacks on Saddam Hussein’s Osirak reactor in 1980 and 1981, and Iraqi attacks on partially complete Iranian nuclear power plants at Bushehr in 1984, ’85, ’86 and ’87.

A commenter on that post gives a link to a detailed story from Air Enthusiast (issue 110, March/April 2004) which maintains there was a high degree of co-operation between Iran and Israel in their attacks on Osirak.

Go now

On today’s protests in Iran:

The New York Times News Blog, and Nico Pitney (via Martin). More too at Raye Man Kojast and Azarmehr, who also reports on the London solidarity protest. Added: Francis has photos from London.

The wider picture:

Tony Badran on Iran, Hezbollah, Velayat-e Faqih, and Lebanon, with more here. And on the Iranian regime’s actions in Afghanistan, Terry Glavin here and here. Also The Canada-Afghanistan Blog here.

Another Iran:

A sampling of Iranian book illustration.

Not Iran

It’s hard to keep your eyes pointing in all directions at once . . .

Iraq, and Thoughts on Intervention, by Roland Dodds. Added: Ibn Muqawama on Joe Biden, Iraq envoy.

At the SWJ, Pentagon planners should study Somalia, not just Hezbollah.

Sietske in Beirut writes on conversations she has. Not many dead, according to the papers.

Via Mick Hartley, Riots in China. Mick has also paid particular attention to the Uighurs being released from Guantanamo, fleshing out their tale with information on ongoing repression of Uighurs by the Chinese authorities in Xinjiang. Since his last round up on the story, The New York Times has published a report on the Uighurs settled in Bermuda.  

Georgia’s Hard Slog to Democracy by Michael Cecire, at Michael Totten’s blog. Related at the NY times, Russia’s Neighbors Resist Wooing and Bullying.

Also from Michael Totten, A Conversation with Robert D Kaplan. This does include discussion of Iran, along with China’s involvement in Sri Lanka, Russia and its neighbours, Afghanistan and Pakistan. However I’d like to highlight an exchange at the end regarding Israel’s failure in counterinsurgency, material relevant to the essay topic set in an earlier post here.

Kaplan: You know what’s interesting? The Israelis. They’ve been great at defeating structured Arab armies, but they haven’t figured out how to deal with a few thousand insurgents in South Lebanon or in Gaza. What did their wars in 2006 and 2009 in Lebanon and Gaza get them? MJT: It got them fewer rockets for a while, but it’s temporary. Kaplan: Yeah. MJT: I don’t know what they should do. They can’t put a David Petraeus in Gaza or Lebanon. It won’t work. Kaplan: No. MJT: And they can’t fight a counterinsurgency from the air because that’s just absurd. Kaplan: Yeah. They haven’t been able to solve this problem at all. MJT: I’m glad it isn’t up to me what Israel should do. There aren’t any good options. Maybe they should hold Syria accountable. Syria is at least a state with a return address and national interests. I don’t think the Syrian government is particularly ideological. It isn’t like the Iranian government. Syria isn’t an ideology, it’s a state. Kaplan: It wants to survive. MJT: Maybe the Israelis should lean on Assad. They can’t lean on Hamas or Hezbollah. They can’t lean on Beirut because Beirut is too weak to do much. Kaplan: Yeah. I mean, the idea of bombing highway overpasses near Beirut to punish Lebanon for Hezbollah is ridiculous.

Kaplan and Totten point to Israel’s failure to develop of a true counterinsurgency campaign, but positive suggestions are still lacking. Tackling the Syrian regime may be relevant, but does not address the absence of a population-centric strategy. Any takers? 

Update: Vigilant as I try to be, one direction I didn’t think to look was down.

Hangover Monday

(With added links throughout the day.)

European elections: miserable results in the UK, and comparison figures from last time.

Comment from Oliver Kamm: The price of failure. From Marko Attila Hoare: We must defend our Britain and our immigrants from the fascist menace. ModernityBlog: Fascists, ferrets, and how to stop the far right. Bob from Brockley: Post-election depression. Fat man on a Keyboard: Doomed I tell ye.

Your Friend in the North tells how he cast his vote.

Northern Ireland and The Republic of Ireland are using the Single Transferable Vote system rather than a list system like Denmark or most of the UK, so counting is still going on. I miss the Irish system, it’s the most fun you can have with a ballot paper.

Danish results, gains for Socialists and far right Dansk Folkeparti (Danish People’s Party) at the expense of Social Democrats and Radikale Venstre (Social Liberal).  Here’s Politiken’s short english language report.

Lebanese elections: positive news, and comment from Abu Muqawama.

Iranian elections: further to the post below, here’s Norm: Stirrings in Iran.

Not elections: Martin marks the bicentennial of Thomas Paine’s death. See also a substantial item on the BBC News site.

More not elections: Americans for Bosnia continues a series of posts on “Washington’s War” by Michael Rose: part 1, part 2, part 3, part 4.

The author of the book in question is General Sir Michael Rose, commander of United Nations forces in Bosnia from January 1994 to January 1995. Below is a depiction of him from Joe Sacco’s outstanding piece of journalism in comics form, Safe Area Goražde.

Click to enlarge.

Copyright © 2000 Joe Sacco.

Voting in Lebanon

A report from Sietske in Beirut, who didn’t take to the hills after all.

Quakers for War

At Harry’s Place: The Quakers Betray George Fox, John Rees Disgraces the Left

John Rees speaking at the Stop The War Coalition meeting on Monday of this week, at Friends Meeting House, London:

We do not require that people who join our demonstrations or are supporters of the Stop The War Coalition are supporters of the resistance in the Middle East, and nobody I’ve ever talked to in the Middle East in the resistance has ever thought this was a good idea for the very simple reason that if you want a hundred thousand, or a hundred and fifty thousand people on the streets of Britain, what you want is everybody who for whatever reason is opposed to the war. If they’re Quakers or pacifists like the people who  run this hall, you want them on that demonstration. If there are people who have very severe criticisms and would not support the resistance, you want them on that demonstration and that’s been our policy from the beginning.

But it has also been our policy that the resistance is a legitimate part of the movement. They are part of the movement in the Middle East, they are a central part of the movement in the Middle East and it’s not surprising really that if you’re under military occupation that one of the forms of resistance is a military resistance.

And he went on to compare the ‘resistance’ in the Middle East to the French Resistance in World War Two.

Leave aside for a moment that the French Resistance did not deliberately target random civilians, leave aside if you can that the French Resistance fought to restore democracy rather than overthrow it, leave aside that the French Resistance fought a genocidal dictatorship, rather than supporting one, leave these small details for a moment, and focus on this single point:

The policy of the Stop The War Coalition is that a military resistance is a legitimate part of the movement, that these military forces AT WAR are a central part of the movement. This is NOT a peace movement.

From the Quaker Peace Testimony of 1661:

All bloody principles and practices, we, as to our own particulars, do utterly deny, with all outward wars and strife and fightings with outward weapons, for any end or under any pretence whatsoever. And this is our testimony to the whole world.

Full text here.

In supporting the Stop The War Coalition, the Quakers of Friends House have broken with the ideals of their founder George Fox.

Update: some debate at the quaker.org.uk forum.

Also, at Bartholomew’s Notes: Friends House and Islamic Extremists.

Crisis of Credit Visualised

Animated credit crunch here.

The exception: Lebanon.

Thanks to Ted.

Send in the tourists

Falluja may not be ready yet, but Beirut is beautiful. For more travel tips ask someone who knows .

Signals and noise on Iraq troop withdrawal plans

No opinion from me here, just links and excerpts on the upcoming troop withdrawals.

Linked to earlier, the Christmas Eve editorial in the New York Times fretting that the coming withdrawal might not be all they hoped:

The new security agreement with Iraq heralds an overdue end to President Bush’s ill-advised war. But while it calls for American combat forces to be out of the cities by June and all forces to withdraw from the country by the end of 2011, there is disquieting talk in Washington of having tens of thousands of troops stay longer and slyly redefining their missions.

A New York Times article from last wednesday, Military Planners, in Nod to Obama, Are Preparing for a Faster Iraq Withdrawal:

Military commanders are drawing up plans for a faster withdrawal of American troops from Iraq in anticipation that President-elect Barack Obama will reject current proposals as too slow, Pentagon and military officials said Wednesday.

The new plans would provide alternatives to a timetable drawn up by the top American commanders for Iraq to bring troops home more slowly than Mr. Obama promised during his presidential campaign. Those plans were described to Mr. Obama last month.

The officials said that Mr. Obama had not requested the new plans, but that they were being prepared in response to public statements from the president-elect and on the basis of conversations between military officials and members of Mr. Obama’s transition team.

Curiously the IHT online archive has the same version of the story as the NY Times site, but the version in the January 15th print edition, not availabe online, was very different. The headline was “Timetable for Iraq too slow for Obama”, with the subhead “He tells U.S. generals to speed up pace for withdrawal of troops”.

Also on January 15th,  reporting the story differently than either version from the NY Times /IHT, the American Forces Press Service wrote Planners Prepare Options on Iraq, Afghanistan for Obama:

Military planners are hard at work preparing options for drawing down troops in Iraq and moving forward in Afghanistan to present to President-elect Barack Obama after he takes office, Pentagon Press Secretary Geoff Morrell said today.

Defense Secretary Robert M. Gates’ discussions with Obama have been “broad in nature” to this point, and the president-elect won’t receive specific options until he is commander in chief, Morrell told reporters. But planners will ensure they’re prepared to give him “the full range of options as soon as he is ready,” he said.

“We will be ready to go when he is ready to go,” he added.

Among the options being explored are ways to withdraw U.S. combat troops from Iraq within 16 months.

“Our military planners do not live in a vacuum,” Morrell said. “They are well aware that the president-elect has campaigned on withdrawing troops from Iraq on a 16-month timeline. … So it would only be prudent of them to draw up plans that reflect that option. But that is just one of the options that they are drawing up.”

Gates hopes to replicate with Obama the process that he used with President George W. Bush, who received insights directly from top military leaders as well as the secretary, Morrell said.

Earlier last week, on January 13th, an AP story on Vice President-elect Biden visiting Iraq, headlined Iraq official: Biden affirms ‘responsible’ pullout:

Vice President-elect Joe Biden told Iraqi leaders Tuesday that the incoming U.S. administration is committed to a responsible troop withdrawal that does not endanger improvements in security, an Iraqi spokesman said.

Biden delivered the message in talks with Prime Minister Nouri al-Maliki on the second day of his visit to Iraq, government spokesman Ali al-Dabbagh told The Associated Press.

President-elect Barack Obama pledged during his election campaign to withdraw all American combat troops from Iraq within 16 months of taking office and shift the focus to Afghanistan to combat a resurgent Taliban and al-Qaida-linked militants.

Since the November election, however, the U.S. and Iraq have signed a new security agreement that provides for all the more than 140,000 U.S. troops to leave by 2012, despite concerns among senior U.S. commanders that Iraqi forces might not be ready by then to ensure stability.

Biden, a Democrat from Delaware who has been a frequent visitor to Iraq as a member of the Senate Foreign Relations Committee, said the agreement sets out a new strategy between Iraq and America, according to al-Dabbagh.

“He said that Obama is committed to withdraw but he wants the withdrawal to be a responsible one. Obama does not want to waste the security gains that have been achieved,” al-Dabbagh said.

Voice of America, 18th January, Afghanistan-Iraq Balance to Be High on Obama Agenda:

The president-elect had said he wanted most U.S. combat troops out of Iraq within 16 months of his inauguration. But late last year, the Bush administration signed an agreement with Iraq that takes a different approach, requiring the removal of U.S. combat troops from Iraqi cities by June, and the withdrawal of all U.S. troops from the entire country by the end of 2011.

It is not clear exactly what orders Obama will give, but he has said he will listen to the concerns of top military officers before making any final decisions.

One of the main concerns he will hear relates to Afghanistan, where the U.S. commander has asked for 14,000 more combat troops and several thousand more support troops. The new president's appointee for Undersecretary of Defense for Policy, Michele Flournoy, was asked about that at her Senate confirmation hearing on Thursday. “I actually think the intent of both President-elect Obama and (Defense) Secretary (Robert) Gates is to move as quickly as possible. I have not yet been briefed on the details in terms of what would be required to do that. But I do believe that in principle we should be moving as quickly as possible,” she said.

But Pentagon officials say moving quickly to add troops in Afghanistan means reducing troop numbers in Iraq. General David Petraeus, the former U.S. commander in Iraq who now has responsibility for the entire Middle East and Central Asia region, says he, U.S. Ambassador to Iraq Ryan Crocker and the new U.S. Iraq commander, General Ray Odierno, believe the United States needs to be careful about removing troops from Iraq too quickly. “The ambassador and General Odierno and I have reminded everyone, it is our view that the progress does remain fragile. It does remain reversible,” he said.

Via the Small Wars Journal, the outgoing U.S. Ambassador to Iraq quoted in the Washington Post:

The key to success in Iraq, insists Crocker, was the psychological impact of Bush’s decision to add troops. “In the teeth of ferociously negative popular opinion, in the face of a lot of well-reasoned advice to the contrary, he said he was going forward, not backward.”

Bush’s decision rocked America's adversaries, says Crocker: “The lesson they had learned from Lebanon was, ‘Stick it to the Americans, make them feel the pain, and they won't have the stomach to stick it out.’ That assumption was challenged by the surge.”

Soon, Iraq will be Barack Obama’s problem. And I ask Crocker what mistakes the new administration could make. He answers that he thinks it will avoid these errors, but he lists them anyway: “Concluding that this was the Bush administration’s war, that it’s stable enough now, that we don’t want to inherit it, so we’re going to back away.”

Most of all, says Crocker, policymakers need to understand that this is a long game. A lasting change in Iraq isn’t an on-off switch: “Not this year, not in five years, maybe not in 10 years.” 

Two additional articles which I’ve yet to finish:

Via Abu Muqawama, John Nagl and Brian Burton in the World Policy Journal, Striking the Balance, The Way Forward in Iraq.

Colonel Robert Killebrew in the SWJ, Transition in Iraq, Withdrawing the BCTs.

Update: Signals and noise 2.

Sietske on the ski lift

From a conversation on the ski lift: “But how come you do not wear a veil?” asked the Christian lady, surprised.

Tom Tom

In Lebanon’s Winter Wonderland, sat-nav is not recommended.

Related in Amsterdam, sat-nav or live-nav?