(EurActiv) — Britain has not conducted formal sector-by-sector analyses of the impact that leaving the European Union will have on the economy, Brexit minister David Davis said on Wednesday (6 December), arguing they were not necessary yet.
The comments inflamed critics of the government’s handling of the complex divorce process at a time when talks with Brussels have stalled because of a row over how to manage the Irish border after Brexit.
Davis has become embroiled in a long-running argument with lawmakers – including from the ruling Conservative Party – over what preparatory work the government has undertaken, and how much of it should be made public.
“There’s no systematic impact assessment I’m aware of,” Davis told a parliamentary committee, saying it would be more appropriate to conduct such analysis later in the negotiating process.
His remarks drew immediate criticism from lawmakers on the committee, who said Davis was contradicting his previous statement that the government had analyses of the sectoral impact that went into “excruciating detail”.
“Whether it’s through incompetence or insincerity, David Davis has been misleading parliament from the start,” said Wera Hobhouse, a member of the Brexit committee from the Liberal Democrat party.
“It is unbelievable that these long-trumpeted impact assessments don’t even exist, meaning the government has no idea what their Brexit plans will do to the country.”
Parliament could have a decisive role in the Brexit process if it blocks or amends the legislation which the government has proposed to enact the divorce.
Prime Minister Theresa May has only a slim working majority in parliament and is vulnerable to rebellion from within her own party, which is divided over the right approach to Brexit.
Davis and his team of ministers have previously said its sectoral analysis is not a formal impact assessment – a technical document submitted to parliament – and that publishing the work it has done could undermine Britain’s negotiating position.
Nevertheless, lawmakers have pressured the government into releasing a summary of its analysis to the committee. On Wednesday, they complained that the analysis given to them was incomplete and called for more detail.
“We will at some stage do the best we can to quantify the effect of different negotiating outcomes as we come up to them – bearing in mind we haven’t started phase two (negotiations) yet,” Davis said, referring to the second phase of talks which will focus on trade.
He said those assessments would look at the impact of different outcomes on sectors including financial services, manufacturing and agriculture.
“Nothing is agreed until everything is agreed”
But the move to phase two of talks has been thrown into doubt since the Northern Irish Democratic Unionist Party (DUP), sank a proposal on the table on Monday, which would have opened the door to regulatory divergences between the province and the rest of the UK.
The DUP’s ten MPs have a deal to prop up Theresa May’s Conservative government in return for £1.5bn of spending in Northern Ireland.
Ireland’s Prime Minister Leo Varadkar said he could not accept substantial changes to Monday’s rejected text, and that if agreement cannot be reached by the EU summit on 15 December, the first phase of Brexit talks could continue in the new year.
“As far as we’re concerned and as far as the European Commission are concerned … we stand by the text that had been agreed on Monday,” Varadkar told parliament on Wednesday.
“It is the desire and ambition and wish of this government that we should move onto the phase two talks but if it isn’t possible to move to phase two next week because of the problems that have arisen, well then we can pick it up in the new year.”
Varadkar said he understood May had difficult political problems to manage, but it was up to Britain to come back to negotiators in Brussels and Dublin.
May said she had made good progress in Brexit negotiations and that she expected to get a deal that was right for the whole of the United Kingdom.
“We’re leaving the European Union, we’re leaving the single market and the customs union but we will do what is right in the interests of the whole United Kingdom,” May told parliament. “And nothing is agreed until everything is agreed.”
U.S.-led efforts in Africa are vitally important as African nations confront complex and growing threats from multiple terrorist groups, including the Islamic State of Iraq and Syria, al-Qaida affiliates and other extremist groups such as Boko Haram, the acting undersecretary of defense for policy said today on Capitol Hill.
“These groups exploit instability, weak governance, vulnerable populations, social media and vast spaces to establish safe havens, spread their toxic ideology and attack all who do not subscribe to it,” David J. Trachtenberg said during a House Foreign Affairs Committee hearing on counterterrorism efforts in Africa.
“While DoD maintains expert counterterrorism forces — the best in the world, bar none — capable of conducting precision air strikes and complex raids to protect our interests, we are focused principally on helping our partners build their own capabilities and expand their capacity to fight these terrorist organizations and stem further violence and instability,” he said.
Partnership Strength
Defense Secretary James N. Mattis has put significant emphasis on building and strengthening partnerships, Trachtenberg added, to both lessen the demand for U.S. forces and to ensure sustainable indigenous solutions to these problems.
“In the simplest terms, DoD seeks to work by, with and through our partners in Africa to find African solutions to African problems,” the undersecretary said. That means military operations against terrorist organizations are conducted by host nation force, and U.S. forces work with partner nations to train, equip, advise and enable and accompany them on operations and improve their effectiveness and professionalism, he noted. “And through this cooperative relationship, the United States and our partners in Africa achieve our shared strategic objectives.”
As the United States works to build partner capacity, he said, more than military effectiveness is at work. “[We] also place a high value on professionalization of our partners’ militaries, and specifically, to improving their adherence to norms for respecting human rights. In addition to bilateral partnerships, we also seek to work closely with regional organizations like the African Union and the G-5 Sahel Joint Task Force,” Trachtenberg said.
The United States partners with other nations, such as France, which has committed thousands of troops, to share burdens on the vast African continent, and important partner departments and agencies of the U.S. government, he said.
“There is no purely military solution to the terrorism threat in Africa, and DoD is committed to promoting whole-of-government solutions,” Trachtenberg told the committee.
“This requires that we leverage the full range of resources, talent and expertise to address these problems,” he said. “This is particularly true of our colleagues in the Department of State and [the U.S. Agency of International Development], and we are committed to working together with them to protect the United States our citizens and our interests in Africa.”
Niger Investigation
On behalf of DoD, Trachtenberg expressed the department’s deepest sympathies to the families of the soldiers killed in the Niger ambush Oct. 4, and said the investigation into the attack is proceeding with due diligence and care.
“As we have briefed you and other committees, the investigation is ongoing and we do not want to provide inaccurate or incomplete information,” he said. “We must therefore wait for the investigation to be completed by [U.S. Africa Command] before we can have the full picture of what happened. However, we will inform Congress on the conclusions of the investigation as soon as possible after the families are briefed.”
A retired engineer who admitted to setting off a pipe bomb that injured 21 people at a Bangkok military hospital on the third anniversary of Thailand’s latest military coup is to spend 31 years in prison, after a court convicted and sentenced him on Wednesday.
Watana Pumret, 62, confessed to planting a bomb packed with nails that exploded on May 22 near Phra Mongkutklao Hospital’s Wongsuwan Room, which was established as a tribute to Gen. Prawit Wongsuwan, the current deputy prime minister. The blast struck an area frequented by military officials.
Wednesday’s verdict and sentencing covered all charges against Watana.
“Punishment will be for every act – life imprisonment for the explosion causing serious injuries, three years imprisonment for assembling a device that exploded, one year imprisonment for possession of explosive devices without permission and a fine of 1,000 baht (U.S. $30.65) for bringing an explosive device into a public place without permission,” the court ruled. “The defendant confessed, the penalty is reduced to half.”
The total penalty is a 27-year sentence and a 500 baht ($15.33) fine. These are added to a four-year sentence and 975 baht ($30) fine following Watana’s conviction on related charges in September.
Watana, supported by his wife and relatives, signed a form accepting the verdict. The couple hugged before he was taken off to prison.
Leaving the courtroom, Watana ignored reporters who asked if he would appeal the verdict.
In June, authorities announced that the retired engineer had confessed to setting off the bomb.
Watana said he acted alone because he despised the military-controlled government headed by Prime Minister Prayuth Chan-o-cha, the Bangkok Post reported. He said he did not want to hurt anyone, but wanted to make a statement against the government.
On May 22, 2014, Prayuth, then an army general, led a coup that toppled the government of Prime Minister Yingluck Shinawatra. He became Thailand’s 29th prime minister and appointed Prawit to two ministerial posts.
Thailand has been rocked by at least nine successful coups since 1932.
Trump and congressional Republicans are engineering the largest corporate tax cut in history in order “to restore our competitive edge,” as Trump says.
Our competitive edge? Who’s us?
Most American corporations – especially big ones that would get most of the planned corporate tax cuts – have no particular allegiance to America. Their only allegiance is to their shareholders.
For years they’ve been cutting the jobs and wages of American workers in order to generate larger profits and higher share prices.
Some of these jobs have gone abroad or been outsourced to lower-paid contractors in America. Others have been automated. Most of the remaining jobs pay no more than they did four decades ago, adjusted for inflation.
When GM went public again in 2010 after being bailed out by American taxpayers, it boasted of making 43 percent of its cars in places where labor is less than $15 an hour – often outside the United States. And it got its American unions to agree that new hires would be paid half the wages and benefits of its old workers.
Capital is global. Big American corporations are “American” only because they’re headquartered and legally incorporated in the United States. But they could (and sometimes do) leave at a moment’s notice. They also employ or contract with workers all over the world.
And they’re owned by shareholders all over the world.
According to research by the Tax Policy Center’s Steven Rosenthal, about 35 percent of stock in U.S. corporations is now held by foreign investors.
So when taxes of “American” corporations are cut, foreign investors get a windfall.
That’s money that foreign investors would otherwise be paying into the U.S. Treasury.
By way of comparison, the combined tax cuts for families in the bottom 80 percent of the income distribution in the 30 states won by President Donald Trump comes to $39.4 billion, far less than the House bill gives away to foreign investors.
I’m not blaming American corporations. They’re in business to make profits and maximize their share prices, not to serve America.
I’m blaming politicians who are trying to persuade Americans that tax cuts on American corporations will be good for Americans.
Big corporations headquartered in other rich nations are far more responsible for the well-being of the people living in those nations. That’s mainly because labor unions there are typically stronger than they are here – able to exert pressure both at the company level and nationally.
So it shouldn’t be surprising that American corporations distribute a smaller share of their earnings to their workers than do European or Canadian-based corporations. And top American executives make far more money than their counterparts in other wealthy countries.
Governments in other rich nations often devise laws through bargains involving big corporations and organized labor. This process further binds their corporations to their nations.
But in America, lawmakers respond almost exclusively to the demands of big corporations and of wealthy individuals (typically corporate executives and Wall Street moguls) with the most lobbying prowess and deepest pockets to bankroll campaigns. Meanwhile, unions are weak, and “the preferences of the average American appear to have only a miniscule, near-zero, statistically non-significant impact upon public policy,” according to researchers.
Which is one reason why most Europeans and Canadians receive essentially free health care, generous unemployment benefits, paid medical leave, and an average of five weeks paid vacation.
So it shouldn’t be surprising that even though U.S. economy is doing well by most measures, the benefits are not trickling down to most Americans.
Given the overwhelming dominance of American corporations on American politics, combined with their singular concern for share prices rather than the well-being of Americans, it’s folly to think they’ll turn tax cuts into good American jobs.
The tax bills big corporations are pushing through Congress are designed to boost their share prices, not boost most Americans.
Last month, on an empty stretch of road somewhere in northwestern Syria, tens of military vehicles slowly drove single-file in a parade led by a little-known jihadist group.
In a time when many armed groups are struggling to stay alive and are under constant threat of bombardment by Syrian, Iranian, Russian or U.S. warplanes, it is becoming increasingly rare to see such outward and ostentatious displays of strength in Syria.
But what is especially surprising about this particular parade is exactly who did it: it was not Syrians or even Arabs, but Chinese separatist fighters.
Turkistan Islamic Party (TIP) parade in northwest Syria featured in propaganda
The group behind the parade is called the Turkistan Islamic Party (TIP), and is estimated to have between 2,500 and 3,000 Chinese jihadists fighting against the Assad regime in Syria.
Even more bizarre still is the fact that TIP’s primary goals rest not in defeating Assad, but rather in creating an independent state in China’s Xinjang province, where the group’s members come from.
The group has received little coverage from publications and blogs dedicated to analyzing the Syrian Civil War, and almost no mention in major news outlets. TIP has flown under the radar of the civil war, despite it representing an important shift in global jihad.
So what is the Turkistan Islamic Party? Why is their main fighting force in Syria of all places? And what does their presence mean for the region?
What is the Turkistan Islamic Party?
The Turkistan Islamic Party, also known as the East Turkistan Islamic Party, is a Chinese separatist movement whose main goal is to establish an independent state in the Xinjiang province in northwestern China.
The group is allied with Al Qaeda and has a presence in Afghanistan and Pakistan in addition to thousands of its members living and fighting in Syria.
Within Syria, they are concentrated towards the country’s northwest, in the Idlib Governorate, where they work closely with Hayat Tahrir al-Sham (HTS), an umbrella organization of opposition groups that include Jabhat Fateh al-Sham, formerly known as Jabhat al-Nusra, which has historic ties to Al Qaeda.
Uyghur fighters began appearing as early as 2012 in Syria, but only publicized their presence in later years, eventually releasing photos and videos of their operations and members.
According to the Syrian Observatory for Human Rights, the fighters and their families live in relative isolation from Syrians. They also reportedly do not impose strict laws upon the Syrians near which they live, creating “a state of satisfaction and goodwill between the people of the area and the [TIP] fighters.”
This stands in contrast to other hardlined jihadist organizations like Jabhat Fateh al-Sham or ISIS, who devote much of their resources to maintaining tight control over civilians with religious police and a strict interpretation of Sharia law.
TIP’s fighters are ethnically Uyghur Chinese, a Turkic group who primarily practice Islam and live in northwest China. China’s Uyghur population has long harbored separatist ambitions from China, which has cracked down on the Uyghur minority population, creating and selectively enforcing secularist laws against them.
The group has been involved in several Aleppo offensives in conjunction with other opposition groups, and helped solidify Idlib under opposition rule, making them an important military force in the country’s north.
Because of TIP’s unified membership and agenda, it stands as one of the most cohesive and capable opposition factions in the ever-fragmenting civil war. Despite this, it receives virtually no media attention.
Why are Thousands of TIP Fighters in Syria?
The answer to why TIP has devoted so much of its resources to fighting Assad in Syria is far from clear.
In TIP’s propaganda, specifically its magazine Islamic Turkistan, TIP decries Chinese support for the Syrian regime, which it deems tyrannical, and condemns the ‘atheist’ governments of China and Russia of supporting Assad.
But extremist propaganda, while helpful to understanding the group’s general stances, does not shed light on the strategic objectives of TIP.
According to Chinese major general Jin Yinan, “East Turkistan organizations are taking advantage of the Syrian Civil War to obtain experience and raise the profile of Xinjiang among jihadists from other theaters.”
In other words, Yinan claims that TIP is using Syria as a training ground and platform to raise its global profile.
Author Uran Botobekov wrote for The Diplomat, examining the integration of global jihadist rhetoric with TIP’s anti-China messages. “Earlier issues [of the group’s propaganda magazine] mainly focused on Beijing’s military suppression of Uyghurs in East Turkestan, while in recent issues the TIP gives political assessments of the events in Syria and Iraq. In particular, the Turkestan Islamic Party condemns what they call the ‘crusade’ of Western states led by the United States against Syria.”
If TIP has indeed devoted so many of its fighters to Syria to raise its global profile, then it is crucial for it to both ingratiate itself into the global jihadist network via making amiable connections on the ground and to actually return back to China to take advantage of its newfound status as a formidable jihadist group.
While it has solidified its place in the civil war alongside Jabhat Fatah al-Sham, among others, it remains to be seen whether its fighters will be able to survive the war and return to China. The group risks being severely weakened and having its separatist agenda jeopardized if it is cornered in Syria.
Nevertheless, its presence, present success and agenda represents an important but under-reported dimension of the Syrian Civil War and a potential new phase of global jihad.
The Turkistan Islamic Party and Global Jihad
The Syrian Civil War erupted amidst a wave of popular demonstrations against governments throughout the Middle East and North Africa. However, as it became increasingly violent, political space opened up for extremist organizations to seize power in chaotic regions.
The most notorious of these groups, ISIS, quickly established a caliphate in 2014 only to slowly crumble. At its peak, ISIS and Jabhat al-Nusra were drawing in tens of thousands of Sunni Muslims throughout the world, who made the perilous journey to Syria to contribute to the fight against Assad and to help establish Islamic rule.
In short, Syria became a platform for jihadists.
This jihad went global in its focus once international actors began intervening on behalf of the Syrian regime and its opposition. Turkey, Russia, Iran, the EU, and the U.S. all took prominent roles in picking sides and providing military and logistical support to their allies. This expanded the range of states who became specific targets of extremist action.
International intervention in Syria is reminiscent of the Soviet Union’s invasion of Afghanistan in the 1980s. The USSR’s involvement in Afghanistan set off a global jihadist movement, compelling thousands of young Muslims to fight against the invasion.
Within Afghanistan, multinational jihadist networks were formed. Once the war ended and jihadists went back to their home countries, many of them formed local organizations aimed at toppling their respective countries’ regimes. Fawaz Gerges argues in his book, “The Far Enemy: Why Jihad Went Global,” that from the ashes of the Afghanistan Civil War rose a new idea of combatting regimes around the entire globe who were perceived as threats to the Muslim world.
If the goal of fighting the Chinese government can be furthered via fighting Assad in Syria, then the nature of the Syrian Civil War has fundamentally changed; its scope has expanded and it has developed a unique symbolic power that transcends the country’s borders.
The “Islamic Responsibility” Against China
Although it is still ongoing, the Syrian Civil War may be the next launchpad for such a jihadist network, and TIP is looking to ingrain itself within it.
With this shift and TIP’s involvement, China is at risk to become a target, not just from TIP, but also from its allies with which it has fought alongside.
On Nov. 29, it was reported that China was sending two units of its special forces into Syria to stamp out TIP in Idlib. And while some of these stories have been removed and there is no evidence Chinese special forces are actually in Syria, it is clear China recognizes this threat.
If TIP’s fighters are able to gain experience in Syria and win the loyalty of other groups, the movement to create an independent Islamist state in China could gain global traction. This would be amplified if China continues its discriminatory policies against its Uyghur Muslim minorities, whose civil and human rights have been restricted by the Chinese government. Such policies fuel the rallying cry that Muslims are under threat by secular, ‘atheist’ governments and breed domestic radicalization.
Though TIP’s fighters in Syria are continuing to fight with virtually no major press coverage, their presence deepens and complicates both the Syrian Civil War and the typical picture of a jihadist fighter.
In a brief interview, TIP’s leader, Abdullah Mansour, announced to the world that “the fight against China is our Islamic responsibility and we have to fulfill it.”
If TIP achieves its objectives in Syria, Mansour’s sentiment may become a common calling card in global jihad.
Humans may have reached their maximum limits for height, lifespan and physical performance. A recent review suggests humans have biological limitations, and that anthropogenic impacts on the environment – including climate change – could have a deleterious effect on these limits. Published in Frontiers in Physiology, this review is the first of its kind spanning 120 years worth of historical information, while considering the effects of both genetic and environmental parameters.
Despite stories that with each generation we will live longer and longer, this review suggests there may be a maximum threshold to our biological limits that we cannot exceed.
A transdisciplinary research team from across France studied trends emerging from historical records, concluding that there appears to be a plateau in the maximum biological limits for humans’ height, age and physical abilities.
“These traits no longer increase, despite further continuous nutritional, medical, and scientific progress. This suggests that modern societies have allowed our species to reach its limits. We are the first generation to become aware of this” explained Professor Jean-François Toussaint from Paris Descartes University, France.
Rather than continually improving, we will see a shift in the proportion of the population reaching the previously recorded maximum limits. Examples of the effects of these plateaus will be evidenced with increasingly less sport records being broken and more people reaching but not exceeding the present highest life expectancy.
However, when researchers considered how environmental and genetic limitations combined may affect the ability for us to reach these upper limits, our effect on the environment was found to play a key role.
“This will be one of the biggest challenges of this century as the added pressure from anthropogenic activities will be responsible for damaging effects on human health and the environment.” Prof. Toussaint predicted. “The current declines in human capacities we can see today are a sign that environmental changes, including climate, are already contributing to the increasing constraints we now have to consider.”
“Observing decreasing tendencies may provide an early signal that something has changed but not for the better. Human height has decreased in the last decade in some African countries; this suggests some societies are no longer able to provide sufficient nutrition for each of their children and maintain the health of their younger inhabitants,” Prof. Toussaint explained.
To avoid us being the cause of our own decline, the researchers hope their findings will encourage policymakers to focus on strategies for increasing quality of life and maximize the proportion of the population that can reach these maximum biological limits.
“Now that we know the limits of the human species, this can act as a clear goal for nations to ensure that human capacities reach their highest possible values for most of the population. With escalating environmental constraints, this may cost increasingly more energy and investment in order to balance the rising ecosystem pressures. However, if successful, we then should observe an incremental rise in mean values of height, lifespan and most human biomarkers.” Prof. Toussaint warned however, “The utmost challenge is now to maintain these indices at high levels.”
A 500-year-old painting of Christ believed to be the work of Leonardo da Vinci is heading to the Louvre Abu Dhabi, the museum has said, according to BBC.
The newly-opened museum , without specifying whether it had bought the painting at auction this month.
Media reports say it was purchased by a Saudi prince.
The work – known as Salvator Mundi (Saviour of the World) – was sold in New York for a record $450m (£341m).
It was the highest auction price for any work of art.
The unidentified buyer was involved in a bidding contest, via telephone, that lasted nearly 20 minutes.
The New York Times reported that it was bought by Saudi prince Bader bin Abdullah bin Mohammed bin Farhan al-Saud, citing documents the newspaper had reviewed.
Leonardo da Vinci died in 1519 and there are fewer than 20 of his paintings in existence.
Almost all of America’s closest allies had cautioned US President Donald Trump against recognizing Jerusalem as Israel’s capital, warning of potentially grave repercussions. France, the United Kingdom, the European Union and Turkey have all urged him to reconsider. Senior US officials are said to disagree with his decision. Secretary of State Rex Tillerson sounds less than enthusiastic.
Last week, 151 UN member states voted in favor of a resolution condemning Israel’s claim to an undivided Jerusalem; only six countries voted against.
A new poll conducted by the University of Maryland found that 63 percent of Americans oppose relocating the American Embassy to Jerusalem from Tel Aviv.
Pope Francis and the Grand Imam of Al-Azhar Ahmed El-Tayeb appealed to him not to proceed, but on Wednesday, Trump defied the international community. What he has done is akin to a doctor saying, “Don’t worry, you will soon be well” as he injects his patient with a lethal poison.
His announcement was insulting. He praised Israel to the hilt as “one of the most successful democracies in the world” where “Jews, Muslims, and Christians — and people of all faiths — are free to live and worship according to their conscience and according to their beliefs.”
Tell that to the Palestinians barred from the Al-Haram Al Sharif. Tell that to the families whose homes have been demolished and whose lands have been stolen.
His couched message to Arabs was to respond to his decision “with reasoned debate, not violence” and “to expel extremists from their midst.” Does he not realize that this has just ramped up extremism by killing all hope of there ever being a Palestinian state with Jerusalem as its capital?
Hamas, which was open to reconciling with Fatah and had for the first time agreed to a Palestinian state on 1967 borders, has now announced that Trump has “opened the gates of hell.”
Iran and Hezbollah will tout this terrible news as a pretext for increased aggression. Islamist militants of all stripes may attack US interests. Mr. Trump knows this, which is why the Pentagon has dispatched US Marines to protect American embassies in the Middle East.
He will cite retaliatory acts of violence to justify his predominately anti-Muslim travel ban, anti-Islamic statements and to tighten his hug of Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, who was quick to express the gratitude of the “Jewish State and the Jewish People” for Trump’s “act of political bravery.”
Trump has made a mockery of often-touted American values by blessing the illegal occupation of a city occupied during war.
Under international law, it is illegal for a country to seize land acquired by force. That flies in the face of the UN charter, the Fourth Geneva Convention and a slew of UN Security Council resolutions.
Article 55 of the Laws of War states: “The occupying state shall be regarded only as an administrator…” Thus, Israel has no legal right to claim Jerusalem as its capital and neither does the US.
Russian President Vladimir Putin could now take a leaf out of his American counterpart’s book to claim that Russia’s annexation of Crimea was morally just due to “realities on the ground,” the line Trump has taken to explain his motivation for recognizing Jerusalem as the capital of the Jewish state.
If an armed man breaks into someone’s home, kicks the rightful owners into the street and lives there with his wife, children and pet dog, no court would legitimize the theft on the grounds that the thief’s slippers under the bed signified a new reality.
Trump said the move is good for America but neglected to explain in which way. He did not because it is not.
The fact is the only person it benefits is the president himself, who can now assert that he kept his campaign promise.
Trump can also pat himself on the back for faithfully complying with the demands of his billionaire supporters, President of the World Jewish Congress Ronald Lauder and Netanyahu’s buddy Sheldon Adelson, who describes the Palestinians as “a made-up people.”
He has fulfilled his pledge to Evangelical Christian Zionists, who make up a substantial proportion of his base.
On Saturday, the League of Arab States is holding an emergency meeting and the Organization of Islamic Cooperation will meet next Wednesday in Istanbul. It is imperative that Arab and Muslim nations not only speak with one voice but agree to meaningful countermeasures and joint strategies.
• Khalaf Ahmad Al Habtoor is a prominent UAE businessman and public figure. He is renowned for his views on international political affairs, his philanthropic activity, and his efforts to promote peace. He has long acted as an unofficial ambassador for his country abroad. Twitter: @KhalafAlHabtoor
Islam Karimov, the authoritarian strongman of Uzbekistan since its independence from the Soviet Union in 1991, was officially announced dead on September 2 last year. Six days later, Shavkat Mirziyoyev, the country’s prime minister since 2003 and Karimov’s protégé, was appointed Uzbekistan’s Interim President by a joint session of both houses of parliament. And on December 4, he was elected as the President by an overwhelming majority in the elections and was sworn into office ten days later. The Organization for Security and Co-operation in Europe said that the election lacked “a genuine choice,” pointing to instances of ballot box stuffing and proxy voting.
The region and the world heaved a sigh of relief when the changeover from Karimov to Mirziyoyev took place smoothly and seamlessly. The issue of succession in Central Asian Republics has been a matter of considerable anxiety for the region as well as the international community because most leaders in these countries, except in Kyrgyzstan, have been at the helm of affairs for long periods.
Uzbekistan occupies a unique place in Central Asia and the region. It is the only Central Asian Republic that shares land borders with all the other four countries of the region. It has the highest population of 32 million which is just a shade less than the sum of populations of the other four Central Asian Republics combined. Under the circumstances, with democracy not having developed roots in Uzbekistan, the peaceful transfer of power was welcomed with satisfaction and relief.
Nothing much different from what had been happening under Karimov was expected from Mirziyoyev when he assumed office. After all, he had occupied the second most powerful position in the country for more than 13 years. Nothing had emerged during all these years to suggest that he had any difference of views or approach with Karimov on policies to run the country. It was hence expected that Mirziyoyev will continue the same programmes and plans in domestic, foreign and economic spheres that had been pursued by Karimov for the last quarter of a century.
Mirziyoyev has, however, surprised even his most strident critics by charting a course quite independent from that of his predecessor. It has been termed as ”Revolution from Above.” He has embarked on a slew of political and economic policy reforms in the domestic arena which have the capacity to radically transform the economy and international standing of the country in the coming years.
Economic reforms
The most far-reaching domestic structural change that has taken place thus far in Uzbekistan is Tashkent’s implementation of a currency convertibility system which is likely to be fully implemented by 2019. This will facilitate foreign direct investment and steer the ‘’black, informal economy” into the formal arena. This move is highly significant because it puts in place the foundation of Uzbekistan’s economic awakening and has the potential to transform it from being a predominantly agricultural-exporting economy to a more broad-based and diversified one by promoting manufacturing, logistics, energy, mineral (includinguranium), service sector, and other capacities.
Mirziyoyev has initiated far reaching reforms in the area of expanding media freedom, protection of human rights, freedom of expression, religious freedom etc.. He has introduced a greater degree of domestic openness. It has been observed that the country’s official media is exhibiting greater independence and initiative. Several journalists and political activists have been freed from prison; some dissidents have been invited to come back home from abroad. For the first time, commemoration of the Andijan massacre by human rights activists was not disrupted by the police in May this year. Most recently, more than 4000 people were removed from blacklists of potential Islamic militants, which signals a thawing of relations between the state and religious sects. On July 28 this year, the Uzbek prosecutor-general’s office declared that Karimov’s eldest daughter Gulnara, who had not been seen in public since the last three years, was convicted and imprisoned in 2015 over tax evasion and other charges.
Relations with neighbours
Under Karimov, Uzbekistan had scant substantive cooperation with its neighbors. His poor personal relations with other Central Asian leaders and isolationist policies fostered mistrust and kept countries apart from each other.
Mirziyoyev has rapidly sought to repair the damaged regional relations that he inherited by visiting three of the four neighbouring states. He has pursued a policy of pro-active engagement with its neighbors with a view to restore Uzbekistan’s natural role as a transit hub in the region. Under Karimov, transport links with neighboring nations were curtailed, and crossings to and from Kyrgyzstan, Tajikistan and Turkmenistan were each restricted to two or three points although each of the borders is more than 1,000km long. Several rail services that crisscrossed these republics of the Soviet Union fell into disuse amid disagreements over transit fees and maintenance, forcing people and goods onto longer and more expensive alternative routes.
Bilateral negotiations on delimitation and demarcation of state borders with Kyrgyzstan, Kazakhstan, Tajikistan, and Turkmenistan—an unresolved issue since Soviet days—have covered greater distance in the last 12 months than for the last 15 years; agreements on strategic partnership, economic and military cooperation have been signed.
The fact that Mirziyoyev chose Turkmenistan (6-7 March) to be the first country of his visit after being elected and did not opt for one of the major regional players like Russia or China, clearly demonstrates his intention to maintain independence in his foreign policy. It also underlines his strong commitment to foster vibrant relations with the neighbours. Border management, energy and water have been the principal factors that for a long time strained Uzbekistan’s ties with its neighboring countries. Unresolved issues have often led in the past to closing of border crossings, economic sanctions such as halting gas and electricity supplies, as well as several incidents of skirmishes along the borders.
Under Mirziyoyev, Tashkent’s ties with Dushanbe and Bishkek have significantly improved. This is evident from the restored communication links, such as resumption of direct flights in April this year between Tashkent and Dushanbe, the first time since 1992, and the willingness of Uzbekistan to resolve issues related to previously disputed territories, particularly with Kyrgyzstan. In addition, Mirziyoyev’s administration has mellowed its stance towards the construction of the Roghun and Kambar-Ata-1 HPP in Tajikistan and Kyrgyzstan, respectively. Previously, Uzbekistan was strongly against any HPP projects constructed on the territories of the upstream countries unless they were agreed upon with the states located downstream, namely Uzbekistan and Kazakhstan. Former President Karimov even warned that the issue of water management could escalate to the point where a war would become inevitable. In sharp contrast, when on October 29 last year, Tajikistan started the construction of the Roghun HPP, no voice of opposition was heard from Uzbekistan. According to the recent statement by former Kyrgyz President Atambayev, leaders of Uzbekistan and Kazakhstan have given their prior consent to construction of the Kambar-Atta-I HPP: this is likely to inspire a rapid interest by foreign investors.
Ties between Uzbekistan and Kazakhstan and Turkmenistan have been less complicated, with no major disagreements dividing them. Kazakhstan and Uzbekistan have no unresolved issues on delineation and demarcation of common borders and share a similar stance on the use of waters of Amu Darya and Syr Darya rivers. Economies of Uzbekistan and Kazakhstan have different structures, which provide an opportunity for mutually beneficial trade. Volume of trade between the two states increased by 30% since the change in the leadership of Uzbekistan. Similarly, Turkmenistan and Uzbekistan have avoided major tensions in their relations over the past two decades. After Mirziyoyev’s take-over, leaders of the two countries have established close ties with each other, particularly on energy cooperation. Recently, during his second visit to Turkmenistan in May this year, Mirziyoyev expressed interest in participating in the TAPI project, a pipeline that links Turkmenistan with Pakistan and India via Afghanistan.
In the wider neighborhood, cooperation with Russia has also become closer, especially on economic and security issues; albeit a formal security alliance with Moscow remains unlikely. President Putin visited Uzbekistan for Karimov’s funeral. Mirziyoyev returned the symbolically generous gesture by visiting Moscow in early April this year. Investment accords worth USD 12 billion, trade deals worth USD 3.8 billion and a total of 50 agreements were signed during the visit. Relations got established on a stable footing through their first bilateral military exercises in 12 years. Equally important are new trade and investment agreements with Uzbekistan’s largest trade partner China as well as Turkey and Iran.
An idea of the intense interaction with neighbouring and regional countries can be gauged from the fact that during the last 14 months, Mirziyoyev has travelled to Kazakhstan four times, to Turkmenistan three times, to Russia twice, in addition to travelling once to Kyrgyzsatn, China, Turkey, Saudi Arabia, the US and South Korea. He has also hosted leaders of Kazakhstan (twice), Kyrgyzstan (twice) and once each of Russia, Turkey, Afghanistan etc.
Speaking at the 72nd session of the United Nations General Assembly, Mirziyoyev said: “A peaceful and economically prosperous Central Asia is our most important goal and key task.” This demonstrates his seriousness to walk the extra mile to strengthen ties with all countries of Central Asia.
Tashkent’s nearly two decades of isolation from its neighbors have seriously impaired its chances of becoming a major regional hub in the short term. But the thaw in Uzbekistan’s relations with its neighbors is bound to have a favorable impact in the medium and long-term on regional cooperation and trade.
Relations with India
India and Uzbekistan enjoy close and warm historical and civilisational ties. The two countries have been closely tied to each other through exchanges during the Silk Road era from 300BC to 1500AD. Babur, the founder of Mughal dynasty in India, travelled from the Ferghana Valley in Uzbekistan to India in 1526. In more recent times, Indian culture, dance, music, films, yoga etc have been extremely popular in Uzbekistan.
Prime Minister Narendra Modi met President Mirziyoyev in Astana on the sidelines of the SCO summit on June 8 this year. Uzbekistan offered to supply uranium ore to India for its nuclear power plants. It was agreed to enhance and expand bilateral ties over a wide range of areas, including security, political, economic, connectivity, energy, culture etc. As a result of the interaction, a high powered delegation led by Uzbek Foreign Minister and Foreign Trade Minister visited India in August this year. It would significantly contribute to bilateral and regional peace, security and prosperity if President Mirziyoyev were to visit India at the earliest available opportunity to further promote understanding and economic exchanges between the two countries.
President Mirziyoyev has infused fresh energy and dynamism into Uzbekistan. The country has taken rapid strides in domestic political and economic arena as well as in foreign relations, particularly with its neighbours. Under Mirziyoyev’s leadership, the future of Uzbekistan and relations with its neighbouring partners appear bright and buoyant.
Trump’s “toned down” stance on the South China Sea issue, his emphasis on “America first” policy and his soft attitude towards China have made many Japanese leaders suspect that the US is retreating from Asia.
By K. V. Kesavan
President Donald Trump’s first official trip to Asia covering Japan, South Korea, China, Vietnam and the Philippines concluded on a note that sent mixed messages to his allies and partners. During the trip, he participated in several meetings including the APEC, ASEAN — US summit and the East Asia Summit.
Carefully avoiding to touch on controversial issues, like Senkaku Islands and the South China Sea, Trump reiterated American preference for bilateralism and made a public declaration on his ‘America first’ policies as against globalisation. His first so-called vision statement on Asia did not adequately reassure the Asian allies and partners on Washington’s commitment to the security of the region. It fell far short of their expectations.
For instance, in his summit meeting with the ASEAN countries, there was a great expectation that he would make a categorical commitment to his allies and partners against China’s constructing and militarising artificial islands in the disputed region. As widely reported in the media, in his summit meeting with the ASEAN countries, there was no specific reference either to the UN arbitral court’s verdict or to China’s illegal construction of artificial islands. During his visit to Vietnam, Trump’s offer to “mediate” in the South China Sea dispute deeply disappointed the Vietnamese hosts.
The ASEAN-China summit held in Manila also witnessed a similar scene. China is reported to have dominated the discussions which were centered on the drawing up of a code of conduct in the disputed waters. Though there was a provisional agreement to start the negotiations sometime during early 2018, participants could not come to an agreement on whether to make the code of conduct binding legally as claimed by countries like Vietnam.
On the other hand, the Philippines and Malaysia were inclined to pursue a more pro-China stance. China’s increasing economic clout due to its bulging trade and its Belt and Road Initiative (BRI) has sharply divided the ASEAN and brought about a basic change in the attitudes of countries like the Philippines. The Philippines, the present ASEAN chair, took a soft position on the South China Sea issue and thereby weakened the ASEAN cause. President Rodrigo Duterte showed great inclination to build “friendship” with China and “toned down” the South China Sea issue.
It is against this backdrop, one has to examine the meeting that took place between Japanese Prime Minister Shinzo Abe and the top two Chinese leaders in quick succession. The meeting between Abe and Chinese President Xi Jing pin on the sidelines of the APEC conference surprisingly generated a great deal of hope for better relations between the two.
Similar such meetings on the sidelines of international gatherings in the past were marked by a lack of warmth on the part of President Xi. But this time, the bilateral dynamics had somewhat changed. Both Abe and Xi had emerged stronger politically in their respective countries — the former having won the lower house election with a massive majority and the latter having emerged more powerful following the 19th Party Congress. When Xi expressed a desire to make “a new start” in the bilateral relations, it came as a pleasant surprise to Abe.
Abe’s next meeting with Chinese Premier Li Keqiang in Manila on 13 November, within a couple of days after the Abe-Xi meeting, reinforced the optimism for improved relations. Li told Abe that both countries “must work together to make the momentum of improvement of bilateral relations into something solid.” Both Li and Abe agreed to make arrangements for holding a trilateral summit with South Korean President in Tokyo soon. Since the advent of Abe as prime minister, neither Li nor Xi has made an official visit to Japan. In 2018 both countries are set to commemorate the 40th anniversary of the bilateral peace treaty, and Abe would look forward to Xi ‘s visit to Japan on the occasion.
As many analysts point out, the unpredictable style of President Trump has also created some new space for possible cooperation between Japan and China. The need to keep North Korea under control is a strong binding factor between the US, China and Japan. In his talks with Abe, Trump did not seriously discuss Japan’s post-election constitutional and defence policies. His insistence that Tokyo purchases “massive amounts of military equipment” from the US to reduce its trade surplus dismayed the Japanese leaders.
From the Japanese side, it was pointed out that Japan was already spending a great deal on purchasing US weapons and equipment. But what disappointed Tokyo most was that at a time when Abe is trying to create a favourable climate for constitutional amendments, it was hardly the time for Trump even to appear to be forcing huge military expenditures on Japan.
Trump’s “toned down” stance on the South China Sea issue, his emphasis on “America first” policy and his soft attitude towards China have made many Japanese leaders suspect that the US is retreating from Asia. They are also worried that given the warmth that Trump showed to Xi during his visit, both the US and China could develop a stronger rapport to the exclusion of Japan. From the Chinese viewpoint, if the US retreats, it would be an advantage for Beijing to exert its influence with Japan as less of the hostile power.
The Russian government claims that Russians have reduced their alcohol consumption by almost 30 percent over the last decade, but in fact, while they may be drinking less legal alcohol, they are increasingly turning to cheaper and more dangerous surrogates that are now killing more than 40,000 people a year.
If those figures are correct, they certainly mean that Russians are consuming nearly twice as much alcohol as the Russian government acknowledges and they almost certainly mean that Russians, hurt by the economic crisis, are now buying cheaper surrogates than more expensive registered hard liquor.
According to Rosstat, Russians consumed far less alcohol this year than ten years ago. In 2007, they consumed 9.4 liters of pure alcohol, above the eight liter limit for healthy living set by the World Health Organization; but this year, they drank only 6.6 liters of pure alcohol. That would be a significant improvement if it were true.
But there are good reasons to think Russians’ turn to surrogates has more than wiped out that improvement and indeed have made the situation even worse. For example, the number of Russians arrested in a drunken condition while committing crimes jumped from 302,000 cases in 2006 to 440,000 in 2016.
Moreover, rising prices and rising taxes on officially registered vodka and hard forms of hard liquor have made them relatively more expensive than many surrogates, like perfume and medications, 20 percent of which in Russia are now estimated to be purchased by those who seek intoxication (rbc.ru/investigation/business/24/11/2016/5836fabd9a7947f82e05d12b).
Finally, US President Donald Trump pulled the plug.
The so-called peace process, two-state solution, ‘land-for-peace formula’ and all the other tired clichés have been long dead and decomposing. But Trump’s announcement on Wednesday to officially recognize Jerusalem as capital of Israel has also laid to rest the illusion that the US was ever keen on achieving a just and lasting peace between Israel and its neighbors.
What is left to be said by those who have placed the Palestinian national project of liberation on hold for nearly three decades, waiting for the US to fulfill its self-designated role of an ‘honest peace broker’?
The Fatah movement of Palestinian Authority President Mahmoud Abbas declared a ‘day of rage’ in response to Trump’s announcement. Way to deflect attention from the real crisis at hand: the fact that the PA has miserably failed by leasing the fate of Palestine to Washington, and, by extension to Israel as well.
The Recent Love Affair
“I have determined that it is time to officially recognize Jerusalem as the capital of Israel,” Trump said in Washington. The embattled president has done what many had asked him not to do. But the truth is, US foreign policy has been bankrupt for years. It was never fair, nor did it ever intend to be so.
Trump’s words from Washington were a tamed version of his statement before the Israel lobby last year.
In March 2016, Republican presidential candidate Trump delivered his famous speech before the American Israeli Public Affairs Committee (AIPAC). Then, he revealed the type of politician he truly is. By Washington’s standards, he was a ‘good politician’, devoid of any values.
In his speech he made many promises to Israel. The large crowd could not contain their giddiness.
Of the many false claims and dangerous promises Trump made, a particular passage stood unique, for it offered early clues to what the future administration’s policy on Israel and Palestine would look like. The signs were not promising:
“When the United States stands with Israel, the chances of peace really rise and rises exponentially. That’s what will happen when Donald Trump is president of the United States,” he declared, a fraudulent statement that was preceded with a loud applause and ended with even a louder cheer.
“We will move the American embassy to the eternal capital of the Jewish people, Jerusalem,” he announced. The mixed cheers and applause were deafening.
The truth is, however, Trump’s love affair with Israel is actually relatively recent. He had made several pronouncements in the past that in fact irked Israel and its powerful backers in the US. But when his chances of becoming the Republican nominee grew, so did his willingness to say whatever it takes to win Israel’s approval. But isn’t this the American way of doing politics?
Now that Trump is president, he is desperate to maintain the support of the very constituency that brought him to the White House in the first place. The rightwing, conservative, Christian-evangelical constituency remains the foundation of his troubled presidency.
So, on December 4, Trump picked up the phone and began calling Arab leaders, informing them of his decision to announce a move that has been delayed for many years: relocating the US embassy from Tel Aviv to Jerusalem.
Arabs fumed, or needed to play that part, for such a move would surely create further destabilization in a region that has been taken on a destructive course for years. Much of that instability is the outcome of misguided US policies, predicated on unwarranted wars and blind support for Israel.
Moreover, the pro-US Middle Eastern camp has itself been struggling under constant conflict, internal splits and a growing sense of American abandonment.
Why Jerusalem
If Trump declares Jerusalem the capital of Israel, it will seem that a cornerstone of US foreign policy in the Middle East has been removed. There can be no talk about a ‘two-state solution’, a ‘Palestinian state with East Jerusalem as its capital’, and all the other platitudes that defined the US political discourse in the region for decades.
Worse, United Nations Security Council Resolutions 242 and 338 have served as the trademark of US approach regarding what has been termed the ‘Palestinian-Israeli conflict’ since 1967. The resolutions call for Israeli withdrawal from the territories it occupied since the war of 1967. Since then, East Jerusalem has been recognized by international law and even by every country that extended diplomatic ties with Israel as an integral part of the Occupied Territories.
Trump’s recent decision constitutes a total US reversal in its approach, not only regarding its own working definition of peacemaking, but to the entire Middle East, considering that Palestine and Israel have been at the center of most of the region’s conflicts.
It may have appeared that in March 2016, when Trump elatedly announced his intentions to relocate his country’s embassy to Jerusalem, he spoke like every American politician would: making lofty promises that cannot be kept.
Perhaps, but there are factors that made this embassy move an attractive option for the Trump administration:
The US is currently experiencing unprecedented political instability and polarization. Talks of impeaching the president are gaining momentum, while his officials are being paraded before Department of Justice investigators for various accusations, including collusion with foreign powers.
Under these circumstances, there is no decision or issue that Trump can approach without finding himself in a political storm, except one issue, that being Israel. Being pro-Israel has historically united the US’s two main parties, the Congress, the media and many Americans, lead among them Trump’s political base.
Indeed, when the Congress passed the Jerusalem Embassy Act in 1995, purportedly violating its legislative role, Trump’s interest in politics was quite haphazard and entirely personal.
Collusion
The Congress has gone even further. Attempting to twist the arm of the White House, it added a clause, giving the administration till May 1999, to carry out the Congress’s diktats or face a 50 percent cut in the State Departments’ budget allocated to “Acquisition and Maintenance of Buildings Abroad.”
It was an impossible ultimatum. The US, by then, had positioned itself as an ‘honest peace broker’ in the peace process – a political framework that defined its entire American foreign policy outlook in the Middle East.
To avoid violating the Congress’ public law, and to maintain a thread, however thin, of credibility, every US president has signed a six-month waiver; a loophole in Section 7 of the law that allowed the White House to postpone the relocation of the embassy.
Fast forward to Trump’s AIPAC speech. His pledge to move the embassy then seemed merely frivolous and opportunistic.
That was the wrong assessment, however. Collusion between the Trump’s team and Israel began even before he walked into the Oval House. They worked together to undermine UN efforts in December 2016 to pass a resolution condemning Israel’s continued illegal settlement in the Occupied Territories, including Jerusalem.
Names of individuals affiliated with the administration’s policy towards’ Israel spoke volumes of the messianic nature of the government’s future outlook. David Friedman, Trump’s bankruptcy attorney was picked as US Ambassador in Israel; Jason Greenblatt was appointed as the administration’s top Middle East negotiator. Both men were known for their extremist, pro-Israel views – views that were seen as dangerous even by mainstream US media.
Chosen to lead the ‘peace’ efforts was Trump’s son-in-law and Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s good friend, Jared Kushner. Trump’s dedication to Israel was clearly not fleeting.
By accepting Israel’s illegal annexation of Occupied East Jerusalem, Trump ends an American political gambit that lasted decades; supporting Israel unconditionally, while posing as a neutral, honest party.
Although his move is aimed at appeasing Israel, its US allies in government, and his base of fundamentalists and conservatives, he is also shedding a mask that every US president has worn for decades.
However, Trump’s decision, while it will upset the delicate political equilibrium in the Middle East, will neither cancel nor reverse international law. It simply means that the US has decided to drop the act, and walk wholly into the Israeli camp, further isolating itself from the rest of the world by openly defying international law.
And by doing so, it will, oddly enough, negate the paradoxical role it carved for itself in the last 50 years – that of peacemaker.
Europe has looked inward for much of the past decade, preoccupied first with the Euro crisis, subsequently with migration from the Middle East, and now with crafting a response to a newly aggressive Russia. These challenges are by no means resolved, yet Europe seemed to have gained momentum after Emmanuel Macron’s election in France. And although Angela Merkel’s fourth re-election left a bittersweet aftertaste, she may still have the opportunity to bring European insularity to a close, and to engage with Europe’s most important partner: the United States.
The main challenge facing transatlantic relations preceded the Trump administration – and is likely to remain beyond the 2020 US election. The comparative unwillingness of NATO allies to spend on security has long been a bone of contention between Washington and the continent. Nonetheless, President Trump has voiced his beliefs more bluntly. Secretary of Defense Jim Mattis echoed the President when he noted at NATO headquarters that “Americans cannot care more for your children’s future security than you do.”
The United States has long had a “guns vs. butter” spending debate. It is in this context that President Trump compared the considerable US investment in collective defense to a US subsidy for European social welfare spending. Already President Obama and his secretaries of defense, most notably, Robert Gates, made frustrated pleas to NATO allies to meet more of their fair share of the defense burden. Hillary Clinton would have had to respond to these concerns as well. She would have done so soothingly, rather than aggressively, but the “fair share” issue would have been center stage.
Getting allies to fulfill their commitment to spend two percent of GDP on national security is a proxy for a deeper debate about what allies should expect from each other in an era when hard security threats have returned to the European continent, for example in the form of Russian military aggression and information warfare as well as repeated attacks by ISIS. The challenges Chancellor Merkel faces in building a new government exposes how hyperbolic it was to talk about Germany leading the free world against or without the United States. Instead, the Trump administration does represent an opportunity to make Europe autonomous and strong while remaining firmly anchored within the Atlantic alliance. However, Germany needs a new model for its role in Europe.
Germany might see itself as Europe’s humanitarian superpower, but now it is time for Germany to spend more on defense to address both conventional and emerging threats. Beyond spending on capacity, Germany needs to shoulder more of the responsibility on specific missions, especially regarding the European periphery. Germany should also continue to take a clear position towards Europe’s most troublesome neighbor. The final form of the new government notwithstanding, the departure of the SPD from the coalition presents an opportunity to further bolster Germany’s stance against Russian aggression. Ending support for the Nord Stream II pipeline can make Eastern Europe less dependent on Russian natural gas and thereby increase the West’s margin for policy maneuver.
In the years ahead, Germany’s relative weight within the EU will grow because of Brexit. The view expressed by President Trump that Germany has used the rules of the EU to its advantage is also widely held in Southern Europe, and not merely in Greece. To be sure, Germany has reformed its labor market in a way neighbors such as France have not, and made considerable efforts to ensure export competitiveness. Yet German exports have been the main beneficiaries of structural imbalances in Europe. The euro has been a boon for the German economy. Acknowledging these realities and supporting eurozone reform to make the euro more stable, for example, through a dose of financial transfer, will strengthen German leadership in Europe. The Chancellor will face resistance from the liberal Free Democratic Party and her own Christian Democratic Union, both wary of deeper integration. But she should take this opportunity, perhaps her last, to convince the public of the need to move forward. Macron’s reforms of the French labor market and the relative economic improvement in the eurozone will enhance her case.
The US is not becoming isolationist. President Trump upgraded efforts in Syria and Iraq. He even reversed his initial instinct and ordered increased US troop deployments to Afghanistan, where Germany’s contingent, the third largest among NATO allies, is deeply appreciated. The US continues to meet its responsibilities within NATO, with a 40 percent planned increase to the US contribution to the Reassurance Initiative in the Baltic States and Poland. But as the North Korean crisis shows, the United States is simultaneously involved in numerous global challenges. In this light, it is hardly unreasonable to expect allies with strong resources, led by Germany, to do more to manage the challenges in their immediate neighborhood.
Germany’s harsh criticism of the Trump administration during the country’s electoral campaign does not represent a lasting burden for the transatlantic alliance. These views are amply represented in the United States as well. More to the point, however, the American president himself would not begrudge Chancellor Merkel saying what she needed for re-election. Just as the president’s own tweets are not necessarily settled policy, neither is electoral politicking necessarily policy.
As Chancellor Merkel enters her fourth term, the question on the minds of Americans and Europeans is what role she will play on the international stage. Now that the election is over, Chancellor Merkel therefore has a historic opportunity to use some of her political capital for bold measures. The United States, Europe, and Germany herself need more German leadership, not less. Whether we get what we need is a question that rests squarely in the office of the Federal Chancellor.
About the author:
*Kenneth R. Weinstein is President and Chief Executive Officer of Hudson Institute. He joined the Institute in 1991, and was appointed CEO in June 2005. Weinstein was named President and CEO in March 2011.
Muddled foreign policy, bumbling by the US and Saudi Arabia lead to emerging alliance among Russia, Iran, Turkey and Qatar.
By Dilip Hiro*
Kaleidoscopic changes in the Middle East have produced a constellation of power posing fresh challenges to the United States. The emerging alliance among Russia, Iran and Turkey gained its newest member in Qatar, thanks to a rash move by Saudi Crown Prince Muhammad bin Salman. Most alarming for America: Turkey is NATO’s easternmost member with the second largest military in the defense partnership. Qatar provides the Pentagon’s Central Command with its forward base, the region’s largest.
The alliance is by no means the result of expediency. The elements undergirding it – geopolitical, economic and ideological – have long been in the making. It’s been helped sharply by President Donald Trump’s muddled foreign policy, a contrast from the coherent policies of the Obama administration with its commitment to democracy and human rights. Trump’s repeated statement before foreign assemblies – “We are not here to lecture you how to run your countries” – is too vague to form the base of Washington’s policy in international affairs. Even that mantra fails when Trump lectures Iran’s elected rulers on how to govern. Iran’s strategic importance was highlighted on 27 November when Turkey, Iran and Qatar signed a agreement naming Iran as transit country for trade between Qatar and Turkey. The move undermines Saudi efforts to isolate Qatar.
On the world stage, the triad of Moscow, Tehran and Ankara has made its mark by acting as prime mover to end Syria’s long-running civil war. But their economic interests have been in play for more than two decades and geopolitical considerations have a longer history.
This is also true of Qatar. Since his bloodless 1995 coup against his father Emir Khalifa Al Thani, Emir Hamad Al Thani has focused on ensuring that his tiny sheikhdom does not become a vassal of Saudi Arabia. To give Qatar a high international profile, he set up Al Jazeera TV channel in 1996, staffed largely by BBC-trained journalists. When the Saudi ruler refused to let the Pentagon use its state-of-the-art airbase near Riyadh for its air campaign against Afghanistan after the 9/11 attacks, Hamad struck a secret agreement to let the Pentagon use Al Udeid airbase, reinforcing Qatar’s links with Washington to deter Riyadh from attempts to dominate the emirate.
To supplement this strategy with a regional power outside the Arabian Peninsula, Hamad signed a defense-industry cooperation agreement with Turkey in 2007 and a military training agreement in 2012. The next year he abdicated in favor of his son Tamim. In March 2015, the parliament in Ankara passed the Turkey-Qatar Military Cooperation Agreement. Four months later, Tamim informed Saudi King Salman of the true extent of the accord – basing 3,000 Turkish troops in Qatar for training and joint exercises. The monarch reportedly welcomed the deal as a counter to Iran’s growing regional influence.
Almost two years later, with the ascendancy of Prince Bin Salman in Riyadh, the Saudi-led axis of four Arab countries demanded that Qatar “Immediately terminate the Turkish military presence in Qatar and end any joint military cooperation with Turkey inside Qatar.” The demand backfired. Ankara sent more troops to Qatar, and its tanks rolled through Doha, lending political and moral support to Qatar. The top demand of the Saudi-led Axis for Qatar – “Curb diplomatic ties with Iran and close its diplomatic missions” – ignored a critical economic element. The emirate shares a vast gas field in the Gulf with Iran.
Overall, Saudi Arabia has ignored Iran’s geopolitical strength. Iran has shorelines on the Persian Gulf, Arabian Sea and Caspian Sea and shares land borders with Pakistan, Afghanistan, Turkmenistan, Armenia, Azerbaijan, Turkey and Iraq. It has ample reserves of oil and gas. It shares a fluvial border with Russia in the Caspian Sea. In August 1992 Russian President Boris Yeltsin’s government signed a contract to construct and operate a civilian nuclear plant near the Iranian city of Bushehr. After long delays, the facility started producing electricity in 2013. Later Iran and Russia signed an agreement to build two new nuclear reactors at the Bushehr site, with an option of six more at other sites.
During protracted negotiations between Tehran and six global powers on Iran’s nuclear program, Russia favored a moderate line in contrast to the hard line advocated by France with the United States taking a middle position.
Military cooperation between Moscow and Tehran started in 2007 when Iran inked the $900 million contract for five Russian S-300 missile batteries. Delivery started three months before the landmark July 2015 deal on Iran’s nuclear program, with Russia shipping an upgraded version of S-300. In September of that year, Russia intervened militarily to bolster President Bashar al Assad of Syria where Iran had been aiding his government with weapons and armed volunteers in the civil war. This led to Moscow and Tehran regularly discussing military planning for Syria.
Russia’s Vladimir Putin and Assad share the view that groups raising arms against an established government must be termed “terrorists.” Strategically, Putin was keen to maintain a base in the Syrian port of Tartus to maintain a Russian naval presence in the Mediterranean.
In November 2015, Putin attended the summit of Gas Exporting Countries Forum in Tehran. While meeting with Putin, Iran’s Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei reportedly praised his interlocutor for “neutralizing Washington’s plots,” adding that economic relations between the two countries could expand. To his delight, Putin relaxed an export ban on nuclear equipment and technology to Iran. In an unprecedented gesture, Tehran let the Kremlin use its Hamadan military base to launch aerial strikes on a range of targets in Syria in August 2016, enabling the Russian air force to cut flying time for warplanes and increase payloads. The following April, Sputnik News reported that Moscow and Tehran were considering sale of Russian fighter jets to Iran and a joint venture for Iran to manufacture Russian helicopters under license.
For Russia, events in Turkey also moved in its favor. In September Turkey strayed from NATO’s protocol when President Reçep Tayyip Erdoğan announced that Ankara had transferred money to pay for Russia’s S-400 missile system. A NATO official admitted that the alliance had not been informed about the deal’s details. Dismissing possible NATO objections, Erdoğan declared, “Nobody has the right to discuss the Turkish republic’s independence principles or independent decisions about its defense industry.”
Turkey ranks 17th in the world for GDP yet has no energy resources of its own while sharing borders with hydrocarbon-rich Iran and Russia. As early as 1996, Turkey signed a natural gas contract with Iran starting at 2 billion cubic meters in 2002. In 2008 Turkey and Iran inked a memorandum of understanding on natural gas production and export. This envisaged Turkey investing in development of Iran’s gigantic South Pars gas field and pipeline construction to deliver Iranian gas to Europe via Turkey and also supply the Turkish market.
Once United Nations and European Union lifted sanctions on Iran in January 2016, there was a spurt in Turkey’s imports of Iranian oil. During the first seven months of 2017, Turkey imported 7.4 million tons of crude, up from 3 million tons for the corresponding period in 2016.
In February Putin ratified a deal to build the 1,100 kilometer Turkish Stream pipeline, foreseeing three decades of Russian-Turkish collaboration, to transport Russian gas across the Black Sea into Turkey and southern Europe. The news came weeks after the successful co-chairing of peace talks for Syria’s civil war by Russia and Turkey, backed by Iran, in the Kazakh capital of Astana. On the eve of Trump’s inauguration in January, Moscow sent a last-minute invitation to the United States. The incoming administration sent its ambassador in Astana as observer. After Trump moved to recognize Jerusalem as the capital of Israel, Erdoğan warned that the United States is “plunging the region and the world into a fire with no end in sight.”
By design or happenstance, Washington is reconciling itself to a lower profile in the fast-changing geopolitics of Eurasia. In contrast, the planned congress of all Syrian groups in the Russian resort of Sochi in February is set to highlight Moscow’s rising profile in the strategic region.
*Dilip Hiro is the author of A Comprehensive Dictionary of the Middle East (Interlink Publishing Group, Northampton, MA). Read an excerpt. His latest and 36th book is The Age of Aspiration: Power, Wealth, and Conflict in Globalizing India (The New Press, New York). Read an excerpt.
The recent flap in the Province of Quebec over the allotment of naval defense contracts illustrates the inevitable mixing of politics and defense policy in Canada. The Davey shipbuilding industry in Lévis Quebec is an old and venerable institution, which will be vigorously promoted by the Quebec political class.
More pressure can be expected and the fact that Quebec Prime Minister Couillard headed last Sunday’s well attended march for the Davey is significant. Elections in the Province of Quebec are just around the corner and the company and union feel abandoned by Ottawa given the perception of an ‘unfair’ distribution of naval defense contracts within Canada. They point to Irving Shipbuilding in the Atlantic provinces and the west coast Vancouver shipyards as beneficiaries of federal monies while the Davey group is obliged to cut jobs and downsize in the absence of federal defense contracts.
There is evidence that the former Conservative Harper government attempted to implement a shipbuilding plan in 2010 but it did little to calm the main players in Quebec and on the east and west coasts. To its credit, the Liberal government called for public consultations on Canada’s defense policy in 2016. They even set up a blue-ribbon panel of experts to delve into the situation. A lot of talk, not much doing – this has a familiar ring when it comes to the Trudeau Liberals since their election in the fall of 2015.
Maybe its time to get sanguine about exactly what Canada needs in terms of defense assets. Should we be spending huge sums of taxpayer money on buying new planes, or tanks, or ships? Or cyber defense? Military assets, and training to use them, are costly. We should also know that spreading out resources to our armed forces may require prioritization given the cost and the limited available tax base. We can only do some much so perhaps we should make the navy, army or air force a priority.
External Threats
The first question we need to ask ourselves is ‘who is the threat?’ North Korea? Russia?
Of the nation states that are presently in our cross hairs, I think Russia deserves special mention. It has embarked on a confrontational Arctic policy, which puts it in direct conflict with Canada and other world powers. It has anticipated rightly the effects of global warming in the Arctic and the need for building huge ice breakers and submarines to affirm sovereignty over disputed Arctic waters.
Meanwhile, successive Canadian governments have slept though global warming with only an occasional mention here and there in the same breath as they spoke of imaginary carbon targets. Despite his numerous visits to the Canadian Arctic to affirm our sovereignty, ex-PM Harper appears to have overlooked the international consequences of climate change and how it may impact on the defence of that region of the country. The Trudeau formula of plugging climate change as part of the Liberal political spin is not very useful either.
To be clear, in the event of attack by most any nation state, the Canadian army would be of little help. The country is too big and our resources are spread thinly. In terms of defense policy, Canada is cursed by geography and its small population. By the time we had transferred appropriate units of the army to the Arctic or to any of our coasts, the enemy would have already occupied the territory it sought. The army is small and probably should be smaller if we are talking about effective defense of the homeland instead of public image.
Canada’s Maritime Heritage
One fact is significant in this calculation; namely, that Canada has three active coasts. At the end of World War Two, Canada had one of the most powerful navies in the world thanks to our convoy duties in the Atlantic. Whether it is the Arctic, the Pacific or the Atlantic, protection of the coast and Canadian waters is vital both in the economic and political sense.
If we had a strong navy, we could effectively a) defend our legitimate fishing rights, b) assert our territorial claims in the Arctic, c) protect the Pacific fisheries and d) promote the Aboriginal way of life. Canada has important shipping lanes including the Great Lakes and has an interest in preventing oil spills and exert surveillance over municipalities looking to either pollute or remove water. Therefore, it seems logical to invest in a strong navy such that Canada can become a significant regional naval power.
Nothing would send a stronger signal that we intend on exerting our sovereignty than investing in naval assets. Moreover, these assets can produce jobs in Canada whereas costly planes, tanks and other items that the army and air force require are made mainly outside of Canada with a few notable exceptions. In Canada, we have the ship building capacity and the political will to make it happen. Investing in naval assets will build jobs in Canada. The fact that the Davie is griping about not having enough contracts is a good sign and one that empowers the political and economic elites in this country. The funds are spent here, not abroad. Not with Boeing in Seattle. Provincial-federal wrangling over contracts is part and parcel of Canadian federalism. It makes the country work and naval defense contracts oil the machine.
Defense Priorities
Some argue that we would need an air force with expensive and fancy planes to intercept invaders and or pin point their location before arriving at targets in Canada?
There are two counter arguments to this. First, the planes that Canada can afford to buy are usually out of date by the time they arrive on Canadian soil. Part of this is our fault. Purchase of aircraft is a big budget item and it inevitably becomes a political football as well as a contractual and logistical nightmare in an industry that innovates frequently and elsewhere than in Canada. To require Defense Department bureaucrats to solve this problem is unrealistic with players like Boeing exercising its muscle by sparking trade quarrels and inciting tension in political and commercial circles. Second, we can pin point threats using land based equipment, satellites, drones and naval assets like submarines. A strong naval presence in the Arctic would be a much better deterrent than having planes hovering about landlocked areas of our country.
Our ISIL mission is an example of where the very small Canadian contribution to the air war has made little difference and other states hardly noticed that we had pulled our planes. In this regard, Canada should develop an air strategy in support of our naval assets and strategy.
NORAD if necessary but not necessarily NORAD
Nothing prevents us from keeping our NORAD commitment although the maritime function should be fully under Canadian sovereignty and not part of NORAD.
Participation in missile defense is out and constant American whining about Canadian not paying its fair share of defense should be blunted and firmly refuted. Canada, not America, had to clean up the last dangerous environmental mess left by the US military presence in the Arctic. We should continue our present level of support to NORAD, no more, no less.
In conclusion, we need to prioritize our defense resources and earmark them for where they can have the most positive impact. Strengthening the Canadian navy makes the most sense given the size of the country and its geography and geopolitical situation in the world. It makes financial sense by creating jobs and ensuring the ship building industry innovates and proliferates. It also makes economic sense creating jobs and prosperity in Canada. It alone best protects and asserts our sovereignty at home and abroad. Investing money on the purchase of other non-naval assets is likely to be a drop in the bucket, too little to be effective other than paying lip service to Canadian sovereignty. The army, air force with a greatly enhanced cyber defense capability and a growing contingent of special forces specializing in amphibious operations could function effectively in a naval support function.
*Bruce Mabley is a former Canadian diplomat having served in the Middle East, and is the director of the Mackenzie-Papineau think tank in Montreal.
A recent government surrender to militant demands for stricter adherence to Islam mediated by the military coupled with the release from house arrest of a militant leader designated by the United Nations and the United States as a terrorist sets the stage for a confrontation between Pakistan and the Trump administration.
The two incidents also point to the fact that decades of Saudi backing and Pakistani indulgence has embedded Sunni Muslim ultra-conservatism in key branches of the state and among significant segments of society, including ones long considered to be less conservative. They raise the question whether further punitive cutbacks in US aid and other potential retaliatory measures will exacerbate the problem rather than persuade authorities to tackle it.
Finally, the incidents suggest that the fallout of decades of Saudi support globally for ultra-conservatism to the tune of $100 billion is unlikely to be reversed overnight by Saudi Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman’s recent pledge to return the kingdom to an undefined form of moderate Islam.
US Secretary of Defense James Mattis became last week the latest in a succession of US officials representing a succession of US administrations to unsuccessfully complain on a visit to Islamabad about aspects of the fallout in Pakistan such as the country’s half-hearted crackdown on militants and continued support for radical groups that serve its geopolitical purposes vis a vis Afghanistan and India.
Days before Mr. Mattis winged his way to the Pakistani capital, CIA director Michael Pompeo warned that if Pakistan failed to act decisively against groups like the Taliban and the Haqqani network, the United States would. That would likely involve an expanded drone war against militants in the troubled provinces of Balochistan and Khyber Pakhtunkhwa as well as possible sanctions that go beyond existing cutbacks in aid.
Mr. Mattis visited Islamabad at a moment that ultra-conservatism’s sway was manifesting itself with the emergence of hard-line political parties that look set to do well in elections expected next year.
Hafiz Muhammad Saeed, who was designated a terrorist by the United Nations and the US Justice Department that put a $10 million bounty on his head, announced that his recently formed party, Milli Muslim League (MML), would contest the election.
Running as an independent in September in a Punjabi by-election, MML candidate Yaqoob Sheikh came in fourth. Sheikh Azhar Hussain Rizvi, a candidate for Tehreek Labbaik Pakistan (TPL), a political front for Tehreek Labbaik Ya Rasool Allah (TLR), which glorifies Mumtaz Qadri, who was executed for killing Punjab governor Salman Taseer because of his opposition to Pakistan’s draconic blasphemy law, came in third. Together, the two garnered 11 percent of the vote.
Mr. Saeed, the leader of Jamaat ud-Dawa, widely seen as a front for Lashkar-e-Taibe, one of the largest and most violent groups in South Asia, which he founded, has longstanding ties to Saudi Arabia as well as to Ahl-e-Hadith, an ultra-conservative, Saudi-backed religious group.
Mr. Saeed stands accused of having masterminded the 2008 Mumbai attacks during which 164 people were killed. He was last month released from ten months of house arrest by a Pakistani court. Graffiti on the walls in the corridors of the court building demand that blasphemers be beheaded.
The TPL’s electoral success; its recent, weeks-long blockade of a main artery leading into Islamabad to protest a perceived softening of the government’s adherence to Islam in a proposed piece of legislation that forced the justice minister to resign; and the military’s intervention to resolve the crisis, indicate not only the popular appeal of ultra-conservatism but also the state’s use of it as a political tool.
The TPL is a political expression of the Barelvi strand of Sunni Islam that throughout the decades was long viewed as more moderate than the other dominant strand in Pakistan, the Saudi-supported Deobandis, whose militancy dates to the US-Saudi-backed Islamist insurgency in the 1980s that forced Soviet troops to withdraw from Afghanistan.
Suggestions that the protesters were supported by the military for ideological reasons as well to undermine the ruling Pakistan Muslim League (N) of disgraced former prime minister Nawaz Sharif were reinforced by a video circulating on social media. The origin of the video was unclear.
The director-general of the Punjab Rangers, Major-General Azhar Navid Hayat, is seen in the video passing out envelopes containing 1,000-rupee ($9.50) notes to protesters.
“This is a gift from us to you,” the general tells a bearded man. “Aren’t we with you too?” Patting another protester on the cheek, Major-General Hayat says: “God willing, we’ll get all of them released,” in a seeming reference to arrested protesters. “This is all we had in one bag. There’s some more (money) in the other,” the officer added.
Pakistani Army Chief Gen Qamar Javed Bajwa recently expressed support for religious seminaries or madrassas, many of which are run by militants, but insisted that they expand their curriculum to ensure that graduates become more productive.
With millions attending seminaries General Bajwa asked: “So what will they become: will they become Maulvis (clerics) or they will become terrorists?” He noted that Pakistan could not build enough mosques to employ the huge number of madrassas students.
General Bajwa went on to say that more religious seminaries than mainstream schools had been established in Balochistan in the past four decades. “Only religious education is being imparted to the students at all these seminaries and thus the students are left behind in the race for development,” the general cautioned.
Saudi-funded ultra-conservative Sunni Muslim madrassas operated by anti-Shiite militants dominate Balochistan’s educational landscape, according to Pakistani militants.
“A majority of Baloch schoolchildren go to madrassas. They are in better condition than other schools in Balochistan. Most madrassas are operated by Deobandis and Ahl-i-Hadith,” said the co-founder of a virulently anti-Shiite group that is believed to enjoy Saudi and Pakistani support.
Saudi-backed Maulana Ali Muhammad Abu Turab, a militant Pakistani Islamic scholar of Afghan origin, who was earlier this year named a named a specially designated terrorist by the US Treasury while he was on a fund-raising tour of the Gulf, illustrates the degree to which ultra-conservatism permeates Pakistan and is linked to the state.
Mr. Abu Turab is a leader of Ahl-e-Hadith that operates a string of religious seminaries in Balochistan along the Pakistan-Afghan border, a region heavily controlled by the military. He is also a board member of Pakistan’s Saudi-backed Paigham TV and heads the Saudi-funded Movement for the Protection of the Two Holy Cities (Tehrike Tahafaz Haramain Sharifain), whose secretary general Maulana Fazlur Rehman Khalil too has been designated by the Treasury. Mr. Abu Turab serves on Pakistan’s Council of Islamic Ideology, a government-appointed advisory body of scholars and laymen established to assist in bringing laws in line with the Qur’an and the example of the Prophet Mohammed.
Against this backdrop, a probable US-Pakistani collision at best would lead to temporarily reduced Pakistani support for geopolitically convenient militants. Tackling Pakistan’s far more fundamental problem, resulting from a build-up of ultra-conservatism over decades, would require long-term engagement rather than confrontation – a policy prescription that likely runs counter to the Trump administration’s worldview.
Tehran interim Friday Prayer Leader Ayatolllah Seyyed Ahmad Khatami said the Islamic Republic of Iran is fully determined to upgrade its missile power aimed at “confronting whatever threat posed by Israel”, IRNA reports.
Addressing the worshipers at Tehran University, Ayatollah Khatami said “in a world where wolves rule and there is no logic in their behavior, the Islamic Republic should be armed and powerful”.
The senior cleric said Iran’s military missile might is one of the main components of the country’s policy of deterrence.
“We have missiles, we would continue building more missiles and increase their ranges”, he added.
The senior cleric further said that the most important principle of Iran’s military power is defense through deterrence.
Ayatollah Khatami said Iran would never make atomic bombs, adding that based on a Fatwa issued by Supreme Leader of Islamic Revolution Ayatollah Seyyed Ali Khamenei, Iran remains to believe that it should not develop and possess nuclear weapons.
Palestinian officials have said they will not be meeting with any US officials in the near future, including Vice President Mike Pence.
Pence was scheduled to meet Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas in Bethlehem on Dec. 19, but Jibril Rajoub, a senior Fatah leader, said that meeting would no longer be going ahead.
Rajoub also called on regional Arab leaders to boycott the American official on his upcoming visit to the Middle East.
Ziad Khalil Abu Zayyad, Fatah spokesman for international affairs, told Arab News that the ball is now in the Arab court.
“Arabs need to take a serious and clear position to make sure that Americans understand what their decision regarding Jerusalem really means as far as US interests are concerned,” Abu Zayyad said, adding that all Americans working in the West Bank have been evacuated as demonstrations have spread throughout the Occupied Territories.
Mohammed Shtayyeh, a member of the Fatah Central Committee, told the Bethlehem-based Palestine News Network that the scheduling of Pence’s meeting with Abbas preceded President Donald Trump’s declaration on Jerusalem.
Shtayyeh said that it is highly unlikely that President Abbas will meet with Pence as scheduled, or travel to Washington any time soon.
“After what has transpired in Washington, I don’t see any point in this visit,” Shtayyeh said.
In Jerusalem, Nora Kort, director of the Arab Orthodox Society, told Arab News she was not surprised by Trump’s move.
“He is pouring oil on the fire with his irresponsible adventures and for what purpose? To please his donor (business magnate) Sheldon Adelson and Christian Zionists. What we are seeing is America talking in the name of Israel and not in its own name and interests.”
In Jordan, Parliament Speaker Atef Tarawneh joined thousands of protesters in downtown Amman following Friday prayers at the Husseini Mosque. Dozens of demonstrations took place throughout Jordan.
Kais Khalil Zayadin, secretary at Jordan’s foreign relations parliamentary committee, told Arab News that the committee would deliver “a strongly worded letter” to the US charge d’affaires in Amman, Henry Worster, explaining that “this recognition has disqualified the US from being a neutral partner in peacemaking.”
Zayadin also told Arab News that a number of Jordanian MPs are collecting signatures for a petition to suspend the Jordan-Israel peace treaty.
In Washington, Democratic Congresswoman Betty McCollum from Minnesota wrote on her Facebook page that Trump’s decision to extend recognize Jerusalem as the capital of Israel is “an unnecessary and irresponsible act” designed solely to appease the most extreme ideologues in Israel and the US.
“The president is willfully abdicating the United States’ role as a peacemaker in the Israeli-Palestinian conflict, ending any hope of a two-state solution with East Jerusalem as the capital of a Palestinian state,” she wrote.
Those who are annoyed by the dwindling interest and interaction with Washington’s decision to move its embassy to Jerusalem should understand why and how.
The actions in our region seem to move faster than the Japanese bullet train, 230 km per hour. While former Yemeni President Ali Abdullah Saleh announced his defection from his Houthi ally on Yemeni TV, Ahmed Shafik, the former prime minister of Egypt, announced on Al-Jazeera TV his intention to return to Egypt and stand for election.
Then the Houthi militias killed Ali Abdullah Saleh, and Shafik was sent to Egypt to announce the reversal of his decision. At this moment, the US president shocked the world by declaring his decision to move the American embassy from Tel Aviv to Jerusalem, and signed the document in a ceremony that infuriated millions of Arabs.
All this coincided with Israel’s bombardment of Iranian and Syrian military posts near Damascus; and the American threat against Qassem Soleimani, the Iranian military leader in Iraq. At the same time, Russia announced very calmly that it had defeated Daesh in Syria. Meanwhile, the Gulf region was living through a most dangerous internal crisis, and a Gulf Cooperation Council (GCC) summit was held at the lowest level in the history of the council.
We have been overwhelmed by all these events. It is not surprising that our ability to comprehend suffered a setback and our memory became quite short. It has not been easy for many of us to differentiate between propaganda and truth, and some governments were forced to adopt conflicting positions that perplexed the general public.
The problem becomes even worse if we understand that chaos prevails in the virtual world, which is the link between people and the events around them. The media and propaganda landscape has changed due to two factors: The multiple platforms of the media and the fragmentation of the political axes which have become severely divided.
In the past, there were leaders who spoke loudly in support of the Palestinian cause, such as Abu Nidal (Sabri Khalil Al-Banna), Abu Abbas (Mohammed Zaidan), Saddam Hussein and Hafez Assad. Today they are Hassan Nasrallah in Lebanon, the ayatollah in Tehran, Hamad in Qatar, and the leaders of the Muslim Brotherhood.
The former and latter exploited Palestine and Jerusalem as bargaining chips for their own interests. The Iranians created Hezbollah to pressure Israel and the West to strengthen their position; Saddam tried to bargain for Kuwait and failed, and Assad overused the Palestinian question as an excuse to take control of Lebanon. But there is no single thing which proves that any of these leaders was serious in his claims.
In the context of the intensity of events and diversity of dangers, there may be no Arab country which does not fear for its security and existence. So how could the Palestinian cause preserve its old weapon, based on the strategic assumption that it is everybody’s question, which used to give it weight that balanced Israeli threats?
If we review the causes of the downfall of this strategy, we realize that the biggest enemy of the Palestinian cause after Israel is Iran.
I do not say this because of our dispute with the Iranian regime but because we can see how it transformed the region into countries either under Iranian influence, or countries which are busy defending themselves against Iranian threats and Iranian proxies. And at the same time, Tehran pursues a policy of misinformation through adopting strong anti-Israel propaganda.
The only positive development is that the Arabs who still believe Iranian propaganda have become a minority; although they formed the majority before the war in Syria. Iran is now trying to restore its image using Qatari propaganda and some allied Sunni groups such as the Muslim Brotherhood.
The losers in all these conflicts are the Palestinians who have nothing to do with any of these conflicts. They are the losers because extremist forces such as Iran continue to lead the way in defending their cause, because they are actually trading with it. Every time a new front is opened, it is at the expense of the Palestinian cause because no other party could participate, even in using political pressure, without endangering its own existence in its own conflict.
The Iranian project is bigger than Jerusalem and Palestine. It wants Israel to accept its right to expand and control. And it is ready to make a deal with Israel and the West regarding its role, and this is what it did with the former US president when it sold its nuclear program in exchange for giving it a free hand in the region.
• Abdulrahman Al-Rashed is a veteran columnist. He is the former general manager of Al Arabiya news channel, and former editor in chief of Asharq Al-Awsat, where this article is also published. Twitter: @aalrashed
U.S. airstrikes killed five al-Qaida in the Arabian Peninsula operatives in Yemen’s al-Bayda governorate Nov. 20, in an effort to disrupt the terrorist’s attack networks, according to a U.S. Central Command news release issued Friday.
Mujahid al-Adani, an al-Qaida in the Arabian Peninsula Shabwah leader, was killed in the strikes, along with al-Bayda-based facilitator Abu Layth al-Sanaani and three terrorist network associates, the release said.
Planned, Conducted Terrorist Attacks
Al-Adani, also known as Mohammad Shukri, previously served as an al-Qaida in the Arabian Peninsula military leader in Aden and remained responsible for planning and conducting terrorist attacks against Yemeni and coalition forces. Al-Adani maintained a significant influence within al-Qaida in the Arabian Peninsula as well as close ties to other terrorist network senior leaders, according to the release.
The Shabwah offensive has forced al-Qaida in the Arabian Peninsula to consolidate within the northern and eastern portions of the Abyan and eastern al-Bayda governorates, respectively, the release said.
The removal of key al-Qaida in the Arabian Peninsula leaders and associates in this region, the release said, will further degrade the terrorist network’s freedom of movement and operation, limiting their ability to challenge Yemeni security forces and coalition advances.
