Start-Up Diplomacy

2011, a group of American high-tech executives and angel investors traveled to North Africa as part of an innovative State Department economic development program. Local entrepreneurs flocked to workshops in Tunisia, Morocco, Algeria, where Americans judged their business proposals, encouraged them to open start-ups. Initiative embodied the “economic statecraft” at heart of Secretary Hillary Rodham Clinton’s vision for American foreign policy. But program turned out to be so poorly financed that it had no prize for winners. Embarrassed delegates cobbled one together: an internship at a start-up incubator in Detroit. (source: David Rohde – NYTimes – 08/05/2013)

Today, Middle East is an economic powder keg. About 60% of the Arab world’s population is under the age of 30; millions of jobs are needed or already high unemployment levels will explode. Obama administration’s efforts in the region should be more economic than military. “The United States government has done a terrible job of focusing on economic issues in Middle East,” Thomas R. Nides, a former deputy secretary of state, told recently. “You have huge youth unemployment, no hope.” This argument is hardly new. “To succeed, the Arab political awakening must also be an economic awakening,” Mrs. Clinton said, more than a year ago. “Economic policy is foreign policy,” her successor, John Kerry, said this week. Last month he asked Congress to approve creation of a $580 million “incentive fund” that would reward countries in the Middle East and North Africa for enacting reforms that foster market-based economies, democratic norms, independent courts and civil societies.

But Mrs. Clinton’s proposal for a similar fund received a scant support last year from a Congress that was understandably focused on domestic issues. With the sequester now in effect, Kerry’s request could suffer the same fate. After Iraq and Afghanistan, it’s no longer politically feasible to sponsor vast development initiatives with little regard for whether they create self-sustaining growth for the region. We must find innovative ways to conduct economic statecraft in an age of austerity. The incentive fund, a small fraction of the $1.2 trillion Washington has spent in Iraq and Afghanistan, is a good start. Some countries in the region have had success implementing, on their own, the kinds of reforms the fund would encourage. Over the past decade, Turkey has carried out a harsh International Monetary Fund economic reform program, opened its economy, attracted foreign investment as part of its effort to join European Union. Today, few Turkish business owners care if the country is part of the union. In 2011, Turkey boasted a faster growing economy than any other European nation. And in the West Bank, the economic and security reforms of Salam Fayyad, who recently resigned as prime minister of Palestinian Authority, deserve much praise. Mr. Kerry should also focus aid in areas where viable markets and partners exist. Tareq Maayah, a Palestinian engineer who runs a West Bank high-tech firm, said $100,000 from the United States Agency for International Development helped his firm gain a tryout with Hewlett-Packard. Today, his company writes software for Cisco, Hewlett-Packard and Alcatel-Lucent, with no government assistance.

Ahmed El Alfi, an Egyptian-American Silicon Valley venture capital investor, said American officials could “do a lot more” at little cost. Mr. Alfi, who began a high-tech incubator in Cairo, said Egyptian start-ups clamor for access to American investors. “Have a weekly call for companies from the region doing 10-minute presentations to American companies,” he suggested. Mr. Kerry should emphasize to American companies that investment opportunities exist in the region, particularly in infrastructure, energy and aviation. Chinese firms exported an estimated $150 billion to the Middle East and North Africa in 2011, twice as much as American firms. Of course, some countries in the region are too unstable for American private investment. But in others, public-private initiatives that foster trade, a investment and the job creation with little taxpayer funding could be expanded. The high-tech entrepreneurship delegations started by Mrs. Clinton should be increased and properly funded. Wealthy Persian Gulf countries should be asked to finance a regional bank for small and medium-size enterprises. Perhaps most important, we should stop thinking we can transform societies overnight. Even if United States perfectly executes its policies and programs, they alone will not stabilize countries. We need viable local partners. Nations must transform themselves. Should scale back ambitions and concentrate on long-term economics. By trying to do fewer things over longer periods, we will achieve more. 

Israel Says It Has Proof That Syria Has Used Chemical Weapons

Israel declared Tuesday that it had found evidence that the Syrian government repeatedly used chemical weapons last month, arguing that President Bashar al-Assad was testing how the United States and others would react and that it was time for Washington to overcome its reluctance to intervene in the Syrian civil war. In making the declaration, which went somewhat beyond recent suspicions expressed by Britain and France, Israeli officials argued Assad had repeatedly crossed what President Obama said last summer would be “red line”. But Obama administration officials pushed back, saying they would not leap into conflict on what viewed as inconclusive evidence, even while working with allies on plans to secure weapons if it appeared they were about to be used, handed to Hezbollah. The declaration from Israel’s senior military intelligence analyst was immediately questioned in Washington. Officials said an investigation was necessary, but added American intelligence agencies had yet to uncover convincing evidence that an attack on March 19, and smaller subsequent attacks, used sarin gas, a deadly agent Syria is believed to hold in huge stockpiles. “We are looking for conclusive evidence, if it exists, if there was use of chemical weapons,” Jay Carney, White House press secretary, said when pressed on the Israeli assessment. In a briefing in Tel Aviv, an Israeli military official was vague about the exact nature of the evidence, saying that it was drawn from an examination of photographs of victims and some “direct” findings that he would not specify. Secretary of State John Kerry suggested there were mixed messages emerging from Israel, saying that he spoke to Prime Minister Netanyahu on Tuesday morning and that the Israeli leader “was not in a position to confirm” intelligence assessment. Israeli officials said they would not try to explain apparent difference between Mr. Netanyahu’s statement and that of his top military intelligence officials. At same time, Daniel B. Shapiro, American ambassador to Israel, said that contingency plans to address the use of chemical weapons in Syria were “very much part” of the discussions between Defense Secretary Chuck Hagel and his Israeli counterpart here on Monday. The Israeli intelligence analyst, Brig. Gen. Itai Brun, told participants at a security conference in Tel Aviv Syrian government “has increasingly used chemical weapons.” That echoed accusations that Britain and France made in a letter last week to the secretary general of United Nations, calling for a deeper investigation. “The very fact they have used chemical weapons without any appropriate reaction,” General Brun said, “is a very worrying development, because it might signal that this is legitimate” Gen. Brun’s statements were the most definitive to date by Israeli official regarding evidence of possible chemical weapons attacks on March 19 near Aleppo, Syria, and Damascus, the capital. Another military official, speaking on condition of anonymity, said the evidence had been presented to Obama administration but that it had not fully accepted the analysis. None of the assertions, by Israel, Britain or France, have included physical proof. Experts say most definitive way to prove use of chemical weapons is to collect soil samples promptly at the site and examine suspected victims (…..)

Link: http://www.nytimes.com/2013/04/24/world/middleeast/israel-says-syria-has-used-chemical-weapons.html

La penetración iraní en Sudamérica

El memorándum de entendimiento que nuestro gobierno firmó con Irán y nuestro Parlamento acaba de aprobar no es, para el contexto sudamericano, un caso de acercamiento aislado. Todo lo contrario, en los últimos años un grupo de países de la región afianzó, como parte integral de su inserción en el mundo, sus lazos con la nación del Medio Oriente. Pero hay tres grandes diferencias: nosotros sufrimos un atentado terrorista en carne propia, nuestra política exterior tradicionalmente ha hecho de los derechos humanos y no proliferación banderas fundamentales y la Argentina, como ningún otro país de América latina, ha tenido una política activa y responsable en el largo conflicto que afecta esa región (…..) ¿El acercamiento de la Argentina a Irán es, entonces, igual a la de los demás países de la región? No. En primer lugar, hay que resaltar que el afianzamiento de las relaciones con Irán se da dentro de los simpatizantes del “eje bolivariano” y no entre los países de la Alianza del Pacífico. Estos últimos apuestan a consolidar su institucionalidad y su crecimiento mirando hacia Occidente y Asia. En segundo lugar, hay que tener en cuenta que, incluso dentro del eje bolivariano, la Argentina es tal vez el país que más parece desdeñar equilibrios que ayudan a diversificar la propia inserción internacional. Brasil tiene acuerdos con Irán pero también tiene acuerdos estratégicos, entre ellos militares, con EEUU, Francia, UK que balancean sus intereses. Además, Dilma Roussef cambió el rumbo tomado por su predecesor para priorizar la relación con EEUU. De la misma manera, Ecuador se acercó a EEUU y Bélgica para la reforma de su sistema educativo y utiliza el dólar como moneda. Bolivia emitió el año pasado deuda internacional a menos de 5%: no está aislada de los mercados de capitales. La Argentina, en cambio, está prácticamente sola, sin acuerdos comerciales y políticos excepto Mercosur, acompañada tal vez únicamente por Venezuela, en su marginación respecto buenas prácticas globales. Pero todo esto podría indicar algo mucho más profundo y preocupante. Indicaría que parte de América latina no está necesariamente incómoda por el hecho estrechar relaciones con un país, como el Irán actual, que ha sido duramente censurado en materias de derechos humanos, calidad institucional y no proliferación nuclear por el Consejo de Derechos Humanos, OIEA y Consejo de Seguridad de Naciones Unidas. Probablemente estas circunstancias no signifiquen demasiado en términos de política “realista” para muchos de nuestros vecinos. Para la Argentina debería ser distinto. La Argentina, como motor político de América latina, ha sido actor equidistante y con gravitación en conflicto de Medio Oriente, pionera en los derechos humanos desde su generosa concepción sobre el asilo hasta nuestros días y reconocida por la no proliferación y la autolimitación cuando era el único en la región con dominio de tecnología nuclear. La percepción que estaríamos “abdicando” de principios que fueron marca registrada por diplomacia argentina preocupa por la brecha de confiabilidad que ello implica hacia el exterior y hacia adentro, en particular con los familiares que siguen sufriendo, en carne propia, el atentado de la AMIA. Encarar negociaciones formales con un Irán sospechado de promover terrorismo por nuestra justicia y por otros países, es más riesgoso para Argentina que para sus vecinos porque se da en un área muy sensible, relacionada con la paz y la seguridad, y porque estamos alejados de las iniciativas estratégicas globales, de las grandes corrientes comerciales y financieras. No por nada Barack Obama le pidió a su nuevo canciller John Kerry un informe sobre actividades de Irán en América latina. Si a esto sumamos nuestro distanciamiento de Carta Democrática Interamericana y la Comisión de Derechos humanos de la OEA surge la preocupación de que estemos buscando un proyecto de alineamiento a contramano del mundo, incluso de nuestra sub-región, y que en realidad no sería más que un peligroso callejón, de difícil salida, al cual llegaríamos por ceguera ideológica y torpeza.

Link: http://www.lanacion.com.ar/1558809-la-penetracion-irani-en-sudamerica

Obama Plans Visit to Israel This Spring

President Obama plans to travel to Israel this spring for the first time since taking office, as he and Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu try to move past the friction of last 4 years now that both have won re-election. By making Israel a stop on first overseas trip of his second term, Mr. Obama hopes to demonstrate support for the Jewish state despite doubts among some of its backers. But the trip also seems designed to signal new start in a fraught relationship rather than an ambitious effort to revive a stalled peace process. (source: NYTimes – 06/02/2013)

“The start of the president’s second term and the formation of a new Israeli government offer the opportunity to reaffirm the deep and enduring bonds between the United States and Israel,” Jay Carney, the White House spokesman, said Tuesday, “and to discuss the way forward on a broad range of issues of mutual concern, including, of course, Iran and Syria.” Mr. Carney said Mr. Obama would also travel to Jordan and West Bank. Israeli news media reported that Mr. Obama would arrive on March 20, but the White House would not discuss any dates for the trip. Mr. Netanyahu’s office said a visit by the president would be “an important opportunity to underscore the friendship and strong partnership between Israel and the United States.” The relationship between the two leaders has been edgy for years over issues like Israel’s settlements in the West Bank and ways to stop Iran’s nuclear program. While Obama won a clear victory in November, Mr. Netanyahu emerged from elections last month in a weakened state. His party won enough seats for him to retain office, but he will be forced to recruit centrist lawmakers for a coalition that might temper his policies. He has until March 16 to present his new government. Obama is not expected to unveil concrete proposals for bringing Israelis and Palestinians together during his visit or initiate a specific new peace process. But advisers hope just by showing up and talking about these issues, Mr. Obama will show he is not walking away from them. Dennis Ross, a former Middle East adviser to Mr. Obama, attributed the trip to “a desire to connect with Israeli public at a time when he can go and not have high expectations about having to produce something.” The president “can create a new beginning with same prime minister but with new Israeli government,” Mr. Ross said. Some peace advocates welcomed the trip but said it should go beyond atmospherics.

“The key is, they’ve got to use this as a real substantive jumping off point for a serious diplomatic initiative”, said Jeremy Ben-Ami, the president of J Street, a Washington advocacy group. “This has to be more than a photo op to show that he cares.” A former Israeli defense official said the trip’s announcement might have been timed to send a message to Israelis and even influence composition of the next government amid talk of restarting the peace effort. Former official said a more centrist government would allow the sides more room to maneuver. Also on the agenda this trip will be Iran and the continuing strife in Syria that threatens to descend into a wider regional conflict. Israel last week struck a convoy of antiaircraft weapons inside Syria that it feared was being moved to Hezbollah forces. “The United States can put an end to the Iranian threat,” President Shimon Peres of Israel said in an address to Parliament on Tuesday, “and I believe that the president of the United States is determined to do it”. While Mr. Obama visited Israel in 2008 as a candidate, he did not travel there during his first term, a fact that became fodder on the campaign trail last year. A television commercial from a group called Emergency Committee for Israel said Mr. Obama had “traveled all over Middle East but he hasn’t found time to visit our ally and friend, Israel.” Romney, the Republican presidential nominee, ran his own advertisement criticizing president for not going to Israel. Only 4 sitting presidents have visited Israel: Nixon and Carter each went once, George W. Bush twice, Bill Clinton four times. Bush, considered one of the strongest friends Israel has had in the Oval Office, did not visit until 2008, near the end of his presidency. 

Tepid Vote for Netanyahu in Israel Is Seen as Rebuke

A weakened Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu emerged Wednesday from Israel’s national election likely to serve a third term, after voters on Tuesday gave surprising second place to new centrist party founded by television celebrity who emphasized kitchen-table issues like a class size and apartment prices. For Mr. Netanyahu, who entered the race an overwhelming favorite with no obvious challenger, the outcome was a humbling rebuke as his ticket lost seats in the new Parliament. Over all, his conservative team came in first, but it was the center, led by the political novice Yair Lapid, 49, that emerged newly invigorated, suggesting at the very least Israel’s rightward tilt may be stalled. Lapid, a telegenic celebrity whose father made a splash with his own short-lived centrist party a decade ago, ran a campaign that resonated with middle class. His signature issue is a call to integrate the ultra-Orthodox into army and work force. Perhaps as important, he also avoided antagonizing right, having not emphasized traditional issues of the left, like the peace process. Like a large majority of Israeli public, he supports a two-state solution to the Israeli-Palestinian conflict, but is skeptical of the Palestinian leadership’s willingness to negotiate seriously; he has called for return to peace talks but has not made it a priority. Sensing his message of strength was not penetrating, Mr. Netanyahu posted a panicky message on Facebook before polls closed, saying, “The Likud government is in danger, go vote for us for sake of the country’s future.” Tuesday ended with Mr. Netanyahu reaching out again, this time to Mr. Lapid, Israel’s newest kingmaker, offering to work with him as part of the “broadest coalition possible.” Israel’s political hierarchy is only partly determined during an election. Next stage, when the factions try to build a majority coalition, decides who will govern, how they will govern and for how long. While Mr. Lapid has signaled a willingness to work with Mr. Netanyahu, the ultimate coalition may bring together parties with such different ideologies and agendas that result is paralysis. Still, for the center, it was a time of celebration. “The citizens of Israel today said no to politics of fear and hatred,” Mr. Lapid told upscale crowd of supporters who had welcomed him with drums, dancing, popping Champagne corks. “They said no to possibility that we might splinter off into sectors, groups and tribes, narrow interest groups. They said no to extremists, and they said no to antidemocratic behavior.” With 99% of ballots counted by Wednesday morning, the traditional blocs were evenly divided, with 60 Parliament seats for right-wing and religious parties, and 60 for center, left and Arab-dominated factions (…..)

Link: http://www.nytimes.com/2013/01/23/world/middleeast/israel-votes-in-election-likely-to-retain-netanyahu.html

Can China and Turkey Forge a New Silk Road?

In a dark room in Istanbul’s Topkap Palace Museum, 4 terracotta warriors stare at visitors. Part of “Treasures of China” exhibit, they’re accompanied by jade carvings, pottery and other artwork on loan from Forbidden City and other Chinese museums. On the wall, a large map depicts the historic Asian trading routes known as Silk Road. “The ancient Silk Road,” notes the introduction on another wall, was “a golden bridge across Asia and Europe” for more than 1,000 years, with “China as the starting point and Turkey as the terminal”. The exhibit is part of Turkey’s 2012 cultural year of China in Turkey, but there’s more to this exchange than nostalgia and cultural bonhomie. It’s part of a broader project: the rejuvenation of a new geostrategic Sino-Turkish relationship harkening back to the age of a Silk Road network. New Silk Road has potential for shaping Eurasia’s future, yet is more a gleam in the eye than a vision fulfilled. Turkey’s NATO ties and entanglement with the ethnic brethren Uyghurs in the China’s Xinjiang province could also pose complications. Relations between China and Turkey, NATO’s easternmost member, began to improve in 1971, when Turkey recognized People’s Republic of China, yet only recently, with China’s economic rise and Turkey’s growing regional clout has the relationship taken on global significance. In 2010, then Chinese Premier Wen Jiabao made a landmark visit to Ankara during which two sides agreed to strategic cooperative relations. First imperative for cooperation is commercial. Wen and Turkish Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdoğan aimed to boost bilateral trade to $100 billion by 2020. Xi Jinping, then heir-apparent and now paramount leader of China, reaffirmed the commitment when visiting Turkey in 2012. Much of this new traffic could travel the overland paths that overlap with the old Silk Roads, though this time with trains, not camels. Though each enjoys access to maritime trade routes, China and Turkey both have vast inland territories which could benefit from overland trade. In interview with Turkish newspaper Today’s Zaman, Turkish Customs and Trade Minister Hayati Yazıcı painted glowing picture of how new transport infrastructure and energy corridors could spur trade flows across the Silk Road, bringing prosperity to all. Overland trade, especially if Turkish attempts to convince other Silk Road countries Afghanistan, Azerbaijan, Georgia, India, Iraq, Iran, Kazakhstan, Kyrgyzstan, Mongolia, Pakistan, Russia Federation, Syria, Tajikistan, Turkmenistan and Uzbekistan to simplify customs, border crossings prove successful, could reduce Turkey’s trade deficit with China + serve Beijing’s goal of developing growth in landlocked Chinese territories, as Xinjiang, where Beijing is encouraging Turkish businesses to provide textiles, food processing, among other goods. Chinese investment in Turkey is rising. A state-owned Chinese enterprise, China Civil Engineering Construction Corporation, is building a high-speed railway linking Ankara and Istanbul. Discussions on the construction of another railway connecting eastern and western Turkey are underway. If approved, the project would cost $35 billion, with Beijing providing $30 billion in loans. This is not altruism. With plans to connect China and Turkey by rail underway, a line running across Turkey could give China swift connections all the way to London. New Silk Road would be grandest stretch of a global trade highway (…..)

Link: http://yaleglobal.yale.edu/content/can-china-and-turkey-forge-new-silk-road

Internal Forces Besiege Pakistan Ahead of Voting

Barely a year after fears of a possible military coup plunged Pakistani politics into chaos, the country is in crisis again, this time besieged on multiple fronts by forces that threaten civilian government just a few months ahead of elections. Enigmatic preacher is camped before gates of Parliament with thousands of followers, demanding the government’s immediate ouster. Top court on Tuesday suddenly ordered the arrest of prime minister. Violence is surging, militants stepping up deadly attacks against both government forces and religious minorities. Relations with India have dipped, after ill-tempered border skirmishes in soldiers on both sides were killed. As it is all unfolding, the country’s powerful military command, long at odds with the government of President Asif Ali Zardari, is in sphinx mode. Army chief, Gen. Ashfaq Parvez Kayani, and his commanders have maintained a cool distance from unfolding political chaos, their silence stoking speculation about whether the military’s days of political intervention are really, as it claims, over. “It’s the silence of the legions is unnerving,” said Ayaz Amir, an opposition member of Parliament. More than anything else, there is a sense that gears are again shifting in Pakistan, in a direction few dare to predict, bad news for Zardari’s government, of course, but also potentially for American interests, which see stability in Pakistan as crucial to smooth withdrawal in Afghanistan next year, as well as guarantor of the security of the country’s nuclear arsenal. “There’s a sense that things are snowballing, hard to predict in any way,” said Cyril Almeida, senior writer at Dawn newspaper. Chief catalyst of this jolting change comes in the form of 61-year-old preacher, Muhammad Tahir-ul Qadri, who catapulted himself into political limelight less than a month ago, now finds himself issuing ultimatums to Mr. Zardari from inside a bulletproof container within view of soaring presidential residence. A giant rally in Lahore last month signaled the start of Qadri’s assault on Pakistan’s political classes, which he derides as incompetent and irredeemably corrupt, a resonant message in a country of high unemployment and crippling electricity shortages. He drove home his message with an intensive television advertising campaign, paid for with generous amounts of money, origins of which he has not fully explained (…..)

Link: http://www.nytimes.com/2013/01/16/world/asia/pakistan-high-court-orders-arrest-of-prime-minister.html

Obama Accelerates Transition of Security to Afghans

Obama, eager to turn the page after more than a decade of war, said Friday that beginning this spring American forces would play supporting role in Afghanistan, which opens way for a more rapid withdrawal of the troops. Though Mr. Obama said he had not yet decided on the specific troop levels for the rest of the year, he said United States would accelerate the transition of security responsibilities to Afghans, which had been set to occur at middle of the year, because of gains by the Afghan forces. Mr. Obama also made it clear that he planned to leave relatively few troops in Afghanistan after the NATO combat mission ends in 2014, those forces would be narrowly focused on advising and training Afghan troops and hunting down the remnants of Al Qaeda. “That is a very limited mission, and it is not one that would require same kind of footprint, obviously, that we’ve had over last 10 years in Afghanistan,” Mr. Obama said after a meeting with the Afghan president, Hamid Karzai, at the White House. It was the first face-to-face encounter of the two leaders since May, and it underscored the quickening pace at which United States is winding down its involvement in Afghanistan. War in Afghanistan was discussed in only general terms during the election campaign, but a series of decisions on troop levels and other issues is to be settled in the coming weeks and months. Karzai raised no public objections to troop cuts, saying he had obtained two important concessions from United States: the transfer of prisons housing terrorism suspects to Afghan control, and the pullout of the American troops from Afghan villages this spring. Brushing aside questions about residual American troop levels, Karzai said: “Numbers are not going to make a difference to the situation in Afghanistan. It’s the broader relationship will make a difference to Afghanistan and beyond in the region.” Mr. Karzai also said he would push to grant legal immunity to American troops left behind in Afghanistan, a guarantee United States failed to obtain from Iraq, leading Mr. Obama to withdraw all but a vestigial force from that country at the end of 2011. Mr. Obama’s signaling of deeper troop cuts to come appeared to run counter to the approach favored by Gen. John R. Allen, the senior American commander in Afghanistan. 2 American officials said in November that General Allen wanted to retain a significant military capacity through fighting season that ends this fall. Other military experts raised concerns that United States might forfeit some of its hard-won gains if it moved to shrink its forces in Afghanistan too quickly. James M. Dubik, a retired Army lieutenant general who led effort to train the Iraqi Army and is a senior fellow at Institute for the Study of War, a nongovernmental research group, said accelerating the effort to put Afghan forces in the lead, and the cuts in the Americans troops are expected to follow, posed risks. “There will be insufficient combat power to finish the counteroffensive against the Haqqani network in the east,” he said, referring to the militant group that operates in Afghanistan and Pakistan (…..)

Link: http://www.nytimes.com/2013/01/12/world/asia/us-can-speed-afghan-exit-obama-says.html

Shimon Peres on Obama, Iran and the Path to Peace

“This part of the conversation is highly sensitive,” said spokeswoman for Israel’s president. “I want all cellphones taken out of the room.” It was July 25, 2012, and I was interviewing Shimon Peres in a wood-paneled suite at the King David Hotel in Jerusalem. I handed my phone to one of the guards standing at the door, Peres swiftly opened a scathing monologue against a potential Israeli attack on Iran’s nuclear sites. “Israel cannot solve problem alone”. “There is a limit to what we can do.” Referring to continuing tension between Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and President Barack Obama, Peres said: “I cannot tell you what Bibi’s considerations are on subject of Iran. I am not his spokesman and also not [Defense Minister Ehud] Barak’s. That’s not my job. I am not looking for confrontations with them. I do think that I can explain American pattern. America knows how to throw a punch when it has to, in order to keep world balanced. But the punches follow a set procedure. Don’t begin by shooting. They try all the other means first, economic sanctions, political pressure, negotiations, everything possible. “But in the end,” he added, “if none of this works, then President Obama will use military power against Iran. I am sure of it.” I was surprised by Shimon Peres’s stridency. He had long been perceived as moderating force on Netanyahu, a mediator between the prime minister and international community that was losing patience with him. A month earlier, President Barack Obama awarded Peres Presidential Medal of Freedom, America’s highest civilian honor. But the ceremony served only to deepen the rift between Peres and Netanyahu, and three weeks later, as the reports became more frequent that Netanyahu was planning to send bombers to Iran, Shimon Peres took advantage of his 89th-birthday celebrations to speak out publicly against an attack. Prime minister’s office responded with ferocity, proclaiming, “Peres has forgotten what president’s job is,” recalling that in 1981, Peres opposed Prime Minister Menachem Begin’s decision to bomb Iraq’s nuclear reactor, an act many Israelis consider a great achievement. There are those who see Peres’s confrontation with Netanyahu as one of the principal reasons an attack on Iran has not yet materialized. “I will not attribute any such thing to myself”. “Let others say it. I expressed my opinion, and that was my duty. How influential was it? ‘Let another man praise thee, and not thine own mouth,’ ” said, quoting Book of Proverbs. Peres’s clash with Netanyahu over Iran is only one of many disagreements between the two men. On one hand, Netanyahu is a conservative prime minister who relies on hard-line, hawkish coalition and who is likely to win next week’s Israeli elections by a landslide. On the other, Peres is Israel’s elder statesman, who, very late in his life, has attained a degree of popularity that eluded him throughout his earlier career. In survey conducted by Israel Democracy Institute, 84 percent of Jewish respondents said Peres was trustworthy, while 62 percent thought Netanyahu was (…..)

Link: http://www.nytimes.com/2013/01/13/magazine/shimon-peres-on-obama-iran-and-the-path-to-peace.html

Iran should be key topic at hearings

It is to be hoped the forthcoming Senate Foreign Relations Committee+Armed Services Committee hearings regarding the president’s nominations for the secretary of state and the secretary of defense produce a wide-ranging debate regarding the country’s role in today’s unsettled world. The hearings almost certainly will provoke searching questions regarding strategic wisdom of potential U.S. military action against Iran. Recent Israeli media reports have cited former member of President Obama’s National Security Council staff predicting U.S. attack by about mid-year. It is essential that the issue of war or peace with Iran be fully vented, especially with U.S. national interest in mind. Although the president has skillfully avoided a specific commitment to military action by a certain date, absence of a negotiated agreement with Iran regarding its compliance with Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty will inevitably intensify some foreign and extremist domestic clamor for a U.S. military action, alone or in coordination with Israel. Accordingly, 5 potential implications for United States of an additional and self-generated war deserve close scrutiny: How effective are the U.S. military strikes against Iranian nuclear facilities likely to be, with consequences of what endurance and at what human cost to Iranian people?; What might be Iran’s retaliatory responses against the U.S. interests, and with what consequences for regional stability? How damaging could resulting instability be to European and Asian economies?; Could a U.S. attack be justified as in keeping with international standards, would U.N. Security Council, particularly China and Russia, given their veto power, be likely to endorse it?; Since Israel is considered to have more than 100 nuclear weapons, how credible is the argument that Iran might attack Israel without first itself acquiring a significant nuclear arsenal, including a survivable second-strike capability, a prospect that is at least some years away?; Could some alternative U.S. strategic commitment provide more enduring and less reckless arrangement for neutralizing potential Iranian nuclear threat than a unilateral initiation of war in a combustible regional setting? The best available estimates suggest a limited U.S. strike would have only a temporary effect. Repetitive attacks would be more effective, but the civilian fatalities would rise accordingly, and there would be ghastly risks of released radiation. Iranian nationalism would be galvanized into prolonged hatred of United States, to political benefit of ruling regime. Iran, in retaliating, could make life more difficult for the U.S. forces in western Afghanistan by activating a new guerrilla front. Tehran could also precipitate explosive violence in Iraq, which in turn could set entire region on fire, with conflicts spreading through Syria to Lebanon and even Jordan. Although the U.S. Navy should be able to keep the Strait of Hormuz open, escalating insurance costs for the flow of oil would adversely affect the economies of Europe and Asia. The United States would be widely blamed (…..)

Link: http://www.washingtonpost.com/opinions/zbigniew-brzezinski-iran-should-be-key-topic-at-senate-hearings/2013/01/03/5dbc3324-5519-11e2-8b9e-dd8773594efc_story.html