Why an Islamic Government in Egypt Might Not Be So Terrible - New America Media
The current unrest in Egypt is once again raising the specter of a potential “Islamic republic” as the fortunes of the nearly century-old Muslim Brotherhood and its role in a possible post-Mubarak state there are weighed in the minds of Egyptians and non-Egyptians alike. This prospect is met with a great deal of consternation and hand-wringing in the United States and Europe. However, the idea of an Islamic republic in the minds of Western observers is far worse than the reality.
The symbolic value of “Islamic governance” is of critical importance for Muslims, since as a matter of faith, Islam is supposed to be the governing principle for all of human life. However, theologically speaking, even if a nation labels itself as an Islamic republic, all government structures would not necessarily be determined by Islamic Shari'a (sacred law). Moreover, even those aspects of governance that appear to be directly determined by Shari'a principles are subject to interpretation by religious officials, many of whom disagree on their application.
Beyond this, Islamic government incorporates a broad set of ethical principles that few in the West would disagree with, namely that public resources should be used for the good of all, that honesty should be a hallmark of public life, and that the poor, sick and disadvantaged should be provided for.
Most Americans look at the term “Islamic republic” and immediately think of Iran, with clerical rule, mandatory head covering for women, and prohibitions on various forms of public and private behavior. However, the Iranian government is in some ways an anomaly in the Muslim world because it is very specifically based on a bedrock principle of the Velayat-e Faqih, or “rule of the chief jurisprudent,” which mandates a hierarchy of clerical decision-making with the chief cleric being the last word on all decisions. The Iranian state structure is a miracle of complexity with interlocking leadership positions, staggered election terms, and baroque combinations of direct and indirect election of leadership posts.
In other countries where Shari’a principles are included in the law, this doctrine is anathema, though clerical authority is nonetheless imperative. Thus, it is highly unlikely that any emerging Islamic state would mandate total clerical jurisprudence as in Iran.
Of course, Islam does have a specific set of laws that pious Muslims want to see an Islamic state preserve and protect. These include family law (including custody of children), inheritance law, laws against charging interest, laws governing certain aspects of personal behavior (such as personal dress), and specific punishments for certain crimes. These are frequently the battleground areas for those who want to protect the Islamic nature of the state, and those who want to approximate the secular laws of Europe and North America.
However, most people who object to Shari'a law have no idea how it is applied in the Islamic world. The laws are modified differently from country to country depending on who is making the religious determination and how strongly they are imbedded in the constitution and other legal documents of the state. For example, in some Muslim countries, the law that allows a man to have four wives is modified by the equally important religious demand that he prove that he will be able to treat all of his wives equally. In some Muslim countries, devices such as requiring written permission from the earlier wives before a second, third or fourth marriage can take place keep this practice in check, while still preserving the Islamic law.
Naturally, many in the United States and Israel are afraid that an Islamic government in Egypt would spell renewed hostilities with Israel. This depends entirely on the ability of moderate Muslims, of which there are millions in Egypt, to exert political control over the small minority of rabid extremists in the state. It is thus a political, not a religious question. The benefits of peace with Israel have been very great, and a sensible Muslim citizenry realizes that this is not something to renege on lightly.
It is also important to understand that under religious law, an Islamic government must be in place in order to protect religious minorities. Jews and Christians are all "people of the book," whose religious practices must be respected under Islamic law. This protection has been logically extended to Zoroastrians, Hindus, Buddhists, Jains, Sikhs, and Taoists in South and East Asia in de facto observance. For example, in Iran, Jews, Christians and Zoroastrians are allowed to manufacture, sell and consume alcoholic beverages, even though alcohol is prohibited for Muslims.
It is somewhat odd that Western commentators find it difficult to accept the desire to preserve a small number of characteristic religious structures in the laws of the state, when many of their countries already do so. Israeli law accommodates Orthodox Jewish religious practice. European nations until recently had prohibitions against divorce and abortion to uphold Catholic Canon Law. The opposition to same-sex marriage on religious grounds is a reality in American politics today, having resulted in legal prohibition in the laws of the majority of states. In fact, many religious-minded people in the United States would find such laws welcome, and regularly lobby for them.
There should be no interference to impose some imagined set of secular Western values on Egypt, given the serious problems that legislators would have to face. The United States in particular would do well not to obsess over the potential Islamic nature of the Egyptian state.
William O. Beeman is professor and chair of the department of anthropology at the University of Minnesota. He has lived and worked in the Middle East for more than 30 years. His most recent book is “The ‘Great Satan’ vs. the ‘Mad Mullahs’: How the United States and Iran Demonize Each Other” (Chicago).
Showing posts with label United States. Show all posts
Showing posts with label United States. Show all posts
Tuesday, February 01, 2011
Wednesday, August 20, 2008
Gareth Porter--Bush Covered up Musharraf Ties with Al-Qaeda, Khan (Anti-war.com)
August 20, 2008
Bush Covered Up Musharraf Ties With al-Qaeda, Khan
by Gareth Porter
Commentary by William O. Beeman:
The United States Government and President Pervez Musharraf appear to have had a common interest in no doing anyting to curtail Al-Qaeda or finding Osama bin Laden. For President Bush, the continued presence of bin Laden assured that the "Global War on Terror" for which the Pentagon has been issuing war medals for the last years, would continue unabated, justifying every form of destruction of human rights and American civil liberties. For Musharraf, the fact that bin Laden was never found allowed him to milk the United States for billions of dollars of military and civilian aid, something that continues to the present day. Gareth Porter now shows us that the Bush administration was completely aware of Musharraf's ties to the Taliban and al-Qaeda and just didn't bother to tell Congress or the American public. What is astonishing is that the Bush administration seems to have made no plans for Musharraf's departure. Two warring political factions are left to wrangle over power in Islamabad, while the fate of Pakistan's nuclear bombs remains uncertain. This is about the worst political muddle perpetrated by the Bush administration since the illegal invasion of Iraq.
Pakistani President Pervez Musharraf's resignation Monday brings to an end an extraordinarily close relationship between Musharraf and the George W. Bush administration, in which Musharraf was lavished with political and economic benefits from the United States despite policies that were in sharp conflict with U.S. security interests.
It is well known that Bush repeatedly praised Musharraf as the most loyal ally of the United States against terrorism, even though the Pakistani military was deeply compromised by its relationship with the Taliban and Pakistani Islamic militants.
What has not been reported is that the Bush administration covered up the Musharraf regime's involvement in the activities of the A.Q. Khan nuclear technology export program and its deals with al-Qaeda's Pakistani tribal allies.
The problem faced by the Bush administration when it came into office was that the Pakistani military, over which Musharraf presided, was the real terrorist nexus with the Taliban and al-Qaeda. As Bruce Riedel, National Security Council (NSC) senior director for South Asia in the Bill Clinton administration, who stayed on the NSC staff under the Bush administration, observed in an interview with this writer last September, al-Qaeda "was a creation of the jihadist culture of the Pakistani army."
If there was a state sponsor of al-Qaeda, Riedel said, it was the Pakistani military, acting through its Inter-Services Intelligence (ISI) directorate.
Vice President Dick Cheney and the neoconservative-dominated Bush Pentagon were aware of the intimate relationship between Musharraf's regime and both the Taliban and al-Qaeda. But al-Qaeda was not a high priority for the Bush administration.
After 9/11, the White House created the political myth that Musharraf, faced with a clear choice, had "joined the free world in fighting the terrorists." But as Asia expert Selig S. Harrison has pointed out, on Sept. 19, 2001, just six days after he had supposedly agreed to U.S. demands for cooperation against the Taliban regime and al-Qaeda, Musharraf gave a televised speech in Urdu in which he declared, "We are trying our best to come out of this critical situation without any damage to Afghanistan and the Taliban."
In his memoirs, published in 2006, Musharraf revealed the seven specific demands he had been given and claimed that he had refused both "blanket overflight and landing rights" and the use of Pakistan's naval ports and air bases to conduct anti-terrorism operations.
Musharraf also famously wrote that, immediately after 9/11, Undersecretary of State Richard Armitage had threatened to bomb Pakistan "back to the stone age" if Musharraf didn't side with the United States against bin Laden and his Afghan hosts. But Armitage categorically denied to this writer, through his assistant, Kara Bue, that he had made any threat whatsoever, let alone a threat to retaliate militarily against Pakistan.
For the next few years, Musharraf played a complicated game. The CIA was allowed to operate in Pakistan's border provinces to pursue al-Qaeda operatives, but only as long as they had ISI units accompanying them. That restricted their ability to gather intelligence in the northwest frontier. At the same time, ISI was allowing Taliban and al-Qaeda leaders to operate freely in the tribal areas and even in Karachi.
The Bush administration also gave Musharraf and the military regime a free ride on the A.Q. Khan network's selling of nuclear technology to Libya and Iran, even though there was plenty of evidence that the generals had been fully aware of and supported Khan's activities.
Journalists Douglas Frantz and Catherine Collins wrote in their book The Nuclear Jihadist that one retired general who had worked with Khan told them there was no question that Khan had acted with the full knowledge of the military leadership. "Of course the military knew," the general said. "They helped him."
But the Bush administration chose to help Musharraf cover up that inconvenient fact. According to CIA Director George Tenet's memoirs, in September 2003, he confronted Musharraf with the evidence the CIA had gathered on Khan's operation and made it clear he was expected to end its operations and arrest Khan.
The following January and early February, Khan's house arrest, public confession of guilt and pardon by Musharraf was accompanied by an extraordinary series of statements by high-ranking Bush administration officials exonerating Musharraf and the military of any involvement in Khan's activities.
That whole scenario had been "carefully orchestrated with Musharraf," Larry Wilkerson, then a State Department official but later Colin Powell's chief of staff, told IPS in an interview last year. The deal that had been made did not require Musharraf to allow U.S. officials to interrogate Khan.
But the Bush administration apparently conveyed to the Pakistani military after that episode that it now expected the Musharraf regime to deliver high-ranking al-Qaeda officials – and to do so at a particularly advantageous moment for the administration. The New Republic magazine reported July 15, 2004, that a White House aide had told the visiting head of ISI, Ehsan ul-Haq, that "it would be best if the arrest or killing of any HVT [high value target] were announced on 26, 27, or 28 July." Those were the last three days of the Democratic National Convention.
The military source added, "If we don't find these guys by the election, they are going to stick the whole nuclear mess up our a**hole."
Just hours before Democratic candidate John Kerry's acceptance speech, Pakistan announced the capture of an alleged al-Qaeda leader.
Meanwhile, Musharraf was making a political pact with a five-party Islamic alliance in 2004 to ensure victory in state elections in the two border provinces where Islamic extremist influence was strongest. This explicit political accommodation, followed by a military withdrawal from South Waziristan, gave the pro-Taliban forces allied with al-Qaeda in the region a free hand to recruit and train militants for war in Afghanistan.
Yet another deal with the Islamic extremists in 2006 strengthened the pro-Taliban forces even further.
But Bush chose to reward Musharraf by designating Pakistan a "Major Non-NATO Ally" in 2004 and by agreeing to sell the Pakistani Air Force 36 advanced F-16 fighter planes. Prior to that, Pakistan had been denied U.S. military technology for a decade.
In July 2007, a National Intelligence Estimate concluded that al-Qaeda's new "safe haven" was in Pakistan's tribal areas and that the terrorist organization had reconstituted its "homeland attack capability" there. That estimate ended the fiction that the Musharraf regime was firmly committed to combating al-Qaeda in Pakistan.
Had the Bush administration accurately portrayed Musharraf's policies rather than hiding them, it would not have avoided the al-Qaeda safe haven there. But it would have facilitated a more realistic debate about the real options available for U.S. policy.
(Inter Press Service)
Bush Covered Up Musharraf Ties With al-Qaeda, Khan
by Gareth Porter
Commentary by William O. Beeman:
The United States Government and President Pervez Musharraf appear to have had a common interest in no doing anyting to curtail Al-Qaeda or finding Osama bin Laden. For President Bush, the continued presence of bin Laden assured that the "Global War on Terror" for which the Pentagon has been issuing war medals for the last years, would continue unabated, justifying every form of destruction of human rights and American civil liberties. For Musharraf, the fact that bin Laden was never found allowed him to milk the United States for billions of dollars of military and civilian aid, something that continues to the present day. Gareth Porter now shows us that the Bush administration was completely aware of Musharraf's ties to the Taliban and al-Qaeda and just didn't bother to tell Congress or the American public. What is astonishing is that the Bush administration seems to have made no plans for Musharraf's departure. Two warring political factions are left to wrangle over power in Islamabad, while the fate of Pakistan's nuclear bombs remains uncertain. This is about the worst political muddle perpetrated by the Bush administration since the illegal invasion of Iraq.
Pakistani President Pervez Musharraf's resignation Monday brings to an end an extraordinarily close relationship between Musharraf and the George W. Bush administration, in which Musharraf was lavished with political and economic benefits from the United States despite policies that were in sharp conflict with U.S. security interests.
It is well known that Bush repeatedly praised Musharraf as the most loyal ally of the United States against terrorism, even though the Pakistani military was deeply compromised by its relationship with the Taliban and Pakistani Islamic militants.
What has not been reported is that the Bush administration covered up the Musharraf regime's involvement in the activities of the A.Q. Khan nuclear technology export program and its deals with al-Qaeda's Pakistani tribal allies.
The problem faced by the Bush administration when it came into office was that the Pakistani military, over which Musharraf presided, was the real terrorist nexus with the Taliban and al-Qaeda. As Bruce Riedel, National Security Council (NSC) senior director for South Asia in the Bill Clinton administration, who stayed on the NSC staff under the Bush administration, observed in an interview with this writer last September, al-Qaeda "was a creation of the jihadist culture of the Pakistani army."
If there was a state sponsor of al-Qaeda, Riedel said, it was the Pakistani military, acting through its Inter-Services Intelligence (ISI) directorate.
Vice President Dick Cheney and the neoconservative-dominated Bush Pentagon were aware of the intimate relationship between Musharraf's regime and both the Taliban and al-Qaeda. But al-Qaeda was not a high priority for the Bush administration.
After 9/11, the White House created the political myth that Musharraf, faced with a clear choice, had "joined the free world in fighting the terrorists." But as Asia expert Selig S. Harrison has pointed out, on Sept. 19, 2001, just six days after he had supposedly agreed to U.S. demands for cooperation against the Taliban regime and al-Qaeda, Musharraf gave a televised speech in Urdu in which he declared, "We are trying our best to come out of this critical situation without any damage to Afghanistan and the Taliban."
In his memoirs, published in 2006, Musharraf revealed the seven specific demands he had been given and claimed that he had refused both "blanket overflight and landing rights" and the use of Pakistan's naval ports and air bases to conduct anti-terrorism operations.
Musharraf also famously wrote that, immediately after 9/11, Undersecretary of State Richard Armitage had threatened to bomb Pakistan "back to the stone age" if Musharraf didn't side with the United States against bin Laden and his Afghan hosts. But Armitage categorically denied to this writer, through his assistant, Kara Bue, that he had made any threat whatsoever, let alone a threat to retaliate militarily against Pakistan.
For the next few years, Musharraf played a complicated game. The CIA was allowed to operate in Pakistan's border provinces to pursue al-Qaeda operatives, but only as long as they had ISI units accompanying them. That restricted their ability to gather intelligence in the northwest frontier. At the same time, ISI was allowing Taliban and al-Qaeda leaders to operate freely in the tribal areas and even in Karachi.
The Bush administration also gave Musharraf and the military regime a free ride on the A.Q. Khan network's selling of nuclear technology to Libya and Iran, even though there was plenty of evidence that the generals had been fully aware of and supported Khan's activities.
Journalists Douglas Frantz and Catherine Collins wrote in their book The Nuclear Jihadist that one retired general who had worked with Khan told them there was no question that Khan had acted with the full knowledge of the military leadership. "Of course the military knew," the general said. "They helped him."
But the Bush administration chose to help Musharraf cover up that inconvenient fact. According to CIA Director George Tenet's memoirs, in September 2003, he confronted Musharraf with the evidence the CIA had gathered on Khan's operation and made it clear he was expected to end its operations and arrest Khan.
The following January and early February, Khan's house arrest, public confession of guilt and pardon by Musharraf was accompanied by an extraordinary series of statements by high-ranking Bush administration officials exonerating Musharraf and the military of any involvement in Khan's activities.
That whole scenario had been "carefully orchestrated with Musharraf," Larry Wilkerson, then a State Department official but later Colin Powell's chief of staff, told IPS in an interview last year. The deal that had been made did not require Musharraf to allow U.S. officials to interrogate Khan.
But the Bush administration apparently conveyed to the Pakistani military after that episode that it now expected the Musharraf regime to deliver high-ranking al-Qaeda officials – and to do so at a particularly advantageous moment for the administration. The New Republic magazine reported July 15, 2004, that a White House aide had told the visiting head of ISI, Ehsan ul-Haq, that "it would be best if the arrest or killing of any HVT [high value target] were announced on 26, 27, or 28 July." Those were the last three days of the Democratic National Convention.
The military source added, "If we don't find these guys by the election, they are going to stick the whole nuclear mess up our a**hole."
Just hours before Democratic candidate John Kerry's acceptance speech, Pakistan announced the capture of an alleged al-Qaeda leader.
Meanwhile, Musharraf was making a political pact with a five-party Islamic alliance in 2004 to ensure victory in state elections in the two border provinces where Islamic extremist influence was strongest. This explicit political accommodation, followed by a military withdrawal from South Waziristan, gave the pro-Taliban forces allied with al-Qaeda in the region a free hand to recruit and train militants for war in Afghanistan.
Yet another deal with the Islamic extremists in 2006 strengthened the pro-Taliban forces even further.
But Bush chose to reward Musharraf by designating Pakistan a "Major Non-NATO Ally" in 2004 and by agreeing to sell the Pakistani Air Force 36 advanced F-16 fighter planes. Prior to that, Pakistan had been denied U.S. military technology for a decade.
In July 2007, a National Intelligence Estimate concluded that al-Qaeda's new "safe haven" was in Pakistan's tribal areas and that the terrorist organization had reconstituted its "homeland attack capability" there. That estimate ended the fiction that the Musharraf regime was firmly committed to combating al-Qaeda in Pakistan.
Had the Bush administration accurately portrayed Musharraf's policies rather than hiding them, it would not have avoided the al-Qaeda safe haven there. But it would have facilitated a more realistic debate about the real options available for U.S. policy.
(Inter Press Service)
Friday, August 15, 2008
Petropolitics at heart of Russia-Georgia clash | csmonitor.com
Petropolitics at heart of Russia-Georgia clash | csmonitor.com
Commentary by William O. Beeman:
The clash between Russia and Georgia is not the simple black-and-white conflict over "democracy" and "sovereignty" portrayed by the Bush administration. The United States is just as complicit in this conflict as any of the other parties. The U.S. is trying to establish outposts in the Caucasus that will allow American (and Israeli) interests to be promulgated in the entire region. Seventy percent of the national budget of Georgia is spent on defense, despite widespread poverty in that nation. President Saakashvili is an American trained lawyer (Columbia and George Washington) who just happened to give up his law firm job in the U.S. to lead a Revolution in Georgia that allowed the U.S. and Israel free access to the state, and the U.S. and British Petroleum to run a pipeline through the country that would bypass both Iranian and Russian supply lines to the world.
Petropolitics at heart of Russia-Georgia clash
Oil-pipeline routes, market leverage make struggle a 'battle for energy.'
By David R. Francis
from the August 18, 2008 edition
In both geopolitical and economic terms, the United States appears a loser in the Russia-Georgia conflict.
If the pipeline crossing Georgia, bringing approximately a million barrels of Caspian oil a day to the West, remains shut down for much longer, it could result in higher oil prices.
"We could see $4 a gallon gasoline again," warns Edward Yardeni, an American consulting economist.
The 1,100-mile Baku-Tbilisi-Ceyhan (BTC) pipeline provides only about 1 percent of the global demand for oil. But, as Prof. Michael Klare of Amherst College notes: "There's not a lot of spare [crude oil] capacity" in the world.
In the long-running struggle for control of Caspian oil and gas and influence in the ex-Soviet states of that region, the clash has been a blow to US clout.
"The Russians come out of this as winning this round," says Professor Klare. "They are the power brokers in this part of the world…. But there will be more skirmishes to come."
Klare, author of "Rising Powers, Shrinking Planet: The New Geopolitics of Energy," sees the conflict as "not a battle for democracy," as portrayed by Washington. "It was a battle for energy," he says.
Oil reserves underneath the Caspian Sea are believed to be huge, perhaps as much as 200 billion barrels. That compares with the estimated 260 billion barrels in Saudi Arabia.
In his State of the Union Address in 1980, President Jimmy Carter proclaimed what has become known as the "Carter doctrine." It stated that the US would use military force if necessary to defend its national interest in the Persian Gulf region. Carter saw the Soviet invasion of Afghanistan at that time as "a grave threat to the free movement of Middle East oil."
President Clinton, as Klare sees it, expanded the Carter doctrine "more or less" to include Caspian oil. The BTC pipeline, taking crude from Azerbaijan through Georgia to the Turkish port of Ceyhan, where it is loaded on tankers for the international market, was "Clinton's brainchild," says Klare.
President Bush has heated up what Klare regards as a struggle over vital resources, rather than a throwback to the cold-war era or classic balance-of-power politics. In that struggle, the US helped Mikheil Saakashvili win the presidency in Georgia after its 2003 "Rose Revolution" and helped build up and train Georgia's armed forces. When the American-educated Saakashvili attempted to show his mettle and restore the breakaway regions of Abkhazia and South Ossetia to Georgia's control, the Russians took the opportunity to show who is boss.
Klare worries that an American military adviser might be hit inadvertently by a Russian bomb, raising US-Russia tensions further.
"Throughout the Caucasus, the US has been striving to establish pro-American governments for strategic reasons," says William Beeman, chair of the anthropology department at the University of Minnesota. One reason aside from Caspian oil, Professor Beeman suspects, is to provide a staging area for possible attacks on such perceived enemies as Iran and Syria.
The $4 billion BTC pipeline, managed by and 30 percent owned by British Petroleum, was routed through Georgia to avoid sending Caspian oil through Iran, Afghanistan and Pakistan, or Russia. A 10-mile pipeline could have connected Caspian oil to the well-developed Iranian pipeline system. Beeman charges that millions in government bribes changed hands to place the pipeline in its tortuous route.
Georgian authorities charged Russia with trying to bomb the pipeline last Tuesday, a pipeline that had been buried deep in a trench for the sake of security. BP stated it was unaware of such bombings. In any case, the BTC flow of oil – about $1 billion worth every 10 days – had already been stopped by an earlier fire at a facility in Turkey. Kurdish rebels, known as the PKK, claimed the fire was their responsibility.
There have been plans to take the same Georgia route for a Caspian natural-gas pipeline ending in Europe. Klare considers the Russian action as partially a warning that this is not a good idea. Such a pipeline would offer serious competition to Gazprom, the giant Russian oil-and-gas conglomerate. Russia supplies one-quarter of the oil and half the natural gas consumed in Europe, and the revenue is seen as key to Russian prosperity. The European Union has been keen on the Georgia plan as a way to gain bargaining power and reduce the risk of supply cutoffs.
But the Russia-Georgia war may have reduced the prospects for such a gas pipeline getting financing and European backing.
"I wouldn't hold my breath," says Klare. He advocates that the US, EU, Russia, and the Caspian states develop a comprehensive regional energy plan for Caspian oil and gas.
www.csmonitor.com | Copyright © 2008 The Christian Science Monitor. All rights reserved.
Commentary by William O. Beeman:
The clash between Russia and Georgia is not the simple black-and-white conflict over "democracy" and "sovereignty" portrayed by the Bush administration. The United States is just as complicit in this conflict as any of the other parties. The U.S. is trying to establish outposts in the Caucasus that will allow American (and Israeli) interests to be promulgated in the entire region. Seventy percent of the national budget of Georgia is spent on defense, despite widespread poverty in that nation. President Saakashvili is an American trained lawyer (Columbia and George Washington) who just happened to give up his law firm job in the U.S. to lead a Revolution in Georgia that allowed the U.S. and Israel free access to the state, and the U.S. and British Petroleum to run a pipeline through the country that would bypass both Iranian and Russian supply lines to the world.
Petropolitics at heart of Russia-Georgia clash
Oil-pipeline routes, market leverage make struggle a 'battle for energy.'
By David R. Francis
from the August 18, 2008 edition
In both geopolitical and economic terms, the United States appears a loser in the Russia-Georgia conflict.
If the pipeline crossing Georgia, bringing approximately a million barrels of Caspian oil a day to the West, remains shut down for much longer, it could result in higher oil prices.
"We could see $4 a gallon gasoline again," warns Edward Yardeni, an American consulting economist.
The 1,100-mile Baku-Tbilisi-Ceyhan (BTC) pipeline provides only about 1 percent of the global demand for oil. But, as Prof. Michael Klare of Amherst College notes: "There's not a lot of spare [crude oil] capacity" in the world.
In the long-running struggle for control of Caspian oil and gas and influence in the ex-Soviet states of that region, the clash has been a blow to US clout.
"The Russians come out of this as winning this round," says Professor Klare. "They are the power brokers in this part of the world…. But there will be more skirmishes to come."
Klare, author of "Rising Powers, Shrinking Planet: The New Geopolitics of Energy," sees the conflict as "not a battle for democracy," as portrayed by Washington. "It was a battle for energy," he says.
Oil reserves underneath the Caspian Sea are believed to be huge, perhaps as much as 200 billion barrels. That compares with the estimated 260 billion barrels in Saudi Arabia.
In his State of the Union Address in 1980, President Jimmy Carter proclaimed what has become known as the "Carter doctrine." It stated that the US would use military force if necessary to defend its national interest in the Persian Gulf region. Carter saw the Soviet invasion of Afghanistan at that time as "a grave threat to the free movement of Middle East oil."
President Clinton, as Klare sees it, expanded the Carter doctrine "more or less" to include Caspian oil. The BTC pipeline, taking crude from Azerbaijan through Georgia to the Turkish port of Ceyhan, where it is loaded on tankers for the international market, was "Clinton's brainchild," says Klare.
President Bush has heated up what Klare regards as a struggle over vital resources, rather than a throwback to the cold-war era or classic balance-of-power politics. In that struggle, the US helped Mikheil Saakashvili win the presidency in Georgia after its 2003 "Rose Revolution" and helped build up and train Georgia's armed forces. When the American-educated Saakashvili attempted to show his mettle and restore the breakaway regions of Abkhazia and South Ossetia to Georgia's control, the Russians took the opportunity to show who is boss.
Klare worries that an American military adviser might be hit inadvertently by a Russian bomb, raising US-Russia tensions further.
"Throughout the Caucasus, the US has been striving to establish pro-American governments for strategic reasons," says William Beeman, chair of the anthropology department at the University of Minnesota. One reason aside from Caspian oil, Professor Beeman suspects, is to provide a staging area for possible attacks on such perceived enemies as Iran and Syria.
The $4 billion BTC pipeline, managed by and 30 percent owned by British Petroleum, was routed through Georgia to avoid sending Caspian oil through Iran, Afghanistan and Pakistan, or Russia. A 10-mile pipeline could have connected Caspian oil to the well-developed Iranian pipeline system. Beeman charges that millions in government bribes changed hands to place the pipeline in its tortuous route.
Georgian authorities charged Russia with trying to bomb the pipeline last Tuesday, a pipeline that had been buried deep in a trench for the sake of security. BP stated it was unaware of such bombings. In any case, the BTC flow of oil – about $1 billion worth every 10 days – had already been stopped by an earlier fire at a facility in Turkey. Kurdish rebels, known as the PKK, claimed the fire was their responsibility.
There have been plans to take the same Georgia route for a Caspian natural-gas pipeline ending in Europe. Klare considers the Russian action as partially a warning that this is not a good idea. Such a pipeline would offer serious competition to Gazprom, the giant Russian oil-and-gas conglomerate. Russia supplies one-quarter of the oil and half the natural gas consumed in Europe, and the revenue is seen as key to Russian prosperity. The European Union has been keen on the Georgia plan as a way to gain bargaining power and reduce the risk of supply cutoffs.
But the Russia-Georgia war may have reduced the prospects for such a gas pipeline getting financing and European backing.
"I wouldn't hold my breath," says Klare. He advocates that the US, EU, Russia, and the Caspian states develop a comprehensive regional energy plan for Caspian oil and gas.
www.csmonitor.com | Copyright © 2008 The Christian Science Monitor. All rights reserved.
Tuesday, August 12, 2008
William O. Beeman--Chickens Come Home to Roost in Georgia - NAM
Chickens Come Home to Roost in Georgia - NAM
Chickens Come Home to Roost in Georgia
New America Media, News Analysis, William O. Beeman, Posted: Aug 12, 2008
Editor's Note: The Bush Administration's push for access to oil from the Caspian Sea and it's desire to isolate Iran precipitated the Russian invasion of Georgia. William O. Beeman is professor and chair of the department of anthropology at the University of Minnesota. He has lived and worked in the Middle East region for more than 30 years.
No one should be surprised that U.S. interference in the Caucasus has led to the Russian invasion of South Ossetia. By mixing into the volatile politics of the Caucasus, and trying to recruit the governments there to become American "plumbers" for a variety of purposes, the United States has only drawn Russian fire.
The Caucasus was one of the last territories added to the Russian Empire in the 19th century. It was captured from the Qajar Empire of Iran. The Caucasians never were fully incorporated into Greater Russia, and maintained a fierce cultural separatism. Georgia in particular was proudly nationalistic, with a distinctive language, cuisine, literary tradition and writing system.
It is arguable that had Josef Stalin not been Georgian, the Caucasian region might never have been part of the Soviet Union. Georgia chafed under Soviet rule, and the wily Soviets enlisted other Caucasian minorities to keep the peace in the region, including the Ossetians. However, Stalinist nationalities philosophy made sure that no one ethnic group ever became too strong. One way to do this was to draw borders in such a way that groups would be split by administrative boundaries. The division between North and South Ossetia was one of these divisions.
The fall of the Soviet Union created three new independent nations in the Caucasus: Georgia, Azerbaijan and Armenia. Almost immediately the ethnic enclaves in all of these nations began to fulminate for territorial reunification with their co-ethnic populations in other nations. These included South Ossetia and Abkhazia in Georgia, Nakhchivan in Armenia, which is mostly Azerbaijani; and Nagorno-Karabakh in Azerbaijan, which is mostly Armenian.
Enter the United States. U.S. interests in this region were vastly different than that of the people of the region, or of Russia. The United States wanted access to Caspian Sea oil, and it wanted to contain Iran. The Caucasian nations were ideal for both purposes. The United States blasted ahead with no regard for the historical tensions in the region.
Therefore the United States blindly pursued a steady policy of propping up the dictatorial regimes of the region. Georgia, Azerbaijan and Armenia are among the most corrupt nations on earth, and it was easy to buy a government. The price for this support was unquestioning alliance with the United States and its regional policies.
Access to Caspian oil was one burning policy goal of all administrations since 1990. The easy route for transport of petroleum products from the region would be through Iran's well developed pipeline system. Literally just a few miles of pipeline would connect the Azerbaijani oil fields to the Iranian system. However, Washington was ready to do almost anything to avoid providing any economic benefit to Iran. Hence, working with U.S. petroleum producers, they constructed a difficult and tortuous pipeline across Azerbaijan and Georgia, to emerge in Turkey for shipping to the world. Many millions in government bribes changed hands to make this happen.
As Iran became a target of the George W. Bush administration, having friendly powers in the Caucasus became a priority for the Washington establishment. The Velvet Revolution in Georgia was aided by the United States. In Azerbaijan, the United States virtually installed the current president, Ilham Aliyev, son of the previous president for life, Heydar Aliyev. The election itself was highly controversial. Heydar Aliyev was in Cleveland, Ohio for medical treatment, and was rumored to have died four months before his son was elected. The United States government was reportedly involved in the cover-up, and supported Ilham's election despite mass protests among Azerbaijani citizens.
President Mikheil Saakashvili of Georgia has close ties to the United States, having graduated with law degrees from Columbia and George Washington Universities. He was the leader of the Rose Revolution in 2003, which ousted President Eduard Shevardnadze, former Soviet foreign minister, and striking a blow for Georgian independence. Elected president in 2004, he also greatly improved ties with Israel, and received an honorary doctorate from Haifa University, and has allowed Israeli intelligence to operate in Georgia. All of this endeared him to the Bush administration.
The United States tried to engineer the entrance of Georgia into NATO in April, 2008, but was surprised when 10 NATO members vetoed the proposal. Russia viewed this as a hostile act on the part of the United States.
President Saakashvili's presidency has not stopped continual ethnic violence from breakaway regions in his country. The South Ossetia conflict is only one of the latest, but it was different in that it serves as a smokescreen for Russian attacks on Saakashvili's government.
If Saakashvili should be ousted from office, a major U.S. and Israeli outpost would be lost. The fate of the oil pipeline would be in danger, and pressure on Iran would lessen considerably. All of these outcomes are seen as disastrous for the Bush administration. Thus all of the high-minded rhetoric about Georgian sovereignty coming out of Washington is ultimately cynical. If U.S. interests were not at stake, no one would care.
Chickens Come Home to Roost in Georgia
New America Media, News Analysis, William O. Beeman, Posted: Aug 12, 2008
Editor's Note: The Bush Administration's push for access to oil from the Caspian Sea and it's desire to isolate Iran precipitated the Russian invasion of Georgia. William O. Beeman is professor and chair of the department of anthropology at the University of Minnesota. He has lived and worked in the Middle East region for more than 30 years.
No one should be surprised that U.S. interference in the Caucasus has led to the Russian invasion of South Ossetia. By mixing into the volatile politics of the Caucasus, and trying to recruit the governments there to become American "plumbers" for a variety of purposes, the United States has only drawn Russian fire.
The Caucasus was one of the last territories added to the Russian Empire in the 19th century. It was captured from the Qajar Empire of Iran. The Caucasians never were fully incorporated into Greater Russia, and maintained a fierce cultural separatism. Georgia in particular was proudly nationalistic, with a distinctive language, cuisine, literary tradition and writing system.
It is arguable that had Josef Stalin not been Georgian, the Caucasian region might never have been part of the Soviet Union. Georgia chafed under Soviet rule, and the wily Soviets enlisted other Caucasian minorities to keep the peace in the region, including the Ossetians. However, Stalinist nationalities philosophy made sure that no one ethnic group ever became too strong. One way to do this was to draw borders in such a way that groups would be split by administrative boundaries. The division between North and South Ossetia was one of these divisions.
The fall of the Soviet Union created three new independent nations in the Caucasus: Georgia, Azerbaijan and Armenia. Almost immediately the ethnic enclaves in all of these nations began to fulminate for territorial reunification with their co-ethnic populations in other nations. These included South Ossetia and Abkhazia in Georgia, Nakhchivan in Armenia, which is mostly Azerbaijani; and Nagorno-Karabakh in Azerbaijan, which is mostly Armenian.
Enter the United States. U.S. interests in this region were vastly different than that of the people of the region, or of Russia. The United States wanted access to Caspian Sea oil, and it wanted to contain Iran. The Caucasian nations were ideal for both purposes. The United States blasted ahead with no regard for the historical tensions in the region.
Therefore the United States blindly pursued a steady policy of propping up the dictatorial regimes of the region. Georgia, Azerbaijan and Armenia are among the most corrupt nations on earth, and it was easy to buy a government. The price for this support was unquestioning alliance with the United States and its regional policies.
Access to Caspian oil was one burning policy goal of all administrations since 1990. The easy route for transport of petroleum products from the region would be through Iran's well developed pipeline system. Literally just a few miles of pipeline would connect the Azerbaijani oil fields to the Iranian system. However, Washington was ready to do almost anything to avoid providing any economic benefit to Iran. Hence, working with U.S. petroleum producers, they constructed a difficult and tortuous pipeline across Azerbaijan and Georgia, to emerge in Turkey for shipping to the world. Many millions in government bribes changed hands to make this happen.
As Iran became a target of the George W. Bush administration, having friendly powers in the Caucasus became a priority for the Washington establishment. The Velvet Revolution in Georgia was aided by the United States. In Azerbaijan, the United States virtually installed the current president, Ilham Aliyev, son of the previous president for life, Heydar Aliyev. The election itself was highly controversial. Heydar Aliyev was in Cleveland, Ohio for medical treatment, and was rumored to have died four months before his son was elected. The United States government was reportedly involved in the cover-up, and supported Ilham's election despite mass protests among Azerbaijani citizens.
President Mikheil Saakashvili of Georgia has close ties to the United States, having graduated with law degrees from Columbia and George Washington Universities. He was the leader of the Rose Revolution in 2003, which ousted President Eduard Shevardnadze, former Soviet foreign minister, and striking a blow for Georgian independence. Elected president in 2004, he also greatly improved ties with Israel, and received an honorary doctorate from Haifa University, and has allowed Israeli intelligence to operate in Georgia. All of this endeared him to the Bush administration.
The United States tried to engineer the entrance of Georgia into NATO in April, 2008, but was surprised when 10 NATO members vetoed the proposal. Russia viewed this as a hostile act on the part of the United States.
President Saakashvili's presidency has not stopped continual ethnic violence from breakaway regions in his country. The South Ossetia conflict is only one of the latest, but it was different in that it serves as a smokescreen for Russian attacks on Saakashvili's government.
If Saakashvili should be ousted from office, a major U.S. and Israeli outpost would be lost. The fate of the oil pipeline would be in danger, and pressure on Iran would lessen considerably. All of these outcomes are seen as disastrous for the Bush administration. Thus all of the high-minded rhetoric about Georgian sovereignty coming out of Washington is ultimately cynical. If U.S. interests were not at stake, no one would care.
Saturday, July 28, 2007
Iran and America: Conflict, Context & Connect (Minnesota Public Radio Broadcast)
Minnesota Public Radio held a forum on July 19th entitled
"Iran and America: Conflict, Context & Connect," a discussion about the U.S.-Iranian relationship with members of Minnesota's Iranian community in which I also participated.
The discussion was broadcast on July 23, and included additional listener call-in remarks. Both broadcasts are sound-archived at the following web site.
Iran and America: Conflict, Context & Connect--Minnesota Public Radio
The discussion was highly enlightening. The Iranian members of the panel were exceptionally articulate and balanced in their views. MPR would likely be open to allowing rebroadcast of the program if anyone were interested.
"Iran and America: Conflict, Context & Connect," a discussion about the U.S.-Iranian relationship with members of Minnesota's Iranian community in which I also participated.
The discussion was broadcast on July 23, and included additional listener call-in remarks. Both broadcasts are sound-archived at the following web site.
Iran and America: Conflict, Context & Connect--Minnesota Public Radio
The discussion was highly enlightening. The Iranian members of the panel were exceptionally articulate and balanced in their views. MPR would likely be open to allowing rebroadcast of the program if anyone were interested.
Wednesday, November 29, 2006
Iran’s President Criticizes Bush in Letter to American People - New York Times
Iran’s President Criticizes Bush in Letter to American People - New York Times
BEIRUT, Lebanon, Nov. 29 — Iran’s president, Mahmoud Ahmadinejad, told the American people on Wednesday that he was certain they detested President Bush’s policies — his support for Israel, war in Iraq and curtailed civil liberties — and he offered to work with them to reverse those policies.
The call came in the form of a six-page letter in English, published online and addressed to “noble Americans” that discussed “the many wars and calamities caused by the U.S. administration.” It suggested that Americans had been fooled into accepting their government’s policies, especially toward Israel.
“What have the Zionists done for the American people that the U.S. administration considers itself obliged to blindly support these infamous aggressors?” Mr. Ahmadinejad wrote. “Is it not because they have imposed themselves on a substantial portion of the banking, financial, cultural and media sectors?”
This was the latest public step by Iran’s president to promote a dialogue with the United States. He wrote a letter to Mr. Bush in May, calling on him to shift his policies and open a discussion, but it was dismissed by the White House as irrelevant to the central issue dividing them — Iran’s nuclear program. Then Mr. Ahmadinejad challenged Mr. Bush to a public debate, also dismissed by the White House.
On Wednesday, the administration’s reaction remained unchanged.
“This is a transparently hypocritical and cynical letter,” Nicholas R. Burns, under secretary of state for political affairs, said in Washington about the latest letter. “It reflects a profound lack of understanding of the United States.”
Still, at least tactically the letter seemed to take a page from Mr. Bush himself, who, speaking to the United Nations General Assembly in September, sought to bypass the Iranian government and address the people directly. The letter also distinguished between the administration and the people.
“Undoubtedly, the American people are not satisfied with this behavior, and they showed their discontent in the recent elections,” Mr. Ahmadinejad wrote. “I hope that in the wake of the midterm elections, the administration of President Bush will have heard and will heed the message of the American people.”
But it was the emphasis on religious themes, specifically Shiite Muslim notions of justice and fighting oppression, that characterized the new letter as it did his letter to President Bush.
“Both our nations are God-fearing, truth-loving and justice-seeking, and both seek dignity, respect and perfection,” the letter said.
The letter seemed directed at three audiences. It sought to reach out to Americans through religious values; to the Arab world, by emphasizing the Palestinian conflict with Israel; and to Mr. Ahmadinejad’s political base at home, which includes the military, hard-line clerics and Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, the supreme leader.
The letter also employed an inferential, Iranian style of communication that experts say is likely to leave Americans cold.
“Americans are going to be very puzzled by it,” said William Beeman, a linguistic anthropologist at Brown University who specializes in Persian. “People are simply not used to being talked to this way.” He added, “It is almost a sermon, which is very much in keeping with his religious background. But I should also point out it is also a lecture.”
The letter reminded Americans that “many victims of Katrina continue to suffer, and countless Americans continue to live in poverty and homelessness.”
It also lamented: “Civil liberties are increasingly being curtailed. Even the privacy of the individuals is fast losing its meaning.”
The president made no reference to the level of poverty, political freedom or judicial independence in his own country.
After referring to Abu Ghraib in Iraq and the prison at Guantánamo Bay, Cuba, he wrote: “I have no doubt that the American people do not approve of this behavior and indeed deplore it.”
Since his election in June 2005, Mr. Ahmadinejad has pursued an aggressive and outspoken foreign policy, relying on the bully pulpit of his position to make up for the limited powers of Iran’s presidency.
His refusal to end enrichment of uranium and his calls for the destruction of Israel have won him few friends in the West. But they have led to increasing popularity across the Muslim world.
Davoud Hermidas-Bavand, a professor of international relations at Tehran University, said the letter was mostly an effort to win the allegiance of Arabs. Iran has been trying to position itself as the pre-eminent power in the Middle East.
“His first objective is to get the sympathy of Arabs,” said Dr. Hermidas-Bavand. “The letter makes Ahmadinejad a subject of international talks, particularly in the Middle East.”
He said the letter gave insight into President Ahmadinejad’s understanding of American society and governance as being driven largely by Christian beliefs and values.
“He has probably been told that American people are religious and that is how Mr. Bush won, by addressing people’s sense of faith,” he said. “Now he wants to capitalize on this sense of religiousness.”
Iran finds its leverage rising, especially as Iraq struggles through bloody sectarian fighting. In Washington, there is increased pressure on the White House to open direct talks with Iran to help stabilize Iraq and Afghanistan.
Mr. Ahmadinejad offered a litany of sharp attacks on American policy — calling, for example, for withdrawal from Iraq. And he once again highlighted a central demand of Tehran: that it be treated as an equal by Washington.
But Professor Beeman also said that Americans should recognize that the letter did represent an overture. “Iran is saying, ‘We want to have a dialogue with you,’ ” he said.
Helene Cooper contributed reporting from Amman, Jordan, and Nazila Fathi from Iran.
BEIRUT, Lebanon, Nov. 29 — Iran’s president, Mahmoud Ahmadinejad, told the American people on Wednesday that he was certain they detested President Bush’s policies — his support for Israel, war in Iraq and curtailed civil liberties — and he offered to work with them to reverse those policies.
The call came in the form of a six-page letter in English, published online and addressed to “noble Americans” that discussed “the many wars and calamities caused by the U.S. administration.” It suggested that Americans had been fooled into accepting their government’s policies, especially toward Israel.
“What have the Zionists done for the American people that the U.S. administration considers itself obliged to blindly support these infamous aggressors?” Mr. Ahmadinejad wrote. “Is it not because they have imposed themselves on a substantial portion of the banking, financial, cultural and media sectors?”
This was the latest public step by Iran’s president to promote a dialogue with the United States. He wrote a letter to Mr. Bush in May, calling on him to shift his policies and open a discussion, but it was dismissed by the White House as irrelevant to the central issue dividing them — Iran’s nuclear program. Then Mr. Ahmadinejad challenged Mr. Bush to a public debate, also dismissed by the White House.
On Wednesday, the administration’s reaction remained unchanged.
“This is a transparently hypocritical and cynical letter,” Nicholas R. Burns, under secretary of state for political affairs, said in Washington about the latest letter. “It reflects a profound lack of understanding of the United States.”
Still, at least tactically the letter seemed to take a page from Mr. Bush himself, who, speaking to the United Nations General Assembly in September, sought to bypass the Iranian government and address the people directly. The letter also distinguished between the administration and the people.
“Undoubtedly, the American people are not satisfied with this behavior, and they showed their discontent in the recent elections,” Mr. Ahmadinejad wrote. “I hope that in the wake of the midterm elections, the administration of President Bush will have heard and will heed the message of the American people.”
But it was the emphasis on religious themes, specifically Shiite Muslim notions of justice and fighting oppression, that characterized the new letter as it did his letter to President Bush.
“Both our nations are God-fearing, truth-loving and justice-seeking, and both seek dignity, respect and perfection,” the letter said.
The letter seemed directed at three audiences. It sought to reach out to Americans through religious values; to the Arab world, by emphasizing the Palestinian conflict with Israel; and to Mr. Ahmadinejad’s political base at home, which includes the military, hard-line clerics and Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, the supreme leader.
The letter also employed an inferential, Iranian style of communication that experts say is likely to leave Americans cold.
“Americans are going to be very puzzled by it,” said William Beeman, a linguistic anthropologist at Brown University who specializes in Persian. “People are simply not used to being talked to this way.” He added, “It is almost a sermon, which is very much in keeping with his religious background. But I should also point out it is also a lecture.”
The letter reminded Americans that “many victims of Katrina continue to suffer, and countless Americans continue to live in poverty and homelessness.”
It also lamented: “Civil liberties are increasingly being curtailed. Even the privacy of the individuals is fast losing its meaning.”
The president made no reference to the level of poverty, political freedom or judicial independence in his own country.
After referring to Abu Ghraib in Iraq and the prison at Guantánamo Bay, Cuba, he wrote: “I have no doubt that the American people do not approve of this behavior and indeed deplore it.”
Since his election in June 2005, Mr. Ahmadinejad has pursued an aggressive and outspoken foreign policy, relying on the bully pulpit of his position to make up for the limited powers of Iran’s presidency.
His refusal to end enrichment of uranium and his calls for the destruction of Israel have won him few friends in the West. But they have led to increasing popularity across the Muslim world.
Davoud Hermidas-Bavand, a professor of international relations at Tehran University, said the letter was mostly an effort to win the allegiance of Arabs. Iran has been trying to position itself as the pre-eminent power in the Middle East.
“His first objective is to get the sympathy of Arabs,” said Dr. Hermidas-Bavand. “The letter makes Ahmadinejad a subject of international talks, particularly in the Middle East.”
He said the letter gave insight into President Ahmadinejad’s understanding of American society and governance as being driven largely by Christian beliefs and values.
“He has probably been told that American people are religious and that is how Mr. Bush won, by addressing people’s sense of faith,” he said. “Now he wants to capitalize on this sense of religiousness.”
Iran finds its leverage rising, especially as Iraq struggles through bloody sectarian fighting. In Washington, there is increased pressure on the White House to open direct talks with Iran to help stabilize Iraq and Afghanistan.
Mr. Ahmadinejad offered a litany of sharp attacks on American policy — calling, for example, for withdrawal from Iraq. And he once again highlighted a central demand of Tehran: that it be treated as an equal by Washington.
But Professor Beeman also said that Americans should recognize that the letter did represent an overture. “Iran is saying, ‘We want to have a dialogue with you,’ ” he said.
Helene Cooper contributed reporting from Amman, Jordan, and Nazila Fathi from Iran.
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