Hoe Obama lessen kan trekken uit de decennialange bemoeienis met Iran

        

Op 20 januari 2013 begon president Barack Obama aan zijn tweede termijn. De president is er zich terdege van bewust dat er van zijn ambitieuze agenda bij zijn aantreden in 2009 om de Amerikaanse invloed en het imago van de VS in de wereld te herstellen niets in huis is gekomen. Hij heeft dan wel de oorlog in Irak beëindigd, maar de “oorlog uit noodzaak” in Afghanistan niet gewonnen. En van nucleaire ontwapening is niet veel meer terechtgekomen dan de ratificatie van het nieuwe Start-verdrag met Rusland. Obama heeft de Amerikaans-Russische relaties laten verzuren, onder andere door de Amerikaanse plannen voor een raketschild in Europa, kijkt terug op een serie mislukte pogingen om de dialoog aan te gaan met tegenstanders van Amerika en kan evenmin een krachtig initiatief rond de klimaatproblematiek op zijn palmares schrijven.

De president heeft laten weten dat hij terug wil naar zijn oorspronkelijke agenda, maar geeft te verstaan dat hij wel subtieler te werk te wil gaan. Hij is een ervaring rijker door de mislukte diplomatieke initiatieven rond Noord-Korea en Iran, het gebrek aan invloed van Amerika in Egypte, Pakistan en Israel, en de onthutsende realiteit van het mensenlevens en geld verslindende avontuur in Afghanistan. Men moet van hem de komende jaren dus niet direct grote verdragen verwachten, grootschalig militair ingrijpen of omvangrijke steunmaatregelen. Maar of zo’n aanpak tot resultaat kan leiden blijft de vraag. De geheime acties en bliksemaanvallen zoals de snelle oorlog in Libië en de cyberoorlog tegen Iran hebben de tegenstanders dan schade berokkend, doorslaggevend zijn die acties toch niet geweest.

Vandaag kijkt de wereld met wantrouwen naar de beloftes van de Amerikaanse president om de zaken anders aan te pakken. Zo confronteerde een student in Cairo een Amerikaanse journalist met de vraag waarom Guantanamo Bay nog altijd open was, en op een diner in Washington vroeg een Europese minister van Buitenlandse Zaken of de Amerikaanse pivot naar Azië misschien een andere term is voor het negeren van de rest van de wereld. De Amerikaanse president, die in 2009 change zo'n prominente plaats gaf in zijn verkiezingscampagne, blijft geloven in sancties tegen landen die niet aan de leiband van de VS lopen. Recent verlengde hij resoluut het ruim 50 jaar oude handelsembargo tegen Cuba “in het nationaal belang van de Verenigde Staten”. Onder de Trading With the Enemy Act van 1917 is hij in oorlogstijd bevoegd om sancties op te leggen. Maar hij had die tegen Cuba ook kunnen intrekken of verzachten. De sancties missen niet alleen hun doel, maar schenden ook de mensenrechten van Cubanen en VS-burgers.

Tot dusverre heeft de president de verwachtingen van de wereld niet kunnen inlossen. Een nieuwe koers in de relatie met tegenstanders als Cuba, Iran, Noord Korea, Myanmar en Venezuela lijkt enkel in Myanmar effect te sorteren. Het opbod tegen China blijft de grote uitdaging. In zijn tweede termijn hoopt de president de verstandhouding met deze grote rivaal te verbeteren. Maar China maakt zich steeds meer zorgen over de Amerikaanse pivot, temeer daar die gepaard gaat met een ongekend militair opbod in China’s achtertuin. De nieuwe Chinese leiders kunnen dat beleid alleen maar interpreteren als een poging het land in bedwang te houden. Dat hebben we al gezien in de vorm van verontrustende confrontaties in de regio, waarbij China in de Zuid-Chinese Zee werd opgezet tegen Vietnam en de Filippijnen, en tegen Japan in de Oost-Chinese Zee. Op korte termijn zal dit wel niet uitmonden in vijandigheden, maar de inzet van drones en cyberwapens blijft een reëel risico.

Men kan ernstige bedenkingen hebben bij de benoeming van bij John Kerry op Buitenlandse Zaken. Obama zet steevast mensen op dat soort posten die tot de Democratische rechtervleugel behoren en de Irak-oorlog steunden. Kerry is de afgelopen jaren sterk naar rechts opgeschoven. Hij verdedigde de Irak-oorlog zelfs nadat bleek dat er geen massavernietigingswapens waren. Voor hem hebben de VS het recht om zonder internationaal mandaat andere landen aan te vallen. Hij haalde scherp uit naar de VN secretaris-generaal en veegde de vloer aan met de Spaanse premier die vragen stelde bij het Amerikaanse unilateralisme. Kerry was ook niet akkoord met de uitspraak van het Internationaal Strafhof dat Israel met de bouw van de muur op Palestijns gebied de Vierde Conventie van Genève schendt. Voor Kerry was dat een anti-Israel motie. Kerry sluit zich op veel punten aan bij het gedachtegoed van de Republikeinse neoconservatieven. Naar buiten versterkt zo’n benoeming natuurlijk het beeld dat de VS boven de wet staan.

Hoewel de debatten in de Situation Room erop duiden dat de president zich bewust wordt van de beperktheid van de Amerikaanse invloed blijft neoconservatief Amerika geloven in machtsuitoefening met de harde hand. De manier waarop Amerika al tientallen jaren omgaat met Iran toont de fundamentele fouten in het denken van de politieke elite, en juist van deze geschiedenis zou de president moeten leren. Voor velen beginnen de betrekkingen tussen de VS en Iran met de gijzeling van de Amerikaanse ambassade in Teheran in 1979, waarna een groep irrationele moellahs aan de macht kwam met wie elk overleg bij voorbaat uitgesloten is. Monsters die enkel luisteren naar geweld. En die op het punt staan kernwapens te ontwikkelen en te gebruiken. Maar de werkelijkheid is dat de CIA vanuit dezelfde ambassade in 1953 de democratische regering-Mossadegh omverwierp omdat deze de Iraanse olierijkdom aan de Iraniërs wilde voorbehouden in plaats van aan buitenlandse ondernemingen.

De CIA installeerde de Sjah die de Amerikaanse wapenindustrie megawinsten bezorgde, terwijl zijn land een proeftuin werd voor geheime-dienst-technieken en mensenrechtenschendingen. Maar de Sjah verarmde en vervreemdde zijn bevolking. Een seculiere democratiegezinde revolutie bracht de Sjah in 1979 geweldloos ten val. Toen interne tegenstellingen niet snel leidden tot een nieuwe regering probeerde de CIA de Sjah aan de macht te houden, maar stuurde uiteindelijk aan op een gematigde theocratie. Nadat de Amerikaanse ambassade door een ongewapende menigte werd overgenomen sloten moellahs een deal met Amerikaanse Republikeinen om de gijzeling voort te zetten tot Carter de verkiezingen zou hebben verloren. De regering-Reagan hervatte de wapenverkopen aan Iran en maakte tegelijk wapendeals met Saddam Hussein die de oorlog tegen Iran twee termijnen Reagan kon volhouden dankzij Amerikaanse steun. En vandaag is Iran onder druk van het militair-industrieel complex doelwit van oorlogsdreiging, harde sancties en terrorisme.

De les die de Amerikaanse president uit de Iran-case moet trekken is dat het buitenland geen probleem heeft met de Westerse cultuur, maar met inmenging in hun bestuur, met het installeren van dictators die natuurlijke rijkdommen het land uitsluizen, elke vrijheid aan banden leggen en dissidenten opsluiten en martelen. Maar die les is aan de president verloren. Tijdens zijn inwijdingsspeech ter gelegenheid van zijn tweede ambtstermijn was het weer volop Amerikaans exceptionalisme:“Amerika blijft de spil van sterke allianties in alle uithoeken van de wereld. We zullen versterkt investeren in middelen die ons moeten toelaten buitenlandse crises het hoofd te bieden. Want niemand heeft meer belang bij vrede in de wereld dan de machtigste natie. We steunen democratie, van Azië tot Afrika, van Latijns-Amerika tot het Midden-Oosten. Onze belangen en ons geweten dwingen ons om op te treden in naam van hen die naar vrijheid verlangen”, zo klonk het.

De Amerikaanse sociologieprofessor Julian Go wijst er in zijn boek Patterns of Empire: the British and American Empires, 1688 to the Present op dat imperialistisch optreden een strategie is om werelddominantie te vrijwaren, een fenomeen dat gestalte krijgt in meer openlijk militair optreden in tijden van economische teruggang. Na tien jaar oorlog in Irak en Afghanistan zal Amerika zijn imperialisme wel enkele jaren op een laag pitje zetten, maar Amerikanen hebben een kort geheugen. Als de economie verder verslechtert ten voordele van de belangrijkste rivalen ziet men snel weer overal bedreigingen die bestreden moeten worden. Het beeld is beangstigend: het militair sterkste land ter wereld geraakt economisch meer en meer in verval. Amerikaanse agressie leidt onvermijdelijk tot een escalatie tussen de wereldmachten. En dat betekent wereldoorlog. De les van The Ugly American is nog even actueel als bij de verschijning van deze politieke roman in 1958.

Drone wars: the new blowback

by Paul Rogers

The United States and Israel see armed drones as a valuable tool of "remote control". But Iran, China and Russia - and non-state actors - are working to achieve their own capacity. The emerging era is one of drone proliferation.

Among the changes brought by Egypt's political transformation in 2011-12 has been that international journalists find it easier to enter Gaza. In turn this ensured much greater media reporting from within Gaza of Israel's assault in mid-November 2012 than had been the case over Operation Cast Lead in 2008-09. A largely unreported aspect of this situation was that many of these journalists had immediate experience of frequent and intense Israeli drone-flights over Gaza during the week-long conflict.

Suddenly, a large number of journalists was made aware - possibly for the first time - of the kind of situation villagers in northwest Pakistan had long been subject to: the sound of a drone in their vicinity, buzzing above their head, compounded by a fear that it is armed and could, at any moment, unleash a Hellfire missile at a nearby house or compound.

The use of drones in Pakistan and Gaza (over which Israel routinely deploys drones, even when there is no armed confrontation) is best seen as a signal of the emerging era of warfare by "remote control" (see "Remote control, a new way of war", 18 October 2012. It is too little realised, though, that many countries are already embracing drone technology; that it is becoming a substantial feature of the international arms trade; and that there is a particular trend towards armed drones (see "Suicide-bombs without the suicides: why drones are so cool", 13 September 2012).

A worldwide boom

In recent weeks, military journals have been full of reports of new "products" and deployments. Britain's first squadron of Reaper armed drones has been flown from bases in Afghanistan, under the control of an RAF team at Creech air-force base in Nevada; it will in due course be run from RAF Waddington, near Lincoln in eastern England (which already controls a second squadron of drones) (see Tim Ripley, "Reaper ops move to UK", Jane's Defence Weekly, 24 October 2012).

Japan, meanwhile, is purchasing Israeli drones and adapting them to fill a gap in its missile warning system (see James Hardy, "Japan plans IR-equipped UAV as part of BMD shield", Jane's Defence Weekly, 14 November 2012); and Russian state media report that Sukhoi - one of the major Russian aerospace companies - is responding to President Putin's call for Russia to catch up with the west by focusing on drones rather than manned combat-aircraft.

China now has two design bureaux working on drones similar to the United States's Reaper (see Wendell Minnick, "China's Unmanned Aircraft Evolve From Figment to Reality", Defense News, 26 November 2012. There are strong indications that it will prioritise exports (see Bradley Perrett, "Chinese Aerospace Plants See Profits in Civil Work", Aviation Week, 28 November 2012).

Iran's story

All these developments involve countries that have either been working on drones for many years or have large aerospace industries that can develop new products. What is perhaps more interesting, not least because of the regional implications, is that Israel is not the only country in the middle east that is heavily involved in drone development. Iran is in there too - in a programme that started thirty years ago and has continued throughout all the country's political changes.

By coincidence, in the very week of the intense Gaza war where Israel made concentrated use of drones, one of the first substantial unclassified reports on the Iranian programme was published (see Jeremy Binnie, "Rise of the Pahpad", Jane's Defence Weekly, 21 November 2012). The programme has its roots in the Iran-Iraq war of 1980-88 whose greatly destructive battlefield stalemates resembled the western front's trench-warfare of 1914-18. In the effort to counter Iraqi capabilities, Iranian technicians developed crude drones that could undertake aerial photo-reconnaissance of Iraqi forces. The development of an indigenous drone industry had begun.

By the end of the 1990s, an arms exhibition in the United Arab Emirates included an Iranian exhibit of modest size, Ababil-2 (Swallow). The vehicle was around 2.7 metres in length with a 3.3-metre wingspan, had a top speed of around 280 kilometres per hour, and could reach a height of 3,300 metres. Iran then created the Mohajer (Emigrant) series with greater endurance. By early 2000, drones were being used to observe the anti-government Mujahideen-e-Khalq (MeK) rebels living in eastern Iraq and reportedly being supported by the Saddam Hussein regime.

These systems were far less sophisticated than those being developed by the United States and Israel. In any case, to "fly" drones over any distance requires real-time direct-communications links via satellites. Iran doesn't have such systems, and to maintain links would either need forward-operating units or have to "buy" time on commercial communications satellites.

A new phase

Yet the Iranian drone programme has a twofold significance. First, it is a mature programme developed over some thirty years - perhaps often rather crude, but showing a commitment and ability that may well be shared with others. Jeremy Binnie, for example, reports that the Sudanese government has used Iranian drones, and that Venezuela has received Iran's assistance in developing its own drones (see "An asymmetrical drone war", 19 August 2010) .

Second, a revealing Israeli experience occurred on 6 October 2012. It seems, as far as the details can be pieced together, that a drone was assembled in southern Lebanon from components supplied by Iran; launched by Hizbollah, possibly aided by Iranian personnel; then "piloted" to fly offshore down the Mediterranean coast of Israel before turning east over land towards the northern part of the Negev desert. An Israeli Defence Forces statement says that the drone was spotted off the coast of Gaza, implying that it had initially evaded Israeli coastal-surveillance systems, and was eventually shot down in the Yatir forest area near the West Bank.

Israeli sources say the drone was observed for some time before being shot down when it was approaching sensitive areas. This seems implausible, since it could have been armed and could have diverted very quickly towards a town or village at any stage.

What is more interesting is that since the drone flew a substantial distance there must have been some way in which it could be kept in communication with its operating base in southern Lebanon. This suggests that Iran had either found a way of using commercial satellite links or else had personnel established in Gaza that could maintain communications, coordinating their activities with those in that Lebanese base.

None of this is particularly threatening to a state as powerful as Israel.Yet it adds a symbolic dimension - a worrying sense of impotence - that follows the impact of the rockets fired from Gaza to the very end of the conflict.

Furthermore, it is one part of a longer-term process that is more advanced than many people think (see "Hizbollah's warning flight", 5 May 2005). Such is the nature of drone technology that states with intermediate technical capabilities are likely to become serious forces in the drone-orientated world soon to emerge. If the United States can persist with targeted assassinations in northwest Pakistan, acting with seeming impunity as it rewrites the laws of war, and if Israel can do the same in Gaza - why should other countries not follow suit?

The use of armed drones by the Americans, Israelis, British and others may seem hugely attractive in the short term. But it sets a precedent that may be followed much sooner than might be expected. If that proves the case, then Iran's thirty-year drone programme may have done much to bring it about.

Paul Rogers is professor in the department of peace studies at Bradford University, northern England. He is openDemocracy's international-security editor, and has been writing a weekly column on global security since 28 September 2001; he also writes a monthly briefing for the Oxford Research Group. His books include Why We’re Losing the War on Terror (Polity, 2007), and Losing Control: Global Security in the 21st Century(Pluto Press, 3rd edition, 2010). He is on twitter at: @ProfPRogers

This article first appeared on openDemocracy November 29, 2012

Tensions at ASEAN summit over South China Sea

By Peter Symonds

Sailors and civil service mariners lower a Tomahawk cruise missile onto the Los Angeles-class fast-attack submarine USS Oklahoma City (SSN 723) at Polaris Point, Guam, Nov. 16, 2012.

(U.S. Navy photo by Mass Communication Specialist 1st Class Jason C. Swink/Released)

South China Sea territorial disputes between China and its South East Asian neighbours have been centre stage at summit meetings organised by the Association of South East Asian Nations (ASEAN) in Cambodia this week.

Tensions flared after Philippine President Benigno Aquino disputed a statement by Cambodia, the summit host, on Sunday that ASEAN countries had reached a consensus “not to internationalise the South China Sea from now on.” The statement was in line with China’s insistence that the maritime disputes be resolved bilaterally. Cambodia is closely aligned with Beijing.

During a meeting of ASEAN leaders with Japanese Prime Minister Yoshihiko Noda on Monday, Aquino objected to the statement that a consensus had been reached, declaring: “For the record, this was not our understanding. The ASEAN route is not the only route for us. As a sovereign state, it is our right to defend our national interests.”

With the support of the Obama administration, the Philippine government has taken a more strident stance over its territorial claims in what it now calls the West Philippine Sea, resulting in a dangerous standoff this year with China over the disputed Scarborough Shoal.

Noda also intervened to challenge efforts by Cambodia to limit the discussion. A Japanese statement reported: “Prime Minister Noda raised the issue of the South China Sea, noting this is of common concern for the international community, which would have direct impact on peace and stability of the Asia Pacific.”

Japan’s involvement in the dispute, for the first time, further cuts across China’s efforts to strictly limit the issue to South East Asian countries. Noda’s intervention was also aimed at a domestic audience. With an election due next month, all the parties, including Noda’s ruling Democratic Party of Japan, are stirring up nationalist sentiment, focussing on Japan’s own dispute with China over the Senkaku (Diaoyu) islands in the East China Sea.

Philippine President Aquino subsequently offered to host a meeting of the four countries involved in territorial disputes with China—Vietnam, Malaysia, Brunei and the Philippines. “Our position has always been that a multilateral problem does not lend itself to a solution on a bilateral basis,” he declared.

In July, sharp disagreements between Cambodia and the Philippines over the South China Sea at an ASEAN meeting of foreign ministers resulted, for the first time, in the organisation being unable to issue a final communiqué.

President Barack Obama yesterday attended the East Asian Summit organised by ASEAN as part of his three-nation trip to Thailand, Burma and Cambodia. According to US deputy national security adviser Ben Rhodes, Obama’s message was that “there needs to be a reduction of the tensions… There is no reason to risk any potential escalation, particularly when you have two of the world’s largest economies—China and Japan—associated with some of those disputes.”

Obama’s posturing as a voice of moderation is completely hypocritical. The Obama administration is directly responsible for inflaming all the territorial disputes involving China by indicating support for its allies—Japan and the Philippines—in taking a tougher stance. US Secretary of State Hillary Clinton provocatively declared at an ASEAN summit in 2010 that the US had “a national interest” in securing “freedom of navigation” through the South China Sea and offered to mediate negotiations over the issue.

Subsequently, while declaring the US neutral on the territorial issues, American officials have publicly stated that Washington would support Japan in any conflict with China over the Senkaku (Diaoyu) islands, and hinted it would do the same in relation to the Philippines. The Obama administration has exploited the maritime disputes as a convenient device to drive a wedge between China and its neighbours, put pressure on Beijing and justify a US military build-up in the region.

Control over the shipping lanes through South East Asia is a key component of the Obama administration’s broader “pivot to Asia”—a diplomatic and strategic offensive aimed at containing China by strengthening US alliances and military ties across Asia.

Obama held his own separate meeting with ASEAN leaders, again calling for an “early conclusion” to establishing a regional code of conduct in the South China Sea. Beijing, however, is still pushing for bilateral arrangements. While Chinese and ASEAN leaders agreed on Sunday to further negotiations on a code, China’s foreign ministry spokesperson declared that the process would “take some time.”

These territorial disputes are not the only issue being exploited by Washington to undermine China’s influence in South East Asia. Obama took time out at the summit for a photo opportunity with the leaders of countries involved in the Lower Mekong Initiative—Cambodia, Laos, Vietnam and Thailand. Launched in 2010, the Lower Mekong Initiative is a mechanism for exploiting differences between this grouping and China over water use and dam building in the upper Mekong river.

US-China rivalry also spilled over into trade and economic issues.

Obama used the summit to promote the Trans-Pacific Partnership (TPP)—a regional trade grouping being pushed by Washington, strongly biased toward US corporations and financial institutions. The TPP foreshadows an across-the-board reduction of tariffs and other forms of protectionism, and is aimed in particular against state-owned enterprises. While the TPP does not include most Asian economies, the US is pressing key allies such as Japan and South Korea to join up. Washington’s aim is either to exclude China, or force it to open up new areas of its economy to US investors.

The TPP currently only includes four ASEAN countries—Singapore, Brunei, Malaysia and Vietnam. Obama outlined a new initiative, known as the US-ASEAN Expanded Economic Engagement, to expand trade and investment ties with all 10 ASEAN countries and encourage them to join the TPP.

The US proposal was one of several competing trade plans under discussion on the summit’s sidelines. These included a proposed Regional Comprehensive Economic Partnership (RCEP) between ASEAN countries and its current Free Trade Agreement (FTA) partners—Australia, China, India, Japan, South Korea and New Zealand. Notably, the US would be excluded.

This article first appeared on World Socialist Web Site (WSWS) on 21 November 2012, and was republished with permission.

Chances for Peace, the second decade

by Paul Rogers

Egypt: Coral Reef in the Southern Red Sea area (author: Mahmood Habeeb; source: USAID – Wikimedia Commons)

The world faces immense and unavoidable security, climate and economic tests. In the effort to meet them, the second decade of the 21st century is crucial.

The next thirty years, until the mid-2040s, will be hugely challenging in the effort to establish worldwide peace and security. A combination of deepening socio-economic divisions and accelerating environmental limits, especially the impact of climate change, represents an unavoidable test. What are the underlying reasons for the predicament and what needs to be done? Will it be possible to move to a more equitable, emancipated and low-carbon world, and if so, how? A new report from the Oxford Research Group seeks to answer these questions, and argues that the second decade of the 21st century is the vital period for effecting change.

The report, entitled Chances for Peace in the Second Decade: What Is Going Wrong and What We Must Do - is rooted in a historical perspective. During the superpower "cold war" from 1945-90 there were many "proxy wars" waged in the global south that killed more than 10 million people. At the same time, the nuclear arms-race peaked at over 60,000 nuclear warheads, with many nuclear accidents and dangerous crises along the way; it was more by luck than wisdom that the world survived without armed nuclear catastrophe. The cold-war era also saw massive expenditure on the military, diverting resources and attention from much more important human needs. Even now, there is great peril in nuclear proliferation, even if it is less that of tipping over a precipice into all-out disaster and more of a slippage towards “small nuclear wars in far-off places”.

The cold war ended in the late 1980s. The west's security attitudes in the 1990s were captured in the incoming CIA chief R James Woolsey's comment that the United States had slayed the Soviet dragon but now inhabited a jungle full of poisonous snakes. When that “jungle” bit back (including with the 9/11 atrocities), the only response to be considered was to crush that part of it in an all-out “war on terror”.

The result in the 2000s was the appalling loss of life in the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan, even as the al-Qaida idea retained its potency, not least in south Asia, northern Africa and the middle east. In the process, the west lost the will to put tens of thousands of "boots on the ground"; instead, it is now moving into an era of “remote control” in which armed drones, special forces, private military companies, intense expeditionary warfare and rendition all play a part in keeping the lid on threats to security.

The challenge

Yet it is now clear that the challenges facing humankind stem from much more substantial drivers of change: the inability of the global economic system to deliver socio-economic justice, and the failure of both political and economic systems to respond to environmental limits, especially the potentially disastrous consequences of climate disruption.

The financial crisis of 2008 made only a marginal dent in conventional economic wisdom. The orthodoxy is still that the west may have a few years of austerity, with a little bit more financial regulation to patch up the system, before a vigorous return to the old ways in which upcoming countries play a leading role. It sounds plausible, but leaves out the basic inability of the system to deliver fairness. Free-market capitalism is rooted in difference, and always produces plenty of losers. But the disadvantaged on the margins, who are in the majority in so many countries, are also today much better educated, have greater access to communications than ever before, and are far more likely to resent their exclusion and react against it.

In practice, this might be expressed in the Naxal rebellion in India, social unrest in China, protest from the much better educated and knowledgable youthful Arab generations, or even recourse to radical and sometimes brutal faith-based movements. The response from the powerful might be to seek to maintain control, whether within or between states; but this is guaranteed to produce yet more resentment and anger. Meanwhile, environmental limits encroach remorselessly; and, in the case of climate disruption, accelerate steadily.

The end result, at least on present trends, recalls Edwin Brookes's dystopic future expressed in the 1970s: of “a crowded, glowering planet of massive inequalities of wealth, buttressed by stark force yet endlessly threatened by desperate people in the global ghettoes…”.

That is the negative scenario. The Oxford Research Group report tries, in a very tentative way, to suggest some positive outcomes. In the simplest of terms, the way ahead is straightforward - though translating the obvious into the actual is far from easy. Severe climate change has to be prevented by a rapid transition to low-carbon economies, with the main carbon-emitters of the global north having to decrease carbon outputs by 80% in less than two decades. The lesser emitters must be enabled to develop along economic paths that are truly sustainable, aided substantially by the northern states that have been responsible so far for the great majority of emissions.

Such an environmental transition has to be paralleled directly by an economic transformation to a far more equitable and emancipated system, both transnationally and within states. For the global south, this involves much greater debt-relief and the linking of trade with development in a manner similar to that advocated by UNCTAD in the 1960s but never implemented - a genuine "new international economic order". Technological innovations may well help, not least in adapting to the level of climate change that is already inevitable; and a rapid transition to versatile renewable-energy sources, often seriously localised, can enhance economic autonomy.

The transition

The sheer size of the task is enough to induce a feeling of profound powerlessness, but this needs to be met head-on with a sense born of combined hope and history.

Thirty years ago, in the early 1980s, there was a palpable fear of nuclear annihilation and doubts whether the world would make it to 1990 - yet we did. Thirty years before that, some far-sighted politicians sought European economic cooperation as a means of preventing a third European civil war. The European Union has many problems, but a Franco-German conflict is now almost inconceivable.

There are numerous recent examples where warning-signs have been heeded and steps rapidly taken. The shock of the Cuban missile crisis in October 1962, for example, helped stimulate a raft of arms-control treaties later in that decade; and the discovery of the Antarctic “ozone hole” in 1983 led to the Montreal convention to control the pollutant causes of ozone-depletion.

The equivalent for climate change - the "canary in the coal-mine” - might well turn out to be the increasing incidence of severe weather events. But dynamic responses to environmental limits and the socio-economic divide will come fast enough only if these are underpinned by enough new thinking. If prophecy is “suggesting the possible”, then bring on the prophets and their movements!

There are, fortunately, quite a few of these around already. Britain alone has many pioneers, among them the New Economics Foundation's "great transition" project, the "transition towns" movement, or even the delightfully named "incredible edible Todmorden" (based in an innovative west Yorkshire town) and its many offshoots. The work of the Centre for Alternative Technology is as imaginative as ever, and Oxford Research Group's work on "sustainable security" does its best with modest resources to take on conventional security thinking.

On a worldwide level, many economic alternatives already exist - from the small and startlingly different (such as self-managing communes or industrial zones) to vast associations such as the cooperative movement with around 950 million members. The former have many opportunities to grow, while the latter are fully embedded in many societies yet still full of potential.

The future

An earlier column in this series proposed that the hundred-year period between the mid-20th and mid-21st centuries is proving crucial to humanity's future, by testing our ability to contain and avert two risks of self-destruction: the production and use of weapons of gargantuan destructive power, and the wreckage of the global environment and distinct societies within it (see "A century on the edge", 29 December 2007).

On the eve of 2013, more than two-thirds of the way through this pivotal century, the picture is mixed. Those terrible weapons were unleashed on Hiroshima and Nagasaki at the very start of the period, but so far there has (again, by luck more than wisdom) been no repetition. The risk remains, however - alongside that of environmental destruction and of deep economic divisions.

In addressing these dangers, the early decades of this century are key. The chances are with us, and much of the knowledge is there too. But we are nearly into the third year of the second decade and time is getting short.

Paul Rogers is professor in the department of peace studies at Bradford University, northern England. He is openDemocracy's international-security editor, and has been writing a weekly column on global security since 28 September 2001; he also writes a monthly briefing for the Oxford Research Group. His books include Why We’re Losing the War on Terror (Polity, 2007), and Losing Control: Global Security in the 21st Century(Pluto Press, 3rd edition, 2010). He is on twitter at: @ProfPRogers

This article first appeared on openDemocracy 20 December 2012

De virtuele castratie van Syrië, prijs voor energie-geopolitiek gewin

     

Wounded civilians arrive at a hospital in Aleppo during the Syrian civil war. Photo: Voice of America News (Wikimedia Commons)

 

“Als gemeenschap van volkeren die oorlog hebben overwonnen en totalitarisme hebben bevochten, zullen wij altijd achter degenen staan die naar vrede en menselijke waardigheid streven. En laat ik het vandaag bij deze gelegenheid zeggen: de situatie in Syrië is een schandvlek voor het geweten van de wereld en de internationale gemeenschap heeft de morele plicht er iets aan te doen”. Dat zei EU-commissievoorzitter José Manuel Barroso bij de inontvangstneming van de Nobelprijs voor de Vrede op 10 december in Oslo. Een dubbelzinnige verklaring van een man die 16 maart 2003 als Portugees premier de Azoren-vergadering voorzat met de haviken George Bush, Tony Blair en Jose Maria Aznar die het licht op groen zette voor de illegale invasie van Irak, vier dagen later. En een cynische uitspraak van een voorman van de EU die heel goed weet dat enkele grote EU-landen tot de nek in de oorlog in Syrië zijn betrokken. Een oorlog met meer dan 40.000 doden, tienduizenden gewonden, meer dan een miljoen ontheemden en honderdduizenden vluchtelingen in buurlanden.

Wat is er werkelijk aan het gebeuren in Syrië? Het is niet eenvoudig om het ontstaan van de burgeroorlog te reconstrueren. Het staat wel vast dat Damascus het gevaar voor het voortbestaan van zowel het regime als het land als onafhankelijke staat heeft onderschat. De uitkomst van een bijeenkomst in Doha (Qatar) begin november, waar de verdeelde oppositiegroepen bijeenkwamen om zich - onder auspiciën van de Qatari premier, Sheikh Hamad bin Jassim bin Jaber al-Thani - te verenigen onder het leiderschap van Moez Ahmed al-Khatib, licht een tipje van de sluier op. De bijeenkomst in Doha moest nieuw leven blazen in een opstand die er niet in geslaagd was de doelstellingen van haar sponsors te realiseren. Dat de oppositie de rangen sloot gebeurde onder zware druk van Al-Thani, die een persoonlijk belang had in de uitkomst van het conclaaf.

Het geweld in Syrië is een door het buitenland uitgelokte oorlog tegen een soeverein land. Huurlingen uit verschillende Arabische landen, al-Qaida aanhangers en jihadisten uit Afghanistan, Somalië en Pakistan, slachten Syrische burgers af en vechten samen met een handjevol deserteurs tegen het Syrische leger. De strijd wordt gefinancierd door Qatar waar de Al-Thani familie de absolute macht uitoefent, en het autocratische Saudi Arabië van het House of Saud. Nu de geloofwaardigheid van de oppositiegroepen zelfs door de Amerikaanse hoofdsponsor steeds meer in vraag werd gesteld moest er in Doha een verenigd front uit de grond worden gestampt. Er moest een schijn van samenhang komen onder een oppositie die volledig de creatie is van Frankrijk, Qatar en de VS. Turkije, dat de oppositie steunt, is er recent in geslaagd de NAVO te bewegen Duitse en Nederlandse Patriot luchtafweerraketten te plaatsen langs de grens met Syrië.

Het is interessant om vast te stellen dat de gebeurtenissen het scenario volgen van het Saban Center for Middle East Policy. Het document “Saving Syria: Assessing Options for Regime Change” van maart 2012 voorziet in een militaire interventie onder het mom van humanitaire zorg over burgerdoden, naar analogie van Libië in 2011. Troepenbewegingen van Israel en Turkije langs de grenzen met Syrië moesten het Syrische leger verspreiden en de gewapende oppositie ruim baan geven. Het Saban Center is ontstaan dankzij een belangrijke gift van Haim Saban, een Israëlisch-Amerikaanse mediabiljonair die ook eigenaar is van de Duitse mediagigant ProSieben. Deze filantroop maakt geen geheim van zijn doelstellingen: hij heeft veel geld over voor het dienen van Israëlische belangen.

De grote vraag is wat Israel, Turkije en Qatar in een dergelijke dodelijke confrontatie over de politieke toekomst van Syrië verbindt aan de ene kant, en Syrië, Iran, Rusland en China aan de andere kant. Het antwoord is vooral: energie-geopolitiek. De strijd gaat over de controle over aardgas, niet enkel voor de productielanden in het Midden-Oosten, maar ook voor de EU en Eurazië, waaronder Rusland als producent en China als consument. Het resultaat van het conclaaf in Doha geeft een goed inzicht in de grote strategie. In het Doha-Protocol werden de volgende afspraken vastgelegd:

Het Syrische leger wordt teruggebracht tot 50.000 man. Syrië doet haar rechten op de Golan enkel gelden met politieke middelen. Het sluit onder leiding van de VS en Qatar een vredesovereenkomst met Israël. Het ontdoet zich van chemische en biologische wapens en raketten. Dat gebeurt in Jordanië, onder Amerikaans toezicht. Syrië geeft elke aanspraak op Liwa Iskenderun (Alexandretta) op, en draagt enkele grensdorpen in de provincies Aleppo en Idlib die worden bewoond door Turkmenen aan Turkije over. Het zet alle leden van de Koerdische Arbeiderspartij (PKK) uit het land en levert de door Turkije gezochte PKK-leden uit. De PKK wordt op de lijst van terreurorganisaties geplaatst.

Syrië annuleert alle overeenkomsten met Rusland en China op het gebied van oliewinning en wapens. Het aanvaardt de installatie van een Qatari pijplijn voor het transport van aardgas over Syrisch grondgebied naar Turkije en vervolgens Europa. Het geeft het groene licht aan pijpleidingen voor het transport van drinkwater van de Atatürk Dam naar Israel. Qatar en de Verenigde Arabische Emiraten nemen de wederopbouw van Syrië op zich op voorwaarde dat enkel hun bedrijven worden ingehuurd en exclusiviteit wordt verkregen bij de exploratie van Syrische olie en gas. Syrië maakt een einde aan haar betrekkingen met Iran, Rusland en China, en breekt met Hezbollah en de Palestijnse verzetsbewegingen. Het Syrische regime moet Islamitisch zijn, maar niet Salafistisch. De overeenkomst wordt van kracht bij de installatie van een oppositieregering.

Ziedaar de exorbitant hoge prijs die Syrië moet betalen voor buitenlandse druk en Arabisch verraad. Elke sponsor van de “opstand van het Syrische volk” krijgt een stuk van de taart. De VS door het ontwapenen van Syrië en het land uit de invloedssfeer van zijn machtige vrienden te halen. Turkije krijgt Syrische grensdorpen terug en hertekent de grens in functie van haar belangen. Qatar krijgt het exclusieve recht op de wederopbouw van het land en op de olie- en gaswinning, en Saoedi-Arabië door de vestiging van een Islamitisch regime van eigen signatuur. En Nederland, dat de belangen van Shell verdedigt, hoopt met de inzet van Patriots aan de Turks-Syrische grens een graantje mee te pikken.

Wat men beoogt komt neer op de virtuele castratie van Syrië. Het land wordt van zijn zelfbeschikkingsrecht ontdaan, net als dat met Egypte gebeurde door de Camp David Akkoorden van 1979. Het beeld wordt gecreëerd alsof de “oppositie” de onmiddellijke erkenning van Israel eist, in dit geval echter op basis van een voorgekookte regeling. Bij monde van president Barack Obama heeft de VS inmiddels de nieuwe Coalitie van de Syrische oppositie erkend als “legitieme vertegenwoordiging” van de Syriërs. Frankrijk had dat vorige maand al gedaan, gevolgd door Groot-Brittannië en Turkije. Maar Washington lijkt niet zeker van zijn zaak: het plaatste alvast het al-Nosra Front, een machtige groepering jihadisten met banden met al-Qaida, op de lijst van terreurorganisaties.

De Syrische buit wordt verdeeld. En niemand die maalt over democratie, vrijheid, mensenrechten, een nieuw Syrië waarin Syriërs van elke etnische afkomst, godsdienst of overtuiging van dezelfde rechten genieten. De sponsors passeren het eerst langs de kassa. De echte Syrische oppositie heeft het nakijken. Het conclaaf in Doha moest een Syrisch tintje geven aan de plundering van het land. Toen Sheikh Hamad bin Jassim bin Jaber al-Thani op de bijeenkomst van de Arabische Liga in Cairo half november verscheen met de nieuwe “baas” van de “coalitie” Moez Ahmed al-Khatib in zijn kielzog was het duidelijk. In Syrië wordt het Libische scenario overtroffen. Het is hoog spel: een soeverein land wordt uitgekleed, een regio hertekend. Als dat betekent dat wereldmachten Rusland en China buitenspel worden gezet en regionale grootmacht Iran verder geïsoleerd kan dat de wereld alleen maar destabiliseren.

Is the relationship between the US and Israel tilting?

Protest against the Israeli atack on the Palestinians held at the State Library 4 January 2009.

Photo: Takver / Wikimedia Commons

There are indications that a new reality in the relationship between the U.S. and Israel is in the making. Israeli Prime Minister Netanyahu seems to be losing out to President Obama. Under a re-elected Obama opportunities for Palestinians could return.

 

“For the last forty years I have specialized, both in my writing and teaching, in the Arab-Israeli conflict, and as a consequence I now regard Israel as a moral disaster--a betrayer of what we have long believed to be Jewish rationalism, enlightenment, and commitment to the highest values of civilization. It is a disgraceful state, and an increasingly ignorant and in many ways disgraceful society, a pariah state that fully deserves its pariah status. Aside from its moral evil, it is also insanely self-destructive, and it will be something of a miracle if it survives. I am no longer in a tiny minority in holding these views; they have become increasingly common among American Jewish intellectuals, and indeed among the best Israelis.”

 

That is what Jerome Slater said in an email exchange with New York Times' chief Israeli correspondent Jodi Rudoren. A retired political science professor, Slater is a seasoned observer. He has taught and written about U.S. foreign policy and the Israeli-Palestinian conflict for nearly 50 years. In his correspondence with Rudoren he criticizes her for biased and too rosy reporting about Israel. The fact that Israel has turned so far away from Herzl's vision is a nightmare to him. Don’t simply discard my observations as mere ideology, he says, “the facts about Israel's behaviour towards the Palestinians are overwhelming. There is no prospect of serious change in Israeli policies in the absence of serious U.S. pressures, and there is no prospect of such pressures in the absence of change in the views of the American Jewish community”. Such disaster could also take the form of the collapse of liberal democracy, says Slater. His message is: come to grips with the reality and rouse your readers from their ignorance.

 

Haaretz editor Tal Niv joins Slater in his concern over the fate of the Zionist project. She sees the bankruptcy of a country where children are subject to an upbringing that preaches violence and hatred against the indigenous population, hatred that takes the form of lethal violence. It is clear to her that something has become twisted in a country that witnesses a surge of violence among its future citizens. Violence that seeks to expunge anyone who is not a Jew, that is continually occupied with educating children to feel superior because of their nationality instead of instilling pluralistic ideals. Violence that puts the Zionist project itself in doubt, a project that is turning its back on human rights. Israel may survive as an armed state of Jewish law in which Jews and the children of Jews do as they please to Arabs by divine right, but this is no longer the kind of Zionist state that Herzl envisioned, a state in which a decent person could live, says Niv.

 

If the Zionist project is a failure, then what is on the horizon for Israel and the Palestinian population in Israel, the West Bank, Gaza, Jerusalem and the Diaspora? That is the big question for Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu. For decades, Israel has campaigned for recognition in the Arab world. But when in early 2002 the Arab League adopted the Saudi initiative that provided for recognition of Israel within the 1967 borders, peace seemed suddenly not so attractive. In that scenario, the prime minister would be faced with the uncomfortable choice between a unitary state with equal rights for settlers and Palestinians in the West Bank, or a binational state for Jews and Palestinians, but with different political institutions. The first option would challenge the Jewish character of Israel, the second constitutional democracy. With the Israeli political landscape shifting to the right and more than 600,000 hyper assertive settlers in the West Bank and East Jerusalem, Israel has colonised the two-state solution into oblivion.

 

Jerome Slater believes that public opinion in the U.S. could be mobilized and a change of U.S. policy brought about by highlighting both sides of the conflict. Veteran Middle East expert Alan Hart sees opportunities for Palestine, too. Hart suggests the discharge of the impotent Palestinian Authority of Mahmoud Abbas - whose mandate ended on 9 January 2009 - and the re-establishment of a Palestinian National Council in exile. Having become responsible for the administration of the land it occupies, the occupier can be held to account on international platforms. Hart also suggests for all Palestinians around the world to mobilize. In addition to the 1.5 million in Israel, 2.4 in the West Bank and 1.6 in Gaza, there are 7.5 million Palestinians in the diaspora. Numerically, the total 12.8 million Palestinians have a case that the international community can no longer ignore, says Hart. But in the short term, only the attitude of superpower America, which lends massive military, financial and diplomatic support to Israel, can make the difference.

 

There are indications that the changed U.S. policy which Slater envisions is emerging. The Israeli newspaper Yedioth Ahronoth reported a new reality in the relationship between the U.S. and Israel. Following Washington’s decision to postpone joint U.S.-Israeli military exercises this spring, this fall it will only delegate a token minimum of American forces. And Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff Martin Dempsey warned that the United States will not be “complicit” in an Israeli military strike on Iran. The message is: you are on your own. Israel Hayom, the newspaper which is closely linked to the Prime Minister, has already abandoned the war rhetoric against Iran. In their game of bluff, Prime Minister Netanyahu and Defense Minister Ehud Barak appear to have overplayed their hand, the newspaper said. Other observers point to the efforts of Netanyahu to outmaneuver the U.S. president and to the consequences a changed U.S. policy would have for the survival of the Netanyahu-administration.

 

But a real change can come if the U.S. backs off from the Middle East. According to American historican Victor Davis Hanson America is in the midst of the greatest domestic gas and oil revolution since the early 20th century. If even guarded predictions about new North American reserves are accurate, the entire continent may become energy-independent, says Hanson. “Is the US preparing for a post-Israel Middle East?”, law professor Franklin Lamb wonders, referring to a recent analysis commissioned by the U.S. government. The 82-page paper entitled “Preparing For A Post Israel Middle East” reportedly proposes a revision of relations with Israel. The analysis concludes that Israel is currently the greatest threat to US national interests because its nature and actions prevent normal US relations with Arab and Muslim countries and the wider international community.

 

The indications that the relationship between the U.S. and Israel is tilting are strong. Such pivot may gather momentum under a reelected President Obama. The fate of the Palestinians can only benefit from such a development.

A version in Dutch of this article first appeared on De Wereld Morgen and Geopolitiek in perspectief

Een Nederlandstalige versie van dit artikel verscheen eerder op DeWereld Morgen en Geopolitiek in perspectief