SPECIAL SERIES: Is a U.S.-Iran Deal on the Middle East Possible?

Global Intelligence News / IPS

Gareth Porter*

TEHRAN, Dec 15 (IPS) – Would a negotiated agreement between Iran and the Barack Obama administration be feasible if Obama sent the right signals? The answer one gets from Iranian officials and think tank analysts is, ”Yes, but…”

The Iranian national security establishment has long salivated over the prospect of an agreement with Washington. But there’s a big difference between Iranian and U.S. ideas of what such an accord would look like.

Washington is fixated on what it would take to get Iran to agree to stop enriching uranium. On the other hand, Iranians interviewed here indicate that an agreement would only be possible if it represented a fundamental change in the U.S.-Iran relationship.
Iranian officials and analysts see the problem of U.S.-Iranian relations as a seamless web of issues on which agreement must be reached as a whole. And in addition to the bilateral issues of normal diplomatic and economic relations, they see a new U.S.-Iranian understanding on the Middle East as essential.
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Popularity: 91% [?]

The ‘Other’, Older Palestinian Coup D’etat

Global Intelligence News

By Nicola Nasser*

Failing to substantiate for the President of the autonomous Palestinian Authority (PA), Mahmoud Abbas, a credible “legal” basis to extend his term from the Basic Law, which is the constitutional terms of reference that govern the rotation of power and the renewal of the executive, legislative and judicial branches of the PA, Abbas in his capacity as the chairman of the Executive Committee of the Palestine Liberation Organization (PLO) convened the rubber stamping Fatah –dominated Central Council (CC) of the PLO in the West Bank city of Ramallah to elect him also President of the State of Palestine on November 23.

The move could have been the last “constitutional” resort to extend his term as PA president before it expires on January 9 next year in order to secure himself as the supreme “legitimate” authority on Palestinian decision –making in the context of the “make – or – break” bloody wrangling with the rival Hamas on the leadership of the Palestinian national movement.
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Popularity: 44% [?]

US-MIDEAST: Regional Players Key to Salvaging Peace Process

Global Intelligence News / IPS

Ali Gharib

WASHINGTON, Dec 4 (IPS) – One of the biggest foreign policy challenges facing the incoming administration of President-elect Barack Obama will be reinvigorating what looks like a completely stalled Palestinian-Israeli peace process.

Repeated failures in the struggle for peace make clear that a change in direction is needed. And many observers think that taking advantage of the Arab Peace Initiative put forward by the Arab League in 2002 is just the ticket to jumpstarting the process.

A push by Pres. George W. Bush in the final year of his two-term presidency yielded the Annapolis process which, though having made minimal procedural gains and bringing in regional players, largely ignored the existing Arab proposal spearheaded by then-Crown Prince and now King Abdullah of Saudi Arabia.

The Annapolis track ended up failing to meet its own goals of having an agreement signed by the end of Bush’s time in office.
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Popularity: 36% [?]

U.S.: Obama Urged to Quickly Engage Iran, Syria

Global Intelligence News / IPS

Jim Lobe*

WASHINGTON, Dec 2 (IPS) – The incoming administration of President-elect Barack Obama should move quickly to engage Iran without preconditions and to promote an Israeli-Syrian peace accord, according to two veteran Middle East experts whose views are likely to have influence over Obama’s just-announced foreign policy team.

Obama should also ”make a serious effort from the outset to promote progress between Israel and the Palestinians,” propose its own solutions to the parties ”sooner rather than later”, and enlist the active support of the Arab League in its success, according to Richard Haass and Martin Indyk, senior Middle East aides under Presidents George H.W. Bush and Bill Clinton, respectively.

They also called for Obama to consider providing nuclear guarantees and enhanced anti-ballistic missile defence capabilities to Israel if negotiations to curb Iran’s nuclear programme fail or do not achieve quick success in order to dissuade the Jewish state from attacking Tehran’s nuclear facilities on its own. Such an umbrella could also extend to Washington’s Arab allies in part to prevent a regional arms race.
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Popularity: 29% [?]

U.S.: Diplomacy, Multilateralism Stressed by Obama Team

Global Intelligence News / IPS

Jim Lobe*

WASHINGTON, Dec 1 (IPS) – Introducing the top figures in his national security team in Chicago Monday, U.S. President-elect Barack Obama promised a ”new dawn of American leadership” that will be marked by much greater emphasis on diplomacy and multilateralism than was accorded by the incumbent, George W. Bush.

Obama said all of his appointees, who featured current Pentagon chief Robert Gates and Obama’s former rival for the Democratic presidential nomination, Sen. Hillary Clinton, as secretary of state, shared a ”core vision of what’s needed to keep the American people safe and to assure prosperity here at home and peace abroad.”

”…(I)n order to do that we have to combine military power with strengthened diplomacy,” he said. ”And we have to build and forge stronger alliances around the world so that we’re not carrying the burdens and these challenges by ourselves.”
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Popularity: 18% [?]

INDIA: Empathy, Grief in Pakistan at Mumbai Mayhem

Global Intelligence News / IPS

Analysis by Beena Sarwar

KARACHI, Nov 29 (IPS) – The terrorist attacks unleashed in the Indian port city and financial hub of Mumbai continue to reverberate through Pakistan at a personal level and on the media.

The crisis, that began Wednesday night and lasted through Friday, dominates conversation, newspaper headlines, television coverage and Internet chatter on indigenous websites and e-mail lists run by Pakistanis at home and abroad.

As a frontline state in United States’ global ‘war on terror’ Pakistan is only too well acquainted with the effects of terrorism, with such attacks in the country having more than doubled and the number of deaths quadrupling from 2006 to 2007, according to a report released in May by the U.S. State Department.

However, even the most high profile attack in Pakistan which destroyed the Marriott Hotel in the capital Islamabad on Sep. 20, that some analysts termed Pakistan’s ‘9/11′, pales in comparison to the events in Mumbai that have claimed over 155 lives already, that many are now calling India’s ‘9/11′.
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Popularity: 17% [?]

POLITICS: Pact Will End Iraqi Dependence on U.S. Military

Global Intel Net / IPS

Analysis by Gareth Porter*

WASHINGTON, Nov 18 (IPS) – The text of the U.S.-Iraq Status of Forces Agreement (SOFA) signed by U.S. Ambassador Ryan Crocker and Iraqi Foreign Minister Hoshyar Zebari Monday closes the door to a further U.S. military presence beyond 2011 even more tightly than the previous draft and locks in a swift end to Iraqi dependence on the U.S. military that appears to be irreversible.

The agreement ends the George W. Bush administration’s aspiration for a long-term military presence, aimed both at projecting power in the region from bases in Iraq and at maintaining that Iraqi military dependence on U.S. training, advice and support.

The agreement represents an acute embarrassment for the Bush administration, which had taken the position through most of the summer that the agreement would be consistent with its demand for a ”conditions-based” withdrawal. Instead of adjusting its rhetoric to reflect the actual agreement, White House press secretary Dana Perino took the line Monday that the agreement contains only ”aspirational dates” for complete withdrawal and for withdrawal from Iraqi cities and towns.
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Popularity: 11% [?]

U.S.: Obama Advised to Forgo More Threats to Iran

Global Intel Net / IPS

Jim Lobe

WASHINGTON, Nov 17 (IPS) – A strategy of threats and ”provocations” against Iran by the incoming administration of President-elect Barack Obama is likely to be counter-productive, according to a new report released here Friday by a group of 20 former top U.S. diplomats and regional experts.

The group, co-chaired by former U.N. Amb. Thomas Pickering and James Dobbins, a top diplomatic troubleshooter under both Presidents Bill Clinton and George W. Bush, called instead for the new administration to ”open the door to direct, unconditional and comprehensive negotiations at the senior diplomatic level,” as well as unofficial contacts and exchanges.

”Paradoxical as it may seem amid all the heated media rhetoric, sustained engagement is far more likely to strengthen United States national security at this stage than either escalation to war or continued efforts to threaten, intimidate or coerce Iran,” according to the group, which also assailed what it called eight ”myths” propagated by neo-conservatives and other hawks who have been pushing for greater pressure on Tehran to give in to western demands that it halt its nuclear programme.
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Popularity: 14% [?]

EU-RUSSIA: Arms Overshadow Talks

Global intel Net / IPS

Analysis by David Cronin

BRUSSELS, Nov 15 (IPS) – Brinkmanship over weapons overshadowed a summit between the European Union and Russia held in the French city Nice Nov. 14.

Although the EU had agreed earlier in the week to resume talks on deepening its relationship with Moscow that had been suspended in protest at Russia’s military incursions into Georgia during August, the summit took place in an atmosphere of tension.

French President Nicolas Sarkozy who hosted the event voiced his unease with a recent threat by his Russian counterpart Dmitry Medvedev to station Iskander missiles in Kaliningrad, a Russian territory that borders the EU countries Poland and Lithuania.

”We really must move forward to remove sources of friction,” Sarkozy said, adding that no deployment of the missiles should take place before discussions on the challenges for European security take place. Such talks — facilitated by the continent-wide Organisation for Security and Cooperation in Europe — are planned for next year.
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Popularity: 22% [?]

DEVELOPMENT: Two Summits to Focus on Financial Crisis

Global Geopolitics Net Sites / IPS

Thalif Deen

UNITED NATIONS, Nov 10 (IPS) – As the financial meltdown continues to spread to the far corners of the globe, over 30 world leaders are scheduled to participate in two key international conferences aimed at seeking short- and long-term solutions to the economic crisis worldwide.

The first of these meetings will be a two-day G20 summit in Washington DC beginning Nov. 14 followed by a four-day U.N. conference on Financing for Development (FfD) in Qatar, beginning Nov. 29, which is open to all 192 U.N. member states.

Asked if the U.S.-sponsored summit in Washington may upstage FfD in Doha, Oscar de Rojas, executive secretary of FfD, says the United States has underscored that this weekend’s summit is focused on specific measures to be taken to address the financial crisis.

But it should not be seen as attempting to go too far beyond that, in terms of more fundamental systemic reform, he said.

”Therefore, that meeting could be seen as complementary to, and feeding into, the discussions in Doha,” de Rojas told IPS.
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Popularity: 17% [?]

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