Saturday, May 27, 2006

Hamas - update.

In our sketch of May/3 we predicted that Hamas would moderate its position regarding Israel, that the electoral victory of Hamas, contrary to world consensus, actually set the course for a solution. And this is true because of the willingness of the Bush administration to apply a financial lever - reform in exchange for needed funding. If the roots of democracy did not exist and Hamas has not been thrust onto center stage but remained merely neighborhood thugs and accountable to no one then the lever could not be applied; there would be no hope.

Already we see progress. In a move motivated by the West's funding blockage and designed to force the Hamas-led government to recognize Israel, Palestinian Authority President Mahmoud Abbas on Thursday gave the governing party 10 days to accept the idea of a Palestinian nation existing alongside Israel, or he will call a national referendum on the issue. The idea is based on a plan drawn up by Hamas leadership in Israeli jails and is an 18 point accord which if accepted means Hamas would drop its claim to land between the Jordan and the Mediterranean. Positive developments will result in discussions on the part of the US and her counterparts to reinstate funding to the Authority.

Monday, May 15, 2006

Iran - An Update

5/15/06
Iran - An Update

Clients were alerted November of 04 that Iran’s nuclear ambitions would become the key issue on Rice’s plate. During the next six months to a year we can expect the following:
The International Atomic Energy Agency will continue to suffer from impotency, the same malady affecting its parent. Russia and China will remain squeamish, for the near term blocking any meaningful sanctions birthed by the Security Council. The US, the UK and a coalition will impose sanctions outside the UN framework. One of these will be the blockage of gasoline imports. It is amusing that Iran, sitting on top of a major percentage of the world’s oil reserves, cannot produce its own gasoline. Such sanctions will be targeted to deliver the most pain in the shortest time span to the Iranian masses. Next, the US will cite Article 51 of the UN charter - our right to self defense. Those not living under a rock will come to understand that we will not wait for a Security Council resolution to protect ourselves (and most of the members of the UN have limited to no interest in that result anyway).
Parallel to these preparations we will witness further progress in Iraq. So will the Iranian people. Suffering triggered by sanctions coupled with media coverage in Iran (some US sponsored) of a newly democratic Iraq will result in a swelling of internal pressure for reform. Dissidents, especially those buoyed by the former administration in Iran and now silenced under Ahmadinejad will begin to stir and it will be especially the fruits of a burgeoning free market in Iraq that will stir them the most. This development will mirror that which we predicted would occur in Palestine. Victorious at the polls, Hamas has been suddenly crowned with responsibility. With aid all but completely cut off Hamas will abandon their bent for violence, will gradually move toward internal reform, and, a two-state solution with Israel. That, or starve their constituents and be thrown out of office. Ahmadinejad will suffer a similar fate unless Iran abandons a militant and archaic policy for one of reform, which will likely include monitoring by the US of their nuclear activities. And our view is that Ahmadinejad’s belligerence is 3/4's phony anyway, simply a posturing, a set up for economic incentives disguised as righteous indignation.
Thus, the US will prepare for the worst but hope for the best.
We will visit key points on this road map in more detail in the weeks ahead.
Robert Craven

Wednesday, May 10, 2006

The Connection

Saddam, Terror and US Security
While the media and most observers focused on the Afghanistan war, we highlighted the threat posed to US security by Saddam. We understood that the US intelligence community by then had convincing evidence of a connection between this regime and international terror; specifically, confirmation that Saddam had for years provided support by the way of finance, shelter and training to various terrorist groups, including al Qaeda.
Thus, the Iraqi war which followed was not about democracy, women’s rights or oil. It was about seeing to the physical security of the United States.
The war was also poorly advertised. There was a consensus in Washington pre-9/11, both parties, that Saddam had unconventional weapons. In fact he admitted a long list to the UN in 1998, including chemical, nerve and germ agents. For some reason the administration chose this pretext - weapons of mass destruction - to justify the war to the masses when it in fact it had a rapidly accumulating stockpile of information connecting Saddam directly to terror.
Since the conclusion of the Iraqi war, intelligence documents captured from that and the Afghani conflict have been collected in Qatar as part of what is called the Harmony document, coming under the auspices of Director of National Intelligence, John Negroponte. Many of us pressed for a full release of these documents. Negroponte stalled. Suddenly word came Monday Mar/13 that most of the documents would be gradually released, this the apparent result of congressional and perhaps ever presidential pressure on this agency.
The first documents, although a tiny fraction of the whole, were released Mar/16. These support our long-held position on Iraq. One, an eight page fax dated June 6, 2001, indicates that the Iraqi Intelligence Service funded an al Qaeda-linked jihadist group in the Phillippines, founded by Osama bin Laden’s brother-in-law. Another is an internal IIS memo regarding cooperation between that agency and Saudi opposition groups, recording that Osama requested Iraqi cooperation on terrorism and that at least as of Jan/1997, the Iraqis were eager to continue the relationship with bin Laden. The third, a Sep/2001 report from an IIS official in Afghanistan, speculates on the relationship between Iraq and al Qaeda and the likely US response to it. Taken from that translation, the source speculates that, "America has evidence that the Iraqi government and the group of Osama bin Laden have cooperated to attack targets inside America and in the event that it has been proven that the group of Osama and the Taliban have planned such operations, it is possible that America will attack Iraq and Afghanistan."

Robert Craven

Wednesday, May 03, 2006

Democracy In the Middle East

Over the next 6 to 18 months we will witness a conflagration of sorts: Democracy will spread throughout the Middle East as a pace very few can now appreciate; with the encouragement of the US, dissidents will upset primitive, brutal, autocratic and theocratic regimes and replace these with a new beginning - the foundations for a responsive government.
Realists have maintained that the Mid East is the least hospitable place in the world for a democracy. They are mistaken. Arab countries have aped western ideas but sought to implement these through state power - failed capitalist dictatorships. The inevitable decay and failure, the brutality of rule have together bred a growing sub-surface counterculture of resistance. It is this reservoir of energy, before constrained or crushed by ruling thugs, that now will be married to an enlightened US policy, ultimately transforming the region. Ans so now we are witnessing the beginning of the end for the old order.
The Administration’s formula is a simple one. It begins with the truth that all men and women will chose self determination over a directed and compulsory existence. Next is the fact that the spread of consensual government is in the direct interest of the US. A free society is not a threat to its neighbors. Trade and enhancement of wealth are only enhanced.
Finally, the US will promote democracy in nondemocratic regimes by linking our foreign policy, our money, expertise and markets to internal reform - how these societies treat their own. All the countries in the Mid East are dependent on the West. We have the leverage. Given the base of internal dissent a regime need only give a little, say in the election process in exchange for US trade preference, and the fissure provided will quickly open to unleash a torrent.

Thank you.

Democracy in the Middle East - a Failure?

Many of those who may have previously championed the US initiative to introduce democracy to the Mid East have grown skeptical, pointing to the recent Hamas victory in Palestine as evidence of failure. Natan Sharansky, Donald Devine, Francis Fukuyama and others fault US strategy for putting form before function. As we have it now, "More democracy simply means more influence for radical Islam," claims Devine. The State department’s translation of the Bush vision (as first articulated in a 6/24/02 speech) -"The Road Map To Peace" - has indeed tried to jump start democracy; elections have been rushed before the formation of democratic institutions, perhaps before basic rights, actually those natural rights which anchored the Founders - life, liberty, property, religion, speech - are secured. It is argued that in such an environment, elected officials will not be held accountable, will have little interest in reform.
These proud parents may be a tad too demanding of their new born. In our sketch of Feb/24 on this subject we argued that in fact the Hamas electoral triumph (and no one was more surprised than Hamas) is a fit for US policy because of the combination of the working mechanism of the election process, and, that powerful lever available to the West, originally applied so successfully by Reagan against the Soviets.
It is not required that we agree with the election outcome. Key is that this new mechanism, in the case of Palestine, effectively thrusts outlaws onto center stage, converting thugs into diplomats. Hamas would never evolve, never abandon extremism, never enter the main stream without this forum, the arena of exchange and debate offered by a democracy, however imperfect.
Now that Hamas has acquired the spotlight, some semblance of respectability, they will not easily surrendered it. This is simple human nature. They will in fact acknowledge their constituency, one that elected them not as an endorsement for more violence but as a rejection of past corruption and the hope for more aid, more state-run projects. And this is where the West can apply pressure "Reagan style", that of linking aid to reform. The US had what the Soviets needed by the way of money, expertise and markets. These were made available only if the Soviets acknowledged basic human rights. A fissure widened into a gulf and with the help of internal pressure it worked. This linkage will work in the case of Palestine; Hamas will moderate its rhetoric and reduce or even cease violence directed at Israel, our view.
The PA receives most of its $1.9 budget from donors. It is a society addicted to aid, with very little private sector and a bloated bureaucracy, really a welfare state. But that will favor the side of peace. The PA must pay 140,000 employees (who with their dependants count for about 30% of the population) and cannot do it without western help. The US just canceled $411 million in aid, Canada will follow suit; the EU, the largest contributor to the operating budget, has suspended direct aid.
Fortunately, the Arab League will not step up its funding to narrow the gap.
Of course Hamas says these decisions amount to a collective punishment of the Palestinian people. This is an old trick to create an enemy and divert blame, one used so skillfully by Arafat. Key is that the Palestinian people are not so sure. If it comes to Hamas abiding by the original details of the peace plan, of accepting Israel’s existence, or, starving its constituency, all but the willfully blind can see the outcome at the next round of elections.
As we predicted in February there has been a change in Hamas attitude, at least that manufactured for public consumption. Witness the new prime minister’s conciliatory statement of Mar/26, Haniyeh claiming that Hamas does not seek bloodshed, that the Hamas "presence of power marks the beginning of resolving the crisis." And in a published interview Friday, Apr/7, Palestinian foreign minister Zahar confirmed Hamas willingness to discuss a solution that would implicitly recognize Israel. Some dismiss this as phony, mere posturing, nothing new. Certainly there is face saving, but, as long as a united West continues to utilized its lever these comments telegraph a solid beginning.
So at this center we celebrate the electoral victory of Hamas. It sets the course for a solution, something never before possible without the rudiments of democracy.
Robert Craven