Category: Syria

The obsolescence of ideology: Debating Syria and Ukraine

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By Richard Falk

I have been struck by the unhelpfulness of ideology to my own efforts to think through the complexities of recommended or preferred policy in relation to Syria, and more recently, the Ukraine. There is no obvious posture to be struck by referencing a ‘left’ or ‘right’ identity. A convincing policy proposal depends on sensitivity to context and the particulars of the conflict.

To insist that the left/right distinction obscures more than it reveals is not the end of the story. To contend that ideology is unhelpful as a guide for action is not the same as saying that it is irrelevant to the public debate. In the American context, to be on the left generally implies an anti-interventionist stance, while being on the right is usually associated with being pro-interventionist. Yet, these first approximations can be misleading, even ideologically. Liberals, who are deliberately and consigned to the left by the mainstream media, often favor intervention if the rationale for military force is primarily humanitarian.

Likewise, the neocon right is often opposed to intervention if it is not persuasively justified on the basis of strategic interests, which could include promoting ideological affinities. The neocon leitmotif is global leadership via military strength, force projection, friends and enemies, and the assertion and enforcement of red lines. When Obama failed to bomb Syria in 2013 after earlier declaring that the use of chemical weapons by the Assad regime was for him a red line this supposedly undermined the credibility of American power.

My point is that ideology remains a helpful predictor of how people line up with respect to controversial uses of force, although relying on ideology is a lazy way to think if the purpose is to decide on the best course of action to take, which requires a sensitivity to the concrete realities of a particular situation. Such an analysis depends on context, and may include acknowledging the difficulties of intervention, and the moral unacceptability of nonintervention. Read More »

TFF PressInfo: The manufactured story about Iran’s nuclear program

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By Farhang Jahanpour

As Iran and the world powers resume nuclear talks in Vienna with the hope of reaching a comprehensive agreement over Iran’s nuclear program by mid-July, the Israelis and their lobbyists in Washington are intensifying their efforts to scuttle the talks. In addition to all the efforts in the US Congress to impose additional sanctions on Iran, thus bringing the talks to a premature end, there are indications that Israel and her friends are continuing with various acts of sabotage against Iranian nuclear facilities.

In 2010, the so-called Stuxnet virus temporarily disrupted the operation of thousands of Iranian centrifuges. At least five Iranian nuclear scientists have been assassinated. Iran has also said that it has discovered tiny timed explosives planted on centrifuges but has disabled them before they could go off. On Monday 17 March 2014, Iran said that an alleged attempt to sabotage one of its nuclear facilities had involved foreign intelligence agencies that had tampered with imported pumps. However, in addition to all those acts of sabotage, there seems to be an intensive effort to manufacture a crisis by means of false intelligence.

Prior to the devastating Iraq war that destroyed the country and killed upwards of half a million people, not to say anything of thousands of Coalition forces who were killed and the two trillion dollars that was spent, a number of neocons bent on the invasion of Iraq manufactured various false reports in order to mislead the public and pave the way for the war.

On September 8, 2002, Michael R. Gordon and Judith Miller published a story in the New York Times that openly alleged that Saddam Hussein had intensified his quest for a nuclear bomb. They wrote: “In the last 14 months, Iraq has sought to buy thousands of specially designed aluminum tubes, which American officials believe were intended as components of centrifuges to enrich uranium… Bush administration officials say the quest for thousands of high-strength aluminum tubes is one of several signs that Mr. Hussein is seeking to revamp and accelerate Iraq’s nuclear weapons program.”

The unsuspecting public was misled by that false intelligence and the result was one of the longest and most disastrous wars in US history.

How the manufactured crisis was manufactured

In his latest groundbreaking book, entitled A Manufactured Crisis: The Untold Story of Iran Nuclear Scare, the historian and investigative journalist Gareth Porter catalogs a long list of false reports manufactured by Israeli intelligence agencies in order to mislead the public and pave the way for a war against Iran. (1)

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Syria: What to do now?

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By Richard Falk

There is a new mood of moral desperation associated with the ongoing strife in Syria that has resulted in at least 135,000 deaths, 9.3 millions Syrians displaced, countless atrocities, Palestinian refugee communities attacked, blockaded, and dispersed, and urban sieges designed to starve civilians perceived to be hostile.

As the second round of negotiations in Geneva-2 ended as fruitlessly as the earlier round, there is a sense that diplomacy is a performance ritual without any serious intent to engage in conflict-resolving negotiations. Expectations couldn’t be lower for the as yet unscheduled, but still planned, third round of this Geneva-2 process.

The Damascus regime wants an end to armed opposition, while the insurgency insists upon setting up a transition process that is independently administered and committed to the election of a new political leadership. The gap between the parties is too big, and getting bigger, especially as the Damascus government correctly perceives the combat tide as turning in its favor, leading the main opposition forces seemingly to seek to achieve politically and diplomatically what they appear unable to do militarily. Also, it is unclear whether the opposition presence in Geneva has the authority to speak on behalf of several opposition groups in the field in Syria.

In light of these frustrations it is not surprising to observe an acrimonious debate unfolding between American interventionists who believe that only force, or at least its threat, can thread the needle of hope. Read More »

Saddam, Osama, Gaddafi, Chavez – and Obama

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By Johan Galtung

Contemporary reality, but what is real? Two of the above were killed under Obama’s watch; Osama executed by Obama extra-judicially, in cold blood, the other two by proxies (Chávez: we do not quite know). Two of them were dictators; Osama had no state, Chávez had, but won elections apparently not more rigged than Florida 2004, Ohio 2008.

What were the problems, how might they have been solved?Read More »

Iran – P5+1 deal: Positive steps but hawks try to derail it

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By Farhang Jahanpour

In his State of the Union Address on 28th February, President Barack Obama bluntly pointed out that if the hawks in Congress pushed for a bill to impose new sanctions on Iran he would veto that bill. This brave and almost unprecedented move by President Obama has silenced, at least for the time being, the opposition to the Joint Plan of Action that was agreed by Iran and the P5+1 (the five permanent Security Council members plus Germany) last November. This was a major setback for AIPAC (American Israeli Public Affairs Committee) and other pro-Israeli lobbies that had mobilized all their forces to block the deal.

In fact, some of the Democratic Senators that had sponsored the bill to impose additional sanctions on Iran have already distanced themselves from it. Furthermore, at least seventy Members of Congress are organizing a letter to the President supporting U.S.-Iran diplomacy and opposing new sanctions. (1)

New round of talks
Meanwhile, 20th January marked an historic turn in the Iranian nuclear dispute with the West, when both Iran and the West began to implement the terms of the agreement. The IAEA director general Yukiya Amano has said that he could report that “practical measures are being implemented as planned” by Iran, and that there would be new negotiations over the next phase on 8th February. Iran also has agreed to a new round of negotiations on 18th February with the P5+1. (2)


For his part, Iranian Foreign Minister Mohammad Javad Zarif has said: “What I can promise is that we will go to those negotiations with the political will and good faith to reach an agreement, because it would be foolish for us to only bargain for six months — that would be [a] disaster for everybody.”

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Geneva II – The mismanagement of conflicts

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By Johan Galtung

This is not the way to do it. A major party to the conflicts cannot be at the same time the conference manager; to the point of making the UN Secretary General disinvite a major invited party. Whether this is due to AIPAC-American Israel Public Affairs Committee buying US Senators, or whatever process internal to the USA-Israel system, or it comes out of Secretary Kerry’s genuine conviction, is immaterial.

This looks like a court where the prosecutor is also the judge, having decided who the major culprit is and instructed the judge to proceed accordingly from Court I to II, with only those agreeing to Court I being in the jury of Court II.

Had Ban Ki-moon been a man honoring UN authority he would have disinvited himself instead, claiming undue pressure. Disinvite a major party and two things are guaranteed: a lost chance to find a solution to what is also a sunni-shia conflict, and a major spoiler of whatever conclusions may be arrived at. There was a promising point: they will first talk with the parties separately to identify their positions–but, leaving out the major carrier of shia, no chance.

This foretold failure–barring a miracle–will probably not last long. The photo-card will be played out at an early stage. It looks ominous; but is an authoritarian regime like Assad’s compatible with its army taking so many potentially incriminating photos that could fall into the hands of a “self-styled defector”? Why make photos anyhow?

Let us say, brutally simplified, that there are seven conflicts, not only one, all directly or indirectly violent, unfolding in Syria.Read More »

TFF PressInfo – Geneva will fail but don’t blame only the Syrian parties

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Lund, Sweden – January 24, 2014

By Jan Oberg*

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The meeting in Geneva about Syria resumes today. It is destined to become a historic failure. Most observers will blame either of the armed Syrian parties – the government or the rebels – for adhering unbendingly to their mutually exclusive positions.

But that isn’t fair. Those who set themselves up as conflict-managers, mediators, negotiators and peace-makers and called the meeting must also take responsibility for its failure. It is the UN, the Arab League and several governments, various NATO countries and Russia (”facilitators” in the following).

This article is about how to achieve a negotiated peace.

Here follow 8 – out of many more – professional criteria that are useful for an evaluation of Geneva. Summary at the end:

1) How well do the facilitators understand what the conflict is about?
It’s about history, suffering, socio-economic crisis, foreign involvement, traumas and constitutional matters; it’s about vicious cycles of violence and arms traders’ profits.
No conflict is only about one top leader and, as we know from Iraq, Libya and elsewhere, conflicts are not solved by that leader leaving the stage. And no conflict is about only two sides, one with all the good people on one side and one with all the evil ones.
Further it is reasonable to say that Syria is a stage for a much larger conflict being played out: the wider Middle East as well as among actors who are competing for power in tomorrow’s world. Read More »

TFF PressInfo – Why is everybody ignoring Syria’s people?

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Lund, Sweden – January 23, 2014

Interview by Jan Oberg

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Introduction
Sinbad is in his mid-20s and he took up studies in Europe before his native Syria began falling apart in senseless violence. He used to live in Damascus, his father being an officer in the Syrian Army but retired well before hell broke loose.

Sinbad is one of his country’s many young intellectuals, extremely knowledgeable about international, regional and national politics and also a man who, from a distance, has done what he possibly could to maintain links with his society – which is not just Syria but civil society. Among other things he established a website on which everybody could dialogue freely under one condition: that they advocate political and other civil strategies and tools and no violence or expressions of hatred. It turned out to be very difficult to maintain such a website.

Today he is disillusioned. He did not have the slightest hunch that the Arab Spring would be turning into a violent winter in such a short time. His family has been forced to flee to a far-away village, he himself can not go home.

Sinbad is at least as much disappointed – if not angered – that so many of his fellow citizens have taken to the quick fix idea of violent struggle against the regime and have only managed that way to make everything worse – for all society, that is.

Eager as I am to understand better the civil society dimension of this conflict, I readily grasp the chance to sit down with him in a café in Amsterdam and start out asking him:

Q: Over the last few years Western media have covered basically the violence – both by the al-Assad regime and by the rebels. Do you feel that civil society has been under-covered, so to speak?

Sinbad: Absolutely! Western media has consistently ignored the millions who would not dream of touching a gun and even keep social functions and relations going on a daily basis, including help each other. What the media tell you is far from the whole truth. The silent – big – majority is silent, not given a voice and they are now hiding behind their doors. Read More »

Beholding 2014

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By Richard Falk
Written on December 31, 2013

2013 was not a happy year in the chronicles of human history, yet there were a few moves in the directions of peace and justice.

What follows are some notes that respond to the mingling of light and shadows that are flickering on the global stage, with a spotlight placed on the main war zone of the 21st century – the Middle East, recalling that Europe had this negative honor for most of the modern era except for the long 19th century, and that the several killing fields of sub-Saharan Africa are located at the periphery of political vision, and thus their reality remains blurred for distant observers. Read More »

Syria – how surprising!

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By Jan Oberg

This Sunday morning, I stumble upon this article on BBC’s homepage – the French foreign minister is “pessimistic” about the negotiations to be held in January in Montreaux, Switzerland about Syria. This is a slightly expanded version on what I jotted down on TFF Facebook:

• Look: First you simplify the conflict beyond recognition, the usual two parties: one side with all the good people and one side with all the bad people – the type of conflict analysis that has proved to never work anywhere (but you learnt nothing from Somalia, Yugoslavia, Afghanistan, Iraq, or Libya).

• You set up the Friends of Syria – but with such friends, who need an enemy?

• You act as if you have noble motives but never recognize that the French, British and other interventionist and war history in Syria and surroundings is a main reason behind today’s terrible situation. And of course you never mention the words oil and gas.

• You say you can’t talk with the President, a main party to the conflict.

• Then you support some bad guys against some other bad guys and ignore civil society.

• Then you pour in weapons to have the maximum number of people killed and fleeing.

• Then you undermine the only realistic peace effort, that of Kofi Annan, forcing him to resign.

• Then you act surprised that Al-Qaeda & Co. appears on the scene.

• You consistently antagonize Russia which does have an influence on Assad and keep Iran out as a relevant mediator.

• Next, you threaten war on the country but – oh shoot – only France (France, look at this link, is Mr. Fabius an idiot?) and Denmark think it is a good idea.

• Then you get it wrong with the chemical attack, blaming Assad before anyone had investigated it.

• Next you arrange negotiations that ignore 95% of the Syrian people (civil society).

• Next you forget that you should have a cease-fire and some monitoring or ceasefire-keeping mechanism on the ground.

• And you ignore the basic role of thumb that negotiations is the last stage, the result of, comprehensive consultations and dialogues with numerous parties before you go to Montreux.

And then You are surprised and pessimistic that perhaps these negotiations won’t be a success !!

Is that because you really always wanted peace so much? Or are you just systematically behaving as conflict illiterates, doing more harm than good?