The Most Enduring Legacy Of Nazi Hate

April 23, 2010 by David R. Stokes | Filed Under Book Review, History, Islam, Islam and the West, Israel and Palestinians, Middle East, Presidents, U.S. History, UK Politics, War on Terror | 6 Comments 

On February 1, 1944, two unlikely allies in the United States Senate—Robert Wagner (D-New York) and Robert Taft (R-Ohio)—introduced a resolution that caused shockwaves around the globe. Their initiative advocated American support for “free and unlimited entry of Jews into Palestine for the creation of a Jewish commonwealth.” This was a bold move and one that put the Roosevelt administration on the spot.

Nearly five years earlier, the British government had released a White Paper on the issue of Palestine—one that largely abandoned the Jewish people in that region. Since the 1917 Balfour Declaration and during the period of the British Mandate they had been largely supportive of Jewish migration to Palestine and the idea of a Jewish state there. In essence, the White Paper changed all of that. It advocated severe limitations on Jewish immigration to Palestine—this at a time when European anti-Semitism was reaching critical mass.

The gang in Berlin was pleased.

Interestingly, at the time of that 1939 White Paper, two men who would later strongly support the creation of the modern state of Israel saw things differently. Winston Churchill spoke to the House of Commons on May 22, 1939 “as one intimately and responsibly concerned in the earlier states of our Palestine policy,” and insisted that he would not “stand by and see the solemn engagements into which Britain has entered before the world set aside.”
And here at home, Senator Harry S. Truman from Missouri—who had no clue at the time that he’d be a major player on the world stage in a few years–also issued a forthright condemnation that was inserted into the Congressional Record:

Mr. President, the British Government has used its diplomatic umbrella again,(this being an unmistakable dig at Neville Chamberlain) …this time on Palestine. It has made a scrap of paper out of Lord Balfour’s promise to the Jews. It has just added another to the long list of surrenders to the Axis powers.

But instead of embracing the ideas put forth by Taft and Wagner in 1944, the White House, State Department, and other powerful entities in the government pulled out all the stops to make sure that the idea of proposing a homeland in Palestine for Jews went away. They did this even though they knew very well about the ongoing mass extermination of European Jews at the hands of the Nazis.

The standard answer to the obvious question as to why the Holocaust evoked little official response from our government until near the end of the war has been to cite “isolationism,” or “economic Depression,” or “xenophobia” in our nation. Presumably, the idea of doing anything overtly “pro-Jewish” was politically untenable—so goes the argument.

But a closer look reveals something else going on at the time—and ever since.

The most lasting legacy of the toxins that created an epochal global conflict is the fact that elements of Nazism in many ways survive to this day in Islamism. The short-sightedness of FDR’s cronies was corrected in part by his successor, a man of courage who chose to recognize the new State of Israel eleven minutes after its birth in May of 1948. But the question remains: Why did FDR and company not get on the bandwagon, even while millions of Jews were being slaughtered?

Sadly, the real reason has a lot to do with U.S. surrender to Nazi propaganda—its power and content.

Largely overlooked or dismissed in the years since is the fact that the Nazi propaganda machine, the distortion factory that shaped attitudes in Germany throughout the duration of the infamous Third Reich, had its most lasting impact far away from the boroughs and beer halls of Deutschland. In fact, Hitler’s nightmarish vision of ridding Europe of Jews was only the beginning of what he wanted to do—he wanted to extend The Final Solution to Palestine.

And he had been preparing the hearts and minds of the Muslim world for many years.

Jeffrey Herf, a professor of history at the University of Maryland, has written an eye-opening book about the effectiveness of Nazi ideas in the Middle East during the Second World War called, “Nazi Propaganda For The Arab World.” In it, he describes the Nazi campaign for the minds and hearts of the Arab world in great detail—particularly the Axis radio programs that ran in Arabic around the clock from late 1939 until March of 1945.

These broadcasts spewed venomous anti-Semitism and pushed every demagogic button imaginable. They were also highly effective. In fact, long after the last vestige of Nazi rhetoric faded from consciousness in Europe, the poisonous seeds planted back then are still bearing deadly fruit.
The mind-set that gave way to the Third Reich is very much alive and well in the Muslim world of the Middle East.

When those two senatorial strange-bedfellows offered their visionary resolution in 1944 about a Jewish homeland in Palestine, the “Axis Broadcasts in Arabic” were way ahead of the story. Mr. Herf has accessed a significant cache of transcripts and leaflets produced by the Nazis during the war—materials that have not been adequately examined—until now.

So back in 1944, any hopes a couple of well-intentioned voices in Washington might have had to garner widespread national support for a Jewish homeland in Palestine were dashed by forces largely influenced by the hate-speak of Nazi propagandists. Berlin, broadcasting in Arabic, referred to Taft and Wagner as “criminal American senators,” while announcing, “a great tragedy is about to be unfolded, a great massacre, another turbulent war is about to start in the Arab countries.”

And in phraseology that sounds eerily familiar to what we still regularly hear from Islamists, the Nazis described the stakes as kill or be killed:

Arabs and Moslems, sons of the East, this menace threatens your very lives, endangers your beliefs and aims at your wealth. No trace of you will remain. Your doom is sealed. It were better if the earth opened and engulfed everybody; it were better if the skies fell upon us, bringing havoc and destruction; all this, rather than the sun of Islam should set and the Koran perish…Stir up wars and revolutions, stand fast against the aggressors, let your hearts, afire with faith, burst asunder! Advance your armies and drive out the menace.

Bear in mind that this is a Nazi broadcast to the Arab/Muslims in Palestine. Of course, the relationship between Hitler and Haj Amin al-Husseini, the Grand Mufti in Jerusalem, is well known and documented (see my article: “Hitler’s Favorite Jihadist”), but the broadcasts from Berlin to Palestine are just now beginning to be examined. And what is being found is further evidence that to refer to Islamists as Nazi or Fascist-like is no smear—or stretch.

The rhetoric broadcast to the Middle East 70 years ago is still being noised about—and even more pervasively and effectively. Back then, the attitudes it reinforced, complete with distortion, hate, and prejudice, caused U.S. officials, from FDR on down, to “go wobbly”—as Margaret Thatcher would say.

It is sadly clear that the most lasting impact of the Nazi propaganda machine is that murderous ideas espoused back then are alive and well in our day and age and still being used to threaten and kill Jews—while nouveau wobblers turn away.

Got A Condo Made O’Stone-a

March 24, 2010 by Robert Nedelkoff | Filed Under Art, Comedy, Entertainment, Middle East, Presidents, Richard Nixon, U.S. History | 2 Comments 

Last night I read Born Standing Up, actor Steve Martin’s account of the seventeen years he spent making his way up the ladder of standup comedy. It’s a rather worthwhile book. In well-written prose, replete with many funny passages, Martin describes the process by which he rose from playing open-mike nights at obscure folk clubs around Los Angeles to filling stadiums across the country.

As many TNN readers know, Martin acquired his earliest showbiz experience in Disneyland and Knott’s Berry Farm near Garden Grove, the town in which he spent his teenage years, toward the end of Richard Nixon’s Vice Presidency. And RN figured in Martin’s struggling years as a standup; he mentions than when he played college campuses as an unknown in the early 1970s, he had only to mention the President’s name to be guaranteed a laugh. (In fact, the predictability of this response was one thing that led him to remove all political material from his act. Coincidentally or not, his career took off soon after.)

But I didn’t know that one of President Nixon’s decisions, toward the end of his Administration, led to one of the most celebrated episodes of Steve Martin’s comic career. It’s especially timely now, as the exhibition of the relics of Egypt’s King Tutankhamun finishes its run at San Francisco’s DeYoung Museum and gets ready to go to Discovery Channel’s Times Square showplace in New York.

It was in 1974 that President Nixon decided that the United States should respond to the successful display of Egyptian art in the Soviet Union with a truly memorable exhibit to tour the United States. After bringing up the idea during his visit to Egypt’s President Anwar al-Sadat a few weeks before his resignation, he urged Secretary of State Kissinger to work on bringing such an exhibit to these shores. Dr. Kissinger got in touch with the late Thomas Hoving, director of the Metropolitan Museum of Art, and the process was begun which, a couple of years later, resulted in the spectacularly successful first visit of King Tut and his relics to the United States – a visit which inspired Steve Martin to write that immortal tune which was introduced to the world on Saturday Night Live.

More than thirty years after he last came for a visit, the boy king is generating some more memories to last a lifetime for countless Americans, continuing a process that started with President Nixon’s proposal for a tour to generate income to help Egyptian museums on that summer day so long ago.

Al Haig In Conversation

February 27, 2010 by Robert Nedelkoff | Filed Under American Politics, Cold War, International Affairs, Middle East, Military, News media, Nixon Administration figures, Presidents, Richard Nixon, U.S. History, Vietnam, Watergate | Leave a Comment 

In 2000, James Rosen of Fox News interviewed Gen. Alexander Haig for his biography of John Mitchell. That book, The Strong Man, was published eight years later. But it turns out that, in the course of the three-hour conversation, the General talked of many other things besides Watergate, with his customary verve and forcefulness, and in tomorrow’s Washington Post, there’s an article by Rosen in which Gen. Haig ranges from Vietnam to America’s policy toward Lebanon to the first Gulf War. Also worth reading is the comment on the article by Ken Hughes of the Miller Presidential Center at the University of Virginia.

Follow The Money–It’s Going To China

February 19, 2010 by admin | Filed Under Asia, Barack Obama, China, Cold War, Economic issues, George W. Bush, History, International Affairs, Middle East, Money, National Security, Nixon Administration, Obama administration, Presidents, Richard Nixon, U.S. History | 1 Comment 

The other day, President Barack Obama met with the Tibetan Dali Lama in the White House—doing so in the Map Room as opposed to the Oval Office in an apparent attempt to mute any “official” aura for the meeting. It was sort of like trying to kowtow to one audience while powwowing with another. Likely the nuance was lost on the government in Beijing. Of course, past presidents have received the Tibetan leader—a man who has become a symbol for freedom and a persistent reminder of the oppression of his people at the hands of the Chinese regime.

It was 38 years ago this week that President Richard Nixon played the historic China Card—a geopolitical masterstroke during the Cold War. It was all part of a strategic view of the world and effectuated from a position of strength. We were powerful; they were backward—technologically, culturally, and with obvious political deficiencies. That moment remains a high water mark in Nixon’s presidency—a moment in time that even the most determined critics concede positively to his legacy.

But what would Mr. Nixon think now?

These days, admittedly, the whole issue of U.S.-China relations is a sticky one for our current President. It is one of many examples of how different things are when you are governing as opposed to campaigning for office—although it is hard to tell which is which in Washington these days. Mario Cuomo famously talked years ago about politics being “poetry” and governing “prose.”

Dealing with potential adversaries—and even some friends—is always best when you do so from a position of strength. It’s true in military and national defense (“peace through strength”) and it’s true in economics, as well. The scriptures remind us, “The borrower is servant to the lender.” And when one party is deep in financial debt to another a certain measure of leverage is ceded to the lender.

How this dynamic will play out in the immediate future is anyone’s guess, but owing nearly $800 billion to the Chinese should raise a flag—a red one. And it should come as no surprise if and when those to whom we owe such copious amounts of money begin to squeeze us on the international stage.

President Obama has been making great pains to try to change our image before the world, one that he believes George W. Bush perpetuated and that has led to our virtual “blackball” by many nations. But in fact, what he really should be concerned about is not “blackball,” but rather “blackmail.” The Chinese dumped $45 billion of T-bills a couple of months ago—wave of the future? And why shouldn’t one nation operating out of its own interests use such leverage? We would.

In fact, we have.

In 1956, there were two hot spots with the potential of blowing up into World War III, a revolution in Hungary—and a crisis in the Middle East involving the Suez Canal. Seen now in hindsight against the backdrop of the Cold War and as the moment when the last vestiges of old world colonialism gave wave to complete bi-polar hegemony pitting the United States against the Soviets, the Suez Crisis was as much about the exercise of economic clout as it was a diplomatic-military affair.

Gamal Abdel Nassar had emerged as a leader in Egypt as part of a 1952 coup overthrowing King Farouk and by 1954 he was firmly in place as that nation’s maximum leader. He immediately undertook a complete transformation of his country with massive public works and the progressive nationalization of industry. He was enamored of the Soviet system and soon it became clear that his nation would be taking that side in the Cold War. One project near and dear to his heart was the building of the Aswan Dam, which America at first agreed to help fund. But when Nassar sold arms to Soviet satellite Czechoslovakia and then recognized the People’s Republic of China, U.S. Secretary of State John Foster Dulles withdrew our dam dollars.

In reaction to this, Nassar announced on July 26, 1956 a Nationalization Law freezing all the assets of the Suez Canal—in effect, a seizure of that vital passageway.

Opened in 1869, this 119-mile long man-made waterway connects the Mediterranean and Red Seas. Originally financed by the Egyptians and French, Britain became a major stakeholder and stockholder in 1875, and eventually the canal became part of the United Kingdom’s imperial portfolio in the region. Following World War II, and with the decline of the U.K.’s empire, the canal gradually became a diplomatic football—not to mention thorn. And the creation of the nation of Israel in 1948 caused tensions about the vital waterway to further increase.

In the aftermath of Nassar’s July 26 speech, Britain—led by Prime Minister Anthony Eden—and France, represented by Eden’s counterpart, Guy Mollet, began to plot how to ensure their access to the Suez Canal. Eventually, and in an alliance with Israel (a nation with the most to lose if the canal was closed to them), military action was planned and initiated.

Follow the money.

Meanwhile, the American President, Dwight D. Eisenhower, in the midst of a reelection bid, had already had a rough year in 1956—physically and politically. And shortly following election to a second term in the White House, he played some power politics of his own. Now, I should state here that I am not of the number in agreement with what he did in the Suez matter, anymore than I am about how we abandoned the freedom fighters in Budapest earlier that summer. I am simply using this story to describe a reality in all of life and politics—like it or not.

There is a golden rule in geo-politics: He who has the gold makes the rule.

Mr. Eisenhower did not want Britain, France, and Israel—all stated allies of the United States—creating a situation that might not play well with the Soviets and that had the potential to instigate a larger war. Here was the hero of Normandy putting the pressure on British Prime Minister Eden—a man who had worked closely with Ike while serving in Churchill’s War Cabinet.

“The borrower is servant to the lender.”

To apply pressure on Eden’s government to cease and desist, Eisenhower instructed U.S. Treasury Secretary, George M. Humphrey, to begin to sell off some of our government’s British bonds. Some of these bonds were holdovers from the U.K.’s World War II debt; others had been sold to us to help that nation’s economy rebound after the war. Eden’s Chancellor of the Exchequer, future P.M. Harold Macmillan, told him that the results would be devastating to the British economy.

Checkmate.

Anthony Eden was a broken man. He fled to a vacation-exile in Jamaica, spending time at Ian Fleming’s (of James Bond literary fame) estate there, but his health quickly deteriorated. He was taking amphetamines—had been for years under doctor’s orders after a botched gall bladder operation—and the drugs magnified his problems with insomnia and unraveling mental health. Soon, Mr. Macmillan took over at 10 Downing Street, but by then the Suez episode had hastened the sunset on the British Empire—and the Cold War morphed from a multi-national tag-team match into a virtual two-nation standoff.

Follow the money.

We are potentially in big trouble as a nation. Our security is threatened not only by Islamist terrorism—but also by some who have a lien on our title deed. Certainly, throughout our history we have dealt with nations and regimes in pragmatic and realpolitik ways, even having to hold our collective noses because of the stench of tyranny and oppression on the part of some of our momentary allies in a larger cause. But we have managed, for the most part, to deal with it—ugliness and all—because of the ability to approach everything from a position of strength: morally, militarily, and economically.

Now though, we not only depend on others for much of our energy, but we also owe an astronomical amount of money (the interest alone is unfathomable) to powerful entities. We should not be surprised that other nations no longer dance on cue—nor should we ever be surprised if and when some big bills come due with humiliating strings attached.

Or worse.

Will Kirkuk Bring Down Iraq?

December 16, 2009 by Jonathan Movroydis | Filed Under Iraq War, Middle East, Nixon Center | Leave a Comment 

Joost Hiltermann at the Nixon Center’s National Interest:

THE FATE of Iraq may well rise or fall on Kirkuk as Kurds, Arabs, Turkmen and Christians grapple for control of the province and the safety of their people. Oil riches abound in this land that straddles the border of Arab and Kurdish Iraq. And command of these resources is the prize for the taking. As the powers that be in Baghdad fight to hold on to the tenuous peace wrested from civil war, deciding the political fate of Kirkuk is treacherous enough to bring down the state. So far, the battle has largely taken place in a never-ending political drama, but if compromise cannot be reached—and soon—bloody conflict may well be the next step.

Read more.

Military Enlistment The Highest Since RN’s Days

October 14, 2009 by Jonathan Movroydis | Filed Under International Affairs, Iraq War, Middle East, Military, Richard Nixon, Vietnam | 2 Comments 

Enlistment rates are at their highest levels since RN was Commander-in-Chief.

The Washington Post is reporting that military recruiters have posted their best year since 1973, bringing in nearly 170,000 new troops in 2008, 3 percent above their stated goals. The Post credits the ballooning civilian unemployment for a surge in enlistment rates.

But Pentagon officials are crediting the declining violence in Iraq for the upswing, which can ultimately be credited to Washington’s moment of truth in fighting small wars of attrition, and innovative Generals like David Petraeus and Ray Ordierno who sought a responsible exit from what seemed interminable just three years ago.

Similarly, RN insured an honorable exit from Vietnam, all while conducting groundbreaking diplomatic efforts in China and Russia, effectively reestablishing American prestige on the World stage.

When Secretary of Defense Melvin Laird declared the end of the draft in January 1973, 75 percent of Americans approved of RN’s handling of Vietnam, a sweeping mandate that also reflected the youth’s revived fervency for volunteerism.

Is “Process, Effort And A Change Of Tone” Enough?

October 9, 2009 by Robert Nedelkoff | Filed Under Barack Obama, International Affairs, Middle East, Presidents | 2 Comments 

Aaron David Miller, a fellow of the Wilson Center in Washington and a Middle East negotiator in the administrations of four Chief Executives, writes about President Obama’s Nobel Prize for Peace at CNN.com:

A young president, barely in the 10th month of his first year in office, is receiving an internationally sanctioned peace prize when the vast majority of his predecessors, some of whom actually achieved extraordinary success in foreign policy (Richard Nixon and George H.W. Bush), did not[...]

Obama is the Energizer Bunny of American foreign policy, even overshadowing a very talented secretary of state. He’s everywhere, in Cairo making nice to the Arabs and Muslims; in Buchenwald and Normandy wrapping himself (quite appropriately for a president) in history; at the G8 and G20 massaging the allies; negotiating arms control with the Russians; and trying to get the Iranians off of a nuclear weapons program.

All of this is good and may prove consequential. But it is hardly determinative, particularly in a world in which diplomatic achievement will be extremely difficult to attain. To pronounce and hail the president as a peacemaker based on process, effort and a change of tone is a stretch.

Maybe Obama will emerge as a consequential foreign policy president. But raising the bar on his accomplishments now actually lowers it for all of us, diminishes what he’s actually accomplished and undermines the concept of excellence.

9.25.69

September 25, 2009 by Frank Gannon | Filed Under History, International Affairs, Middle East, Nixon Administration, Pat Nixon, Richard Nixon, White House | Leave a Comment 

Forty years ago today, on 25 September 1969, RN welcomed Israeli Prime Minister Golda Meir to the White House.

It was the beginning of what became a warm and close relationship.  A relationship that would be tested, refined, and perfected during the Yom Kippur War in 1973; and that would culminate in RN’s heartfelt toast to the now-former-PM at a dinner in the Knesset in 1974.

RN’s Welcoming Remarks on the South Lawn of the White House

Madam Prime Minister and our guests here at the White House today:

It is a very great privilege for me, speaking in behalf of the American people, to welcome you, Madam Prime Minister, in a very personal sense, because you were raised in this country. You have been to this country many times, but we are particularly proud that for the first time we welcome you as the Prime Minister of Israel.

Speaking to you in that capacity, as the head of government of a very courageous people, a people who are determined to maintain their independence, who also are determined to achieve a lasting peace in the area in which they live, I look forward to the talks we shall have individually, and also with other members of your party.

It would be less than candid for me not to say that the problems of the Mideast are terribly complex and not susceptible to solution in one meeting, or two or three, or even more, at the level at which we will be talking.

But it is also proper to say that the Mideast and peace in the Mideast is of interest not only to your nation and your neighbors but to the whole world, because of what could happen in the event that war were to break out there, the repercussions that that could have all over the world.

We know that you and your people want peace. We know that your neighbors want peace. Certainly the majority of the people in the whole area want peace. The question is how to achieve it. On this we shall have discussions that I hope will be helpful; the real peace, the peace that is not simply one of words but one in which both parties will have a vested interest in maintaining.

I would say finally, Madam Prime Minister, that a very famous British Prime Minister once said: “One should always talk as much as possible to women, because this is the best school.”

I can assure you that I recognize the tremendous complexity of the problem we will be discussing. I recognize that it is necessary to get the very best answers that we can to find a solution to these problems, and I realize that in talking to you, not just because you are Prime Minister but because you are one of the outstanding women in political leadership in the world, that in talking to you, I will be truly going to the best school today and tomorrow.

A timely visit: the week before she arrived at the White House, Mrs. Meir was on the cover of Time magazine.

RN described the visit in RN:

On September 25, 1969, Golda Meir came to Washington for a state visit.  In Israeli terms she was a “hawk,” and a hard-liner opposed to surrendering even an inch of the occupied territory Israel had won in the 1967 war.  Mrs. Meir conveyed simultaneously the qualities of extreme toughness and extreme warmth; when the survival of her country was involved, the toughness was predominant.  She requested twenty-five Phantom jets and eighty Skyhawk fighters and complained about the delays in delivery of planes that had already been approved.  She also asked for low-interest loans of $200 million a year for periods up to five years.  I reassured her that our commitments would be met.

At a state dinner in her honor she expressed concern regarding our moves toward détente with the Soviets.  I told her that we had no illusions about their motives.  I said, ‘Our Golden Rule as far as international diplomacy is concerned is: “Do unto others as they do unto you.’”

“Plus ten percent,” Kissinger quickly added.

Mrs. Meir smiled.  “As long as you approach things that way, we have no fears,” she said.

During my interviews with him in 1983, I asked RN if he remembered that first meeting with Mrs. Meir:

Oh, I recall it very vividly. She came to the Oval Office–I believe it was in 1969.   And what impressed me about Golda Meir was the contrast between her and Indira Gandhi. The contrast was really quite vivid.

Indira Gandhi was a very intelligent woman and a very strong leader, but she was one who acted like a man, with the ruthlessness of a man, but wanted always to be treated like a woman.

That wasn’t the way Golda Meir was. Golda Meir acted like a man and wanted to be treated like a man. I remember so well when we sat down in the chairs in the Oval Office, and the photographers came in, and they were running their tape and so forth, and we were shaking hands, and she was smiling, and making the right friendly comments–”How are you? How’s the family?” and the rest.

Photographers left the room.  She crossed her leg, lit a cigarette, and said,  ”Now, Mr. President, what are you going to do about those planes that we want and we need very much?”

And from that time on, we had a very good relationship. It wasn’t that she was not one who was very feminine, because she could be. She used to wear her hair in a bun. She told my daughter Julie the reason she did it was that her husband liked it that way, even though that wasn’t the fashion, at least in–in certain places.

She was very feminine in another way. She never forgave. She never forgave those that had opposed her, she she thought it was unjustified.

She never forgave Ben-Gurion because he had opposed her when she was on her way up. She never forgave Pompidou, because Pompidou had said some disrespectful things about Israel and her–she thought so–a couple of years previously. But there is no question that she was a very strong, intelligent l–leader in her own right.

Cartoonist Noah Bee noted Mrs. Meir’s first White House visit and referred to her interest in direct negotiations between parties in the Middle East.

That night, the President and Mrs. Nixon were the hosts at a State Dinner.

The Prime Minister’s Toast to the President was particularly warm:

When I say this was a great day for me, Mr. President, I shall remember it always, because you made it possible for me to speak to you, to bring before you all our problems, all our worries, all our hopes and aspirations; and if you will forgive me, I did not have a feeling for one single moment that I, representing little, tiny Israel, was speaking to the President of the great United States.

I felt I was speaking to a friend who not only listens —in Hebrew we have two words, a word that means only listening, and a word that means that it really is absorbed–and I have a feeling that you were not merely kind to listen to me, but you shared what I was saying, what our worries are.

We discussed the problems of Israel as though they were our common problems. This means a lot. Israel has known in its short number of years too many hours when we felt we were all alone. And we made it.

Mr. President, thank you, not only for wonderful hospitality, not only for this great day and every moment that I had this day, but thank you for enabling me to go home and tell my people that we have a friend, a great friend and a dear friend. It will help. It will help us overcome many difficulties.

When the great day comes when this dream comes true, you will have had a great share in it.

The next afternoon, in the Roosevelt Room in the West Wing of the White House, RN bid farewell to his new friend.  With a characteristic flourish, he wished her well for the rest of her visit to America — particularly to Milwaukee, where her family had settled after they left her birthplace of Kiev, Russia.

THE PRESIDENT.  I can only wish you well on the balance of your trip. I know you will receive a wonderful welcome every place you go, and particularly in Milwaukee. Milwaukee lost the Braves, but they got you back.

THE PRIME MINISTER. Thank you very much, Mr. President.

THE PRESIDENT. As a matter of fact, the Braves could use you as a pinch-hitter right now in order to win.

THE PRIME MINISTER. They lost that opportunity.

THE PRESIDENT. They are in Atlanta. You know that.

In the Nixon Library’s World Leaders Gallery, Ivan Schwartz’s life size statutes of Golda Meir and Anwar Sadat stand side by side.’

In Leaders (1982), RN devoted several pages to Golda Meir.

We both took office in 1969.  We both resigned in 1974.  She became Prime Minister just two months after my own inauguration, and she served until two months before my resignation.  In effect, she was “my” Israeli Prime Minister; I was “her American President.

Georges Pompidou once described Golda Meir to me as “une femme formidable.”  She was that and more.  She was one of the most powerful personalities, man or woman, that I have ever met in thirty-five years of public and private travel at home and abroad.  If David Ben-Gurion was an elemental force of history, Golda Meir was an elemental force of nature.

Some leaders are masters of intrigue, spinning webs of deception, planting suggestions that the unwary will take as promises, wheeling and dealing, constantly, even compulsively, plotting and maneuvering.  For Lyndon Johnson this was second nature.  FDR was a master of it.  For many, scheming is the essence of statecraft, the most effective and sometimes the only way of navigating the threatening shoals of competing interests and getting things done.  Not for Golda Meir.  She was absolutely straightforward.  There was nothing devious about her.  The corollary is that she was implacably determined.  There was never any question about where Golda Meir stood, or what she wanted, or why.  She could be either the irresistible fore or the immovable object, as the situation required.  But as an object she was immovable; as a force she was irresistible.

Before The Dust Settles

June 11, 2009 by Jonathan Movroydis | Filed Under International Affairs, Iran, Islam, Middle East | Leave a Comment 

Iranians will go to the polls tomorrow, but not before street backed rallies for incumbent Mahmoud Ahemdinejad and challenger Mir Hossein Mousavi:

Mousavi Is The New Obama?

June 10, 2009 by Jonathan Movroydis | Filed Under International Affairs, Iran, Middle East | Leave a Comment 

Cameron Abadi at Foreign Policy says that the youthful fervor surrounding Iranian Presidential candidate Mir Hossein Mousavi is unprecedented:

He talks only in generalities about his plans, his emphasis on competence and “scientific management.” He’s made promises to loosen restriction on personal freedom, but his ire is more drawn by Ahmadinejad’s “dictatorial” flouting of the checks and balances of the Islamic Republic’s constitution. Mousavi promises change, but no one would mistake him for Barack Obama. He might not even qualify as a Michael Dukakis.

But somehow this establishment technocrat continues to routinely elicit rock-star receptions across the country. In the run-up to the election, much of grayish Tehran has been draped in green, the official color of the Mousavi campaign. The police and khaki-clad national guards have been forced to watch every day as Tehran’s youth — Iran’s baby boom generation of the 1980s — assemble in giddy pandemonium, distributing green bracelets and banners of protest against Ahmadinejad’s presidency, proselytizing to undecided pedestrians and whenever in doubt shouting taunting cries of “Ahmadi, bye-bye!” At night, the chorus of chants and laughter and hastily written campaign songs mingle with the din of car horns.

Certainly, Ahmadinejad’s campaign outings can also get raucous. On Monday, the president canceled an appearance at an overcrowded rally in central Tehran out of concern for the safety of the attendees. (He ought to have been concerned anyway: The way the crowds stampeded to leave the confined space, everyone fearfully shouting and pushing, I consider myself lucky to have made it out uninjured.)

But the daily spectacles for Mousavi have assumed a scale that is unprecedented for the Islamic Republic, and it’s precisely the novelty that fuels the participants’ fervor. Occasionally, Tehran’s teenagers and twentysomethings gain enough distance from their fun to witness and admire what they’ve produced; sometimes they’re prompted to consider their place in history. As dusk settled one evening and an impromptu parade passed us on one of Tehran’s main thoroughfares, Fatemeh, a student at Tehran University clad in a dark green headscarf, shook her head. “We’ve never seen this before,” she said with a tremble. “This is our revolution.”

“Ahmadi Bye Bye!”

June 10, 2009 by Jonathan Movroydis | Filed Under Middle East | 1 Comment 

Is being chanted on the streets of Teheran:

“Ahmadi bye-bye.” That’s one of the chants that supporters of Iranian presidential candidate Mir Hossein Mousavi were yelling Monday when they decked out in green and formed a stunning human chain along a 12-mile-long arterial road that runs through Tehran.

Many Iranians are fed up with President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad — the man who has presided over a crumbling economy and damaged Iran’s international standing. They head to the polls Friday to select one of four candidates, and if the outcome is “Ahmadi bye-bye,” the most-likely new president would be Mousavi, a relative unknown until recently.

Beirut Can Give Credit To Two

June 10, 2009 by Jonathan Movroydis | Filed Under Barack Obama, George W. Bush, International Affairs, Middle East | Leave a Comment 

Thomas Friedman believes that the defeat of Hezbollah and the empowerment of Lebanon’s Western backed coalition is a testament to Bush’s power politics and Obama’s persuasion:

While the Lebanese deserve 95 percent of the credit for this election, 5 percent goes to two U.S. presidents. As more than one Lebanese whispered to me: Without George Bush standing up to the Syrians in 2005 — and forcing them to get out of Lebanon after the Hariri killing — this free election would not have happened. Mr. Bush helped create the space. Power matters. Mr. Obama helped stir the hope. Words also matter.

Nixon Went To Cairo First

June 5, 2009 by Jonathan Movroydis | Filed Under Barack Obama, International Affairs, Islam, Middle East, Richard Nixon | 4 Comments 

President Nixon pictured with Egyptian President Anwar Sadat in a motorcade in Cairo in June 1974.

President Barack Obama was received in adulation on the heels of his much-anticipated speech to the “Muslim world” at Cairo University Thursday. President Obama follows a succession of presidents to visit Cairo, but administration officials and the President’s supporters are calling his speech an innovative break with conventional Middle East policy. Slate’s Fred Kaplan called the speech “impressive,” Mother Jones’ David Corn called it a “tour de force,” Talking Points Memo’s M.J. Rosenberg called it the “antithesis of colonial” and therefore a “profoundly different American voice.”

But the Cairo visit and innovation in Middle East policy are hardly unique to Obama’s position in presidential history. Richard Nixon started this diplomatic tradition 35 years ago.

In his post-presidential memoirs, President Nixon said that Egypt is “the key to the Arab world.” The 37th president arrived in Cairo on June 12,1974 after extensive preparations and tactful “shuttle diplomacy” by Secretary of State Henry Kissinger with Arab and Israeli leaders. Greeted at the capitol’s airport by President Anwar Sadat and his wife, a Time article published less than two weeks later called the arrival a “triumph of sorts” with the “huzzas and hosannas” falling “like sweet rain.”  Nixon was overwhelmed describing that he received the “the most tumultuous welcome any American President has received anywhere in the world.” Over a million packed the streets and city squares, holding signs that read “We Trust Nixon” chanting “Nik-son, Nik-son, Nik-son.” The Time article quotes DePaul law school’s Cherif Bassiouni – an Egyptian and international legal scholar – on Nixon’s visit and the Arab penchant for personal charm: “gestures reflect emotions, and to the Arab psyche such gestures have a greater impact than anything else the U.S. could have done.”

Nixon went on to visit Saudi Arabia, Syria, Israel and Jordan unapologetically conferring American prestige and power over the Middle East peace process.

According to historian and newly nominated Israeli Ambassador to Washington, Michael Oren, author of Power, Faith, and Fantasy: America in the Middle East: 1776 to Present, the Nixon-Kissinger diplomatic strategy for Arab-Israeli peace was based on the more pertinent concern for “Cold War exigencies.” The “subordinate” conflict in the Middle East would therefore be “embarked on a proactive and calculating course.” Nixon described his goal in contrast with the Soviets: “We want peace. They want the Middle East.”

Accordingly, Egyptian President Anwar Sadat — because of his displeasure with Soviet avarice — was eager to re-enter the American fold.  Reciprocally, Nixon wanted to strengthen Sadat’s position and influence in Middle East negotiations. Sadat would ultimately re-open the Suez Canal and recognize its borders with Israel. To the pleasure of the United States, Sadat also expelled 15,000 Soviet agents.

Nixon’s approach to the Middle East peace process would thus be multi-lateral. His memoirs note in conversations with Israelis he expressed “sympathy for their military needs” but he also recognized the exigent circumstances for a stable and permanent peace with the Arabs. In Nixon’s mind, the surrounding Arab majority was like a hydra that would overcome their failures in the 1967 Six-Day War and “would learn to fight.”

Nixon and Kissinger believed that the alliance with Israel was a positive relationship that gave America a cooperative ally — in exchange for security guarantees — in negotiations with the Arabs. According to Oren, though the Soviets could endlessly supply Israel’s enemies, America had the authority and trust from Israelis to gain peace for what the Arab states wanted: the territories captured in the 1967 war.

In Cold War terms, previous American relations with Israel also had their negative effects. The Time article notes Abba Eban, then Israel’s foreign minister as saying that the relationship was essentially a “see saw” effect that “if you go up with Israel, you go down with the Arabs.” With Nixon, Eban saw the “see saw” rising in a “spectacular paradox” that didn’t see one-side’s gain as another’s loss.

After Egypt, Nixon landed in Saudi Arabia where he met with the ardently anti-Communist King Faisal. Similar to today’s circumstances, the Saudis weren’t directly involved with negotiations, but according to Nixon, Faisal’s prestige and treasure were pivotal “in maintaining the momentum towards peace” because of the country’s impact on oil prices and the aid dispersed to Israel’s enemies in the 1973 Yom Kippur War: Egypt and Syria.

During his visit to Damascus, the Syrians greeted the President with open arms back-dropped by “American flags flying for the first time in seven years.”  According to Nixon, Syrian President Hafez Assad took the hardest line in public, but the diplomatic overtures made by Kissinger and the President in light of Syrian and Egyptian disaffection with the Soviets neutralized the anti-American tone throughout the country. Though the peace was far from perfect, Syrian-Israeli disengagement following the 1973 war lead to a cease-fire based on UN Resolution 338. At the conclusion of the President’s visit, Nixon and Assad announced a “resumption of diplomatic relations.”

Unlike Obama, Nixon’s overtures to the Arab world couldn’t have been made without visiting America’s most reliable ally in the region: Israel. There Nixon re-assured Prime Minister Yitzak Rabin that he “would not waver” in his support for “Israel’s security.” But in a formal toast to Israel’s then retired Prime Minister Golda Meir, the President advocated for a non-military solution. For “Israel’s survival,”  Nixon contended  “the way of statesmanship” not “continuous war” would lead to the desired outcome of “a permanent, just, and durable peace.”

Nixon’s final stop in Jordan was capped and symbolized by his words to King Hussein: “I do not tell you where this journey will end. I cannot tell you when it will end. The important thing is that it has begun.”

Like the challenges Nixon faced in the Middle East in the backdrop of the Cold War, America currently faces challenges to its global power. President Obama is a skilled politician and orator whose recent gestures to the Middle East may prove fruitful. But he is also tasked with somewhat of an unprecedented burden in winding down two insurgencies, dealing with a nuclear-armed North Korea, and preventing a nuclear armed Iran. Add to this heap a global economic crisis, and the economic and political costs of not conferring American power and prestige become quite steeper. With that said, the costs of unleashing this burden are even higher.

To Nixon the recent events would be an awesome responsibility and the greatest honor history can bestow: “the title of peacemaker.”

Two Quotes

June 5, 2009 by Robert Nedelkoff | Filed Under American Politics, Barack Obama, Israel and Palestinians, Middle East, Nixon in the News, Obama administration, Presidents, Richard Nixon, U.S. History | Leave a Comment 

“Former President Lyndon B. Johnson acknowledges that Richard Nixon, as a Republican President, has been able to accomplish some things that a Democratic President could not have…

“‘Can’t you just see the uproar,’ he asked during a recent interview, ‘if I had been responsible for Taiwan getting kicked out of the United Nations? Or if I had imposed sweeping national controls on prices and wages?’

“‘Nixon has gotten by with it,’ he observed, an appreciative tone in his voice. ‘If I had tried to do it, or Truman, or Humphrey, or any Democrat, we would have been clobbered.’”

–from the Washington Star, Dec. 1, 1971.

“In some ways, [Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu] may have an opportunity that a Labour or more Left leader might not have. There’s the famous example of Richard Nixon going to China. A Democrat couldn’t have gone to China. A liberal couldn’t have gone to China. But a big anti-Communist like Richard Nixon could open that door. Now, it’s conceivable that Prime Minister Netanyahu can play that same role.”

–President Obama on the prospects for a two-state solution for Mideast peace, as reported in the Daily Telegraph today.

Obama’s Israel Gamble

June 5, 2009 by Dimitri Simes | Filed Under International Affairs, Israel and Palestinians, Middle East | 1 Comment 

President Barack Obama’s speech on U.S. relations with the Muslim world in Cairo has already been labeled “historic” by MSNBC, though with no justification other than the fact that it was an hour long. Indeed, while Obama said a lot of the right things in the right style in the right place, he announced no major new initiatives or significant substantive departures from previous U.S. foreign-policy positions. Every American president, including even George W. Bush, publicly challenged the legality of Israeli settlements in occupied territories and described them as an obstacle to peace. Yet every Israeli government disregarded these declarations without encountering serious consequences. So it is not what President Obama says, but what he does on the Arab-Israeli dispute, and particularly on the settlements, that will shape how Muslims around the globe view the United States. In an NPR interview just before his departure for the Middle East, addressing the demand to freeze the settlements, Mr. Obama stated that “the United States has to follow through on what it says.” If he truly means that, then a dramatic change in American policy is coming.

Hopefully President Obama will deliver, because he is playing with fire. He is creating great expectations and, without action to satisfy these expectations, will produce great disillusionment in the Muslim world. That would be another blow to U.S. credibility and a gift to terrorists and extremists. A new beginning with the Muslim world will require President Obama not only to talk the talk, but to walk the walk.

One major hurdle for Mr. Obama is that many in Congress, like Florida Representative Robert Wexler, portray a settlement freeze as an Israeli concession that “. . . we cannot ask one party to unilaterally perform if the other parties are not fully willing.” This is a peculiar and dangerous logic. It is peculiar because it implies that Israel should be compensated for freezing the settlements, which were against international law in the first place. This is not to mention that they were contrary to the stated American policy of the past several decades, as well as morally wrong because of their impact on innocent Palestinians. Comments like those of Rep. Wexler are dangerous because they create the false impression that being more even handed would serve America well only if it leads to an agreement, rather than simply for the sake of doing the right thing and getting credit for it.

A peace agreement, should one be achieved, would very much be in the U.S. interest and would be a personal triumph for President Obama. However, while the United States may be indispensable in getting an agreement, it cannot force one; peace will require cooperation and, indeed, sacrifice by both sides, something we know from experience can only come through their willing participation. What is no less important, and what the United States can entirely control, is its own policy in the region. Moreover, it is not the lack of a peace agreement per se, but rather a widespread perception that the United States enables Israeli policies and actions that fuels hostility toward the United States among Muslims.

There are many longstanding conflicts in the world that the United States would prefer to settle but is not blamed for failing to solve. The India-Pakistan dispute over Kashmir is a perfect example. With this in mind, anything the United States can do to demonstrate to the world’s Muslims that it is not blindly in Israel’s corner would greatly help the American image. Israel is a democracy and an ally of the United States, but America knows how to distance itself from actions considered to be against U.S. interests and principles, even actions by its closest allies. President Dwight Eisenhower sided with Egypt in 1956 against Britain, France and Israel during the Suez Crisis, when Britain was America’s closest ally.

In the past there was a reason for the United States to make clear that it would always support Israel, no matter what. Faced with Soviet support for key Arab states, America could not afford the perception that allies of another superpower could defeat its closest friend in the region. Also, since Israel’s military superiority over its neighbors was not as overwhelming as it is today, there was a legitimate concern that by distancing itself from Israel, America could encourage an Arab attack. These factors are no longer present and, as a result, America can afford to treat Israel like any other friendly state, supporting Israel when it is in U.S. interests to do so and letting Israel accept responsibility for its actions and their consequences when Israeli conduct does not correspond with U.S. interests.

This is exactly how Israel treats the United States. Just the other day in Moscow, Israeli Foreign Minister Avigdor Lieberman publicly described Israel’s friendly gestures toward Russia, which included refusing to recognize the independence of Kosovo and ceasing to sell weapons to Georgia beyond servicing those provided in the past. Mr. Lieberman also accused President Obama and Secretary of State Clinton of using double standards in the Middle East, meaning applying double standards against the Jewish state. When the Israeli foreign minister is prepared to talk like that in Moscow, Washington has every reason to move from the cold war-era blanket endorsements of Israel to the more selective support typical among sovereign states. So if Israel chooses to continue with its settlement expansion, the United States can and should make sure that the cost of settlements is deducted from any aid it provides to Israel—and that America abstains if the UN Security Council wants to censure Israel on the issue.

A more even-handed U.S. position on the Arab-Israeli dispute is justified on its own merits, but if Mr. Obama will put his money—or rather the denial of it—where his mouth is, chances are that the Netanyahu government would retreat on the settlements. While the United States has been unable to bring about comprehensive peace so far, the Israelis have always complied when America shows it means business on specific issues. In 1956, Prime Minister David Ben-Gurion reversed his refusal to withdraw Israeli forces from the Sinai Peninsula within hours after President Eisenhower informed him that “it would be a matter of the greatest regret to all my countrymen if Israeli policy on a matter of such grave concern to the world should in any way impair the friendly cooperation between our two countries.” In October 1973, the Israelis stopped their assault on the encircled Egyptian Third Army after Henry Kissinger emphatically told Israeli Ambassador Simcha Dinitz that its destruction “is an option that does not exist.” And in 1982, President Ronald Reagan forced Israeli Prime Minister Menachem Begin to abandon an attack on Beirut by threatening sanctions.

Mr. Obama has already discovered before seriously trying that applying meaningful pressure on Israel will create a powerful backlash from Israel’s most ardent supporters in the United States. But the president is at the peak of his popularity and the very beginning of his term; as long as he stands tall, while making clear as he did in Cairo that the United States’ basic bond with Israel “is unbreakable,” he can weather the storm. And Mr. Netanyahu knows from his previous term as prime minister of Israel that being on the wrong end of U.S. animosity is not a prescription for political longevity in Israel. Even with his fragile coalition, he may be able to find a way to accommodate the United States on the settlements. It would not bring instant Arab-Israeli peace or, for that matter, restore American credibility in the Muslim world, but it would surely be a good start.

When Body Counts Are Good, When Body Counts Are Bad

June 1, 2009 by Jonathan Movroydis | Filed Under Afghanistan, Middle East, Military | Leave a Comment 

Max Boot says the release of reports on body counts is a useful means in the information game against insurgents, but are not positive ends in itself:

But in the current context the release of information on enemy casualties actually makes sense. Too often media reports out of Afghanistan focus only on coalition or civilian casualties. By releasing numbers on enemy killed, U.S. forces can counter the wrongful impressions that the enemy is defeating our troops or that our troops are killing more civilians than enemy combatants.

The use of body counts only becomes problematic if they are viewed by commanders as a key metric of success. That’s what happened in Vietnam where General Westmoreland focused U.S. strategy on achieving the mythical “crossover point” where communist casualties would outpace their ability to field replacements. That point was never reached because the communists had a substantial population pool and a willingness to suffer losses that would be considered unthinkable for Americans. The same is true with the Taliban and related groups. We are never going to kill more of them than they can replace.

The key to success in any counterinsurgency is securing the population, not wiping out the enemy. But casualty counts can tell you something about the conduct of tactical operations even if they are of not much use for broader strategic assessments. Senior American commanders at Central Command, NATO, and in Kabul are well aware of this. They are not suppressing “body counts” (as some European contingents do) but nor are they fixated on them. So far I’d say they’ve struck the right balance.

Freedom Comes With Limitations

May 27, 2009 by Jonathan Movroydis | Filed Under International Affairs, Middle East | Leave a Comment 

Michael Slackman of The New York Times profiles parallel lives and the psychology of how and why political repression frequently has the reverse effect:

for his work against the death penalty and in support of prisoners’ rights. In Syria, Michel Kilo was locked up after calling on President Bashar al-Assad to build citizenship and rule of law. In Egypt, Saad Eddin Ibrahim was imprisoned because of his work in support of democracy.

As Mr. Jahmi did, they each chose to continue to speak up when they were released.

“If I abandon my cause, then I will let them accomplish their goal,” Mr. Kilo said in a telephone interview after being released this month after three years in prison.

“No, I have not been broken,” he said, his voice still frail and weak.

Ayman Nour, a former presidential candidate and sharp critic of President Hosni Mubarak, served four years in Egypt’s Tora Prison after being convicted of charges widely regarded as politically inspired. But the night of his release in February, he appeared on Egypt’s most popular television talk show and resumed his attacks on the government.

Are these dissidents extraordinary? Are they crazy, perhaps, or egomaniacal, as some critics have said? Or are they all too human, fighting to maintain a sense of personal worth that the state has tried to strip away?

There are, of course, many reasons different people in different cultures choose the path of most resistance. But the most compelling, the activists themselves say, particularly in a Middle Eastern culture that honors martyrdom, is that prison becomes a defining and hardening experience, cementing their convictions and removing any temptation to compromise their beliefs.

Curiously, Middle Eastern leaders make the same mistake that they often warn the West about: humiliating their people, many of whom then find personal meaning and dignity in fighting back. “What’s interesting is the role the regimes play in keeping the likes of Kilo or Fathi permanently committed to their conflict with the government,” said Sarah Leah Whitson, director of Human Rights Watch’s Middle East and North Africa division.

Very often, freedom comes with so many limitations, Ms. Whitson said, that the dissidents feel more productive behind bars. Mr. Nour, for example, recently told a visiting class of journalism students from Northeastern University that he wanted to go back to prison, because he had greater impact there than on the outside. He told the students he had not been allowed to practice law, to work in politics, or even to open a bank account.

Speaking from his home in Damascus, Mr. Kilo said: “There is no doubt that when it comes to political power we are weak, but from our intellectual point of view we are not wrong, we are not defeated. I have not been defeated. But can any policeman come and take me and put me in prison right now? Sure he can.”

Hedging The Biden Visit

May 27, 2009 by Jonathan Movroydis | Filed Under Middle East, Terrorism | Leave a Comment 

Hezbollah, whose March 14 political movement is expected to run down to the wire against the anti-Syrian and Saad Hariri lead March 8 alliance in Lebanon’s upcoming June 7th elections, is already hedging American isolation (and for that matter VP Biden’s signals) should the terror group gain a majority of seats in parliament: Hezbollah Says It Is Talking to European Union and I.M.F.

Lebanon’s current governing majority, which has tried unsuccessfully to disarm Hezbollah, has depended on heavy financial support from the West and oil-rich Persian Gulf states, especially Saudi Arabia. In Beirut last week, Vice President Joseph R. Biden Jr. said future American support to Lebanon, which includes military aid, would depend on the elections’ outcome.

European governments have not issued any such veiled threats, and Western leaders have recently shown a greater willingness to engage in political dialogue with Hezbollah’s patrons, Iran and Syria. Britain’s Foreign Office said in March that it would re-establish relations with Hezbollah’s political wing.

The European Union provides about $84 million a year to Lebanon, and the International Monetary Fund provides about $114 million, aid that will be coming up for reauthorization soon.

The monetary fund has not negotiated a possible loan with members or sympathizers of Hezbollah, Simonetta Nardin, a spokeswoman for the fund, said in an e-mail message. But the agency routinely meets with the main political parties in Lebanon and with members of Parliament, Ms. Nardin said. Future loans with the monetary fund were not discussed, she said.

The practical effects of an election victory by Hezbollah and its allies would be limited because they already play important roles in the cabinet, and any new government would almost certainly preserve a “blocking minority” for the opposition.

But a victory would be symbolically important, especially for Arab states concerned about the influence of Iran and Syria. Saudi Arabia has provided at least $2 billion to Lebanon’s central bank since 2006, along with many other aid programs. Lebanon’s public debt is more than $45 billion.

“No Victor No Vanquished”

May 26, 2009 by Jonathan Movroydis | Filed Under Middle East, Terrorism | Leave a Comment 

The above is a common Lebanese phrase that connotes the often fragile peace that marks the Levantese country’s fractious politics. It could mean nothing, Michael Totten says, if the anti-Hezbollah bloc uses a Der Spiegel report indicting the “party of God” as the culprit in Rafik Hariri’s murder just ahead of the June 7 elections:

Leaders of the “March 14” bloc could hardly ask for a more effective political weapon against Hezbollah during the run-up to the election next month, but they also couldn’t ask for one that’s more dangerous. Jumblatt is right to invoke the incident that ignited the worst war in his country’s history. Accusing Hezbollah of assassinating Hariri – and, by implication, of assassinating a number of journalists and members of parliament in the meantime – could easily do to Lebanon what Al Qaeda’s Samarra mosque bombing in 2006 did to Iraq.

“[I]f (the majority) uses the report against Hezbollah,” said former Carnegie Endowment scholar and Hezbollah expert Amal Saad-Ghorayeb, “then of course we’re going to see instability in Lebanon, and that’s putting it mildly.” “One word,” said Fadia Kiwan at Saint Joseph University, “could set the streets on fire.” “If the Special Tribunal for Lebanon comes out and confirms the report,” Carnegie Middle East Center Director Paul Salem said, “we could be facing an all-out civil war.” “If these rumors are true,” my own source in Lebanon added, “expect some extremely dark times ahead in Lebanon. After all, the Sunni street hates Hezbollah enough to begin with. Once Hezbollah is officially accused of assassinating Hariri, all bets are off.”

All this raises the question: if Lebanon could plunge into war should “March 14” cite an unsourced report prematurely, what might happen if the UN officially indicts Hezbollah later?

A furious revolution drove out Syrian occupation soldiers when Assad was the suspected culprit. It was possible, though, to revolt against Syria without using violence. Assad’s army was foreign and could be pressured to go home. Hezbollah lives in Lebanon. Hezbollah is already home. Hezbollah cannot withdraw. Hezbollah can only be disarmed or destroyed. And undefeated armies rarely, if ever, surrender their weapons.

Lebanese are good at compromise. “No victor, no vanquished” is the formula used to break deadlocks. The system breaks down, of course, when one faction tries to vanquish another. If Hezbollah is indicted for murdering Hariri and others, the country will be thrown into crisis. For it is neither possible nor desirable to compromise with, or compete in democratic elections with, a terrorist army that “votes” by murdering its political opponents with car bombs.

Investing In Defeat?

May 21, 2009 by Jonathan Movroydis | Filed Under Middle East | Leave a Comment 

Laura Rozen of Foreign Policy reports that Vice President Joe Biden might be visiting Beirut in advance of next June’s elections. According to Rozen such a visit would show a signal of support to the Lebanese government, but Lebanese scholar Andew Exum expresses some uncertainty about investing in a government which includes Hezbollah as a part of its ruling coalition:

“I think there is probably some realism that March 14 could end up in the minority in the new government,” said Andrew Exum, a Lebanon expert and fellow at the Center for a New American Security. “So we’re seeing the [Obama] administration trying to reposition itself and talk about investing in institutions in Lebanon — specifically in the Lebanese armed forces. And I think there is an understanding in the administration that it’s going to be a tough sell to Congress and to our friends in Israel why we should invest in the Lebanese armed forces when Hezbollah is in the ruling coalition in Lebanon. Having said that, the election could still go either way and the vice president’s trip there much like Secretary of State Clinton’s understated visit expressed support for our allies, but not to the degree where we are throwing drafts at the March 8 coalition,” which includes Hezbollah.

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