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Continue reading …Turkey’s stance on Israel will reverberate in Washington | Mohammed Ayoob
September 14, 2011 No Comment
The Middle East will never be the same. America must recognise Turkey’s emergence as the region’s pre-eminent power Turkey’s expulsion of the Israeli ambassador , the downgrading of its diplomatic relations with Israel, and the Erdogan government’s increasingly firm position on the Israeli attack on the Mavi Marmara signify more than a temporary hiccup in Turkish-Israeli relations. It is a clear signal that Ankara is fed up with Israel’s foot-dragging on the apology and compensation that Turkey has demanded as a precondition for the normalisation of Turkish-Israeli relations. The UN’s Palmer Commission report , which justified the Israeli blockade of Gaza but accused Israel of using “excessive force” against the flotilla, has been rejected by Turkey. Ankara now plans to take the case against the blockade to the international court of justice (ICJ). Meanwhile, Monday’s visit to Egypt by Recep Tayyip Erdogan, Turkey’s prime minister, can be interpreted as an indication both of his support for the emerging democratic process in Egypt (where public anger at Israel runs high) and his solidarity with Cairo over the killing of five Egyptian security personnel by the Israelis in Sinai . His announcement that he intends to visit Gaza is further indication that Turkey is ratcheting up its support for the Palestinian cause, especially in the run-up to the UN vote on Palestinian statehood. What Erdogan does in Egypt will be keenly watched throughout the region. The Turkish mood was summed up by the foreign minister, Ahmet Davutoglu , who stated: “The time has come for Israel to pay a price for its illegal action. The price, first of all, is being deprived of Turkey’s friendship.” While Davutoglu has indicated that an Israeli apology for the flotilla attack and compensation for the dead and wounded could restore normal diplomatic ties, Erdogan has made clear that Israel must end its naval blockade of Gaza for this to happen. The Israeli prime minister, Binyamin Netanyahu, has declared emphatically that Israel will not tender an apology. While his stance may be dictated by coalition politics, it has created a diplomatic impasse. The Obama administration – worried about the ramifications of a major rift between Israel and Turkey for US strategic interests but afraid of taking on the Netanyahu government for domestic reasons – has not put any pressure on Israel. It thus risks alienating Turkey, a crucial Nato member. This diplomatic episode has important implications for the future of the Middle East. First, it demonstrates that Israeli dominance of the eastern Mediterranean will no longer go unchallenged. Erdogan has made clear that the Turkish navy will play a more active role in the area, and Turkish sources have indicated that it may even escort flotillas carrying humanitarian aid to Gaza. Any future attempt by Israel to prevent aid from reaching Gaza could spark a military confrontation. Second, it demonstrates that Israel’s defiance of international law, especially regarding its treatment of the occupied territories, will face increasing challenges in international forums. A referral to the ICJ will bring to the fore Israel’s violation of provisions of the fourth Geneva convention that prohibit the demographic transformation of occupied lands, as well as its responsibility regarding the welfare of the occupied population. The issue of West Bank settlements will again become a topic of heated debate. Such debate will emphasise that the Obama formula of “land swaps”, in which Israel would keep major Jewish settlements even if a two-state solution were reached, contravenes international law. This, combined with Palestinian efforts to have the state of Palestine recognised by the UN , will add to an already volatile situation in the region. Third, the Turkish stance, coming in the wake of democratic uprisings in the region, will further align Turkey with mainstream Arab opinion on Palestine and Israeli occupation. This will boost Turkish standing in the Arab world and put increasing pressure upon Arab governments to take a more active role on Palestine. Countries in democratic transition are already under domestic pressure to take a harder line with Israel, and there is talk of Egypt and Jordan withdrawing their ambassadors, following Turkey’s example. Fourth, it is clear that the current Turkish position would have not been possible without the consolidation of Turkish democracy. Not only must foreign policy now respond more directly to pressure from the electorate, but the elected government can finally pursue its policies without fear of military intervention. The recent resignation of four leading generals and their replacement by officers acceptable to the civilian government is testimony to this fact. Military top brass, who have close relations with Israeli counterparts, have long been Turkey’s primary pro-Israel constituency. Given the historic importance of the military to Turkish politics, a hard line against Israel would have been unthinkable even a few years ago. Finally, this episode signifies the coming of age of Turkey as a strategic power connecting the Middle East with Europe; it is Ankara’s declaration of independence in terms of its foreign policy. The Middle East will never be the same again. This calls for a major revamp of America’s policy. A just and speedy solution to the Israel-Palestine conflict is essential if the US is to preserve its strategic interests in the Middle East. Washington must reassess its unconditional support for Israel and adopt a visibly even-handed policy, including a softening of its position on the Palestine resolution in the UN general assembly. Above all, the US must not underrate Turkey’s strategic importance as the emerging pre-eminent power in the region, and as the bridge between the west and the Muslim world. • Comments on this article will be switched on at 9am British summer time Turkey Israel Middle East Palestinian territories Gaza flotilla Gaza Arab and Middle East unrest Egypt United Nations United States US foreign policy Mohammed Ayoob guardian.co.uk
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Since the Bush administration mired the US in two ruinous wars, Republicans have been divided on defence and security A man sitting in a cave in a remote corner of the world easily predicted the general thrust of the conservative-led response to a major terror attack on America. Once one knows the general thrust, it becomes easy to develop a plan to respond to the response. Muhammad Ali called it “the rope-a-dope”: just when they think they have you where they want you, you have them where you want them. Our enemy has been engaging us for ten years in Afghanistan and eight years in Iraq, with thousands of our soldiers and Afghan and Iraqi civilians dead, and billions of dollars spent. Their most important goal has been to bring terrorism into the lives of average citizens at home in order to affect the political process by creating internal turmoil. Mission accomplished. Since 9/11, conservatives have laboured to build the image that Republicans are strong on security and, conversely, that Democrats are weak. But the facts show that conservatives have been ineffective and inconsistent on national security policy – and now, their myth is crumbling. During the Bush years, neoconservatives labelled detractors of the wars as unpatriotic and weak, and accused them of forgetting 9/11. A Republican refrain was “fight them over there, not here.” The enemy would rather have it that way, too, because it is much easier to fight us on their home turf, in places such as Tora Bora or Sadr City, than for al-Qaida to continually plan terror attacks that take years to put in place and are often discovered at their genesis. Because of the difficulty in tracking and identifying our foes, much of our effort to engage the enemy in Iraq and Afghanistan has consisted of pushing our troops into enemy territory and baiting them into attacking. It has taken us this long to understand that this fight involves much more than just “taking the fight to the enemy”; it means building local institutions, government, infrastructure, economies, trust and public support. It has just as much to do with international development as it does with military action. Conservative thinking regarding the Middle East and the Arab Spring has been a model of inconsistency. Some called the events a ” Muslim Brotherhood nightmare ” or blamed the Obama administration ‘s approach for not holding it together (despite homegrown movements and previous decades of inconsistent US policy). Some have called for swifter decisive action, with others against taking any action , even calling it ” unconstitutional “. Conservative positions on Afghanistan range from supporting withdrawal, to “staying the course”; and on Pakistan , they vary from continued support for the government, to taking diplomatic or even military action against it. Over the last three years, the US has caught or killed more al-Qaida members and launched more targeted drone attacks against terrorists than in the previous eight years. Muammar Gaddafi has been in America’s sights since Ronald Reagan was president and Osama bin Laden was the most wanted man in the world since 9/11. Both were taken down under a Democratic administration – without spending a trillion dollars, sending in thousands of ground troops, or taking a decade to accomplish the task. And these outcomes were achieved with international support and legitimacy. As campaigning for 2012 ramps up, Republican candidates are divided, with some having been accused of turning into isolationists after supporting withdrawal from Afghanistan and arguing against the successful intervention in Libya . They still claim to be national security champions, despite many championing defence cuts before accepting even small targeted tax increases. Conservatives were willing to support “regime change”, boots on the ground in massive numbers in both Iraq and Afghanistan, and their associated costs, with much less legitimacy and international support. Yet they opposed the intervention in Libya despite support from the UN, Nato and the Arab League – and without the need and cost of ground troops. It would seem that the conservative view of when and how military force should be applied is based simply on who occupies the White House. The proof is in the facts. Ineffective and inconsistent policies, and choosing politics over security, have led to the crumbling of the myth of conservative strength on defence and national security – a myth Republicans had worked so hard to build. US national security US military US foreign policy al-Qaida Afghanistan Iraq United States US politics Republicans Democrats Libya Middle East Arab and Middle East unrest United Nations Global terrorism September 11 2001 Chris Miller guardian.co.uk
Continue reading …Walmart may have some serious image problems in how it treats women, but the business behemoth is throwing around some serious money that could help change that. Under a new initiative announced today, it pledges to spend $20 billion over the next five years to buy products from women-owned businesses…
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He complained of being a piñata last time. This time, Perry was the punchbag – and it was Michele Bachmann landing the blows Mitt Romney’s dogged professionalism has mostly been a problem for him in the political world. The same smooth, practised charm – unleavened with not-obviously-practised sense of humour – that reassures investors can strike voters as forced and fake. But give him this: he is an avid student of his own mistakes, and every debate thus far has seen him stretch his emotional range a little. In his tussles with Rick Perry Monday evening (and there were several), he may have even gotten the needle to something like “testy!” His awkwardness with humour and unsubtle way with metaphor still give the impression of someone trying too hard. He tends to pile on figures of speech like an insecure college student: it’s a pay phone world versus smart phone world! Quarters! Being dealt aces! Someone in the Romney campaign was, apparently, an English lit major. But such enthusiasm is probably preferable to the stance so often taken by political candidates in search of a personality: approval-grubbing like a high school principal trying to be cool. Speaking of which, former Utah Governor Jon Huntsman continued his campaign for the hipster vote with a reference to Kurt Cobain that might as well have been spoken in that Mandarin he’s so fluent in for all the sense and impact it made. See, Romney’s campaign pamphlet-cum-book was called “No Apologies”, and Cobain wrote a song called “All Apologies”, and Romney is a fecund Mormon and Cobain was a nihilistic heroin addict who committed suicide, so … erm? But at least we know what to gift Huntsman on iTunes! For all his improvements, though, this was not a Romney crowd. CNN decided to co-sponsor the debate with one of the few quasi-legitimate organisations that can claim to represent the “Tea Party” – Sal Russo’s the Tea Party Express . Romney’s relationship to the Tea Party is uncomfortable at best; in the last debate, he dodged a question about being a member of the group – or even agreeing with them: “I don’t think you carry cards in the Tea Party.” He chuckled at his own joke, but no one else did. The avid conservatism of the Tea Party, and the crowd, made for a debate much friendlier to the race’s less likely contenders: Ron Paul – in a too-large suit that only emphasised how lost he can seem when confronted with issues of actual governance – got warm responses for his talk about getting the government out of, well, everything. Rick Santorum was positively graceful in asserting his right to be on the stage. And Michele Bachmann, founder of Congress’s “Tea Party Caucus”, was especially in her element. She attacked Perry with gusto – and actual information – over his approval of mandatory HPV vaccination: the connection between Perry and the drug company that manufactures the vaccine sometimes gets lost in the hand-wringing over “forced injections to 12-year-old girls”, but it didn’t tonight. Perry’s response to Bachmann’s needling showed his weakness as a candidate: he was defensive and repeated himself. He seems to want to focus on being the frontrunner yet not have to do the work to get there. Romney can try to tag Perry as a professional politician, but it’s Mitt that seems to have the polish and finesse (if also a feeling of rote memorisation) that comes with having done a national campaign before. Perry can’t quite get the smirk off his face when he’s not actually speaking. He seems to alternate between rogueish charm and cocky impetuousness. And then there are his policies, which seem to be undergoing a similar vacillation. He can’t decide whether he wants to hang Ben Bernanke or diplomatically show him the door, compare social security to a con game or talk soberly about reforming it. The good news for Perry, if not for us, is that he’s going to get a lot more practice in performing the part of a candidate: there are 11 more of these debates to go before we ever get to New Hampshire and an actual vote cast. Republicans US elections 2012 US politics Rick Perry Mitt Romney Ron Paul Michele Bachmann Newt Gingrich Jon Huntsman Tea Party movement CNN US television United States Ana Marie Cox guardian.co.uk
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Perry may have lost no sleep over Texas’s 234 executions during his tenure, but the death penalty panders to crude bloodlust When Rick Perry threw his hat into the ring for the Republican presidential nomination, it set off such a collective cringe among liberal Texans that it likely scored on the Richter scale. Being a native Texan with basic respect for modern civilisation means living in a constant state of low-grade humiliation, as the state’s size provides an interrupted stream of news stories highlighting the cranks and Bible-thumpers who win state and local offices – but a presidential campaign means exponentially expanding the amount of national and international attention paid to the streak of mean-spirited ignorance that rules Texas politics. With Rick Perry, this means a whole lot more coverage of the fact that Texas is the “killingest” state in the entire union, having executed more than four times as many prisoners as the next contender in this gruesome contest. Of course, we of the non-barbaric sort do hope that all this attention paid to Rick Perry’s willingness to execute anyone on death row – no matter how obviously screwed over by an imperfect and often unjust judicial system – could somehow provoke enough national shame that we actually do away with the death penalty. Which we really need to do, not because we have any great love for vicious murderers, but because the death penalty is a known destroyer of a fair and sober-minded justice system. Once you have the right to kill people, the voters start expecting semi-regular bloodshed as proof that you’re doing your job, creating incentives for prosecutors and politicians to cut corners to get those voter-pleasing cadaver numbers up. Each new generation of prosecutors and politicians feels pressure to “best” their predecessor in the number of executions carried out, lest they face accusations of being soft on crime. Which explains why they soon find themselves where Rick Perry stands, having executed 234 people , many of whom had highly corrupt trials and at least one of whom is most likely innocent. For those who haven’t read the tale of Cameron Todd Willingham, I implore you to read the New Yorker article recounting the case of a man executed for killing his three children based on shoddy evidence and prosecutorial willingness to introduce Willingham’s love of Iron Maiden and Led Zeppelin as evidence in order to stoke the prejudices of a Bible Belt jury that was high on fundamentalist tall tales about the Satanic influence of rock music. When presented with an opportunity to spare Willingham’s life, Perry declined, and in 2004, Willingham was executed by lethal injection. His case has come to symbolise the circus atmosphere around capital murder cases, and the way that the eagerness to see someone pay the ultimate price for the loss of innocent human life causes law enforcement and politicians to make a mockery out of the idea of justice. Since Rick Perry, by his own admission, has never lost sleep over the execution of a likely innocent man, you can bet justice doesn’t stand a chance when it comes to cases where the fact of homicide is indisputable. The public’s desire to get blood for blood – especially if they can view the accused as an outsider – turns concerns about due process to dust for anyone whose job depends on a high conviction rate. Subsequently, death penalty cases where the prosecution won a clean conviction without relying on shoddy evidence or a jury’s unfair prejudices are the rare gems in a sea of corruption. The case of Duane Buck , scheduled to be executed this week, demonstrates how the death penalty is more about hustling prisoners to the execution chamber to score points with the public than it is securing just and safe outcomes. Even hyper-conservative Senator John Cornyn, once Texas’s attorney general, wanted Buck’s case reviewed, due to a prosecutorial witness’s claim that Buck was more likely to be violent in the future because he’s black. That someone’s race was overtly invoked as a reason to kill him during trial should be indicator enough that the death penalty has meaning for the public beyond alleviating concerns about violent crime. But evidence of racism invoked during the trial probably won’t bother Perry: if he had a conscience about signing off on overtly unfair executions, it probably stopped bothering him somewhere much earlier in his run of 234 executions as Texas governor. The death penalty is wrong not because murderers deserve better, but because the death penalty appeals to the worst instincts of humanity. We see innocent people die, and our lizard brains want to believe that it won’t be right until someone pays for blood with blood. That desire starts to overrule all other priorities. Our desire for a fair trial system and our desire to treat people equally despite racial differences are the first to go. But given enough time, we’re even willing to send a man to the death chambers for what appears to have been an accident. Three small children are dead, and we want someone to pay, no matter the innocence of the someone we select. Perry’s willingness to execute a man who was almost certainly innocent comes uncomfortably close to regressing to the days of human sacrifice. Sacrificing an innocent man won’t prevent other houses from accidentally catching fire and killing the innocent people inside, but it’s clear that Perry will not hesitate to pander to voters who cling to hopes that periodic blood-letting will somehow save us all. Capital punishment Rick Perry Texas United States Amanda Marcotte guardian.co.uk
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