Archives: Articles

Atgaa, 10, and her sister Reemya, 8, are about to be married to men in their 60s. Atgaa will be her husband’s fourth wife. Their wedding celebrations are scheduled for this week and will take place in the town of Fayaadah Abban in Qasim, Saudi Arabia.

The girls are getting married because their financially struggling father needs the money that their dowries will provide: young girls of this age can fetch as much as $40,000 each.

Many readers might be shocked at this news. How can it be legal? The answer is that Saudi Arabia has no minimum age for marriage, and it is perfectly legal to marry even an hour-old child.

Three Saudi ministries share the blame for allowing and facilitating child marriages. The health ministry is tasked with conducting genetic tests for couples considering marriage. Saudi law requires potential brides and grooms to provide certificates of genetic testing before marriages can officially proceed.

The justice ministry regulates the marriage process and issues licences. And the interior ministry registers families and documents the relationships between family members. It is also the most powerful government agency; it has authority over all other ministries and can direct their activities at will.

As with many pernicious practices, child marriage would not exist without tacit support and approval from the country’s leadership. Far from condemning child marriage, the Saudi monarchy itself has a long history of marrying very young girls.

Sarah, who is now a brilliant Saudi doctor, told me she was barely 12 when the late prince Sultan proposed to her after seeing her walking at a military base where she had lived with her father. Luckily, her father had the wits to claim that she was chronically ill, at which point the proposal was swiftly rescinded.

Camel festivals, held at his time of the year in Saudi Arabia, witness the practice called akheth (“taking”) in which girls aged 14 to 16 are “gifted” to the usually elderly members of the monarchy for a few days or weeks. This practice, reminiscent of the infamous droit du seigneur in medieval Europe, is maintained to this day with the monarchy’s protection.

Saudi Arabia has probably the highest number of child marriages in the Middle East and yet there has been almost no international outrage or objection directed at the practice. I have personally sent two letters to Ann Veneman, the director of United Nations Children’s Fund (Unicef), regarding the Saudi practice and asking her to make her views on the issue public, as she did with Yemen.

Instead, Unicef lauded Saudi efforts to protect child rights and even honoured Prince Naif, whose interior ministry is one of the departments overseeing child marriages. So no wonder the Saudi monarchy feels confident that such a practice can continue.

The US government has been similarly indifferent to the plight of child brides in the kingdom. In April 2009, I wrote to William Burns, the undersecretary of state, regarding the case of Sharooq, 8 – also from Qasim. I never heard back from him.

At a public conference, I asked a former senator, Chuck Hagel (seated next to Prince Turki al-Faisal, a former head of Saudi intelligence), if he personally or the US would accept the friendship and alliance of a family that allows child marriage. The answer was nothing short of shocking: “We cannot decide for other countries what is appropriate or not,” he said.

So far, no UN body, such as Unicef or the human rights council, has issued a single statement condemning child marriages in Saudi Arabia [see footnote]. In fact, not one country has made a statement in the human rights council on this issue, and not a single western government has asked the Saudi monarchy to stop the practice. The ugly tradition of child marriage thus continues with the help of the monarchy and its apologists in the west.

If any governments, especially in the west, are seriously concerned with this barbaric and medieval practice, they should ban the heads of Saudi justice, interior and health ministries from entering their countries. If this action were taken against government leaders facilitating crimes against children we would soon see a resolution of this issue.

Saudi Arabia must be pressured to set a minimum age for marriage and save children like Atgaa and Reemya.

• This footnote was added on 15 November 2011. Unicef would like to make clear that a statement was issued in 2009 by Ann Veneman, then its executive director, expressing deep concern about child marriage in Saudi Arabia.

By Ali al-Ahmed

8 November 2011

@ The Guardian

It may not ease the daily pain of occupation and blockade or the endless anguish of refugee status and exile or the continual humiliations of discrimination and second class citizenship, but the admission of Palestine to membership in UNESCO is for so many reasons a step forward in the long march of the Palestinian people toward the dignity of sunlight! The event illuminates the path to self-determination, but also brings into the open some of the most formidable obstacles that must be cleared if further progress is to be made.

The simple arithmetic of the UNESCO vote, 107 in favor, 14 opposed, 52 abstentions, and 21 absent fails to tell the story of really one sided was the vote. Toting up the for and against votes obscures the wicked arm twisting, otherwise known as geopolitics, that induced such marginal political entities as Samoa, Solomon Islands, Palau, and Vanuatu to stand against the weight of global opinion and international morality by voting against Palestinian admission as member to UNESCO. This is not meant to insult such small states, but to lament that their vulnerability to American pressure should distort the real contours of world public opinion. Such a distortion makes a minor mockery of the idea that governments can offer adequate representation to the peoples of the world. It also illustrates the degree to which formal political independence may hide a condition of de facto dependence as well as make plain that voting within the United Nations System should never be confused with aspirations to establish a global democracy in substance as well as form. As an aside this consistently compromised electoral process within the UN System demonstrates the urgency and desirability of establishing a global peoples parliament that could at least provide a second voice whenever global debate touches on issues of human concern.

What is most impressive about the UNESCO vote is that despite the US diplomacy of threat and intimidation, the Palestinian application for membership carried the day. There was enough adherence to principle by enough states to provide the necessary 2/3rds vote even in the face of a determined American diplomatic effort, bolstered by threatening punitive action in the form of refusing further financial support for UNESCO, which amounts to some $60m for the current year, and overall 22 per cent of the organization’s annual budget of $643m in 2010-11 (which is projected to be $653m for 2011-12). Actually this withholding of funds is an American policy embedded in legislation that derives from the early 1990s, and cannot be attributed to the ridiculously pro-Israeli present Congress that would have acted in a similar fashion, and probably feels deprived of an opportunity to draw fresh UN blood. Indeed rabid pro-Israel members of Congress are already showboating their readiness to do more to damage so as to exhibit their devotion to Israel. This unseemly demand to punish the UN for taking a principled stand is worse than just being a poor loser, it amounts to a totally irresponsible willingness to damage the indispensable work of cultural and societal cooperation on international levels just to show that there is a price to be paid to defy the will of Israel, with the United States as willing enforcement agent. It is an excellent moment for the governments of other states to demonstrate their commitment to human wellbeing by helping to restore confidence in the UN. One way to do this is to help overcome this unanticipated UNESCO budget deficit, and what would deliver a most message to Washington and Tel Aviv would be a collection campaign that generated more funds than those lost. It seems a useful opportunity to show once and for all that such strong arm fiscal tactics are no longer acceptable and don’t even work in the post-colonial world. Such an outcome would also confirm that the geopolitical tectonic plates of world order have shifted in such a way as to give increasing prominence to such countries as China, India, Russia, Brazil, and South Africa all of whom voted to admit Palestine to UNESCO. At least for the moment in this limited setting we can obtain a glimpse of a genuine ‘new world order’! The Security Council has proved unable and unwilling to change its two-tier structure to accommodate these shifts, but these countries can by their own action become more active players on the global stage. It is not necessary to wait until France and Britain read the tea leaves accurately enough to realize that it is time for them to give up their permanent place at the UNSC.

Perhaps, more enduring that the vote itself is the reinforced image of the wildly inappropriate role given to the United States to act as intermediary and peacemaker in seeking to resolve the underlying conflict and ensure the realization of Palestinian rights that have been so cruelly denied for more than six decades. Observers as diverse as Michel Rocard, the former Socialist Party Prime Minister of France, and Mouin Rabbani, a widely respected Palestinian analyst of the conflict, agree that this effort to thwart an elemental Palestinian quest for legal recognition and political participation, demonstrates beyond all reasonable doubt, although such a reality has long been apparent to even the most casual serious observer of the conflict, that the time has come to disqualify the United States from presiding over the resolution of this conflict. It has always verged on the absurd to expect justice, or even fairness, to flow from a diplomatic framework in which the openly and extremely partisan ally of the dominant party can put itself forward as ‘the honest broker’ in negotiations in a setting where the weaker side is subject to military rule and exile. To have given credibility to this tripartite charade for this long is itself mainly a commentary on the weakness of the Palestinian position, and their desperate need to insist henceforth on a balanced international framework if negotiations are ever to have the slightest prospect of producing a sustainable and just peace.

Leadership role lacking

Yet to find a new framework does not mean following Rocard’s incredibly Orientalist prescription: “The Americans have lost their moral right to leadership in resolving the Israel-Palestine conflict. It is time for Europe to step into the fray.” As if Europe had recently demonstrated its capacity for rendering justice by the NATO intervention in Libya! As if the colonial heritage had been rebranded as a positive credential! As if the Americans ever had a ‘moral right’ to resolve this conflict that was only now lost in the UNESCO voting chamber! It is not clear how a new diplomacy for the conflict that is finally responsive to the situation should be structured, but it should reflect at the very least the new realities of an emergent multipolarity skewed toward the non-West. To be provocative for once, maybe Turkey, Brazil, Egypt, and India could constitute themselves as a more legitimate quartet than that horribly discredited version of a quartet composed of the United States, the EU, Russia, and the UN.

Returning to the UNESCO controversy, it is worth noting the words of denunciation used by Victoria Nuland, the designated State Department spokesperson. She described the vote as being “regrettable, premature” contending that it “undermines our shared goal of a comprehensive, just and lasting peace in the Middle East.” Even Orwell might be dazed by such a diversionary formulation. Why was the vote regrettable and premature? After all to work for the preservation of religious sacred sites within the halls of UNESCO is hardly subversive of global stability by any sane reckoning.

And after enduring occupation for more than 44 years, it qualifies as comedic to insist that Palestine must not yet in from the cold because such entry would be ‘premature.’ And how can it be claimed that Palestine participation within the UN System ‘undermines’ the ‘shared goal’ of regional peace in the Middle East? The only answer that makes any sense is say that whatever Israel says is so , and the United States will act accordingly, that is, do whatever Israel wants it to do in the global arena. Such kneejerk geopolitics is not only contrary to elementary considerations of law and equity, it is also monumentally irrational and self-defeating from the perspective of national wellbeing and future peace.

Serving common interests

What in the end may be most troubling about this incident is the degree that it confirms a growing impression that both the United States and Israel have lost the capacity to serve their own security interests and rationally promote the wellbeing of their own people. This is serious enough with respect to the damage done to such societies by their own maladroit behavior, but dealing with these two military heavyweights who both possess arsenals of nuclear weaponry is sheer madness. These are two holdout government that continue to rest their future security almost exclusively on an outmoded reliance on hard power calculations and strategy, the effects are potentially catastrophic for the region and the world. When Israel alienates Turkey, its only surviving friend in the Middle East, and then refuses to take the minimal steps to heal the wounds caused by its recklessly violent behavior, one has to conclude that the Israeli sense of reality has fallen on hard times! And when Israel pushes the United States to lose this much social capital on the global stage by standing up for its defiance of international law as in relation to rejecting the recommendations of the Goldstone Report or refusing to censure the expansion of its unlawful settlements or the collective punishment of Gaza, there is no longer much doubt that Israeli foreign policy is driven by domestic extremism that then successfully solicits Washington for ill-advised backing.

The situation in the United States is parallel. Many excuse, or at least explain, America’s unconditionally irrational support for Israel as produced by the fearsome leverage exerted by AIPAC over electoral politics in the country as practiced by Congress and rationalized by conservative think tanks. But what this is saying is that the United States Government has also lost the capacity to pursue a foreign policy in a crucial region of the world that expresses its own national interests, much less provides guidance based on a wider commitment to a stable and just Middle East. The Arab Spring created a second chance so to speak to redeem the United States from its long embrace of vicious autocratic rule in the region, but this opportunity is being squandering on the altar of subservience to the vindictive whims, expansionist visions, and paranoid fears of the Netanyahu/Lieberman governing coalition in Israel.

Welcoming Palestine to UNESCO is a day of celebration and vindication for the Palestinian people, and a political victory for PLO leadership, but it is also a day when all of us should reflect upon the wider Palestinian tragedy and struggle, and seek to take further steps forward. UNESCO has given a momentary respite to those who were completely disillusioned by what to expect from the UN or the system of states when it comes to Palestinian aspirations, and instead put their hope and efforts into the initiatives of global civil society, especially the growing BDS campaign. Now is not the time to shift attention away from such initiatives, but it does suggest that there are many symbolic battlefields in the ongoing legitimacy war being waged for Palestinian self-determination, and several of these lie within the network of institutions comprising the United Nations.

By Richard Falk

Richard Falk is Albert G. Milbank Professor Emeritus of International Law at Princeton University and Visiting Distinguished Professor in Global and International Studies at the University of California, Santa Barbara. He has authored and edited numerous publications spanning a period of five decades.

Hands Off the People of Iran unequivocally condemns the ratcheting up of sanctions on Iran in the aftermath of the much-heralded report of the International Atomic Energy Agency on that country’s nuclear capability on November 8. The report did little more than confirm the assessment that Hopi arrived at some time ago: that at worst Iran may be interested in the so-called ‘Japanese’ option. This is nuclear development that stops just short of the capacity to produce a nuclear weapon – but only by a month or so. But this is something that has been commented on many times before.

Chancellor of the exchequer George Osborne announced that from November 28, all UK credit and financial institutions were obliged to cease trading with Iran’s banks, a move that apparently represented “a further step to preventing the Iranian regime from acquiring nuclear weapons”. This is the first time the UK has cut off an entire country’s banking system from London’s financial sector.

US secretary of state Hillary Clinton welcomed the opportunity the report presented for a “significant ratcheting-up of pressure” on Iran through the imposition of new sanctions. US actions include measures to limit Tehran’s ability to refine its own fuel, as well as targeting the financial interest of the Revolutionary Guards.

Even this was not enough for the rabid Israeli regime, which frothed about Iran having a nuclear weapon within a year and made ominous noises about military action. Israel feels politically vulnerable, given the current upheavals in the Arab world. An Iran with nuclear capability challenges its regional hegemony in a broader sense, but there is also a very practical concern. Iran’s missile delivery system is sophisticated enough to deliver a conventional payload to Tel Aviv – hence the November 7 explosion/assassination at the military base in Bid Ganeh, some 20 kilometres (12 miles) west of Tehran. Amongst others this killed major-general Hassan Moqaddam, a key figure in Iran’s ballistic missiles programme: according to Time magazine, a “western intelligence source” laid the blame at the door of the Israeli spy agency, Mossad, and warned that “there are more bullets in the magazine”.

On one level, the western powers are in a weak position when it comes to convincing the wider population that Iran is developing nuclear weapons. The debacle of Iraq – and farcical claims around Saddam’s supposed “weapons of mass destruction” – have prompted many commentators to dub the IAEA’s report “Iran’s 45-minute moment” (a reference to the nonsense peddled about Iraq’s supposed capability to drop bombs on strategic European targets in that time frame). Of course, from the point of view of Iraq’s barbaric rulers, if such weapons had existed it would have been a fairly obvious military response to the invasion of their country to use them. Similar claims today about Iran’s nuclear ambitions will raise many a sceptical eyebrow.

The veracity of the report will also be called into question when it is recalled that the current IAEA director general, Yukiya Amano, has often been accused, on solid grounds, of pro-US bias. According to diplomatic cables published by Wikileaks last year, US diplomats favoured his nomination, as he was “in tune with the US position regarding Iran’s nuclear programme” – a revelation that will help undermine the US/Britain’s charges against the regime.

However, on another level the case for imperialist intervention has undoubtedly been bolstered by the relatively ‘clean’ regime change in Libya (so far …). The overthrow of Gaddafi by western-backed insurgents is widely perceived of as a ‘good war’, in stark contrast to the quagmire of Iraq; the inability of the anti-war movement in this country to mobilise large numbers onto the streets in opposition to the intervention is a mark of this.

The current low level of anti-war mobilisation is a big problem for all those who oppose the imperialist interference in the Middle East, for we should be clear that the war on Iran has already started. It is unlikely to take the form of military invasion and occupation at any stage – the experience of the running sore of Iraq has chastened the imperialists on that front. What we will see – are seeing – is war pursued by other means:

Cyber warfare with its unforeseen consequences (last year’s attack on Iran’s nuclear plants and a number of major industrial complexes by the sophisticated piece of malware, Stuxnet).

Political assassinations of Iranian physicists/scientists allegedly involved in the nuclear programme (murders that are used by the Iranian regime to justify its own political executions).

Swingeing sanctions that, while barely troubling the rich and powerful, dramatically impoverish ordinary Iranians and actually endanger their lives (sanctions have affected everything from aviation to surgery and dentistry).

These sorts of tactics betray the strategic goal the US and its allies have in mind. Ideally for them, a repetition – in a ‘tidier’ form – of the Libyan scenario. That is, that pressure from imperialism engenders splits in this deeply discredited regime and its possible collapse/paralysis. Then indigenous opposition forces spearhead regime change, with the active aid and encouragement of the west. Clinton has spoken openly of her administration’s hopes for the implosion of the regime. There is solid ground for her optimism. Fraught divisions exist at every level of the theocratic regime, most dramatically in its top echelons with the ongoing conflict between supreme leader ayatollah Khamenei and president Ahmadinejad, and continued joint conflict with timid reformists such as Mir-Hossein Moussavi and Mehdi Karroubi.

The Obama administration would have been encouraged in this by recent developments in the Iranian opposition movement. A pro-war/anti-war-pro-sanctions debate is now dominating Iranian political discourse generally and has engendered a split into two major trends in this opposition. First there are those such as Mohammad Khatami who totally oppose the war, despite their criticisms of the regime. However, this does not flow from any sort of principled or consistently democratic position; rather, it is inspired by nationalism. Khatami has called for “national unity” in the face of this crisis and offers the supreme leader advice about ‘changing course’.

Far more worrying has been the significant section of the opposition (including some who could be politically designated as ‘soft left’, but mainly composed of liberals) who appear to be almost egging the Americans to launch a military strike. The example of the Nato bombing of Libya is looked to by these forces as a positive example of ‘humanitarian intervention’. Although there does not appear to be the appetite in Washington for air strikes, the US’s ally in the region, Israel, remains politically unstable and bellicose: witness the recent statement by Israeli defence minister Ehud Barak that “We do not expect any new UN sanctions on Tehran to persuade it to stop its nuclear defiance. We continue to recommend to our friends in the world and to ourselves not to take any option off the table.”

The stance of Hands Off the People of Iran is crystal-clear. We implacably oppose the sabre-rattling of the imperialists and demand that all sanctions on the country are lifted, that all threats of military action be rescinded. We call for this not because we have any illusions in the loathsome regime in Iran. It starves its own people; it denies them basic human rights; it endangers their lives through its elaborate games of brinkmanship with the US and its powerful allies. Unlike some politically demented leftists, we say that nuclear weapons in its hands would be a defeat for the forces of democracy and radical social change, as well as a profoundly destabilising development in the region.

No, we oppose the warmongering – whether it takes the hard form of assassinations, threats of military action, or the ‘soft’ option of sanctions – because we do not have any illusions in the loathsome regimes in place in Washington, London or Tel Aviv either. The intervention of these powers and their allies has nothing whatsoever to do with the promotion of ‘democracy’ – indeed, the regimes the imperialists impose often have features that are significantly worse than the previous team of oppressors of the people. Hopi insists that democracy can only come in Iran from below – from the struggles of the workers’, women’s and students’ movements. It will never fall from the sky in the tip of a US or Israeli bunker-buster.

We look to those like the working class and anti-capitalist activists, left intellectuals and students who met in an anti-capitalist conference in Iran on November 4. Many of the contributions emphasised the need to strengthen the workers’ struggles, the underground left/workers’ groups and the fight for left unity – “It is a shame that hero worship of certain intellectuals acting as semi-gods has harmed unity amongst the forces of the Iranian left,” said veteran labour activist NA. Military action against Iran, whether overt or covert, whether air strikes or sanctions, only acts to disorganise and disorientate these forces for change. This is why the threatening military backdrop to the conference was discussed by participants and Clinton’s bellicose statements noted. This is why Hopi contributes to their struggle for freedom by fighting against any imperialist attack on their country.

The imperialists want change in Iran via a palace coup or politically neutered opposition movement. Hopi says genuine democratic change must come from below, through the initiative, elan and thirst for change of the masses themselves! l

No war, no sanctions on Iran!

For a nuclear-free Middle East as a step to a nuclear-free world!

Don’t attack Iran

By Hands Off the People of Iran

MANAMA // A vital US naval base in the Middle East is getting a multi-million-dollar upgrade, which will double the station’s size and enable the US to better withstand the growing number of threats in the region’s strategic waterways. Expansion work on the Naval Support Activity Bahrain base, which is home of the US Navy 5th Fleet Command, began yesterday with a ground-breaking ceremony, during which US officials emphasised the military, political and economic significance of the move towards ensuring regional peace and stability.

The US ambassador to Bahrain, Adam Ereli, said: “The US Navy’s presence in the region for 60 years has allowed the countries of the Gulf the peace and stability they need to prosper. As threats grow, from wherever they may be, it is important that our presence remains constant. “What you see today is a commitment to staying in the region. Anybody who suggests that we are getting afraid or nervous or losing our resolve just has to take a look at what we are doing here today.”

The upgrade, which is expected to be completed in four phases over five years, will cost $580 million (Dh2.1 billion). The 5th Fleet area of operation encompasses about 6.5 million square km of water, spanning the coastlines of 27 countries, including the Gulf, the Red Sea, the Gulf of Oman and parts of the Indian Ocean. The area includes three strategically vital chokepoints – the Strait of Hormuz, the Suez Canal, which links the Red Sea to the Mediterranean, and the Bab al Mandeb Strait at the southern tip of Yemen.

It is the US military’s most engaged theatre of operation, with the US maritime coalition supporting missions in Iraq and Afghanistan, as well as carrying out counter-terrorism and counter-piracy efforts. Iran’s repeated threats to close the Strait of Hormuz, its continued maritime exercises in Gulf waters and the Iranian Revolutionary Guard’s frequent testing of US warship reactions have also challenged the US in the area.

Tuesday’s warning by Sayyed Hassan Nasrallah, the Hizbollah leader, that his group would target ships heading in the direction of Israel in any future Lebanon-Israel war if Lebanon’s water ways are besieged, may have added yet another threat to the list. Captain Enrique Sadsad, the 5th Fleet base commander, said in an interview: “Our naval forces and coalition partners are focused on executing our mission, keeping our forces and host nation secure, and are also actively engaged in partnerships and co-ordination with other Gulf allies to help ensure our mutual defence.

“The base continues to grow in terms of operational requirements to sustain ongoing operations around this region,” Captain Sadsad said. “This expansion project will not only enhance our ability to support our tenant commands and their mission – whether that be logistics, aviation, theatre security, or surface operational support – but also provide the necessary infrastructure to support our service members and their families, including our civilian and contract employees.”

Plans for expansion of the base had been in the pipeline since 2003 as operational requirements increased after the September 11 attacks, but it was not until January 2008 that a lease agreement for a part of Bahrain’s recently decommissioned Mina Salman was reached between Manama and Washington. The 28-hectare area will be used to relocate US and coalition port operations from their current 1-hectare facility in the same port.

The first phase of the upgrade is set to be completed in the autumn of 2012 and consists of constructing a perimeter fence, port operations centre, administrative buildings and waterfront development to support navy and coalition ships. Later stages of the project will include the construction of barracks, a dining facility, recreation centre and a bridge over the road separating the base from the port to link the two sides.

The construction is also expected to benefit the local economy. Mr Ereli said: “The expansion represents a huge investment in Bahrain and has great economic benefits. In addition to the lease contract we presently have about 300 ships visiting port each year and that number will likely increase by 30 per cent. “A large part of the $580 million set aside for the project will benefit Bahraini companies. Twenty per cent of the construction cost, around $100 million, will be paid to Bahraini construction companies. Another $150 million will be used to buy construction material from Bahrain. We will also have thousands of Bahraini workers and consultants employed during the five-year long construction phase.”

Mr Ereli said that such investments carried a political message of confidence in Bahrain and the role it plays. Hussain Jasim, a Bahraini MP with Al Wefaq Society, welcomed what he expects to be a boon to the country’s economy. Already, he said, the base contributes at least $150m to the Bahraini economy each year. “They have directly contributed to the construction boom in Juffair area – where the [current] base is located – and I personally call that area ‘little America’ because of the US-franchised restaurants and coffee shops that line its street,” he said.

“Every Bahraini dinar that is spent in the economy is worth four in circulation inside the economy so you imagine the impact [of the project],” he said. “Hotels, car rental services, restaurants all depend to a certain extent on the US presence.” The US Navy presence in Bahrain dates back to the Second World War but it was not until 1971 that the navy leased part of the former British base to set up what is the 5th Fleet Command today.

By Mazen Mahdi

27 May 2010

@ The National

MacDILL AIR FORCE BASE, Fla. — The Obama administration plans to bolster the American military presence in the Persian Gulf after it withdraws the remaining troops from Iraq this year, according to officials and diplomats. That repositioning could include new combat forces in Kuwait able to respond to a collapse of security in Iraq or a military confrontation with Iran.

The plans, under discussion for months, gained new urgency after President Obama’s announcement this month that the last American soldiers would be brought home from Iraq by the end of December. Ending the eight-year war was a central pledge of his presidential campaign, but American military officers and diplomats, as well as officials of several countries in the region, worry that the withdrawal could leave instability or worse in its wake.

After unsuccessfully pressing both the Obama administration and the Iraqi government to permit as many as 20,000 American troops to remain in Iraq beyond 2011, the Pentagon is now drawing up an alternative.

In addition to negotiations over maintaining a ground combat presence in Kuwait, the United States is considering sending more naval warships through international waters in the region.

With an eye on the threat of a belligerent Iran, the administration is also seeking to expand military ties with the six nations in the Gulf Cooperation Council — Saudi Arabia, Kuwait, Bahrain, Qatar, the United Arab Emirates and Oman. While the United States has close bilateral military relationships with each, the administration and the military are trying to foster a new “security architecture” for the Persian Gulf that would integrate air and naval patrols and missile defense.

The size of the standby American combat force to be based in Kuwait remains the subject of negotiations, with an answer expected in coming days. Officers at the Central Command headquarters here declined to discuss specifics of the proposals, but it was clear that successful deployment plans from past decades could be incorporated into plans for a post-Iraq footprint in the region.

For example, in the time between the Persian Gulf war in 1991 and the invasion of Iraq in 2003, the United States Army kept at least a combat battalion — and sometimes a full combat brigade —  in Kuwait year-round, along with an enormous arsenal ready to be unpacked should even more troops have been called to the region.

“Back to the future” is how Maj. Gen. Karl R. Horst, Central Command’s chief of staff, described planning for a new posture in the Gulf. He said the command was focusing on smaller but highly capable deployments and training partnerships with regional militaries. “We are kind of thinking of going back to the way it was before we had a big ‘boots on the ground’ presence,” General Horst said. “I think it is healthy. I think it is efficient. I think it is practical.”

Mr. Obama and his senior national security advisers have sought to reassure allies and answer critics, including many Republicans, that the United States will not abandon its commitments in the Persian Gulf even as it winds down the war in Iraq and looks ahead to doing the same in Afghanistan by the end of 2014.

“We will have a robust continuing presence throughout the region, which is proof of our ongoing commitment to Iraq and to the future of that region, which holds such promise and should be freed from outside interference to continue on a pathway to democracy,” Secretary of State Hillary Rodham Clinton said in Tajikistan after the president’s announcement.

During town-hall-style meetings with military personnel in Asia last week, the secretary of defense, Leon E. Panetta, noted that the United States had 40,000 troops in the region, including 23,000 in Kuwait, though the bulk of those serve as logistical support for the forces in Iraq.

As they undertake this effort, the Pentagon and its Central Command, which oversees operations in the region, have begun a significant rearrangement of American forces, acutely aware of the political and budgetary constraints facing the United States, including at least $450 billion of cuts in military spending over the next decade as part of the agreement to reduce the budget deficit.

Officers at Central Command said that the post-Iraq era required them to seek more efficient ways to deploy forces and maximize cooperation with regional partners. One significant outcome of the coming cuts, officials said, could be a steep decrease in the number of intelligence analysts assigned to the region. At the same time, officers hope to expand security relationships in the region. General Horst said that training exercises were “a sign of commitment to presence, a sign of commitment of resources, and a sign of commitment in building partner capability and partner capacity.”

Col. John G. Worman, Central Command’s chief for exercises, noted a Persian Gulf milestone: For the first time, he said, the military of Iraq had been invited to participate in a regional exercise in Jordan next year, called Eager Lion 12, built around the threat of guerrilla warfare and terrorism.

Another part of the administration’s post-Iraq planning involves the Gulf Cooperation Council, dominated by Saudi Arabia. It has increasingly sought to exert its diplomatic and military influence in the region and beyond. Qatar and the United Arab Emirates, for example, sent combat aircraft to the Mediterranean as part of the NATO-led intervention in Libya, while Bahrain and the United Arab Emirates each have forces in Afghanistan.

At the same time, however, the council sent a mostly Saudi ground force into Bahrain to support that government’s suppression of demonstrations this year, despite international criticism.

Despite such concerns, the administration has proposed establishing a stronger, multilateral security alliance with the six nations and the United States. Mr. Panetta and Mrs. Clinton outlined the proposal in an unusual joint meeting with the council on the sidelines of the United Nations in New York last month.

The proposal still requires the approval of the council, whose leaders will meet again in December in the Saudi capital, Riyadh, and the kind of multilateral collaboration that the administration envisions must overcome rivalries among the six nations.

“It’s not going to be a NATO tomorrow,” said a senior administration official, who spoke on the condition of anonymity to discuss diplomatic negotiations still under way, “but the idea is to move to a more integrated effort.”

Iran, as it has been for more than three decades, remains the most worrisome threat to many of those nations, as well as to Iraq itself, where it has re-established political, cultural and economic ties, even as it provided covert support for Shiite insurgents who have battled American forces.

“They’re worried that the American withdrawal will leave a vacuum, that their being close by will always make anyone think twice before taking any action,” Bahrain’s foreign minister, Sheik Khalid bin Ahmed al-Khalifa, said in an interview, referring to officials in the Persian Gulf region.

Sheik Khalid was in Washington last week for meetings with the administration and Congress. “There’s no doubt it will create a vacuum,” he said, “and it may invite regional powers to exert more overt action in Iraq.”

He added that the administration’s proposal to expand its security relationship with the Persian Gulf nations would not “replace what’s going on in Iraq” but was required in the wake of the withdrawal to demonstrate a unified defense in a dangerous region. “Now the game is different,” he said. “We’ll have to be partners in operations, in issues and in many ways that we should work together.”

At home, Iraq has long been a matter of intense dispute. Some foreign policy analysts and Democrats — and a few Republicans — say the United States has remained in Iraq for too long. Others, including many Republicans and military analysts, have criticized Mr. Obama’s announcement of a final withdrawal, expressing fear that Iraq remained too weak and unstable.

“The U.S. will have to come to terms with an Iraq that is unable to defend itself for at least a decade,” Adam Mausner and Anthony H. Cordesman of the Center for Strategic and International Studies wrote after the withdrawal announcement.

Twelve Senators demanded hearings on the administration’s ending of negotiations with the Iraqis — for now at least — on the continuation of American training and on counterterrorism efforts in Iraq.

“As you know, the complete withdrawal of our forces from Iraq is likely to be viewed as a strategic victory by our enemies in the Middle East, especially the Iranian regime,” the senators wrote Wednesday in a letter to the chairman of the Senate’s Armed Services Committee.

By THOM SHANKER and STEVEN LEE MYERS

31 October 2011

@ The New York Times

Thom Shanker reported from MacDill Air Force Base, and Steven Lee Myers from Washington.

WASHINGTON (Reuters) – The U.S. government may soon announce plans for a large sale of precision-guided bombs to the United Arab Emirates, a source familiar with the arms sales plans said late on Thursday, as tensions mounted with Iran over its nuclear program.

The Pentagon is considering a significant sale of Joint Direct Attack Munitions made by Boeing Co, adding to other recent arms deals with the UAE. These include the sale of 500 Hellfire air-to-surface missiles about which U.S. lawmakers were notified in September.

The sale of Boeing-built “bunker-buster” bombs and other munitions to UAE, a key Gulf ally, is part of an ongoing U.S. effort to build a regional coalition to counter Iran.

No comment was immediately available from the Pentagon’s press office or the Defense Security Cooperation Agency, which oversees foreign arms sales.

Boeing has sold thousands of JDAM bombs to the United States and its allies in recent months as they have replenished their arsenal of the popular precision-guided bombs.

Boeing spokesman Garrett Kasper said the company was unable to discuss the proposed contract since it would involve a foreign military sale, something that would be discussed at a government-to-government level.

The proposed sale, first reported by the Wall Street Journal, would expand the existing capabilities of UAE’s air force to target buildings such as the bunkers and tunnels where Iran is believed to be developing nuclear or other weapons. The newspaper said Washington was eyeing the sale of 4,900 of the so-called smart bombs.

Tension over Iran’s nuclear program has increased since Tuesday when the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) reported that Tehran appeared to have worked on designing a bomb and may still be conducting secret research to that end.

Speculation has heightened in the Israeli media that Israel may strike Iran’s nuclear sites and there is speculation in the Western press about a possible U.S. attack.

But U.S. Defense Secretary Leon Panetta on Thursday warned that military action against Iran could have “unintended consequences” in the region. Tehran had warned earlier that an attack against its nuclear sites would be met by “iron fists.”

Iran says its nuclear program is peaceful and that it is enriching uranium to run reactors for electricity generation.

The Obama administration is trying to build up the six members of the Gulf Cooperation Council, which includes Saudi Arabia, Bahrain, Oman, Qatar, UAE, and Kuwait, as a unified counterweight to Iran.

Recent arms deals approved by the administration include a record $60 billion plan to sell Saudi Arabia advanced F-15 aircraft, some 2,000-pound (907-kg) JDAMs and other powerful munitions.

The U.S. government also approved the sale of a $7 billion terminal missile defense program to UAE that would be built by Lockheed Martin Corp.

Washington has also sought to build up missile-defense systems across the region, with the goal of building an integrated network to defend against short- and intermediate-range ballistic missiles from Iran.

The UAE has a fleet of advanced U.S.-made F-16 fighters, also built by Lockheed, that could carry the JDAMs.

Once the Pentagon formally notifies lawmakers about a proposed sale, they have 30 days to raise objections, although such action is rare since sales are carefully vetted with Congress before they are formally announced.

This sale will likely include other weapons systems, including military aircraft and other weapons, according to the source familiar with the plans.

11 November 2011

Reporting by Andrea Shalal-Esa;

Editing by Eric Walsh.

@ Reuters

The Chinese renminbi could pose a threat to the international dominance of the US dollar within a decade, according to an independent commission set up by the US Congress.

The annual report of the US-China Economic and Sec­urity Review Commission, published on Wednesday, said China’s efforts to spread international use of its currency were succeeding in broadening its reach.

“[It] no longer seems inconceivable that the RMB could mount a challenge to the dollar, perhaps within the next five to 10 years,” said the commission, chaired by William Reinsch, president of the National Foreign Trade Council, a business group. “Chinese financial authorities are laying the groundwork for these ambitions via a series of bilateral arrangements with foreign companies and financial centres.”

The report also said China was continuing to intervene heavily in its domestic economy through a combination of subsidies and protections to state-owned enterprises, rules on forced transfer of technology from foreign investors and limiting government procurement to Chinese companies – the so-called indigenous innovation policy.

“Chinese officials including [President Hu Jintao] have pledged to modify China’s indigenous innovation policy in response to protests from US business leaders and top officials,” the report said. “These promises have not been implemented at the local and provincial levels, however.”

Over the past few years, Beijing has gradually relaxed controls on the use of the renminbi in international transactions, using Hong Kong as a test-bed for experimentation.

Considerable controls remain on cross-border capital flows, together with continued massive official intervention in foreign exchange markets to hold down the renminbi.

The Peterson Institute for International Economics, a Washington-based think-tank whose estimates of currency undervaluation are frequently cited as authoritative on Capitol Hill, said this week that the renminbi remained undervalued against its trading partners by only 11 per cent, compared with 16 per cent in April, thanks to modest appreciation and higher inflation in China.

But the institute said the renminbi was still 24 per cent undervalued against the dollar based on estimates of fundamental equilibrium exchange rates – currency values that would return economies roughly to current account balance if they were producing around their normal capacity.

Senior US administration officials, in­cluding Ron Kirk, trade representative, and John Bryson, commerce secretary, travel to China this weekend for bilateral talks under the annual joint commission on commerce and trade. Beijing has promised to make a revised offer before the end of 2011 to join the government procurement agreement, a pact within the World Trade Organisation to open public contracts to international tender.

The currency issue has risen back up the US political agenda. In October, the Senate passed a bill that would allow the US to impose retaliatory tariffs on Chinese imports in accordance with estimates of currency misalignment. But the Republican leadership of the House of Representatives, which opposes the move, has so far resisted bringing a similar bill to a vote.

By Alan Beattie

16 November 2011

@ Financial Times

Despite vows to punish Iran for an alleged plot to kill the Saudi ambassador, U.S. officials have decided that such sanctions could disrupt oil markets and further damage the U.S. and world economies.

By Paul Richter

4 November 2011

@ Los Angeles Times

Greetings all,

Of course you will be following events on the ground and you will know that the carnage in Libya is far from over despite the fact that the pro-imperialist corporate media is now silent and has moved on. All of a sudden, as we would expect, they are no longer interested in massacres in Libya. They have gone silent to allow the NATO backed forces to get on with their job of exterminating Qaddafi loyalists. Thousands of Qaddafi loyalists who have managed to leave Libya are now regrouping and organising the Libyan Liberation Front throughout the region known as the Sahel. Tuareg tribal leaders across the region have called for a unified front to avenge the murder of their brother and leader. As you know the Tuaregs do not recognise the colonial imposed borders and tribal leaders are calling for the liberation of the entire Sahel.

I am sending this message to alert you to the fact that many of our brothers and sisters inside Libya are in grave danger. Thousands have been rounded up, imprisoned, tortured and murdered. NATO has installed a death squad regime and many, including whole families – children and elderly, are in hiding, knowing that if they are only identified they will be murdered. Al Qaeda thugs are running amok and you will have seen the Al Qaeda flag flying on public buildings including the courthouse in Benghazi. You will recall that even the corporate media commented on the fact that the crowds that showed up in the streets to celebrate the so-called liberation of Libya were small. Of course they were – they represented a tiny minority of Libyans. Those who dared to show themselves in the streets at that time and wave the Green Flag were killed, in some instances beaten to death. The list of NATO crimes is inexhaustible. The frightening thing is that it does not seem to matter how much their heinous crimes are exposed – the North Atlantic Tribes have been able to continue their reign of terror and acts of genocide with impunity for centuries – they have been and remain without doubt the most brutal terrorists the world has ever known – that is why it was no surprise to us to find them fighting alongside the US created terrorist network Al Qaeda. I hope all those who doubted the Brother Leader’s warnings from the outset now see the Al Qaeda flags flying and the reports from civilians inside Libya that there are ‘armed gangs everywhere and that they appear to be on drugs as they rampage through the cities, towns and villages, murdering and looting.

Only last month Dr Abu Zeid Omar Dorda, the former Libyan Ambassador to the UN was actually thrown out of a second floor window during interrogations by NATO agents but he miraculously survived in front of witnesses and is now recovering in a prison medical ward. Accounts from those inside Libya are that these NATO backed rebel forces are animals and that what is now taking place on the ground inside Libya is pure terrorism.  We are asking for pressure to be applied wherever you can to draw attention to this carnage. I want to highlight the case of Dr Ahmed Ibrahim, a former Secretary for Education, a brilliant scholar and well known exponent of the Third Universal Theory. Dr Ibrahim is an ideologue of the Al Fateh revolution and a staunch revolutionary Pan Africanist. He has been captured and we believe he is being held in Sirte. Dr Moussa Ibrahim, the spokesperson for the Al Fateh Revolutionary Forces is his nephew.

Dr Ibrahim, like so many, was offered safe passage out of Libya but refused to leave. He is an intellectual warrior who stood his ground in Sirte and is now a prisoner of war and should be treated as a prisoner of war.

To those of you who attended the Green Book Supporters conference in Tripoli in 2009 Dr Ibrahim was the person who introduced the Brother Leader Muammar Qaddafi.

If any of you are in a position to publicise his case and the plight of hundreds of thousands of Libyans who fear for their lives please do so.

The struggle continues.

By Gerald Perreira

5 November 2011

Britain’s armed forces are stepping up their contingency planning for potential military action against Iran amid mounting concern about Tehran’s nuclear enrichment programme, the Guardian has learned.

The Ministry of Defence believes the US may decide to fast-forward plans for targeted missile strikes at some key Iranian facilities. British officials say that if Washington presses ahead it will seek, and receive, UK military help for any mission, despite some deep reservations within the coalition government.

In anticipation of a potential attack, British military planners are examining where best to deploy Royal Navy ships and submarines equipped with Tomahawk cruise missiles over the coming months as part of what would be an air and sea campaign.

They also believe the US would ask permission to launch attacks from Diego Garcia, the British Indian ocean territory, which the Americans have used previously for conflicts in the Middle East.

The Guardian has spoken to a number of Whitehall and defence officials over recent weeks who said Iran was once again becoming the focus of diplomatic concern after the revolution in Libya.

They made clear that Barack Obama, has no wish to embark on a new and provocative military venture before next November’s presidential election.

But they warned the calculations could change because of mounting anxiety over intelligence gathered by western agencies, and the more belligerent posture that Iran appears to have been taking.

Hawks in the US are likely to seize on next week’s report from the International Atomic Energy Agency, which is expected to provide fresh evidence of a possible nuclear weapons programme in Iran.

The Guardian has been told that the IAEA’s bulletin could be “a game changer” which will provide unprecedented details of the research and experiments being undertaken by the regime.

One senior Whitehall official said Iran had proved “surprisingly resilient” in the face of sanctions, and sophisticated attempts by the west to cripple its nuclear enrichment programme had been less successful than first thought.

He said Iran appeared to be “newly aggressive, and we are not quite sure why”, citing three recent assassination plots on foreign soil that the intelligence agencies say were coordinated by elements in Tehran.

In addition to that, officials now believe Iran has restored all the capability it lost in a sophisticated cyber-attack last year.The Stuxnet computer worm, thought to have been engineered by the Americans and Israelis, sabotaged many of the centrifuges the Iranians were using to enrich uranium.

Up to half of Iran’s centrifuges were disabled by Stuxnet or were thought too unreliable to work, but diplomats believe this capability has now been recovered, and the IAEA believes it may even be increasing.

Ministers have also been told that the Iranians have been moving some more efficient centrifuges into the heavily-fortified military base dug beneath a mountain near the city of Qom.

The concern is that the centrifuges, which can be used to enrich uranium for use in weapons, are now so well protected within the site that missile strikes may not be able to reach them. The senior Whitehall source said the Iranians appeared to be shielding “material and capability” inside the base.

Another Whitehall official, with knowledge of Britain’s military planning, said that within the next 12 months Iran may have hidden all the material it needs to continue a covert weapons programme inside fortified bunkers. He said this had necessitated the UK’s planning being taken to a new level.

“Beyond [12 months], we couldn’t be sure our missiles could reach them,” the source said. “So the window is closing, and the UK needs to do some sensible forward planning. The US could do this on their own but they won’t.

“So we need to anticipate being asked to contribute. We had thought this would wait until after the US election next year, but now we are not so sure.

“President Obama has a big decision to make in the coming months because he won’t want to do anything just before an election.”

Another source added there was “no acceleration towards military action by the US, but that could change”. Next spring could be a key decision-making period, the source said. The MoD has a specific team considering the military options against Iran.

The Guardian has been told that planners expect any campaign to be predominantly waged from the air, with some naval involvement, using missiles such as the Tomahawks, which have a range of 800 miles (1,287 km). There are no plans for a ground invasion, but “a small number of special forces” may be needed on the ground, too.

The RAF could also provide air-to-air refuelling and some surveillance capability, should they be required. British officials say any assistance would be cosmetic: the US could act on its own but would prefer not to.

An MoD spokesman said: “The British government believes that a dual track strategy of pressure and engagement is the best approach to address the threat from Iran’s nuclear programme and avoid regional conflict. We want a negotiated solution – but all options should be kept on the table.”

The MoD says there are no hard and fast blueprints for conflict but insiders concede that preparations there and at the Foreign Office have been under way for some time.

One official said: “I think that it is fair to say that the MoD is constantly making plans for all manner of international situations. Some areas are of more concern than others. “It is not beyond the realms of possibility that people at the MoD are thinking about what we might do should something happen on Iran. It is quite likely that there will be people in the building who have thought about what we would do if commanders came to us and asked us if we could support the US. The context for that is straightforward contingency planning.”

Washington has been warned by Israel against leaving any military action until it is too late.

Western intelligence agencies say Israel will demand that the US act if it believes its own military cannot launch successful attacks to stall Iran’s nuclear programme. A source said the “Israelis want to believe that they can take this stuff out”, and will continue to agitate for military action if Iran continues to play hide and seek.

It is estimated that Iran, which has consistently said it is interested only in developing a civilian nuclear energy programme, already has enough enriched uranium for between two and four nuclear weapons.

Experts believe it could be another two years before Tehran has a ballistic missile delivery system.

British officials admit to being perplexed by what they regard as Iran’s new aggressiveness, saying that they have been shown convincing evidence that Iran was behind the murder of a Saudi diplomat in Karachi in May, as well as the audacious plot to assassinate the Saudi ambassador in Washington, which was uncovered last month.

“There is a clear dotted line from Tehran to the plot in Washington,” said one.

Earlier this year, the IAEA reported that it had evidence Tehran had conducted work on a highly sophisticated nuclear triggering technology that could only be used for setting off a nuclear device.

It also said it was “increasingly concerned about the possible existence in Iran of past or current undisclosed nuclear-related activities involving military-related organisations, including activities related to the development of a nuclear payload for a missile.”

Last year, the UN security council imposed a fourth round of sanctions on Iran to try to deter Tehran from pursuing any nuclear ambitions.

At the weekend, the New York Times reported that the US was looking to build up its military presence in the region, with one eye on Iran.

According to the paper, the US is considering sending more naval warships to the area, and is seeking to expand military ties with the six countries in the Gulf Co-operation Council: Saudi Arabia, Kuwait, Bahrain, Qatar, the United Arab Emirates and Oman.

By Nick Hopkins

2 November 2011

@ The Guardian