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Friday, February 29, 2008

My saber's bigger than yours

Sometimes I forget that I live by the sea. It's easy enough to do, what with Beirut traffic, honking horns and the city's urban brown and grey. Usually, I'm reminded by a glimpse of the Mediterranean from Ras Beirut, which sometimes prompts me to take a stroll on the corniche to smell the water.

Today, however, I was reminded by a taxi driver talking about the USS Cole, the US carrier that was attacked in Yemen and has now been deployed off the coast of Lebanon. No one I talked to today thought that the ship would actually do anything. Everyone seemed to agree that it was just a show of force by the US.

One Hezbollah partisan from Saida told me that if there were a war and the USS Cole was involved, it would be sunk. Then again, he also told me that he thought the Party of God would not only defeat Israel again this summer but also destroy the Jewish state. (I had to stop myself from laughing when he spoke of Hezbollah's 1 million troops, which would make up one in every four Lebanese citizens.)

In any case, no one seemed excited about the ship's presence in the area. A colleague of mine, an American-Lebanese Christian mother of four who supports March 14, also told me that she thought it was a bad idea.

At the end of the day, I think we've already got enough saber rattling here, and adding the noise of an additional and enormous American saber to the mix is probably the last thing we need here. Ironically, however, the US Navy's stated rationale for the deployment is stability. 

Thursday, February 28, 2008

Obama and Israel

I've been thinking about why I like Obama so much lately and why, for the first time in my life, I'm actually excited about a presidential candidate. One of the reasons is that Samantha Power, for whom I have enormous respect as a scholar of genocide, is part of his foreign policy team. Another reason is that, perhaps naively, I feel like Obama would do his best to push the US toward being a more even-handed moderator in the Middle East.

Here's an excerpt from an event in Ohio where he talked to Cleveland's Jewish community. There's a lot of gentle reassuring about how he's a friend to Israel and even some talk about keeping Israel a Jewish state and continuing to arm it, two things that I disagree with vehemently. There are a lot of fundamental points in his position that I don't agree with, but these days it's hard to find anyone, much less a serious contender for the White House, who agrees with me on the one-state solution. Obama's views on Israel seem to me to be the least insane of all the candidates -- and even borderline reasonable. It's important to me that he has the balls to say, publicly and in front of a Jewish audience no less, that there's a difference between being a friend to Israel and toeing the Likud line:

OBAMA: There is a spectrum of views in terms of how the US and Israel should be interacting. It has evolved over time. It means that somebody like Brzezinski who, when he was national security advisor would be considered not outside of the mainstream in terms of his perspective on these issues, is now considered by many in the Jewish Community anathema. I know Brzezinski he's not one of my key advisors. I've had lunch with him once, I've exchanged emails with him maybe 3 times. He came to Iowa to introduce for a speech on Iraq. He and I agree that Iraq was an enormous strategic blunder and that input from him has been useful in assessing Iraq, as well as Pakistan, where actually, traditionally, if you will recall he was considered a hawk. The liberal wing of the Democratic Party was very suspicious of Brzezinski precisely because he was so tough on many of these issues. I do not share his views with respect to Israel. I have said so clearly and unequivocally. The others that you refer to are former members of the Clinton administration. Somebody like a Tony Lake, the former National Security Adviser, or Susan Rice - these are not anti-Israel individuals. These are people who strongly believe in Israel's right to exist. Strongly believe in a two state solution. Strongly believe that the Palestinians have been irresponsible and have been strongly critical of them. Share my view that Israel has to remain a Jewish state, that the US has a special relationship with the Jewish state. There's no inkling that there has been anything in anything that they've written that would suggest they're not stalwart friends of Israel.

This is where I get to be honest and I hope I'm not out of school here. I think there is a strain within the pro-Israel community that says unless you adopt a unwavering pro-Likud approach to Israel that you're anti-Israel and that can't be the measure of our friendship with Israel. If we cannot have a honest dialogue about how do we achieve these goals, then we're not going to make progress. And frankly some of the commentary that I've seen which suggests guilt by association or the notion that unless we are never ever going to ask any difficult questions about how we move peace forward or secure Israel that is non military or non belligerent or doesn't talk about just crushing the opposition that that somehow is being soft or anti-Israel, I think we're going to have problems moving forward. And that I think is something we have to have an honest dialogue about. None of these emails talk about the fact that on the other side, members of my national finance committee, like Lester Crown, are considered about has hawkish and tough when it comes to Israel as anybody in the country. So, there's got to be some balance here. I've got a range of perspectives and a range of advisors who approach this issue. They would all be considered well within the mainstream of that bipartisan consensus that I raised or that we talked about in terms of being pro-Israel. There's never been any of my advisors who questioned the need for us to provide Israel with security, with military aid, with economic aid. That there has to be a two state solution, that Israel has to remain a Jewish state. None of my advisors would suggest that, so I think its important to keep some of these things in perspective. I understand people's concern with Brzezinski given how much offense the Israeli lobby raised, but he's not one of my central advisors. There is an article in Newsweek, not to make this overly political, this issue that shows that there has been a fairly systemic effort on the part of some of my opponent's supporters, I wont say it was sanctioned from the top, to constantly feed this suspicion, and I want people to take my words and my track record of years on this issue to heart. I got to admit this one is a plan.

As for Clinton, Tony Karon brings up an interesting, and depressing, comment by someone in the Clinton campaign:

I love this line from one of Hillary’s campaign organizers in response to Obama being quoted as saying he wanted “an honest discussion about ways to bridge the gap that grows between Muslims and the West” — Daphna Ziman, a friend of Clinton’s who has organized campaign events for her, responded, “I am horrified at Mr. Obama’s point of view.” Enough said.

I don't think that things are going to magically become hunky dory between the US and the Middle East if Obama is elected president, but I feel that they'll get significantly better. I'm unsure, however, of how much of that is tied to the idea that in these dark times it's hard to imagine how things could get much worse (but they can always get worse).

Saturday, February 23, 2008

A monopoly on violence

Hassan Nasrallah spoke this week, making this disconcerting remark:

I tell the shallow minds in Lebanon, who speak about war and peace decisions, that Israel is the only side that has been taking the decision of war or peace. The decision that we take is our legitimate, moral, humane and natural right in order to defend our people, land and country at a time of negligence by the government and the world.

While this is true to a limited extent, there are times when it takes two to tango, and now is one of those times. We know that the assassination of Mughniyeh was an escalation in the region, but we also know that there's a very high chance that if/when Hezbollah retaliates against Israel, Israel will attack Lebanon again.

Many Hezbollah partisans argue that it's their "right" to retaliate and generally agree that Israel would react to an assassinated ambassador, for example, with an attack on Lebanon. They have a tougher time, however, answering my question as to whether or not exercising their "right" to retaliate is worth plunging the country into another war.

Likewise, when I ask whether the rest of the country (as opposed to just the cadres of Hezbollah) ought not have a say in such a decision, these partisans generally insist (with an obstinate attitude that certainly is representative of Lebanese politics) that they do represent the whole country.

During the July war, one could still plausibly say that the brutal Israeli reaction was unexpected. In 2008, however, almost no one seems to doubt what the consequences of retaliation against Israel would mean for Lebanon. Regardless of whether or not another Israeli war would be legitimate, it certainly won't be unexpected. And I haven't been able to find anyone who's willing to come out and say that avenging the assassination of Mughniyeh is worth the lives of another thousand Lebanese people.

The ubiquitous man

In another bid to see who can talk up Imad Mughniyeh the most as super terrorist extraordinaire (which was, until recently, mainly a contest between Hezbollah and Israel), an-Nahar's English-language site is now claiming that he was, in fact, responsible for the founding of the Mehdi Army in Iraq. While I'm no expert on the Mehdi Army, this claim seems more than a little over the top to me.

I'm just waiting to hear the news that Mughniyeh was also responsible for Pearl Harbor and all those bombings in Corsica and Spanish Basque country.

For a much more sober, and informed, view of the situation, I recommend this Newshour interview with Mohamad Bazzi and Robert Baer.

Kisumu, indeed

Kristof has a disturbing op-ed in the Times about violence in Kenya. It's hard to know if things are getting better or worse there, and a brief talk with a European journalist friend who just got back from Nairobi doesn't clear matters up much. When I was in Ethiopia, I didn't hear much anything about Kenya, although that's really neither here nor there, since the family I was staying with didn't seem very preoccupied with foreign affairs, with the exception of Eritrea (the mother was originally from Asmara).

In any case, Kristof recounts some pretty gruesome stuff (which honestly sounds a little sensationalist), including the decapitation of infants and forced circumcision with a machete:

Until he was circumcised with a machete in front of a jeering mob and then dragged off to be beheaded, Robert Ochieng had been a symbol of modern, post-tribal harmony in Kenya.

A member of the Luo ethnic group, 16-year-old Robert had played and studied with members of another ethnic group, the Kikuyu. They were friends. And then Kenya erupted in rioting after a rigged election, and suddenly Luos were chasing and killing Kikuyus, and a mob of Kikuyus was running down Robert.

He claimed that he was Kikuyu as well, but the suspicious mob stripped him naked and noted that he was not circumcised, meaning that he could not be Kikuyu. That’s when his attackers held him down — smashing his arm when he tried to protect himself — and performed the grotesque surgery in the street to loud cheers from a huge throng.

The crowd shouted war cries and was preparing to decapitate Robert with a machete when the police arrived and rescued him.

The main thrust of his column though isn't just to describe the violence there but rather to bring attention to the idea that US acquiescence "in election irregularities in countries like Ethiopia and Nigeria, inadvertently signal[ed] that Mr. Kibaki could get away with stealing re-election."

He likens Kibaki to an African Musharraf, and while his tone in the column sounds a little too Manichaean for my taste, it is true that the US has a bad habit of supporting undemocratic leaders when it suits its immediate needs without much foresight when it comes to the consequences of that undemocratic rule.

By the by, ICG has a new report out about the situation that's worth reading.

Friday, February 15, 2008

Car bombs, protests and earthquakes for 200, please

I've been missing in action for a while, even after my trip to Ethiopia, which I'll have a lot more on later.

Since I've been back, however, a lot has happened. Imad Mughniya was killed in a car bomb in Damascus (shortly after Michael Totten said I was one of the "notorious leftists who endlessly excuses Hezbollah" and accused me of spreading propaganda when I mentioned that car bombs were used by the American side as well in the comments here). Yesterday was the third anniversary of Hariri's assassination. And finally, there was just a small earthquake (more of a tremor, really) here in Beirut.

I don't have much to say about the first topic, but I will say that I always feel uncomfortable with any kind of extra-judicial killing and assassination, no matter whom it's done by. Also, this seems to be either a very serious breach of Syrian security or evidence that Damascus gave the Israelis or Americans the ok to carry out the attack as part of a larger deal. In any case, it signals an escalation between Hezbollah and Israel, so it wouldn't surprise me if there's an external (outside of Lebanon and Israel) attack against Israeli (or even American) interests. After all, the 1992 Israeli embassy bombing in Argentina was retaliation for the assassination of Hezbollah Secretary General Abbas al-Musawi, who was replaced by Nasrallah. Such escalation is always a bad thing for all parties involved.

As for the February 14 event, I went downtown to give it a look as Geagea was speaking, and it wasn't too big, although I didn't show up until about noon. One big reason for this was that it was rainy and cold. I was a bit worried about clashes arising last night between mourners of Hariri and Mughniya, but the cold rain was probably a blessing in disguise in that it's hard to get riled up to go out looking for trouble when you're soaking wet.

Finally, the earthquake: I didn't feel it, but I heard a rumble. All of my colleagues seem to have felt it, which might just mean that I'm insensitive, so to speak.

It's just occurred to me that there aren't very many places in the world where I could post about an earthquake, a car bomb and a protest against an assassination in the same piece. How's that for potpourri, Alex Trebek?

Friday, February 29, 2008

My saber's bigger than yours

Sometimes I forget that I live by the sea. It's easy enough to do, what with Beirut traffic, honking horns and the city's urban brown and grey. Usually, I'm reminded by a glimpse of the Mediterranean from Ras Beirut, which sometimes prompts me to take a stroll on the corniche to smell the water.

Today, however, I was reminded by a taxi driver talking about the USS Cole, the US carrier that was attacked in Yemen and has now been deployed off the coast of Lebanon. No one I talked to today thought that the ship would actually do anything. Everyone seemed to agree that it was just a show of force by the US.

One Hezbollah partisan from Saida told me that if there were a war and the USS Cole was involved, it would be sunk. Then again, he also told me that he thought the Party of God would not only defeat Israel again this summer but also destroy the Jewish state. (I had to stop myself from laughing when he spoke of Hezbollah's 1 million troops, which would make up one in every four Lebanese citizens.)

In any case, no one seemed excited about the ship's presence in the area. A colleague of mine, an American-Lebanese Christian mother of four who supports March 14, also told me that she thought it was a bad idea.

At the end of the day, I think we've already got enough saber rattling here, and adding the noise of an additional and enormous American saber to the mix is probably the last thing we need here. Ironically, however, the US Navy's stated rationale for the deployment is stability. 

Thursday, February 28, 2008

Obama and Israel

I've been thinking about why I like Obama so much lately and why, for the first time in my life, I'm actually excited about a presidential candidate. One of the reasons is that Samantha Power, for whom I have enormous respect as a scholar of genocide, is part of his foreign policy team. Another reason is that, perhaps naively, I feel like Obama would do his best to push the US toward being a more even-handed moderator in the Middle East.

Here's an excerpt from an event in Ohio where he talked to Cleveland's Jewish community. There's a lot of gentle reassuring about how he's a friend to Israel and even some talk about keeping Israel a Jewish state and continuing to arm it, two things that I disagree with vehemently. There are a lot of fundamental points in his position that I don't agree with, but these days it's hard to find anyone, much less a serious contender for the White House, who agrees with me on the one-state solution. Obama's views on Israel seem to me to be the least insane of all the candidates -- and even borderline reasonable. It's important to me that he has the balls to say, publicly and in front of a Jewish audience no less, that there's a difference between being a friend to Israel and toeing the Likud line:

OBAMA: There is a spectrum of views in terms of how the US and Israel should be interacting. It has evolved over time. It means that somebody like Brzezinski who, when he was national security advisor would be considered not outside of the mainstream in terms of his perspective on these issues, is now considered by many in the Jewish Community anathema. I know Brzezinski he's not one of my key advisors. I've had lunch with him once, I've exchanged emails with him maybe 3 times. He came to Iowa to introduce for a speech on Iraq. He and I agree that Iraq was an enormous strategic blunder and that input from him has been useful in assessing Iraq, as well as Pakistan, where actually, traditionally, if you will recall he was considered a hawk. The liberal wing of the Democratic Party was very suspicious of Brzezinski precisely because he was so tough on many of these issues. I do not share his views with respect to Israel. I have said so clearly and unequivocally. The others that you refer to are former members of the Clinton administration. Somebody like a Tony Lake, the former National Security Adviser, or Susan Rice - these are not anti-Israel individuals. These are people who strongly believe in Israel's right to exist. Strongly believe in a two state solution. Strongly believe that the Palestinians have been irresponsible and have been strongly critical of them. Share my view that Israel has to remain a Jewish state, that the US has a special relationship with the Jewish state. There's no inkling that there has been anything in anything that they've written that would suggest they're not stalwart friends of Israel.

This is where I get to be honest and I hope I'm not out of school here. I think there is a strain within the pro-Israel community that says unless you adopt a unwavering pro-Likud approach to Israel that you're anti-Israel and that can't be the measure of our friendship with Israel. If we cannot have a honest dialogue about how do we achieve these goals, then we're not going to make progress. And frankly some of the commentary that I've seen which suggests guilt by association or the notion that unless we are never ever going to ask any difficult questions about how we move peace forward or secure Israel that is non military or non belligerent or doesn't talk about just crushing the opposition that that somehow is being soft or anti-Israel, I think we're going to have problems moving forward. And that I think is something we have to have an honest dialogue about. None of these emails talk about the fact that on the other side, members of my national finance committee, like Lester Crown, are considered about has hawkish and tough when it comes to Israel as anybody in the country. So, there's got to be some balance here. I've got a range of perspectives and a range of advisors who approach this issue. They would all be considered well within the mainstream of that bipartisan consensus that I raised or that we talked about in terms of being pro-Israel. There's never been any of my advisors who questioned the need for us to provide Israel with security, with military aid, with economic aid. That there has to be a two state solution, that Israel has to remain a Jewish state. None of my advisors would suggest that, so I think its important to keep some of these things in perspective. I understand people's concern with Brzezinski given how much offense the Israeli lobby raised, but he's not one of my central advisors. There is an article in Newsweek, not to make this overly political, this issue that shows that there has been a fairly systemic effort on the part of some of my opponent's supporters, I wont say it was sanctioned from the top, to constantly feed this suspicion, and I want people to take my words and my track record of years on this issue to heart. I got to admit this one is a plan.

As for Clinton, Tony Karon brings up an interesting, and depressing, comment by someone in the Clinton campaign:

I love this line from one of Hillary’s campaign organizers in response to Obama being quoted as saying he wanted “an honest discussion about ways to bridge the gap that grows between Muslims and the West” — Daphna Ziman, a friend of Clinton’s who has organized campaign events for her, responded, “I am horrified at Mr. Obama’s point of view.” Enough said.

I don't think that things are going to magically become hunky dory between the US and the Middle East if Obama is elected president, but I feel that they'll get significantly better. I'm unsure, however, of how much of that is tied to the idea that in these dark times it's hard to imagine how things could get much worse (but they can always get worse).

Saturday, February 23, 2008

A monopoly on violence

Hassan Nasrallah spoke this week, making this disconcerting remark:

I tell the shallow minds in Lebanon, who speak about war and peace decisions, that Israel is the only side that has been taking the decision of war or peace. The decision that we take is our legitimate, moral, humane and natural right in order to defend our people, land and country at a time of negligence by the government and the world.

While this is true to a limited extent, there are times when it takes two to tango, and now is one of those times. We know that the assassination of Mughniyeh was an escalation in the region, but we also know that there's a very high chance that if/when Hezbollah retaliates against Israel, Israel will attack Lebanon again.

Many Hezbollah partisans argue that it's their "right" to retaliate and generally agree that Israel would react to an assassinated ambassador, for example, with an attack on Lebanon. They have a tougher time, however, answering my question as to whether or not exercising their "right" to retaliate is worth plunging the country into another war.

Likewise, when I ask whether the rest of the country (as opposed to just the cadres of Hezbollah) ought not have a say in such a decision, these partisans generally insist (with an obstinate attitude that certainly is representative of Lebanese politics) that they do represent the whole country.

During the July war, one could still plausibly say that the brutal Israeli reaction was unexpected. In 2008, however, almost no one seems to doubt what the consequences of retaliation against Israel would mean for Lebanon. Regardless of whether or not another Israeli war would be legitimate, it certainly won't be unexpected. And I haven't been able to find anyone who's willing to come out and say that avenging the assassination of Mughniyeh is worth the lives of another thousand Lebanese people.

The ubiquitous man

In another bid to see who can talk up Imad Mughniyeh the most as super terrorist extraordinaire (which was, until recently, mainly a contest between Hezbollah and Israel), an-Nahar's English-language site is now claiming that he was, in fact, responsible for the founding of the Mehdi Army in Iraq. While I'm no expert on the Mehdi Army, this claim seems more than a little over the top to me.

I'm just waiting to hear the news that Mughniyeh was also responsible for Pearl Harbor and all those bombings in Corsica and Spanish Basque country.

For a much more sober, and informed, view of the situation, I recommend this Newshour interview with Mohamad Bazzi and Robert Baer.

Kisumu, indeed

Kristof has a disturbing op-ed in the Times about violence in Kenya. It's hard to know if things are getting better or worse there, and a brief talk with a European journalist friend who just got back from Nairobi doesn't clear matters up much. When I was in Ethiopia, I didn't hear much anything about Kenya, although that's really neither here nor there, since the family I was staying with didn't seem very preoccupied with foreign affairs, with the exception of Eritrea (the mother was originally from Asmara).

In any case, Kristof recounts some pretty gruesome stuff (which honestly sounds a little sensationalist), including the decapitation of infants and forced circumcision with a machete:

Until he was circumcised with a machete in front of a jeering mob and then dragged off to be beheaded, Robert Ochieng had been a symbol of modern, post-tribal harmony in Kenya.

A member of the Luo ethnic group, 16-year-old Robert had played and studied with members of another ethnic group, the Kikuyu. They were friends. And then Kenya erupted in rioting after a rigged election, and suddenly Luos were chasing and killing Kikuyus, and a mob of Kikuyus was running down Robert.

He claimed that he was Kikuyu as well, but the suspicious mob stripped him naked and noted that he was not circumcised, meaning that he could not be Kikuyu. That’s when his attackers held him down — smashing his arm when he tried to protect himself — and performed the grotesque surgery in the street to loud cheers from a huge throng.

The crowd shouted war cries and was preparing to decapitate Robert with a machete when the police arrived and rescued him.

The main thrust of his column though isn't just to describe the violence there but rather to bring attention to the idea that US acquiescence "in election irregularities in countries like Ethiopia and Nigeria, inadvertently signal[ed] that Mr. Kibaki could get away with stealing re-election."

He likens Kibaki to an African Musharraf, and while his tone in the column sounds a little too Manichaean for my taste, it is true that the US has a bad habit of supporting undemocratic leaders when it suits its immediate needs without much foresight when it comes to the consequences of that undemocratic rule.

By the by, ICG has a new report out about the situation that's worth reading.

Friday, February 15, 2008

Car bombs, protests and earthquakes for 200, please

I've been missing in action for a while, even after my trip to Ethiopia, which I'll have a lot more on later.

Since I've been back, however, a lot has happened. Imad Mughniya was killed in a car bomb in Damascus (shortly after Michael Totten said I was one of the "notorious leftists who endlessly excuses Hezbollah" and accused me of spreading propaganda when I mentioned that car bombs were used by the American side as well in the comments here). Yesterday was the third anniversary of Hariri's assassination. And finally, there was just a small earthquake (more of a tremor, really) here in Beirut.

I don't have much to say about the first topic, but I will say that I always feel uncomfortable with any kind of extra-judicial killing and assassination, no matter whom it's done by. Also, this seems to be either a very serious breach of Syrian security or evidence that Damascus gave the Israelis or Americans the ok to carry out the attack as part of a larger deal. In any case, it signals an escalation between Hezbollah and Israel, so it wouldn't surprise me if there's an external (outside of Lebanon and Israel) attack against Israeli (or even American) interests. After all, the 1992 Israeli embassy bombing in Argentina was retaliation for the assassination of Hezbollah Secretary General Abbas al-Musawi, who was replaced by Nasrallah. Such escalation is always a bad thing for all parties involved.

As for the February 14 event, I went downtown to give it a look as Geagea was speaking, and it wasn't too big, although I didn't show up until about noon. One big reason for this was that it was rainy and cold. I was a bit worried about clashes arising last night between mourners of Hariri and Mughniya, but the cold rain was probably a blessing in disguise in that it's hard to get riled up to go out looking for trouble when you're soaking wet.

Finally, the earthquake: I didn't feel it, but I heard a rumble. All of my colleagues seem to have felt it, which might just mean that I'm insensitive, so to speak.

It's just occurred to me that there aren't very many places in the world where I could post about an earthquake, a car bomb and a protest against an assassination in the same piece. How's that for potpourri, Alex Trebek?

Friday, February 29, 2008

My saber's bigger than yours

Sometimes I forget that I live by the sea. It's easy enough to do, what with Beirut traffic, honking horns and the city's urban brown and grey. Usually, I'm reminded by a glimpse of the Mediterranean from Ras Beirut, which sometimes prompts me to take a stroll on the corniche to smell the water.

Today, however, I was reminded by a taxi driver talking about the USS Cole, the US carrier that was attacked in Yemen and has now been deployed off the coast of Lebanon. No one I talked to today thought that the ship would actually do anything. Everyone seemed to agree that it was just a show of force by the US.

One Hezbollah partisan from Saida told me that if there were a war and the USS Cole was involved, it would be sunk. Then again, he also told me that he thought the Party of God would not only defeat Israel again this summer but also destroy the Jewish state. (I had to stop myself from laughing when he spoke of Hezbollah's 1 million troops, which would make up one in every four Lebanese citizens.)

In any case, no one seemed excited about the ship's presence in the area. A colleague of mine, an American-Lebanese Christian mother of four who supports March 14, also told me that she thought it was a bad idea.

At the end of the day, I think we've already got enough saber rattling here, and adding the noise of an additional and enormous American saber to the mix is probably the last thing we need here. Ironically, however, the US Navy's stated rationale for the deployment is stability. 

Thursday, February 28, 2008

Obama and Israel

I've been thinking about why I like Obama so much lately and why, for the first time in my life, I'm actually excited about a presidential candidate. One of the reasons is that Samantha Power, for whom I have enormous respect as a scholar of genocide, is part of his foreign policy team. Another reason is that, perhaps naively, I feel like Obama would do his best to push the US toward being a more even-handed moderator in the Middle East.

Here's an excerpt from an event in Ohio where he talked to Cleveland's Jewish community. There's a lot of gentle reassuring about how he's a friend to Israel and even some talk about keeping Israel a Jewish state and continuing to arm it, two things that I disagree with vehemently. There are a lot of fundamental points in his position that I don't agree with, but these days it's hard to find anyone, much less a serious contender for the White House, who agrees with me on the one-state solution. Obama's views on Israel seem to me to be the least insane of all the candidates -- and even borderline reasonable. It's important to me that he has the balls to say, publicly and in front of a Jewish audience no less, that there's a difference between being a friend to Israel and toeing the Likud line:

OBAMA: There is a spectrum of views in terms of how the US and Israel should be interacting. It has evolved over time. It means that somebody like Brzezinski who, when he was national security advisor would be considered not outside of the mainstream in terms of his perspective on these issues, is now considered by many in the Jewish Community anathema. I know Brzezinski he's not one of my key advisors. I've had lunch with him once, I've exchanged emails with him maybe 3 times. He came to Iowa to introduce for a speech on Iraq. He and I agree that Iraq was an enormous strategic blunder and that input from him has been useful in assessing Iraq, as well as Pakistan, where actually, traditionally, if you will recall he was considered a hawk. The liberal wing of the Democratic Party was very suspicious of Brzezinski precisely because he was so tough on many of these issues. I do not share his views with respect to Israel. I have said so clearly and unequivocally. The others that you refer to are former members of the Clinton administration. Somebody like a Tony Lake, the former National Security Adviser, or Susan Rice - these are not anti-Israel individuals. These are people who strongly believe in Israel's right to exist. Strongly believe in a two state solution. Strongly believe that the Palestinians have been irresponsible and have been strongly critical of them. Share my view that Israel has to remain a Jewish state, that the US has a special relationship with the Jewish state. There's no inkling that there has been anything in anything that they've written that would suggest they're not stalwart friends of Israel.

This is where I get to be honest and I hope I'm not out of school here. I think there is a strain within the pro-Israel community that says unless you adopt a unwavering pro-Likud approach to Israel that you're anti-Israel and that can't be the measure of our friendship with Israel. If we cannot have a honest dialogue about how do we achieve these goals, then we're not going to make progress. And frankly some of the commentary that I've seen which suggests guilt by association or the notion that unless we are never ever going to ask any difficult questions about how we move peace forward or secure Israel that is non military or non belligerent or doesn't talk about just crushing the opposition that that somehow is being soft or anti-Israel, I think we're going to have problems moving forward. And that I think is something we have to have an honest dialogue about. None of these emails talk about the fact that on the other side, members of my national finance committee, like Lester Crown, are considered about has hawkish and tough when it comes to Israel as anybody in the country. So, there's got to be some balance here. I've got a range of perspectives and a range of advisors who approach this issue. They would all be considered well within the mainstream of that bipartisan consensus that I raised or that we talked about in terms of being pro-Israel. There's never been any of my advisors who questioned the need for us to provide Israel with security, with military aid, with economic aid. That there has to be a two state solution, that Israel has to remain a Jewish state. None of my advisors would suggest that, so I think its important to keep some of these things in perspective. I understand people's concern with Brzezinski given how much offense the Israeli lobby raised, but he's not one of my central advisors. There is an article in Newsweek, not to make this overly political, this issue that shows that there has been a fairly systemic effort on the part of some of my opponent's supporters, I wont say it was sanctioned from the top, to constantly feed this suspicion, and I want people to take my words and my track record of years on this issue to heart. I got to admit this one is a plan.

As for Clinton, Tony Karon brings up an interesting, and depressing, comment by someone in the Clinton campaign:

I love this line from one of Hillary’s campaign organizers in response to Obama being quoted as saying he wanted “an honest discussion about ways to bridge the gap that grows between Muslims and the West” — Daphna Ziman, a friend of Clinton’s who has organized campaign events for her, responded, “I am horrified at Mr. Obama’s point of view.” Enough said.

I don't think that things are going to magically become hunky dory between the US and the Middle East if Obama is elected president, but I feel that they'll get significantly better. I'm unsure, however, of how much of that is tied to the idea that in these dark times it's hard to imagine how things could get much worse (but they can always get worse).

Saturday, February 23, 2008

A monopoly on violence

Hassan Nasrallah spoke this week, making this disconcerting remark:

I tell the shallow minds in Lebanon, who speak about war and peace decisions, that Israel is the only side that has been taking the decision of war or peace. The decision that we take is our legitimate, moral, humane and natural right in order to defend our people, land and country at a time of negligence by the government and the world.

While this is true to a limited extent, there are times when it takes two to tango, and now is one of those times. We know that the assassination of Mughniyeh was an escalation in the region, but we also know that there's a very high chance that if/when Hezbollah retaliates against Israel, Israel will attack Lebanon again.

Many Hezbollah partisans argue that it's their "right" to retaliate and generally agree that Israel would react to an assassinated ambassador, for example, with an attack on Lebanon. They have a tougher time, however, answering my question as to whether or not exercising their "right" to retaliate is worth plunging the country into another war.

Likewise, when I ask whether the rest of the country (as opposed to just the cadres of Hezbollah) ought not have a say in such a decision, these partisans generally insist (with an obstinate attitude that certainly is representative of Lebanese politics) that they do represent the whole country.

During the July war, one could still plausibly say that the brutal Israeli reaction was unexpected. In 2008, however, almost no one seems to doubt what the consequences of retaliation against Israel would mean for Lebanon. Regardless of whether or not another Israeli war would be legitimate, it certainly won't be unexpected. And I haven't been able to find anyone who's willing to come out and say that avenging the assassination of Mughniyeh is worth the lives of another thousand Lebanese people.

The ubiquitous man

In another bid to see who can talk up Imad Mughniyeh the most as super terrorist extraordinaire (which was, until recently, mainly a contest between Hezbollah and Israel), an-Nahar's English-language site is now claiming that he was, in fact, responsible for the founding of the Mehdi Army in Iraq. While I'm no expert on the Mehdi Army, this claim seems more than a little over the top to me.

I'm just waiting to hear the news that Mughniyeh was also responsible for Pearl Harbor and all those bombings in Corsica and Spanish Basque country.

For a much more sober, and informed, view of the situation, I recommend this Newshour interview with Mohamad Bazzi and Robert Baer.

Kisumu, indeed

Kristof has a disturbing op-ed in the Times about violence in Kenya. It's hard to know if things are getting better or worse there, and a brief talk with a European journalist friend who just got back from Nairobi doesn't clear matters up much. When I was in Ethiopia, I didn't hear much anything about Kenya, although that's really neither here nor there, since the family I was staying with didn't seem very preoccupied with foreign affairs, with the exception of Eritrea (the mother was originally from Asmara).

In any case, Kristof recounts some pretty gruesome stuff (which honestly sounds a little sensationalist), including the decapitation of infants and forced circumcision with a machete:

Until he was circumcised with a machete in front of a jeering mob and then dragged off to be beheaded, Robert Ochieng had been a symbol of modern, post-tribal harmony in Kenya.

A member of the Luo ethnic group, 16-year-old Robert had played and studied with members of another ethnic group, the Kikuyu. They were friends. And then Kenya erupted in rioting after a rigged election, and suddenly Luos were chasing and killing Kikuyus, and a mob of Kikuyus was running down Robert.

He claimed that he was Kikuyu as well, but the suspicious mob stripped him naked and noted that he was not circumcised, meaning that he could not be Kikuyu. That’s when his attackers held him down — smashing his arm when he tried to protect himself — and performed the grotesque surgery in the street to loud cheers from a huge throng.

The crowd shouted war cries and was preparing to decapitate Robert with a machete when the police arrived and rescued him.

The main thrust of his column though isn't just to describe the violence there but rather to bring attention to the idea that US acquiescence "in election irregularities in countries like Ethiopia and Nigeria, inadvertently signal[ed] that Mr. Kibaki could get away with stealing re-election."

He likens Kibaki to an African Musharraf, and while his tone in the column sounds a little too Manichaean for my taste, it is true that the US has a bad habit of supporting undemocratic leaders when it suits its immediate needs without much foresight when it comes to the consequences of that undemocratic rule.

By the by, ICG has a new report out about the situation that's worth reading.

Friday, February 15, 2008

Car bombs, protests and earthquakes for 200, please

I've been missing in action for a while, even after my trip to Ethiopia, which I'll have a lot more on later.

Since I've been back, however, a lot has happened. Imad Mughniya was killed in a car bomb in Damascus (shortly after Michael Totten said I was one of the "notorious leftists who endlessly excuses Hezbollah" and accused me of spreading propaganda when I mentioned that car bombs were used by the American side as well in the comments here). Yesterday was the third anniversary of Hariri's assassination. And finally, there was just a small earthquake (more of a tremor, really) here in Beirut.

I don't have much to say about the first topic, but I will say that I always feel uncomfortable with any kind of extra-judicial killing and assassination, no matter whom it's done by. Also, this seems to be either a very serious breach of Syrian security or evidence that Damascus gave the Israelis or Americans the ok to carry out the attack as part of a larger deal. In any case, it signals an escalation between Hezbollah and Israel, so it wouldn't surprise me if there's an external (outside of Lebanon and Israel) attack against Israeli (or even American) interests. After all, the 1992 Israeli embassy bombing in Argentina was retaliation for the assassination of Hezbollah Secretary General Abbas al-Musawi, who was replaced by Nasrallah. Such escalation is always a bad thing for all parties involved.

As for the February 14 event, I went downtown to give it a look as Geagea was speaking, and it wasn't too big, although I didn't show up until about noon. One big reason for this was that it was rainy and cold. I was a bit worried about clashes arising last night between mourners of Hariri and Mughniya, but the cold rain was probably a blessing in disguise in that it's hard to get riled up to go out looking for trouble when you're soaking wet.

Finally, the earthquake: I didn't feel it, but I heard a rumble. All of my colleagues seem to have felt it, which might just mean that I'm insensitive, so to speak.

It's just occurred to me that there aren't very many places in the world where I could post about an earthquake, a car bomb and a protest against an assassination in the same piece. How's that for potpourri, Alex Trebek?

Friday, February 29, 2008

My saber's bigger than yours

Sometimes I forget that I live by the sea. It's easy enough to do, what with Beirut traffic, honking horns and the city's urban brown and grey. Usually, I'm reminded by a glimpse of the Mediterranean from Ras Beirut, which sometimes prompts me to take a stroll on the corniche to smell the water.

Today, however, I was reminded by a taxi driver talking about the USS Cole, the US carrier that was attacked in Yemen and has now been deployed off the coast of Lebanon. No one I talked to today thought that the ship would actually do anything. Everyone seemed to agree that it was just a show of force by the US.

One Hezbollah partisan from Saida told me that if there were a war and the USS Cole was involved, it would be sunk. Then again, he also told me that he thought the Party of God would not only defeat Israel again this summer but also destroy the Jewish state. (I had to stop myself from laughing when he spoke of Hezbollah's 1 million troops, which would make up one in every four Lebanese citizens.)

In any case, no one seemed excited about the ship's presence in the area. A colleague of mine, an American-Lebanese Christian mother of four who supports March 14, also told me that she thought it was a bad idea.

At the end of the day, I think we've already got enough saber rattling here, and adding the noise of an additional and enormous American saber to the mix is probably the last thing we need here. Ironically, however, the US Navy's stated rationale for the deployment is stability. 

Thursday, February 28, 2008

Obama and Israel

I've been thinking about why I like Obama so much lately and why, for the first time in my life, I'm actually excited about a presidential candidate. One of the reasons is that Samantha Power, for whom I have enormous respect as a scholar of genocide, is part of his foreign policy team. Another reason is that, perhaps naively, I feel like Obama would do his best to push the US toward being a more even-handed moderator in the Middle East.

Here's an excerpt from an event in Ohio where he talked to Cleveland's Jewish community. There's a lot of gentle reassuring about how he's a friend to Israel and even some talk about keeping Israel a Jewish state and continuing to arm it, two things that I disagree with vehemently. There are a lot of fundamental points in his position that I don't agree with, but these days it's hard to find anyone, much less a serious contender for the White House, who agrees with me on the one-state solution. Obama's views on Israel seem to me to be the least insane of all the candidates -- and even borderline reasonable. It's important to me that he has the balls to say, publicly and in front of a Jewish audience no less, that there's a difference between being a friend to Israel and toeing the Likud line:

OBAMA: There is a spectrum of views in terms of how the US and Israel should be interacting. It has evolved over time. It means that somebody like Brzezinski who, when he was national security advisor would be considered not outside of the mainstream in terms of his perspective on these issues, is now considered by many in the Jewish Community anathema. I know Brzezinski he's not one of my key advisors. I've had lunch with him once, I've exchanged emails with him maybe 3 times. He came to Iowa to introduce for a speech on Iraq. He and I agree that Iraq was an enormous strategic blunder and that input from him has been useful in assessing Iraq, as well as Pakistan, where actually, traditionally, if you will recall he was considered a hawk. The liberal wing of the Democratic Party was very suspicious of Brzezinski precisely because he was so tough on many of these issues. I do not share his views with respect to Israel. I have said so clearly and unequivocally. The others that you refer to are former members of the Clinton administration. Somebody like a Tony Lake, the former National Security Adviser, or Susan Rice - these are not anti-Israel individuals. These are people who strongly believe in Israel's right to exist. Strongly believe in a two state solution. Strongly believe that the Palestinians have been irresponsible and have been strongly critical of them. Share my view that Israel has to remain a Jewish state, that the US has a special relationship with the Jewish state. There's no inkling that there has been anything in anything that they've written that would suggest they're not stalwart friends of Israel.

This is where I get to be honest and I hope I'm not out of school here. I think there is a strain within the pro-Israel community that says unless you adopt a unwavering pro-Likud approach to Israel that you're anti-Israel and that can't be the measure of our friendship with Israel. If we cannot have a honest dialogue about how do we achieve these goals, then we're not going to make progress. And frankly some of the commentary that I've seen which suggests guilt by association or the notion that unless we are never ever going to ask any difficult questions about how we move peace forward or secure Israel that is non military or non belligerent or doesn't talk about just crushing the opposition that that somehow is being soft or anti-Israel, I think we're going to have problems moving forward. And that I think is something we have to have an honest dialogue about. None of these emails talk about the fact that on the other side, members of my national finance committee, like Lester Crown, are considered about has hawkish and tough when it comes to Israel as anybody in the country. So, there's got to be some balance here. I've got a range of perspectives and a range of advisors who approach this issue. They would all be considered well within the mainstream of that bipartisan consensus that I raised or that we talked about in terms of being pro-Israel. There's never been any of my advisors who questioned the need for us to provide Israel with security, with military aid, with economic aid. That there has to be a two state solution, that Israel has to remain a Jewish state. None of my advisors would suggest that, so I think its important to keep some of these things in perspective. I understand people's concern with Brzezinski given how much offense the Israeli lobby raised, but he's not one of my central advisors. There is an article in Newsweek, not to make this overly political, this issue that shows that there has been a fairly systemic effort on the part of some of my opponent's supporters, I wont say it was sanctioned from the top, to constantly feed this suspicion, and I want people to take my words and my track record of years on this issue to heart. I got to admit this one is a plan.

As for Clinton, Tony Karon brings up an interesting, and depressing, comment by someone in the Clinton campaign:

I love this line from one of Hillary’s campaign organizers in response to Obama being quoted as saying he wanted “an honest discussion about ways to bridge the gap that grows between Muslims and the West” — Daphna Ziman, a friend of Clinton’s who has organized campaign events for her, responded, “I am horrified at Mr. Obama’s point of view.” Enough said.

I don't think that things are going to magically become hunky dory between the US and the Middle East if Obama is elected president, but I feel that they'll get significantly better. I'm unsure, however, of how much of that is tied to the idea that in these dark times it's hard to imagine how things could get much worse (but they can always get worse).

Saturday, February 23, 2008

A monopoly on violence

Hassan Nasrallah spoke this week, making this disconcerting remark:

I tell the shallow minds in Lebanon, who speak about war and peace decisions, that Israel is the only side that has been taking the decision of war or peace. The decision that we take is our legitimate, moral, humane and natural right in order to defend our people, land and country at a time of negligence by the government and the world.

While this is true to a limited extent, there are times when it takes two to tango, and now is one of those times. We know that the assassination of Mughniyeh was an escalation in the region, but we also know that there's a very high chance that if/when Hezbollah retaliates against Israel, Israel will attack Lebanon again.

Many Hezbollah partisans argue that it's their "right" to retaliate and generally agree that Israel would react to an assassinated ambassador, for example, with an attack on Lebanon. They have a tougher time, however, answering my question as to whether or not exercising their "right" to retaliate is worth plunging the country into another war.

Likewise, when I ask whether the rest of the country (as opposed to just the cadres of Hezbollah) ought not have a say in such a decision, these partisans generally insist (with an obstinate attitude that certainly is representative of Lebanese politics) that they do represent the whole country.

During the July war, one could still plausibly say that the brutal Israeli reaction was unexpected. In 2008, however, almost no one seems to doubt what the consequences of retaliation against Israel would mean for Lebanon. Regardless of whether or not another Israeli war would be legitimate, it certainly won't be unexpected. And I haven't been able to find anyone who's willing to come out and say that avenging the assassination of Mughniyeh is worth the lives of another thousand Lebanese people.

The ubiquitous man

In another bid to see who can talk up Imad Mughniyeh the most as super terrorist extraordinaire (which was, until recently, mainly a contest between Hezbollah and Israel), an-Nahar's English-language site is now claiming that he was, in fact, responsible for the founding of the Mehdi Army in Iraq. While I'm no expert on the Mehdi Army, this claim seems more than a little over the top to me.

I'm just waiting to hear the news that Mughniyeh was also responsible for Pearl Harbor and all those bombings in Corsica and Spanish Basque country.

For a much more sober, and informed, view of the situation, I recommend this Newshour interview with Mohamad Bazzi and Robert Baer.

Kisumu, indeed

Kristof has a disturbing op-ed in the Times about violence in Kenya. It's hard to know if things are getting better or worse there, and a brief talk with a European journalist friend who just got back from Nairobi doesn't clear matters up much. When I was in Ethiopia, I didn't hear much anything about Kenya, although that's really neither here nor there, since the family I was staying with didn't seem very preoccupied with foreign affairs, with the exception of Eritrea (the mother was originally from Asmara).

In any case, Kristof recounts some pretty gruesome stuff (which honestly sounds a little sensationalist), including the decapitation of infants and forced circumcision with a machete:

Until he was circumcised with a machete in front of a jeering mob and then dragged off to be beheaded, Robert Ochieng had been a symbol of modern, post-tribal harmony in Kenya.

A member of the Luo ethnic group, 16-year-old Robert had played and studied with members of another ethnic group, the Kikuyu. They were friends. And then Kenya erupted in rioting after a rigged election, and suddenly Luos were chasing and killing Kikuyus, and a mob of Kikuyus was running down Robert.

He claimed that he was Kikuyu as well, but the suspicious mob stripped him naked and noted that he was not circumcised, meaning that he could not be Kikuyu. That’s when his attackers held him down — smashing his arm when he tried to protect himself — and performed the grotesque surgery in the street to loud cheers from a huge throng.

The crowd shouted war cries and was preparing to decapitate Robert with a machete when the police arrived and rescued him.

The main thrust of his column though isn't just to describe the violence there but rather to bring attention to the idea that US acquiescence "in election irregularities in countries like Ethiopia and Nigeria, inadvertently signal[ed] that Mr. Kibaki could get away with stealing re-election."

He likens Kibaki to an African Musharraf, and while his tone in the column sounds a little too Manichaean for my taste, it is true that the US has a bad habit of supporting undemocratic leaders when it suits its immediate needs without much foresight when it comes to the consequences of that undemocratic rule.

By the by, ICG has a new report out about the situation that's worth reading.

Friday, February 15, 2008

Car bombs, protests and earthquakes for 200, please

I've been missing in action for a while, even after my trip to Ethiopia, which I'll have a lot more on later.

Since I've been back, however, a lot has happened. Imad Mughniya was killed in a car bomb in Damascus (shortly after Michael Totten said I was one of the "notorious leftists who endlessly excuses Hezbollah" and accused me of spreading propaganda when I mentioned that car bombs were used by the American side as well in the comments here). Yesterday was the third anniversary of Hariri's assassination. And finally, there was just a small earthquake (more of a tremor, really) here in Beirut.

I don't have much to say about the first topic, but I will say that I always feel uncomfortable with any kind of extra-judicial killing and assassination, no matter whom it's done by. Also, this seems to be either a very serious breach of Syrian security or evidence that Damascus gave the Israelis or Americans the ok to carry out the attack as part of a larger deal. In any case, it signals an escalation between Hezbollah and Israel, so it wouldn't surprise me if there's an external (outside of Lebanon and Israel) attack against Israeli (or even American) interests. After all, the 1992 Israeli embassy bombing in Argentina was retaliation for the assassination of Hezbollah Secretary General Abbas al-Musawi, who was replaced by Nasrallah. Such escalation is always a bad thing for all parties involved.

As for the February 14 event, I went downtown to give it a look as Geagea was speaking, and it wasn't too big, although I didn't show up until about noon. One big reason for this was that it was rainy and cold. I was a bit worried about clashes arising last night between mourners of Hariri and Mughniya, but the cold rain was probably a blessing in disguise in that it's hard to get riled up to go out looking for trouble when you're soaking wet.

Finally, the earthquake: I didn't feel it, but I heard a rumble. All of my colleagues seem to have felt it, which might just mean that I'm insensitive, so to speak.

It's just occurred to me that there aren't very many places in the world where I could post about an earthquake, a car bomb and a protest against an assassination in the same piece. How's that for potpourri, Alex Trebek?

Friday, February 29, 2008

My saber's bigger than yours

Sometimes I forget that I live by the sea. It's easy enough to do, what with Beirut traffic, honking horns and the city's urban brown and grey. Usually, I'm reminded by a glimpse of the Mediterranean from Ras Beirut, which sometimes prompts me to take a stroll on the corniche to smell the water.

Today, however, I was reminded by a taxi driver talking about the USS Cole, the US carrier that was attacked in Yemen and has now been deployed off the coast of Lebanon. No one I talked to today thought that the ship would actually do anything. Everyone seemed to agree that it was just a show of force by the US.

One Hezbollah partisan from Saida told me that if there were a war and the USS Cole was involved, it would be sunk. Then again, he also told me that he thought the Party of God would not only defeat Israel again this summer but also destroy the Jewish state. (I had to stop myself from laughing when he spoke of Hezbollah's 1 million troops, which would make up one in every four Lebanese citizens.)

In any case, no one seemed excited about the ship's presence in the area. A colleague of mine, an American-Lebanese Christian mother of four who supports March 14, also told me that she thought it was a bad idea.

At the end of the day, I think we've already got enough saber rattling here, and adding the noise of an additional and enormous American saber to the mix is probably the last thing we need here. Ironically, however, the US Navy's stated rationale for the deployment is stability. 

Thursday, February 28, 2008

Obama and Israel

I've been thinking about why I like Obama so much lately and why, for the first time in my life, I'm actually excited about a presidential candidate. One of the reasons is that Samantha Power, for whom I have enormous respect as a scholar of genocide, is part of his foreign policy team. Another reason is that, perhaps naively, I feel like Obama would do his best to push the US toward being a more even-handed moderator in the Middle East.

Here's an excerpt from an event in Ohio where he talked to Cleveland's Jewish community. There's a lot of gentle reassuring about how he's a friend to Israel and even some talk about keeping Israel a Jewish state and continuing to arm it, two things that I disagree with vehemently. There are a lot of fundamental points in his position that I don't agree with, but these days it's hard to find anyone, much less a serious contender for the White House, who agrees with me on the one-state solution. Obama's views on Israel seem to me to be the least insane of all the candidates -- and even borderline reasonable. It's important to me that he has the balls to say, publicly and in front of a Jewish audience no less, that there's a difference between being a friend to Israel and toeing the Likud line:

OBAMA: There is a spectrum of views in terms of how the US and Israel should be interacting. It has evolved over time. It means that somebody like Brzezinski who, when he was national security advisor would be considered not outside of the mainstream in terms of his perspective on these issues, is now considered by many in the Jewish Community anathema. I know Brzezinski he's not one of my key advisors. I've had lunch with him once, I've exchanged emails with him maybe 3 times. He came to Iowa to introduce for a speech on Iraq. He and I agree that Iraq was an enormous strategic blunder and that input from him has been useful in assessing Iraq, as well as Pakistan, where actually, traditionally, if you will recall he was considered a hawk. The liberal wing of the Democratic Party was very suspicious of Brzezinski precisely because he was so tough on many of these issues. I do not share his views with respect to Israel. I have said so clearly and unequivocally. The others that you refer to are former members of the Clinton administration. Somebody like a Tony Lake, the former National Security Adviser, or Susan Rice - these are not anti-Israel individuals. These are people who strongly believe in Israel's right to exist. Strongly believe in a two state solution. Strongly believe that the Palestinians have been irresponsible and have been strongly critical of them. Share my view that Israel has to remain a Jewish state, that the US has a special relationship with the Jewish state. There's no inkling that there has been anything in anything that they've written that would suggest they're not stalwart friends of Israel.

This is where I get to be honest and I hope I'm not out of school here. I think there is a strain within the pro-Israel community that says unless you adopt a unwavering pro-Likud approach to Israel that you're anti-Israel and that can't be the measure of our friendship with Israel. If we cannot have a honest dialogue about how do we achieve these goals, then we're not going to make progress. And frankly some of the commentary that I've seen which suggests guilt by association or the notion that unless we are never ever going to ask any difficult questions about how we move peace forward or secure Israel that is non military or non belligerent or doesn't talk about just crushing the opposition that that somehow is being soft or anti-Israel, I think we're going to have problems moving forward. And that I think is something we have to have an honest dialogue about. None of these emails talk about the fact that on the other side, members of my national finance committee, like Lester Crown, are considered about has hawkish and tough when it comes to Israel as anybody in the country. So, there's got to be some balance here. I've got a range of perspectives and a range of advisors who approach this issue. They would all be considered well within the mainstream of that bipartisan consensus that I raised or that we talked about in terms of being pro-Israel. There's never been any of my advisors who questioned the need for us to provide Israel with security, with military aid, with economic aid. That there has to be a two state solution, that Israel has to remain a Jewish state. None of my advisors would suggest that, so I think its important to keep some of these things in perspective. I understand people's concern with Brzezinski given how much offense the Israeli lobby raised, but he's not one of my central advisors. There is an article in Newsweek, not to make this overly political, this issue that shows that there has been a fairly systemic effort on the part of some of my opponent's supporters, I wont say it was sanctioned from the top, to constantly feed this suspicion, and I want people to take my words and my track record of years on this issue to heart. I got to admit this one is a plan.

As for Clinton, Tony Karon brings up an interesting, and depressing, comment by someone in the Clinton campaign:

I love this line from one of Hillary’s campaign organizers in response to Obama being quoted as saying he wanted “an honest discussion about ways to bridge the gap that grows between Muslims and the West” — Daphna Ziman, a friend of Clinton’s who has organized campaign events for her, responded, “I am horrified at Mr. Obama’s point of view.” Enough said.

I don't think that things are going to magically become hunky dory between the US and the Middle East if Obama is elected president, but I feel that they'll get significantly better. I'm unsure, however, of how much of that is tied to the idea that in these dark times it's hard to imagine how things could get much worse (but they can always get worse).

Saturday, February 23, 2008

A monopoly on violence

Hassan Nasrallah spoke this week, making this disconcerting remark:

I tell the shallow minds in Lebanon, who speak about war and peace decisions, that Israel is the only side that has been taking the decision of war or peace. The decision that we take is our legitimate, moral, humane and natural right in order to defend our people, land and country at a time of negligence by the government and the world.

While this is true to a limited extent, there are times when it takes two to tango, and now is one of those times. We know that the assassination of Mughniyeh was an escalation in the region, but we also know that there's a very high chance that if/when Hezbollah retaliates against Israel, Israel will attack Lebanon again.

Many Hezbollah partisans argue that it's their "right" to retaliate and generally agree that Israel would react to an assassinated ambassador, for example, with an attack on Lebanon. They have a tougher time, however, answering my question as to whether or not exercising their "right" to retaliate is worth plunging the country into another war.

Likewise, when I ask whether the rest of the country (as opposed to just the cadres of Hezbollah) ought not have a say in such a decision, these partisans generally insist (with an obstinate attitude that certainly is representative of Lebanese politics) that they do represent the whole country.

During the July war, one could still plausibly say that the brutal Israeli reaction was unexpected. In 2008, however, almost no one seems to doubt what the consequences of retaliation against Israel would mean for Lebanon. Regardless of whether or not another Israeli war would be legitimate, it certainly won't be unexpected. And I haven't been able to find anyone who's willing to come out and say that avenging the assassination of Mughniyeh is worth the lives of another thousand Lebanese people.

The ubiquitous man

In another bid to see who can talk up Imad Mughniyeh the most as super terrorist extraordinaire (which was, until recently, mainly a contest between Hezbollah and Israel), an-Nahar's English-language site is now claiming that he was, in fact, responsible for the founding of the Mehdi Army in Iraq. While I'm no expert on the Mehdi Army, this claim seems more than a little over the top to me.

I'm just waiting to hear the news that Mughniyeh was also responsible for Pearl Harbor and all those bombings in Corsica and Spanish Basque country.

For a much more sober, and informed, view of the situation, I recommend this Newshour interview with Mohamad Bazzi and Robert Baer.

Kisumu, indeed

Kristof has a disturbing op-ed in the Times about violence in Kenya. It's hard to know if things are getting better or worse there, and a brief talk with a European journalist friend who just got back from Nairobi doesn't clear matters up much. When I was in Ethiopia, I didn't hear much anything about Kenya, although that's really neither here nor there, since the family I was staying with didn't seem very preoccupied with foreign affairs, with the exception of Eritrea (the mother was originally from Asmara).

In any case, Kristof recounts some pretty gruesome stuff (which honestly sounds a little sensationalist), including the decapitation of infants and forced circumcision with a machete:

Until he was circumcised with a machete in front of a jeering mob and then dragged off to be beheaded, Robert Ochieng had been a symbol of modern, post-tribal harmony in Kenya.

A member of the Luo ethnic group, 16-year-old Robert had played and studied with members of another ethnic group, the Kikuyu. They were friends. And then Kenya erupted in rioting after a rigged election, and suddenly Luos were chasing and killing Kikuyus, and a mob of Kikuyus was running down Robert.

He claimed that he was Kikuyu as well, but the suspicious mob stripped him naked and noted that he was not circumcised, meaning that he could not be Kikuyu. That’s when his attackers held him down — smashing his arm when he tried to protect himself — and performed the grotesque surgery in the street to loud cheers from a huge throng.

The crowd shouted war cries and was preparing to decapitate Robert with a machete when the police arrived and rescued him.

The main thrust of his column though isn't just to describe the violence there but rather to bring attention to the idea that US acquiescence "in election irregularities in countries like Ethiopia and Nigeria, inadvertently signal[ed] that Mr. Kibaki could get away with stealing re-election."

He likens Kibaki to an African Musharraf, and while his tone in the column sounds a little too Manichaean for my taste, it is true that the US has a bad habit of supporting undemocratic leaders when it suits its immediate needs without much foresight when it comes to the consequences of that undemocratic rule.

By the by, ICG has a new report out about the situation that's worth reading.

Friday, February 15, 2008

Car bombs, protests and earthquakes for 200, please

I've been missing in action for a while, even after my trip to Ethiopia, which I'll have a lot more on later.

Since I've been back, however, a lot has happened. Imad Mughniya was killed in a car bomb in Damascus (shortly after Michael Totten said I was one of the "notorious leftists who endlessly excuses Hezbollah" and accused me of spreading propaganda when I mentioned that car bombs were used by the American side as well in the comments here). Yesterday was the third anniversary of Hariri's assassination. And finally, there was just a small earthquake (more of a tremor, really) here in Beirut.

I don't have much to say about the first topic, but I will say that I always feel uncomfortable with any kind of extra-judicial killing and assassination, no matter whom it's done by. Also, this seems to be either a very serious breach of Syrian security or evidence that Damascus gave the Israelis or Americans the ok to carry out the attack as part of a larger deal. In any case, it signals an escalation between Hezbollah and Israel, so it wouldn't surprise me if there's an external (outside of Lebanon and Israel) attack against Israeli (or even American) interests. After all, the 1992 Israeli embassy bombing in Argentina was retaliation for the assassination of Hezbollah Secretary General Abbas al-Musawi, who was replaced by Nasrallah. Such escalation is always a bad thing for all parties involved.

As for the February 14 event, I went downtown to give it a look as Geagea was speaking, and it wasn't too big, although I didn't show up until about noon. One big reason for this was that it was rainy and cold. I was a bit worried about clashes arising last night between mourners of Hariri and Mughniya, but the cold rain was probably a blessing in disguise in that it's hard to get riled up to go out looking for trouble when you're soaking wet.

Finally, the earthquake: I didn't feel it, but I heard a rumble. All of my colleagues seem to have felt it, which might just mean that I'm insensitive, so to speak.

It's just occurred to me that there aren't very many places in the world where I could post about an earthquake, a car bomb and a protest against an assassination in the same piece. How's that for potpourri, Alex Trebek?

Friday, February 29, 2008

My saber's bigger than yours

Sometimes I forget that I live by the sea. It's easy enough to do, what with Beirut traffic, honking horns and the city's urban brown and grey. Usually, I'm reminded by a glimpse of the Mediterranean from Ras Beirut, which sometimes prompts me to take a stroll on the corniche to smell the water.

Today, however, I was reminded by a taxi driver talking about the USS Cole, the US carrier that was attacked in Yemen and has now been deployed off the coast of Lebanon. No one I talked to today thought that the ship would actually do anything. Everyone seemed to agree that it was just a show of force by the US.

One Hezbollah partisan from Saida told me that if there were a war and the USS Cole was involved, it would be sunk. Then again, he also told me that he thought the Party of God would not only defeat Israel again this summer but also destroy the Jewish state. (I had to stop myself from laughing when he spoke of Hezbollah's 1 million troops, which would make up one in every four Lebanese citizens.)

In any case, no one seemed excited about the ship's presence in the area. A colleague of mine, an American-Lebanese Christian mother of four who supports March 14, also told me that she thought it was a bad idea.

At the end of the day, I think we've already got enough saber rattling here, and adding the noise of an additional and enormous American saber to the mix is probably the last thing we need here. Ironically, however, the US Navy's stated rationale for the deployment is stability. 

Thursday, February 28, 2008

Obama and Israel

I've been thinking about why I like Obama so much lately and why, for the first time in my life, I'm actually excited about a presidential candidate. One of the reasons is that Samantha Power, for whom I have enormous respect as a scholar of genocide, is part of his foreign policy team. Another reason is that, perhaps naively, I feel like Obama would do his best to push the US toward being a more even-handed moderator in the Middle East.

Here's an excerpt from an event in Ohio where he talked to Cleveland's Jewish community. There's a lot of gentle reassuring about how he's a friend to Israel and even some talk about keeping Israel a Jewish state and continuing to arm it, two things that I disagree with vehemently. There are a lot of fundamental points in his position that I don't agree with, but these days it's hard to find anyone, much less a serious contender for the White House, who agrees with me on the one-state solution. Obama's views on Israel seem to me to be the least insane of all the candidates -- and even borderline reasonable. It's important to me that he has the balls to say, publicly and in front of a Jewish audience no less, that there's a difference between being a friend to Israel and toeing the Likud line:

OBAMA: There is a spectrum of views in terms of how the US and Israel should be interacting. It has evolved over time. It means that somebody like Brzezinski who, when he was national security advisor would be considered not outside of the mainstream in terms of his perspective on these issues, is now considered by many in the Jewish Community anathema. I know Brzezinski he's not one of my key advisors. I've had lunch with him once, I've exchanged emails with him maybe 3 times. He came to Iowa to introduce for a speech on Iraq. He and I agree that Iraq was an enormous strategic blunder and that input from him has been useful in assessing Iraq, as well as Pakistan, where actually, traditionally, if you will recall he was considered a hawk. The liberal wing of the Democratic Party was very suspicious of Brzezinski precisely because he was so tough on many of these issues. I do not share his views with respect to Israel. I have said so clearly and unequivocally. The others that you refer to are former members of the Clinton administration. Somebody like a Tony Lake, the former National Security Adviser, or Susan Rice - these are not anti-Israel individuals. These are people who strongly believe in Israel's right to exist. Strongly believe in a two state solution. Strongly believe that the Palestinians have been irresponsible and have been strongly critical of them. Share my view that Israel has to remain a Jewish state, that the US has a special relationship with the Jewish state. There's no inkling that there has been anything in anything that they've written that would suggest they're not stalwart friends of Israel.

This is where I get to be honest and I hope I'm not out of school here. I think there is a strain within the pro-Israel community that says unless you adopt a unwavering pro-Likud approach to Israel that you're anti-Israel and that can't be the measure of our friendship with Israel. If we cannot have a honest dialogue about how do we achieve these goals, then we're not going to make progress. And frankly some of the commentary that I've seen which suggests guilt by association or the notion that unless we are never ever going to ask any difficult questions about how we move peace forward or secure Israel that is non military or non belligerent or doesn't talk about just crushing the opposition that that somehow is being soft or anti-Israel, I think we're going to have problems moving forward. And that I think is something we have to have an honest dialogue about. None of these emails talk about the fact that on the other side, members of my national finance committee, like Lester Crown, are considered about has hawkish and tough when it comes to Israel as anybody in the country. So, there's got to be some balance here. I've got a range of perspectives and a range of advisors who approach this issue. They would all be considered well within the mainstream of that bipartisan consensus that I raised or that we talked about in terms of being pro-Israel. There's never been any of my advisors who questioned the need for us to provide Israel with security, with military aid, with economic aid. That there has to be a two state solution, that Israel has to remain a Jewish state. None of my advisors would suggest that, so I think its important to keep some of these things in perspective. I understand people's concern with Brzezinski given how much offense the Israeli lobby raised, but he's not one of my central advisors. There is an article in Newsweek, not to make this overly political, this issue that shows that there has been a fairly systemic effort on the part of some of my opponent's supporters, I wont say it was sanctioned from the top, to constantly feed this suspicion, and I want people to take my words and my track record of years on this issue to heart. I got to admit this one is a plan.

As for Clinton, Tony Karon brings up an interesting, and depressing, comment by someone in the Clinton campaign:

I love this line from one of Hillary’s campaign organizers in response to Obama being quoted as saying he wanted “an honest discussion about ways to bridge the gap that grows between Muslims and the West” — Daphna Ziman, a friend of Clinton’s who has organized campaign events for her, responded, “I am horrified at Mr. Obama’s point of view.” Enough said.

I don't think that things are going to magically become hunky dory between the US and the Middle East if Obama is elected president, but I feel that they'll get significantly better. I'm unsure, however, of how much of that is tied to the idea that in these dark times it's hard to imagine how things could get much worse (but they can always get worse).

Saturday, February 23, 2008

A monopoly on violence

Hassan Nasrallah spoke this week, making this disconcerting remark:

I tell the shallow minds in Lebanon, who speak about war and peace decisions, that Israel is the only side that has been taking the decision of war or peace. The decision that we take is our legitimate, moral, humane and natural right in order to defend our people, land and country at a time of negligence by the government and the world.

While this is true to a limited extent, there are times when it takes two to tango, and now is one of those times. We know that the assassination of Mughniyeh was an escalation in the region, but we also know that there's a very high chance that if/when Hezbollah retaliates against Israel, Israel will attack Lebanon again.

Many Hezbollah partisans argue that it's their "right" to retaliate and generally agree that Israel would react to an assassinated ambassador, for example, with an attack on Lebanon. They have a tougher time, however, answering my question as to whether or not exercising their "right" to retaliate is worth plunging the country into another war.

Likewise, when I ask whether the rest of the country (as opposed to just the cadres of Hezbollah) ought not have a say in such a decision, these partisans generally insist (with an obstinate attitude that certainly is representative of Lebanese politics) that they do represent the whole country.

During the July war, one could still plausibly say that the brutal Israeli reaction was unexpected. In 2008, however, almost no one seems to doubt what the consequences of retaliation against Israel would mean for Lebanon. Regardless of whether or not another Israeli war would be legitimate, it certainly won't be unexpected. And I haven't been able to find anyone who's willing to come out and say that avenging the assassination of Mughniyeh is worth the lives of another thousand Lebanese people.

The ubiquitous man

In another bid to see who can talk up Imad Mughniyeh the most as super terrorist extraordinaire (which was, until recently, mainly a contest between Hezbollah and Israel), an-Nahar's English-language site is now claiming that he was, in fact, responsible for the founding of the Mehdi Army in Iraq. While I'm no expert on the Mehdi Army, this claim seems more than a little over the top to me.

I'm just waiting to hear the news that Mughniyeh was also responsible for Pearl Harbor and all those bombings in Corsica and Spanish Basque country.

For a much more sober, and informed, view of the situation, I recommend this Newshour interview with Mohamad Bazzi and Robert Baer.

Kisumu, indeed

Kristof has a disturbing op-ed in the Times about violence in Kenya. It's hard to know if things are getting better or worse there, and a brief talk with a European journalist friend who just got back from Nairobi doesn't clear matters up much. When I was in Ethiopia, I didn't hear much anything about Kenya, although that's really neither here nor there, since the family I was staying with didn't seem very preoccupied with foreign affairs, with the exception of Eritrea (the mother was originally from Asmara).

In any case, Kristof recounts some pretty gruesome stuff (which honestly sounds a little sensationalist), including the decapitation of infants and forced circumcision with a machete:

Until he was circumcised with a machete in front of a jeering mob and then dragged off to be beheaded, Robert Ochieng had been a symbol of modern, post-tribal harmony in Kenya.

A member of the Luo ethnic group, 16-year-old Robert had played and studied with members of another ethnic group, the Kikuyu. They were friends. And then Kenya erupted in rioting after a rigged election, and suddenly Luos were chasing and killing Kikuyus, and a mob of Kikuyus was running down Robert.

He claimed that he was Kikuyu as well, but the suspicious mob stripped him naked and noted that he was not circumcised, meaning that he could not be Kikuyu. That’s when his attackers held him down — smashing his arm when he tried to protect himself — and performed the grotesque surgery in the street to loud cheers from a huge throng.

The crowd shouted war cries and was preparing to decapitate Robert with a machete when the police arrived and rescued him.

The main thrust of his column though isn't just to describe the violence there but rather to bring attention to the idea that US acquiescence "in election irregularities in countries like Ethiopia and Nigeria, inadvertently signal[ed] that Mr. Kibaki could get away with stealing re-election."

He likens Kibaki to an African Musharraf, and while his tone in the column sounds a little too Manichaean for my taste, it is true that the US has a bad habit of supporting undemocratic leaders when it suits its immediate needs without much foresight when it comes to the consequences of that undemocratic rule.

By the by, ICG has a new report out about the situation that's worth reading.

Friday, February 15, 2008

Car bombs, protests and earthquakes for 200, please

I've been missing in action for a while, even after my trip to Ethiopia, which I'll have a lot more on later.

Since I've been back, however, a lot has happened. Imad Mughniya was killed in a car bomb in Damascus (shortly after Michael Totten said I was one of the "notorious leftists who endlessly excuses Hezbollah" and accused me of spreading propaganda when I mentioned that car bombs were used by the American side as well in the comments here). Yesterday was the third anniversary of Hariri's assassination. And finally, there was just a small earthquake (more of a tremor, really) here in Beirut.

I don't have much to say about the first topic, but I will say that I always feel uncomfortable with any kind of extra-judicial killing and assassination, no matter whom it's done by. Also, this seems to be either a very serious breach of Syrian security or evidence that Damascus gave the Israelis or Americans the ok to carry out the attack as part of a larger deal. In any case, it signals an escalation between Hezbollah and Israel, so it wouldn't surprise me if there's an external (outside of Lebanon and Israel) attack against Israeli (or even American) interests. After all, the 1992 Israeli embassy bombing in Argentina was retaliation for the assassination of Hezbollah Secretary General Abbas al-Musawi, who was replaced by Nasrallah. Such escalation is always a bad thing for all parties involved.

As for the February 14 event, I went downtown to give it a look as Geagea was speaking, and it wasn't too big, although I didn't show up until about noon. One big reason for this was that it was rainy and cold. I was a bit worried about clashes arising last night between mourners of Hariri and Mughniya, but the cold rain was probably a blessing in disguise in that it's hard to get riled up to go out looking for trouble when you're soaking wet.

Finally, the earthquake: I didn't feel it, but I heard a rumble. All of my colleagues seem to have felt it, which might just mean that I'm insensitive, so to speak.

It's just occurred to me that there aren't very many places in the world where I could post about an earthquake, a car bomb and a protest against an assassination in the same piece. How's that for potpourri, Alex Trebek?