Is Aung San Suu Kyi Buying Time With False Promise Of Right To Return? By Dr. Azeem Ibrahim: New Age Islam's Selection, 19 October 2017
New Age Islam Edit Bureau
19 October 2017
• Is Aung San Suu Kyi Buying Time With False Promise Of Right To Return?
By Dr. Azeem Ibrahim
• What's Happening In Myanmar Is Genocide
By Ashley Starr Kinseth
• Eliminating Daesh On The Ground Is Only Half The Battle
By Abdellatif El-Menawy
• Hezbollah’s Day Of Reckoning May Be Coming
By Diana Moukalled
• Anger and Confrontation Will Not Help the Palestinian Cause
By Ray Hanania
• Are Iranian People Aligned With US National Interests?
By Hamid Bahrami
• Balanced Words And A Clear Vision
By Mashari Althaydi
• To Succeed, US Needs to Rediscover Itself as A ‘Smart Power’ Country
By Dr. Naif Alotaibi
Compiled By New Age Islam Edit Bureau
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Is Aung San Suu Kyi Buying Time With False Promise Of Right To Return?
By Dr. Azeem Ibrahim
19 October 2017
We expect our Nobel Peace Prize laureates to be the embodiment of humanistic virtues. Yet we do not often expect them to be merciful. And for a good reason.
Mercy is a trait proper to an aggressor: it is when an aggressor exercises more restraint that we would have expected. This is not a position we expect a Nobel Peace Prize laureate to find oneself in.
Aung San Suu Kyi has nevertheless found herself in this position. But thankfully it seems she is a creature of boundless mercy. So much so that after the military is done cleansing all the Rohingya in her country, she promises she will allow those Rohingya who can prove their origins back into the country. And, she has been consistent in this position over the past few weeks.
Of course, the caveat about “origins” is the crucial point here. On the practical level, a closer examination shows that criteria that Myanmar has previously set up to “verify” the Rohingya were designed to ensure no one returns.
Grandfathers’ Birth Certificates
Refugees I spoke to in Bangladesh in 2015 told me that they were asked to produce birth certificates of their grandfathers (a time when birth certificates were very rare), ID cards (they were stripped of citizenship in 1982, and were thus not entitled to them to begin with), and also paperwork to show where they crossed the border into Bangladesh (passport stamps or equivalent).
These criteria were designed to exclude the Rohingya from the right to return then. And there is no reason to believe that similarly impossible criteria would not be proposed now.
Just to be sure, the former houses and villages left behind by the refugees in Myanmar are still being burnt and the Myanmar military continues to lay mines on the border to ensure no one can actually come back if they would be so inclined.
At least the military authorities seem determined to ensure that none of the people “born illegally” in the country would be drawn back by the existence of conditions slightly less atrocious than an overcrowded refugee camp. But the point about “proving origins” is much more significant for its political dimension. This is the unapologetic face of genocide.
In it lays the genocidal assumption that the Rohingya are, by default, alien and illegitimate in the country of their birth. And that the onus is on them to prove that they have a right to exist and live in the country of their birth.
Absurd Citizenship Law
Our celebrated Nobel Peace Prize icon, in her mercy, is not challenging her country’s absurd 1982 Citizenship Law which deliberately excluded an entire people from citizenship rights, again, in the country of their birth – a law that is in gross violation of international law and which is still enshrined in the statute books of Myanmar.
But if any one individual might be able to find loopholes in those rules designed for ethnic cleansing, well, then she is more than happy for them to return to the charred remains of their village and to the searing memories of seeing their children murdered by an army raid.
Or perhaps that is not quite the plan either. Brutalising a population and then letting the survivors back in seems like a pretty unwise thing to do from a security point of view. First you give someone all the reasons to want to fight you or carry out terror attacks against you, and then you let them back into the country?
Even if Ms Suu Kyi were that daft, it is unlikely that the military would allow her to do any such thing. The much more likely explanation is that Ms Suu Kyi is simply trying to buy time in the face of international pressure, just like she has done on every previous occasion.
Once the ethnic cleansing is fait acompli, perhaps us Western sops will concede that it’s no use crying over spilt beans, and we can get back to investing in the country without all this faff about genocides and humanitarian abuses.
Source: english.alarabiya.net/en/views/news/middle-east/2017/10/19/Is-Aung-San-Suu-Kyi-buying-time-with-false-promise-of-right-to-return-.html
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What's Happening In Myanmar Is Genocide
By Ashley Starr Kinseth
18 October 2017
On the night of August 25, an attack on Myanmar security forces by a handful of Rohingya militants in Northern Rakhine State prompted a brutal government counteroffensive that has, in turn, led to the greatest refugee crisis of the 21st century. Since then, more than 500,000 Rohingya have fled to neighbouring Bangladesh, with some estimating that as many as 15,000 continue to make the dangerous journey each day. In fact, in terms of rate of escalation, this is the greatest mass exodus - and has the makings to become the most significant humanitarian catastrophe - since the 1994 Rwandan genocide, when over 800,000 Hutus and moderate Tutsis were slaughtered over a mere 100-day period.
To much of the international community, Myanmar's Rohingya crisis appears sudden, with few to no warning signs; indeed, it is only in recent weeks that the word "Rohingya" has begun to crop up in international headlines and to seep into the world's collective consciousness and conscience. Yet as a human rights lawyer who has long followed the Rohingya situation - and was present in Northern Rakhine the morning the violence erupted - I can say there is no question that the crisis unfolding now has been in the making for years, if not decades. Perhaps more importantly, by international legal and historical standards, the crisis bears all the characteristics of a genocide in bloom.
In fact, for those who have followed the situation closely, the use of the word "genocide" should come as no surprise. For generations, the Rohingya have faced an ever-growing list of discriminatory policies and state-sanctioned rights violations designed to cull the unwanted minority's numbers and force them from their ancestral lands: key markers of genocide.
The oldest among them have seen their citizenship revoked and their children born stateless; they suffer tight restrictions on movement and access to education and healthcare; and the number of children a couple may bear has been legally limited to two.
The Rohingya also regularly endure extortions for minor "offenses"; they have been barred from gathering in groups of more than five and require permission to hold routine events (like marriages); and have even faced limitations on the materials used to build or repair homes and other buildings (brick and concrete being considered too "permanent" for the unwanted minority). Direct reports from at least one prison also indicate that some prisoners from other parts of the country had been released early on condition that they resettle in Northern Rakhine in order to maximise the Buddhist population and limit Rohingya landholdings.
The Rohingya have also endured periodic crackdowns designed to drive them from their land, dating at least as far back as Operation King Dragon in 1978, with more recent pogroms in 1991 and 2012. Since 2012, smaller spates of violence have erupted, each time accompanied by reports of government and mob-led village raids and burnings, rapes and murders (sometimes two-sided), and ever-increasing restrictions on Rohingya movement and activity.
Yet the present crisis undoubtedly represents the most extreme and disproportionate onslaught of violence, with widely corroborated horror tales from Rohingya refugees of savagely violent gang rapes, merciless tortures and beheadings, and even babies tossed into fires.
If not adequately frightening on their own, these facts must be placed in a disconcertingly modern context: for there has never been a more powerful tool for the rapid dissemination of hate speech and racist-nationalist vitriol than Facebook and other social media. From a Western perspective, the dangers are easy to spot; one need only look to social media's role in recent elections and political debates to witness the rate at which false information can spread, and the surprising number of individuals who can fall prey to hateful and dangerous rhetoric, a phenomenon presently blazing across Myanmar society.
Yet perhaps most disturbingly, historically, one can hardly fail to see the parallels between the current use of social media in Myanmar and that of radio in Rwanda to incite mob violence. The key exception is that social media is by all accounts an even faster, more graphic, immersive, "democratic", and ultimately, dangerous tool for the dissemination of hate speech: perhaps the most significant precursor to genocide.
Still, despite these new realities, the conflict we see now may once have been preventable, if not for the dancing around international law and realpolitiking at which the world's governments have played ever since the term "genocide" first entered the international legal lexicon in the aftermath of the Holocaust.
In the wake of World War II, the international community of states came together in an unprecedented manner, forming the United Nations, and - as one of its first orders of business - passing the Genocide Convention in 1948, which forbade a series of acts committed with the "intent to destroy, in whole or in part, a national, ethnical, racial, or religious group".
The Convention placed heavy weight on the use of the term "genocide" by governments - essentially requiring that, once a party to the Convention recognised that a genocide was occurring in another state, it bore a responsibility to act to stop the atrocities. Unfortunately, the planet's collective memory and joint resolve proved short-lived, as international governments - and particularly the United States - have spent decades performing mind-bending linguistic backflips to avoid public use of the term.
Instead, we see politicians using turns of phrase such as "genocidal acts may have been committed" to circumvent outright use of the word itself - and in turn, to avoid violating what is perhaps international law's most sacred treaty.
It thus comes as little surprise that the Rohingya crisis has until recently garnered little international attention. In fact, to date, only one world leader - France's newly-minted President Macron - has dared utter the word, vowing on September 20 to work with the Security Council to condemn "this genocide which is unfolding, this ethnic cleansing."
Unfortunately, the very structure of the UN makes coordinated intervention (like deployment of a peacekeeping mission) highly unlikely, as this would surely be met by a Security Council veto by China. Indeed, such intra-UN constraints help to explain why - though many in the Office of the Special Adviser on the Prevention of Genocide have long been aware of the Rohingya crisis - the Special Adviser has spoken rarely and hesitantly on the situation.
This is despite the fact that the Myanmar government has engaged in at least four of the five genocidal acts outlined in the Genocide Convention, including "killing members of the group; causing serious bodily or mental harm to members of the group; deliberately inflicting on the group conditions of life calculated to bring about its physical destruction in whole or in part; and imposing measures intended to prevent births within the group."
But if not genocide, what might we call the horrific situation unfolding in Northern Rakhine? No doubt the "Rohingya issue" is viewed much differently throughout Myanmar, where most believe the Rohingya to be illegal Bengali migrants of questionable (or at least exceedingly "different") moral character; reproducing at a high and disproportionate rate (factually disproven); and hell-bent on Islamicising the predominantly Buddhist nation. Indeed, I have met many educated Myanmar citizens - from aid workers to fellow human rights lawyers - who carry these views, and who are quick to except the Rohingya from rights that they would otherwise view as inherent to all human beings. It is this pervasive dehumanisation of the Rohingya - backed by military and religious forces that rely on the existence of a despised "other" to maintain some semblance of power amidst Myanmar's precarious democratisation - that have allowed for the Rohingya's continuing persecution.
Admittedly, the atrocities we witness today in Northern Rakhine are not entirely one-sided. Surely, many Rakhine Buddhists also suffer the effects of conflict, and international media should also report on this suffering. Yet having visited many Rohingya and Rakhine villages, and remaining in touch with many Rohingya and Rakhine contacts, I also could not in good conscience equate the two groups' experiences or poverty levels, as many in Myanmar print and social media circles routinely demand of international observers.
Rakhine Buddhists are surely poorer than most ethnic groups in Myanmar (excepting, perhaps, only the Rohingya), and many do currently suffer alongside the Rohingya in terms of physical and food security. However, it would be false to suggest that as many Rakhine Buddhist villages have been looted and razed, or as many Rakhine Buddhist individuals raped, tortured, slaughtered, or otherwise victimised, as have the Rohingya. And while I know of some Rakhine Buddhists who have also become internally displaced - no doubt under deeply abhorrent circumstances - the fact is they possess the freedom of movement to do so and a greater chance of attaining aid and even alternative livelihoods elsewhere in Myanmar.
All that said, if Myanmar continues to refuse access to Northern Rakhine by neutral observers, then there will be no way for the international media to provide the balanced reporting frequently demanded by Myanmar's citizenry. Instead, as it stands, we outside observers must rely either on our own direct experience to date - as I have here - or on reports flooding across the border from, one must imagine, the most vulnerable Rohingya. In the meantime, it appears that the international community of states, favouring inaction, has tiptoed around such deeply disturbing refugee accounts for far too long. And from the perspective of an international lawyer, based on the information that is presently available to outsiders, there can only be one word for the Rohingya experience in Myanmar: and that word is genocide.
Source: aljazeera.com/indepth/opinion/happening-myanmar-genocide-171016114145271.html
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Eliminating Daesh On The Ground Is Only Half The Battle
By Abdellatif El-Menawy
19 October 2017
When the media speaks about Daesh, I immediately recall the lines by the Egyptian poet Amal Dunqul: “Do not dream of a happy world For behind every deceased Caesar is a new one.”
Perhaps the alleged Islamic State of Iraq and the Levant has fallen for real, but did Daesh as a terrorist organization truly end? Can we say that Arab and Western alliances succeeded in completely eliminating Daesh? The answer is — and I hope it doesn’t shock any of you — definitely not. Maybe its existence as an organization ended on the ground, but their ideology still lingers, especially with Daesh’s transformation into a secret terrorist network scattered around the region and the world.
The answer may require further elaboration:
There are hundreds — if not thousands — of Daesh terrorists who managed to flee Syria and Iraq. Where have they gone? There are two answers: They may have gone to fight in a different front, Libya for instance, or maybe they went back home, whether to Arab or Western countries.
In the 1990s and beyond, we were introduced to what was called the “Afghan Returnees” and the Returnees from Albania and Chechnya. Those were silent time bombs waiting for their chance to explode. Today, we have what is called the “Returnees from Syria and Iraq.” What are we going to do with them?
In all their operations in Europe, Daesh adopted the “lone-wolf attacks” approach. Those are not members of the terrorist organization but merely people who adopted the ideology, which is a serious danger to many safe societies.
Daesh used traditional and social media as an easy and fast way to spread. Today, there are thousands of pages on the internet and on social media websites that embrace Daesh’s ideologies and continue to attract dozens of followers and lone wolves scattered around the world, waiting for their chance to explode.
For three years, Daesh controlled Raqqa and Mosul. They left seeds in the minds of those they ruled and these won’t be easily wiped away. Governments must not only count on eliminating Daesh, but also on dealing with the aftermath and treating their effect.
Daesh established what is known as the “Cubs of the Caliphate” — an army of youngsters, some of whom haven’t yet reached the ages of 8, trained by Daesh on its ideology and armed with weapons they were taught how to use. Furthermore, Daesh controlled many schools in which they taught children their ideology and thoughts. What would be the fate of this army and these children?
There are thousands of children spawned by Daesh insurgents and their captives, as well as Yazidi women. Most of these children’s fathers were killed, leaving them either with militant mothers or with mothers who were raped and taken captives. How will governments deal with this issue?
Daesh isn’t over yet; it still exists in other countries — they built bases in Afghanistan, Pakistan, Chechnya and the Philippines.
In the Arab world, many Daesh insurgents fled to Libya to fight there while others infiltrated into Egypt. Hundreds of Daesh insurgents returned to their homes in Europe through playing analysts or Trojan horses to enter and exit Syria. Even in Syria and Iraq, Daesh members have worn different masks and left Daesh for other groups that had a change of identity — like Al-Nusra Front, which is affiliated with Al-Qaeda and changed its name to Fatah Al-Sham. Strangely enough, the West and press bought into it — or perhaps chose to buy into it.
I don’t wish to be a pessimist, but what I’m trying to say is that if dozens, hundreds or even thousands of Daesh insurgents were killed, three years of killing and fighting would not end by simply taking control of the areas that were occupied by this terrorist organization. Perhaps the golden question here is: Where did all the old players go?
Al-Qaeda has disappeared for a while in the last few years, allowing Daesh to be in the limelight, but frequent news says the organization is trying to regain its strength, especially as Hamza bin Laden, the son of the former Al-Qaeda leader, is trying to oust Ayman Al-Zawahiri. Moreover, a new organization came into the picture recently known as Khorasan. Perhaps they will be allowed a larger space and role. This organization is an Islamist armed Syrian group, which the US intelligence community has deemed more dangerous than Daesh. It is believed to be affiliated with Al-Qaeda and was formed by members of Al-Qaeda from South Asia, North Africa and the Middle East. It was named after a historic region that included parts of Pakistan and Afghanistan.
In addition to that, there are dozens of small religious groups fighting in Syria — probably waiting to seize the opportunity and prove their worth, especially given that the war in Syria is about to end, but the cake has not yet been divided.
Finally, even if most of those groups were eliminated, as long as there are countries in the East and the West that support terrorism and use it to serve their political agendas, Daesh will not die and neither will its ideology.
Eliminate the ideology through educating, enlightening and helping your children. Otherwise, we will only achieve an incomplete victory that will soon turn into defeat.
Our mission is not over yet.
Source: arabnews.com/node/1179796
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Hezbollah’s Day Of Reckoning May Be Coming
By Diana Moukalled
19 October 2017
Have we started to witness new approaches to the situation in Lebanon and the region? There is undoubtedly tremendous pressure on Hezbollah, which has been dramatically escalated.
The US State Department is offering multimillion-dollar rewards for information leading to the arrest of two of the organization’s most important operatives. There is a $7 million bounty for Talal Hamiyah, who the State Department accuses of orchestrating attacks, hijackings and kidnappings targeting US citizens since the 1980s. Another $5 million is being offered for Fuad Shukr, who runs Hezbollah’s operations in southern Lebanon and plays a key role supporting Bashar Assad in the war in Syria.
The rewards are a reminder that the US-Hezbollah conflict has a history, and the new steps against them should be seen in that context. Announcing the rewards last week, Nicholas Rasmussen, director of the US National Counterterrorism Center, pointed out that before 2011 Hezbollah had been responsible for more American deaths than any other foreign terrorist group. He also said the US had reason to believe Hezbollah had plans for an attack on US soil.
There is also legislation before the US Congress to increase sanctions on Hezbollah by further restricting its ability to raise money and recruit, and by increasing pressure on banks that do business with it.
So it seems Hezbollah’s image from the perspective of its historical role is being promoted to the American public in case there is an escalation in action against the organization.
This means we can expect some changes in the region in the coming period, and it sheds some light on the most recent escalated rhetoric from Israel, whose Defense Minister, Avigdor Lieberman, said Israel’s next war would be against Lebanon and Syria together.
On the surface, Hezbollah does not care about Israel’s threats. They continue to repeat the same symphony about the size of losses that would be endured by any party engaged in a military conflict with Hezbollah. Not only that, but Hezbollah actually mocks the campaign against it and considers it merely a verbal one, which will not be accompanied by any political or military action. The organization is also convinced that any new US sanctions will have no impact on its course. However, the reality is that Hezbollah is not based in a remote island, so they will be affected by the sanctions just as much as the people and the economy of Lebanon will be. These fears are a threat to the political settlement in the country, which is enduring setbacks every day.
It is also difficult to imagine the future of Lebanon, Syria and the region in general in light of current facts. The future governance of Syria is not simple at all. The Assad regime managed to gain control with the help of Iran on the ground and Russia in the air. So how will Syria be ruled under this equation? Will Hezbollah fall back to Lebanon? What are the implications for the future of the Syrian people according to the Iranian perspective? What will Israel’s stance be when it has clear plans to present to Moscow and Washington regarding Syria’s future? The current situation in Syria imposes Iranian influence on Syrian-Israeli borders, and it is well known that Tel Aviv will not accept that for long.
All these factors will keep the victory of Syria’s Tehran-Moscow axis waiting, and the doors of war open. No indicators can help us predict what’s better, but Bashar Assad’s regime will not be able to rule Syria alone. Besides, having partners such as Moscow and Tehran raises the question: Will the direct presence of Tehran on the ground and Moscow in the air be permanent?
It is hard to see what Hezbollah’s role would be in the future of Syria, which makes the American escalation against the organization seem like a step toward something bigger that will address the regional situation, which is preparing for a new round of confrontation.
Source: arabnews.com/node/1179791
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Anger and Confrontation Will Not Help the Palestinian Cause
By Ray Hanania
19 October 2017
Among the first two people who recruited me to activism after I completed military service in the Vietnam War were the Palestinian scholar Ibrahim Abu-Lughod and the Egyptian scholar M. Cherif Bassiouni. They were formidable and brilliant role models for a young Palestinian trying to work out how best to help his people.
Abu-Lughod wrote the only book worth reading about the Palestine conflict, “The Transformation of Palestine,” while Bassiouni was instrumental in defining Arab civil rights and was the chief architect of the International Criminal Court.
Both men gave voice to the growing American Palestinian movement. Abu-Lughod later retired as a professor at Bir Zeit University and Bassiouni continued to pursue a celebrated career in international law.
They shared a fundamental approach to the Palestine-Israel conflict many activists ignore: You cannot achieve 100 percent. What you can do is achieve what you can, have respect for the truth, and then build the foundation to achieve more.
When Abu-Lughod asked me to become involved in fighting for Palestinian justice, becoming the spokesman for the Arab American Congress for Palestine, I couldn’t say no. I wanted to be a doctor, like several relatives, but with Abu-Lughod’s guidance I pursued communications and journalism, two skills lacking in our community.
It was through Abu-Lughod that I understood the challenges Palestinians faced in America. Anger did not work in influencing Americans, he explained. It distorted our cause and was often mischaracterized as hate. Palestinians don’t hate Jews. But their anger over Israel’s atrocities can be so intense it appears like hate.
Abu-Lughod believed Palestinians needed to establish common ground with mainstream Americans. We needed to make a strong connection. A bond. In America, “perception is reality,” he would often explain.
That became my mantra. The solution was clear. Change perceptions and change American foreign policy. Our cause needed to look like “their” cause.
Americans would listen to a Palestinian activist who looked like them, sounded like them and didn’t just speak “English,” but spoke “American.”
It was a decision by my father, George. Dad insisted I learn English, not Arabic, even though for the first decade of my life, my mother, Georgette, often spoke only Arabic to me. That made me as American as everyone else. It made the message I conveyed more effective in connecting with the American sense of fairness and justice. I wrote hundreds of Letters to Editors complaining about biased, inaccurate coverage.
The idea of perception was so strong, Abu-Lughod selected me to publicly debate key Israeli figures, including Foreign Minister Abba Eban on national TV when I was only 22.
Bassiouni taught me success is often built from failure. In other words, people who are successful often became successful by acknowledging and understanding their failures. If you ignore your failures — pretending they never happened — you are doomed to live in those failures for ever.
I ended up going into journalism as a profession on the basis of those lessons. Bassiouni was one of my first major interviews.
He also believed Palestinians needed to become more “American” in order to influence Americans. We had to establish that bond of understanding and support by building that friendship.
I quickly discovered Palestinians often can’t break free of their anger. Instead of pursuing solutions, we pursue punishment. We want to punish Israel. Recognizing failure is foreign to our culture. Pride is more important than doing what needs to be done.
When Americans look at Palestinians, they see anger. They see foreigners. They see the image painted by Israel. We feed into that false image with our anger and by acting “foreign.” Palestinians in America were pushed into a stereotype painted by racist Hollywood movies and an American news media driven by Israeli propaganda. Palestinians were made to look bad. And we helped that process through our anger, our frustrations, and by failing to connect with Americans.
Compromise is an essential aspect of victory. Rejecting compromise leaves only two outcomes, victory or defeat. Arabs can’t achieve victory, so we learn to live in defeat.
Even to this day, many argue that the American people are slaves to Israeli propaganda, and yet they don’t think it’s important to create a propaganda of our own to counter Israel’s and change the perception of Americans.
“Just give them the truth,” I am told by activists who then dive into an angry and endless denunciation of Israel’s crimes, which are many. But maybe they are too many for Americans to clearly see.
Both men died Abu-Lughod in May 2001 and Bassiouni only last month. The logic they espoused is absent from many of today’s activists who believe they can force Americans to see the truth through confrontation, protests and attacks rather than through effective strategic communications and compromise as persuasion.
They used to refer to the “wandering Jew.” But I think that label has been taken over by Palestinians. We have no leaders advocating professional communications or clever messaging as strategies to win over American public support.
In fact, many Palestinians and Arabs believe it is a waste of time to lobby Americans, even though they often complain about all the support America gives Israel in terms of money and politics.
It might explain why this conflict has gone on for so long. As a reminder of how long it has been, next month we will mark the 100th anniversary of the Balfour Declaration. With no real leaders in America, Palestine is more enslaved today than it ever was.
Source: arabnews.com/node/1179786
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Are Iranian People Aligned With US National Interests?
By Hamid Bahrami
18 October 2017
Following a week of political roller coaster, doubts and strategic calculations, the US foreign policy team unveiled its new policy on Iran and measures to address the catastrophic nuclear deal, better known as the JCPOA.
During a 20-minute speech on 13 October, President Trump laid out the major points of this new policy, which include the decertification of the JCPOA and designation of Iran’s Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps (IRGC) pursuant to the global terrorism Executive Order (E.O.) 13224.
Aside from decertifying the nuclear deal, the announcement of President Trump marks a major policy change that effectively ends the two-decades long failed policy of appeasement against Iranian regime and its malignant role in four corners of the world.
In 1997, in order to satisfy Tehran’s ruling theocracy, the then President Clinton designated Iran’s main opposition group, the PMOI/MEK as a Foreign Terrorist Organization. This decision helped regime to spread its hegemony and terrorism around the Middle East and the world under the pretext of “Dialogue between Civilizations”.
Now, the US policy has shifted to cut the regime’s tentacles and protect the US, its allies and their interests in the region. Immediately after President Trump’s speech, the EU expressed its concern over the US abandoning the JCPOA.
On the other hand, Israel and Saudi Arabia welcomed the new policy toward Tehran. The Iranian society and community abroad for their parts looked for the reactions on the announcement, first from the regime itself and second from the main Iranian opposition movement, the National Council of Resistance of Iran (NCRI).
A few hours after President Trump’s speech, the Iranian citizens witnessed the so-called moderate President Hassan Rouhani’s twitchy eyes while he read his statement which was full of deceptive lies and obvious contradictions.
End Of The Appeasement Era
Although, expressing support for the NCRI is punishable by death in Iran as the regime cracks down on popular dissent, a majority of Iranian social media users shared the statement by NCRI’s President-elect Maryam Rajavi as she welcomed “the end of the appeasement era.”
Indeed, the Iranian people always welcome any increased pressure on the Iranian regime and specifically its brutal paramilitary force, the IRGC, which plays a key role in suppression of civil society. Furthermore, the IRGC is the main force behind the crippling economic corruption, which have sparked thousands of popular anti-regime protests around the country during the last few months.
The designation of IRGC as Specially Designated Global Terrorists (SDGTs) will not only affect the regime’s vital arteries but also break the ubiquitous repression and atmosphere of fear in Iran.
To uproot the cancer that is the IRGC, the US should concentrate its efforts inside Iran. Nearly all of Iran’s financial systems are in IRGC’s hands, which it utilizes to fund and arm terrorist groups, with the full knowledge of the Rouhani government that earlier this year decided to increase its budget.
Hence, all companies and countries that trade with any section of the regime are practically risking to fund and engage with the IRGC.
Anti-Regime Protests
Today, there is a significant growth of anti-regime protests across Iran, most of them related to economic and civic demands. Considering that the Iranian people are just weighing opportunities to overthrow the entire regime, it will be helpful if the US highlights human rights issues and recognizes the Iranian Resistance movement, the NCRI.
Following these actions, the IRGC will get stuck in a domestic crisis and consequently expelling it from the region will be less expensive. The theocracy in Tehran will try to bypass sanctions and strengthen its capabilities by exploiting the lack of a coherent Iran strategy between the US and the EU.
Also read: Key US Republican says Trump must work with Europe on Iran
Indeed, the regime has consistently prolonged its grip on power by capitalizing on international conflicts, especially disagreements between Western democracies and its allies.
In this regard, one must ask the EU countries and European leaders why they are so eager to appease a corrupt regime in Tehran that has no future and that only survives by persecuting its own people and spreading terrorism and Islamic fundamentalism.
What is obvious, both the US and the Iranian people’s national interests are aligned and the EU should know that dictators will not last forever.
Source: english.alarabiya.net/en/views/news/middle-east/2017/10/18/Are-Iranian-people-aligned-with-US-national-interests-.html
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Balanced Words And A Clear Vision
By Mashari Althaydi
18 October 2017
I recently read a useful and rather unique article by Saudi writer and researcher Kamel al-Khati, the son of one of the most famous traditional Shiite clerics in eastern Saudi Arabia, the late Sheikh Abdul Hamid al-Khati.
In his article, Kamel – a man I know to be wise – describes and analyzes a secular scientific trend. As far as I know, this man has never experienced an Islamicised Shiite faction of any sort. Published in Saudi newspaper Okaz, Kamel’s article was titled “Hezbollah and Arab Shiites in Gulf states.”
A part of the article said: “I recall an incident I witnessed myself in late 1979. In that year, one of the al-Husseini rostrum khatibs [people who deliver a religious sermon] in Qatif warned his listeners not to respond to Khomeini's call for exporting his Islamic revolution. The khatib warned his listeners that Khomeini and his colleagues were leading a state with interests that may clash with interests of those of countries that Shiite Arabs hold an identity to.”
Speaking on the Khatib’s struggle Kamel wrote: “This Khatib referred to here, was one of the dignitaries of his city. He was characterized with chivalry and a sense of honour. This khatib was subjected to social ostracism after saying his opinion on Khomeiniism … a rumor spread about him regarding a story about Khomeini and Ben-Gurion.”
The writer focuses on the Imam’s Line movement or the movement of those who follow the Imam’s approach. This movement is closely linked to the Khomeini center in Iran. The most trained and organized factions operate under Hezbollah’s name in places such as Hezbollah al-Hejaz, Kuwait Hezbollah and Iraq Hezbollah.
Kamel gives interesting details with a refined analytical spirit. He concludes with the following: “I claim that if you study the distribution of political loyalties in Shiite communities in Gulf states accurately, the statistical result will not be in Iran’s favor.”
Social Belonging
This is one of the rare articles that bring out an individual with a deep social belonging to the Saudi Shiite component with such independence, transparency and depth.
At the intellectual Shiite Khaliji level, such independent scientific approaches are rare. Perhaps Kuwaiti Khalil Ali Haidar was among the rare. A topic which requires further studies and research, for scientific and ethical purposes, is to identify the land we stand on, without getting involved in sectarian debates.
In Kuwait, there is a useful study, which assumes a journalistic approach written by researcher Falah al-Mdaires on Kuwait’s Shiites. In Saudi Arabia, a book by two Saudi Shiites, Mohammed al-Sadiq and Badr al-Ibrahim, called “Al Hirak Al Sheii” [meaning The Shiite Movement] was issued during the Arab Spring. Despite its political nature, its a worthy read.
The point of saying all of this, after commending Kamel’s article, is to demand more of the new and beneficial for a clearer vision and a more rational mind.
Source: english.alarabiya.net/en/views/news/middle-east/2017/10/18/Balanced-words.html
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To Succeed, US Needs to Rediscover Itself as A ‘Smart Power’ Country
By Dr. Naif Alotaibi
18 October 2017
After the Second World War, the Cold War era between the US and the USSR lasted four decades and ended with the total collapse and dismantling of the Soviet Union in 1991. This epic confrontation between America and the Soviet Union was a new kind of war with no armies or battles. Instead, the tools of ‘Soft Power’ were the dominant force in the US and gave them the upper hand in the war and eventually led for them to win.
In the 1990s, Harvard professor Joseph Nye coined a new term ‘Soft Power’. He wrote several books describing the American use of power in its policies and all the different variables involved, and he made a prediction about America’s power in many of his books. He warned that the US’s ‘soft power’ will be eliminated by the Iraqi and Afghan war and predicted that the US’s ‘soft power” will be transferred from the West to the East with the rise of Asian ‘soft power’ in China and India.
In this article, I will discuss the nature of the use of ‘soft power’ and how the US utilized it in its foreign policy during the eras of George W. Bush, Obama and Donald Trump; and how the administrations have variously used ‘hard power’, ‘soft power’ and ‘smart power.’
Bush and Use Of Hard Power
During the administration of George W. Bush, and after the 9/11 attacks, the US used its hard power - the US military - to avenge its fallen victims.
They began with Al-Qaeda’s stronghold of Afghanistan to catch Bin-Laden. They occupied the country and destroyed the Taliban. Nevertheless, they did not stop there, but soon after invaded Iraq to destroy Saddam Hussein and his regime, although they failed to prove that Iraq had weapons of mass destruction and they also failed to find a connection between the Iraqi regime and Al-Qaeda.
During these wars, Bush used fancy terms like: ‘the axis of evil’ and ‘it’s a crusade’…etc. This was a way to win over public opinion inside the US and ensure their support for his wars.
These wars certainly did not bring democracy to these countries but turned the two countries into failed states (‘sectarian war’ was the term to describe the civil wars in these countries). Furthermore, the Iraqi war bill exceeded one trillion dollars.
After these wars, the US lost its image and popularity around the world and one poll showed that in more than 37 countries, there was a deep decline in US popularity, and that the majority of Europeans felt that the world became more dangerous after the Iraqi war. American culture and values, once believed to be one of the best in the world, were under threat. As a result, it can be said that during the Bush era, American soft power was dramatically eroded.
Joseph Nye described these wars: “They were a great show of force but they didn’t protect the US or make it immune to terror attacks.”
The Obama Period
“Depending only on our hard power to achieve our foreign policy goals is not practical anymore and it’s too expensive,” Joseph Nye observes.
Using the military force as a solution for conflicts had a big impact on the new American president. He had a lot of challenges to tackle; and one of them was the huge budget deficit that had accumulated since 2003 due to the Iraqi war. Another challenge was the problem with real estate mortgages in 2008.
The way Obama dealt with all these challenges was to depend on the US’s ‘soft power’. His methods were clearly felt around the globe in the more moderate US policies towards Iraq. For example, he pulled out the majority of US troops and kept only a small force to train the new Iraqi army. He liked diplomatic solutions to conflicts and did not rely much on the US army to solve conflicts.
During Obama’s era, new superpowers were on the rise. Notably, China and especially Russia, who reintroduced itself into the international theatre through its military intervention in Syria supporting Assad’s regime.
John Brennan, Obama’s advisor said: “We will use ‘soft power’, diplomatic and economic power to defeat the extremist methods that were never used by the Bush administration.”
One indicator showing the Obama administration’s interest in ‘soft power’, was that a control room (situation room) was named the Soft Power Control Operations Room. Obama used the strategy of transforming competitors into partners, and taking into account their lack of superiority over America.
He preferred diplomatic solutions and negotiations to deal with the Iranian nuclear threat, which infuriated US allies in the Middle East. He was the first US president since 1979 to address the Iranian people directly and to use terms such as the “the Islamic republic” rather than “the Iranian regime.”
After the Arab Spring, Obama tried to contain the Islamic organizations that won the elections in the Arab world. He also promised to close Guantanamo prison and to stop torturing terrorist suspects. It should be noted, however, that those promises were not fulfilled.
In conclusion, we could say that Obama’s strategy in using soft power in a lot of crises, especially the Syrian one, was a big mistake and it failed to bring down the Syrian regime. It even gave Russia a political gain in Syria and the Arab region. Obama was reluctant to use the military to bring down Assad, although the Syrian President was using chemical weapons against his own people.
Trump and ‘Smart Power'
In 2017, President Trump arrived in the White House and he had one big promise in his campaign: making America great again. The Republican Party and Trump want to bring back the old American image as the sole super power in the world, and they think that Obama’s policies gave the US a weak image.
In his book ‘The Future of Power’, Joseph Nye thinks that economic power is the most important tool in a ‘smart power’ structured organization. Maybe, that is why we would like to see Trump as a successful businessman, rather than a politician or a political party leader.
In the same book, Nye gives an advice to his country: “if the US wishes to succeed in the 21st Century it needs to rediscover itself as a ‘smart power’ country.”
It is a little early to know what kind of force or power Trump is going to use; although it is predicted he will use a combination of the two (hard and soft power) or as it is also called- ‘smart power’, the first indications show Trump threatening to use power in parallel with negotiation and diplomacy.
Source; english.alarabiya.net/en/views/news/world/2017/10/18/-To-succeed-US-needs-to-rediscover-itself-as-a-smart-power-country.html
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URL: https://www.newageislam.com/middle-east-press/is-aung-san-suu-kyi/d/112934