Obama’s Problem from Hell: New Age Islam's Selection, 26 September 2016
New Age Islam Edit Bureau
26 September 2016
• Obama’s Problem from Hell
By Hisham Melhem
• Need For a New Palestine Policy
By Seema Sengupta
• $38 Bln Can Buy Lots Of Weapons, But Can It Ensure Security?
By Yossi Mekelberg
• Donald Trump, False Claims Are Still Lies
By Andrew Mitrovica
• Making Sense of the Recent Tension in Western Sahara
By Samir Bennis
Compiled By New Age Islam Edit Bureau
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Obama’s Problem from Hell
By Hisham Melhem
25 September 2016
President Obama has written off the war in Syria as somebody else’s problem from hell, refusing to admit that by his sins of commission and omission he did in fact help open the gates of hell to engulf millions of Syrians. Obama’s approach to Syria this week was exposed for the moral vacuity and naked impotence that it truly is. He may have proudly told the assembled leaders of the world at the United Nations about his diplomatic achievements, among them the Iran nuclear deal, but he did not mention that his non-intervention in Syria was part of his Faustian bargain with Iran, or that his abandonment of those moderate Syrian rebels who wanted to overthrow the tyranny of the Assad regime was the price of his budding partnership with Russia. On the same day Obama was lecturing other leaders that “wars like the savagery in Syria must be brought to an end and it will be brought to an end through political settlement and diplomacy, and not simply by bombing,” the UN and relief agencies suspended all humanitarian convoys in Syria following the barbarity reportedly displayed by Russia’s Air Force when it bombed a UN humanitarian relief convoy on its way to the besieged neighbourhoods of Aleppo (although Moscow has denied the strike). What makes this flagrant violation of International Law so jarring is that it took place during what was supposed to be the initial testing period of the Cessation of Hostilities (CoH) agreement reached earlier this month in Geneva between Secretary of US State John Kerry and his Russian counterpart Sergey Lavrov.
Forsaken Aleppo
In his long (5,627 words) address to the United Nations General Assembly, Obama, to his eternal shame, did not mention Aleppo once. When Libertarian candidate Gary Johnson asked “what is Aleppo?” he was displaying his ignorance. When Obama avoids mentioning Aleppo he does that out of embarrassment and, yes, malice because he keeps dissembling about his real intentions and always besmirches and distorts the views and alternative proposals of his critics, claiming dishonestly that they wanted him to invade Syria or engage in bombings campaigns without a diplomatic component. Obama made two fleeting references in Syria to justify his policy of leaving the Syrian people under the tender mercy of the depredations of the Assad-Russia-Iran axis. Once again Obama went back to the canard of the “ancient hatreds” mantra, claiming that “no external power is going to be able to force different religious communities or ethnic communities to coexist for long.” In Syria, he intoned, “I do believe we have to be honest about the nature of these conflicts.” Keeping with his now worn out habit of selective pacifism in Syria, Obama said “in a place like Syria, where there is no ultimate military victory to be won, we are going to have to pursue the hard work of diplomacy that aims to stop the violence, and deliver aid to those in need.” Yet in the same breath Obama brandished his sword in the form of massive bombings of ISIS, an enemy that Assad’s atrocities and Obama’s dithering created the environment for. Obama sees “a military component” in being “united and relentless in destroying networks like [ISIS]...”
It was a week of carnage in Aleppo and other parts of Syria, another week of grand speeches by President Obama and Secretary Kerry, another week of Russian barbarism on the ground in Syria and Orwellian exercises at the United Nations
President Obama, who has subcontracted Syria with all of its thorns to John Kerry - his peripatetic, loquacious secretary of state (the Dr. Pangloss of American diplomacy), did not have Syria on his mind in his discussions with world leaders. By the end of the week, besieged Aleppo was relentlessly attacked by Russian and Syrian bombers killing and wounding hundreds of civilians and still Obama refuses to utter Aleppo’s name publicly to at least shame Russia, since no one expects him after all these years to extract a price for mass murder from the Assad regime, Russia, or Iran and its killer militias.
Haunted By the Ghosts of Syria
In a moment of rare public candour about Syria, Obama confided in historian Doris Kearns Goodwin that the situation in Syria “haunts me constantly” and that he wonders sometimes “what might I have done differently along the course of the last five, six years.” But then Obama quickly returns to his true form - to his denial of moral and political responsibility for the abandonment of the Syrian people. In fact he goes full throttle, saying “the conventional arguments about what could have been done are wrong. The notion that if we had provided some more modest arms to Syrian rebels—that somehow that would have led to Assad’s overthrow more decisively. The notion that if I had taken a pinprick strike when the chemical-weapons issue came out, as opposed to negotiating and getting all those chemical weapons out - that that would have been decisive. All those things I tend to be sceptical about,” he said in the interview published midweek in Vanity Fair. But, since Obama was talking with a historian, the professor in him sprung up to defend his record. “But I do ask myself, was there something that we hadn’t thought of? Was there some move that is beyond what was being presented to me that maybe a Churchill could have seen, or an Eisenhower might have figured out?”
Both President Obama and Secretary Kerry spoke about the need to help Syrian refugees and to stop the killing of civilians, but both of them lacked the powerful righteous passion to convince friends and foes alike that their moral indignation will lead them to act on their moral outrage. Obama said that if we “avert our eyes or turn our backs” on refugees “I believe history will judge us harshly if we do not rise to this moment.” Well Mr. President, history has already rendered its harsh judgement on you because you did avert your eyes and turned your back not only on the refugees but on a half million Syrian dead, the tens of thousands who disappeared in Assad’s prisons, on burning Aleppo, pulverized Homs and shattered Hama. Yes, America is generous in providing food and medicine to the refugees, but great powers do much more when they lead decisively.
What cannot be forgotten or forgiven is the fact that even if peace is restored, it will be impossible to restore the human and cultural allure and richness of Aleppo, its diversity and artistic legacies. There aren’t many cities in the ancient and modern worlds that were at one time or another unique to Jews, Christians and Muslims like Aleppo. In Aleppo there are literally layers after layers of civilizations from time immemorial; Aleppo, before its destruction was OUR city. Great cities rarely belonged to one people. Alexandria was not destroyed physically, but the once cosmopolitan jewel on the Mediterranean has been shrivelling ever since it lost that rich human mosaic tapestry that made its once elegant streets babel of Arabic, French, English, Hebrew, Italian, Greek, Turkish and Armenian sounds and sights. In terms of geography, Alexandria is still on the Mediterranean, but in reality it has become a desolate city in the hinterland. There are many ways to sack great cities.
A Moment Of Truth
On Wednesday, during a session on Syria at the UN, both the US and Russia blamed each other for the collapse of the Cessation of Hostilities agreement, with Foreign Minister Lavrov providing a crude version of Orwellian deceptions and doublespeak about the various scenarios explaining the destruction of the aid convoy to deny Russian culpability. This led a clearly frustrated Kerry to say “I listened to my colleague from Russia and I sort of felt a little bit like they’re sort of in a parallel universe here.” Then he added ominously “now, those who believe the crisis in Syria cannot become even worse are dead wrong, as are those who believe that a military victory is possible. This could be like Carthage with the Romans, if you call that a victory.” But incredibly, Kerry kept appealing to the non-existing better angels of Putin and Lavrov, hoping to restore “the plan announced in Geneva,” which includes in its second phase the establishment of a centre in Jordan to coordinate joint attacks against ISIS and the al-Nusra Front. That would involve the “sharing” of intelligence and information with the Russians. The scene was surreal. Here you have the secretary of the United States still pushing for US-Russian joint attacks against terrorists in Syria and working with the same Air Force that is killing Syrian civilians and allegedly destroying humanitarian convoys. This was a display of embarrassing impotence. Once again the US was admitting that it is Russia, since the deployment of its Air Force into Syria a year ago, and not the US, that has been calling the shots, politically and militarily, in the Syrian theatre. Kerry was pursuing this Chimera while the Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff Marine General Joseph Dunford was telling Congress “I do not believe it would be a good idea to share intelligence with the Russians.”
Later on, Kerry said that the situation in Syria represents a “moment of truth” for President Putin, for the Syrian opposition and those who support it and “a moment of truth for the international community too.” One would have liked Kerry to admit that this is a moment of truth for the Obama administration first and foremost. Towards the end of the week, with Russia and the Assad regime literally pulverizing the besieged neighbourhoods of Aleppo, an indignant Kerry returned to pleading and chest beating; “what is happening in Aleppo today is unacceptable. It is beyond the pale.” But what does that means after Kerry and President Obama have been saying for years that there is no military options or solution to the war in Syria? We still remember Kerry’s infamous description of the military strike against Assad’s force in 2013 over the use of Chemical Weapons that Obama promised and then reneged on; Kerry assured Assad and Putin the attack will be “unbelievably small.” Simply put. the Obama administration deprived itself of serious military leverage in Syria.
It was a week of carnage in Aleppo and other parts of Syria, another week of grand speeches by President Obama and Secretary Kerry, another week of Russian barbarism on the ground in Syria and Orwellian exercises at the United Nations. One would hope that the ghosts of Aleppo for many years to come will haunt all those who made Syria a problem from hell.
Source: english.alarabiya.net/en/views/2016/09/25/Obama-s-problem-from-hell.html
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Need For a New Palestine Policy
By Seema Sengupta
26 September 2016
A grand conference on the vexed Palestinian issue was recently organized in New Delhi to highlight the plight of the occupied people enduring 60 years of non-stop brutality.
The Jamia Millia Islamia, an educational institution whose emergence was a landmark in the history of Indian education, collaborated with a media organization to bring together prominent faces from the world of academics, politics and activism to try and persuade the international community and the Indian leadership, in particular, to act in a manner that hastens the formation of a sovereign and independent state of Palestine, which is territorially contiguous as well.
Very fittingly, seminar speakers recalled the contribution of Maulana Mohammad Ali Jauhar, one of the founder members of Jamia and its first vice chancellor, in the struggle to achieve a just peace for Palestine.
Jauhar, who in the words of H.G. Wells “possessed the pen of Macaulay, the tongue of Burke and the heart of Napoleon” was held in such high esteem by the Palestinians that Jerusalem’s Grand Mufti Amin Al-Husseini not only gave him the honour of a final resting place in Masjid Al-Aqsa’s holy campus, but, most importantly, the funeral procession through Arab lands was lined with delegations holding placards, acknowledging Jauhar’s unflinching support to their cause.
Jauhar was so passionate about the rights of Palestinians to have an independent homeland that he did not even hesitate to confront the British government and other western powers. And this very sentiment is shared by a large majority of Indians, because of the country’s role in global decolonization efforts and fight against apartheid.
In fact, during the course of history, both India and Palestine shared common ground, especially during India’s freedom movement, when Indian freedom fighters discovered great similarities between their own struggle for self-determination and the Palestinians’ demand for a self-governed homeland.
Being leaders of a moral struggle based upon mass politics and movements, both Mahatma Gandhi and Jawaharlal Nehru recognized the importance of issues of justice and morality and the need for India to stand for it unequivocally.
Even Subhas Chandra Bose, known for his proximity to Hitler’s Germany, was critical of the contradictory and inconsistent policy of the British in Palestine, which has ultimately led to the current impasse. Indeed, Bose, very accurately pinpointed the fallacy of Britain’s policy of trying to keep both the Jews and Palestinians satisfied simultaneously, knowing fully well that one foot cannot stand on two boats.
That precisely was the reason why Gandhi was critical of the Jewish leadership and wrote in 1946 — two years prior to the foundation of the Israeli state — “they have erred grievously in seeking to impose themselves on Palestine with the aid of America and Britain and now with the aid of naked terrorism.”
As Nehru’s niece Nayantara Sehgal very eloquently summed up the British design, “locating Israel on Biblical terrain had less to do with sympathy for Zionist sentiments than Britain’s need for a European ally in West Asia to safeguard the Suez Canal route to India.”
The British knack of promising contradictory things to different parties made Nehru urge the Arab and Jewish delegates of Palestine, attending the 1947 Asian Relations Conference, to live within a single democratic structure with an autonomous framework for the Jewish areas or else there will be a drastic reversal of scenario in the future.
Today, history has proven Nehru’s prophecy to be correct with Palestinians merely enjoying restricted autonomy in West Bank and Gaza strip. In his keynote address, Professor Arshi Khan of Aligarh Muslim University rightly observed that Palestine is recognized by many nations as a state but in reality it is not a state because a modern state is a constitutional entity, which enjoys sovereignty and recognized borders.
Even under Oslo, Israel continues to control over 60 percent of West Bank and maintains a blockade of Gaza since 2006.” Now that much water has flowed under the bridge, there is no alternative to a two nation solution — all the more so because a free state of Palestine will remain mortgaged to western donors for survival, in the absence of a self-sustaining economy or manufacturing strength.
Perhaps, it is time for the friends of Palestine, especially those in the Arab world, to come up with innovative ideas for economic emancipation of beleaguered Palestinian youths.
Building up the Palestinian economy from scratch and encouraging skill development among Palestinians through especially designed programs organized in neighbouring Arab states should be the immediate priority. Yes, no economy can flourish under occupation and barriers and as expected the much publicized idea of turning the Gaza strip and West Bank into the Singapore and Malaysia of the Middle East, floated during those feel-good days of the Oslo Accord, did not fructify.
The Israeli crave for peace and stability to realize their country’s full economic potential and Palestinian dream of achieving economic prosperity in a free environment can create favorable atmosphere for brokering a genuine breakthrough in a protracted political dispute. And India can help create an independent Palestinian state with East Jerusalem as its capital by leveraging her newfound proximity to Israel.
More than anybody else, the Arab world, including Palestinians, would ideally want New Delhi to abandon its apparently non-prescriptive and non-judgmental foreign policy stand vis-à-vis West Asian geopolitics and persuade its second largest arms supplier to end its occupation of the Palestinian Arab territories, seized in 1967, by dismantling the illegal settlements for ushering a new dawn in the Middle East.
Source: arabnews.com/node/989761/columns
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$38 bln Can Buy Lots of Weapons, But Can It Ensure Security?
By Yossi Mekelberg
25 September 2016
For a moment during the celebratory ceremony in which and the United States and Israel signed a new Memorandum of Understanding (MOU) to provide Israel with $38 billion in American aid for a further 10 years, it was almost possible to ignore that the relations between the administrations in Washington and Jerusalem are at one of their lowest ebbs. The low key ceremony was a good indication of the lacklustre Obama-Netanyahu relations. It prompted many expressions of bewilderment as to why an American administration in its dying days felt the need to sign such a deal with an Israeli government that it holds responsible for attempting to spoil the Iran nuclear deal, playing a major part in derailing the peace process with the Palestinians and generally interfering in American domestic politics.
Negotiations for this deal were prickly to say the least, as both sides were unsure whether this was the most favourable timing or best terms that could be concluded in the current circumstances. Israel was requesting $45 billion for the ten year (2019-2028) duration of this deal, a major increase from the current military aid it receives of $3.1 billion. Signing now indicates that the Netanyahu government was far from convinced that the next occupant of the White House will be more susceptive to Israeli demands. Despite the various accusations against President Obama by elements close to Netanyahu, as not being supportive of Israel, it becomes obvious that Israel would prefer not to wait on the election of either the extremely unpredictable Donald Trump or Hillary Clinton, who may prove to be a way tougher negotiator.
President Obama was presented with a tough dilemma of ensuring what his administration perceives as the long-term military needs of a close ally, without rewarding and strengthening a government and its policies that are seen as both damaging to US as much as Israeli interests. Obviously there is no easy formula to resolve the two and the US opted to separate between the two, but are they separable?
In Obama’s words this agreement, which is unprecedented in its generosity, would “make a significant contribution to Israel’s security in what remains a dangerous neighbourhood.” However, he hastened to add that because of this very commitment to Israel and its long-term security, “we will also continue to press for a two-state solution to the longstanding Israeli-Palestinian conflict, despite the deeply troubling trends on the ground that undermine this goal.” His critics would argue that the commitment to Israeli security in terms of providing it with the most sophisticated weapons is never questionable, however, US investment in reaching a peace agreement, based on a two-state solution that provides security to both Israelis and Palestinians, is always more hesitant.
Improved Deal
The Israeli prime minister and his advisors made a concerted effort to portray the new deal as a great improvement over the previous one. The accurate math of the agreement indicates that, at best, Israel gained an extra $200 million a year. For a number of years Congress supplemented the military aid with a further $500 million for the development of missile defence. In addition, the Israeli government accompanied the MOU with a signed letter pledging to give back any additional money that Congress appropriates, which nullifies any Israeli efforts to circumvent a future administration by appealing for more funds through the American legislative branch.
Obama has firsthand, and bitter, experience on how the Israeli government operates on Capitol Hill, very effectively playing Congress against the president in advancing its own interests
Obama has firsthand, and bitter, experience on how the Israeli government operates on Capitol Hill, very effectively playing Congress against the president in advancing its own interests. In extracting this promise from Israel, he did a big favor to next president in reducing Israel’s room to maneuver, at least on the military aid front. However, the biggest concession that Israel was made to agree to was a phasing out of a special long-standing arrangement that permitted Israel to use just above 26 percent of the American aid on its own defence industry, instead of purchasing American-made weapons.
This is a considerable hit to the Israeli arms industry and may affect its role in the Israeli economy and its technological edge. Still, the level of aid guarantees that the Israeli air, sea and ground forces will maintain the country’s superiority against any threat, including the one potentially posed by Iran, which Israeli strategists presently see as the most likely one.
Prime Minister Netanyahu was criticized for signing the MoU both in Israel and in the United States. His critics in Israel, including his former Defence Minister Ehud Barak, say that had he been more level-headed in his dealings with Obama, Israel might have ended with the initially requested figure of $45 billion. In Congress, Senator Lyndsey Graham, who oversees the US foreign aid budget, suggested that basically Netanyahu lost his nerve and should have waited until there is a new American administration in place. Graham told Jewish American leaders that Netanyahu “pulled the rug out” from under Israel’s friends in Congress. Both, Barak and Graham, even if they have their own political agenda, may be correct in their observations.
A further question which is bound to be asked is why Obama did not take the opportunity to also press forward with a new peace initiative. This is would have made the US’ ambition to be regarded as an honest broker in the Israeli-Palestinian conflict a bit more credible. Even those who care mainly for the long term well-being of Israel in the region must realize that with the current situation in the MENA region, and definitely in its relations with the Palestinians, the most sophisticated weapons can only provide a partial answer. It even carries the danger of reinforcing the militaristic discourse instead of one that combines military strength with readiness to make the necessary concessions for peace with the Palestinians and consequently with large parts of the region.
Source: english.alarabiya.net/en/views/2016/09/25/-38-bln-can-buy-lots-of-weapons-but-can-it-ensure-security-.html
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Donald Trump, False Claims Are Still Lies
By Andrew Mitrovica
25 Sep 2016
Apparently, Donald Trump and Pinocchio are related … temperamentally speaking.
Arguably, Trump is less mature than the wooden toy boy. What the two cartoonish characters share undeniably, however, is a disagreeable habit of telling demonstrable lies.
Famously, when Pinocchio lies, his nose grows. Still, in the end, the insecure puppet, who yearns to become a real boy, has a life-altering epiphany. Lying, he understands, is futile and, ultimately, self-destructive.
Trump, the human manikin, appears incapable intellectually, perhaps even morally, of doing what Pinocchio belatedly does in Carlo Collodi's timeless fable: that is grow up and stop lying.
Body of Lies
Of course, Trump isn't the first politician to lie about his many adversaries, political or otherwise. But Trump lies with such signature relish and impunity. All the while, his head, rather than his nose, swells as he basks in the notoriety and media-propelled attention generated by his blimp-sized lies.
Trump has lied about opposing the Iraq invasion. For years, he lied about Barrack Obama's birthplace, promoting and giving eager sustenance to the racist myth that the United States' first black president wasn't born there and, as such, isn't an American, nor eligible to be president.
The sinister intent of that sinister lie was to suggest, nudge-wink, that Obama's presidency has been an illegitimate, eight-year-long, unconstitutional canard.
Even when he grudgingly, cryptically retracted that lie last week, Trump compounded the original lie with more lies. He lied when he said that Hillary Clinton was responsible for the noxious "birther" lie and that he, in effect, not only exposed her lie, but put it definitively to rest.
Through much of all the - at times - reality-defying chicanery, Trump's lies went unchallenged by the US establishment media that too often and for too long were content to play the role of willing, enthusiastic courier to the B-list celebrity turned A list-Republican presidential nominee.
The pursuit of fairness, objectivity and balance has repeatedly meant not simply shading the truth, but burying it in a blizzard of weasel words.
Whether paralysed by fear of censure, retribution or exercising - yet again - a near universal deference towards authority, the corporate media has remained stubbornly reluctant to use that direct, one-syllable word lie in connection with Trump's long-standing "bitherism" or his blatant revisionism about the Iraq invasion.
Instead, the Washington Post and other major US news organisations, preferred to use euphemistic symbols like little, cheery-looking drawings of Pinocchio to signify the nature and magnitude of the lies. The bigger the lie, the more Pinocchios it warranted.
Meanwhile, many news reporters opted for carefully calibrated euphemisms like "falsehood" or "false claims" or the oxymoronic "stretching the truth" to presumably soften the blow of using a sharp, uncomfortable word like lie.
The pursuit of fairness, objectivity and balance has repeatedly meant not simply shading the truth, but burying it in a blizzard of weasel words.
The Moment of Epiphany
Then, like Pinocchio, the New York Times seemingly experienced an epiphany. Earlier this month, the newspaper ditched the euphemisms in a front-page headline and story about Trump's stage-managed ad for a hotel masquerading as a mea culpa over his career-defining smear of Obama.
"Donald Trump Clung to 'Birther' Lie for Years, and Still isn't Apologetic" the headline read. The accompanying story dissected Trump's lies and assailed what it described as his "relentless deception".
The newspaper's decision finally to call a lie a lie prompted other major corporate media to follow its laudable, if tardy, lead. Indeed, as if liberated from the straitjacket of euphemisms, the most powerful newspaper in the world has since published story after story about Trump and his rhetoric dotted with "lie".
Times executive editor, Dean Baquet, has not only defended using "lie", but now insists the newspaper will continue to use it when the truth demands it. "We have decided to be more direct in calling things out when a candidate actually lies," Baquet said.
A Tardy Realisation
The shame and the irony is that The New York Times failed to adopt the same enlightened editorial attitude in the months and years leading up to the calamitous invasion of Iraq.
By its own admission, the newspaper allowed the thirst for ephemeral scoops to trump (pardon the pun) the truth. "Editors at several levels who should have been challenging reporters and pressing for more scepticism were perhaps too intent on rushing scoops into the paper," the newspaper wrote in a 2004 autopsy of its reporting prior to the invasion.
This failure to challenge and to be more sceptical of the official line and anonymous sources was, with a few notable exceptions, endemic to US corporate media. The result, a flimsy case for war based on a litany of now infamous lies, was peddled by another set of politicians at a not so distant time.
One institutional response to this disreputable history has been the advent - particularly among US print media outlets - of a stable of so-called "fact-checkers", who assess the veracity of statements, claims, charges and counter-charges made by politicians of various political persuasions.
While welcomed, the "fact-checkers" have appeared too preoccupied with shielding themselves from accusations of bias to speak plain, unambiguous truth to power. Hence, their grating penchant for euphemisms.
Hopefully, the sudden outbreak of unapologetic truth-telling will spread and embolden more reporters, editors and news organisations to call a lie a lie not only today, but also tomorrow - whether the lie is uttered by Trump or any other politician.
Source: aljazeera.com/indepth/opinion/2016/09/donald-trump-false-claims-lies-160922090944559.html
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Making Sense of the Recent Tension in Western Sahara
By Samir Bennis
25 Sep 2016
The tension between Morocco and the Polisario has reached a boiling point following Rabat's decision to send armed security personnel to the Guerguerat region at the Morocco-Mauritania border.
On August 15, Moroccan authorities announced that they had sent 10 security forces to fight drug trafficking and smuggling of all kinds of goods.
Polisario reacted immediately by sending two letters to the United Nations secretary-general accusing Morocco of violating the 1991 ceasefire agreement, which ended the 16-year war between Morocco and the Algerian-backed movement.
The UN mission in the Western Sahara, known as MINURSO, said after a preliminary investigation that Rabat had not violated the ceasefire. Still, Polisario sent armed troops and posted them 200 metres from Morocco's gendarmerie.
UN Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon issued a statement on August 28 expressing concern over the current tension "as a result of changes in the status quo and the introduction of armed units from Morocco and the Polisario in close proximity to each other".
Ban Ki-moon tries to broker peace in Western Sahara
Ban's statement was made on the assumption that Morocco had introduced its military into the region.
This assumption was reinforced when the Associated Press published a document submitted to the Security Council accusing both parties of violating the ceasefire.
The "confidential" document said the operation Morocco conducted "was initiated without prior notice to MINURSO, contrary to requirements specified in Military Agreement No 1 of the ceasefire, and with the support of armed security personnel from the Royal Moroccan Gendarmerie."
Following a government cabinet meeting on August 30, Rabat refuted Polisario's allegations. Communication minister and government spokesperson, Mustapha Khalfi, said the operation "takes place because of the danger of insecurity in this region which is witnessing the prevalence of drug trafficking and trade and other illicit practices". Khalfi added that the operation will continue "in coordination with MINURSO".
Conflicting Reports
The discrepancy between the statement issued by the UN chief and Morocco's announcement that it will continue the "cleanup" operation shows not only a clear gap in the definition of what constitutes the Moroccan army, but also that the UN may have been subjected to pressure and manipulation from the Polisario and its supporters.
Immediately after Morocco sent its armed security personnel to the region, the Polisario media accused it of violating the ceasefire.
To make their accusations more credible, they referred to the armed security personnel as "Darak Al Harbi", which can be translated into English as the "gendarmerie of war".
When Morocco sent its gendarmerie to the border crossing, it was precisely because they are entrusted with ensuring public order outside of urban areas and with fighting criminal networks.
This language was used in all news stories run by the Polisario and Algerian media, as well as in the letters the Polisario sent to the UN.
Before concluding that Morocco had violated the ceasefire agreement by introducing its military to the region, the UN should have done a quick research on the legal status of the gendarmerie.
According to Moroccan law, the gendarmerie is an armed force charged with police duties. It is placed under the authority of both the Ministry of Interior and the armed forces, as well as the Ministry of Justice, for which it plays the role of judiciary police.
Its main duties consist not of participating in wars, but of ensuring security and public order throughout the Moroccan territory. As such, in rural areas the gendarmerie play the role that the police play in cities.
Additionally, it is also entrusted with controlling and ensuring the safety of Moroccan roads. The role that Moroccan gendarmerie play is equivalent to the role that the French gendarmerie and the Spanish civil guards play in the French and Spanish territories.
When Morocco sent its gendarmerie to the border crossing, it was precisely because they are entrusted with ensuring public order outside of urban areas and with fighting criminal networks.
What Polisario Aims To Achieve
What points more to the manipulation of the UN or lack of understanding of the status of the gendarmerie is that this is not the first time that Moroccan security forces have entered the region.
Although the UN chief has hinted in previous annual reports to some minor violations, those actions by the gendarmerie neither drew international attention nor Polisario denunciation.
This is primarily because the UN is aware of Morocco's efforts in fighting criminal networks that use the area as their safe haven. And the regional context did not warrant such denunciation from the Polisario.
However, this situation is clearly different, which pushed the Polisario leadership to seize the opportunity to accuse Morocco of not abiding by its international commitments. The Polisario's strategy seeks to obtain three goals.
First, it aims to keep the Western Sahara among the most pressing issues on the UN agenda, especially as the UN General Assembly had just convened last week.
In doing so, the Polisario seeks also to remind the UN of the necessity that MINURSO retrieve full functionality with the return of all its civilian staff.
Second, the group is seeking to sabotage the efforts Morocco has made recently to rejoin the African Union (AU).
The Polisario is aware that such a return might endanger its own membership in the AU, especially after 28 members submitted a motion last July calling for the suspension of Polisario's membership.
It is no coincidence that the Polisario sent an emissary to the AU on September 6 to request its support at the Security Council.
By resorting to the AU, the Polisario seeks to strain its relations with Morocco and hamper the latter's return to the organisation.
And finally, the Polisario wants to reassure the desperate Sahrawis in the camps that it still runs - even after the death of its leader Mohamed Abdelaziz - and that it will resort to war if the international community fails to force Morocco to respect its commitments.
Morocco's Plan
The UN's hasty conclusion that Morocco violated the ceasefire shows a lack of understanding on its part of the legal status of Morocco's different security forces.
Furthermore, it clearly demonstrates that MINURSO personnel are not fully acquainted with the culture, politics and administrative organisation of the country where they are posted.
Morocco has chosen to remain silent in order to not escalate tensions with the UN, especially after it reached an initial agreement to allow the return of MINURSO civilian personnel.
Morocco's strategy is also dictated by the need to avoid giving the current tension an international dimension in the aftermath of the UN General Assembly last week.
Most importantly, the Moroccan government needs to avoid any tension that would push Ban Ki-moon to shun the UN Climate Change Conference, COP22, which will be held in Marrakech in November.
Source: aljazeera.com/indepth/opinion/2016/09/making-sense-tension-western-sahara-160914131548054.html
URL: https://newageislam.com/middle-east-press/obama’s-problem-hell-new-age/d/108668