Showing posts with label Jordan. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Jordan. Show all posts

Monday, August 6, 2012

Jordan's Prime Minister Reads "Rubin Reports" and--guess what--doesn't like it! Plus Palestinian Leader Involved in Corruption Tells Us Culture Doesn't Matter in Undermining Economic Development

Jordan's Prime Minister Reads Rubin Reports and--guess what--doesn't like it!

By Barry Rubin

During a recent dinner in Amman, Jordan's prime minister Prime Minister Fayez Tarawneh talked about me at some length, citing my article on Israel being in a good strategic situation. Apart from the various name-calling, insults, and snorting, he could not refute one point I made. In fact, I think he knows that everything I wrote was true. And that's what scares him and makes him angry.

 What particularly upset him was my point that a Sunni-Shia conflict would displace the Arab-Israeli conflict. Jordan, of course, is caught in the middle, being a Sunni country with a long border to Iraq and fearing Iran, not to mention its border with a Syria still ruled by Iran's ally and nearby Lebanon ruled by Shia Hizballah.

 But I think his attacking me was most unsporting. King Hussein read my articles years ago on a regular basis and I have had excellent relations with some members of the royal family and high-ranking Jordanian officials. I even advocated the Saudis and other oil-producers' plan to let Jordan into the Gulf Cooperation Council (GCC) and give Amman $1 billion. 

Fayez, baby, don't me mad at me for passing along the bad news! And if there's anything I can do to help Jordan not be taken over by either revolutionary Shia Islamists who will want to put you up against a wall and shoot you, Sunni Islamists (most likely the Muslim Brotherhood) who will want to put you up against a wall and shoot you, or al-Qaida which won't even bother with the wall.

Also, we do have a spare guest room and you can be here within three hours by car.

 In a similar vein, my good friend David Gerstman points out that a Palestinian leader given a New York Times op-ed to  attack Mitt Romney for attributing Palestinian economic problems to cultural issues was at the center of a corruption scandal four years ago.

 Mr. Gerstman put it this way:

The other day, the New York Times added the oddest critique to its campaign, Munib Masri's op-ed Occupation not culture, Is holding Palestinians back: 

As one of the most successful businessmen and industrialists in Palestine today (there are many of us), I can tell Mr. Romney without doubt or hesitation that our economy has two arms and one foot tied behind us not by culture but by occupation."
 "It’s hard to succeed, Mr. Romney, when roadblocks, checkpoints and draconian restrictions on the movement of goods and people suffocate our business environment. It is a tribute to the indomitable spirit of our Palestinian culture that we have managed to do so well despite such onerous constraints."

 But as Barry Rubin pointed out four years ago in a column about Masri called None Dare Call in News Coverage 
 “Critics say some of the profits were made possible by a lucrative telecommunications monopoly the company held for several years.”

"We are not told from whence this monopoly came—from the PA. The word corruption is never mentioned. Such a lack of curiosity about the sources of his wealth does not accord with journalistic practices in covering other stories.
"Indeed, the story of the telecommunications monopoly is one of the best-known stories of corruption among Palestinians. How PA and Fatah factions competed over the loot, how Arafat intervened directly into the issue."

In other words if there was an exhibit of the problems Palestinian culture presented to the development of a functioning economy, Munib Masri would be a prime candidate. No doubt the editors of the New York Times don't expect its readers to know Masri's background; maybe they don't either.


To read the article on PJ Media, click here.

Wednesday, December 15, 2010

Making Friends with the Octopus: Jordan Bows to Iran

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By Barry Rubin

Here’s an old joke that applies to the contemporary Middle East. The Lone Ranger was a Western lawman who chased bad guys with his close friend, a Native American named Tonto. One day, they were surrounded by dozens of Native American warriors.

The Lone Ranger turned to Tonto and said, “Don’t worry, old friend! We can fight them off.”

Tonto replied, “What do you mean `we,’ Paleface?”

Or, in other words, if your friend decides he can’t rely on you to get him out of a jam he can always change sides.

Which brings us to Jordan. Let me begin by telling a story I’ve never recounted before. The year is 1990, after Iraq has invaded and seized Kuwait. I’m sitting in a meeting with some high-ranking Jordanian military officers and officials (don’t ask, it’s a long story).

Someone asks what they would do if Iraq’s army appeared on Jordan’s border and Saddam Hussein asked safe passage to attack Israel. Before responding, the highest-ranking Jordanian there leaned over to the man sitting next to him and whispered in Arabic, “Of course, we’d fight them!”

At the time, of course, the Jordanians knew they could depend on their superpower ally, indeed the only country of that type in the world, the United States.

In 2003, of course, Saddam was overthrown. From Jordan’s standpoint, though, he was replaced by Iran as a threat. And just as the Jordanians had wanted and needed American protection from Baghdad now it required that shield to save it from Iran. We already knew this, of course, but the Wikileaks have documented that fact.

Even in 2004, King Abdallah warned Americans about the Iranian threat. According to the State Department cable, Jordanian officials called Iran an “octopus” whose tentacles “reach out insidiously to manipulate, foment, and undermine the best-laid plans of the West and regional moderates.”

According to the Jordanian government, Iran’s “tentacles,” its allies in seizing control of the region and putting into power revolutionary Islamism, are Qatar, Syria, Hizballah, Hamas, and Shia Muslims in Iraq.

Now, however, the king is singing a different tune. In fact, he has just accepted an invitation from Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad to go to Tehran. It is “imperative,” says the king, “to undertake practical steps for improving Jordanian-Iranian relations.”

Why is it that suddenly the king finds this to be so imperative? Because Iran is getting stronger—and may soon have nuclear weapons—and he can’t depend on the United States to protect him. This is one more signal about how “regional moderates” feel about the current situation.

President Barack Obama thinks he’s being nice to “Arabs” and “Muslims.” In fact, he’s being mean to America’s friends. And they will do whatever is necessary to save themselves. If the United States cannot or will not protect them, they find it “imperative” to get in good with its enemies.

Barry Rubin is director of the Global Research in International Affairs (GLORIA) Center and editor of the Middle East Review of International Affairs (MERIA) Journal. His latest books are The Israel-Arab Reader (seventh edition), The Long War for Freedom: The Arab Struggle for Democracy in the Middle East (Wiley), and The Truth About Syria (Palgrave-Macmillan). The website of the GLORIA Center is at http://www.gloria-center.org and of his blog, Rubin Reports, http://www.rubinreports.blogspot.com.

Thursday, May 7, 2009

Not Anti-Israel, Just Anti-Realistic

Welcome to “Middle East classroom.” I’m your host, Barry Rubin, explaining how the region works. Let’s begin today with Salah, that’s Salah Nasrawi of Associated Press. For the purpose of this session, we will assume his article is accurate. It seems to be but let’s just walk through it and see what we can learn.

Ready? Let’s go!

“The Obama administration is trying to build on the shared interest of its Arab allies and Israel in blunting the threat from Iran.”

That sounds good to me. I hope that’s true, though all the emphasis on engaging Iran and Syria doesn’t seem likely to help in that direction.

“As part of the new strategy, Arab diplomats said this week that the U.S. has asked the 22-member Arab League to amend a 2002 peace initiative to make it more palatable to Israel.”

Well, that doesn’t sound too anti-Israel so perhaps the administration isn’t determined to destroy the Jewish state in the next six months.

"`What we are discussing today is a combined approach of bringing together Arabs, Europeans and the United States as a team to create the circumstances over the next several months that allow Israelis and Palestinians to sit at the table, but also with Lebanese, Syrians and Arab nations,’" Jordan's King Abdullah told a news conference in Berlin.”

Hey, everybody! Let’s all get together in a big room and solve the Arab-Israeli conflict! I wonder why the first president Bush didn’t think of that in Madrid, back in 1991? He did? Oh yes, right after winning a huge victory over Iraq and saving the Saudis and Kuwaitis. And we all know how well that worked.

Now, you did say Lebanon, right? That country which in early June will either have Hizballah as a coalition partner or as part of a pro-Iran majority right? Don’t think they’re coming. And Syria, the state that just hosted a huge celebration for the visit of Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad? No doubt, President Bashar al-Assad has a previous engagement that week.

And Libya, with Muammar Qadhafi showing up? And Qatar which has now allied itself with Iran’s regime? And Iraq, which despite hundreds of American soldiers giving their lives for its freedom and democracy won’t take such a risk? And what is Hamas, ruler of the Gaza Strip, going to be doing while this is going on?

“The Obama administration's efforts to start a dialogue with Iran have sent ripples of concern through the capitals of America's closest Arab allies, who accuse Tehran of playing a destabilizing role in the Middle East. In a rare confluence of interests with its Arab neighbors, Israel has also singled out Iran as the greatest threat to stability in the region.”

Great, that’s what I’ve been saying for years. But what is the Obama administration doing: leading this coalition or trying to conciliate with Tehran and Damascus? You can’t have it both ways.

“Arab diplomats say the Americans are pressing Arabs to amend their 2002 peace initiative to make it more acceptable to Israel. The plan — first proposed by Saudi Arabia in 2002 — called for exchange of Arab land occupied by Israel in the 1967 war for normalized relations with Arab countries. Later Arabs added an insistence on the right of Palestinian refugees who lost their homes in Mideast wars to return to what is now Israel.”

Finally, the AP presenting the initiative accurately! By the way,

“Several diplomats, speaking on condition of anonymity because they were not authorized to talk to the media, said the Americans are asking the Arab nations to drop the right of return and agree to either resettle the refugees in the host countries or in the Palestinian territories.”

I don’t think the Palestinian Authority is going to go along with that.

“Arab League Secretary General Amr Moussa said rejected that suggestion. `There is no amendment to this initiative….The question of Iran should be separate from the Arab-Israel conflict,’ Moussa said.”

True, Moussa is a big-mouthed Arab nationalist ideologue but he’s also a good buddy of Egyptian President Husni Mubarak. If Egypt was on board don’t you think that Mubarak would tell Moussa to be quiet?

By the way, Israel isn’t bothered by all of this:

“An Israeli government official welcomed the involvement of the Arab allies in the peace process. `We see a very important role that moderate Arab states, countries like Jordan, Egypt, Saudi Arabia and others can play in the process, in strengthening the peace process. We believe their more direct involvement in the peace process can be positive and can help energize the process of reconciliation between us and the Palestinians….’"

Presumably, Israel can say: Sure, go ahead and try. We're with you on this one. And then if (when) the administration fails, Netanyahu can point out that he was cooperative. And presumably he could ask for some border modifications if (unlikely) all of this came together.

So maybe I’m wrong but here’s what I see:

The Palestinians, Syrians, Lebanese, Sudanese, Qatari, and Libyan leaders all say “no.” Iraq avoids supporting the idea. Egypt favors it but won’t take any risks in doing so. The Saudis won’t buck the consensus and so…it looks like Obama and Abdallah are working closely together, and pretty much alone.

Will the administration look foolish in its plan to settle the conflict real fast? What seems “logical” to people who rip the conflict out of its political context unfortunately doesn’t fit Middle East realities.

One of them is this: the administration assumes the Arab states are eager to solve the conflict. To some extent that’s true, especially for Jordan, a little less so for Saudi Arabia, and a little less than that for Egypt. But they don’t want to take any risks or make any concessions of their own to do so. They cannot, and won’t work too hard, to secure the needed consensus. They make a lot of hay out of the conflict in their internal propaganda. They fear radicals at home will portray them as betrayers. And even the Palestinian Authority won’t give up the demand for everything it wants including the “Right of Return” while offering to give up nothing in return.

These forces hope that if they keep just blaming Israel all the time, they will wear down the Europeans and Americans to give them more and more in return for less and less. And the radicals? They think they are winning and will soon take over additional states. Being intransigent, they think, is a major part of their winning strategy.

Here’s my view. You come into office and say: That George Bush was certainly a bad man. Why hasn’t anyone solved the conflict? Because they haven’t tried hard enough! Everyone wants peace right, or perhaps everyone but Hamas and Iran’s regime. The Palestinian Authority is moderate, isn't it? We’re all on the same side, aren’t we?

So it’s simple, we just get everyone together in a big room and have a nice solution: Israel recognized in its 1967 borders, Palestine an independent state. Gaza um, er, well, something or other will turn up. East Jerusalem, uh well how hard can that be?

So we make peace and everyone says: Wow, that President Obama!  Such a genius; such an irrisistable personality. No one can solve the conflict for more than a half-century and he comes along and fixes it in a few months.

Unfortunately, the Arab world isn't on the same page...of the teleprompter.

The administration’s policy is not so much “anti-Israel” as it is anti-realistic.

Note: This being the Middle East, it is possible that the details above are a Jordanian plant to show how much Amman is contributing to the peace effort and to win Obama's favor. This might be the same alleged new plan which former British Prime Minister Tony Blair has been hinting at.  Whether or not these details are accurate, this analysis shows the profound difficulty in making any progress in the peace process. It is easy for Western politicians and tempting for reporters to blame everything on Netanyahu but then why is there still no solution in the year 2009, and why did the strenuous efforts of Netanyahu's predecessors not result in successful peacemaking?

The key to this apparent paradox is the counterintuitive (for some truth): the Palestinian leadership doesn't want peace but merely unilateral Israeli concessions; Arab regimes either don't want peace or are unwilling to do much or anything to help reach an agreement ending the conflict. All these forces have good material reasons of self-interest for acting as they do.

As both moderates and radicals perceive themselves to be winning the "propaganda war," with Israel blamed for the lack of a solution, they have even less incentive to make peace.

As radicals perceive themselves to be winning the war for control of the region, they have far less incentive to stop their aggression.



.

Wednesday, April 22, 2009

Updated: Obama Talks About His Middle East Policy

See the end of this posting for the Washington Post's hard-hitting reaction to Obama's statement. The title of the Post's editorial says it all:

"Invitation to Appease: Will the Obama administration talk to Iran while it persecutes Americans and libels Israel?"

President Barack Obama met with Jordan’s King Abdallah, Tuesday April 21, and gave some thoughts about his plans for Middle East policy.

First, some background. Jordan has long been a weak but moderate country close to the United States. Nowadays, it has many fears: Syrian subversion; a Palestinian state that has ambitions regarding Jordan’s majority Palestinian population; radical Islamism at home and abroad, growing power of Shia Muslim forces; and Iran.

Given the Arabic-speaking world’s equivalent of political correctness, publicly, it can only either criticize Israel or call for Israeli-Palestinian peace as allegedly the solution to all the region’s problems.
No country in the Middle East is more dependent on U.S. protection and thus the king had to find out whether he could trust Obama to continue this traditional U.S. policy.

Two things emerge in the king’s statement. First, he was so effusive about how wonderful Obama is that it would almost embarrass a pro-Obama American journalist. But he knows what the president wants to hear. Second, he took a moderate path, showing that Obama did not signal him that he wanted to hear something militant about Israel.

Perhaps it is reading too much into what Abdallah said but the last part—about a group of countries—may indicate the desperation of relatively moderate Arab regimes for U.S. leadership in dealing with the threat from the Iran-led coalition.

It’s worth getting the tone of the king’s remarks:

“I’d also like to extend a warm thanks on behalf of many Arabs and Muslims who really had an outstanding response to the President’s outreach to the Muslim Arab world. It has gone on extremely well and really begins I believe a new page of mutual respect and mutual understanding between cultures. And I will…commit Jordan and myself to working with you, Mr. President. You have given us hope for a bright future for all of us. And America can’t be left by itself to do all the heavy lifting, so a group of countries, including Jordan, will do all we can to support you, Mr. President, in your endeavors. And hopefully under your tremendous leadership we will find some peace and stability in our region.”

At one point, the young king is so enthusiastic about his role verging on being a “yes-man” says in response to one of Obama’s remarks, “I couldn’t have said it better myself, Mr. President.”

But Obama did most of the talking. Regarding the Saudi-created proposal, which makes the positive step of offering to recognize Israel but with such negative provisions as it must return to the precise 1967 borders and let in any Palestinians who want to live there, Obama replied

“We have gone out of our way to complement the efforts of those Arab states that were involved in formulating the Arab Peace Initiative as a very constructive start.”

The words “constructive start” here is very important, showing that he has been briefed to make clear that it is not a basis for peace, thus taking into account Israel’s objections to specific provisions though generally positive response.

As I have argued elsewhere, Obama has not yet taken any anti-Israel steps and any such hostility has been greatly exaggerated…so far.

Obama’s main talking points are:

--He wants to see “over the next several months…gestures of good faith on all sides.” What these might be isn’t clear. Note that by “all sides” he is referring to Israel, the Palestinian Authority (PA), and Arab states. It will be important to see how these are defined.

--Bated by a journalist who wants to get him to attack Israel he points out that the government is new and that on all sides there “is a profound cynicism about the possibility of any progress being made whatsoever.”

--He would like to see “some concrete steps” that “will help hopefully to drive a process where each side is willing to build confidence.”

As I have argued elsewhere, however, Obama does not understand the reasons why this hasn’t—and isn’t going—to happen.

Regarding Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad’s speech in Geneva, Obama didn’t take the opportunity to explain why he rejected it or to articulate an alternative vision. He merely said that “this is the kind of rhetoric that we’ve come to expect” from him and that it hurt Iran’s position in the world.

The last point may well be valid but if the United States doesn’t take steps to ensure that this behavior has costs for Iran—for example, it makes no difference regarding engagement—than how does it hurt Iran?

On the positive side he did say, “We are going to continue to take an approach that -- tough, direct diplomacy has to be pursued without taking a whole host of other options off the table.”
The word “tough” was meant to be, well, tough. And the reference to “other options” was a continuation of Bush-era rhetoric, that military means were not ruled out for the future.
He added that he was planning to talk to Iran “with no illusions.” Yet he then articulated what was a very big illusion:

“Iran is a very complicated country with a lot of different power centers. The Supreme Leader [Ali] Khamenei is the person who exercises the most direct control over the policies of the Islamic Republic, and we will continue to pursue the possibility of improved relations and a resolution to some of the critical issues in which there have been differences, particularly around the nuclear issue.”

It is quite true that Khamenei is the real ruler of Iran, but he has just endorsed Ahmadinejad for another term despite not only that president’s extremism (which Khamenei evidently doesn’t think hurts Iran’s regime) but also his economic mismanagement. To understand that Khamenei is the real ruler is correct; to assume his views are in any way significantly different from Ahmadinejad’s is a dangerous mistake.

Of course, if the world put much more pressure on Iran, if Obama threatened to cancel engagement because of the speech, in other words if Tehran was given a serious impression that Ahmadinejad’s words did hurt Iran, maybe the supreme guide would change course a bit.
But U.S. policy is giving him no reason to do so.

Apparently, the Washington Post agreed with my assessment. Here's what they wrote in an editorial. Read it carefully and remember the following: 1. The Post, in Washington, is far more attuned to the realities of international affairs than other American newspapers. 2. The newspaper is very pro-Obama and thus such a major criticism expresses its real concern on this issue:

Last week, the Iranian regime convicted American journalist Roxana Saberi of espionage - a blatantly bogus charge. On Monday, Iranian President Ahmadinejad, who was last seen inaugurating a new facility for Iran's nuclear program, appeared at the UN conference on racism in Geneva to say the U.S. and other Western countries had "resorted to military aggression" in order to create Israel "on the pretext of Jewish sufferings and the ambiguous and dubious question of the Holocaust."

Thus has Iran answered President Obama's offer of dialogue and the decision by his administration to join talks on Tehran's nuclear program. What Iran is doing is inviting Mr. Obama to humiliate his new administration by launching talks with the regime even while it is conspicuously expanding its nuclear program, campaigning to delegitimize and destroy Israel and imprisoning innocent Americans.

Mr. Obama has always said that talks with Iran must be conducted under the right circumstances and in a way that advances U.S. interests. The administration won't meet that test if it allows negotiations to become a means of vindicating Mr. Ahmadinejad's radical agenda. It should postpone any contact until after the Iranian election in June - and it should look for clear signs that Iran is acting in good faith before talks begin.