Iran vows to boycott London 2012 Olympics for an amusing reason

You really can't make up stuff this funny:
Iran vows to boycott the London 2012 Olympics because it claims the logo spells "Zion," and is thus racist.
Julian Borger, The Guardian. Feb. 28, 2011.

See also:
A couple of choice wisecracks from Washington Post readers:

Actually, if you look at it from the right angle, it says "Jews control the world and are planning to destroy Iran". I think they have a point.

I think the entire world should boycott the games unless they change this logo, simply because it looks ridiculous

 Personally, I think it sort of looks like a swastika. So now we're even, okay?
But seriously, it is ugly.  Why doesn't Britain do some business here and offer to scrap the logo in exchange for Iran doing something they want, like you, give up its nuclear weapon program and hold an actual election.

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New occasions for reflecting on nationalism in the Middle East/North Africa.

"The Rebirth of Arabism--Again!" Franck Salameh. National Interest.  Feb. 17, 2011
 
"Nation State," Yoav Fromer. Tablet. Feb. 23, 2011.


"How the Arabs Turned Shame Into Liberty," Fouad Ajami. New York Times. Feb. 26, 2011

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"Either I rule you or I kill you"

Hussein Ibish has been writing extensively about Libya. He calls for robust, US-led intervention on behalf of the anti-Gaddafi revolutionaries. I don't understand the situation well enough to evaluate his argument about Libya in particular. It seems clear though, that the wave of fire spreading across North Africa and the Middle East puts into focus the question of US power in the region--influence, involvement, or what have you--and for those who chastise it, "meddling."  See also "Act. Now: the world must do more than watch the Libyan bloodletting," Hussein Ibish. Foreign Policy. Feb. 24, 2011.

 

Not just US power but overlapping controversies about "humanitarian intervention," or international judgment and punishment in general. 

One thing remarkable about this case is that you have the Libyan Ambassador to the UN, Mohamed Shalgham, a Gaddafi crony since their youth, denouncing the "brother leader" and calling for international help to prevent Gaddafi's efforts to make sure all of Libya goes down in flames with him.

Shalgham repeated: He is saying, "either I rule you or I kill you"

See Shalgham's rather dramatic speech at the UN Security Council Feb. 25, 2011.

Background on US-Libya Relations:

Timeline of US-Libya Relations. Sept. 5, 2008. Reuters.

Elliott Abrams, who was on the NSC under Bush when Libya "made the switch" in 2003, wrote an op-ed in the WSJ on Friday, Feb. 25, explaining the strategic, if unpleasant, bargain the US government had to make with Gaddafi.

After the U.S. Army made short shrift of Saddam Hussein's forces in 2003, Gadhafi approached British intelligence and sought to come in from the cold. He agreed, after negotiations conducted largely by the CIA and London's MI6, to abandon terrorism and hand over to the U.S. his programs for developing missiles and weapons of mass destruction.

He kept his part of the bargain: Those materials reside at a military base in the U.S., and he has stayed away from terrorist groups. Libya began making payments to the families of those killed on Pan Am 103, ultimately reaching an agreement with all but one family and handing over a total of $1.5 billion...

Our annual human rights reports told the truth, but there was no question that the Bush administration (and the Obama administration that followed) felt limited by Gadhafi's adherence to the bargain. We had not promised to be silent about human rights abuses, and we were not, but there was no real energy behind our statements. We were doing business with Gadhafi, not trying to overthrow him...

Seen from this bloody February of 2011, the agreement with Libya was still the right policy. Gadhafi in his bunker with control over missiles, chemical weapons and a rudimentary nuclear program is a terrifying thought. So is a Libya after regime collapse with those materials available to the highest bidder.

Had we reneged—taken Libya's weaponry but then started a campaign against Gadhafi's rule—he'd have re-armed fast and gone back to terrorism. It's also not clear what more strenuous and public efforts to promote change in Libya would have achieved. It's not as if one could reason with Gadhafi.

And finally, we should take a moment to recall that the Libyan government, such as it is/was, has been defined by a single "personality" to a greater extent than, well, most governments one hears about.

From The National Post [Canada]. Adam McDowell and Adrian Humphreys. Feb. 22, 2011.

“The non sequiturs, the paranoid conspiracy theories, the anger — if it weren’t so tragic, we could laugh at it,” said David Schenker, director of the program on Arab politics at the Washington Institute for Near East Policy...

Nasser Wedaddy, civil rights outreach director for the American Islamic Congress, warned: “People think of Gaddafi as this buffoon who is acting on impulses and whims. There’s some truth to that. “But through the years,” continued the former resident of Libya, “Gaddafi has been a master of manipulating media. He uses his buffoonery … to get media attention, which he craves. And a lot of his talking points, which he has recycled through the years, are designed to appeal to his support base, [to portray him as] the guy who’s confronting the big powers in the world.”

 And I was hoping someone had done this "best of" series: Fashion, Qaddafi-style. Vanity Fair. Henry Porter and Annabel Davidson. August 12, 2009.

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On Obama administration's clumsy UNSC diplomacy

Elliott Abrams puts it quite well:

"How to Lose Friends and Not Influence People," Elliott Abrams. Council on Foreign Relations Blog. Feb. 18, 2011.

 The Obama Administration cast its first veto in the United Nations on Friday, February 18, killing a Security Council resolution that would have condemned Israeli settlement activity.  Its poor handling of the entire episode has left just about everyone angry at the United States , and is therefore a manifest failure of American diplomacy.

The Palestinian Authority began to talk about this resolution months ago.  The United States could then have adopted a clear position: put it forward and it will be vetoed.  That very clear stand might have persuaded the Palestinian leaders and their Arab supporters to drop the effort early on, when it could have been abandoned with no loss of face.  Instead the Administration refused to make its position clear until the final day. In its Friday edition the New York Times was reporting that “the Obama administration was trying Thursday evening to head off an imminent vote in the United Nations Security Council that would declare Israel’s settlement construction in the West Bank illegal, but would not declare publicly whether it was prepared to veto the resolution.”  It seems clear that the Administration was desperate to avoid a veto, indeed desperate to go four years without spoiling its “perfect record.”  But a “perfect record” in the UN requires vetoes, given the persistent anti-Israel bias of the organization.  The Administration’s desire to avoid vetoes only served to reduce its bargaining power, for the credible threat of a veto has long served American diplomats seeking to achieve an outcome more favorable to our interests.

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Egypt Post-Mubarak

First installment: Civil-Military Relations

Questions on my mind: how helpful are European and American views of what constitutes "healthy civil-military relations" in approaching Egypt? Some have argued that the EU's standard demands for civilian control over the military have, in the case of would-be member Turkey, facilitated Erdogan and the ruling AKP to consolidate their power in disconcerting ways.

From the little I know, it seems that civil-military relations in Egypt are in some ways at least sui generis. What are the most important ways in which this is the case?

What does it mean that Egyptian military officers apparently have important commercial holdings and have an major stake in the Egyptian economy? This seems to be something rather different from the "military-industrial complex" that we speak of in the US.


A helpful summary and analysis of the debate from the good folks at Tablet Magazine:
Marc Tracy. "Egypt's 'Democratic Transtion' Begins: Can martial law lead to the ballot box?"
Feb. 14, 2011.


Steven Cook, "Egyptian Military's Moment of Truth." Council of Foreign Relations Blog. February 12, 2011.


"Will Egypt's Army Be a Change Agent or Maintain Status Quo?" PBS Newshour. Feb. 8, 2011.
With Matthew Axelrod and Shibley Telhami.

Matthew Axelrod, "The Egyptian Military Calculus." Foreign Policy. Jan. 31, 2011.

Military officers share the Egyptian people's frustration with the Mubarak regime. As a Fulbright Fellow in Egypt researching the U.S.-Egypt strategic relationship, I interviewed active and retired military officers who expressed resentment that military courts were being used to prosecute the regime's political enemies. They were also quick to distance themselves from the Ministry of Interior and lament the brutal tactics of the Central Security Forces. They indicated that the situation was unlikely to improve under the current political leadership.

But the military was not supposed to get involved. Presidents Anwar Sadat and Hosni Mubarak isolated the armed forces from domestic affairs to prevent prominent officers from emerging as political rivals. This isolation has made the military an infrequent but critical player in Egyptian politics. Because it enters the fray only in times of crisis, and then in a "national guard" capacity, it maintains great credibility with the Egyptian people. Ironically, by withdrawing from politics, the military now is in a position to usher in new political leadership.

However, doing so comes at personal financial risk. Senior military officers are believed to benefit handsomely from the revenues generated by military-owned corporations, private contracts with foreign companies, and post-retirement postings in the private and public sectors. General Ahmed Mohamed Shafik, former head of Civil Aviation and now Egypt's new Prime Minister, is the most prominent example. During my research in Cairo, foreign diplomats told me that Egyptian military officers regularly supplemented their incomes by receiving cash for routine military services, including Suez Canal passage. Some of those funds are believed to be held in Switzerland, where General Magdy Galal Sharawi, head of Egypt's Air Force from 2002-2008, currently serves as Ambassador.  An accurate calculation of these activities is difficult to quantify, but they are systemic. We can assume that military officers are thinking about how the current crisis might affect their own livelihoods.

There is a tension between the military's interests -- maintaining its credibility by siding with the people on the one hand, and maintaining its vast economic apparatus on the other.

Steven Cook, "Five Things You Need to Know About the Egyptian Military." Council on Foreign Relations Blog. January 31, 2011.

Books I wish I had time to read:
Steven Cook, Ruling but not Governing: The Military and Political Development in Egypt, Algeria, and Turkey. Baltimore: Johns Hopkins Press, 2007. 

Security Sector Transformation in Southeastern Europe and the Middle East. Ed. Thanos Dokos. Proceedings of NATO Advanced Research Workshops on Security Sector Transformation in Southeastern Europe and the Mediterranean 2004-2005. Amsterdam: IOS Press, 2007. Includes "Civil-Military Relations in Egypt: An Overview," Obaida El-Dandarawy. 


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Tariq Ramadan, Europe's go-to moderate--calling for vengeance against Allah's enemies in Palestine

The enemies in Palestine are the enemies of Islam, of Allah himself.
This is most emphatically not a moderate teaching. 




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More coverage of Egyptian demonstration and its implications at home and abroad

Archive of comprehensive Egypt coverage at Tablet Magazine

Amr Bargisi, "Egypt doesn't have a democratic culture." Wall Street Journal. Feb. 1, 2011.

"Why 25 January will be a date enshrined in the country's history," Ayman Nour and Wael Nawara, The Guardian (UK). Feb. 5, 2011. 

"U.S., Arab Leaders Walk Fine Line as Egypt's Power Center Remains Uncertain"

PBS NewsHour: Analysis. Feb. 4, 2011.


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