Geopolitics-GR

Ukraine's Election and the Russian Resurgence

2010-01-26T17:20:00.002Z

By Peter Zeihan

Ukrainians go to the polls Feb. 7 to choose their next president. The last time they did this, in November 2004, the result was the prolonged international incident that became known as the Orange Revolution. That event saw Ukraine cleaved off from the Russian sphere of influence, triggering a chain of events that rekindled the Russian-Western Cold War. Next week’s runoff election seals the Orange Revolution’s reversal. Russia owns the first candidate, Viktor Yanukovich, outright and has a workable agreement with the other, Yulia Timoshenko. The next few months will therefore see the de facto folding of Ukraine back into the Russian sphere of influence; discussion in Ukraine now consists of debate over the speed and depth of that reintegration.

The Centrality of Ukraine

Russia has been working to arrest its slide for several years. Next week’s election in Ukraine marks not so much the end of the post-Cold War period of Russian retreat as the beginning of a new era of Russian aggressiveness. To understand why, one must first absorb the Russian view of Ukraine.

Since the break-up of the Soviet Union, most of the former Soviet republics and satellites found themselves cast adrift, not part of the Russian orbit and not really part of any other grouping. Moscow still held links to all of them, but it exercised few of its levers of control over them during Russia’s internal meltdown during the 1990s. During that period, a number of these states — Estonia, Latvia, Lithuania, Poland, Hungary, Romania, Bulgaria and the former Czechoslovakia to be exact — managed to spin themselves out of the Russian orbit and attach themselves to the European Union and NATO. Others — Azerbaijan, Georgia, Moldova, Uzbekistan, Kyrgyzstan and Ukraine — attempted to follow the path Westward, but have not succeeded at this point. Of these six, Ukraine is by far the most critical. It is not simply the most populous of Russia’s former possessions or the birthplace of the Russian ethnicity, it is the most important province of the former Russian Empire and holds the key to the future of Eurasia.

First, the incidental reasons. Ukraine is the Russian Empire’s breadbasket. It is also the location of nearly all of Russia’s infrastructure links not only to Europe, but also to the Caucasus, making it critical for both trade and internal coherence; it is central to the existence of a state as multiethnic and chronically poor as Russia. The Ukrainian port of Sevastopol is home to Russia’s Black Sea fleet, and Ukrainian ports are the only well-developed warm-water ports Russia has ever had. Belarus’ only waterborne exports traverse the Dnieper River, which empties into the Black Sea via Ukraine. Therefore, as goes Ukraine, so goes Belarus. Not only is Ukraine home to some 15 million ethnic Russians — the largest concentration of Russians outside Russia proper — they reside in a zone geographically identical and contiguous to Russia itself. That zone is also the Ukrainian agricultural and industrial heartland, which again is integrated tightly into the Russian core.

These are all important factors for Moscow, but ultimately they pale before the only rationale that really matters: Ukraine is the only former Russian imperial territory that is both useful and has a natural barrier protecting it. Belarus is on the Northern European Plain, aka the invasion highway of Europe. The Baltics are all easily accessible by sea. The Caucasian states of Armenia, Azerbaijan and Georgia are on the wrong side of the Caucasus Mountains (and Russia’s northern Caucasus republics — remember Chechnya? — aren’t exactly the cream of the crop of Russian possessions). It is true that Central Asia is anchored in mountains to the south, but the region is so large and boasts so few Slavs that it cannot be controlled reliably or cheaply. And Siberia is too huge to be useful.

Without Ukraine, Russia is a desperately defensive power, lacking any natural defenses aside from sheer distance. Moscow and Volgograd, two of Russia’s critically strategic cities, are within 300 miles of Ukraine’s eastern border. Russia lacks any natural internal transport options — its rivers neither interconnect nor flow anywhere useful, and are frozen much of the year — so it must preposition defensive forces everywhere, a burden that has been beyond Russia’s capacity to sustain even in the best of times. The (quite realistic) Russian fear is that without Ukraine, the Europeans will pressure Russia along its entire western periphery, the Islamic world will pressure Russia along its entire southern periphery, the Chinese will pressure Russia along its southeastern periphery, and the Americans will pressure Russia wherever opportunity presents itself.

Ukraine by contrast has the Carpathians to its west, a handy little barrier that has deflected invaders of all stripes for millennia. These mountains defend Ukraine against tanks coming from the west as effectively as they protected the Balkans against Mongols attacking from the east. Having the Carpathians as a western border reduces Russia’s massive defensive burden. Most important, if Russia can redirect the resources it would have used for defensive purposes on the Ukrainian frontier — whether those resources be economic, intelligence, industrial, diplomatic or military — then Russia retains at least a modicum of offensive capability. And that modicum of offensive ability is more than enough to overmatch any of Russia’s neighbors (with the exception of China).

When Retreat Ends, the Neighbors Get Nervous

This view of Ukraine is not alien to countries in Russia’s neighborhood. They fully understand the difference between a Russia with Ukraine and a Russia without Ukraine, and understand that so long as Ukraine remains independent they have a great deal of maneuvering room. Now that all that remains is the result of an election with no strategic choice at stake, the former Soviet states and satellites realize that their world has just changed.

Georgia traditionally has been the most resistant to Russian influence regardless of its leadership, so defiant that Moscow felt it necessary to trounce Georgia in a brief war in August 2008. Georgia’s poor strategic position is nothing new, but a Russia that can redirect efforts from Ukraine is one that can crush Georgia as an afterthought. That is turning the normally rambunctious Georgians pensive, and nudging them toward pragmatism. An opposition group, the Conservative Party, is launching a movement to moderate policy toward Russia, which among other things would mean abandoning Georgia’s bid for NATO membership and re-establishing formal political ties with Moscow.

A recent Lithuanian power struggle has resulted in the forced resignation of Foreign Minister Minister Vygaudas Usackas. The main public point of contention was the foreign minister’s previous participation in facilitating U.S. renditions. Vygaudas, like most in the Lithuanian leadership, saw such participation as critical to maintaining the tiny country’s alliance with the United States. President Dalia Grybauskaite, however, saw the writing on the wall in Ukraine, and feels the need to foster a more conciliatory view of Russia. Part of that meant offering up a sacrificial lamb in the form of the foreign minister.

Poland is in a unique position. It knows that should the Russians turn seriously aggressive, its position on the Northern European Plain makes it the focal point of Russian attention. Its location and vulnerability makes Warsaw very sensitive to Russian moves, so it has been watching Ukraine with alarm for several months.

As a result, the Poles have come up with some (admittedly small) olive branches, including an offer for Putin to visit Gdansk last September in an attempt to foster warmer (read: slightly less overtly hostile) relations. Putin not only seized upon the offer, but issued a public letter denouncing the World War II-era Molotov-Ribbentrop Treaty, long considered by Poles as the most outrageous Russian offense to Poland. Warsaw has since replied with invitations for future visits. As with Georgia, Poland will never be pro-Russian — Poland is not only a NATO member but also hopes to host an American Patriot battery and participate in Washington’s developing ballistic missile defense program. But if Warsaw cannot hold Washington’s attention — and it has pulled out all the stops in trying to — it fears the writing might already be on the wall, and it must plan accordingly.

Azerbaijan has always attempted to walk a fine line between Russia and the West, knowing that any serious bid for membership in something like the European Union or NATO was contingent upon Georgia’s first succeeding in joining up. Baku would prefer a more independent arrangement, but it knows that it is too far from Russia’s western frontier to achieve such unless the stars are somewhat aligned. As Georgia’s plans have met with what can best be described as abject failure, and with Ukraine now appearing headed toward Russian suzerainty, Azerbaijan has in essence resigned itself to the inevitable. Baku is well into negotiations that would redirect much of its natural gas output north to Russia rather than west to Turkey and Europe. And Azerbaijan simply has little else to bargain with.

Other states that have long been closer to Russia, but have attempted to balance Russia against other powers in hopes of preserving some measure of sovereignty, are giving up. Of the remaining former Soviet republics Belarus has the most educated workforce and even a functioning information technology industry, while Kazakhstan has a booming energy industry; both are reasonable candidates for integration into Western systems. But both have this month agreed instead to throw their lots in with Russia. The specific method is an economic agreement that is more akin to shackles than a customs union. The deal effectively will gut both countries’ industries in favor of Russian producers. Moscow hopes the union in time will form the foundation of a true successor to the Soviet Union.

Other places continue to show resistance. The new Moldovan prime minister, Vlad Filat, is speaking with the Americans about energy security and is even flirting with the Romanians about reunification. The Latvians are as defiant as ever. The Estonians, too, are holding fast, although they are quietly polling regional powers to at least assess where the next Russian hammer might fall. But for every state that decides it had best accede to Russia’s wishes, Russia has that much more bandwidth to dedicate to the poorly positioned holdouts.

Russia also has the opportunity. The United States is bogged down in its economic and health care debates, two wars and the Iran question — all of which mean Washington’s attention is occupied well away from the former Soviet sphere. With the United States distracted, Russia has a freer hand in re-establishing control over states that would like to be under the American security umbrella.

There is one final factor that is pushing Russia to resurge: It feels the pressure of time. The post-Cold War collapse may well have mortally wounded the Russian nation. The collapse in Russian births has halved the size of the 0-20 age group in comparison to their predecessors born in the 1970s and 1980s. Consequently, Russian demographics are among the worst in the world.

Even if Russia manages an economic renaissance, in a decade its population will have aged and shrunk to the point that the Russians will find holding together Russia proper a huge challenge. Moscow’s plan, therefore, is simple: entrench its influence while it is in a position of relative strength in preparation for when it must trade that influence for additional time. Ultimately, Russia is indeed going into that good night. But not gently. And not today.

"This report is republished with permission of STRATFOR"

West Bank Settlements and the Future of U.S.-Israeli Relations

2009-08-03T03:31:00.002+01:00

By George Friedman
Amid the rhetoric of U.S. President Barack Obama’s speech June 4 in Cairo, there was one substantial indication of change, not in the U.S. relationship to the Islamic world but in the U.S. relationship to Israel. This shift actually emerged prior to the speech, and the speech merely touched on it. But it is not a minor change and it must not be underestimated. It has every opportunity of growing into a major breach between Israel and the United States.
The immediate issue concerns Israeli settlements on the West Bank. The United States has long expressed opposition to increasing settlements but has not moved much beyond rhetoric. Certainly the continued expansion and development of new settlements on the West Bank did not cause prior administrations to shift their policies toward Israel. And while the Israelis have occasionally modified their policies, they have continued to build settlements. The basic understanding between the two sides has been that the United States would oppose settlements formally but that this would not evolve into a fundamental disagreement.
The United States has clearly decided to change the game. Obama has said that, “The United States does not accept the legitimacy of continued Israeli settlements. This construction violates previous agreements and undermines efforts to achieve peace. It is time for these settlements to stop.” Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu has agreed to stop building new settlements, but not to halt what he called the “natural growth” of existing settlements.
Obama has positioned the settlement issue in such a way that it would be difficult for him to back down. He has repeated it several times, including in his speech to the Islamic world. It is an issue on which he is simply following the formal positions of prior administrations. It is an issue on which prior Israeli governments made commitments. What Obama has done is restated formal U.S. policy, on which there are prior Israeli agreements, and demanded Israeli compliance. Given his initiative in the Islamic world, Obama, having elevated the issue to this level, is going to have problems backing off.
Obama is also aware that Netanyahu is not in a political position to comply with the demand, even if he were inclined to. Netanyahu is leading a patchwork coalition in which support from the right is critical. For the Israeli right, settling in what it calls Samaria and Judea is a fundamental principle on which it cannot bend. Unlike Ariel Sharon, a man of the right who was politically powerful, Netanyahu is a man of the right who is politically weak. Netanyahu gave all he could give on this issue when he said there would be no new settlements created. Netanyahu doesn’t have the political ability to give Obama what he is demanding. Netanyahu is locked into place, unless he wants to try to restructure his Cabinet or persuade people like Avigdor Lieberman, his right-wing foreign minister, to change their fundamental view of the world.
Therefore, Obama has decided to create a crisis with Israel. He has chosen a subject on which Republican and Democratic administrations have had the same formal position. He has also picked a subject that does not affect Israeli national security in any immediate sense (he has not made demands for changes of policy toward Gaza, for example). Obama struck at an issue where he had precedent on his side, and where Israel’s immediate safety is not at stake. He also picked an issue on which he would have substantial support in the United States, and he has done this to have a symbolic showdown with Israel. The more Netanyahu resists, the more Obama gets what he wants.
Obama’s read of the Arab-Israeli situation is that it is not insoluble. He believes in the two-state solution, for better or worse. In order to institute the two-state solution, Obama must establish the principle that the West Bank is Palestinian territory by right and not Israeli territory on which the Israelis might make concessions. The settlements issue is fundamental to establishing this principle. Israel has previously agreed both to the two-state solution and to not expanding settlements. If Obama can force Netanyahu to concede on the settlements issue, then he will break the back of the Israeli right and open the door to a rightist-negotiated settlement of the two-state solution.
In the course of all of this, Obama is opening doors in the Islamic world a little wider by demonstrating that the United States is prepared to force Israel to make concessions. By subtext, he wants to drive home the idea that Israel does not control U.S. policy but that, in fact, Israel and the United States are two separate countries with different and sometimes conflicting views. Obama wouldn’t mind an open battle on the settlements one bit.
For Netanyahu, this is the worst terrain on which to fight. If he could have gotten Obama to attack by demanding that Israel not respond to missiles launched from Gaza or Lebanon, Netanyahu would have had the upper hand in the United States. Israel has support in the United States and in Congress, and any action that would appear to leave Israel’s security at risk would trigger an instant strengthening of that support.
But there is not much support in the United States for settlements on the West Bank. This is not a subject around which Israel’s supporters are going to rally very intensely, in large part because there is substantial support for a two-state solution and very little understanding or sympathy for the historic claim of Jews to Judea and Samaria. Obama has picked a topic on which he has political room for maneuver and on which Netanyahu is politically locked in.
Given that, the question is where Obama is going with this. From Obama’s point of view, he wins no matter what Netanyahu decides to do. If Netanyahu gives in, then he has established the principle that the United States can demand concessions from a Likud-controlled government in Israel and get them. There will be more demands. If Netanyahu doesn’t give in, Obama can create a split with Israel over the one issue he can get public support for in the United States (a halt to settlement expansion in the West Bank), and use that split as a lever with Islamic states.
Thus, the question is what Netanyahu is going to do. His best move is to say that this is just a disagreement between friends and assume that the rest of the U.S.-Israeli relationship is intact, from aid to technology transfer to intelligence sharing. That’s where Obama is going to have to make his decision. He has elevated the issue to the forefront of U.S.-Israeli relations. The Israelis have refused to comply. If Obama proceeds with the relationship as if nothing has happened, then he is back where he began.
Obama did not start this confrontation to wind up there. He calculated carefully when he raised this issue and knew perfectly well that Netanyahu couldn’t make concessions on it, so he had to have known that he was going to come to this point. Obviously, he could have made this confrontation as a part of his initiative to the Islamic world. But it is unlikely that he saw that initiative as ending with the speech, and he understands that, for the Islamic world, his relation to Israel is important. Even Islamic countries not warmly inclined toward Palestinians, like Jordan or Egypt, don’t want the United States to back off on this issue.
Netanyahu has argued in the past that Israel’s relationship to the United States was not as important to Israel as it once was. U.S. aid as a percentage of Israel’s gross domestic product has plunged. Israel is not facing powerful states, and it is not facing a situation like 1973, when Israeli survival depended on aid being rushed in from the United States. The technology transfer now runs both ways, and the United States relies on Israeli intelligence quite a bit. In other words, over the past generation, Israel has moved from a dependent relationship with the United States to one of mutual dependence.
This is very much Netanyahu’s point of view, and from this point of view follows the idea that he might simply say no to the United States on the settlements issue and live easily with the consequences. The weakness in this argument is that, while Israel does not now face strategic issues it can’t handle, it could in the future. Indeed, while Netanyahu is urging action on Iran, he knows that action is impossible without U.S. involvement.
This leads to a political problem. As much as the right would like to blow off the United States, the center and the left would be appalled. For Israel, the United States has been the centerpiece of the national psyche since 1967. A breach with the United States would create a massive crisis on the left and could well bring the government down if Ehud Barak and his Labor Party, for example, bolted from the ruling coalition. Netanyahu’s problem is the problem Israel has continually had. It is a politically fragmented country, and there is never an Israeli government that does not consist of fragments. A government that contains Lieberman and Barak is not one likely to be able to make bold moves.
It is therefore difficult to see how Netanyahu can both deal with Obama and hold his government together. It is even harder to see how Obama can reduce the pressure. Indeed, we would expect to see him increase the pressure by suspending minor exchanges and programs. Obama is playing to the Israeli center and left, who would oppose any breach with the United States.
Obama has the strong hand and the options. Netanyahu has the weak hand and fewer options. It is hard to see how he will solve the problem. And that’s what Obama wants. He wants Netanyahu struggling with the problem. In the end, he wants Netanyahu to fold on the settlements issue and keep on folding until he presides over a political settlement with the Palestinians. Obama wants Netanyahu and the right to be responsible for the agreement, as Menachem Begin was responsible for the treaty with Egypt and withdrawal from the Sinai.
We find it difficult to imagine how a two-state solution would work, but that concept is at the heart of U.S. policy and Obama wants the victory. He has put into motion processes to create that solution, first of all, by backing Netanyahu into a corner. Left out of Obama’s equation is the Palestinian interest, willingness and ability to reach a treaty with Israel, but from Obama’s point of view, if the Palestinians reject or undermine an agreement, he will still have leverage in the Islamic world. Right now, given Iraq and Afghanistan, that is where he wants leverage, and backing Netanyahu into a corner is more important than where it all leads in the end.

source http://www.stratfor.com/

Cuba: Friends in High Places

2009-08-03T03:26:00.002+01:00

By Scott Stewart and Fred Burton On June 4, 2009,

Walter Kendall Myers and his wife, Gwendolyn Steingraber Myers, were arrested by the FBI and charged with spying for the government of Cuba. According to court documents filed in the case, the Myers allegedly were recruited by the Cuban intelligence service in 1979 and worked for them as agents until 2007. On June 10, 2009, a U.S. Magistrate Judge ruled that the couple posed a flight risk and ordered them held without bond.The criminal complaint filed by the FBI in the U.S. District Court for the District of Columbia on June 4 and the grand jury indictment returned in the case have been released to the public, and these two documents provide a fascinating and detailed historical account of the activities of Kendall and Gwendolyn Myers. Perhaps more importantly, however, these documents provide an excellent opportunity to understand how the Cuban intelligence service works and serve as a primer on Cuba’s espionage efforts inside the United States. Case DetailsAccording to the criminal complaint filed by the FBI, Kendall Myers served from 1959 to 1962 in the U.S. Army Security Agency (ASA), which was the Army’s signal intelligence branch at that time. Myers reportedly worked for the ASA as a linguist who was assigned to work translating intercepted messages from Eastern Bloc countries in Europe. In 1972, Myers earned a Ph.D. from the Johns Hopkins University School of Advanced International Studies (SAIS), in Washington, D.C. Myers then worked as an assistant professor of European Studies at SAIS and became a part-time contract instructor in August 1977 at the State Department’s Foreign Service Institute (FSI) teaching European studies.While employed as a contractor at the FSI, Myers attended a lecture at the FSI on Cuba that was presented by a Cuban intelligence officer assigned to the Cuban permanent mission to the United Nations. The intelligence officer (identified in the complaint only as co-conspirator “A”) then reportedly invited Myers and two of his colleagues to travel to Cuba on an academic visit. According to the FBI, Myers traveled to Cuba for a two-week trip in December 1978. The complaint contained several entries from a journal that Myers allegedly kept during the trip, and was obtained during a search of Myers’ residence. In the journal entries, Myers fawned over the Cuban revolution and Cuban leader Fidel Castro, whom Myers said was “certainly one of the great political leaders of our time.”According the complaint, approximately six months after Myers returned from his trip to Cuba, he and Gwendolyn were visited at their home in South Dakota by “A” who, according to the FBI, pitched and recruited the Myers to work for the Cuban intelligence service. While they were recruited in 1979, the couple stated that they did not begin actively working for the Cuban intelligence service until 1981. This timeline seems to match Myers’ job search efforts.After being recruited, Kendall Myers was allegedly instructed by his handler to move back to Washington and seek government employment in order to gain access to information deemed valuable to the Cubans. In 1981, he applied for a job at the Central Intelligence Agency and in 1982, he returned to working as a part-time contract instructor at the FSI, and became the chairman for Western European studies. In 1985, he applied for a full-time job at the FSI teaching Western European studies, and in 1999, Myers took a position at the State Department’s Bureau of Intelligence and Research (INR), as the senior European analyst. Myers stayed in that position until his retirement in 2007. After his retirement from the State Department in 2007, Myers returned to SAIS and worked there until his arrest. On the afternoon of April 15, 2009, Myers was approached by an FBI undercover source while leaving SAIS. The undercover source told Myers that he had been sent to contact Myers by a Cuban intelligence officer (identified in the complaint as co-conspirator “D”). The undercover source told Myers that the reason for the contact was because of the changes taking place in Cuba and the new U.S. administration. The source also wished Myers a happy birthday and gave him a Cuban cigar. Myers, convinced the undercover source was authentic, agreed to bring his wife to a meeting with the source at a Washington hotel later that evening. Spilling the BeansAccording to the complaint, the FBI undercover source met with the Myers on three occasions, April 15, April 16 and April 30, at different Washington-area hotels. During these meetings, they divulged a great deal of information pertaining to their work as Cuban agents. They provided information regarding what they passed to the Cuban government, how Kendall obtained the information and how they passed the information to their handlers. They also detailed their meetings with handlers and the methods they used to communicate with them. According to the complaint, Kendall Myers proudly told the source that he provided information at the Secret and Top Secret levels to the Cubans. When asked by the source if he had furnished information from the CIA, Kendall Myers responded “all the time.” He said that he preferred to take notes on classified documents rather than smuggle them out directly, but at times, he smuggled classified material out of the State Department in his briefcase, only to return the documents the next day after he had duplicated them. This information was then passed to handlers during meetings or by brush passes. Many of the meetings took place in New York, and the Myers felt those meetings were very dangerous. Gwendolyn admitted to having passed documents by exchanging shopping carts in a grocery store. The Myers also told the source about a shortwave radio set that they used to receive coded messages from their handler. After the September 2001 arrest of Ana Montes, the Defense Intelligence Agency’s (DIA) senior Cuba analyst (who admitted to spying for Cuba for ideological motives), the Myers became much more careful about contacts with their handler, and most face-to-face contact after that time was accomplished outside of the United States. They told the source that between January 2002 and December 2005, they traveled to Trinidad and Tobago, Jamaica, Ecuador, Brazil, Argentina and Mexico in order to meet with Cuban handlers. The FBI was able to verify all these trips through official records. After a confrontation with a supervisor at INR after returning from a 2006 trip to China, the Myers became very concerned that they had been identified and placed on a watch list by the INR supervisor. At that time, they told the source, they destroyed all their clandestine communications equipment, except for their shortwave radio and their false travel documents. They refused to travel to Mexico after this point because they believed it was too dangerous. The Myers continued to receive periodic messages from their handler, who had begun to communicate via e-mail, following the Montes case. They also passed encrypted messages to their handler via e-mail. Gwendolyn noted that they would never use their own computer for such communication but used computers at Internet cafes instead. The complaint provided the details of two e-mail messages the Myers received in December 2008 and March 2009 from a Cuban intelligence officer in Mexico, who asked for a meeting with them in Mexico. The intelligence officer was operating under the guise of an art dealer named Peter Herrera. The e-mails asked the Myers to come and see what he had for them. They responded to the e-mails saying they were delighted to hear from Peter and to learn that his art gallery was still open to them, but that they had not yet made travel plans for the coming year. The Myers told the source that they thought traveling to Mexico for a meeting with Peter was too risky. They also confirmed that Peter was a pseudonym used by a Cuban intelligence officer. When the source asked the Myers during the third meeting if their trip to Mexico in 2005 had been “the end” (meaning the end of their work for the Cuban intelligence service), Kendall Myers replied that their work would continue, but that he wanted to work in more of a reserve status, where he would talk to contacts, rather than resume work as a full-time U.S. government employee. When the source told the Myers he was going to send a report to Cuba with information pertaining to them, Gwendolyn reportedly said, “be sure and tell them we love them.” They arranged to meet with the source on June 4, at yet another Washington-area hotel, and were arrested by the FBI when they appeared for that meeting. If the recordings of the three meetings have been accurately represented in the complaint, they are going to be very damaging to the Myers. Additionally, several of the physical items recovered during a search conducted on the Myers residence will also be strong evidence, such as the shortwave radio set and a travel guide printed in Cuba in the mid- to late-1990s, which would seem to substantiate their illicit 1995 visit. ‘I’ — The Cuban StapleWhen discussing espionage cases, we often refer to an old Cold War acronym — MICE — to explain the motivations of spies. MICE stands for money, ideology, compromise and ego. Traditionally, money has proved to be the No. 1 motivation, but as seen in Kendall Myers’ journal entries and in the meetings with the source, the Myers were motivated solely by ideology and not by money. In fact, the complaint provides no indication that the Myers had ever sought or accepted money from the Cuban intelligence service for their espionage activities. According to the complaint, the Myers were scathing in their criticism of the United States during their meetings with the source. In addition to their criticism of U.S. government policy, they were also very critical of American people, whom they referred to as “North Americans.” Myers said the problem with the United States is that it is full of too many North Americans. The Myers also expressed their love for Cuba and for the ideals of the Cuban revolution. In the first meeting with the source, Kendall asked the source, “How is everybody at home?” referring to Cuba. Gwendolyn expressed her desire to use the couple’s boat to “sail home,” meaning travel to Cuba. The couple also provided the source with details of a January 1995 trip they took to Cuba. According to the Myers, in addition to receiving “lots of medals” from the Cuban government (something commonly awarded to ideological spies by the Soviet KGB), the best thing they received was the opportunity to meet Fidel Castro. The couple stated they had the opportunity to spend about four hours one evening with the Cuban leader. According to the FBI complaint, Kendall told the source that Castro was “wonderful, just wonderful” and Gwendolyn added, “He’s the most incredible statesman for a hundred years for goodness sake.” During the third meeting, the couple also allegedly talked to the source about Ana Montes. Kendall told the source that Montes is a “hero … but she took too many chances … in my opinion … she wasn’t paranoid enough.” Gwendolyn added “but she loved it, she did what she loved to do.” Kendall added, “We have a great admiration for Ana Montes.” Gwendolyn also noted that, “I envy her being able to love what she was doing and say what she was doing and why she was doing it ‘cause I can’t do that.” This is significant because during her trial, Montes was unrepentant and railed against the United States when she read a statement during her sentencing hearing. Gwendolyn appeared to be responding to Montes’ public statement.In view of the Myers’ case, the Montes case and other cases, like that involving Carlos and Elsa Alvarez, the Cubans clearly prefer to use agents who are ideologically motivated. LessonsIn addition to the Cuban preference for ideologically motivated agents, perhaps one of the greatest lessons that can be taken from the Myers’ case is simply a reminder that espionage did not end with the conclusion of the Cold War. According to the FBI complaint, a Cuban intelligence officer attempted to contact the Myers as recently as March 2009. This case also shows that the Cuban intelligence service is very patient and is willing to wait for the agents it recruits to move into sensitive positions within the U.S. government. It took several years for Myers to get situated in a job with access to highly classified information. The Myers investigation also shows that the Cuban agents are not always obviously people working on Cuban issues — Myers was a European affairs specialist. There is also a possibility that the Cubans sold or traded intelligence they gained from Myers pertaining to Europe to their Soviet (and later Russian) friends. While at INR, it is significant that Myers not only had access to information collected by State Department employees in the field, but also was privy to all-source intelligence reporting from the rest of the intelligence community (CIA, FBI, NSA, DIA, etc.) According to the complaint, an analysis of Myers’ work computer revealed that from August 2006 to October 2007, Myers looked at more than 200 intelligence reports pertaining to Cuba; 75 of those reports made no mention of countries within Myers’ area of interest (Europe), and most of the documents were classified either Secret or Top Secret. The government will have to conduct a damage assessment that will attempt to trace everything Myers had access to during his entire career, which will no doubt encompass thousands of documents. As the State Department’s representative to the intelligence community, INR is also involved in crafting policy papers and national intelligence estimates. Myers began working at the State Department before there was electronic access to records, so it will be very difficult to identify every document he had access to. But in addition to the actual documents he viewed, Myers also had the opportunity to chat with many colleagues about what they were working on and to ask their opinions of policies and events, so the damage goes much further than just documents, which complicates the damage assessment. He was also in charge of training new INR analysts, which could have allowed him an opportunity to assess which analysts were the best possible targets for Cuban recruitment efforts. The information Myers could have provided while at the FSI is more subtle, but no less valuable from an intelligence operational perspective. Myers could have acted as a spotter, letting his handlers know which officers were moving through the institute, where they were going to be assigned, and perhaps even indicating which ones he thought were the best candidates for recruitment based on observed vulnerabilities. He could have served a similar function while at SAIS, pointing out promising students for the Cubans to focus on — especially students who agreed with his view of American policy, and who might be targeted for recruitment using an ideological approach. While Montes did graduate with a master’s degree from SAIS in 1988, she was already working at the DIA (and for the Cubans) by the time she began her graduate work there, so it is unlikely that Myers was involved in her recruitment. In the end, it will likely take months, if not years, for the government to do a full damage assessment on this case. One of the other interesting factors regarding this case is that in spite of Myers’ strong anti-American political beliefs — which were reportedly expressed in his classes — none of the background investigations conducted on him by the State Department provided any indication of concern. Furthermore, he was cleared for access to Top Secret material in 1985 and Sensitive Compartmentalized Information (SCI) in 1999 — 20 years after he was recruited by the Cubans. Apparently the agents and investigators who conducted his background investigations did not dig deeply enough uncover the warning signs of his radical beliefs, or the people they interviewed knowingly withheld such information. With Montes arrested at DIA, and now Myers from INR, it certainly makes one wonder where the next ideologically driven Cuban agent will be found inside the U.S. intelligence community.

source :STRATFOR

Western Misconceptions Meet Iranian Reality

2009-08-03T03:08:00.003+01:00

In 1979, when we were still young and starry-eyed, a revolution took place in Iran. When I asked experts what would happen, they divided into two camps.The first group of Iran experts argued that the Shah of Iran would certainly survive, that the unrest was simply a cyclical event readily manageable by his security, and that the Iranian people were united behind the Iranian monarch’s modernization program. These experts developed this view by talking to the same Iranian officials and businessmen they had been talking to for years — Iranians who had grown wealthy and powerful under the shah and who spoke English, since Iran experts frequently didn’t speak Farsi all that well.The second group of Iran experts regarded the shah as a repressive brute, and saw the revolution as aimed at liberalizing the country. Their sources were the professionals and academics who supported the uprising — Iranians who knew what former Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ruholla Khomeini believed, but didn’t think he had much popular support. They thought the revolution would result in an increase in human rights and liberty. The experts in this group spoke even less Farsi than the those in the first group.

Misreading Sentiment in Iran

Limited to information on Iran from English-speaking opponents of the regime, both groups of Iran experts got a very misleading vision of where the revolution was heading — because the Iranian revolution was not brought about by the people who spoke English. It was made by merchants in city bazaars, by rural peasants, by the clergy — people Americans didn’t speak to because they couldn’t. This demographic was unsure of the virtues of modernization and not at all clear on the virtues of liberalism. From the time they were born, its members knew the virtue of Islam, and that the Iranian state must be an Islamic state.Americans and Europeans have been misreading Iran for 30 years. Even after the shah fell, the myth has survived that a mass movement of people exists demanding liberalization — a movement that if encouraged by the West eventually would form a majority and rule the country. We call this outlook “iPod liberalism,” the idea that anyone who listens to rock ‘n’ roll on an iPod, writes blogs and knows what it means to Twitter must be an enthusiastic supporter of Western liberalism. Even more significantly, this outlook fails to recognize that iPod owners represent a small minority in Iran — a country that is poor, pious and content on the whole with the revolution forged 30 years ago. There are undoubtedly people who want to liberalize the Iranian regime. They are to be found among the professional classes in Tehran, as well as among students. Many speak English, making them accessible to the touring journalists, diplomats and intelligence people who pass through. They are the ones who can speak to Westerners, and they are the ones willing to speak to Westerners. And these people give Westerners a wildly distorted view of Iran. They can create the impression that a fantastic liberalization is at hand — but not when you realize that iPod-owning Anglophones are not exactly the majority in Iran. Last Friday, Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad was re-elected with about two-thirds of the vote. Supporters of his opponent, both inside and outside Iran, were stunned. A poll revealed that former Iranian Prime Minister Mir Hossein Mousavi was beating Ahmadinejad. It is, of course, interesting to meditate on how you could conduct a poll in a country where phones are not universal, and making a call once you have found a phone can be a trial. A poll therefore would probably reach people who had phones and lived in Tehran and other urban areas. Among those, Mousavi probably did win. But outside Tehran, and beyond persons easy to poll, the numbers turned out quite different.Some still charge that Ahmadinejad cheated. That is certainly a possibility, but it is difficult to see how he could have stolen the election by such a large margin. Doing so would have required the involvement of an incredible number of people, and would have risked creating numbers that quite plainly did not jibe with sentiment in each precinct. Widespread fraud would mean that Ahmadinejad manufactured numbers in Tehran without any regard for the vote. But he has many powerful enemies who would quickly have spotted this and would have called him on it. Mousavi still insists he was robbed, and we must remain open to the possibility that he was, although it is hard to see the mechanics of this.

Ahmadinejad’s Popularity

It also misses a crucial point: Ahmadinejad enjoys widespread popularity. He doesn’t speak to the issues that matter to the urban professionals, namely, the economy and liberalization. But Ahmadinejad speaks to three fundamental issues that accord with the rest of the country.First, Ahmadinejad speaks of piety. Among vast swathes of Iranian society, the willingness to speak unaffectedly about religion is crucial. Though it may be difficult for Americans and Europeans to believe, there are people in the world to whom economic progress is not of the essence; people who want to maintain their communities as they are and live the way their grandparents lived. These are people who see modernization — whether from the shah or Mousavi — as unattractive. They forgive Ahmadinejad his economic failures.Second, Ahmadinejad speaks of corruption. There is a sense in the countryside that the ayatollahs — who enjoy enormous wealth and power, and often have lifestyles that reflect this — have corrupted the Islamic Revolution. Ahmadinejad is disliked by many of the religious elite precisely because he has systematically raised the corruption issue, which resonates in the countryside.Third, Ahmadinejad is a spokesman for Iranian national security, a tremendously popular stance. It must always be remembered that Iran fought a war with Iraq in the 1980s that lasted eight years, cost untold lives and suffering, and effectively ended in its defeat. Iranians, particularly the poor, experienced this war on an intimate level. They fought in the war, and lost husbands and sons in it. As in other countries, memories of a lost war don’t necessarily delegitimize the regime. Rather, they can generate hopes for a resurgent Iran, thus validating the sacrifices made in that war — something Ahmadinejad taps into. By arguing that Iran should not back down but become a major power, he speaks to the veterans and their families, who want something positive to emerge from all their sacrifices in the war. Perhaps the greatest factor in Ahmadinejad’s favor is that Mousavi spoke for the better districts of Tehran — something akin to running a U.S. presidential election as a spokesman for Georgetown and the Lower East Side. Such a base will get you hammered, and Mousavi got hammered. Fraud or not, Ahmadinejad won and he won significantly. That he won is not the mystery; the mystery is why others thought he wouldn’t win. For a time on Friday, it seemed that Mousavi might be able to call for an uprising in Tehran. But the moment passed when Ahmadinejad’s security forces on motorcycles intervened. And that leaves the West with its worst-case scenario: a democratically elected anti-liberal. Western democracies assume that publics will elect liberals who will protect their rights. In reality, it’s a more complicated world. Hitler is the classic example of someone who came to power constitutionally, and then preceded to gut the constitution. Similarly, Ahmadinejad’s victory is a triumph of both democracy and repression.

The Road Ahead: More of the Same

The question now is what will happen next. Internally, we can expect Ahmadinejad to consolidate his position under the cover of anti-corruption. He wants to clean up the ayatollahs, many of whom are his enemies. He will need the support of Iranian Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei. This election has made Ahmadinejad a powerful president, perhaps the most powerful in Iran since the revolution. Ahmadinejad does not want to challenge Khamenei, and we suspect that Khamenei will not want to challenge Ahmadinejad. A forced marriage is emerging, one which may place many other religious leaders in a difficult position. Certainly, hopes that a new political leadership would cut back on Iran’s nuclear program have been dashed. The champion of that program has won, in part because he championed the program. We still see Iran as far from developing a deliverable nuclear weapon, but certainly the Obama administration’s hopes that Ahmadinejad would either be replaced — or at least weakened and forced to be more conciliatory — have been crushed. Interestingly, Ahmadinejad sent congratulations to U.S. President Barack Obama on his inauguration. We would expect Obama to reciprocate under his opening policy, which U.S. Vice President Joe Biden appears to have affirmed, assuming he was speaking for Obama. Once the vote fraud issue settles, we will have a better idea of whether Obama’s policies will continue. (We expect they will.) What we have now are two presidents in a politically secure position, something that normally forms a basis for negotiations. The problem is that it is not clear what the Iranians are prepared to negotiate on, nor is it clear what the Americans are prepared to give the Iranians to induce them to negotiate. Iran wants greater influence in Iraq and its role as a regional leader acknowledged, something the United States doesn’t want to give them. The United States wants an end to the Iranian nuclear program, which Iran doesn’t want to give. On the surface, this would seem to open the door for an attack on Iran’s nuclear facilities. Former U.S. President George W. Bush did not — and Obama does not — have any appetite for such an attack. Both presidents blocked the Israelis from attacking, assuming the Israelis ever actually wanted to attack. For the moment, the election appears to have frozen the status quo in place. Neither the United States nor Iran seem prepared to move significantly, and there are no third parties that want to get involved in the issue beyond the occasional European diplomatic mission or Russian threat to sell something to Iran. In the end, this shows what we have long known: This game is locked in place, and goes on.

source :STRATFOR

When the Mexican Drug Trade Hits the Border

2009-04-27T11:44:00.004+01:00

By Fred Burton and Ben West

For several years now, STRATFOR has been closely monitoring the growing violence in Mexico and its links to the drug trade. In December, our cartel report assessed the situation in Mexico, and two weeks ago we looked closely at the networks that control the flow of drugs through Central America. This week, we turn our attention to the border to see the dynamics at work there and how U.S. gangs are involved in the action.

The nature of narcotics trafficking changes as shipments near the border. As in any supply chain, shipments become smaller as they reach the retail level, requiring more people to be involved in the operation. While Mexican cartels do have representatives in cities across the United States to oversee networks there, local gangs get involved in the actual distribution of the narcotics.

While there are still many gaps in the understanding of how U.S. gangs interface with Mexican cartels to move drugs around the United States and finally sell them on the retail market, we do know some of the details of gang involvement.

Trafficking vs. Distribution

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Though the drug trade as a whole is highly complex, the underlying concept is as simple as getting narcotics from South America to the consuming markets — chief among them the United States, which is the world’s largest drug market. Traffickers use Central America and Mexico as a pipeline to move their goods north. The objective of the Latin American smuggler is to get as much tonnage as possible from Colombia, Peru and Bolivia to the lucrative American market and avoid interdictions by authorities along the way.

However, as narcotic shipments near the U.S.-Mexican border, wholesale trafficking turns into the more micro process of retail distribution. In southern Mexico, drug traffickers move product north in bulk, but as shipments cross the U.S. border, wholesale shipments are broken down into smaller parcels in order to hedge against interdiction and prepare the product for the end user. One way to think about the difference in tactics between trafficking drugs in Central America and Mexico and distributing drugs in the United States is to imagine a company like UPS or FedEx. Shipping air cargo from, say, New York to Los Angeles requires different resources than delivering packages to individual homes in southern California. Several tons of freight from the New York area can be quickly flown to the Los Angeles area. But as the cargo gets closer to its final destination, it is broken up into smaller loads that are shipped via tractor trailer to distribution centers around the region, and finally divided further into discrete packages carried in parcel trucks to individual homes.

As products move through the supply chain, they require more specific handling and detailed knowledge of an area, which requires more manpower. The same, more or less, can be said for drug shipments. This can be seen in interdiction reports. When narcotics are intercepted traversing South America into Mexico, they can be measured in tons; as they cross the border into the United States, seizures are reported in kilograms; and by the time products are picked up on the streets of U.S. cities, the narcotics have been divided into packages measured in grams. To reflect this difference, we will refer to the movement of drugs south of the border as trafficking and the movement of drugs north of the border as distributing.

As narcotics approach the border, law enforcement scrutiny and the risk of interdiction also increase, so drug traffickers have to be creative when it comes to moving their products. The constant game of cat-and-mouse makes drug trafficking a very dynamic business, with tactics and specific routes constantly changing to take advantage of any angle that presents itself.

The only certainties are that drugs and people will move from south to north, and that money and weapons will move from north to south. But the specific nature and corridors of those movements are constantly in flux as traffickers innovate in their attempts to stay ahead of the police in a very Darwinian environment. The traffickers employ all forms of movement imaginable, including:
Tunneling under border fences into safe houses on the U.S. side.
Traversing the desert on foot with 50-pound packs of narcotics. (Dirt bikes, ATVs and pack mules are also used.)
Driving across the border by fording the Rio Grande, using ramps to get over fences, cutting through fences or driving through open areas.
Using densely vegetated portions of the riverbank as dead drops.
Floating narcotics across isolated stretches of the river.
Flying small aircraft near the ground to avoid radar.
Concealing narcotics in private vehicles, personal possessions and in or on the bodies of persons who are crossing legally at ports of entry.
Bribing border officials in order to pass through checkpoints.
Hiding narcotics on cross-border trains.
Hiding narcotics in tractor trailers carrying otherwise legitimate loads.
Using boats along the Gulf coast.
Using human “mules” to smuggle narcotics aboard commercial aircraft in their luggage or bodies.
Shipping narcotics via mail or parcel service.

These methods are not mutually exclusive, and organizations may use any combination at the same time. New ways to move the product are constantly emerging.

Once the narcotics are moved into the United States, drug distributors use networks of safe houses, which are sometimes operated by people with direct connections to the Mexican cartels, sometimes by local or regional gang members, and sometimes by individual entrepreneurs. North of the border, distributors still must maneuver around checkpoints, either by avoiding them or by bribing the officials who work there. While these checkpoints certainly result in seizures, they can only slow or reroute the flow of drugs. Hub cities like Atlanta service a large region of smaller drug dealers who act as individual couriers in delivering small amounts of narcotics to their customers.

It is a numbers game for drug traffickers and distributors alike, since it is inevitable that smugglers and shipments will be intercepted by law enforcement somewhere along the supply chain. Those whose loads are interdicted more often struggle to keep prices low and stay competitive. On the other hand, paying heavy corruption fees or taking extra precautions to ensure that more of your product makes it through also raises the cost of moving the product. Successful traffickers and distributors must be able to strike a balance between protecting their shipments and accepting losses. This requires a high degree of pragmatism and rationality.
Local Gangs

While the Mexican cartels do have people in the United States, they do not have enough people so positioned to handle the increased workload of distributing narcotics at the retail level. A wide range of skill sets is required. Some of the tactics involved in moving shipments across the border require skilled workers, such as pilots, while U.S. gang members along the border serve as middlemen and retail distributors. Other aspects of the operation call for people with expertise in manipulating corrupt officials and recruiting human intelligence sources, while a large part of the process simply involves saturating the system with massive numbers of expendable, low-skilled smugglers who are desperate for the money.

The U.S. gangs are crucial in filling the cartel gap north of the border. Members of these border gangs typically are young men who are willing to break the law, looking for quick cash and already plugged in to a network of similar young men, which enables them to recruit others to meet the manpower demand. They are also typically tied to Mexico through family connections, dual citizenship and the simple geographic fact that they live so close to the border. However, the U.S. gangs do not constitute formal extensions of the Mexican drug-trafficking organizations. Border gangs developed on their own, have their own histories, traditions, structures and turf, and they remain independent. They are also involved in more than just drug trafficking and distribution, including property crime, racketeering and kidnapping. Their involvement in narcotics is similar to that of a contractor who can provide certain services, such as labor and protection, while drugs move across gang territory, but drug money is not usually their sole source of income.

These gangs come in many shapes and sizes. Motorcycle gangs like the Mongols and Bandidos have chapters all along the southwestern U.S. border and, while not known to actually carry narcotics across the border into the United States, they are frequently involved in distributing smaller loads to various markets across the country to supplement their income from other illegal activities.

Street gangs are present in virtually every U.S. city and town of significant size along the border and are obvious pools of labor for distributing narcotics once they hit the United States. The largest of these street gangs are MS-13 and the Mexican Mafia. MS-13 has an estimated 30,000 to 50,000 members worldwide, about 25 percent of whom are in the United States. MS-13 is unique among U.S. gangs in that it is involved in trafficking narcotics through Central America and Mexico as well as in distributing narcotics in the United States. The Mexican Mafia works with allied gangs in the American Southwest to control large swaths of territory along both sides of the U.S.-Mexican border. These gangs are organized to interact directly with traffickers in Mexico and oversee transborder shipments as well as distribution inside the United States.

Prison gangs such as the Barrio Azteca and the Texas Syndicate reach far beyond the prison fence. Membership in a prison gang typically means that, at one point, the member was in prison, where he joined the gang. But there is a wide network of ex-prisoner gang members on the outside involved in criminal activities, including drug smuggling, which is one of the most accessible ways for a gang member to make money when he is released from prison.

Operating underneath the big gang players are hundreds of smaller city gangs in neighborhoods all along the border. These gangs are typically involved in property theft, drug dealing, turf battles and other forms of street crime that can be handled by local police. However, even these gangs can become involved in cross-border smuggling; for example, the Wonderboys in San Luis, Ariz., are known to smuggle marijuana, methamphetamine and cocaine across the border.

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Gangs like the Wonderboys also target illegal immigrants coming across the border and steal any valuable personal items or cash they may have on them. The targeting of illegal immigrants coming into the United States is common all across the border, with many gangs specializing in kidnapping newly arrived immigrants and demanding ransoms from their families. These gangs are responsible for the record level of kidnapping reported in places like Phoenix, where 368 abductions were reported in 2008. Afraid to notify law enforcement out of a fear of being deported, many families of abducted immigrants somehow come up with the money to secure their family member’s release.

Drug distribution is by far the most lucrative illicit business along the border, and the competition for money leads to a very pragmatic interface between the U.S. border gangs and the drug cartels in Mexico. Handoffs from Mexican traffickers to U.S. distributors are made based upon reliability and price. While territorial rivalries between drug traffickers have led to thousands of deaths in Mexico, these Mexican rivalries do not appear to be spilling over into the U.S. border gangs, who are engaged in their own rivalries, feuds and acts of violence. Nor do the more gruesome aspects of violence in Mexico, such as torture and beheadings, although there are indications that grenades that were once part of cartel arsenals are finding their way to U.S. gangs. In dealing with the Mexican cartels, U.S. gangs — and cartels in turn — exhibit no small amount of business pragmatism. U.S. gangs can serve more than one cartel, which appears to be fine with the cartels, who really have no choice in the matter. They need these retail distribution services north of the border in order to make a profit.

Likewise, U.S. gangs are in the drug business to make money, not to enhance the power of any particular cartel in Mexico. As such, U.S. gangs do not want to limit their business opportunities by aligning themselves to any one cartel. Smaller city gangs that control less territory are more limited geographically in terms of which cartels they can work with. The Wonderboys in Arizona, for example, must deal exclusively with the Sinaloa cartel because the cartel’s turf south of the border encompasses the gang’s relative sliver of turf to the north. However, larger gangs like the Mexican Mafia control much broader swaths of territory and can deal with more than one cartel.

The expanse of geography controlled by the handful of cartels in Mexico simply does not match up with the territory controlled by the many gangs on the U.S. side. Stricter law enforcement is one reason U.S. border gangs have not consolidated to gain control over more turf. While corruption is a growing problem along the U.S. side of the border, it still has not risen to the level that it has in northern Mexico. Another reason for the asymmetry is the different nature of drug movements north of the border. As discussed earlier, moving narcotics in the United States has everything to do with distributing retail quantities of drugs to consumers spread over a broad geographic area, a model that requires more feet on the ground than the trafficking that takes place in Mexico.

Assassins’ Gate

Because the drug distribution network in the United States is so large, it is impossible for any one criminal organization to control all of it. U.S. gangs fill the role of middleman to move drugs around, and they are entrusted with large shipments of narcotics worth millions of dollars. Obviously, the cartels need a way to keep these gangs honest.

One effective way is to have an enforcement arm in place. This is where U.S.-based assassins come in. More tightly connected to the cartels than the gangs are, these assassins are not usually members of a gang. In fact, the cartels prefer that their assassins not be in a gang so that their loyalties will be to the cartels, and so they will be less likely to have criminal records or attract law enforcement attention because of everyday gang activity.

Cartels invest quite a bit in training these hit men to operate in the United States. Often they are trained in Mexico, then sent back across to serve as a kind of “sleeper cell” until they are tapped to take out a delinquent U.S. drug dealer. The frequency and ease with which Americans travel to and from Mexico covers any suspicion that might be raised.

The Gaps

The U.S.-Mexican border is a dynamic place, with competition over drug routes and the quest for cash destabilizing northern Mexico and straining local and state law enforcement on the U.S. side. Putting pressure on the people who are active in the border drug trade has so far only inspired others to innovate and adapt to the challenging environment by becoming more innovative and pragmatic.

And there is still so much we do not know. The exact nature of the relationship between Mexican cartels and U.S. gangs is very murky, and it appears to be handled on such an individual basis that making generalizations is difficult. Another intelligence gap is how deeply involved the cartels are in the U.S. distribution network. As mentioned earlier, the network expands as it becomes more retail in nature, but the profit margins also expand, making it an attractive target for cartel takeover. Finally, while we know that gangs are instrumental in distributing narcotics in the United States, it is unclear how much of the cross-border smuggling they control. Is this vital, risky endeavor completely controlled by cartels and gatekeeper organizations based in Mexico, or do U.S. gangs on the distribution side have more say? STRATFOR will continue to monitor these issues as Mexico’s dynamic cartels continue to evolve.

This report may be forwarded or republished on your website with attribution to www.stratfor.com

Turkish Politicians Comment on Obamas Speech

2009-04-09T22:16:00.001+01:00

Istanbul NTV Online 06 Apr 09

Unattributed report: Political Parties Comment on Obamas Speech

The NTV interviewed the representatives of political parties which have a
delegation in the Turkish Grand National Assembly [TBMM] about the speech
delivered by Obama in a plenary session of the TBMM.

Deniz Bolukbasi, a Nationalist Action Party deputy from Ankara: "His
address to the National Assembly should be analyzed in two parts. He said that
Turkey was a critical ally, emphasized secularism and democracy in Turkey, and
noted that this long-standing friendship between Turkey and the United States
based on common values can establish new ground for partnership in order to
overcome new challenge of the world. Those were positive remarks.

"But, I was deeply disappointed and alarmed by the other parts of Obama's
speech. After his meeting with President Gul, he said that his opinion about
genocide had not changed and that the problem could be resolved if the common
border between Armenia and Turkey was reopened and diplomatic relations were
established. He noted that he was encouraging Turkey to take those steps. He
referred to the possibility of reopening the Heybeliada seminary. He said that
Turkey should cooperate with the Barzani Administration while reiterating
support for granting Kurdish rights and fighting against terrorism. I was not
expecting the US President to make those comments. The speech, therefore, had
certain aspects which gave rise to concerns.

"He stated that they would support Turkey in its fight against the PKK and
that the United States was also regarding the PKK as a terrorist organization.
But, it was not sufficient. He stated that Turkey should also build ties of
cooperation with the central government and Kurdish leaders in Iraq. In other
words, he implied that the problem should be discussed with Barzani in order to
find a solution.

"He said that Turkey was at the heart of a region where East and West unite
come together rather than being divided, adding that different cultures could
live together, citing relations between Turkey and the United States as an
example. He said that they were not waging and would never wage war against
the Muslim world. But, his speech did not have a context indicating that
Turkey has assumed a special mission in that regard."

Suat Kiniklioglu, deputy head of the AKP's [Justice and Development Party]
foreign affairs committee: "I think it was an encouraging speech, albeit it
was short. But, it contained important messages. Firstly, there was special
emphasis laid on Turkey's European identity and relations with the EU. He
expressed his desire to understand the Muslim world better and to establish
closer ties with it which reflected his commitment to maintaining good
relations with the Muslim world.

"The reference to the Cyprus question was of crucial importance to us
because talks in Cyprus presently continue and they are very important. He
said that both sides should take a constructive approach to the negotiations.
His desire to mend Turkish-American relations was clearly demonstrated. Before
the presidential election, Obama said that he would pursue such a policy and
that he would make serious efforts in order to get Turkish-American relations
back on the rails. I think that he reiterated his determination in his address
to the National Assembly. It was actually a response to the comment made by
French President Sarkozy to a certain extent.

"He said: 'The United States is not a member of the EU, but it is an ally
of both the EU and Turkey. So, there are things that it can say.' It was
generally very positive. Clearly, I regard it as a speech which gave clues
about the next period in Turkish-American relations.

As regards the seminary issue, you know that it is a matter which are
constantly brought up by foreign visitors, but has not been actually explained
due to some difficulties peculiar to Turkey. Regarding the events witnessed in
1915, Obama made frequent references to the United States' own history and
slavery. He said that people who looked like him could not even vote much less
being the president of the United States because of their skin in the past. It
was interesting to hear him making such an analogy and first mentioned US
history and made references to Turkey about the issue. As our President noted
in a news conference at the Presidential Mansion today, we have already said
that a history committee should be established, there are conflicting
information, and that we are open to the idea of setting up a history committee
about a contentious historical issue.

"Obviously, I do not know what the public will think about it, but there was
a certain level of silence in the National Assembly during that part of his
speech. I think the public will make its own judgment about the issue. But,
the AKP has already given its response by our leader's proposal to set up a
history committee in 2005 which was discussed during recent rapprochement
between Turkey and Armenia more recently."

Ahmet Tan, Democratic Left Party deputy from Istanbul: "When I take a look
from the tunnel of history -- because I also listened to Clinton on 15 November
1999 -- I do not think that there is a black-and-white contrast between the two
speeches. But, there are differences regarding certain issues. Clinton
mentioned Cyprus because of conditions prevailing back then. But, Obama made
no reference to Cyprus.

Clinton talked about conflicts in the Aegean and he used the term conflict
because we had problems with Greece back then. Of course this was not the case
this time. Obama delivered a speech which was at a higher level. In a sense,
it was reminiscent of the speech he made in front of the White House on the day
he was elected.

"The section about the Armenian issue deserves Turkey's special attention.
Clinton made no reference to the Armenian issue back then. But, Obama did.
But, he did it in a very careful and diplomatic manner. He implied that we
should face up to tragic events of the past. Of course it was not a comment
that would make the Armenian community in the United States very happy because
he used the term 'Armenian genocide" during his campaign. All supporters of
the allegation of Armenian genocide and diaspora Armenians were definitely
expecting him to use the word 'genocide.' But, he did not use it. In a sense,
it was good because it was parallel with both messages of peace and advice to
refrain from conflicts. I was surprised to hear him laying emphasis on
reopening the seminary in Istanbul which indicated that it will remain n the
agenda in the future.

"There were also other differences between them in terms of respective
periods. Energy was not on the agenda during that period. He commented on
energy in addition to the Kurdish overture, particularly TRT 6 television
channel. His remarks about torture were of great importance. He has more
dynamic expectations about democratic overtures. He said: 'Democracy is a
dynamic process." He laid particular emphasis on freedom of the media which was
related to the government's policies. In my view, this is one of the
conclusions that should be drawn by the ruling party."

Republican People's Party deputy leader Onur Oymen: "He gave very positive
messages. In fact, it was broadly not much different those we were expecting
to hear. There are several points which deserve special attention. Firstly,
he referred to democratic secularism. He praised Ataturk's legacy and stressed
the notion of democratic secularism. This is the first important element.

"The second important element is that he said that close cooperation between
Turkey and the United States was needed. He referred to common factors, but we
did not hear him uttering the term 'strategic partnership.' This was the main
difference with the Bush Administration. By saying that we should normalize
our relations with Armenia, he implied that we should reopen the common
border. What he said about Heybeliada represented messages that we already
knew of.

But, he did not mention why Turkey has kept its border with Armenia closed
for such a long period? The reason is that 20 percent of Azeri territory has
been invaded by Armenia. The message that Turkey should reopen the border even
if Armenia does not withdraw from that region can be interpreted as a piece of
advice implying that we should accept the current situation. But, he did not
precisely imply that. He said that the Nagorno-Karabakh conflict which has
been continuing for a long time should be resolved.

"Thus, he gave both messages concurrently. He referred to both sides in
Cyprus while emphasizing the need to unite. He used a very general term. One
of his important messages was about the Israeli-Palestinian dispute. He gave
the message that there should be two states which is an opinion that we are
advocating. While making comments on Iraq and the PKK, he emphasized the fight
on terror which was of crucial importance. But, he did not give any signal
about how the PKK would be expelled from northern Iraq.

He said that terrorism is a threat to Turkey, Iraq, and the United States.
How are we going to fight against that threat? We could not fully see a sign.
We are awaiting it. He said: 'We will work together in Afghanistan." What did
he actually mean? Did he imply that they would fight against terrorism in
Afghanistan together with Turkish troops? It was not clear.

In other words, his general messages were positive and friendly. But, we
will analyze his speech in detail. His meeting with our leader and taking care
to meet with the leaders of the opposition parties are very positive signs. It
showed that the new US government is perfectly aware that Turkey does not only
consist of the ruling party.

Democratic Society Party, DTP, leader Ahmet Turk: DTP leader Turk briefed
reporters after his meeting with US President Obama. In reply to a question
how he interpreted Obama's messages and his statement that the PKK is a
terrorist organization during his address to the TBMM, Turk: "We should go
down to the source of violence. I tried to explain that it should not be
regarded as one-sided violence given that there are 17,000 unsolved
murders."

Asked whether or not they were asked to sever their ties with the PKK, Turk
responded that there was no such discussion.

Does Turkey Still Belong in NATO?

2009-04-09T22:13:00.002+01:00

by Daniel Pipes
Philadelphia Bulletin

April 6, 2009

Smack on its 60th anniversary, the North Atlantic Treaty Organization finds itself facing a completely novel problem – that of radical Islam, as represented by the Republic of Turkey, within its own ranks.

Ankara joined NATO in 1951 and shortly after Turkish forces fought valiantly with the allies in Korea. Turks stood tough against the Soviet Union for decades. Following the United States, Turkey has the second-largest number of troops in the alliance.
With the end of the Cold War, NATO's mission changed and some saw Islamism as the new strategic enemy. Already in 1995, NATO Secretary General Willy Claes compared Islamism to the historic foe: "Fundamentalism is at least as dangerous as communism was." With the Cold War over, he added, "Islamic militancy has emerged as perhaps the single gravest threat to the NATO alliance and to Western security."
Indeed, NATO first invoked Article 5 of its charter, calling on "collective self-defense," to go to war against the Taliban in Afghanistan in 2001, responding to the 9/11 attacks launched from that country.
More recently, former Spanish prime minister José María Aznar argues that "Islamist terrorism is a new shared threat of a global nature that places the very existence of NATO's members at risk" and advocates that the alliance focus on combating "Islamic jihadism and the proliferation of weapons of mass destruction." He calls for "placing the war against Islamic jihadism at the center of the Allied strategy."
Claes and Aznar are right; but their vision is now in jeopardy, for Islamists have penetrated the 28-state alliance, as was dramatically illustrated in recent days.

Prime ministers Recep Tayyip Erdoğan (left) and Anders Fogh Rasmussen in 2002.

As the term of Secretary General Jaap de Hoop Scheffer concludes in July, a consensus had emerged to make Danish Prime Minister Anders Fogh Rasmussen, 56, his successor. But Fogh Rasmussen was in office in early 2006, when the Muhammad cartoon crisis erupted and he insisted that as prime minister he had no authority to tell a private newspaper what not to publish. This position won him much criticism from Muslims, including Turkey's Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdoğan, who instructed Fogh Rasmussen at the time that "Freedoms have limits, what is sacred should be respected."
When Fogh Rasmussen came up for the NATO post, Erdoğan continued his grudge, saying that his government looks "negatively" on Fogh Rasmussen's candidacy because, Erdoğan explained, "I asked for a meeting of Islamic leaders in his country to explain what is going on and he refrained from doing that. So how can I expect him to contribute to peace?"
Eventually, Fogh Rasmussen was selected as the consensus candidate, but at a steep price. The Dane won the job only after engaging in intensive negotiations with Turkish president Abdullah Gül hosted by Barack Obama. Fogh Rasmussen promised to appoint at least two Turks and publicly to address Muslim concerns about his response to the cartoons. More broadly, Erdoğan announced. Obama "gave us guarantees" concerning Turkish reservations about Fogh Rasmussen.
The hoops that Fogh Rasmussen had to jump through to win Ankara's support can be inferred from his cringe-inducing, dhimmi-like remarks on winning the appointment: "As secretary general of NATO, I will make a very clear outreach to the Muslim world to ensure cooperation and intensify dialogue with the Muslim world. I consider Turkey a very important ally and strategic partner and I will cooperate with them in our endeavors to ensure the best cooperation with Muslim world."
We appear to be witnessing the emergence not of a robust NATO following the Claes-Aznar model, one leading the fight against radical Islam, but an institution hobbled from within, incapable of standing up to the main strategic threat for fear of offending a member government.
Nor is Islamism NATO's only problem with Turkey. In what is emerging as a Middle Eastern cold war, with Tehran leading one faction and Riyadh the other, Ankara has repeatedly sided with the former – hosting Mahmoud Ahmadinejad, advocating for Iran's nuclear program, developing an Iranian oil field, transferring Iranian arms to Hezbollah, openly supporting Hamas, viciously condemning Israel, and turning Turkish public opinion against the United States.
Noting these changes, columnist Caroline Glick urges Washington to "float the notion of removing Turkey from NATO." The Obama administration is not about to do that; but before Ankara renders NATO toothless, dispassionate observers should carefully think this argument through.

Middle East Forum

Short '06 Lebanon War Stokes Pentagon Debate

2009-04-09T22:07:00.003+01:00

By Greg Jaffe
Washington Post Staff Writer
Monday, April 6, 2009; Page A01

A war that ended three years ago and involved not a single U.S. soldier has become the subject of an increasingly heated debate inside the Pentagon, one that could alter how the U.S. military fights in the future.

When Israel and Hezbollah battled for more than a month in Lebanon in the summer of 2006, the result was widely seen as a disaster for the Israeli military. Soon after the fighting ended, some military officers began to warn that the short, bloody and relatively conventional battle foreshadowed how future enemies of the United States might fight.

Since then, the Defense Department has dispatched as many as a dozen teams to interview Israeli officers who fought against Hezbollah. The Army and Marine Corps have sponsored a series of multimillion-dollar war games to test how U.S. forces might fare against a similar foe. "I've organized five major games in the last two years, and all of them have focused on Hezbollah," said Frank Hoffman, a research fellow at the Marine Corps Warfighting Laboratory in Quantico.

A big reason that the 34-day war is drawing such fevered attention is that it highlights a rift among military leaders: Some want to change the U.S. military so that it is better prepared for wars like the ones it is fighting in Iraq and Afghanistan, while others worry that such a shift would leave the United States vulnerable to a more conventional foe.

"The Lebanon war has become a bellwether," said Stephen Biddle, a senior fellow at the Council on Foreign Relations who has advised Gen. David H. Petraeus, head of the U.S. Central Command. "If you are opposed to transforming the military to fight low-intensity wars, it is your bloody sheet. It's discussed in almost coded communication to indicate which side of the argument you are on."

U.S. military experts were stunned by the destruction that Hezbollah forces, using sophisticated antitank guided missiles, were able to wreak on Israeli armor columns. Unlike the guerrilla forces in Iraq and Afghanistan, who employed mostly hit-and-run tactics, the Hezbollah fighters held their ground against Israeli forces in battles that stretched as long as 12 hours. They were able to eavesdrop on Israeli communications and even struck an Israeli ship with a cruise missile.

"From 2000 to 2006 Hezbollah embraced a new doctrine, transforming itself from a predominantly guerrilla force into a quasi-conventional fighting force," a study by the Army's Combat Studies Institute concluded last year. Another Pentagon report warned that Hezbollah forces were "extremely well trained, especially in the uses of antitank weapons and rockets" and added: "They well understood the vulnerabilities of Israeli armor."

Many top Army officials refer to the short battle almost as a morality play that illustrates the price of focusing too much on counterinsurgency wars at the expense of conventional combat. These officers note that, before the Lebanon war, Israeli forces had been heavily involved in occupation duty in the Palestinian territories.

"The real takeaway is that you have to find the time to train for major combat operations, even if you are fighting counterinsurgency wars," said one senior military analyst who studied the Lebanon war for the Center for Army Lessons Learned at Fort Leavenworth, Kan. Currently, the deployments to Iraq and Afghanistan have prevented Army units from conducting such training.

Army generals have also latched on to the Lebanon war to build support for multibillion-dollar weapons programs that are largely irrelevant to low-intensity wars such as those fought in Iraq and Afghanistan. A 30-page internal Army briefing, prepared for the Joint Chiefs of Staff and senior Pentagon civilians, recently sought to highlight how the $159 billion Future Combat Systems, a network of ground vehicles and sensors, could have been used to dispatch Hezbollah's forces quickly and with few American casualties.

"Hezbollah relies on low visibility and prepared defenses," one slide in the briefing reads. "FCS counters with sensors and robotics to maneuver out of contact."

Defense Secretary Robert M. Gates is expected to stake out a firm position in this debate as soon as today, when he announces the 2010 defense budget. That document is expected to cut or sharply curtail weapons systems designed for conventional wars, and to bolster intelligence and surveillance programs designed to help track down shadowy insurgents.

"This budget moves the needle closer to irregular warfare and counterinsurgency," Pentagon spokesman Geoff Morrell said. "It is not an abandonment of the need to prepare for conventional conflicts. But even moving that needle is a revolutionary thing in this building."

The changes reflect the growing prominence of the military's counterinsurgency camp -- the most prominent member of which is Petraeus -- in the Pentagon. President Obama, whose strategy in Afghanistan is focused on protecting the local population and denying the Islamist radicals a safe haven, has largely backed this group.

The question facing defense leaders is whether they can afford to build a force that can prevail in a counterinsurgency fight, where the focus is on protecting the civilian population and building indigenous army and police forces, as well as a more conventional battle.

Gen. George W. Casey Jr., the Army's top officer in the Pentagon, has said it is essential that the military be able to do both simultaneously. New Army doctrine, meanwhile, calls for a "full spectrum" service that is as good at rebuilding countries as it is at destroying opposing armies.

But other experts remain skeptical. "The idea that you can do it all is just wrong," said Biddle of the Council on Foreign Relations. Soldiers, who are home for as little as 12 months between deployments, do not have enough time to prepare adequately for both types of wars, he said.

Biddle and other counterinsurgency advocates argue that the military should focus on winning the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan and only then worry about what the next war will look like.

Some in this camp say that the threat posed by Hezbollah is being inflated by officers who are determined to return the Army to a more familiar past, built around preparing for conventional warfare.

Another question is whether the U.S. military is taking the proper lessons from the Israel-Hezbollah war. Its studies have focused almost exclusively on the battle in southern Lebanon and ignored Hezbollah's ongoing role in Lebanese society as a political party and humanitarian aid group. After the battle, Hezbollah forces moved in quickly with aid and reconstruction assistance.

"Even if the Israelis had done better operationally, I don't think they would have been victorious in the long run," said Andrew Exum, a former Army officer who has studied the battle from southern Lebanon. "For the Israelis, the war lasted for 34 days. We tend to forget that for Hezbollah, it is infinite."

source

MEETING OF ECUMENICAL PATRIARCH BARTHOLOMEW WITH PRESIDENT BARACK OBAMA

2009-04-08T22:06:00.002+01:00

– His All Holiness Ecumenical Patriarch Bartholomew had a private meeting today with President Barack Obama. The meeting took place at the Conrad Hotel in Constantinople (modern day Istanbul) at approximately 9:45 in the morning. His Eminence Archbishop Demetrios of America and the White House Chief of Staff, Rahm Emanuel, were present at the meeting.

The meeting and ensuing discussion were marked by a spirit of warm cordiality and mutual respect. The substance of the discussions included President Obama’s mention of the issue of the Theological School of Halki in his speech before the Turkish Parliament, and his further discussion of the same with the President of the Turkish Republic, Abdullah Gul. The President said that he would follow up on the issue with a view to a favorable solution for the Ecumenical Patriarchate.

His All Holiness Ecumenical Patriarch Bartholomew made reference to the following points:

He made a convincing and passionate argument for the speedy re-opening of the Theological School of Halki, a basic need for the education and preparation of Clergy of the Ecumenical Patriarchate.
He emphasized the importance of religious liberty and the guarantee of same for all minorities of Turkey.
He stated his well-known and long time support for the efforts of Turkey to join the European Union.
He noted the significance of efforts made on behalf of the environment, adding information on his own upcoming Ecological Symposium in the U.S.A. (Mississippi River) in October of 2009.
He thanked President Obama for this meeting and for his active interest in the pressing issues of the Ecumenical Patriarchate.

His All Holiness mentioned that he had sent to the President, through the local U.S. General Counsel, an icon of the Prophet Baruch (patron of the President) with a handwritten inscription. He also congratulated the President for the championship victory of the University of North Carolina’s Basketball Team, which the President had chosen to win.

Κ. Βοσπορίτης, ο νεώτερος

Π α ρ α τ η ρ η τ ή ρ ι ο Τ ο υ ρ κ ί α ς

Obama's Strategy and the Summits

2009-04-08T22:02:00.002+01:00

By George Friedman
Related Special Topic Page
A World Redefined: The Global Summits

The weeklong extravaganza of G-20, NATO, EU, U.S. and Turkey meetings has almost ended. The spin emerging from the meetings, echoed in most of the media, sought to portray the meetings as a success and as reflecting a re-emergence of trans-Atlantic unity.

The reality, however, is that the meetings ended in apparent unity because the United States accepted European unwillingness to compromise on key issues. U.S. President Barack Obama wanted the week to appear successful, and therefore backed off on key issues; the Europeans did the same. Moreover, Obama appears to have set a process in motion that bypasses Europe to focus on his last stop: Turkey.
Berlin, Washington and the G-20

Let’s begin with the G-20 meeting, which focused on the global financial crisis. As we said last year, there were many European positions, but the United States was reacting to Germany’s. Not only is Germany the largest economy in Europe, it is the largest exporter in the world. Any agreement that did not include Germany would be useless, whereas an agreement excluding the rest of Europe but including Germany would still be useful.

Two fundamental issues divided the United States and Germany. The first was whether Germany would match or come close to the U.S. stimulus package. The United States wanted Germany to stimulate its own domestic demand. Obama feared that if the United States put a stimulus plan into place, Germany would use increased demand in the U.S. market to expand its exports. The United States would wind up with massive deficits while the Germans took advantage of U.S. spending, thus letting Berlin enjoy the best of both worlds. Washington felt it had to stimulate its economy, and that this would inevitably benefit the rest of the world. But Washington wanted burden sharing. Berlin, quite rationally, did not. Even before the meetings, the United States dropped the demand — Germany was not going to cooperate.

The second issue was the financing of the bailout of the Central European banking system, heavily controlled by eurozone banks and part of the EU financial system. The Germans did not want an EU effort to bail out the banks. They wanted the International Monetary Fund (IMF) to bail out a substantial part of the EU financial system instead. The reason was simple: The IMF receives loans from the United States, as well as China and Japan, meaning the Europeans would be joined by others in underwriting the bailout. The United States has signaled it would be willing to contribute $100 billion to the IMF, of which a substantial portion would go to Central Europe. (Of the current loans given by the IMF, roughly 80 percent have gone to the struggling economies in Central Europe.) The United States therefore essentially has agreed to the German position.

Later at the NATO meeting, the Europeans — including Germany — declined to send substantial forces to Afghanistan. Instead, they designated a token force of 5,000, most of whom are scheduled to be in Afghanistan only until the August elections there, and few of whom actually would be engaged in combat operations. This is far below what Obama had been hoping for when he began his presidency.

Agreement was reached on collaboration in detecting international tax fraud and on further collaboration in managing the international crisis, however. But what that means remains extremely vague — as it was meant to be, since there was no consensus on what was to be done. In fact, the actual guidelines will still have to be hashed out at the G-20 finance ministers’ meeting in Scotland in November. Intriguingly, after insisting on the creation of a global regulatory regime — and with the vague U.S. assent — the European Union failed to agree on European regulations. In a meeting in Prague on April 4, the United Kingdom rejected the regulatory regime being proposed by Germany and France, saying it would leave the British banking system at a disadvantage.

Overall, the G-20 and the NATO meetings did not produce significant breakthroughs. Rather than pushing hard on issues or trading concessions — such as accepting Germany’s unwillingness to increase its stimulus package in return for more troops in Afghanistan — the United States failed to press or bargain. It preferred to appear as part of a consensus rather than appear isolated. The United States systematically avoided any appearance of disagreement.

The reason there was no bargaining was fairly simple: The Germans were not prepared to bargain. They came to the meetings with prepared positions, and the United States had no levers with which to move them. The only option was to withhold funding for the IMF, and that would have been a political disaster (not to mention economically rather unwise). The United States would have been seen as unwilling to participate in multilateral solutions rather than Germany being seen as trying to foist its economic problems on others. Obama has positioned himself as a multilateralist and can’t afford the political consequences of deviating from this perception. Contributing to the IMF, in these days of trillion-dollar bailouts, was the lower-cost alternative. Thus, the Germans have the U.S. boxed in.

The political aspect of this should not be underestimated. George W. Bush had extremely bad relations with the Europeans (in large part because he was prepared to confront them). This was Obama’s first major international foray, and he could not let it end in acrimony or wind up being seen as unable to move the Europeans after running a campaign based on his ability to manage the Western coalition. It was important that he come home having reached consensus with the Europeans. Backing off on key economic and military demands gave him that “consensus.”
Turkey and Obama’s Deeper Game

But it was not simply a matter of domestic politics. It is becoming clear that Obama is playing a deeper game. A couple of weeks before the meetings, when it had become obvious that the Europeans were not going to bend on the issues that concerned the United States, Obama scheduled a trip to Turkey. During the EU meetings in Prague, Obama vigorously supported the Turkish application for EU membership, which several members are blocking on grounds of concerns over human rights and the role of the military in Turkey. But the real reason is that full membership would open European borders to Turkish migration, and the Europeans do not want free Turkish migration. The United States directly confronted the Europeans on this matter.

During the NATO meeting, a key item on the agenda was the selection of a new alliance secretary-general. The favorite was former Danish Prime Minister Anders Fogh Rasmussen. Turkey opposed his candidacy because of his defense on grounds of free speech of cartoons depicting the Prophet Mohammed published in a Danish magazine. NATO operates on consensus, so any one member can block just about anything. The Turks backed off the veto, but won two key positions in NATO, including that of deputy secretary-general.

So while the Germans won their way at the meetings, it was the Turks who came back with the most. Not only did they boost their standing in NATO, they got Obama to come to a vigorous defense of the Turkish application for membership in the European Union, which of course the United States does not belong to. Obama then flew to Turkey for meetings and to attend a key international meeting that will allow him to further position the United States in relation to Islam.
The Russian Dimension

Let’s diverge to another dimension of these talks, which still concerns Turkey, but also concerns the Russians. While atmospherics after the last week’s meetings might have improved, there was certainly no fundamental shift in U.S.-Russian relations. The Russians have rejected the idea of pressuring Iran over its nuclear program in return for the United States abandoning its planned ballistic missile defense system in Poland and the Czech Republic. The United States simultaneously downplayed the importance of a Russian route to Afghanistan. Washington said there were sufficient supplies in Afghanistan and enough security on the Pakistani route such that the Russians weren’t essential for supplying Western operations in Afghanistan. At the same time, the United States reached an agreement with Ukraine for the transshipment of supplies — a mostly symbolic gesture, but one guaranteed to infuriate the Russians at both the United States and Ukraine. Moreover, the NATO communique did not abandon the idea of Ukraine and Georgia being admitted to NATO, although the German position on unspecified delays to such membership was there as well. When Obama looks at the chessboard, the key emerging challenge remains Russia.

The Germans are not going to be joining the United States in blocking Russia. Between dependence on Russia for energy supplies and little appetite for confronting a Russia that Berlin sees as no real immediate threat to Germany, the Germans are not going to address the Russian question. At the same time, the United States does not want to push the Germans toward Russia, particularly in confrontations ultimately of secondary importance and on which Germany has no give anyway. Obama is aware that the German left is viscerally anti-American, while Merkel is only pragmatically anti-American — a small distinction, but significant enough for Washington not to press Berlin.

At the same time, an extremely important event between Turkey and Armenia looks to be on the horizon. Armenians had long held Turkey responsible for the mass murder of Armenians during and after World War I, a charge the Turks have denied. The U.S. Congress for several years has threatened to pass a resolution condemning Turkish genocide against Armenians. The Turks are extraordinarily sensitive to this charge, and passage would have meant a break with the United States. Last week, they publicly began to discuss an agreement with the Armenians, including diplomatic recognition, which essentially disarms the danger from any U.S. resolution on genocide. Although an actual agreement hasn’t been signed just yet, anticipation is building on all sides.

The Turkish opening to Armenia has potentially significant implications for the balance of power in the Caucasus. The August 2008 Russo-Georgian war created an unstable situation in an area of vital importance to Russia. Russian troops remain deployed, and NATO has called for their withdrawal from the breakaway Georgian regions of South Ossetia and Abkhazia. There are Russian troops in Armenia, meaning Russia has Georgia surrounded. In addition, there is talk of an alternative natural gas pipeline network from Azerbaijan to Europe.

Turkey is the key to all of this. If Ankara collaborates with Russia, Georgia’s position is precarious and Azerbaijan’s route to Europe is blocked. If it cooperates with the United States and also manages to reach a stable treaty with Armenia under U.S. auspices, the Russian position in the Caucasus is weakened and an alternative route for natural gas to Europe opens up, decreasing Russian leverage against Europe.

From the American point of view, Europe is a lost cause since internally it cannot find a common position and its heavyweights are bound by their relationship with Russia. It cannot agree on economic policy, nor do its economic interests coincide with those of the United States, at least insofar as Germany is concerned. As far as Russia is concerned, Germany and Europe are locked in by their dependence on Russian natural gas. The U.S.-European relationship thus is torn apart not by personalities, but by fundamental economic and military realities. No amount of talking will solve that problem.

The key to sustaining the U.S.-German alliance is reducing Germany’s dependence on Russian natural gas and putting Russia on the defensive rather than the offensive. The key to that now is Turkey, since it is one of the only routes energy from new sources can cross to get to Europe from the Middle East, Central Asia or the Caucasus. If Turkey — which has deep influence in the Caucasus, Central Asia, Ukraine, the Middle East and the Balkans — is prepared to ally with the United States, Russia is on the defensive and a long-term solution to Germany’s energy problem can be found. On the other hand, if Turkey decides to take a defensive position and moves to cooperate with Russia instead, Russia retains the initiative and Germany is locked into Russian-controlled energy for a generation.

Therefore, having sat through fruitless meetings with the Europeans, Obama chose not to cause a pointless confrontation with a Europe that is out of options. Instead, Obama completed his trip by going to Turkey to discuss what the treaty with Armenia means and to try to convince the Turks to play for high stakes by challenging Russia in the Caucasus, rather than playing Russia’s junior partner.

This is why Obama’s most important speech in Europe was his last one, following Turkey’s emergence as a major player in NATO’s political structure. In that speech, he sided with the Turks against Europe, and extracted some minor concessions from the Europeans on the process for considering Turkey’s accession to the European Union. Why Turkey wants to be an EU member is not always obvious to us, but they do want membership. Obama is trying to show the Turks that he can deliver for them. He reiterated — if not laid it on even more heavily — all of this in his speech in Ankara. Obama laid out the U.S. position as one that recognized the tough geopolitical position Turkey is in and the leader that Turkey is becoming, and also recognized the commonalities between Washington and Ankara. This was exactly what Turkey wanted to hear.

The Caucasus is far from the only area to discuss. Talks will be held about blocking Iran in Iraq, U.S. relations with Syria and Syrian talks with Israel, and Central Asia, where both countries have interests. But the most important message to the Europeans will be that Europe is where you go for photo opportunities, but Turkey is where you go to do the business of geopolitics. It is unlikely that the Germans and French will get it. Their sense of what is happening in the world is utterly Eurocentric. But the Central Europeans, on the frontier with Russia and feeling quite put out by the German position on their banks, certainly do get it.

Obama gave the Europeans a pass for political reasons, and because arguing with the Europeans simply won’t yield benefits. But the key to the trip is what he gets out of Turkey — and whether in his speech to the civilizations, he can draw some of the venom out of the Islamic world by showing alignment with the largest economy among Muslim states, Turkey.

This report may be forwarded or republished on your website with attribution to www.stratfor.com

Implications of the Manawan Attack

2009-04-08T21:56:00.003+01:00

By Fred Burton and Scott Stewart

On March 31, Baitullah Mehsud, commander of the Tehrik-i-Taliban Pakistan (TTP), called The Associated Press and Reuters to claim responsibility for the March 29 attack against a Pakistani police academy in Manawan, which is near the eastern Pakistani city of Lahore and the Indian border. The attack had been previously claimed by a little-known group, Fedayeen al-Islam (FI), which also took responsibility for the bombing of the Marriott Hotel in Islamabad in September 2008. Mehsud has also released an Urdu-language audio message claiming responsibility for the Manawan attack as well as a failed March 23 attack on the headquarters of the Police Special Branch in Islamabad. Mehsud, whom authorities claim was behind the March 3 attack on the Sri Lankan cricket team in Lahore, also warned that there would be additional attacks all across the country in retaliation for U.S. drone strikes in the Federally Administered Tribal Area. He even threatened to launch attacks in Washington, D.C.

It is not clear at this point if the two claims of responsibility for the Manawan attack are indeed contradictory. If FI is an independent group, it is possible that it was working with Mehsud in the assault on the police academy. However, it is also quite possible that FI is either part of the larger TTP (which is an umbrella group with many factions) or perhaps just a nom de guerre used by the TTP to claim certain attacks. When a reporter asked about the FI claim, Mehsud refused to comment. Two things can be ascertained from this: that Mehsud’s organization has the ability to conduct these attacks, and that a major jihadist figure like Mehsud has no real need to claim the attacks of others to bolster his reputation. In fact, lying about such a thing would hurt his well-established reputation.

It is a good bet, therefore, that the TTP was in fact involved in the Manawan attack. The odds are even greater when one considers the intelligence reports from a few days prior to the attack: that Mehsud had dispatched a group of 22 operatives from his base in South Waziristan, through the town of Mianwali in southwestern Punjab, to conduct attacks in Lahore and Rawalpindi. Pakistani authorities were actively searching for those operatives when the attack occurred in Manawan.

While STRATFOR has already published a political assessment of the Manawan attack, we believe it might also be interesting to look at the incident from a protective intelligence standpoint and examine the tactical aspects of the operation in more detail.
Sequence of Events

The attack on the police academy in Manawan happened at approximately 7:20 a.m. on March 29 as more than 800 unarmed police cadets were on the parade field for their regularly scheduled morning training. Witness reports suggest that there were 10 attackers who scaled the back wall of the academy and began to attack the cadets. Part of the attack team reportedly was dressed in police uniforms, while the rest reportedly wore shalwar kameez (traditional Pakistani dress). Several members of the team also wore suicide belts, and at least some of them carried large duffle bags (similar to those carried by the assailants in the November 2008 Mumbai attacks and the March 3 attack on the Sri Lankan cricket team in Lahore). The gunmen reportedly engaged the cadets with hand grenades and fire from assault rifles. As the gunmen raked the parade ground, many of the cadets reportedly fled the compound or barricaded themselves in various rooms inside the facility. Because the bulk of the people at the academy were cadets and not trained police, they were not issued firearms.

The armed guards at the academy were able to offer some resistance, but the attack team was able to make its way across the parade ground and into the barracks, where the attackers established defensive positions, apparently with the hope of initiating a prolonged hostage situation. Reports are conflicting as to how many hostages they were actually able to seize and control inside the barracks.

The Pakistani police and military responded aggressively to the attack. Within about 30 minutes, officers from the Elite Force — a highly trained branch of the Punjab Police responsible for counterterrorism — reportedly had surrounded the barracks building. By 9 a.m., paramilitary Pakistan Rangers and Pakistani army troops began to arrive. Many of the wounded cadets were evacuated from the parade ground using armored personnel carriers (APCs) to protect them from the attackers’ fire. The attackers apparently attempted to use grenades to attack the APCs, but were met with heavy suppressive fire from the security forces. Pakistani forces also apparently used tear gas against the attackers, as well as APCs and helicopter gunships. Eventually, the Elite Force went room to room to clear the barracks building of attackers. By 4 p.m., the siege had ended, with six of the attackers captured and four killed. (Three of the four reportedly killed themselves using suicide belts.) Despite initial reports of high casualties, it now appears that only eight police officers or cadets were killed in the attack, with more than 90 others wounded.

While armed assaults against paramilitary forces, convoys and other targets are common along the border with Afghanistan, this attack was only the second such attack in Lahore. Terrorist attacks in Pakistan have more commonly been committed by suicide bombers, and it appears that Mehsud’s group may have embraced a change in tactics, perhaps influenced by the success of Mumbai. (However, as we will discuss below, this latest attack, like the attack on the cricket team, was far from a spectacular success.)
Analysis

First, it must be recognized that jihadist attacks on police recruits are not uncommon. We have seen attacks on police training and recruiting centers in Iraq and Afghanistan, among other countries, and we have also seen them before in Pakistan. On July 15, 2007, a suicide bomber attacked a police recruitment center in Dera Ismail Khan, killing 26 people and wounding 35. The victims were at the center to take medical and written tests for entering the police force.

A training center like the one in Manawan provides an unusually large concentration of targets. The more than 800 cadets at the academy were a far larger group of police than is normally found in the police stations scattered throughout the country. The training center was also a far softer target than a traditional police station, where all the officers are armed. From media reports, it appears that there were only seven armed guards on duty at the academy at the time of the attack. The instructors allegedly were armed only with lathis (long canes commonly used by police in India and Pakistan). The academy’s rigid training schedule also provided a highly predictable target, as the attackers knew the cadets would be on the parade field from 7-8 a.m. every day.

With so many potential targets on the parade field and in the barracks, and with so many attackers, it is amazing that there were only eight people killed in this attack (one-fourth the death toll of the April 2007 Virginia Tech shooting). This is an indication that the Manawan attackers were not nearly as well trained in marksmanship as the assault team that conducted the November Mumbai attacks, in which 10 gunmen killed 173 people. The 10 heavily armed Manawan assailants did not even succeed in killing one victim each in a situation akin to shooting fish in a barrel.

From a military standpoint, such a formation of massed people in the open would have been far more effectively targeted using mortars and crew-served machine guns, so it can also be argued that the attack was poorly planned and the attackers improperly equipped to inflict maximum casualties. Even so, it is quite amazing to us that attackers armed with assault rifles and grenades did not kill one victim apiece.

Of course, one thing that helped contain the carnage was the response of Pakistani security personnel and their efforts to evacuate the wounded under fire. While not exactly practicing what are known in the United States as “active shooter procedures”, the Elite Force officers did quickly engage the attackers and pin them down until more firepower could be brought to bear. The Elite Force also did a fairly efficient job of clearing the barracks of attackers. The Pakistani response ensured that the incident did not drag on like the Mumbai attacks did. The Elite Force went in hard and fast, and seemingly with little regard for the hostages being held, yet their decisive action proved to be very effective, and the result was that a minimum number of hostages were killed.

There were some significant differences from the situation in Mumbai. First, there was only one crime scene to deal with, and the Pakistani authorities could focus all their attention and resources there. Second, the barracks building was far smaller and simpler than the hotels occupied in the Mumbai attacks. Third, Manawan is far smaller and more isolated than Mumbai, and it is easier to pin the attackers down in a city of that size than in a larger, more densely populated city such as Mumbai. Finally, there were no foreign citizens involved in the hostage situation, so the Pakistani authorities did not have to worry about international sensibilities or killing a foreign citizen with friendly fire. They were able to act aggressively and not worry about distractions — or the media circus that Mumbai became.
The Future

Perhaps the most important thing to watch going forward will be the response of the Pakistani people to these attacks. In his claim of responsibility, Mehsud said the Manawan attack was in direct response to the expanding U.S. unmanned aerial vehicle (UAV) campaign in Pakistan. Mehsud threatened that there would be more militant attacks in Pakistan and the United States if the UAV attacks did not stop. Clearly, Mehsud is feeling the heat from these attacks, and although he claims he is ready to be martyred, his bravado is belied by the fact that he is taking such extraordinary measures to try to halt the UAV campaign. He obviously fears the UAV strikes, not only for what they can do to him, but for what they can do to degrade his organization.

When the Elite Force completed the clearing of the barracks, several officers came out on the roof of the building, shouted “God is great” and fired celebratory shots into the air (something that is anathema to Western police and military forces). Many of the people gathered outside the academy joined in the shouting and loudly cheered the Elite Force. This sentiment was widely echoed in the Pakistani media.

Although the Manawan attack was intended to demoralize Pakistani security forces, it may have just the opposite effect. The bravery and dedication exhibited by the Pakistani police and soldiers who responded to the attack may instead serve to steel their will and instill professional pride. Mehsud’s recent threats, along with the militant attacks, may also work to alienate him from people who had been supportive of — or at least ambivalent toward — him and the jihadists.

Up until 2003, the Saudi public, and many in the government, pretty much turned a blind eye to the actions of jihadists in Saudi Arabia as long as the jihadists were concentrating their attacks on targets outside the kingdom. But when the jihadists declared war on the Saudi royal family and began to conduct attacks against targets inside the kingdom that resulted in the deaths of ordinary Saudis, the tide of public opinion turned against them and the Saudi government reacted aggressively, smashing the jihadists. Similarly, it was the brutality of al Qaeda in Iraq that helped turn many Iraqi Sunnis against the jihadists there. Indeed, an insurgency cannot survive long without the support of the people. In the case of Pakistan, that also goes for the support of Inter-Services Intelligence and the army. The TTP, al Qaeda and their Kashmiri militant allies simply cannot sustain themselves without at least the tacit support of Pakistan’s intelligence apparatus and army. If these two powerful establishments ever turn against them, the groups will be in serious peril.

Pakistan has long been able to control the TTP and al Qaeda more than it has. The country has simply lacked the will, for a host of reasons. It will be interesting to watch and see if Mehsud’s campaign serves to give the Pakistani people, and the authorities, the will they need to finally take more serious steps to tackle the jihadist problem. Having long battled deep currents of jihadist thought within the country, the Pakistani government continues to face serious challenges. But if the tide of public support begins to turn against the jihadists, those challenges will become far more manageable.

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The United States, Germany and Beyond

2009-04-08T21:48:00.003+01:00

By George Friedman
Related Link
Part 2: The Obama Administration and Europe

Three major meetings will take place in Europe over the next nine days: a meeting of the G-20, a NATO summit and a meeting of the European Union with U.S. President Barack Obama. The week will define the relationship between the United States and Europe and reveal some intra-European relationships. If not a defining moment, the week will certainly be a critical moment in dealing with economic, political and military questions. To be more precise, the meeting will be about U.S.-German relations. Not only is Germany the engine of continental Europe, its policies diverge the most sharply from those of the United States. In some ways, U.S.-German relations have been the core of the U.S.-European relationship, so this marathon of summits will focus on the United States and Germany.

Although the meetings deal with a range of issues — the economy and Afghanistan chief among them — the core question on the table will be the relationship between Europe and the United States following the departure of George W. Bush and the arrival of Barack Obama. This is not a trivial question. The European Union and the United States together account for more than half of global gross domestic product. How the two interact and cooperate is thus a matter of global significance. Of particular importance will be the U.S. relationship with Germany, since the German economy drives the Continental dynamic. This will be the first significant opportunity to measure the state of that relationship along the entire range of issues requiring cooperation.

Relations under Bush between the United States and the two major European countries, Germany and France, were unpleasant to say the least. There was tremendous enthusiasm throughout most of Europe surrounding Obama’s election. Obama ran a campaign partly based on the assertion that one of Bush’s greatest mistakes was his failure to align the United States more closely with its European allies, and he said he would change the dynamic of that relationship.

There is no question that Obama and the major European powers want to have a closer relationship. But there is a serious question about expectations. From the European point of view, the problem with Bush was that he did not consult them enough and demanded too much from them. They are looking forward to a relationship with Obama that contains more consultation and fewer demands. But while Obama wants more consultation with the Europeans, this does not mean he will demand less. In fact, one of his campaign themes was that with greater consultation with Europe, the Europeans would be prepared to provide more assistance to the United States. Europe and Obama loved each other, but for very different reasons. The Europeans thought that the United States under Obama would ask less, while Obama thought the Europeans would give more.

The G-20 and Divergent Economic Expectations

Begin with the G-20 summit of 20 of the world’s largest economies, which, along with the Americans and Europeans, include the Russians, Chinese and Japanese. The issue is, of course, the handling of the international financial crisis. In contrast to the G-20 meetings held in November 2008, the economic situation has clarified itself substantially — itself an improvement — and there are the first faint signs in the United States of what might be the beginning of recovery. There is still tremendous economic pain, but not nearly the panic seen in October.

There is, however, still discord. The most important disagreement is between the United States and United Kingdom on one side and France and Germany on the other. Both the United States and the United Kingdom have selected a strategy that calls for strong economic stimulus at home. The Anglo-American side wants Europe to match it (though the United Kingdom has begun tempering its demands). It fears that the heavily export-oriented Germans in particular will use the demand created by U.S. and British stimulus on their economies to surge German exports into these countries as demand rises. Germany and France would thus get the benefit of the stimulus without footing the bill, enjoying a free ride as the United States builds domestic debt. We must focus here on Germany and the United States because Germany is the center of gravity of the European economy just as the United States is of the Anglo-American bloc. Others are involved, but in the end this comes down to a U.S.-German showdown.

German Chancellor Angela Merkel argued that Germany could not afford the kind of stimulus promoted by the Anglo-Americans because German demographic problems are such that the proposed stimulus would impose long-term debt on a shrinking population, an untenable situation. Germany and France’s position makes perfect sense, whether it is viewed as Merkel has framed it, or more cynically, as Germany taking advantage of actions Obama already has taken. Either way, the fact remains that German and U.S. national interest are not at all the same. As Merkel put it in an interview with The New York Times, “International policy is, for all the friendship and commonality, always also about representing the interests of one’s own country.”

Paralleling this is the issue of how to deal with the Central European financial crisis. Toxic U.S. assets did not create this problem, internal European practices did. Western European banks took dominant positions in Eastern Europe in the past decade. They began to offer mortgages and other loans at low interest rates denominated in euros, Swiss francs and yen. This was an outstanding deal unless the Polish zloty and the Hungarian forint were to plunge in value, which they have over the past six months. Loan payments soared, massive defaults happened, and Italian, Austrian and Swedish banks were left holding the bag.

The United States viewed this as an internal EU matter, leaving it to European countries to save their own banks. Meanwhile, the Germans — who had somewhat less exposure than other countries — helped block a European bailout, arguing that the Central European countries should be dealt with through the International Monetary Fund (IMF), which was being configured to solve such problems in second-tier countries. From the German point of view, the IMF was simply going to be used for the purpose for which it was created. But Washington saw this as the Germans trying to secure U.S. (and Chinese and Japanese) money to deal with a European problem.

Add to this the complexity of Opel, a German carmaker owned by GM, which Germany wants the United States to bailout but which the United States wants nothing to do with, and the fundamental problem is clear: While both Germany and the United States have a common interest in moving past the crisis, Germany and the United States have very different approaches to the problem. Embedded in this is the hard fact that the United States is much larger than any other national economy, and it will be the U.S. recovery (when it comes) pulling the rest of the world — particularly the export-oriented economies — out of the ditch. Given that nothing can change this, the Germans see no reason to put themselves in a more difficult position than they are already in.

The Germans will not yield on the stimulus issue and Obama will not press, since this is not an issue that will resonate politically. But what could be perceived as a massive U.S. donation to the IMF would resonate politically in the United States. The American political system has become increasingly sensitive to the size of the debt being incurred by the Obama administration. A loan at this time to bail out other countries would not sit well, especially when critics would point out that some of the money will be going to bail out European banks in Central Europe.

European Fragmentation

Obama will need something in return from the Europeans, and the two-day NATO summit will be the place to get it. The Obama administration laid out the U.S. strategy in Afghanistan last Friday in preparation for this trip. Having given on the economic issue, Obama might hope that the Europeans would be forthcoming in increasing their commitment to Afghanistan by sending troops.

But there is almost no chance of Germany or France sending more troops, as public opinion in those countries is set against it and they have vastly limited military resources. During the U.S. presidential debates, Obama emphasized that he would be looking to the Europeans to increase aid in Afghanistan (the “good” war) while Iraq (the “bad” war) ends. The Germans will make some symbolic gestures — aid to Pakistan, reconstruction workers — but they will not be sending troops.

This will put Obama in a difficult position. If he donates money to the IMF, some of it earmarked for Europe, while the Europeans not only refuse to join the United States in a stimulus package but refuse to send troops to Afghanistan, the entire foundation of Obama’s foreign policy will start becoming a public issue. Obama argued that he would be more effective in building cooperation with European allies than Bush was or U.S. Sen. John McCain would have been. If he comes home empty-handed, which is likely, the status of that claim becomes uncertain.

Which brings us to the third meeting: the Obama-EU summit. We have been speaking of Germany as if it were Europe. In one sense, it is, as its economic weight drives the system. But politically and militarily, Europe is highly fragmented. Indeed, one of the consequences of German nationalism in dealing with Europe’s economy is that Europe’s economy is fragmented as well. Many smaller EU members, which had great expectations of what EU membership would mean, are disappointed and alienated from Germany and even the European Union itself largely due to the lack of German willingness to help them in their time of need.

More Fertile Ground for Obama

These are the waters Obama can go fishing in. Clearly, NATO is no longer functioning as it was a generation ago. Reality has shifted, and so have national interests. The international economic crisis has heightened — not reduced — nationalism as each nation looks out for itself. The weaker nations, particularly in Central Europe, have been left to fend for themselves.

The Central European countries have an additional concern: Russia. As Russia gets bolder, and as Germany remains unwilling to stand in Moscow’s way due to its energy dependence on Russia, countries on the EU periphery will be shopping for new relationships, particularly with the United States.

Obama’s strategy of coming closer to the Franco-German bloc appears to be ending in the same kind of train wreck in which Bush’s attempts ended. That is reasonable since these are not questions of atmospherics but of national interest on all sides. It therefore follows that the United States must consider new strategic relationships. The countries bordering Russia and Ukraine are certainly of interest to the United States, and share less interests with Germany and France than they thought they did. New bilateral relations — or even multilateral relations excluding some former partners like Germany — might be a topic to think about at the EU summit, even if it is too early to talk about it.

But let’s remember that Obama’s trip doesn’t end in Europe, it ends in Turkey. Turkey is a NATO member but has been effectively blocked from entry into the EU. It is doing relatively well in the economic crisis, and has a substantial military capability as well. The United States needs Turkey to extend its influence in Iraq to block Iranian ambitions, and north in the Caucasus to block Russian ambitions. Turkey is thus a prime candidate for an enhanced relationship with the United States. Excluded from Europe out of fears of Turkish immigration, economically able to stand on its own two feet, and able to use its military force in its own interest, it doesn’t take a contortionist to align U.S. and Turkish policies — they flow naturally.

However planned, Obama’s visit to Turkey will represent a warning to the Germans and others in its orbit that their relationship with the United States is based, as Merkel put it, on national interest, and that Germany’s interests and American interests are diverging somewhat. It also drives home that the United States has options in how to configure its alliance system, and that in many ways, Turkey is more important to the United States than Germany is.

Obama has made the case for multilateralism. Whatever that means, it does not have to mean continued alignment with all the traditional allies the United States had. There are potential new relationships and potential new arrangements. The inability of the Europeans to support key aspects of U.S. policy is understandable. But it will inevitably create a counter pressure on Obama to transfer the concept of multilateralism away from the post-World War II system of alliances toward a new system more appropriate to American national interests.

From our point of view, the talks in Europe are locked into place. A fine gloss will be put on the failure to collaborate. The talks in Turkey, on the other hand, have a very different sense about them.

This report may be forwarded or republished on your website with attribution to www.stratfor.com

Central America: An Emerging Role in the Drug Trade

2009-04-08T21:42:00.003+01:00

By Stephen Meiners

As part of STRATFOR’s coverage of the security situation in Mexico, we have observed some significant developments in the drug trade in the Western Hemisphere over the past year. While the United States remains the top destination for South American-produced cocaine, and Mexico continues to serve as the primary transshipment route, the path between Mexico and South America is clearly changing.

These changes have been most pronounced in Central America, where Mexican drug-trafficking organizations have begun to rely increasingly on land-based smuggling routes as several countries in the region have stepped up monitoring and interdiction of airborne and maritime shipments transiting from South America to Mexico.

The results of these changes have been extraordinary. According to a December 2008 report from the U.S. National Drug Intelligence Center, less than 1 percent of the estimated 600 to 700 tons of cocaine that departed South America for the United States in 2007 transited Central America. The rest, for the most part, passed through the Caribbean Sea or Pacific Ocean en route to Mexico. Since then, land-based shipment of cocaine through Central America appears to have ballooned. Earlier this month, U.S. Ambassador to Guatemala Stephen McFarland estimated in an interview with a Guatemalan newspaper that cocaine now passes through that country at a rate of approximately 300 to 400 tons per year.

Notwithstanding the difficulty associated with estimating drug flows, it is clear that Central America has evolved into a significant transshipment route for drugs, and that the changes have taken place rapidly. These developments warrant a closer look at the mechanics of the drug trade in the region, the actors involved, and the implications for Central American governments — for whom drug-trafficking organizations represent a much more daunting threat than they do for Mexico.

Some Background

While the drug trade in the Western Hemisphere is multifaceted, it fundamentally revolves around the trafficking of South American-produced cocaine to the United States, the world’s largest market for the drug. Drug shipment routes between Peru and Colombia — where the vast majority of cocaine is cultivated and produced — and the United States historically have been flexible, evolving in response to interdiction efforts or changing markets. For example, Colombian drug traffickers used to control the bulk of the cocaine trade by managing shipping routes along the Caribbean smuggling corridor directly to the United States. By the 1990s, however, as the United States and other countries began to focus surveillance and interdiction efforts along this corridor, the flow of U.S.-bound drugs was forced into Mexico, which remains the main transshipment route for the overwhelming majority of cocaine entering the United States.

A similar situation has been occurring over the last two years in Central America. From the 1990s until as recently as 2007, traffickers in Mexico received multiton shipments of cocaine from South America. There was ample evidence of this, including occasional discoveries of bulk cocaine on everything from small propeller aircraft and Gulfstream jets to self-propelled semisubmersible vessels, fishing trawlers and cargo ships. These smuggling platforms had sufficient range and capacity to bypass Central America and ship bulk drugs directly to Mexico.

By early 2008, however, a series of developments in several Central American countries suggested that drug-trafficking organizations — Mexican cartels in particular — were increasingly trying to establish new land-based smuggling routes through Central America for cocaine shipments from South America to Mexico and eventual delivery to the United States. While small quantities of drugs had certainly transited the region in the past, the routes used presented an assortment of risks. A combination of poorly maintained highways, frequent border crossings, volatile security conditions and unpredictable local criminal organizations apparently presented such great logistical challenges that traffickers opted to send the majority of their shipments through well-established maritime and airborne platforms.

In response to this relatively unchecked international smuggling, several countries in the region began taking steps to increase the monitoring and interdiction of such shipments. The Colombian government, for one, stepped up monitoring of aircraft operating in its airspace. The Mexican government installed updated radar systems and reduced the number of airports authorized to receive flights originating in Central and South America. The Colombian government estimates that the aerial trafficking of cocaine from Colombia has decreased by as much as 90 percent since 2003.

Maritime trafficking also appears to have suffered over the past few years, most likely due to greater cooperation and information-sharing between Mexico and the United States. The United States has an immense capability to collect maritime technical intelligence, and an increasing degree of awareness regarding drug trafficking at sea. Two examples of this progress include the Mexican navy’s July 2008 capture — acting on intelligence provided by the United States — of a self-propelled semisubmersible vessel loaded with more than five tons of cocaine, and the U.S. Coast Guard’s February 2009 interdiction of a Mexico-flagged fishing boat loaded with some seven tons of cocaine about 700 miles off Mexico’s Pacific coast. Presumably as a result of successes such as these, the Mexican navy reported in 2008 that maritime trafficking had decreased by an estimated 60 percent over the last two years.

While it is impossible to independently corroborate the Mexican and Colombian governments’ estimates on the degree to which air- and seaborne drug trafficking has decreased over the last few years, developments in Central America over the past year certainly support their assessments. In particular, STRATFOR has observed that in order to make up for losses in maritime and aerial trafficking, land-based smuggling routes are increasingly being used — not by Colombian cocaine producers or even Central American drug gangs, but by the now much more powerful Mexican drug-trafficking organizations.

Mechanics of Central American Drug Trafficking

It is important to clarify that what we are defining as land-based trafficking is not limited to overland smuggling. The methods associated with land-based trafficking can be divided into three categories: overland smuggling, littoral maritime trafficking and short-range aerial trafficking.

The most straightforward of these is simple overland smuggling. As a series of investigations in Panama, Costa Rica and Nicaragua demonstrated last year, overland smuggling operations use a wide variety of approaches. In one case, authorities pieced together a portion of a route being used by Mexico’s Sinaloa cartel in which small quantities of drugs entered Costa Rica from Panama via the international point of entry on the Pan-American Highway. The cocaine was often held for several days in a storage facility before being loaded onto another vehicle to be driven across the country on major highways. Upon approaching the Nicaraguan border, however, the traffickers opted to avoid the official port of entry and instead transferred the shipments into Nicaragua on foot or on horseback along a remote part of the border. Once across, the shipments were taken to the shores of the large inland Lake Nicaragua, where they were transferred onto boats to be taken north, at which point they would be loaded onto vehicles to be driven toward the Honduran border. In one case in Nicaragua, authorities uncovered another Sinaloa-linked route that passed through Managua and is believed to have followed the Pan-American Highway through Honduras and into El Salvador.

The second method associated with land-based trafficking involves littoral maritime operations. Whereas long-range maritime trafficking involves large cargo ships and self-propelled semisubmersible vessels capable of delivering multiton shipments of drugs from South America to Mexico without having to refuel, littoral trafficking tends to involve so-called “go-fast boats” that are used to carry smaller quantities of drugs at higher speeds over shorter distances. This method is useful to traffickers who might want to avoid, for whatever reason, a certain stretch of highway or perhaps even an entire country. According to Nicaraguan military officials, several go-fast boats are suspected of operating off the country’s coasts and of sailing outside Nicaraguan territorial waters in order to avoid authorities. While it is possible to make the entire trip from South America to Mexico using only this method — and making frequent refueling stops — it is believed that littoral trafficking is often combined with an overland network.

The third method associated with land-based drug smuggling involves short-range aerial operations. In these cases, clandestine planes make stops in Central America before either transferring their cargo to a land vehicle or making another short flight toward Mexico. Over the past year, several small planes loaded with drugs or cash have crashed or been seized in Honduras, Mexico and other countries in the region. In addition, authorities in Guatemala have uncovered several clandestine airstrips allegedly managed by the Mexican drug-trafficking organization Los Zetas. These examples suggest that even as overall aerial trafficking appears to have decreased dramatically, the practice continues in Central America. Indeed, there is little reason to expect that it would not continue, considering that many countries in the region lack the resources to adequately monitor their airspace.

While each of these three methods involves a different approach to drug smuggling, the methods share two important similarities. For one, the vehicles involved — be they speedboats, small aircraft or private vehicles — have limited cargo capacities, which means land-based trafficking generally involves cocaine shipments in quantities no greater than a few hundred pounds. While smaller quantities in more frequent shipments mean more handling, they also mean that less product is lost if a shipment is seized. More importantly, each of these land-based methods requires that a drug-trafficking organization maintain a presence inside Central America.

Actors Involved

There are a variety of drug-trafficking organizations operating inside Central America. In addition to some of the notorious local gangs — such as Calle 18 and MS-13 — there is also a healthy presence of foreign criminal organizations. Colombian drug traffickers, for example, historically have been no strangers to the region. However, as STRATFOR has observed over the past year, it is the more powerful Mexico-based drug-trafficking organizations that appear to be overwhelmingly responsible for the recent upticks in land-based narcotics smuggling in Central America.

Based on reports of arrests and drug seizures in the region over the past year, it is clear that no single Mexican cartel maintains a monopoly on land-based drug trafficking in Central America. Los Zetas, for example, are extremely active in several parts of Guatemala, where they engage in overland and short-range aerial trafficking. The Sinaloa cartel, which STRATFOR believes is the most capable Mexican trafficker of cocaine, has been detected operating a fairly extensive overland smuggling route from Panama to El Salvador. Some intelligence gaps remain regarding, for example, the precise route Sinaloa follows from El Salvador to Mexico or the route Los Zetas use between South America and Guatemala. It is certainly possible that these two Mexican cartels do not rely exclusively on any single route or method in the region. But the logistical challenges associated with establishing even one route across Central America make it likely that existing routes are maintained even after they have been detected — and are defended if necessary.

The operators of the Mexican cartel-managed routes also do not match a single profile. At times, Mexican cartel members themselves have been found to be operating in Central America. More common is the involvement of locals in various phases of smuggling operations. Nicaraguan and Salvadoran nationals, for example, have been arrested in northwestern Nicaragua for operating a Sinaloa-linked overland and littoral route into El Salvador. Authorities in Costa Rica have arrested Costa Rican nationals for their involvement in overland routes through that country. In that case, a related investigation in Panama led to the arrest of several Mexican nationals who reportedly had recently arrived in the area to more closely monitor the operation of their route.

One exception is Guatemala, where Mexican drug traffickers appear to operate much more extensively than in any other Central American country; this may be due, at least in part, to the relationship between Los Zetas and the Guatemalan Kaibiles. Beyond the apparently more-established Zeta smuggling operations there, several recent drug seizures — including an enormous 1,800-acre poppy plantation attributed to the Sinaloa cartel — make it clear that other Mexican drug-trafficking organizations are currently active inside Guatemala. Sinaloa was first suspected of increasing its presence in Guatemala in early 2008, when rumors surfaced that the cartel was attempting to recruit local criminal organizations to support its own drug-trafficking operations there. The ongoing Zeta-Sinaloa rivalry at that time triggered a series of deadly firefights in Guatemala, prompting fears that the bloody turf battles that had led to record levels of organized crime-related violence inside Mexico would extend into Central America.

Security Implications in Central America

Despite these concerns and the growing presence of Mexican traffickers in the region, there apparently have been no significant spikes in drug-related violence in Central America outside of Guatemala. Several factors may explain this relative lack of violence.

First, most governments in Central America have yet to launch large-scale counternarcotics campaigns. The seizures and arrests that have been reported so far have generally been the result of regular police work, as opposed to broad changes in policies or a significant commitment of resources to address the problem. More significantly, though, the quantities of drugs seized probably amount to just a drop in the bucket compared to the quantity of drugs that moves through the region on a regular basis. Because seizures have remained low, Mexican drug traffickers have yet to launch any significant reprisal attacks against government officials in any country outside Guatemala. In that country, even the president has received death threats and had his office bugged, allegedly by drug traffickers.

The second factor, which is related to the first, is that drug traffickers operating in Central America likely rely more heavily on bribes than on intimidation to secure the transit of drug shipments. This assessment follows from the region’s reputation for official corruption (especially in countries like Nicaragua, Honduras, Panama and Guatemala) and the economic disadvantage that many of these countries face compared to the Mexican cartels. For example, the gross domestic product of Honduras is $12 billion, while the estimated share of the drug trade controlled by the Mexican cartels is estimated to be $20 billion.

Finally, Mexican cartels currently have their hands full at home. Although Central America has undeniably become more strategically important for the flow of drugs from South America, the cartels in Mexico have simultaneously been engaged in a two-front war at home against the Mexican government and against rival criminal organizations. As long as this war continues at its present level, Mexican drug traffickers may be reluctant to divert significant resources too far from their home turf, which remains crucial in delivering drug shipments to the United States.

Looking Ahead

That said, there is no guarantee that Central America will continue to escape the wrath of Mexican drug traffickers. On the contrary, there is reason for concern that the region will increasingly become a battleground in the Mexican cartel war.

For one thing, the Merida Initiative, a U.S. anti-drug aid program that will put some $300 million into Mexico and about $100 million into Central America over the next year, could be perceived as a meaningful threat to drug-trafficking operations. If Central American governments choose to step up counternarcotics operations, either at the request of the United States or in order to qualify for more Merida money, they risk disrupting existing smuggling operations to the extent that cartels begin to retaliate.

Also, even though Mexican cartels may be reluctant to divert major resources from the more important war at home, it is important to recognize that a large-scale reassignment of cartel operatives or resources from Mexico to Central America might not be necessary to have a significant impact on the security situation in any given Central American country. Given the rampant corruption and relatively poor protective security programs in place for political leaders in the region, very few cartel operatives or resources would actually be needed if a Mexican drug-trafficking organization chose to, for example, conduct an assassination campaign against high-ranking government officials.

Governments are not the only potential threat to drug traffickers in Central America. The increases in land-based drug trafficking in the region could trigger intensified competition over trafficking routes. Such turf battles could occur either among the Mexican cartels or between the Mexicans and local criminal organizations, which might try to muscle their way into the lucrative smuggling routes or attempt to grab a larger percentage of the profits.

If the example of Mexico is any guide, the drug-related violence that could be unleashed in Central America would easily overwhelm the capabilities of the region’s governments. Last year, STRATFOR considered the possibility of Mexico becoming a failed state. But Mexico is a far stronger and richer country than its fragile southern neighbors, who simply do not have the resources to deal with the cartels on their own.

This report may be forwarded or republished on your website with attribution to www.stratfor.com

Comment on In the name of Islam

2009-04-06T20:19:00.001+01:00

Comment on In the name of Islam: a liberal appeal by Alvin H. Rosenfeld

During a recent visit to Istanbul, I learned first-hand the results of the political manipulation of anti-Semitism that Soner Cagaptay describes in his post. The outpourings of hatred against Israel and, especially at the street level, also against Jews during the time of the Gaza fighting rattled the nerves of Turkey’s Jews, many of whom had never before encountered popular anti-Semitism of this kind and were stunned by its ferocity.
To be sure, Turkey was hardly alone in witnessing large demonstrations of public anger leveled against Israel and those who allegedly comprise its supporting “lobbies.” Manifestations of anti-Israel and anti-Semitic animosity took place on the streets of cities throughout Europe, the Middle East, and elsewhere. Few, if any, however, surpassed the size, determination, and passion of anti-Jewish hostility on display in Istanbul and some of Turkey’s other towns.
Moreover, these raw feelings were not confined only to organized street demonstrations but spilled over into the country’s schools, shops, work-places, newspapers and television stations, etc. In short, while Turkey was only one player in a newly globalized movement of extreme hostility focused on Israel and the Jews, the country stood out for what appeared to be an effort to stimulate and spread such aggressive feelings. None of Turkey’s Jews was physically assaulted, and its major institutions, which are heavily secured, received no damage. But many of the community’s members, finding themselves on the receiving end of such an angry onslaught, were made to feel not just uneasy but unwanted.
In seeking to account for this disturbing state of affairs, Soner Cagaptay looks away from history and towards politics. Given recent political developments in the country, he is not wrong to do so, although a truly comprehensive explanation would have to look back in time and acknowledge periods of relatively good relations between Jews and Muslims but also some extremely tense and even destructive times. There were periods when Jews suffered as the result of discriminatory government policies against minorities in general, such as the levying of special taxes on non-Muslim Turkish nationals (1942), which proved to be ruinous for many Jews. At other times, Jews have been specifically targeted as such: in earlier decades there were anti-Jewish riots in some parts of the country; and recent years have seen lethal terrorist assaults against Turkish synagogues and assassination attempts against prominent figures in the Jewish community. Despite the often heralded “tolerance” that Ottoman rulers extended to the Jews, all has not been entirely just and amicable over the generations. Had it been so, the size of Turkey’s Jewish population―once numbering perhaps 90,000 souls―would be a lot larger than the roughly 20,000 it is today.
Nevertheless, Cagaptay is correct to put the blame for the worst of today’s anti-Semitic developments on the country’s political leadership headed by Recep Tayyip Erdoğan, Turkey’s present prime minister, whose penchant for using incendiary language may have been a prod to the open release of anti-Jewish sentiments within nationalist and Islamist segments of Turkish society. When a country’s prime minister charges that “Israel’s barbarity is beyond cruelty,” that “Israel has become a country of bandits” and is guilty of “crimes against humanity,” that “Israelis” (or Jews) “know very well how to kill,” and that “sooner or later, Allah will punish [them],” his inflammatory messages will not be lost on his supporters, numbers of whom are likely to take their cue from their nation’s leader and act accordingly. Add to these pernicious charges the irresponsible accusation that Jews “control the media” and “disseminate false reports on what is happening,” and the picture, already ugly, becomes worse still.
Much of the overwrought rhetoric cited above appeared in the run-up to Turkey’s municipal elections, which have just concluded. Some commentators interpret the Turkish prime minister’s harsh words as intentionally aimed to improve his party’s chances with the electorate. (If so, the tactic seems to have failed, for the AKP fared less well in this election than in the previous one.) Others see Erdoğan’s rough treatment of Israel’s Shimon Peres at Davos as exposing more visceral, less politically calculated impulses.
Whatever his motives, Erdoğan’s encouragement of popular anti-Semitism can only damage his country internally and make it appear to be an unreliable actor on the international stage. He himself seems to have recognized as much when he belatedly issued a much-publicized statement declaring, “Those who think to act against Jews will have to face me.” This stern warning was highlighted in some of the mass media, which also registered a cautionary note about the damaging effects of popular anti-Semitism, noting that it is bad for the country and should be restrained.
No one knows for sure what lies ahead, but a couple of conclusions might be drawn from these unnerving events. One has long been known: anti-Semitism is nothing for people in positions of leadership to fool around with, for when released into society, it will have predictably toxic effects. Those on the receiving end of such venom will suffer, but in different ways, so, too, will those who use anti-Semitism for their own ends.
Pursuing a politics of anti-Israel and anti-Jewish incitement may elevate Turkey’s Islamist image in Iran and win Erdoğan favor in parts of the Arab world. But if Turkey wishes to be seen as a responsible partner among Western nations, it would do well to curb populist appeals that encourage the growth of anti-Semitism and anti-Americanism within the public sphere. To do otherwise, as Soner Cagaptay persuasively argues, is to take the country down a path that it does not want to follow.

Alvin H. Rosenfeld is professor of Jewish studies and English at Indiana University.

source

Iran's View of Obama

2009-03-24T06:26:00.002Z

Ali Khamenei, Supreme Leader of Iran

By George Friedman

U.S. President Barack Obama released a video offering Iran congratulations on the occasion of Nowruz, the Persian New Year, on Friday. Israeli President Shimon Peres also offered his best wishes, referring to “the noble Iranian people.” The joint initiative was received coldly in Tehran, however. Iran’s supreme leader, Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, said the video did not show that the United States had shifted its hostile attitude toward Iran.

The video is obviously part of Obama’s broader strategy of demonstrating that his administration has shifted U.S. policy, at least to the extent that it is prepared to open discussions with other regimes (with Iran being the hardest and most controversial case). The U.S. strategy is fairly straightforward: Obama is trying to create a new global perception of the United States. Global opinion was that former U.S. President George W. Bush was unwilling to engage with, and listen to, allies or enemies. Obama’s view is that that perception in itself harmed U.S. foreign policy by increasing suspicion of the United States. For Obama, offering New Year’s greetings to Iran is therefore part of a strategy to change the tone of all aspects of U.S. foreign policy.

Getting Peres to offer parallel greetings was undoubtedly intended to demonstrate to the Iranians that the Israelis would not block U.S. initiatives toward Iran. The Israelis probably were willing to go along with the greetings because they don’t expect them to go very far. They also want to show that they were not responsible for their failure, something critical in their relations with the Obama administration.

The Iranian response is also understandable. The United States has made a series of specific demands on Iran, and has worked to impose economic sanctions on Iran when Tehran has not complied. But Iran also has some fairly specific demands of the United States. It might be useful, therefore, to look at the Iranian view of the United States and the world through its eyes.

From the Iranian point of view, the United States has made two fundamental demands of Iran. The first is that Iran halt its military nuclear program. The second, a much broader demand, is that Iran stop engaging in what the United States calls terrorism. This ranges from support for Hezbollah to support for Shiite factions in Iraq. In return, the United States is prepared to call for a suspension of sanctions against Iran.

For Tehran, however, the suspension of sanctions is much too small a price to pay for major strategic concessions. First, the sanctions don’t work very well. Sanctions only work when most powers are prepared to comply with them. Neither the Russians nor the Chinese are prepared to systematically comply with sanctions, so there is little that Iran can afford that it can’t get. Iran’s problem is that it cannot afford much. Its economy is in shambles due more to internal problems than to sanctions. Therefore, in the Iranian point of view, the United States is asking for strategic concessions, yet offering very little in return.

The Nuclear Question

Meanwhile, merely working on a nuclear device — regardless of how close or far Iran really is from having one — provides Iran with a dramatically important strategic lever. The Iranians learned from the North Korean experience that the United States has a nuclear fetish. Having a nuclear program alone was more important to Pyongyang than actually having nuclear weapons. U.S. fears that North Korea might someday have a nuclear device resulted in significant concessions from the United States, Japan and South Korea.

The danger of having such a program is that the United States — or some other country — might attack and destroy the associated facilities. Therefore, the North Koreans created a high level of uncertainty as to just how far along they were on the road to having a nuclear device and as to how urgent the situation was, raising and lowering alarms like a conductor in a symphony. The Iranians are following the same strategy. They are constantly shifting from a conciliatory tone to an aggressive one, keeping the United States and Israel under perpetual psychological pressure. The Iranians are trying to avoid an attack by keeping the intelligence ambiguous. Tehran’s ideal strategy is maintaining maximum ambiguity and anxiety in the West while minimizing the need to strike immedi ately. Actually obtaining a bomb would increase the danger of an attack in the period between a successful test and the deployment of a deliverable device.

What the Iranians get out of this is exactly what the North Koreans got: disproportionate international attention and a lever on other topics, along with something that could be sacrificed in negotiations. They also have a chance of actually developing a deliverable device in the confusion surrounding its progress. If so, Iran would become invasion- and even harassment-proof thanks to its apparent instability and ideology. From Tehran’s perspective, abandoning its nuclear program without substantial concessions, none of which have materialized as yet, would be irrational. And the Iranians expect a large payoff from all this.

Radical Islamists, Iraq and Afghanistan

This brings us to the Hezbollah/Iraq question, which in fact represents two very different issues. Iraq constitutes the greatest potential strategic threat to Iran. This is as ancient as Babylon and Persia, as modern as the Iran-Iraq war of the 1980s. Iran wants guarantees that Iraq will never threaten it, and that U.S. forces in Iraq will never pose a threat to Iran. Tehran does not want promises alone; it wants a recognized degree of control over the Iraqi government, or at least negative control that would allow it to stop Baghdad from doing things Iran doesn’t want. To achieve this, Iran systematically has built its influence among factions i n Iraq, permitting it to block Iraqi policies that Iran regards as dangerous.

The American demand that Iran stop meddling in Iraqi policies strikes the Iranians as if the United States is planning to use the new Baghdad regime to restore the regional balance of power. In fact, that is very much on Washington’s mind. This is completely unacceptable to Iran, although it might benefit the United States and the region. From the Iranian point of view, a fully neutral Iraq — with its neutrality guaranteed by Iranian influence — is the only acceptable outcome. The Iranians regard the American demand that Iran not meddle in Iraq as directly threatening Iranian national security.

There is then the issue of Iranian support for Hezbollah, Hamas and other radical Islamist groups. Between 1979 and 2001, Iran represented the background of the Islamic challenge to the West: The Shia represented radical Islam. When al Qaeda struck, Iran and the Shia lost this place of honor. Now, al Qaeda has faded and Iran wants to reclaim its place. It can do that by supporting Hezbollah, a radical Shiite group that directly challenges Israel, as well as Hamas — a radical Sunni group — thus showing that Iran speaks for all of Islam, a powerful position in an arena that matters a great deal to Iran and the region. Iran’s support for these groups help s it achieve a very important goal at little risk. Meanwhile, the U.S. demand that Iran end this support is not matched by any meaningful counteroffer or by a significant threat.

Moreover, Tehran dislikes the Obama-Petraeus strategy in Afghanistan. That strategy involves talking with the Taliban, a group that Iran has been hostile toward historically. The chance that the United States might install a Taliban-linked government in Afghanistan represents a threat to Iran second only to the threat posed to it by Iraq.

The Iranians see themselves as having been quite helpful to the United States in both Iraq and Afghanistan, as they helped Washington topple both the Taliban and Saddam Hussein. In 2001, they offered to let U.S. aircraft land in Iran, and assured Washington of the cooperation of pro-Iranian factions in Afghanistan. In Iraq, they provided intelligence and helped keep the Shiite population relatively passive after the invasion in 2003. But Iranians see Washington as having betrayed implicit understandings that in return for these services, the Iranians would enjoy a degree of influence in both countries. And the U.S. opening to the Taliban is the last straw.

Obama’s Greetings in Context

Iran views Obama’s New Year greetings within this context. To them, Obama has not addressed the core issues between the two countries. In fact, apart from videos, Obama’s position on Iran does not appear different from the Bush position. The Iranian leadership does not see why it should respond more favorably to the Obama administration than it did to the Bush administration. Tehran wants to be very sure that Obama understands that the willingness alone to talk is insufficient; some indications of what is to be discussed and what might be offered are necessary.

Many in the U.S. administration believe that the weak Iranian economy might shape the upcoming Iranian presidential election. Undoubtedly, the U.S. greetings were timed to influence the election. Washington has tried to influence internal Iranian politics for decades, constantly searching for reformist elements. The U.S. hope is that someone might be elected in Iran who is so obsessed with the economy that he would trade away strategic and geopolitical interests in return for some sort of economic aid. There are undoubtedly candidates who would be interested in economic aid, but none who are prepared to trade away strategic interests. Nor could they even if they wanted to. The Iran-Iraq war is burned into the popular Iranian consciousness; any candidate who appeared willing to see a strong Iraq would lose the election. American analysts are constantly confusing an Iranian interest in economic aid with a willingness to abandon core interests. But this hasn’t happened, and isn’t happening now.

This is not to say that the Iranians won’t bargain. Beneath the rhetoric, they are practical to the extreme. Indeed, the rhetoric is part of the bargaining. What is not clear is whether Obama is prepared to bargain. What will he give for the things he wants? Economic aid is not enough for Iran, and in any event, the idea of U.S. economic aid for Iran during a time of recession is a non-starter. Is Obama prepared to offer Iran a dominant voice in Iraq and Afghanistan? How insistent is Obama on the Hezbollah and Hamas issue? What will he give if Iran shuts down its nuclear program? It is not clear that Obama has answers to these questions.

Rebuilding the U.S. public image is a reasonable goal for the first 100 days of a presidency. But soon it will be summer, and the openings Obama has made will have to be walked through, with tough bargaining. In the case of Iran — one of the toughest cases of all — it is hard to see how Washington can give Tehran the things it wants because that would make Iran a major regional power. And it is hard to see how Iran could give away the things the Americans are demanding.

Obama indicated that it would take time for his message to generate a positive response from the Iranians. It is more likely that unless the message starts to take on more substance that pleases the Iranians, the response will remain unchanged. The problem wasn’t Bush or Clinton or Reagan, the problem was the reality of Iran and the United States. Only if a third power frightened the Iranians sufficiently — a third power that also threatened the United States — would U.S.-Iranian interests be brought together. But Russia, at least for now, is working very hard to be friendly with Iran.

This report may be forwarded or republished on your website with attribution to www.stratfor.com

Turkey’s Secret Power Brokers

2009-03-23T13:36:00.003Z

The Islamists aren't getting rid of Turkey's shady Deep State, but replacing it with one of their own.
By Soner Cagaptay | NEWSWEEK

Published Mar 21, 2009

Conspiracy theories have been popular in the former Ottoman Empire ever since the 19th century, when Turkey became a pawn in Great Power games. But even by that standard, the current stories swirling around Istanbul and Ankara take the cake. Tales of a sinister "Deep State" (Derin Devlet) have surfaced in a recent court case alleging that underneath Turkey's modern democracy lies a powerful but invisible security and bureaucratic establishment that is plotting to undermine the elected government.

The charges have arisen in a case known as Ergenekon. According to government prosecutors, the Deep State, identified as a group of judges, journalists, union leaders, artists and retired military officers, were plotting a coup against the ruling Islamist Justice and Development Party (AKP). The court papers say these secular nationalists were also, implausibly, planning Islamist, Marxist and pro-Kurdish terror attacks—all at the same time. In any other Western society, such incoherent accusations would be dismissed as fantasy. In Turkey, they've gained traction, for the simple reason that the country has long had a dominant security clique. Yet what the current rumors miss is that that power base has been broken up in recent years. Today it's the Islamists who are pulling the strings.

The old Deep State surfaced at various times in Turkey's history, stepping in to remove elected governments that strayed too far from the secular legacy of Kemal Atatürk, modern Turkey's founder. The sometimes corrupt and cozy links built by this establishment came to light most spectacularly in 1996, when an unlikely foursome—a politician, a police chief, a beauty queen and a drug lord—got into a car accident. Only the politician survived, and the ensuing embarrassing press coverage allowed Turkey's increasingly robust middle class to push back against this corrupt elite that had long limited their freedoms.

The Deep State was further weakened by the European Union accession process, which began soon after. In 1999, the EU decided to consider Turkey's candidacy—but only if Ankara improved civil liberties, weakened the military's role in politics and consolidated the country's democracy. Then, in 2002, the AKP came to power. At first it seemed to abandon its Islamist roots and embrace EU accession in order to win liberal support. Many Turkish democrats hoped the AKP would eliminate the Deep State once and for all and threw their support behind the party.

Yet in the seven years since, rather than get rid of the shadowy power brokers, the AKP has used cases like Ergenekon—which seems to have involved a genuine plot to overthrow the government—to attack Turkey's secular judges, media, its military and practically any political opponents. The police have taken more than 100 supposed plotters into custody, including not just underworld figures, but also journalists, military officers, businesspeople, judges and academics. Political opponents of the AKP have been pulled out of bed in the early morning hours, only to be released after three days of harsh police questioning. Unsurprisingly, many of these "suspects" have subsequently become much more docile.

Lest there be any doubt about the absurdity of some of the government's claims, consider: the Ergenekon case is based in part on the testimony of one Tuncay Guney, who claims to be a former Turkish intelligence officer now living in exile in Canada—where he says he's become a Hasidic rabbi. Never mind the fact that the Toronto Jewish community says Guney is neither a rabbi nor even Jewish; his assumed identity fits neatly into the anti-Semitism of Turkey's Islamists, who like to portray Jews as a nefarious influence in their country. Some of the allegations are also wildly contradictory. For example, prosecutors claim that Ergenekon plotters were backed by Washington. Yet they also say they planned to attack NATO installations in Turkey.

The tragedy here is that the AKP is not just using Ergenekon to rid Turkey of the old Deep State, but to intimidate its legitimate opposition ahead of nationwide local elections on March 29. As the last elections suggested, more than half the population still opposes the AKP, but many are now afraid to speak out due to signs that the government is monitoring its enemies. Journalists critical of the government have had embarrassing personal conversations leaked to pro-AKP media, and the police have recorded more than 1.5 million phone calls and e-mails in the Ergenekon case alone.

Such signs suggest that the AKP has replaced the old Deep State with a new one of its own. While still using the ghost of the previous establishment to conduct a witch hunt, now the Islamists are pulling the levers of power. The Deep State may have once functioned to intimidate communists and Islamists, but today it is used against secular, liberal and nationalist Turks in order to crush dissent. Turkey's progressives must be heartbroken. They hoped that political modernization and the AKP would finally rid their state of conspiracy theories and shadowy powers behind the throne. But such a change would have required a liberal party at the country's helm.

Cagaptay is a senior fellow at the Washington Institute for Near East Policy and the author of "Islam, Secularism and Nationalism in Modern Turkey: Who Is a Turk?"

Conflating History with Theology

2009-03-23T11:02:00.002Z

The holy book of Islam, the Qur'an

Judeo-Christian Violence vs. Islamic Violence

by Raymond Ibrahim
Jihad Watch

March 15, 2009

Especially after the terrorist strikes of 9/11, Islam has often been accused of being intrinsically violent. Many point to the Koran and other Islamic scriptures and texts as proof that violence and intolerance vis-à-vis non-Muslims is inherent to Islam. In response, a number of apologetics have been offered. The fundamental premise of almost all of these is that Islam's purported violence—as found in Islamic scriptures and history—is no different than the violence committed by other religious groups throughout history and as recorded in their scriptures, such as Jews and Christians. The argument, in short, is that it is not Islam per se but rather human nature that is prone to violence.

So whenever the argument is made that the Koran as well as the historical words and deeds of Islam's prophet Muhammad and his companions evince violence and intolerance, the counter-argument is immediately made: What about the historical atrocities committed by the Hebrews in years gone by and as recorded in their scriptures (AKA, the Old Testament)? What about the brutal cycle of violence Christians have committed in the name of their faith against both fellow Christians and non-Christians?

Several examples are then offered from the Bible as well as Judeo-Christian history. Two examples especially—one biblical, the other historic—are often cited as paradigmatic of the religious violence inherent to both Judaism and Christianity and usually put an end to the debate of whether Islam is unique in regards to its teachings and violence.

The first is the military conquest of the land of Canaan by the Hebrews (c. 1200 BC), which has increasingly come to be characterized as a "genocide." Yahweh told Moses:
But of the cities of these peoples which Yahweh your God gives you as an inheritance, you shall let nothing that breathes remain alive, but you shall utterly destroy them—the Hittite, Amorite, Canaanite, Perizzite, Hivite, and Jebusite—just as Yahweh your God has commanded you, lest they teach you to do according to all their abominations which they have done for their gods, and you sin against Yahweh your God (Deuteronomy 20: 16-18).

So Joshua [Moses' successor] conquered all the land: the mountain country and the South and the lowland and the wilderness slopes, and all their kings; he left none remaining, but utterly destroyed all that breathed, as Yahweh God of Israel had commanded (Joshua 10:40).

The second example revolves around the Crusader wars waged by Medieval European Christians. To be sure, the Crusades were a "counter-attack" on Islam—not an unprovoked assault as is often depicted by revisionist history. A united Christendom sought to annex the Holy Land of Jerusalem, which, prior to its conquest by Islam in the 7th century, was an integral part of Christendom for nearly 400 years.

Moreover, Muslim invasions and atrocities against Christians were on the rise in the decades before the Crusades were launched in 1096. For example, in 1071, the Seljuk Turks had crushed the Byzantines in the pivotal battle of Manzikert and in effect annexed a major chunk of Byzantine Anatolia (opening the way for the eventual capture of Constantinople centuries later). A few decades earlier, the Fatimid caliph al-Hakim desecrated and destroyed a number of important churches—such as the Church of St. Mark in Egypt and the Church of the Holy Sepulchre in Jerusalem—and decreed several even more oppressive than usual decrees against Christians and Jews. It is in this backdrop that Pope Urban called for the Crusades:
From the confines of Jerusalem and the city of Constantinople a horrible tale has gone forth and very frequently has been brought to our ears, namely, that a race from the kingdom of the Persians [i.e., Muslim Turks]…has invaded the lands of those Christians and has depopulated them by the sword, pillage and fire; it has led away a part of the captives into its own country, and a part it has destroyed by cruel tortures; it has either entirely destroyed the churches of God or appropriated them for the rites of its own religion (from the chronicles of Robert the Monk).

Nonetheless, history attests that these Crusades were violent and bloody. After breaching the walls of Jerusalem in 1099, the Crusaders slaughtered almost every single inhabitant of the Holy City. According to the Medieval chronicle, the Gesta Danorum "the slaughter was so great that our men waded in blood up to their ankles." Moreover, there is the 1204 sack of Constantinople, wherein Crusader slew Christian.

In light of the above—one a prime example of "Hebraic" violence from the Bible, the other from Christian history—why should Islam be the one religion always characterized as intrinsically violent, simply because its holy book and its history also contain violence? Why should non-Muslims always point to the Koran and ancient history as evidence of Islam's violence while never looking to their own scriptures and history?

While such questions are popular, they reveal a great deal of confusion between history and theology, between the temporal actions of men and what are understood to be the immutable words of God. The fundamental error being that Judeo-Christian history—which is violent—is being conflated with Islamic theology—which commands violence. Of course all religions have had their fair share of violence and intolerance towards the "other." Whether this violence is ordained by God or whether warlike man merely wished it thus is the all-important question.

Old Testament violence is an interesting case in point. Yahweh clearly ordered the Hebrews to annihilate the Canaanites and surrounding peoples. Such violence is therefore an expression of God's will, for good or ill. Regardless, all the historic violence committed by the Hebrews and recorded in the Old Testament is just that—history. It happened; God commanded it. But it revolved around a specific time and place and was directed against a specific people. At no time did such violence go on to become standardized or codified into Jewish law (i.e., the Halakha).

This is where Islamic violence is unique. Though similar to the violence of the Old Testament—commanded by God and manifested in history—certain aspects of Islamic violence have become standardized in Islamic law (i.e., Sharia) and apply at all times. Thus while the violence found in the Koran is in fact historical, its ultimate significance is theological, or, more specifically, doctrinal. Consider the following Koranic verses, better known as the "sword-verses":
Then, when the sacred months have passed, slay the pagans wherever you find them—take them [captive], besiege them, and prepare for them each ambush. But if they repent and establish worship and pay the poor-due [i.e. submit to Islam], then leave their way free. Lo! Allah is Forgiving, Merciful (K 9:5).

Fight those who believe not in Allah nor the Last Day, nor hold that forbidden which hath been forbidden by Allah and His Messenger [i.e. do not adhere to Islamic law], nor acknowledge the religion of Truth [i.e. Islam], from the people of the book [i.e. Jews and Christians], until they pay tribute with willing submission, and feel themselves utterly subdued (K 9:29).

As with Old Testament verses where Yahweh commanded the Hebrews to attack and slay their neighbors, the sword-verses also have a historical context. Allah first issued these commandments after the Muslims under Muhammad's leadership had grown sufficiently strong enough to invade their Christian and pagan neighbors. But unlike the bellicose verses and anecdotes of the Old Testament, the sword-verses became fundamental to Islam's subsequent relationship to both the "people of the book" (Christians and Jews) and the "pagans" (Hindus, Buddhists, animists, etc). For instance, based on 9:5, Islamic law mandates that pagans and polytheists must either convert to Islam or be killed, while 9:29 is the primary source of Islam's well-known discriminatory practices against Christians and Jews.

In fact, based on the sword-verses (as well as countless other Koranic verses and oral traditions attributed to Muhammad), Islam's scholars, sheikhs, muftis, imams, and qadis throughout the ages have all reached the consensus—binding on the entire Muslim community—that Islam is to be at perpetual war with the non-Muslim world until the former subsumes the latter. (It is widely held by Muslim scholars that since the sword-verses are among the final revelations on the topic of Islam's relationship to non-Muslims, that they alone have abrogated some 200 of the Koran's earlier and more tolerant verses, such as "there is no coercion in religion" 2:256.) Famous Muslim scholar Ibn Khaldun, who is revered in the West for his "progressive" insights, also puts to rest the notion that jihad is "defensive" warfare:
In the Muslim community, the holy war [jihad] is a religious duty, because of the universalism of the Muslim mission and the obligation to convert everybody to Islam either by persuasion or by force...The other religious groups did not have a universal mission, and the holy war was not a religious duty for them, save only for purposes of defense... They are merely required to establish their religion among their own people. That is why the Israeilites after Moses and Joshua remained unconcerned with royal authority [e.g. a "caliphate"]. Their only concern was to establish their religion [not spread it to the nations]… But Islam is under obligation to gain power over other nations (The Muqudimmah, vol. 1 pg. 473).

Perhaps what is most unique about the sword-verses is the fact that when juxtaposed to their Old Testament counterparts, they are especially distinct for using language that transcends time and space, inciting believers to attack and slay non-believers today no less than yesterday. Yahweh commanded the Hebrews to kill Hittites, Amorites, Canaanites, Perizzites, Hivites, and Jebusites—all specific peoples rooted to a specific time and place. At no time did Yahweh give an open-ended command for the Hebrews, and by extension their descendants the Jews, to fight and kill gentiles. On the other hand, though Islam's original enemies were, like Judaism's, historical (e.g., Christian Byzantines and pagan Persians), the Koran rarely singles them out by their proper names. Instead, Muslims were (and are) commanded to fight the people of the book—"until they pay tribute with willing submission and feel themselves utterly subdued" (Koran 9:29) and to "slay the pagans wherever you find them" (Koran 9:5).

The two conjunctions "until" (hata) and "wherever" (haythu) demonstrate the perpetual and ubiquitous nature of these commandments: there are still "people of the book" who have yet to be "utterly subdued" (especially in the Americas, Europe, and Israel) and "pagans" to be slain "wherever" one looks (especially Asia and sub-Saharan Africa). In fact, the salient feature of almost all of the violent commandments in Islamic scriptures is their open-ended and generic nature: "Fight them [non-Muslims] until there is no more chaos and all religion belongs to Allah" (Koran 8:39). Also, in a well-attested tradition that appears in the most authentic hadith collections, Muhammad proclaims:
I have been commanded to wage war against mankind until they testify that there is no god but Allah and that Muhammad is the Messenger of Allah; and that they establish prostration prayer, and pay the alms-tax [i.e., convert to Islam]. If they do so, their blood and property are protected [Sahih Muslim C9B1N31; also in Sahih Bukhari B2N24].

Aside from the divine words of the Koran, Muhammad's pattern of behavior—his "Sunna" or "example"—is an extremely important source of legislation in Islam. Muslims are exhorted to emulate Muhammad in all walks of life: "You have indeed in the Messenger of Allah a beautiful pattern [of conduct]" (Koran 33:21). And Muhammad's pattern of conduct vis-à-vis non-Muslims is quite explicit. Sarcastically arguing against the concept of "moderate" Islam, terrorist Osama bin Laden, who enjoys half the Arab-Islamic world's support per an al-Jazeera poll, portrays the prophet's Sunna thus:
"Moderation" is demonstrated by our prophet who did not remain more than three months in Medina without raiding or sending a raiding party into the lands of the infidels to beat down their strongholds and seize their possessions, their lives, and their women" (from The Al-Qaeda Reader, page 56).

In fact, based on both the Koran and Muhammad's Sunna, pillaging and plundering infidels, enslaving their children, and placing their women in concubinage is well founded (e.g. 4:24, 4:92, 8:69, 24:33, 33:50, etc.). And the concept of "Sunna"—which is what 90% of the billion plus Muslims, the "Sunnis," are named after—essentially asserts that anything performed or approved by Muhammad and his early companions is applicable for Muslims today no less than yesterday. This does not mean that Muslims in mass are wild hedonists who live only to plunder and rape. But it does mean that those particular persons who are naturally inclined to such activities, and who also happen to be Muslim, can—and do—quite easily justify their actions by referring to the "Sunna of the Prophet"—the way al-Qaeda, for example, justifies its attacks on 9/11 where innocents, including women and children, were killed: Muhammad authorized his followers to use catapults during their siege of the town of Taif in 630 A.D., though he was aware that women and children were sheltered there. Also, when asked if it was permissible to launch night raids or set fire to the fortifications of the infidels if women and children were among them, the prophet is said to have responded, "They are from among them" (Sahih Muslim B19N4321).

While law-centric and legalistic, Judaism has no such equivalent to the Sunna; the words and deeds of the patriarchs, though recorded in the Old Testament, never went on to be part of Jewish law. Neither Abraham's "white-lies," nor Jacob's perfidy, nor Moses' short-fuse, nor David's adultery, nor Solomon's philandering ever went on to instruct Jews or Christians. They were merely understood to be historical actions perpetrated by fallible men who were often punished by God for their less than ideal behavior.

As for Christianity, much of the Old Testament law was abrogated by Jesus. "Eye for an eye" gave way to "turn the other cheek." Totally loving God and one's neighbor became supreme law (Matt 22:38-40). Furthermore, Jesus' "Sunna"—as in "What would Jesus do?"—is characterized by altruism. The New Testament contains absolutely no exhortations to violence. Still, there are some who strive to portray Jesus as having a similar militant ethos as Muhammad by quoting the verse where Jesus—who "spoke to the multitudes in parables and without a parable spoke not" (Matt 13:34)—said, "I come not to bring peace but a sword" (Matt 10:34). But based on the context of this statement, it is clear that Jesus was not commanding violence against non-Christians, but was predicting that strife will often exist between Christian converts and their environment—a prediction that was only too true as early Christians, far from taking up the sword, passively perished by the sword in martyrdom (as they still do today in many Muslim nations). At any rate, how can one honestly compare this one New Testament verse that metaphorically mentions the word "sword" to the literally hundreds of Koranic injunctions and statements by Muhammad that clearly command Muslims to take up a very real sword against non-Muslims?

And it is from here that one can best appreciate the Crusades. However one interprets these wars—as offensive or defensive, just or unjust—it is evident that they were not based on the "Sunna" of Jesus, who exhorted his followers to "love your enemies, bless those who curse you, do good to those who hate you, and pray for those who spitefully use you and persecute you" (Matt 5:44).

In fact, far from suggesting anything intrinsic to Christianity, the Crusades ironically help better explain Islam. For what the Crusades demonstrated once and for all is that, irrespective of religious teachings—indeed, in the case of these so-called "Christian" Crusades, despite them—man is in fact predisposed to violence and intolerance. But this begs the question: If this is how Christians behaved—who are commanded to love, bless, and do good to their enemies who hate, curse, and persecute them—how much more can be expected of Muslims who, while sharing the same violent tendencies, are further validated by the Deity's command to attack, kill, and plunder non-believers?

source: Middle East Forum

Counterterrorism Funding: Old Fears and Cyclical Lulls

2009-03-19T05:10:00.002Z

By Fred Burton and Scott Stewart

Two years ago, we wrote an article discussing the historical pattern of the boom and bust in counterterrorism spending. In that article we discussed the phenomenon whereby a successful terrorist attack creates a profound shock that is quite often followed by an extended lull. We noted how this dynamic tends to create a pendulum effect in public perception and how public opinion is ultimately translated into public policy that produces security and counterterrorism funding.

In other words, the shock of a successful terrorist attack creates a crisis environment in which the public demands action from the government and Washington responds by earmarking vast amounts of funds to address the problem. Then the lull sets in, and some of the programs created during the crisis are scrapped entirely or are killed by a series of budget cuts as the public’s perception of the threat changes and its demands for government action focus elsewhere. The lull eventually is shattered by another attack — and another infusion of money goes to address the now-neglected problem.

On March 13, The Washington Post carried a story entitled “Hardened U.S. Embassies Symbolic of Old Fears, Critics Say.” The story discussed the new generation of U.S. Embassy buildings, which are often referred to as “Inman buildings” by State Department insiders. This name refers to buildings constructed in accordance with the physical security standards set by the Secretary of State’s Advisory Panel on Overseas Security, a panel chaired by former Deputy CIA Director Adm. Bobby Inman following the 1983 attacks against the U.S. embassies in Beirut and Kuwait City. The 1985 Inman report, which established these security requirements and contributed to one of the historical security spending booms, was also responsible for beefing up the State Department’s Office of Security and transforming it into the Diplomatic Security Service (DSS).

It has been 11 years since a U.S. Embassy has been reduced to a smoking hole in the ground, and the public’s perception of the threat appears to be changing once again. In The Washington Post article, Stephen Schlesinger, an adjunct fellow at the Century Foundation, faults the new Inman building that serves as the U.S. Mission to the United Nations in New York for being unattractive and uninviting. Schlesinger is quoted as saying: “Rather than being an approachable, beckoning embassy — emphasizing America’s desire to open up to the rest of the globe and convey our historically optimistic and progressive values — it sits across from the U.N. headquarters like a dark, forbidding fortress, saying, ‘Go away.’” When opinion leaders begin to express such sentiments in The Washington Post, it is an indication that we are now in the lull period of the counterterrorism cycle.

Tensions Over Security

There has always been a tension between security and diplomacy in the U.S. State Department. There are some diplomats who consider security to be antithetical to diplomacy and, like Mr. Schlesinger, believe that U.S. diplomatic facilities need to be open and accessible rather than secure. These foreign service officers (FSOs) also believe that regional security officers are too risk averse and that they place too many restrictions on diplomats to allow them to practice effective diplomacy. (Regional security officer — RSO — is the title given to a DSS special agent in charge of security at an embassy.) To quote one FSO, DSS special agents are “cop-like morons.” People who carry guns instead of demarches and who go out and arrest people for passport and visa fraud are simply not considered “diplomatic.” There is also the thorny issue that in their counterintelligence role, DSS agents are often forced to confront FSOs over personal behavio r (such as sexual proclivities or even crimes) that could be considered grounds for blackmail by a hostile intelligence service.

On the other side of the coin, DSS agents feel the animosity emanating from those in the foreign service establishment who are hostile to security and who oppose the DSS efforts to improve security at diplomatic missions overseas. DSS agents refer to these FSOs as “black dragons” — a phrase commonly uttered in conjunction with a curse. DSS agents see themselves as the ones left holding the bag when an FSO disregards security guidelines, does something reckless, and is robbed, raped or murdered. It is most often the RSO and his staff who are responsible for going out and picking up the pieces when something turns bad. It is also the RSO who is called before a U.S. government accountability review board when an embassy is attacked and destroyed. In the eyes of a DSS special agent, then, a strong, well-protected building conveys a far better representation of American values and strength than does a smoldering hole in the ground, where an “accessible&# 8221; embassy once stood. In the mind of a DSS agent, dead diplomats can conduct no diplomacy.

This internal tension has also played a role in the funding boom and bust for diplomatic security overseas. Indeed, DSS agents are convinced that the black dragons consistently attempt to cut security budgets during the lull periods. When career foreign service officers like Sheldon Krys and Anthony Quainton were appointed to serve as assistant secretaries for diplomatic security — and presided over large cuts in budgets and manpower — many DSS agents were convinced that Krys and Quainton had been placed in that position specifically to sabotage the agency.

DSS agents were suspicious of Quainton, in particular, because of his history. In February 1992, while Quainton was serving as the U.S. ambassador to Peru, the ambassador’s residence in Lima was attacked by Shining Path guerrillas who detonated a large vehicular-borne improvised explosive device in the street next to it. A team sent by the DSS counterterrorism investigations division to investigate the attack concluded in its report that Quainton’s refusal to follow the RSO’s recommendation to alter his schedule was partially responsible for the attack. The report angered Quainton, who became the assistant secretary for diplomatic security seven months later. Shortly after assuming his post, Quainton proclaimed to his staff that “terrorism is dead” and ordered the abolishment of the DSS counterterrorism investigations division.

Using a little bureaucratic sleight of hand, then-DSS Director Clark Dittmer renamed the office the Protective Intelligence Investigations Division (PII) and allowed it to maintain its staff and function. Although Quainton had declared terrorism dead, special agents assigned to the PII office would be involved in the investigation of the first known al Qaeda attacks against U.S. interests in Aden and Sanaa,Yemen, in December 1992. They also played a significant role in the investigation of the World Trade Center bombing in February 1993, the investigation of the 1993 New York Landmarks Plot and many subsequent terrorism cases.
Boom-and-Bust Funding

One of the problems problem created by the feast-or-famine cycle of security funding is that during the boom times, when there is a sudden (and often huge) influx of cash, agencies sometimes have difficulty spending all the money allotted to them in a logical and productive manner. Congress, acting on strong public opinion, often will give an agency even more than it initially requested for a particular program — and then expect an immediate solution to the problem. Rather than risk losing these funds, the agencies scramble to find ways to spend them. Then, quite often, by the time the agency is able to get its act together and develop a system effectively to use the funds, the lull has set in and funding is cut. These cuts frequently are accompanied by criticism of how the agency spent the initial glut of funding.

Whether or not it was a conscious effort on the part of people like Quainton, funding for diplomatic security programs was greatly reduced during the lull period of the 1990s. In addition to a reduction in the funding provided to build new embassies or bring existing buildings up to Inman standards, RSOs were forced to make repeated cuts in budgets for items such as local guard forces, residential security and the maintenance of security equipment such as closed-circuit TV cameras and vehicular barriers.

These budget cuts were identified as a contributing factor in the 1998 bombings of the U.S. Embassies in Nairobi and Dar es Salaam. The final report of the Crowe Commission, which was established to investigate the attacks, notes that its accountability review board members “were especially disturbed by the collective failure of the U.S. government over the past decade to provide adequate resources to reduce the vulnerability of U.S. diplomatic missions to terrorist attacks in most countries around the world.”

The U.S. Embassy in Nairobi was known to be vulnerable. Following the August 1997 raid on the Nairobi residence of Wadih el-Hage, U.S. officials learned that el-Hage and his confederates had conducted extensive pre-operational surveillance against the U.S. Embassy in Nairobi, indicating that they planned to attack the facility. The U.S. ambassador in Nairobi, citing the embassy’s vulnerability to car bomb attacks, asked the state department in December 1997 to authorize a relocation of the embassy to a safer place. In its January 1998 denial of the request, the state department said that, in spite of the threat and vulnerability, the post’s “medium” terrorism threat level did not warrant the expenditure.

Old Fears

The 1998 East Africa embassy bombings highlighted the consequences of the security budget cuts that came during the lull years. Clearly, terrorism was not dead then, nor is it dead today, in spite of the implications in the March 13 Washington Post article. Indeed, the current threat of attacks directed against U.S. diplomatic facilities is very real. Since January 2008, we have seen attacks against U.S. diplomatic facilities in Sanaa, Yemen; Istanbul, Turkey; Kabul, Afghanistan; Belgrade, Serbia; and Monterrey, Mexico (as well as attacks against Ameri can diplomats in Pakistan, Sudan and Lebanon). Since 2001, there have also been serious attacks against U.S. diplomatic facilities in Jeddah, Saudi Arabia; Karachi, Pakistan; Damascus, Syria; Athens, Greece; and Baghdad, Iraq.

Even if one believes, as we do, that al Qaeda’s abilities have been severely degraded since 9/11, it must be recognized that the group and its regional franchises still retain the ability to conduct tactical strikes. In fact, due to the increased level of security at U.S. diplomatic missions, most of the attacks conducted by jihadists have been directed against softer targets such as hotels or the embassies of other foreign countries. Indeed, attacks that were intended to be substantial strikes against U.S. diplomatic facilities in places like Sanaa, Jeddah and Istanbul have been thwarted by the security measures in place at those facilities. Even in Damascus, where the embassy was an older facility that did not meet Inman standards, adequate security measures (aided by poor planning and execution on the part of the attackers) helpe d thwart a potentially disastrous attack.

However, in spite of the phrase “war on terrorism,” terrorism is a tactic and not an entity. One cannot kill or destroy a tactic. Historically, terrorism has been used by a wide array of actors ranging from neo-Nazis to anarchists and from Maoists to jihadists. Even when the Cold War ended and many of the state-sponsored terrorist groups lost their funding, the tactic of terrorism endured. Even if the core al Qaeda leaders were killed or captured tomorrow and the jihadist threat were neutralized next week, terrorism would not go away. As we have previously pointed out, ideologies are far harder to kill than individuals. There will always be actors with various ideologies who will embrace terrorism as a tactic to strike a stronger enemy, and as the sole global superpower, the U.S. and its diplomatic missions will be target ed for terrorist attacks for the foreseeable future — or at least the next 100 years.

During this time, the booms and busts of counterterrorism and security spending will continue in response to successful attacks and in the lulls between spectacular terrorist strikes like 9/11. During the lulls in this cycle, it will be easy for complacency to slip in — especially when there are competing financial needs. But terrorism is not going to go away any time soon, and when emotion is removed from the cycle, a logical and compelling argument emerges for consistently supplying enough money to protect U.S. embassies and other essential facilities.

This report may be forwarded or republished on your website with attribution to www.stratfor.com

Bosnia: What Is To Be Done?

2009-03-18T21:52:00.001Z

By Morton Abramowitz and Daniel Serwer

Bosnia is stuck. Its Bosniak Muslim leader, Haris Silajzic, stridently calls for abolition of the Serb entity (Republika Srpska), whose prime minister, Milorad Dodik, wants increased autonomy and threatens a referendum on independence.

By taking extreme positions, Dodik and Silajdzic polarize voters, frightening most Serbs and many Muslims into lending their support. The Dayton Constitution's ethnic veto provisions allow each to block the rival's policies. Neither has the votes needed to amend the Constitution, which ensures Republika Srpska a large measure of autonomy but also requires that the Serbs participate in the central government. Deadlock obstructs much-needed constitutional change.

Politics is "war by other means" for both leaders, with a risk that the situation could degenerate into instability and even renewed violence.

The Europeans, to whom Washington has passed responsibility for the Balkans, have been unsuccessful in using their leverage to end the bickering between Silajdzic and Dodik. It doesn't help that the EU's growing membership renders consensus-building difficult. This has contributed to the erosion of the powers and influence of the international community's "High Representative," also the EU Special Representative. A new one due to be named soon will fail unless something is done to strengthen his position.

The closest Bosnia has come to constitutional reform was an effort in 2005-6 led by the U.S. Institute of Peace. The proposed constitutional amendments came within two votes of a two-thirds majority in the Bosnian parliament, in which Silajdzic's party--despite participating in preparation of the package--voted against.

Ideally, the Bosnians themselves would undertake to amend their own constitution, which fails to measure up to European standards, according to the Council of Europe. But they are more interested in political posturing and cosmetic changes than in trying to Europeanize their government structures.

The international effort to promote constitutional reform needs to be revived, this time with European leverage and American resolve. As a start, the EU and the US should declare that the present constitutional situation in Bosnia is unacceptable and must be changed. If that produces no results, the Dayton conference should be reconvened, with all its original participants: Croatia, Serbia, Bosnia and its two entities (Republika Srpska and the Muslim-Croat Federation) as well as the EU, UK, France, Germany and Russia. After consultations with all participants, the U.S. and the EU would prepare a draft new constitution that meets European standards.

The EU would make potential Bosnian membership contingent on agreed constitutional change. Conditional EU membership is the single greatest point of leverage for stimulating productive change in Bosnia.

Croatia, which has substantially advanced towards EU membership, can help pull Bosnia in the right direction. Serbia, which has sometimes encouraged Dodik's posturing, would be put on notice that a successful conference is a condition for its own progress towards the EU.

Such a conference could only be called if the parameters were clear: no partition of Bosnia would be permitted. Only its internal governing arrangements, specifically the ethnic veto provisions, would be at issue, with the goal of meeting the Council of Europe requirements. Other Balkan issues--in particular Kosovo--would be left aside, as at the original Dayton conference.

This Dayton II would remain in session until solutions are reached. Once the conference had concluded, the required constitutional amendments and any implementing legislation would be submitted to the Bosnian Parliament for approval. The parliaments of Republika Srpska and the Federation would also have to approve any required amendments to their constitutions.

Granted, an effort of this sort faces serious risks of failure, both at the conference itself and in the legislative moves required thereafter. But continuing to allow Bosnia to drift entails greater risks. The last war in Bosnia displaced half of its four million people and cost the Americans and Europeans tens of billions of dollars to repair.

Success of another Dayton would mean an end to the long-running international intervention in Bosnia and to the powers exercised by the High Representative. EU forces would be gradually removed. Bosnia would be on the path to EU membership, hopefully following close on the heels of Croatia, which is already a candidate. Serbia would have an opportunity to accelerate its progress towards the EU, which has been lagging. In the end, only the promise of EU accession will end the deep-seated nationalist frictions among Balkan countries.

Dayton ended a war but did not create a durable state. Fourteen years of trying to implement the Dayton agreements has not produced a Bosnia worthy of EU membership. If President Obama and EU leaders believe that "aggressive diplomacy" can be used to prevent conflict and build a state, Bosnia would be a good place to start. Its membership in the EU would a fine place to finish.

WHERE IS TURKEY GOING AND WHY?: A PANEL DISCUSSION

2009-03-18T21:18:00.002Z

Panel Discussion
On January 22, 2009, the Global Research in International Affairs (GLORIA) Center, the U.S. Department of State's International Information Programs in Washington D.C., and the Public Affairs Office at the U.S. Embassy in Israel jointly held an international videoconference seminar focusing on recent changes in Turkish politics and foreign policy. The discussion has been updated and edited.
Brief biographies of the participants can be found at the end of the article. This seminar is part of the GLORIA Center's Experts Forum series.
Prof. Barry Rubin: Turkey is always interesting, always important, but right now it is even more interesting and more important. The question is the country's direction. The current regime, which has been in power long enough and has won enough elections by large margins, is getting more confident. It is doing what it wants, rather than being restrained by fear that if it were to go too far toward Islamic, or Islamist, policies it would alienate the voters. Clearly we have seen the regime move toward Iran and Syria, and away from the United States and Israel. The European Union (EU) seems no closer to admitting Turkey, a source of frustration for Turkey and a process likely to be made more difficult by the government's behavior. Let me stress that the issues here involve not only foreign policy but the Justice and Development (AK) party's systematic effort to gain what seems to be intended as an irreversible hegemony over Turkish politics and society.
HOW HAS TURKEY CHANGED?
Dr. Soner Cagaptay: I think Turkey is changing and has changed on four levels. The first is the erosion of certain liberal democratic values, such as media freedom and gender equality, especially gender equality. For example, in government employment, the number of women in high-level positions is decreasing. As for the media, about half is now owned by the government or by pro-government interests, far more than a few years ago. One part of the media continues with fairly reasonable journalistic standards on issues, while the other half follows the government line. The weakening of such institutions and values is an important element in undermining democracy.
The second area of change is Turkey's relations with the EU. We were all very excited when accession talks with the EU began. Now this train is stalled, and there are several factors to blame for it. The French have objected to it, the Greek Cypriots have provided the alibi, the Austrians don't want Turkey, but the government of Turkey as well has not been pushing for reforms or making them the main focus of its agenda. For instance, in 2005, Turkey started the talks with the EU. That was the year we really saw the dream of Europe and Turkey come close to being a reality. But in 2005, the AK government declared it was not the year of Europe, but the year of Africa. So how serious are they in this regard?
If the process has now come to an almost complete halt, there is also an aspect of domestic politics, and we should all question to what extent the AK is committed to Turkey's accession. After all, it would have to go through a politically costly set of reforms that it is not interested in pursuing because these would cost it domestic popularity.
Third, is Turkey's lower commitment to Turkey's traditional Western alliances, including, for example, Turkey's position on Iran, which is weaker than even before. Whereas Turkey's position until recently was that it did not object to Iran's pursuit of nuclear energy for peaceful purposes, in December 2008, when Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdogan was in Washington, he gave a speech saying that countries that objected to Iran's nuclear weapons should themselves not have nuclear weapons. The country has thus moved further from the U.S. position.
Turkey's position on Israel is another example of this phenomenon. Typically, Turkey would have responded to Israel's military operations in Gaza by urging restraint on both sides and hoping the hostilities would end quickly. Yet this was the first time Turkey departed from its established policy and basically bashed Israel for violence without putting any blame on Hamas for rocket attacks before or during the incursion. The government spoke as if Israel had caused the war and would keep causing war.
Fourth, there are powerfully negative public attitudes in Turkey toward the United States and Israel. Opinion polls show that the United States always ranks in the lower teens. Perhaps this will change with the Obama administration, but it will go back down pretty soon, when Turks realize that Obama is going to oppose Iran's nuclear weapons drive and is not going to change U.S. policy significantly. Regarding Israel, popular attitudes are even more negative, in the single digits. This situation has even led to antisemitic incidents in Turkey, a shocking and shaming development in my view in a country that has for 500 years provided a safe haven for Jews. That tradition seems to be eroded right now and is changing in front of our very eyes.
Why should all this matter to those outside Turkey? After all, it could be argued that Turkey's stance on certain issues--Iraq, Afghanistan, and al-Qa'ida--meet U.S. or Western needs. I think we should be concerned about these four elements of change for the following reasons:
Among the 57 countries that are members to the Organization of Islamic Countries, what makes Turkey unique? It is because it is a Muslim country a) which is a secular democracy; b) is in accession talks with the EU; c) is a NATO member; and d) has normal relations with Israel. You cannot find any other predominantly Muslim country with any of these characteristics.
Yet on all four of these aspects, we are seeing Turkey's uniqueness coming undone; there are even issues with NATO. My sense and predication is that in the short term, the Turkish-Israeli relationship will go into a low profile phase where, as Barry said, objectively, military, security, and intelligence operations will continue but will not be spoken about. But if the persisting problem of a government not crazy about this relationship and a public that opposes the relationship is not addressed in Turkey then the relationship will decline. In a democracy, popular opinion eventually shapes foreign policy. If anti-Israeli views persist in Turkey, and the relationship loses its public/economic component, which acts as a shock absorber, sooner or later, public opinion will shape, trim, and erode the Turkish-Israeli relationship.
Dr. Ian Lesser: One of the things I find very striking in Turkey is the steady deterioration of views about the West, Europe, Israel, and the United States. The secular opposition and the military and security establishment were traditionally very NATO- focused. These are now hotbeds of nationalism. I just came back from Turkey and strong language about Gaza wasn't just coming from the AK party, it was also coming from the nationalist opposition, secular leftist, and secular rightists.
Dr. Stephen Larrabee: I found the discussion a little bit one-sided. While it is true that there has been growing anti-Americanism, or anti-Bushism, I would argue strongly that the more nationalistic, more anti-American party is the CHP (Republican People's Party), partly because it is in opposition. When you look across the spectrum, it is not the AK that is the most anti-American. Similarly, when you look at the question of the EU, yes, there has been a slowdown in reform and it is regrettable and very troubling.
On the other hand, you need to look also at the EU's behavior. Two of the main members, France and Germany, have essentially walked away from the basic principles of the EU accession negotiations and now are trying to talk about a privileged partnership. The EU has not lived up to its original agreement to lift the trade embargo against northern Cyprus. All these developments have led to a decline in Turkish support for the EU, which 3 years ago was close to 70 percent and is now somewhere between 40 and 50 percent. The EU is very unpopular today in many circles, not just in the AK. The AK has reacted to this decline in public support for the EU.
It is certainly true that Erdogan has been more outspoken and very critical of certain aspects of Israeli policy, but I would remind people also that this is not new, that his predecessor Bulent Ecevit, who was certainly not an Islamist, was critical at times as well. This criticism has not been limited solely to the AK party, although certainly Erdogan has been more outspoken. Although Erdogan has been highly critical of certain aspects of Israeli policy, the substance of the relationship with Israel remains reasonably good. Hence one should differentiate between the rhetoric and the substance--although one could imagine that the substance may eventually begin to be seriously affected as well if the Turkish criticism is continued.
Prof. Barry Rubin: I'll try to sum up. One factor is the growing confidence of the AK doing what it wants to do or what significant parts of the party want to do. They feel more confident. They can pursue their real agenda. A second factor is, one we have long talked about, what would happen if Turkey to some extent gave up on EU membership. That phenomenon may also be happening. Two other things may be shorter-run factors: attitudes towards specific U.S. policies--for example, regarding northern Iraq--and the Gaza war.
However, note the difference between the first two and the last two points. If the latter issues are a large element of the problem, we would expect that within a year, we would see an improvement. But if the main aspect of the problem are the first two points--that is the AK feeling free to do what it wants to do and disillusionment with the European path--to which can be added structural changes in Turkey, this is a long-term, possibly permanent shift. In that case, Turkey would be standing at a historic crossroads.
Dr. Soner Cagaptay: Steve, I agree with you on the EU dimension and that its takes two to tango. This is not just the AK not driving the train, but it is also the French parking that train. So absolutely, there are two sides to it.
But we have to differentiate between the front-seat and the back-seat driver in Turkey. Turkey's front seat driver for the last six years now has been the AK; the opposition has been the backseat driver. They are giving the government advice but the government is actually driving the car. It is the people in charge who have decided that they are not going to push aggressively for an EU accession for whatever reason.
It is also the people in charge who have decided that they are going to use a different rhetoric on the Arab-Israeli issue then Turkey has done for the last 60 years. Ecevit has criticized Israel, but never with the language of Erdogan. If you look at the latter's comments for instance that 'Allah will punish Israel' and that he questions Israel's right to be in the UN, and that Hamas should be dealt with as a government, none of this would have come from previous Turkish governments.
So, I am going to suggest to this panel now a new way of thinking about Turkey, and I think this will help us make sense of the change that Turkey is going through. The Islamists in Turkey are no more in opposition. They are in government. The secular Turks are in opposition. When we start thinking of Turkey with this new paradigm it is a country run by what is an Islamist party in the Turkish context. The government controls two-thirds of the seats in the parliament. It has the presidency, the cabinet, and is about to have the power to appoint the judges to the Supreme Court. It controls half of the media. They have a fairly large support base among Turkey's wealthiest people. When talking about political hegemony that is about as good as it gets.
Let us think of this not as the Islamist opposition and secular establishment but as the AK Islamist establishment and the secular opposition.
U.S.-TURKEY RELATIONS
Dr. Stephen Larrabee: I would try to put the recent deterioration in U.S.-Turkish relations in perspective by saying that one of the main reasons for the deterioration is the differences over the U.S.-led invasion of Iraq, but the deterioration has to be seen within the broader context of Turkey's changing security environment. One of the factors was the Cold War's end, which removed the main glue of the bilateral security relationship, the Soviet threat. At the same time, it opened up a number of new opportunities in areas that had been more or less off limits to Turkish policy, particularly Central Asia and the Middle East. Turkey now had opportunities that it had not had previously.
Second, the focus of threats and challenges changed quite dramatically. During the Cold War, the main threat was from the north, from the Soviet Union. Today, the main threats and challenges are on Turkey's southern border. That has to do with the disintegration of Iraq, the problems in Lebanon, the problems posed by a potentially nuclear-armed Iran, and the problems that arise in Arab-Israeli disputes. So it is not unusual that Turkey would begin to focus much more heavily on the Middle East and particularly on Iraq.
The differences over Iraq, I would say, are the main--though not the sole--reason for the deterioration in U.S.-Turkish relations. From the beginning, the Turkish leadership had reservations about the wisdom of the invasion and made their reservations clear. They did not like Saddam Hussein. They thought he was a brutal dictator just as much as the Bush administration, but they were worried that the invasion would lead to instability on their southern border fragmentation of Iraq, an increase in sectarian violence, and most of all an increase in Kurdish nationalism.
In fact, their worst fears came true. There was after the invasion a rather large increase for a number of years in sectarian violence. Iran's role in Iraq and in the region has increased and the danger of the emergence of an independent Kurdish state on Turkish borders also has increased.
Finally, the insurgency from the PKK (Kurdistan Workers' Party) was reignited and strengthened. Therefore, if you try to look back at why this deterioration occurred, the fact that the United States was unwilling to assist Turkey in combating PKK terrorism for a number of years was seen in Turkey as hypocritical. After all, the United States had undertaken two military actions--Afghanistan and Iraq--to combat terrorism, and the Turks also saw themselves as faced with a terrorist threat.
I am quite convinced that as the U.S. presence in Iraq draws down, the degree of anti-Americanism will decline. The willingness of the United States to help to combat PKK terrorism, the willingness to provide the Turks with operational intelligence, has already had a positive impact on relations. There is reason to be cautiously optimistic. A number of Obama's likely positions come closer to coinciding with Turkish government policy and interests than those of the Bush administration. If the U.S. government under Obama continues, as I suspect it will, to assist the Turks in combating PKK terrorism, I think there will likely be a gradual improvement of relations.
One of the key issues for the Turkish government will be the impact of a U.S. withdrawal on the Kurdish Regional Government and the Iraqi Kurds. On one hand, one could argue that the United States has been restraining the Kurds and that there is fear in some parts of Turkey that with the U.S. withdrawal the Iraqi Kurds may feel less constrained about declaring independence.
The other side of the coin, however, in my view, is more likely. The impact would be to push the Kurds more toward accommodation with Turkey because they would realize that they were losing their most important patron and needed some replacement. This won't happen overnight, but we are already beginning to see some elements of it.
Still, a lot will depend on what happens with the Armenian Genocide Resolution in the U.S. Congress. If the Congress passes the resolution, it could have a very negative impact on relations.
Prof. Barry Rubin: Basically, the view is that Iraq has been the main issue that has created friction. Do we want to conclude that there are other important issues that should be mentioned? When talking to people in Turkey one hears the idea from the opposition that the United States is really very pro-AK--which is given by the opposition as an excuse for its not doing better.
Dr. Stephen Larrabee: I do not want to say that Iraq is the overwhelming factor, but it is certainly--and you are correct at that--not the sole factor.
Barry Rubin: Could you mention some secondary factors?
Dr. Stephen Larrabee: I would say the differences on policy toward Iran both on the energy issue as well as Turkey's relationship with Iran in general, also with Syria, but you are likely to see a realignment of policy between Turkey and the United States, because the Obama administration is likely to open a dialogue and try to engage with Iran. How successful that will be remains to be seen. The same with Syria, but this opening of a dialogue will mean that U.S. and Turkish policy will now be more in alignment than they were in the past. And there is the Arab-Israeli issue as well. So, there are a number of other issues there have been differences on.
Prof. Efraim Inbar: Basically, Soner pays more attention to identity issues, while Steven Larrabee is more or less talking about realpolitik. What are the main motivations behind the AK's foreign policy? Is it Islamist forces or maybe realpolitik because with the Soviet Union no longer there, they do not need the Americans anymore, and they can dream about playing a central role in the Middle East?
Dr. Stephen Larrabee: I think that is a very interesting question. I have to say I am probably somewhere in between. When you listen to the language of Erdogan in particular, not just in talking about Gaza, you really get the sense that this is not a kind of political stretch. This is not a language of convenience or of strategic calculation. It may be all of those things, but it is also how they see the world. It conforms to their worldview.
I think that isn't an unfair characterization of what the AK has been doing, not without some success actually. They now face some much tougher choices because of things happening in the world. They are very reluctant to make those choices, especially if it is a reaffirmation of core, Western institutional ties, NATO, EU, etc. I think it is a mixture of both the personality affinity and identity and these structural problems that is driving us in the direction of exactly what Soner describes, even if I don't agree with every aspect of how you have laid it out. I think, on the whole, the effect is as you have described.
Dr. Soner Cagaptay: Let me give you some feedback from my four months of research in Turkey during autumn 2008. One of the questions I had was why do Turks hate America?
I did a test. I turned off CNN and BBC, the Financial Times, and email, and for two weeks I watched only the Turkish media and read only what Turks read. The conclusion is that what Turks hear about the United States, as reported in their media and described to them by the AK government, is an incredibly anti-Western, anti-European, and now anti-Israeli perspective. So your typical Turk does not like the United States, in fact, hates the United States because that is the only thing that he hears.
So Obama might do all the right things to make Turkey happy on Iran, the Armenian resolution, Iraq, the PKK, and the EU, but Turkish opinion will only turn around when the government also tells its people that the United States is a friend of Turkey and that Turkey and the Unites States do share common interests--such as a unified stable Iraq--and values such as democracy. What I say for Turkish-American ties could easily be applied to Turkish-Israeli relations as well.
Dr. Stephen Larrabee: Let us come back to this question of identity politics versus realpolitik because I think it is very important. I think what Soner and Ian have said is quite true. Identity politics do play a very important role. It is not just a question of realpolitik. But on the question of U.S.-Turkish relations, I think the main factor--though not the only factor--had to do with the U.S. handling of Iraq. I take very much to heart what Soner said, but when you look at what is being said in Turkey, you have to look at the other parties as well, and they are as bad and in many cases more anti-American. This is a problem that goes across the spectrum and involves a number of other parties, not to excuse the AK for some of the things they have said and done.
TURKEY AND ISRAEL
Prof. Efraim Inbar: We should remember first of all that the type of relationship we see now between Israel and Turkey is rather new. It is a question of 20 years, no more. There are several possible explanations for what we have seen from Erdogan. Part of it is a personal explanation. Israeli Prime Minister Ehud Olmert visited Erdogan just a few days before the Gaza operation began. Olmert knew it was going to happen and either didn't tell Erdogan about that or perhaps even implied the opposite. There may be a belief that he was misled--or at least could be accused of conspiring in implementing the operation--and this may have further inflamed the criticism.
A second explanation is of course a realpolitik explanation. The Turks are interested in their status with the Arab and Muslim world. Speaking like this against Israel can be seen simply as rhetoric, a cheap way to make gains. And if this is so, cooler heads may prevail, and business will continue as usual, as we have seen before. After all, the second intifada was a serious test to Turkish-Israeli relations, and they didn't change their policies toward Israel. In fact, now, in comparison to the previous crisis, there is a change for the better--they didn't call back their ambassador as they did in the past.
Moreover, if the Turks really want a role in the Middle East as they claim, they need good relations with Israel. So far, and I am not sure it is not going to change, Israeli-Turkish relations have been along the realpolitik paradigm, basically trying to ignore the differences and to focus on those things important to the defense and security interests of those two countries.
There is a third explanation. Indeed, what we see today is part of Turkey's ongoing identity crisis. We probably see a greater component of Muslim identity, and it influences Turkish foreign policy. Israel is part of this debate.
Israel has always favored good relations with Turkey. There has already been a decline in Israeli tourism to Turkey. In addition, I think there are several tests ahead. What will happen to military relations, to economic relations? I think they may be influenced by the atmosphere in Turkey. At the same time, Israel should try to conduct a dialogue with the Islamists. We are indeed at a crossroads. Turkey, for its own reasons that Israel has no influence over, will show us where it is going.
Dr. Soner Cagaptay: If you watch the weather forecast on TRT, Turkey's publicly funded television station, they will never give you the temperature for any Israeli cities, though they do provide the forecast for all cities outside of Israel, despite the fact that there is a large Turkish-speaking community in Israel that might actually be watching this station.
Dr. Anat Lapidot-Firilla: If we are talking about realpolitik, then perhaps we can ask ourselves if Turkey currently sees itself in competition with Israel. If so, as far as evaluating a strategic partnership, we need to come to the conclusion that we are no longer strategic partners, but rather that we stand in opposition due to a conflict of interests.
It is not quite true to say that critical comments about Israel were made by Turkish leaders before. That is not the issue. The issue is that never before did such remarks involve such a systematic campaign and attempt to mobilize Turkish people in an anti-Israel direction. The ruling party and government were very active to ensure a certain view of Israelis and Jews, especially on the part of the younger generation in Turkey. That is why we should notice AK policy. It is not merely the rhetoric of politicians--and this makes me concerned.
Prof. Barry Rubin: I think that we should lay out what is underlying this discussion, which is the Turkish conception of strategy and realpolitik. We are not just dealing with a question of identity but of Turkey's whole orientation. Will it be Islamist or Kemalist? How will Turkey see its regional goals, and in what way will it define its friends and enemies? What is at stake here are not just bilateral relations with Israel or even the United States, but the whole nature of Turkey itself.
If the AK is going to view itself as close to or even aligned to some degree with Iran, Syria, and Hamas--not the Palestinian Authority--that is a hugely changed conception. This does not mean Turkey will not seek good relations with Europe or America, though less likely with Israel, yet it will be a very different Turkey from the one that has existed for a very long time.
In addition, this would mark a significant change in the regional power balance. It is not just, for example, a matter of the Turkish government not worrying about Iran having nuclear weapons, but the regime possibly wants Iran to have nuclear weapons because it sees that as empowering Muslims. This means it is not just sympathetic to Palestinian suffering but that it wants Hamas to take over the Palestinian leadership. It implies that Turkey does not just have problems with the U.S. over Iraq, but would like to see a very different Iraq.
Are they entering into, at least in a loose way, what Syrian President Bashar Asad calls 'the resistance camp' and that whatever they say to keep the EU happy or to avoid friction with the United States, this may be the biggest strategic shift in the Middle East since the Iranian Revolution. I do not want to overstate the case, but here is a piece of evidence. Compared to its warming toward Iran, Syria, and Hamas, we see no equivalent Turkish moves toward Egypt, Saudi Arabia, or Jordan--the opponents of the Iranian-led coalition.
Dr. Ian Lesser: The United States and Israel are being affected by something that is happening in Turkey which is not anything new. The AK is a mass party; public opinion counts. There has been a certain distortion in the way the United States sees our own relationship with Turkey. We could go and deal with a very small number of strategic elites, military, and some in the private sector, and they would give us essentially what we wanted out of a realist view of our interest. That has not gone away entirely, but it is getting very rough at the edges, and I think it is affecting both relationships.
When I was in Ankara and Istanbul, taxi drivers were donating a day's salary to a Gaza fund. Every taxi in Ankara had rather appalling photos plastered on the backs of the taxis that had been centrally distributed, but everybody had them. I was in Gaziantep at factories where there were big placards outside talking about Gaza, so this is not something that is being stirred up without there being a constituency. There is really a deep reservoir of public affinity, unease, all of these things, and its affecting both relationships.
Dr. Soner Cagaptay: Let me make this suggestion. The U.S.-Turkish relationship would not be facing the problems it has without the Iraq War. The AK has used this to its advantage to boost domestic popularity and realized that it can get away with anti-American rhetoric at home if it sustains good relations with the United States in Iraq, and it worked.
What I see for the Turkish-Israeli relationship is that Hamas is doing to the Turkish-Israeli relationship what the Iraq war has done to the Turkish-American relationship. It is because the AK's sympathies are largely with Hamas as a political party, not with the Palestinians as a whole. And this is not just my own analysis. Prime Minister Erdogan sees Hamas as a party that should be dealt with and should not be isolated. Is Hamas going to disappear? No. Thus, you are going to get an incredible beating of Israel in Turkey through the Hamas factor.
You might still continue to have the Turkish-Israeli military relationship, but all of that will have to be very low key, under the radar, invisible. And I think the mid-term challenge that faces the relationship is, as Ian mentioned, the economic and cultural component of Turkish-Israeli ties. They are very strong, but can you sustain them in a country where Israelis feel physically threatened?
That is why I think eventually that leg is going to come undone when you have Israelis who go to Turkey on vacation, to invest, for conferences and they are not well received. I see a huge number of problems because the AK's sympathies are, in the final analysis, with Hamas; they don't see Hamas as a problem. Turkey invited Hamas to Ankara in 2005, and then suggested it was some kind of exceptional circumstance, but it turned out that Turkey's contacts with Hamas continued and remain strong.
TURKEY AS A MIDDLE EAST POWER
Dr. Soner Cagaptay: At the Kuwait summit, the moderates--including Saudi Arabia, Jordan, and Egypt--gathered. At the Doha summit were Iran, Sudan, Syria, and Turkey. So to answer Barry's question, that is how the AK positions itself in Arab politics.
Dr. Steven Larrabee: If I could perhaps address Barry's questions, it is not true that the Turkish government does not care about whether or not Iran gets nuclear weapons. It has made it very clear privately and publicly that it opposes the acquisition of nuclear weapons by Iran. Not because Turkey really feels a threat from Iran, but because Iran's acquisition of nuclear weapons could stimulate a nuclear arms race in the region and could raise the nuclear issue in Turkey itself.
On Iran, there are a number of differences with the United States. Turkish and U.S. interests do not totally coincide. Turkey needs the United States. It wants to reduce its dependence on Russia by turning to Iran as a source of oil and natural gas.
Second, there is the Kurdish issue on which Iran and Turkey see eye-to-eye. Turkey has national interests that drive it toward an accommodation with Tehran in certain areas. The same is true in the case of Syria. But certainly on the nuclear issue the United States and Turkey see eye-to-eye much more.
Last, I think that what you are seeing is actually a shift in Turkish perspectives on its role in the Middle East. Under Ataturk and for a long time, Turkey tried to stay aloof from the Middle East and concentrated its major efforts on strengthening ties with the West.
Now, for a variety of reasons, including the changing strategic context from the end of the Cold War, many of the problems in the Middle East are on Turkey's southern borders. Turkey is beginning to return to a role that it played historically and traditionally. I would say that the Republican era, particularly under Ataturk, now is much more of an anomaly in terms of Middle East policy and Turkey's returning to a more historic role and trying to play a larger regional role. Islamic politics plays a role here, but, again, I do not think that it is the main driving force directing Turkey in these directions.
Prof. Efraim Inbar: I think the intriguing question is indeed Barry's. We can think of Turkey's view as seeing the Americans declining, for example, with the United States getting out of Iraq. Turkey has aspirations to play a role in the Middle East. They may be lining themselves up with the radicals. They may be weakening Egypt, which has been a competitor for hegemony in the Middle East. They are being pushed more into Middle Eastern politics by geography. A very interesting question will be how it would affect Turkey's policies if the Russians were to come back to the region.
Prof. Ofra Bengio: Indeed, under the AK, relations with the Middle East have changed dramatically in threat perceptions, its role in the region, and its relationship with certain specific countries. Turkey wants to play a pivotal role in the region, which some have called an Ottoman strategy. This strategy is both multilateralist and aimed at avoiding conflict with any neighbor. Turkey can work with the Arab world, the Muslim countries, and Israel as well. I do not think it will have to choose between these categories, and this is an important point.
In this context, Turkey hopes to play the role of mediator, which requires a reasonably good relationship with Israel. By turning Islam into its platform, rather than nationalism, the AK opened the door for a closer alignment with Arab countries and Iran. This was a way to advance its own bid for regional leadership. There is also a domestic component here: the economic crisis within Turkey and the hope to bring Arab financial support and investment.
Relations with Syria have undergone a major transformation, even a revolution. Turkey gave up its support for the PKK; Turkey offered to help Syria escape isolation. In exchange, one could say the competition between Turkey and Syria has been replaced by competition between Turkey and Egypt.
Another change concerns threat perceptions. Worrying about the Kurds is a constant in Turkish policy, but that threat--once linked to Iran and Syria--is now seen as emanating from Iraq. Turkey grappled with this problem of northern Iraq by cooperating with Iran and Syria on this issue. It is, however, vying with Iran for influence inside Iraq itself while also engaging the Kurdish regional government rather than having a conflict with it. Regarding relations with Iran, again we have seen a major change. Turkey no longer views Iran as an ideological threat but wants to engage Iran through negotiation and cooperation.
TURKEY AND THE EUROPEAN UNION
Dr. Ian Lesser: I will make three points on this topic. The first is that the question of Turkey's membership in the EU is a fifteen-year project at a minimum. There is no question that the process is troubled on both sides at the moment. In order to get the process with Europe really seriously going again, Turkey has to make some concessions. It is a question of how long it will take Turkey to agree to the conditions necessary to become a member. Some Turks recognize that, but in general that is not what you see in the debate.
If you ask Turks and Europeans whether it is a good idea for Turkey to come into the European Union and whether it is likely to happen, you get an interesting result. In Turkey, most people still think it is a good idea. They see it as leading to prosperity. The numbers have been going down over time, but still many people think it is a good idea. But if you ask if it is likely they say, 'No, it is not going to happen.' The European responses are the exact opposite. Is it a good idea? No. Is it likely to happen? Yes.
Turks are very surprised to hear this result sometimes. You obviously have many people in Europe who do not like the idea but think it is inevitable. Why? It could be that they simply do not feel that they have control over the process. Other enlargements that they didn't think were necessarily such a good idea happened anyway.
You now have key political actors who are not just ambivalent but really against the idea, such as Sarkozy in France and Merkel in Germany. The economic crisis is likely to have an extremely negative effect on already unenthusiastic European views of the costs and advantages of taking in Turkey for EU membership.
If Turkey becomes--and is perceived as becoming--more and more Middle Eastern, that complicates this relationship with Europe. It gets much harder to make the case for Turkish membership. Moreover, given Turkey's other activities, it just reduces the energy and commitment to this European project. There has to be some kind of focus.
Regarding Turkey's EU membership, I don't think you are going to see anything very different from the Obama administration. It will be very committed to promoting Turkey as a member of the EU eventually. What has changed, of course, is that it gets tougher and tougher for us to make the case.
This stance does give the United States a better hearing for its interests in Turkey. But from our point of view, I think our interest is not for Turkey to become a member but for Turkey to continue to converge with Europe in different sectors that are meaningful to us.
Dr. Anat Lapidot-Firilla: We often hear the argument that the process of Turkey moving toward EU membership is more important than the goal of achieving it, but it is a strange argument. After all, it is this process that made Turkey more religious and to a certain extent created the problems we are debating now. Therefore, if there is no happy ending to the process (acceptance to the EU), the process may prove to be is a very negative one.
Dr. Stephen Larrabee: You make a very interesting point.
Prof. Barry Rubin: Let us talk in more detail about Anat's point. One aspect of the EU process was to make the army weaker so that it would not have a public role. The process kicked out some of the controls that Ataturk and his successors had put in. Knowing the army is unable to act makes it easier for the AK to go further toward dismantling the republic as it has existed. Earlier in the AK's reign, the EU gave it certain benefits that strengthened its claim to being moderate and successful. So this is a great irony: The membership process was supposed to bring Turkey closer to Europe but in fact ended up pushing Turkey further away from Europe in terms of its norms and internal politics.
Dr. Ian Lesser: In terms of Turkish nationalism, which in my view is just as potent a force affecting U.S. and Israeli relations with Turkey today as Islamism--maybe more--there is a certain artificiality to this process with Europe in which Turkey feels itself continuously disappointed, not taken seriously, and not dealt with in good faith. We can argue whether that is true, but that is how it is seen. There are constantly issues arising where Turkish nationalism is stirred up. And some of this mood at the moment can be attributed to not just what the United States seems to be doing or not doing in Iraq, for example, but also what the EU does. This process issue that you mention becomes part of the substance.
Dr. Stephen Larrabee: An important factor not mentioned yet is the shift in the EU's own mood, a kind of enlargement fatigue that goes beyond Turkey. The French and Dutch referendum made clear that there is real concern among the public in most European countries about the process of enlargement, and that has had an impact on the debate in the EU and, thus, on the debate in Turkey. Another thing worth noting is that in the past, EU-Turkish relations have gone up and down, but Turkey could always count on its relationship with the United States when relations with the EU were bad.
This is the first time in my memory that Turkey's relations with the EU and the United States have been simultaneously bad. This has led to a questioning of the relationship with the West, a feeling of greater vulnerability, of nationalism, a sense that Turkey can no longer rely on its traditional allies--not just the EU but also the United States. This has contributed to this more nationalistic mood and, at the same time, the growing sense of vulnerability. So it is a dangerous mixture of factors affecting Turkey's overall relations not simply with the EU but with the West as a whole. This also helps to explain why Turkey has moved toward a somewhat less pro-Western policy.
Prof. Barry Rubin: Aside from disappointments with the United States and Europe, there has also been the failed idea of a Turkic community, of a special relationship with the ex-Soviet republics. That pulled away still another alternative to a Middle East orientation and possibly a trend toward believing that Iran, Syria, and Hamas are the kind of people they want to have as allies.
Remember also that this basic idea was brought up by Erbakan, the Islamist leader and briefly prime minister, out of whose party the AK itself came. He was ridiculed at the time and ended up looking very foolish. To quote an Egyptian proverb, his idea of Turkey aligning with Arab and Muslim states was seen in Turkey as, 'No matter how many zeros you have you still have zero.'
The AK has reintroduced this notion in a more subtle way and it has become a driving force in Turkish strategy and policy. Remember that close Turkish-Israeli relations were based on the fact that Turkey's interests were opposed to those of Iran--because Iran was pushing Islamism--and Syria--because Syria was pushing radicalism and the Kurdish issue. Yet if Turkey reverses direction on these issues, it no longer needs Israel and, to some extent, the regime may feel it no longer needs Europe or America either. The real loser here is not Israel but the United States.
Dr. Ian Lesser: It also threatens to reverse some of the things that have really been very positive in terms of the EU candidacy: the talks with Greece that transcended that old rivalry, for example. A rising mood of nationalism could unravel some of these things that have actually been very positive.
Dr. Stephen Larrabee: Certainly, there is a big difference between the AK's policy and that of Erbakan, which was decidedly anti-Western ideologically. The National Salvation Party and Refah were opposed to NATO membership; they were opposed to membership with the EU. What has changed is a number of factors. Iraq has had a deleterious impact on U.S.-Turkish relations, while the changes in the EU have had a deleterious impact on Turkish relations with the EU. There have been changes in Syria since 1998 that were justifiably why Turkey would want to maintain a better relationship with Syria. The same applies to Iran. So you have a change in the strategic context as well as changes within the Islamist movement itself and the victory of modernists within the internal debate.
All of these factors have come together to push Turkey in a slightly different direction that is based on a feeling that Turkey can no longer rely on its traditional allies. This gives this new direction, this effort at rebalancing, a somewhat uncertain and dangerous connotation.
Prof. Barry Rubin: You are 100 percent right about the background but that doesn't change the outcome. The question remains, however, have things passed a certain point? And would even the undoing of certain elements, for example, a U.S. withdrawal from Iraq, have much effect in moving things back. I am simply raising these issues and asking you to make us all feel better by explaining why this is only temporary.
Dr. Stephen Larrabee: I think these are the key questions, and this going to be very difficult to answer. My own sense is that if Congress does not pass the Armenian Resolution and the United States and Turkey can begin to move back to a better relationship, that doesn't mean we won't have differences, but again I think the differences over Iran will be mitigated somewhat by the fact that Obama is likely to open a dialogue with Teheran and the same with Syria. We will not be able to put the toothpaste back into the tube completely, but I think we can certainly halt the downward spiral that relations have been on for the past five years.
Dr. Soner Cagaptay: I think the EU factor is useful not only because it is about Turkey's transformation, but also because, as Stephen said, it provides us an anchor that could tie Turkey to the West at a time when Turkey's relations with the United States have gone through ups and downs. We should promote it.
We have had some pessimistic conversations about where Turkey is going. Turkey is changing both at home and in foreign policy. I see a slipping away from certain liberal democratic values, from Europe. We need to make sure that the EU process therefore becomes a benchmark for both Turkey's internal process, but also an anchor that ties Turkey to the West. The same points apply to NATO.
*PARTICIPANT BIOGRAPHIES
Dr. Soner Cagaptay is a senior fellow and director of the Turkish Research Program at the Washington Institute for Near East Policy. He has written extensively on U.S.-Turkish relations, Turkish domestic politics, and Turkish nationalism. His Ph.D. is from Yale University (2003), and he has taught courses at Yale and Princeton Universities, as well as serving as visiting professor at Georgetown University's School of Foreign Service. His latest book is Islam, Secularism and Nationalism in Modern Turkey: Who Is a Turk? (Routledge, 2006).
Dr. Stephen Larrabee is Distinguished Chair in European Security at RAND Corporation in Washington, D.C. He specializes in NATO, Eastern Europe, Turkey, Russia, and the Ukraine. He previously served as Vice President and Director of Studies at the Institute for East-West Security Studies, New York. His Ph.D. in political science and international affairs is from Columbia University. He makes frequent media appearances, and writes commentary in the International Herald Tribune; New York Times; United Press International; and Washington Times.
Dr. Ian Lesser is Senior Transatlantic Fellow, The German Marshall Fund of the United States. His expertise includes transatlantic relations, NATO, the European Union, and Turkey. He previously served in the Woodrow Wilson Center for Scholars in Washington, D.C., where he led a major project on the future of U.S.-Turkish relations. He spent over a decade at RAND as a senior analyst and research manager. From 1994-1995, he was a member of the Secretary's Policy Planning Staff at the U.S. Department of State. He received his D.Phil. from Oxford University.
Prof. Ofra Bengio is Senior Research Fellow at the Moshe Dayan Center for Middle Eastern and African Studies, and Senior Lecturer, Department of Middle Eastern and African History at Tel Aviv University. Her fields of specialization are contemporary Middle Eastern history, modern and contemporary politics of Iraq, and the Arabic language. She is the author of Saddam's Word: Political Discourse in Iraq (Oxford University Press, 1998); Editor (with Gabriel Ben-Dor) of Minorities and State in the Arab World (Lynne Rienner, 1999); and The Turkish-Israeli Relationship: Changing Ties of Middle Eastern Outsiders (Palgrave Macmillan, 2004).
Prof. Efraim Inbar is a Professor in Political Studies at Bar-Ilan University and the Director of its Begin-Sadat (BESA) Center for Strategic Studies. He completed his M.A. and Ph.D. in Political Science at the University of Chicago. He served as visiting professor at Johns Hopkins University (2004), at Georgetown University (1991-1992), and visiting scholar at the Woodrow Wilson International Center for Scholars (1996). His area of specialization is Middle Eastern strategic issues with a special interest in the politics and strategy of Israeli national security. His latest book is Israel's National Security: Issues and Challenges since the Yom Kippur War (Routledge, 2008).
Dr. Anat Lapidot-Firilla is a Senior Fellow and the Academic Director of the Mediterranean unit at the Van Leer Jerusalem Institute. She is a researcher at the Center for Strategic and Policy Studies, School of Public Policy, The Hebrew University of Jerusalem, and teaches at the Contemporary Middle Eastern Studies Program at the Hebrew University of Jerusalem. Her research focuses on various aspects of religion, politics, and identity with an emphasis on contemporary Turkey.
Prof. 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), with Walter Laqueur (Viking-Penguin); the paperback edition of The Truth About Syria (Palgrave-Macmillan); A Chronological History of Terrorism, with Judy Colp Rubin, (Sharpe); and The Long War for Freedom: The Arab Struggle for Democracy in the Middle East (Wiley).
________________________________________
MERIA Journal Staff
Publisher and Editor: Prof. Barry Rubin
Assistant Editors: Yeru Aharoni, Anna Melman.
MERIA is a project of the Global Research in International Affairs
(GLORIA) Center, Interdisciplinary University.
Site: http://www.gloria-center.org/ - Email: info@gloria-center.org

'Israel could attack Iran with missiles'

2009-03-18T21:15:00.001Z

By HILARY LEILA KRIEGER, JPOST CORRESPONDENT IN WASHINGTON

A new report has assessed that Israel could use ballistic missiles to attack Iranian nuclear facilities, rather than air power. The report also warns that such action could trigger a response that would escalate to include the use of WMDs.

An Israeli missile, potentially the medium range ballistic Jericho.
Photo: Courtesy
SLIDESHOW: Israel & Region | World

Abdullah Toukan of the Washington-based Center for Strategic and International Studies (CSIS) wrote that Israel's use of Jericho III missiles to strike Iran's nuclear sites "could look much more feasible than using combat aircraft," because of the lower political and operational risks Israel would face in such an attack, since Iran still lacks an adequate missile defense system.

Toukan estimated Israel would need about 40 Jericho IIIs for the initial volley, and cautioned that an Israeli-Iranian ballistic missile exchange would turn Jordan and neighboring countries into "Ground Zero."

Of the possible routes for an air operation, Toukan presented a northern route hugging the Syrian-Turkish border as the least risky from an Israeli perspective.

He described the central route - which would entail flying through Jordan and Iraq - and the southern route - through Saudi Arabia and Iraq - as too politically risky because of the chance those countries would refuse Israel the use of their air space and object to any overflights, as well as possibly compromising the mission.

Though Turkey would pose a similar challenge, the report suggested the country could be largely avoided and that flights would be close enough to the border to be potentially presented as not occurring in Turkish air space.

Syria, on the other hand, has no peace treaty that Israel could jeopardize by violating its air space, and the latter's ability to secretly attack an alleged Syrian nuclear site in 2007 shows that Israel has the ability to avoid detection by the Syrians.

According to the 114-page report released Monday, based on publicly available information, Israel would have a major advantage in its air capabilities, since "what is known about the Iranian air defense system clearly shows how it has become largely obsolescent."

After detailing the possible scenarios for an Israeli attack, Toukan warned of retaliation from Iran, which could include ballistic missiles headed toward Tel Aviv and military centers, as well as increasing terror attacks by proxy groups Hamas and Hizbullah. The exchange of ballistic missiles, he suggested, could potentially include WMD warheads.

Other forms of retaliation could include increasing efforts to destabilize Iraq, supporting the Taliban against American-backed forces in Afghanistan, threatening US military forces and nearby countries that host them, such as Qatar and Bahrain, as well as possibly cutting off oil supplies.

Toukan proposed that the US continue its plans for engagement with Iran to explore a gamut of regional issues. He also highlighted the importance of pressing for greater nuclear controls in surrounding countries, such as Pakistan and India.

The CSIS report came out as IDF Chief of General Staff Lt.-Gen. Gabi Ashkenazi was visiting Washington to talk to top US officials about Iran, Syria, Hizbullah, Hamas and other regional threats.

His visit came days after top American and US intelligence officials seemed to take contrasting views of the progress Iran has made in developing nuclear capabilities.

However, Israeli officials here said the two countries were on the same page, a characterization US Joint Chiefs of Staff chairman Adm. Mike Mullen made in a recent interview.

"We're in agreement and have been for, oh, the better part of the last six months or so. There was a time that we weren't, but we've actually worked pretty hard to understand where we both are," he told PBS's Charlie Rose.

When pressed on whether Israel believed Iran was further along the path to nuclear weapons than the US, he responded, "Not by a significant degree."

Mullen did, however, warn about the consequences of an Israeli attack, noting that American forces were stationed in the region and could be a target of reprisals.

"What I worry about in terms of an attack on Iran," he said, "is the unintended consequences. It's the further destabilization in the region. It's how they would respond. We have lots of Americans who live in that region who are under the threat envelope right now."

He added, "I worry about it escalating in ways that we couldn't predict. So that kind of option generates a much higher level of risk in terms of outcomes in the region, and it really concerns me."

Turkey and Russia on the Rise

2009-03-18T10:06:00.002Z

March 17, 2009

By Reva Bhalla, Lauren Goodrich and Peter Zeihan

Russia is moving aggressively to extend its influence throughout the former Soviet empire, while Turkey is rousing itself from 90 years of post-Ottoman isolation. Both are clearly ascendant powers, and it would seem logical that the more the two bump up against one other, the more likely they will gird for yet another round in their centuries-old conflict. But while that may be true down the line, the two Eurasian powers have sufficient strategic incentives to work together for now.
Russia’s World

Russia is among the world’s most strategically vulnerable states. Its core, the Moscow region, boasts no geographic barriers to invasion. Russia must thus expand its borders to create the largest possible buffer for its core, which requires forcibly incorporating legions of minorities who do not see themselves as Russian. The Russian government estimates that about 80 percent of Russia’s approximately 140 million people are actually ethnically Russian, but this number is somewhat suspect, as many minorities define themselves based on their use of the Russian language, just as many Hispanics in the United States define themselves by their use of English as their primary language. Thus, ironically, attaining security by creating a strategic buffer creates a new chronic security problem in the form of new populations hostile t o Moscow’s rule. The need to deal with the latter problem explains the development of Russia’s elite intelligence services, which are primarily designed for and tasked with monitoring the country’s multiethnic population.

Russia’s primary challenge, however, is time. In the aftermath of the Soviet collapse, the bottom fell out of the Russian birthrate, with fewer than half the number of babies born in the 1990s than were born in the 1980s. These post-Cold War children are now coming of age; in a few years, their small numbers are going to have a catastrophic impact on the size of the Russian population. By contrast, most non-Russian minorities — in particular those such as Chechens and Dagestanis, who are of Muslim faith — did not suffer from the 1990s birthrate plunge, so their numbers are rapidly increasing even as the number of ethnic Russians is rapidly decreasing. Add in deep-rooted, demographic-impacting problems such as HIV, tuberculosis and heroin abuse — concentrated not just among ethnic Russians but a lso among those of childbearing age — and Russia faces a hard-wired demographic time bomb. Put simply, Russia is an ascending power in the short run, but it is a declining power in the long run.

The Russian leadership is well aware of this coming crisis, and knows it is going to need every scrap of strength it can muster just to continue the struggle to keep Russia in one piece. To this end, Moscow must do everything it can now to secure buffers against external intrusion in the not-so-distant future. For the most part, this means rolling back Western influence wherever and whenever possible, and impressing upon states that would prefer integration into the West that their fates lie with Russia instead. Moscow’s natural gas crisis with Ukraine, August 2008 war with Georgia, efforts to eject American forces from Central Asia and constant pressure on the Baltic states all represent efforts to buy Russia more space — and with that space, more time for survival.

Expanding its buffer against such a diverse and potentially hostile collection of states is no small order, but Russia does have one major advantage: The security guarantor for nearly all of these countries is the United States, and the United States is currently very busy elsewhere. So long as U.S. ground forces are occupied with the Iraqi and Afghan wars, the Americans will not be riding to the rescue of the states on Russia’s periphery. Given this window of opportunity, the Russians have a fair chance to regain the relative security they seek. In light of the impending demographic catastrophe and the present window of opportunity, the Russians are in quite a hurry to act.

Turkey’s World
Turkey is in many ways the polar opposite of Russia. After the dissolution of the Ottoman Empire following World War I, Turkey was pared down to its core, Asia Minor. Within this refuge, Turkey is nearly unassailable. It is surrounded by water on three sides, commands the only maritime connection between the Black and Mediterranean seas and sits astride a plateau surrounded by mountains. This is a very difficult chunk of territory to conquer. Indeed, beginning in the Seljuk Age in the 11th century, the ancestors of the modern Turks took the better part of three centuries to seize this territory from its previous occupant, the Byzantine Empire.

The Turks have used much of the time since then to consolidate their position such that, as an ethnicity, they reign supreme in their realm. The Persians and Arabs have long since lost their footholds in Anatolia, while the Armenians were finally expelled in the dying days of World War I. Only the Kurds remain, and they do not pose a demographic challenge to the Turks. While Turkey exhibits many of the same demographic tendencies as other advanced developing states — namely, slowing birthrates and a steadily aging population — there is no major discrepancy between Turk and Kurdish birthrates, so the Turks should continue to comprise more than 80 percent of the country’s population for some time to come. Thus, while the Kurds will continue to be a source of nationalistic friction, they do not constitute a fundamental challenge to the power or operations of the Turkish state, like minorities in Russia are destined to do in the years ahead.

Turkey’s security is not limited to its core lands. Once one moves beyond the borders of modern Turkey, the existential threats the state faced in years past have largely melted away. During the Cold War, Turkey was locked into the NATO structure to protect itself from Soviet power. But now the Soviet Union is gone, and the Balkans and Caucasus — both former Ottoman provinces — are again available for manipulation. The Arabs have not posed a threat to Anatolia in nearly a millennium, and any contest between Turkey and Iran is clearly a battle of unequals in which the Turks hold most of the cards. If anything, the Arabs — who view Iran as a hostile power with not only a heretical religion but also with a revolutionary foreign policy calling for the overthrow of most of the Arab regimes — are practically welcoming the Turks back. Despite both its imperial past and its close security association with the Americans, the Arabs see Turkey as a trusted mediator, and even an exemplar.

With the disappearance of the threats of yesteryear, many of the things that once held Turkey’s undivided attention have become less important to Ankara. With the Soviet threat gone, NATO is no longer critical. With new markets opening up in the former Soviet Union, Turkey’s obsession with seeking EU membership has faded to a mere passing interest. Turkey has become a free agent, bound by very few relationships or restrictions, but dabbling in events throughout its entire periphery. Unlike Russia, which feels it needs an empire to survive, Turkey is flirting with the idea of an empire simply because it can — and the costs of exploring the option are negl igible.

Whereas Russia is a state facing a clear series of threats in a very short time frame, Turkey is a state facing a veritable smorgasbord of strategic options under no time pressure whatsoever. Within that disconnect lies the road forward for the two states — and it is a road with surprisingly few clashes ahead in the near term.
The Field of Competition

There are four zones of overlapping interest for the Turks and Russians.

First, the end of the Soviet empire opened up a wealth of economic opportunities, but very few states have proven adept at penetrating the consumer markets of Ukraine and Russia. Somewhat surprisingly, Turkey is one of those few states. Thanks to the legacy of Soviet central planning, Russian and Ukrainian industry have found it difficult to retool away from heavy industry to produce the consumer goods much in demand in their markets. Because most Ukrainians and Russians cannot afford Western goods, Turkey has carved out a robust and lasting niche with its lower-cost exports; it is now the largest supplier of imports to the Russian market. While this is no exercise in hard power, this Turkish penetration nevertheless is cause for much concern among Russian authorities.

So far, Turkey has been scrupulous about not politicizing these useful trade links beyond some intelligence-gathering efforts (particularly in Ukraine). Considering Russia’s current financial problems, having a stable source of consumer goods — especially one that is not China — is actually seen as a positive. At least for now, the Russian government would rather see its trade relationship with Turkey stay strong. There will certainly be a clash later — either as Russia weakens or as Turkey becomes more ambitious — but for now, the Russians are content with the trade relationship.

Second, the Russian retreat in the post-Cold War era has opened up the Balkans to Turkish influence. Romania, Bulgaria and the lands of the former Yugoslavia are all former Ottoman possessions, and in their day they formed the most advanced portion of the Ottoman economy. During the Cold War, they were all part of the Communist world, with Romania and Bulgaria formally incorporated into the Soviet bloc. While most of these lands are now absorbed into the European Union, Russia’s ties to its fellow Slavs — most notably the Serbs and Bulgarians — have allowed it a degree of influence that most Europeans choose to ignore. Additionally, Russia has long held a friendly relationship with Greece and Cyprus, both to complicate American policy in Europe and to provide a flank against Turkey. Still, thanks to proximity and trading links, Turkey clearly holds the upper hand in this theater of competition.

But this particular region is unlikely to generate much Turkish-Russian animosity, simply because both countries are in the process of giving up.

Most of the Balkan states are already members of an organization that is unlikely to ever admit Russia or Turkey: the European Union. Russia simply cannot meet the membership criteria, and Cyprus’ membership in essence strikes the possibility of Turkish inclusion. (Any EU member can veto the admission of would-be members.) The EU-led splitting of Kosovo from Serbia over Russian objections was a body blow to Russian power in the region, and the subsequent EU running of Kosovo as a protectorate greatly limited Turkish influence as well. Continuing EU expansion means that Turkish influence in the Balkans will shrivel just as Russian influence already has. Trouble this way lies, but not between Turkey and Russia. If anything, their joint exclusion might provide some room for the two to agree on something.

The third area for Russian-Turkish competition is in energy, and this is where things get particularly sticky. Russia is Turkey’s No. 1 trading partner, with energy accounting for the bulk of the trade volume between the two countries. Turkey depends on Russia for 65 percent of its natural gas and 40 percent of its oil imports. Though Turkey has steadily grown its trade relationship with Russia, it does not exactly approve of Moscow’s penchant for using its energy relations with Europe as a political weapon. Russia has never gone so far as to cut supplies to Turkey directly, but Turkey has been indirectly affected more than once when Russia decided to cut supplies to Ukraine because Moscow felt the need to reassert its writ in Kiev.

Sharing the Turks’ energy anxiety, the Europeans have been more than eager to use Turkey as an energy transit hub for routes that would bypass the Russians altogether in supplying the European market. The Baku-Tbilisi-Ceyhan (BTC) pipeline is one such route, and others, like Nabucco, are still stuck in the planning stages. The Russians have every reason to pressure the Turks into staying far away from any more energy diversification schemes that could cost Russia one of its biggest energy clients — and deny Moscow much of the political leverage it currently holds over the Europeans who are dependent on the Russian energy network.

There are only two options for the Turks in diversifying away from the Russians. The first lies to Turkey’s south in Iraq and Iran. Turkey has big plans for Iraq’s oil industry, but it will still take considerable time to upgrade and restore the oil fields and pipelines that have been persistently sabotaged and ransacked by insurgents during the fighting that followed the 2003 U.S. invasion. The Iranians offer another large source of energy for the Turks to tap into, but the political complications attached to dealing with Iran are still too prickly for the Turks to move ahead with concrete energy deals at this time. Complications remain for now, but Turkey wi ll be keeping an eye on its Middle Eastern neighbors for robust energy partnerships in the future.

The second potential source of energy for the Turks lies in Central Asia, a region that Russia must keep in its grip at all costs if it hopes to survive in the long run. In many ways this theater is the reverse of the Balkans, where the Russians hold the ethnic links and the Turks the economic advantage. Here, four of the five Central Asian countries — Kazakhstan, Uzbekistan, Kyrgyzstan and Turkmenistan — are Turkic. But as a consequence of the Soviet years, the infrastructure and economies of all four are so hardwired into the Russian sphere of influence that it would take some major surgery to liberate them. But the prize is a rich one: Central Asia possesses the world& #8217;s largest concentration of untapped energy reserves. And as the term “central” implies, whoever controls the region can project power into the former Soviet Union, China and South Asia. If the Russians and Turks are going to fight over something, this is it.

Here Turkey faces a problem, however — it does not directly abut the region. If the Turks are even going to attempt to shift the Central Asian balance of power, they will need a lever. This brings us to the final — and most dynamic — realm of competition: the Caucasus.

Turkey here faces the best and worst in terms of influence projection. The Azerbaijanis do not consider themselves simply Turkic, like the Central Asians, but actually Turkish. If there is a country in the former Soviet Union that would consider not only allying with but actually joining with another state to escape Russia’s orbit, it would be Azerbaijan with Turkey. Azerbaijan has its own significant energy supplies, but its real value is in serving as a willing springboard for Turkish influence into Central Asia.

However, the core of Azerbaijan does not border Turkey. Instead, it is on the other side of Armenia, a country that thrashed Azerbaijan in a war over the disputed Nagorno-Karabakh enclave and still has lingering animosities toward Ankara because of the 1915 Armenian “genocide.” Armenia has sold itself to the Russians to keep its Turkish foes at bay.

This means Turkish designs on Central Asia all boil down to the former Soviet state of Georgia. If Turkey can bring Georgia fully under its wing, Turkey can then set about to integrate with Azerbaijan and project influence into Central Asia. But without Georgia, Turkey is hamstrung before it can even begin to reach for the real prize in Central Asia.

In this, the Turks do not see the Georgians as much help. The Georgians do not have much in the way of a functional economy or military, and they have consistently overplayed their hand with the Russians in the hopes that the West would come to their aid. Such miscalculations contributed to the August 2008 Georgian-Russian war, in which Russia smashed what military capacity the Georgians did possess. So while Ankara sees the Georgians as reliably anti-Russian, it does not see them as reliably competent or capable.

This means that Turkish-Russian competition may have been short-circuited before it even began. Meanwhile, the Americans and Russians are beginning to outline the rudiments of a deal. Various items on the table include Russia allowing the Americans to ship military supplies to Afghanistan via Russia’s sphere of influence, changes to the U.S. ballistic missile defense (BMD) program, and a halt to NATO expansion. The last prong is a critical piece of Russian-Turkish competition. Should the Americans and Europeans put their weight behind NATO expansion, Georgia would be a logical candidate — meaning most of the heavy lifting in terms of Turkey projecting power eastward would already be done. But if the Americans and Europeans do not put their weight behind NATO expansion, Georgia would fall by the wayside and Turkey would have to do all the work of projecting power eastward — and facing the Russians — alone.

A Temporary Meeting of Minds?
There is clearly no shortage of friction points between the Turks and the Russians. With the two powers on a resurgent path, it was only a matter of time before they started bumping into one another. The most notable clash occurred when the Russians decided to invade Georgia last August, knowing full well that neither the Americans nor the Europeans would have the will or capability to intervene on behalf of the small Caucasian state. NATO’s strongest response was a symbolic show of force that relied on Turkey, as the gatekeeper to the Black Sea, to allow a buildup of NATO vessels near the Georgian coast and threaten the underbelly of Russia’s former Soviet peri phery.

Turkey disapproved of the idea of Russian troops bearing down in the Caucasus near the Turkish border, and Ankara was also angered by having its energy revenues cut off during the war when the BTC pipeline was taken offline.

The Russians promptly responded to Turkey’s NATO maneuvers in the Black Sea by holding up a large amount of Turkish goods at various Russian border checkpoints to put the squeeze on Turkish exports. But the standoff was short-lived; soon enough, the Turks and Russians came to the negotiating table to end the trade spat and sort out their respective spheres of influence. The Russian-Turkish negotiations have progressed over the past several months, with Russian and Turkish leaders now meeting fairly regularly to sort out the issues where both can find some mutual benefit.

The first area of cooperation is Europe, where both Russia and Turkey have an interest in applying political pressure. Despite Europe’s objections and rejections, the Turks are persistent in their ambitions to become a member of the European Union. At the same time, the Russians need to keep Europe linked into the Russian energy network and divided over any plans for BMD, NATO expansion or any other Western plan that threatens Russian national security. As long as Turkey stalls on any European energy diversification projects, the more it can demand Europe’s attention on the issue of EU membership. In fact, the Turks already threatened as much at the start of the year, when they said outright that if Europe doesn’t need Turkey as an EU member, then Turkey doesn’t need to sign off on any more energy diversification projects that transit Turkish territory. Ankara’s threats against Europe dovetailed nicely with Russia’s natural gas cutoff to Ukraine in January, when the Europeans once again were reminded of Moscow’s energy wrath.

The Turks and the Russians also can find common ground in the Middle East. Turkey is again expanding its influence deep into its Middle Eastern backyard, and Ankara expects to take the lead in handling the thorny issues of Iran, Iraq and Syria as the United States draws down its presence in the region and shifts its focus to Afghanistan. What the Turks want right now is stability on their southern flank. That means keeping Russia out of mischief in places like Iran, where Moscow has threatened to sell strategic S-300 air defense systems and to boost the Iranian nuclear program in order to grab Washington’s attention on other issues deemed vital to Moscow’s national security interests. The United States is already leaning on Russia to pressure Iran in return for other strategic concessions, and the Turks are just as interested as the Americans in taming Russia’s actions in the Middle East.

Armenia is another issue where Russia and Turkey may be having a temporary meeting of minds. Russia unofficially occupies Armenia and has been building up a substantial military presence in the small Caucasian state. Turkey can either sit back, continue to isolate Armenia and leave it for the Russians to dominate through and through, or it can move toward normalizing relations with Yerevan and dealing with Russia on more equal footing in the Caucasus. With rumors flying of a deal on the horizon between Yerevan and Ankara (likely with Russia’s blessing), it appears more and more that the Turks and the Russians are making progress in sorting out their respective spheres of influence.

Ultimately, both Russia and Turkey know that this relationship is likely temporary at best. The two Eurasian powers still distrust each other and have divergent long-term goals, even if in the short term there is a small window of opportunity for Turkish and Russian interests to overlap. The law of geopolitics dictates that the two ascendant powers are doomed to clash — just not today.

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source: www.stratfor.com