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SINO + ASEAN + FTA = East Asian Unification? Not Quite

Part 1: by Collin Spears

To read click here

June 9, 2009

President Obama’s risky commitment to forge a diplomatic breakthrough on a two-state solution to the Palestinian-Israeli conflict has placed Egyptian President Hosni Mubarak’s regime in a perilous position. Already the target of mounting criticism across the Middle East for his complicity in Tel Aviv’s war against HAMAS, Mubarak’s support and engagement is indispensable to reaching any agreement between Israel and the Palestinians—but at what costs to Egypt?

Since Israel’s December 2008 invasion of Gaza, developments in the Levant are forcing Mubarak to adapt to changing internal and external circumstances or risk further destablization of his government. With HAMAS reconstituting its ranks, an irredentist Netanyahu government back in power in Israel and heightened pressure to end his crackdown on political opposition groups in Egypt, the landmines Mubarak has to negotiate are eroding his powerbase in Egypt and the Middle East.

For the 81 year-old Mubarak who threw Egypt’s weight behind Tel Aviv’s attempt to dismember HAMAS, an Israeli victory would have strengthened his grip on power and created a smoother path for the succession of his son, Gamal to the presidency. Had HAMAS been forced to surrender leadership to Mahmoud Abbas’s Palestinian Authority, their radical influence in GAZA and Egypt would be diminished and Iran’s expanding regional influence temporarily blunted. But that didn’t happen. Instead, HAMA’s support is growing on the “Arab street.” Worse still, HAMAS and Hezbollah weapons smuggling operations on the Gaza border has spread to Egypt’s Sinai Peninsula. In April, the Egyptian government arrested 49 people, including one Hezbollah agent charged with smuggled arms to Gaza and plotting attacks on tourist sites in the Sinai. Egyptian officials also reported that Hezbollah agents were “scouting” the Suez Canal, possibly in search of targets to hit that would cripple two of Egypt’s largest industries; tourism and maritime commerce.

In response to the arrest, Hezbollah’s mercurial leader Hassan Nasrallah boldly admitted one of his operatives was providing assistance to HAMAS after Egypt’s closure of the Rafah crossing left thousands of Palestinians without food, medicine and arms. However, Nasrallah excoriated Mubarak for suggesting Hezbollah was attempting to overthrow the Egyptian government, calling it a smear campaign to diminish Hezbollah’s support before Lebanon’s critical June 7 parliamentary elections. The war of words between Beirut and Cairo sent shock waves across the region. President Mubarak escalated regional tension by pointing to Tehran as the source of the subversion. In a provocative speech given in April, Mubarak said “We will not allow any interference by foreign forces that push the region towards hell out of a desire to spread their influence and agenda on the Arab world.”

Wheather Iran is pushing the Middle East "towards hell" may be debatable; the dramatic expansion of Iranian power in Syria, Lebanon and Gaza on Egypt's border is not. Mubarak's tough talk was no doubt sincere. Iran has Egypt in its sites. But Mubarak was also sending a message to the Obama administration, that his neighborhood has changed and that Egypt needs to acquire advanced weapons systems from Washington. In the past America's practice of maintaining Israel's "qualitative military edge" has resulted in U.S. denials of TOW missles and Joint Direct Attack Munitions to Egypt. Mubarak has also bristled at U.S. sales of sophisticated weapons to the Gulf States that are still denied to Cairo. The differences between the U.S and Egypt aren't so much about particular weapons systems but Egypt's role in the region. America's insistance that Egypt play a more active regional role monitoring strategic waterways, contributing troops to expeditionary forces and peacekeeping operations has been resisted by Egypt.

Acutely aware of the challenges threatening to undermine the stability of Mubarak’s government, the Obama administration has engaged in a flurry of political, economic and military activities to fortify Egypt’s position. Egypt’s selection as the site for Obama’s seminal address to the “Muslim world” was an opportunity to begin the renovation of its declining image in the region. At the same time, U.S. pressure on Mubarak to ease the crackdown on opposition groups led Egyptian courts to throw out Saad Eddin Ibrahim’s trumped-up conviction for treason. Opposition leader Ayman Nour, who challenged Mubarak in Egypt’s 2005 presidential election, was also freed from prison in February 2009 on phony charges of fraud. He has been banned from seeking office and practicing law. The Obama administration also lobbied Muburak to have leading opposition figures and members of the Islamist group Egyptian Brotherhood present at his Cairo address. As an inducement for Egypt to open up its political system, Secretary of State Hillary Clinton announced that America’s annual $1.3 billion military aid package will not be conditioned on Egypt’s adherence to human rights standards–a source of contention between Mubarak and the former Bush administration. While the Obama administration has impressed upon Cairo the need to open up political breathing space for its critics, Mubarak is not convinced. No one doubts that if the Egyptian Brotherhood party was legalized that they would sweep Egypt’s parliamentary elections and the presidency in the upcoming 2011 elections.

While the debate in Washington continues to rage about the Egyptian Brotherhood’s role in Egyptian politics, they remain the largest and most significant opposition group in Egypt. Mubarak’s crackdown on the organization has resulted in hundreds of its members being jailed and prohibited from engaging in political activities. Although officially banned in Egypt since 1954, its members operate hospitals, schools and other charities and have considerable influence among many of the country’s 76 million people. Its lawmakers, running as “independents” in the 2005 elections hold 88 seats in Egypt’s 454-seat parliament. Mubarak’s National Democratic Party controls 311 seats in Egypt’s virtual single party state. Having long forsaken violence and terrorism and promoting a more moderate democratic brand of Islamism, the Egyptian Brotherhood’s close ties with HAMAS has placed them at the top of Mubarak’s enemies list.

Mubarak’s draconian measures have generated considerable anger and protest throughout Egyptian society, but his saving grace has been the inability of the opposition, especially the Muslim Brotherhood, to effectively organize Egypt’s disparate political constituencies into a united front. Independent journalists, bloggers and lawyers have also been broadly targeted across Egypt for similar treatment. Despite the increasingly bitter Sunni-Shiite divide in the Middle East, a 2007 Pew Research Poll revealed that in predominantly Sunni Muslim Egypt, 40 percent of all Egyptians had a favorable view of Hezbollah Shiite cleric Hassan Nasrallah and support for HAMAS was above 60 percent--an astonishing indication of the political ferment roiling in Egypt.

Egypt’s stagnant economy has also been a source of discord among the broad mass of Egyptian society. While the Egyptian ruling elites differ markedly from the opulent royal families and sheiks of the Gulf oil states, the most powerful members of the National Democratic Party are deeply tied in with the nation’s major economic industries. With inflation creeping up to 18 percent and one in four young Egyptians idling in unemployment it is not surprising that Egypt’s chronic economic underperformance is laid at Mubarak and the NDP’s doorstep. Urgent improvements are needed in the Egypt. Roughly 30 percent of all Egyptians live in poverty and 20 percent of Egypt’s 79 million people live on less than $2 a day according to the United Nations. To help bolster Egypt’s sagging economy, Barak Obama and Hosni Mubarak signed a “United States-Egypt Plan for a Strategic Partnership” in May 2009. Leading officials from the U.S. and Egypt are scheduled to develop a framework over the next three months for trade and investment cooperation.

Given all the challenges President Mubarak faces in Egypt, his weariness regarding Obama’s determination to secure a breakthrough on the two-state solution is colored by his sense of history. Since Jimmy Carter left the White House in 1980, all his presidential successors have been seduced by illusions of grandeur, vanity and presidential legacy to bring peace to the Israeli-Palistinian conflict. Mubarak has seen it all; last minute deals, quick fixes and piecemeal agreements. Oslo, Wye River, Annapolis...the road to peace is littered with the names of conferences and agreements that have all failed.

Early in his administration, Barak Obama has decided that the moment to advance the cause of the two-state solution is now. Despite America's heavy committments to wars in Afghanistan and Iraq; despite Netanyahu's hardline position on a two state solution, and despite the deep even violent split between HAMAS and the Palestinian Authority, President Obama' is pressing hard for progress. With Hezbollah on the verge of victory in Lebanon's elections and HAMAS's influence in Gaza bleeding into Egypt, perhaps President Obama senses that the U.S. must try to sieze back the initiative.

Obama's blunt and painfully truthful address in Cairo made it clear to all parties involved that they must discard the baggage of the past and be prepared to make risky compromises to reach a durable peace between Palestine and Israel. It is precisely those risks that Egypt as a frontline player must take that threatens the regime of President Mubarak.

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Obama's Call for Two-State Solution Places Egypt in a Perilous Position

by Webster Brooks

Kurdistan Vs. Iraq:

Al Maliki Provokes Civil War Over Kirkuk

by Webster Brooks

Iraq is edging dangerously close to civil war. Unless the Obama administration and Iraq’s fractured leadership make substantial progress toward a settlement on the oil rich province of Kirkuk, deadly sectarian violence between Iraq’s central government and Kurdistan is a certainty. In June, tension escalated between the Kurds and Baghdad when Kurdistan’s parliament adopted a provocative constitution laying claim to disputed territories in the Kirkuk, Diyala and Ninewa provinces which border their autonomous region. The act of “Kurdish enlargement” was viewed by some as a veiled threat of Kurdistan’s intent to secede from Iraq, and by others as a virtual declaration of war. The dangers inherent in the outbreak of civil war between Kurdistan and Prime Minister Nouri al Maliki’s security forces are potentially catastrophic. The collapse of Iraq’s central government, U.S. armed forces trapped in the middle of a deadly sectarian conflict and interventionist actions by Iran, Syria, Turkey and Saudi Arabia to protect their interests in Iraq could all emerge as real possibilities.

Time and opportunity are slipping away from the Obama administration to end the political stalemate over Kirkuk and push Iraq’s competing factions to reach an oil revenue sharing agreement. Shaken by the Kurdish leaders’ aggressive actions, Vice-President Joe Biden criticized the new Kurdish constitution as "not helpful" to the administration's goal of reconciliation between Iraq's Arabs and Kurds. While feigning neutrality and reconciliation on the status of Kirkuk, the Obama administration has no intention of supporting Article 140 of Iraq’s federal constitution which calls for resettling Kurds forcibly removed from Kirkuk by Saddam Hussein, conducting a new provincial census and holding a binding referendum (originally scheduled for 2007) to determine if Kirkuk will be part of Kurdistan’s autonomous region. In truth, Biden’s comment about reconciliation between the Arabs and Kurds was merely code to push the administration’s policy that Iraq can only be viable as a unitary state with a strong central government.

The Kurds fared no better with the United Nations long-awaited April 22, 2009 proposal on the status of Kirkuk; rejecting the report which included two recommendations on the administration of the province. One proposal would create an equal power sharing arrangement between the Kurds, Turkomen and Arabs—a proposal that conveniently denies that the Kurds are the majority population in Kirkuk province. The other U.N. recommendation would designate Kirkuk as a “special province” jointly administered by the region and the central government until a new referendum would be held five years later!

Notwithstanding the U.N.’s untenable proposal and the Obama administration’s opposition to a more robust Kurdish autonomous region, the adoption of Kurdistan’s new constitution clearly signaled that any settlement in which the KRG (Kurdistan Regional Government) does not control Kirkuk is unacceptable. In adopting the new constitution on the eve of the U.S. armed forces scheduled pullout from Iraq’s major cities (per the Status of Forces Agreement), the Kurds sent a message that the peshmerga militia are prepared to defend their newly claimed territories with or without the help of American troops. In effect, designated territories within Kirkuk, Diyala and Ninewa laying outside Kurdistan’s federally recognized provinces would become part of Kurdistan’s new extended security perimeter. Herein lays the path to armed conflict with Baghdad and Nouri al Maliki.

The constitution was quickly rammed through Kurdistan’s parliament by its two dominant parties, the KDP and PUK with very little discussion on the measures. With Kurdistan’s upcoming provincial elections scheduled on July 25, every candidate will be under pressure to support the new constitution and pledge fealty to an enlarged Kurdish state. The two parties fought to include a referendum on the new constitution on the provincial election ballot, but Iraq’s election commission rejected the request, saying that ballots could not be prepared with the non-binding referendum until August 2009.

The intense maneuvering on the part of the Kurds reflects a sense of urgency that their autonomous region now faces a formidable if not an existential threat from several quarters. Since Nouri al Maliki’s forces crushed Muqtada al Sadr’s Mahdi Army in Basra, and his “law and order” list defeated Shiia parties demanding their own autonomous region (dubbed 'Shiastan') in the January 2009 provincial elections, the U.S. has thrown its full weight behind the resurrected Prime Minister’s attempts to restore a strong central government in Baghdad. The January elections also dealt a crippling blow to Kurdish political power. Numerous KDP and PUK candidates were defeated in Ninewa and Diyala provincial races as mass Sunni participation in these ethnically and religiously mixed provinces led to the election of Arab candidates who had boycotted the 2005 elections.

In addition to the erosion of its political power, the Kurdish peshmerga militia has increasingly come under fire from rogue Arab militias, Sunni extremists and Prime Minister al Maliki’s Iraqi armed forces. As the uptick in violence has shifted to northern Iraq, particularly around Mosul and Kirkuk, peshmerga forces and Kurdish officials are being regularly targeted. U.S. diplomats remained silent in the fall of 2008 when Prime Minister al Maliki sent federal Iraqi security forces to northern Iraq to challenge the peshmerga in areas outside of Kurdistan proper. In the city of Khanaqin, Kurdish and national Iraqi security forces clashed several times before both sides pulled back; narrowly averting all out war. In Ninewa’s provincial elections, the Sunni al-Hadbaa list won 19 of the 37 provincial council seats, but then seized all the local positions in the government. Kurds from the KDP and PUK parties who ran on the Ninewa Fraternal List boycotted the new provincial government in protest. Ninewa’s Governor Najafi said he would allow the Fraternal List to assume positions in the local government if they recognized certain disputed borders and most importantly, withdrew the peshmerga from the province. The Kurds refused.

Frustrated with the counsels of patience, promises deferred and outright betrayal, the Kurds have no choice now but to go on the offensive. The Iraqi government is bent on betraying its own constitution with indefinite delays in holding the referendum on Kirkuk. Nouri al Maliki is moving to smash peshmerga forces outside Kurdistan’s autonomous region. He has even joined forces with Sunni extremists he once fought to reduce Kurdish political influence across Iraq. The United States has repeatedly demonstrated its willingness to sacrifice Kurdistan’s long-term survival for their short-term “strategic interest” of an expedient withdrawal from a “unified” Iraq. If that isn’t enough, Iran and Turkey have both called for delays in the referendum, fearful that an autonomous Kurdistan powered by significant oil wealth will fuel separatist movements among the millions of Kurds their own governments' oppress. Not to be outdone, the shameless Saudi royal family offered the Kurds $2 billion to delay the referendum 10 years, fearing the rise of a new Kurdish oil competitor in the region. Along with Syria, these countries constantly manipulate proxy forces within Kurdistan and across Iraq to prevent the referendum on Kirkuk that will surely go in favor of the province joining Kurdistan’s autonomous region.

Since the American invasion of Iraq in 2003, Kurdistan’s autonomous region has experienced unprecedented economic growth, stability and expanded democratic freedoms. It has largely been spared the death, destruction and ethnic cleansing spawned by sectarian violence and inter-group warfare that has plagued the rest of Iraq. Those days appear to be coming to an end. Long before oil was discovered beneath its sands, Kirkuk was the center of Kurdish culture and history. Kurdish efforts to reclaim Kirkuk have now turned it into a powder keg with a short fuse that can ignite sectarian warfare and chaos in Iraq. The Kurds have done all they can to avoid armed conflict. But if war comes as the price for dignity and true self-determination, then so be it.

There is an old saying that the Kurds have no friends but the mountains. To that we might add "No friends but the mountains, the peshmerga and the kalashnikov." They certainly have no friends in the region. ******

Iraq Special 2009 Provincial Elections Report

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Kurdistan's 2009 Provincial Election Results

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Al Maliki’s Defeat in the 2010 Parliamentary Elections Will Setback President Obama in Iraq

November 15, 2009

Washington, D.C. — The Iraqi legislature’s November 8 approval of a new election law and agreement to hold parliamentary elections before January 31, 2010 are bringing all the major problems in Baghdad to a head. Although President Obama praised Iraq’s parliament saying its action will keep U.S. troop withdrawals on track for completion by August 2011, the outcome of the election is fraught with danger for his administration. Iraq’s Prime Minister Nouri al-Maliki’s re-election bid is in deep trouble. Renewed sectarian violence hangs over Iraq as two deadly al Queda bombings on October 25 of government ministry buildings in Baghdad has unsettled the country. Pro-Iranian Shiia forces have re-organized their election campaigns and are gaining momentum. Tension between Kurdish, Sunni Arab and Turkmen forces over the status of oil-rich Kirkuk are also intensifying as the Parliament’s new election law backed Kurdish demands that voter eligibility in Kirkuk (Tamim Province) will be based on the 2009 voting list. With the stakes and the political temperature rising, U.S. armed forces in Iraq are prepared to redeploy to Kirkuk as Iraq braces for outbreaks of violence in the run up to the election.

At the center of the electoral firestorm is Iraqi Prime Minister al-Maliki. In August al-Maliki announced his Dawa Party’s break with the major Shiia groups (Islamic Supreme Council of Iraq (ISCI) and Sadrist forces led by Muqtada al Sadr) to form a secular “State of the Law List” with his “Sunni allies.” After directing the Iraqi Army’s offensive to smash the Sadrists in Basrah in 2008, al-Maliki distanced himself from the ruling Shiia coalition in Iraq’s January 2009 provincial elections. Al-Maliki’s list won a plurality of 31% of the vote carrying most of the Shiia majority provinces by campaigning on a platform of nationalism, political secularism, restoring law and order, building a strong central government and supporting a Status of Forces Agreement to expel U.S. troops by 2011. After his strong 2009 campaign al-Maliki negotiated with Shiia groups for months, demanding 50% of the parliamentary seats for the DAWA Party to join the new Shiia-led “United Iraqi Alliance List.” Fearful that al-Maliki is attempting to consolidate power for himself and DAWA, the Shiia groups balked at his demand but left the door open for al-Maliki’s possible return. On November 4, Iranian Parliamentary leader Ali Larijani arrived in Baghdad for talks with Iraq’s Shiia parties, urging them to settle their differences and bring al-Maliki into the fold to maximize Shiia control over Iraq’s government in the upcoming elections. But rapprochement between al-Maliki and the new United Iraqi Alliance is not likely. Over the past year al-Maliki’s missteps have alienated key forces and developments have conspired to further undermine his power base.

In August, former Prime Minister Ibrahim al-Jaafari led a press conference announcing the creation of a new Shiia majority electoral list; the United Iraqi Alliance (UIA). After losing the 2009 provincial elections, the Sadrists, the Fadhila Party and the Islamic Supreme Council of Iraq (ISCI) patched up their differences and formed the UIA. Shiia forces hold 128 of the 275 seats in parliament, but in the 2009 provincial elections the ISCI won only 12% of the vote, the Sadrist 9% and former Prime Minister Ibrahim Jaffari won 5%. Forced to adjust its platform, the dominant ISCI dropped its call to create a Shiia controlled autonomous region (Shiiastan) in southern Iraq to appease Muqtada al Sadr’s forces in Baghdad and central Iraq who opposed Shiia regional autonomy. To appeal to more mainstream voters and secularists, the Sadrist and ISCI jettisoned their rhetoric to establish Iraq as a theocratic (read Shiia) Islamic state, choosing instead to run as a secular list. To broaden their base, the UIA invited Sunni groups, independents and influential Shiia secularist politicians like Ahmed al Chalabi and former DAWA Prime Minister al-Jaafari to join their list. When powerful Shiia cleric Ayatollah Sistani endorsed an open ballot process allowing Iraqis to vote for individuals, parties or lists, instead of just coalitions, UIA backers supported the measure in parliament although it will narrow their advantage at the ballot box.

While the UIA is expanding its base, al-Maliki’s “State of Law List” efforts to widen its influence beyond its DAWA base have met with little success. Prominent Sunni and secularist leaders publicly courted by al-Maliki are refusing to support his bloc. Former Prime Minister Ayad Allawi, Sunni leader Saleh Mutlak and Vice-President Tarik al Hashemi formed the anti-Iranian “Iraqi National Movement List,” advocating re-integration of former Baathist leaders. Sheikh Ahmad Abu Risha, a force in Anbar and Interior Minister Jawad Bolani of the Constitution Party decided to create their own “Unity Alliance.” Similarly, al-Maliki’s efforts to recruit Ninewa Province’s ruling al-Hadbaa Party and Sunni tribal leaders from Anbar, Tamim and Salahaddin met with failure.

The Sunni lack of support for al-Maliki is not surprising. Al-Maliki promised to pay salaries for former Sunni Awakening forces and integrate them into Iraq’s national army, but half of the Awakening soldiers were never paid. Recently, al-Maliki announced the armed forces payroll would be cut as government salaries and expenditures were absorbing 74% of the nation’s $58 billion budget, thus the Iraqi National Army will likely remain a predominantly Shiia military. Moreover, reconciliation efforts to reintegrate Baathist forces into the wellsprings of Iraq’s government still has not occurred and no agreement has been reached on distribution of oil revenues. Despite his break with the Sadrists and the Iraqi Supreme Islamic Council, the Sunni still view al-Maliki as an agent of Iranian ambition. Sunni dissatisfaction with al-Maliki was underscored by the twin al Queda bombings in October of government complexes in the middle of Baghdad. The blasts that killed hundreds seriously undermined al-Maliki’s claim that he has restored security to Iraq. As the attacks were directed against major government buildings it appears the bombings were a direct warning to al-Maliki that the Sunni can visit chaos on Iraq if their demands are not addressed.

With the passage of the new 2010 election law allowing the 2009 voter list to be used in Kirkuk’s elections the Kurds are poised to gain control of oil-rich Tamim Province and exercise virtual independence from Iraq. Sunni Arab and Turkmen groups argued for using the 2004 voting list to eliminate voter eligibility for thousands of Kurds that returned to Kirkuk after Saddam Hussein was toppled in 2003. How the new election law would be applied to Kirkuk was the most contentious issue delaying the passage of the new bill and it remains the most volatile flashpoint that could lead to mass sectarian violence between the Kurds, the Sunni and Turkmen. The Kurds are now positioned to increase its 53 seat voting bloc in Iraq’s Parliament and strike a deal with the Shiia UAI List to incorporate oil rich Kirkuk into Kurdistan’s autonomous region. The two major Kurdish groups (PUK and KDP) will not enter into an alliance with Nouri al-Maliki, who opposed Kurdish enlargement and dispatched Iraqi Army forces to attack the Kurdish peshmerga in 2008. Instead, the Kurds will support UIA control of parliament and have a major voice in naming a new Prime Minister to replace al-Maliki if the “State of Law List falters.”

While Prime Minister al-Maliki’s chances of being re-elected are growing dimmer, shifting alliances and unforeseen events could tip the scales back in his direction the next sixty days. Iraq is a very unpredictable place. Prime Minister al-Maliki’s emphasis on secularism, law and order and building a unitary Iraq rather than ceding more autonomy to the Kurds and Shiia has been viewed with great favor by the Obama administration. And while his outreach to the Sunni may fall short of winning allies for the election, it has altered the political dynamic in Iraq. For the moment, the revamped Shiia led United Iraq Alliance has the momentum to win a working Parliamentary majority and name a new Prime Minister. Among al-Maliki’s potential successors are Adel Abdul Mehdi, the Vice-President and a senior leader of the Islamic Supreme Council of Iraq, and Ibrahim al-Jaafari, Iraq’s first elected prime minister. A pro-Iran leaning UIA victory will mean Tehran will strengthen its position in Iraq as the United States prepares to accelerate troop withdrawals at the end of March. The referendum on the Status of Forces Agreement scheduled for approval during the 2010 parliamentary has been withdrawn and will proceed on schedule for all U.S. forces to be withdrawn by August 31, 2011. If American forces can avoid being drawn into the maelstrom of Iraqi politics and sectarian violence President Obama may have the good fortune to exit U.S. troops without significant losses and augment his forces in Afghanistan. While an orderly U.S. withdrawal from Iraq will be viewed by many in the United States as a victory, in the larger strategic sense Iran’s ability to gain the upper hand in Iraq and solidify its control over the Persian Gulf would mark a major strategic setback for the U.S. Iraq’s 2010 elections and the fate of Prime Minister al-Maliki will significantly impact the future of American power in Gulf region as democratic elections continue to cast a large footprint across the Middle East.

Will Iran's Democratic Upsurge Pass Over to Revolution?

by Webster Brooks

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