Why the Syrian crisis is not like Egypt or Libya

I've been reading Juan Cole's site to stay up on what's going on in the Middle East (among others). And I found this comment by guest columnist Søren Schmidt interesting (my emphasis and paragraphing):

Syria is neither Egypt nor Libya – and the conflict can therefore not be solved as it was in Egypt and Libya respectively.

The conflict in Syria worsens with each day that passes, and by now more than 20,000 people have been killed. At the same time, the parties are more keenly opposed than ever. The regime will have to go in the long run, but nobody knows how to get rid of it and get started on a democracy.

In Egypt, Mubarak was defeated by the mobilization of large masses of people demonstrating in Tahrir Square. In the confrontation between the regime and the masses of people, it was the regime that blinked first. The military quite simply did not have the stomach to beat back so many people, and in one fell swoop the regime’s authority vanished.

In Libya, Gaddafi was so isolated in his own country that the Libyans were able to defeat him militarily with a little help from the West.

But neither of these solutions can be applied in Syria, for two reasons.

First of all, the situation in Syria is a proper civil war between the country’s Sunni majority (65%) and the Alawi minority (10%) that the Assad clan belongs to; while the remaining minorities (Christians, Druze, Kurds and Shia: 25%) either support the regime or keep themselves on the sidelines.

Since the conflict can not be described, as it was in Egypt or Libya, only as a conflict between the regime and the people, but also between two parties, each of which represents an important social force, the opposition is not able to challenge the regime through mass mobilization.

Please read the rest. There's much more going on in the current Middle East crisis than this — it's a multi-party game that includes U.S. interests (including oil), Islamic fundamentalist sentiment, in-state rebellions, Al Qaeda groups of various stripes and flags, local political parties and power-struggles, distrust of Western (and U.S.) intentions and interventionism, and so much more.

For example, there's this, from later in the same piece:

Syria is an important link in the so-called resistance alliance, which in addition to Syria consists of Iran, Iraq and Hezbollah in a deterrence alliance against Israel.

Syria’s alliance partners will therefore do whatever they can to prevent pro-Israel, Western powers from taking out an important link in this alliance.

What's going on region-wide is important and complex. But Syria is a special case, and the article provides a good baseline to start your thinking from.

Don't think binarily about Syria — regime vs. people — no matter how tempting that is (or how tempted you are by mainstream media to go that way). Syria has a political party aspect, a tribal aspect, and a defense-against-Israel aspect as well.

GP

To follow or send links: @Gaius_Publius
  Read the rest of this post...

Romney blasted by GOPers for jumping gun, politicizing death of US ambassador to Libya

I just went through the video of Romney's presser, and just going through a portion of the 11 minutes, I found 15 more smirks throughout the video.  It's starting around four minutes that the smirks begin and don't end.  Every time he's done talking, he smirks.  Here are 15 or so, there are many more.

Is this the expression of a head of state publicly honoring the deaths of American citizens?

These last two show Romney after he's done with the press conference, and is walking away.  This is where AP, below, caught him smirking.  Note how the smirk doesn't stop - it stays.  This wasn't just one errant photo.

UPDATE: Sarah Palin joined Mitt Romney and RNC Chair Priebus in jumping the gun and politicizing the attack on the US embassy and consulate in Egypt and Libya. Note Palin's statement. Not a word about the US ambassador murdered. Zero. No mention of his name, no mention that even an ambassador was killed. No, Palin's statement, as usual, is her typical self-aggrandizing partisanship. But when Palin found out, with the rest of us, that it wasn't just "an American official," but a US ambassador and three other Americans, who were murdered - she doesn't say boo.

THIS JUST IN: Romney caught smirking, twice, while doing press conference about murdered US ambassador to Libya. There are two photos, not one - this wasn't just an odd moment where the camera caught an odd expression. The man was smirking during and while leaving a press conference about the murder of a US ambassador in the middle of a growing and major foreign policy crisis.

Check out this first photo of Romney leaving the press conference, thinking no one can see his face. Smug, happy with himself, as though he pulled an "I gotcha" on President Obama rather than somber about the fact that Americans lay dead and our country is now embroiled in a major foreign policy crisis. Romney is, instead, pleased. With himself. Romney's reaction: He smirked.

Jed at DailyKos caught a second instance of Romney smirking, self-assuredly, while discussing the murder of Americans in a major foreign policy crisis.

To suggest that the man is not ready for prime-time would be putting it lightly. He's smiling, happy, content at a moment of national crisis when American lie dead?

Now let's play devil's advocate. Maybe Romney was just incredibly uncomfortable assuming the role of a leader on foreign policy, so he couldn't control his emotions. Is that really any better? That the man is so inexperienced that he uncontrollably smirks during foreign policy crises? Imagine the message that sends.
_____

From Ben Smith at Buzzfeed:

"Foreign Policy Hands Voice Disbelief At Romney Cairo Statement": “Bungle… utter disaster…not ready for prime time… not presidential… Lehman moment.” And that's just the Republicans.

"They were just trying to score a cheap news cycle hit based on the embassy statement and now it’s just completely blown up," said a very senior Republican foreign policy hand, who called the statement an "utter disaster" and a "Lehman moment" — a parallel to the moment when John McCain, amid the 2008 financial crisis, failed to come across as a steady leader.

He and other members of both parties cited the Romney campaign's recent dismissals of foreign policy's relevance. One adviser dismissed the subject to BuzzFeed as a "shiny object," while another told Politico that the subject was the "president's turf," drawing a rebuke from Weekly Standard editor Bill Kristol.

"I guess we see now that it is because they’re incompetent at talking effectively about foreign policy," said the Republican. "This is just unbelievable — when they decide to play on it they completely bungle it."

"Its bad," said a former aide to Senator John McCain's 2008 presidential campaign. "Just on a factual level that the statement was not a response but preceding, or one could make the case precipitating. And just calling it a 'disgrace' doesnt really cut it. Not ready for prime time."

A third former Republican, a former Bush State Department official, told BuzzFeed, "It wasn't presidential of Romney to go political immediately -- a tragedy of this magnitude should be something the nation collectively grieves before politics enters the conversation."

Even Mitt Romney's own campaign surrogate, attack-dog John Sununu, said he made a mistake by jumping the gun and politicizing the death of a US ambassador in Libya. From a National Journal article titled "Romney Campaign Denies Acting Rashly on Libyan Situation":

Yet, even Romney surrogates questioned the timing of Romney’s statement, which referred to the death of an American official, and originally carried a midnight eastern standard time embargo to avoid political criticism on 9/11.

“They probably should have waited,” said former Sen. John Sununu, R-N.H. “You look at the way things unfolded, you look at the timing of it, they probably should have waited.”

Yesterday in Egypt and Libya, mobs attacked the US embassy and consulate after a video attacking the prophet Muhammad as a pedophile was promoted by that infamous Florida preacher who previous had threatened to burn the Koran. Crowds in both countries went wild, the US ambassador to Libya and three other American staff ended up dead.

Americans had no idea what was going on. Even the State Department and White House were saying that one American was dead, not four. We didn't even know that a US ambassador had been killed.

And what did Mitt Romney do? He saw the death of Americans as a partisan political opportunity. He issued a statement blasting some tweets - yes, some tweets - from the US embassy in Cairo. Mind you, these were the folks who were still under attack, so it's understandable how they might issue a statement to try to calm the mobs, a statement that might not have been well thought out.

It's less understandable why Mitt Romney thinks that leader are supposed to immediately issue partisan statements during international crises, even when they don't have the full information about what is going on, even when American lives are still in danger.

Not only does Mitt Romney have less experience than Sarah Palin in foreign policy (at least she could see Russia), but he doesn't have the temperament to be commander in chief.

Christian Heinze
‏@CPHeinze
[Reagan speechwriter] Peggy Noonan: "I don't feel that Mr. Romney has been doing himself any favors in the past few hours."

[Bush-Cheney 04 campaign chairman] Matthew Dowd
‏@matthewjdowd
Romney react feels a lot like ready, fire, aim.

@BuzzFeedBen: If you think the eye-rolling at Romney is just coming from the MSM, call up some Republican foreign policy hands.

@jonathanalter Romney's timing on politicizing the killing of US ambassador is not just dumb but a sign of desperation.

Garance Franke-Ruta ‏@thegarance
Romney is using the occasion of the death of a US ambassador in Libya to condemn Obama for some social media dip at the Cairo embassy.

Anthony De Rosa ‏@AntDeRosa
This statement makes Romney seem small, not presidential

Read the rest of this post...

Noam Chomsky: Who are the Unpeople?

Who are the Unpeople?

In this talk, Noam Chomsky starts with specifics — the Unpeople of Libya, the Unpeople of Africa — but the heart is the general, the concept itself. Who are the Unpeople of the earth?

Here's a taste. Chomsky starts with the unilateral bombing of Libya "by their traditional imperial aggressors: France and Britain, joined by the United States" — in violation of U.N. Security Council Resolution 1973 which "called for a no-fly zone, a cease-fire and measures to protect civilians."

The "triumvirate" blew right past that with their bombing, and the African Union (A.U.) went to the U.N. to object (my emphasis and some reparagraphing throughout):

The A.U. call to the Security Council also laid out the background for their concerns: “Sovereignty has been a tool of emancipation of the peoples of Africa who are beginning to chart transformational paths for most of the African countries after centuries of predation by the slave trade, colonialism and neocolonialism. Careless assaults on the sovereignty of African countries are, therefore, tantamount to inflicting fresh wounds on the destiny of the African peoples.”

The African appeal can be found in the Indian journal Frontline, but was mostly unheard in the West. That comes as no surprise: Africans are “unpeople,” to adapt George Orwell’s term for those unfit to enter history.

You can see where this is headed.

On March 12, the Arab League gained the status of people by supporting U.N. Resolution 1973. But approval soon faded when the League withheld support for the subsequent Western bombardment of Libya. And [then] on April 10, the Arab League reverted to unpeople by calling on the U.N. also to impose a no-fly zone over Gaza and to lift the Israeli siege, virtually ignored.

That too makes good sense. Palestinians are prototypical unpeople, as we see regularly.

Read the rest; it's very good (and available as a video here.)

Who are the Unpeople? Unpeople are those you can abuse and kill, decimate and dislocate, without conscience or consequence, because they aren't fully human — or human at all — in the minds of their abusers.

American Indians were Unpeople, squatting on land just waiting to be "settled" as whites spread across the "empty" American West. Arabs were Unpeople who "crawled like flies" through Palestine (per Agatha Christie), until white Europeans, the only true humans, infiltrated, moved them out, and took over.

Oddly, those same Europeans — ethnic Jews — were Unpeople in the lands they were fleeing. Suffering doesn't always lead to wisdom.

It goes without saying, or should, that the drone-dead in Pakistan are Unpeople. (Feel a tad guilty? Me too.)

Here at home, Unpeople are all around us — the poor, the brown, the black, the homeless, the hopeless, the drugged-out, the cast-out — the wrecks and the unruly. The old. The "losers" in that hyper-Christian "take back America" formulation. The Occupyers and the foreclosed.

All Unpeople are the modern n-word, broadened to include the Unincluded everywhere you find them.

Are you the Unpeople? If you find yourself scooped up by the National Security state, you will be; even that white skin, if you have it, will not set you free.

GP Read the rest of this post...

New Lockerbie investigation being prepared

Nobody ever thought convicted bomber Abdelbaset al-Megrahi acted alone. (Speaking of, he's no longer "within days" of dying, again. What a miracle, again.) The new Libyan government has indicated they are ready for British police to visit to continue the investigation of both the Lockerbie bombing as well as the murder of a police officer outside of the Libyan embassy in London. It would be nice to have final closure on those events. The Guardian:

The new Libyan government has given British police the green light to mount fresh investigations into the Lockerbie bombing and the shooting of PC Yvonne Fletcher, the British foreign minister Alistair Burt has said.

In an interview with the Guardian, Burt said on Thursday he had been told officially during a two-day visit to Tripoli that Libya's interior minister in the new government, sworn in last weekend, had promised to co-operate by allowing detectives into the country to reopen their investigations.

The interior minister, Fawzy Abdel Aal, had agreed to "the early return of the Dumfries and Galloway police in relation to Lockerbie", Burt said.

Read the rest of this post...

New Libyan government is exclusively secularist

If only we were so lucky in America to have the religious extremists out of government. The Guardian:

Prime minister Abdulrahman El Keib has sent Libya on a bumpy road towards democracy by naming a cabinet of secularists and thereby snubbing prominent Islamists.

The biggest surprise on the list was Osama al-Juwali, chief of the Zintan military council, who was appointed defence minister at the expense of Islamist Hakim Bilhaj.

Juwali is an accomplished commander whose forces were originally a militia from the small city of Zintan that went on to play a central role in storming Tripoli in August, but until now he had no national political profile. Sources in the city in west Libya told the Guardian at the weekend its leadership demanded a cabinet post in return for handing over Saif al-Islam, Muammar Gaddafi's son and heir, captured in the south on Saturday. He is now held at a secret location in Zintan.

Read the rest of this post...

Gaddafi's son Saif al-Islam taken into custody

Send him to The Hague.

Saif al-Islam was arrested near the town of Obari in the south of the country, the officials said.

The former leader's son is the last key member of the Gaddafi family to be captured or killed.

Saif al-Islam is wanted by the International Criminal Court for alleged crimes against humanity during the uprising against his father.

Read the rest of this post...

Herman Cain pulls a Rick Perry, can’t answer basic question about Libya

This is painful.  For a second there it looked like Cain would have preferred a question about sexual harassment. Read the rest of this post...

Gaddafi assets worth $200 million

What's even more amazing is that he couldn't buy his way out of trouble in the end. LA Times:

Moammar Kadafi secretly salted away more than $200 billion in bank accounts, real estate and corporate investments around the world before he was killed, about $30,000 for every Libyan citizen and double the amount that Western governments previously had suspected, according to senior Libyan officials.

The new estimates of the deposed dictator's hidden cash, gold reserves and investments are "staggering," one person who has studied detailed records of the asset search said Friday. "No one truly appreciated the scope of it."

If the values prove accurate, Kadafi will go down in history as one of the most rapacious as well as one of the most bizarre world leaders, on a scale with the late Mobutu Sese Seko in Zaire or the late Ferdinand Marcos in the Philippines.

Read the rest of this post...

I’m just not sure I care whether Gaddafi was summarily executed

Slate:

A U.N. panel set up earlier this year to investigate abuses in Libya said it wanted to take a closer look at how Qaddafi was killed, but that it was too early to tell if the panel would push for a formal investigation at the national or international level.

The spokesman, Rupert Colville, told reporters in Geneva that there remain questions about whether Qaddafi was killed during a skirmish between his security detail and the revolutionaries, as Libya’s prime minister suggested Thursday, or whether he was executed.

“The two cell phone videos that have emerged, one of him alive, and one of him dead, taken together are very disturbing," he said, according to the AP.

I know I'm supposed to care whether Gaddafi was executed (i.e., was captured and then summarily shot even though it wasn't necessary), but I really don't.

He was a bad man who killed a lot of people.  And he was more than just a "bad" man - lots of people are bad men, and we don't sanction them being summarily shot - Gaddafi was different, he was a dictator.  And I don't shed a tear for him.  Just like I don't shed a tear for Soviet puppet Nicolae Ceausescu and his wife being given a show trial and then shot on Christmas day of 1989.  That was a great day for the world.

I get it.  I'm a lawyer.  We can't sanction lawlessness simply because we think a particular situation is an exception, lest someone else make their own poorly chosen exceptions to the law (and one could argue that Ceausecu's execution was handled just the way he handled many an execution during his own reign of terror - though I'm not entirely sure that that's an argument against summarily shooting the man).  I just feel that things are different during war time, and they're especially different when you're dealing with a despot.

Now, how do you distinguish this from war crimes?  I'm not entirely sure.  Though, in my view, war crimes apply less to how a leader is treated than his followers (i.e., the military and the citizens).  And the distinction becomes even greater when the leader is a despot.  And yes, we all have different definitions of despot.  And some would call the US president (possibly even the current one, certainly the former one) a despot.  So would I sanction similarly harsh treatment of our leaders?  No I wouldn't. And I get that it's contradictory, I'm just putting it out there.

I'm not saying that I have a bullet-proof argument, pun intended.  I'm simply admitting that while I know legally we shouldn't condone summary executions, I think I have a pretty good moral compass and I just don't get that worked up about it when the target of an execution is a bin Laden or a Ceausecu.  And I'm at pains to understand how their summary deaths make the world, or the rule of law, any worse off. Read the rest of this post...

GOP Senator proposes new stimulus package... for Libya

That's sweet.  Maybe some day the Republicans will care about America too.  And putting that aside for a moment, how cute that the GOP is refusing to fund infrastructure projects at home (a number of Republican governors have actually turned back federal money for railways), yet they have no problem touting infrastructure projects for Libya - either they help build an economy or they don't. TPM:

But why spend there when austerity in the United States means workers are getting laid off and infrastructures decaying. We asked Graham in the Capitol after a vote on Thursday and he explained.

"I would say this is a loan, not a gift," Graham said. "It is in our interest to get their oil back online, so we can have more supply, which will help our consumers, it is in our interest to get their economy moving forward, so a vacuum won't be filled by extremists, and we will get the money we invest back.

Yeah, I think we know a thing or two about vacuums in economies being filled by extremists. Read the rest of this post...

Video purporting to be Gaddafi captured, injured, before death

It's obviously somewhat gruesome video.  This does appear to be the same man in video posted earlier showing a body that appeared to be Gaddafi. Read the rest of this post...

When John met Muammar

Read the rest of this post...

Graphic video, purports to be Gaddafi’s body

There still is some lingering uncertainty about whether Gaddafi is dead (I imagine it's hard to confirm in all the turmoil), though most seem to think he is. JoeMyGod has posted a video that's going around, purporting to be Gaddafi’s body. Per se it's graphic.

The Libyan Prime Minister says he's dead.

Washington Post's Chris Cillizza looks at the election impact here at home. I think the impact is more subtle. Yes, these things can potentially cause a temporary bump in the polls, but over time they have a more subtle impact. Osama's, and now Gaddafi's, deaths do help burnish Obama's foreign policy image, which helps inoculate him on whatever foreign policy dirt the GOP plans to throw at him during the general election. And more generally, it feeds a sense of competence about the president, to counter, even slightly, discontent about the economy. Yes, the economy is the public's number one concern, but every little bit on every other issue still helps.

Devastating photo of Sirte, Gaddafi's home town.

Video of Hillary getting the news on her Blackberry.

The Republicans point out that only recently the President shook hands and yucked it up with the dictator. Read the rest of this post...

Gaddafi is dead

Breaking news this morning:

Abdul Hakim Belhaj, a NTC military chief, has confirmed that Muammar Gaddafi has died of his wounds after being captured near Sirte.

Another NTC commander said that Moussa Ibrahim, former spokesman for Muammar Gaddafi's fallen government, was captured near the Sirte.

Abdul Hakim Al Jalil, commander of the 11th brigade, also said he had seen the body of the chief of Gaddafi's armed forces, Abu Bakr Younus Jabr.

"I've seen him with my own eyes," he said and showed Reuters a picture of Jabr's body.

Al Jazeera is broadcasting scenes of celebration from Libya. Read the rest of this post...

Sec. Hillary Clinton visits Libya

Very smart of the Administration to send a female Secretary of State out now. Just the fact that she is there sends the right message on women's rights.

The remaining Gadaffi loyalists still fighting are confined to two small areas of Sirte and Bani Walid. It is now a matter of when, not if they fall. Gadaffi himself is reportedly in hiding in the Sahara region.

Meanwhile the end of the Gadaffi regime seems to be encouraging anti-government demonstrators in Syria. The protests are mounting, as is the death toll. Not surprisingly the troops who fired on unarmed protesters are now being attacked. The Syrian protests are rapidly turning into the Syrian insurgency.

Assad has backing from the Iranian and Iraqi governments but not much more. Russia and China are blocking any attempt to impose sanctions against the regime in the UN, but this is driven by geography and their interest in limiting US regional influence rather than any great love for Assad. The fall of Syria would probably not concern either country very much but could be the start of a Shi'ia Spring that brings down the Iranian regime. Read the rest of this post...

Sirte, Libya on brink of falling to anti-Gadaffi forces

The BBC reports that Sirte is on the brink of falling to anti-Gadaffi forces. The University, main hospital and conference center have fallen and according to the AP, the loyalist forces are now confined to one of Gadaffi's palaces, some houses and a hotel.

The fall of Sirte would leave Bani Walid as the last bastion of Gaddafi loyalists. The hope seems to be that the fall of Sirte may encourage capitulation in Bani Walid where fighting is also going on. Gaddafi himself is believed to be in hiding on the Southern border in the Sahara region. Read the rest of this post...

Bachmann: Obama did not do enough to preserve dictatorships in the Middle East

Bachmann and her ilk are pretty disgusting people. But her latest argument is truly revolting. Bachmann thinks that Obama did too little to save the dictatorship of Mubarak. According to the National Review:

In a speech to about 400 Republicans gathered for the state party’s fall convention here, the three-term Minnesota congresswoman blamed President Obama for “the hostilities of the Arab spring” and expressed regret that “we saw (Egyptian) President (Hosni) Mubarak fall while President Obama sat on his hands.”

Just what is so special about Israel that the populations of Egypt, Tunisia and Libya, a total of over 100 million people should have to live under brutal dictatorships just in case democracy might be a threat? Margaret Thatcher believed the opposite, pointing out to Gorbachev that two democracies had never gone to war against each other.

The US has a long history of backing dictatorships in the region and the current government of Iran is a direct product of that policy. Back in 1953 Iran had a democratically elected government. That was too much of a threat as far as the Dulles brothers were concerned and so they arranged a coup to eliminate the democratic government and install the Shah as a dictator, the first CIA organized coup.

Propping up crumbling dictators like Bachmann urges is a fool's bet. Carter did not make a mistake in refusing to save the Shah, that was never an option. The mistake Carter and Ford made was not cutting their losses and openly abandoning the Shah when it became clear that he had lost popular support. Read the rest of this post...

Tony Blair's disturbing links to Gaddafi

The good old Tony Blair that we all know and love. What kind of "peace envoy" would be involved in an oil-for-convicted terrorist deal? The Independent:

Tony Blair's shadowy links with Muammar Gaddafi were thrust into the spotlight again last night after it emerged that he met the former Libyan dictator twice for secret talks in the run-up to the release of the man convicted of the Lockerbie bombing.

A collection of documents found in Tripoli have revealed that Mr Blair was flown to Libya twice on one of Colonel Gaddafi's private jets after he left office in the UK, according to a report in The Sunday Telegraph. In the letters and emails, Mr Blair's private office repeatedly refers to Gaddafi as "The Leader".

The meetings, in 2008 and 2009, came at a time when Libya was threatening to cut all business links with the UK if Abdelbaset al-Megrahi stayed in a British jail.

Read the rest of this post...

Cameron calls for enquiry on MI5/Gaddafi collaboration

It is not exactly news that the CIA was collaborating with Gaddafi. Anyone paying attention knew that the CIA was engaged in a torture program and aiding and abetting tyrants.

What is news is that Cameron has called for an independent inquiry. Since he is the British Prime Minister he is going to get one.

Don't write off Cameron's sincerity on this issue. Gaddafi had a hand in the attempts to assassinate the previous two Conservative PMs, supplying the explosives and material used. Some of the survivors of the attacks are still active in Tory politics.

Gaddafi began his support for terrorism after Britain and France refused his demands to deport opponents back to Libya to be murdered by his regime. Now we find that Bush and Blair were doing precisely that. In other words, they persuaded Gaddafi to 'renounce' terrorism by accepting his demands.

While the normal impulse of the political establishment is to cover up and suppress, this might be the exception. At this point there is no faction in British politics that has an interest in protecting Blair's legacy.

This could get interesting. Read the rest of this post...

UK intelligence also worked with Gaddafi

This list is surely longer than many might imagine. It will be interesting to see what information emerges when Assad falls. The Guardian:

Evidence that British intelligence agencies mounted their own "rendition" operation in collaboration with Muammar Gaddafi's security services has emerged with the discovery of a cache of Libyan government papers in an abandoned office building in Tripoli.

A secret CIA document found among the haul shows that the British and Libyans worked together to arrange for a terrorism suspect to be removed from Hong Kong to Tripoli – along with his wife and children – despite the risk that they would be tortured. The wording of the document suggests the CIA was not involved in the planning of the rendition operation, but was eager to become engaged during its execution and offered financial support.

Other papers found in the building suggest MI6 enjoyed a far closer working relationship with Gaddafi's intelligence agencies than has been publicly known, and was involved in a number of US-led operations that also resulted in Islamists being consigned to Gaddafi's prisons.

Read the rest of this post...