26 September 2007

Robson-On –Politics – Middle East Special

The Number 1 priority in Middle East is to defeat al-Qaeda

The government, and the overwhelming majority of New Zealanders, would agree with the proposition that al-Qaeda, the Taleban and all other similar extremist fanatic organisations, with their ideology of extreme, reactionary intolerance and their tactics of indiscriminate terror, must be opposed and defeated.

That is why our soldiers joined others in a United Nations-backed force that moved against the Taleban government of Afghanistan which was protecting al-Qaeda six years ago.

It is also why the Labour-Progressive government rejected participating in the U.S.-led invasion of Iraq in 2003, at that time one of the three most intolerant regimes in the region toward the type of Sunni extremist organisations that are now thriving in the chaos of post-invasion Iraq (the other two regimes being the largely Shiia state of Iran and the military, secular dictatorship in Syria).

What is tragic to witness in 2007 is how the world's previous focus on the Sunni fundamentalist threat is no longer the primary focus.

The world's focus in the Middle East has, since the invasion of Iraq in 2003, been increasingly undermined by the incoherent policy of the current government of the United States.

Its commitment to remaining in Iraq is counter productive to a successful international campaign against the Number 1 threat because the ongoing U.S. soldiers' presence is acting as a rallying call to a rejuvinated international Sunni fundamentalist movement which benefits everytime an innocent Iraqi civilian dies in the chaos that is U.S.-administered Iraq these days.

It was clearly an error of major proportions for the United States under Reagan and then continued by Clinton, to ally with Bin Laden and al-Qaeda and to train, organize and fund his forces. The whole world is now paying for that policy.

The increasingly strident threats to escale the Iraq war to its two neighbours (Syria and Iran), meanwhile, further delight the Sunni fundamentalist movement because al-Qaeda is itself committed to overthrowing the secular regime in Syria (because it is deemed irreligious) and to weakening Iran (because its Shiia population are deemed heretics).

What would be a progressive, more successful strategy?

What would an intelligent, progressive approach be to defeating the relentless rise of al-Qaeda type fanaticism which is threatening to engulf so much of the Middle East?

Well, it would be the opposite of the approach of the current U.S. administration and its mates in Paris and Canberra.

U.S. policy is based on implausible hypothesis

The United States government's entire project in the Arab world is failing, and doomed to end in tears, because it is based on an implausible hypothesis.

The hypothesis is that Arabs will forever accept what almost everyone else in the world has rejected: Corrupt, backward and totalitarian government.

We should support democracy, not undermine it

http://www.progressive.org.nz/modules.php?name=Content&pa=showpage&pid=25

The key pillars of current U.S. policy in the region are not based on the needs of the people of Saudi Arabia, Egypt, Algeria, Jordan etc., but rather of the governments of those States.

Saudi Arabia is the modern world's oldest religious State. Its State-sponsored Wahabi ideology is pretty much indistinguishable from the mumbo jumbo that comes out of al-Qaeda and the Taleban. In other words, the dictatorship in Saudi Arabia maintains power through instilling ruthless State-sponsored fear in its people.

It practices an extreme right-wing form of chauvinist ideology which is utterly intolerant of minorities (try building a church or a synagogue, or forming an indepent trade union or political party dedicated to Shiia rights in Saudi Arabia - and then count the seconds until you get arrested and tortured).

Yet the government of Saudi Arabia, consistently one of the very worse human rights abusers in the world, is considered a prime ally of the U.S. government as Washington implements its policies in the region.

A progressive alternative would be to cut the Saudi royals loose - support democratic reform - and come down hard on Saudi Arabia's export of its poisonous ideology to like-minded groups all around the region, including Iraq, Pakistan and Afghanistan.

Saudi Arabia's current government is a very major beneficiary of U.S. arms sales. A progressive response would be an end to all arms sales to the regime.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Human_rights_in_Saudi_Arabia

Algeria: Ruthless terror regime backed with Western arms, energy technology

Other key pillars of the U.S. policy in the region are the governments of Algeria, Libya, Egypt, Tunisia, UAE, Jordan and Oman.

Pick any one of them at random and what do you find?

Take Algeria. The Algerian regime is military-backed.

Its history is that it is in power because the country's French-supplied army conducted a coup after that country's first ever secret ballot election (in 1991) was on the cusp of delivering a majority of seats to the Islamic Salvation Front - FIS for short in French - a broad based movement that rode a wave of popular anger against years of official corruption, economic failure and social decay.

FIS, its critics claim, had no coherent economic programme. It was a broad-based mass movement including some with wildly religious views.

But is that a good enough reason to choose a military coup (and the untold bloodshet in the country ever since)?

The truth is that other countries that have had elections that delivered very conservative Muslim parties into power, such as in Indonesia and Turkey, have adopted more pragmatic, practical and even moderate policies once confronted with the challenges of actually running a government and delivering real gains for the people that voted for them. (And let us never forget that General Suharto came to power in Indonesia in 1965 by unleashing fanatical religious groups to slaughter up to a million people. This action was also funded and organized by the Unites States and the consequences of this "Muslim" fanaticism enthusiastically supported in Washington and Wellington.)

Algerians were never given that chance, and nor was their democratically elected government.

Insread, the governments of France, the U.S. and the West have rushed into military (and even nuclear energy) deals with the ruthless coup leaders - the type of hypocrisy that plays into the hands of the al-Qaeda sorts of this world who cash in on people's desperation and are able to portray the West as "anti democratic" - or at least against Arabs ever achieving democracy. The military leaders then unleashed a cruel war on the people, slaughtering those in areas that had voted for the FIS.

It is a short-sighted policy which in the short-term strengthens al-Qaeda and over the long term just creates general distrust of everything about the U.S. among many ordinary Arab people because more and more people see that the U.S. commitment to democracy is not a universal commitment but a conditional one - conditional on parties that the U.S. government wants to win not being allowed to lose.

The other regimes, all provided with massive arms by the U.S. government, are all different variations on the same oppressive, anti-democratic theme.

Egypt imprisons editors, tortures politicians and gets massive U.S. military aid

Take Egypt.

It is a one party dictatorship.

Last week, a kangeroo court sentenced four newspaper editors to prison and hard labour.

Their crime: being less than kind to the President-For-Life Mubarak, and his son and heir aparent, Mubarak Junior.

Opposition politicians are routinely arrested in the middle of the night and thrown in jail for years and decades.

And what do ordinary Egyptians see? They see the U.S. government providing massive arms supplies to the tyrants who misgovern them.

Palestinians losing their lands - U.S. adds sanctions on entire people

In early 2006, the Palestinian Territories held by far the fairest and cleanest democratic election ever undertaken in an Arab society.

But, wouldn't you know it, the wrong party won.

So the U.S., French and U.K. governments imposed an economic embargo on the entire Palestinian civilian population.

Meanwhile, senior Palestinian ministers and elected Palestinian M.P.s belonging to the majority party went straight into Israeli jails, the Israeli government-endorsed settlement programme on 1967-captured Palestinian territories continues unabated and - the U.S. government continues to provide massive arms sales to the government of Israel.

http://www.kibush.co.il/

Those that put up non-violent opposition to Israeli government policies are repressed alongside those that propose violent opposition.

http://www.almubadara.org/new/english.php

A progressive aternative to U.S. policy would be to reject economic sanctions on entire populations and an acceptance of the results of secret ballot elections in the anticipation that working with democratically elected politicians will, over time, bring moderation and compromise on all sides to deliver better results for everyone.

http://www.dailystar.com.lb/article.asp?edition_id=1

A progressive foreign policy is the exact opposite of the approach of the current U.S. government and the opposite also of the National Party in New Zealand.

National continues to peddle the myth that the U.S. invasion of Iraq was legal and justified, even after just about everyone else in the world - even lifelong U.S. conservatives like Alan Greenspan, no longer bother with that tired old tune:

"I'm saddened that it is politically inconvenient to acknowledge what everyone knows: the Iraq war is largely about oil," Mr Greenspan is quoted as saying.

A war to steal an innocent people's resources is a policy that assists the al-Qaeda fanatics because it provides al-Qaeda and their ilk with priceless propaganda material and recruits against U.S. and "Western" hypocrisy

ENDS

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