Repetitions of History

In last week's New Yorker, an article written by Salman Rushdie described his time in hiding after Ayatollah Khomeini declared fatwa against him, sentencing him to death, for writing the novel The Satanic Verses. The article is interesting in general but what really stuck was Rushdie's opinion that a lot of the offense and anger that was ginned up was done so for various individuals' and groups' political gain. In Mr. Rushdie's words:

The book that he had written would vanish and be replaced by one that scarcely existed, in which Rushdie referred to the Prophet and his companions as “scums and bums” (he didn’t, though he did allow the characters who persecuted the followers of his fictional Prophet to use abusive language), and called the wives of the Prophet whores (he hadn’t—although whores in a brothel in his imaginary city, Jahilia, take on the names of the Prophet’s wives to arouse their clients, the wives themselves are clearly described as living chastely in the harem). This nonexistent novel was the one against which the rage of Islam would be directed, and after that few people wished to talk about the real book, except, usually, to concur with Hermione Lee’s negative assessment.

In essence, much of the Muslim world was taking offense from a nonexistent book as they did not bother to read the real book, which was respectful of Islam. Then various leaders decided to take the deliberate misconception and utilize that to strengthen their own power bases. As stated by Rushdie:

Prime Minister Benazir Bhutto was on a state visit to China at the time, and it was speculated that destabilizing her administration had been the demonstrators’ real aim. Religious extremists had long suspected her of secularism, and they wanted to put her on the spot. Not for the last time, “The Satanic Verses” was being used as a football in a political game that had little or nothing to do with it. 

 What is striking is the similarities between the context of Salman Rushdie suffered through and what is currently occurring with the protests over the recent, inflammatory YouTube film "Innocence of Muslims." While, unlike "The Satanic Verses," the latter is clearly meant to be inflammatory, the exaggerated response seems to be the same. In a post-Qaddafi world, there is still a power vacuum that various factions are filling and, in a predominantly Muslim country, raising the ire of the electorate seems a good way to solidify a power base. A new football in the same political game. Further, much like the threatened violence that Rushdie faced, the protests launched against "Innocence of Muslims" was used as cover for a horrific terrorist attack against the U.S. Embassy in Benghazi; an attack in which a dedicated public servant, U.S. Ambassador to Libya J. Christopher Stevens lost his life.

I guess, despite the "Arab Spring," the more things change, the more they stay the same.

P.S.: I planned to go on about how the purposeful break from reality was also analogous to the entire modus operandi of Fox News, but I don't feel like going on a rant today and, as bad as that network is, they should not be compared to terrorists.

IMAGES: Google Images taken from somewhere else; and Google Images via Newsweek.

The Prodigal Son Returns... Yada Yada Yada, Clever Segue into Syria's Assad

Look, I've been regrettably absent for just about a month so kindly excuse my weak sauce title. My wholehearted apologies to my legions of four readers but the past month or two have been somewhat busier than anticipated. However (!), I hope to be more attentive in the coming months.

Meanwhile, during my absence, the decidedly unapologetic Syrian President Bashar al-Assad (see the even weaker tie in there?) has continued to indiscriminately shell and murder his own people. Although he is truly terrible person to whom human being shouldn't even be applied, I understand his motives to a degree. After what happened to Gaddafi, it would not be completely surprising that al-Assad might think he is not only fighting for his grip on power, but also his life (this, mind you, in no way excuses his actions. He and his supporters are despicable subhuman beings). In his fear, he is retreating to the methods of his father, which were effective at the time. This, however. is not 1982. The general Arab spring (and fall and winter) has shown the people that their continued rebellion can win in the long run and the fear and despair of an earlier time has seemingly dissipated. The people are emboldened and although, especially in Syria, the revolution has not been televised, it will also not be so easily tamped out.

Less understandable, even from a purely rational viewpoint, is the stance being taken by Russia and China. Sure neither want "the western world" nosing their way into the sovereign business of either nation, especially in regards to either human rights violations (both, but China really) or election fraud/lack of actual democratic processes (Russia). Sure Syria hosts Russia's only naval base in the Mediterranean region and buys large amounts of ruskie weapons. The intervention into Libya that led to the death of Gaddafi clearly freaked both nations out. But are these reasons really enough for these two nations to force themselves to stand apart from the rest of the world and back someone who is clearly killing scores of his own people to maintain an increasingly tenuous grip on power? As the positions of the opposition harden, even in the face of near constant shelling, abduction, torture, and death, it becomes increasingly unlikely that al-Assad will ever be able to peaceably hold power again. What could Russia and China possibly get by standing on the wrong side of history and with a murderer? Yet, there are still quotes like this:

At a news conference in Moscow, Sergey V. Lavrov, Russia’s foreign minister, said he regretted that the Friends of Syria conference in Tunisia last week had failed to foster the conditions that would encourage all Syrians to engage in political dialogue, according to an official transcript.

“It’s not realistic to demand that the government end its action against militants and keep the militants free of any obligations whatsoever,” Mr. Lavrov said. He lauded the Syrian referendum as “movement toward democracy.”

 And this:

In Beijing, the official People’s Daily newspaper said the United States had no right to criticize Chinese and Russian policy. The Obama administration, the newspaper said, “has not considered how to allow the Syrian people to put an early end to this disaster at minimal cost.”

These Russian and Chinese officials are either completely divorced from reality or are simply sipping the al-Assad regime's kool-aid* despite all the evidence to the contrary. The situation in Syria is not something developing into a political discussion; it is a burgeoning civil war that is going to get much worse before it gets any better. The tragedy here is that if two of the four BRIC nations were not being obstinate in the name of a foreign policy power play, both could actually be power players by leading a transition of power that deposed al-Assad. Further, especially for Russia, this could be in their self-interest as they would, seemingly, be looked upon more favorably by whatever government replaced al-Assad.

This will be looked upon as a tragic situation that reflects poorly on the leaders of Russia and China and makes a  21st Century mass murderer of al-Assad.

* Does the name of this delicious drink strike anyone else as weird? Like it somehow aids you in being cool while forcing you to misspell? Anyway, I do not know where that came from and I clealry I digress...

Israel Continues to Act Like the World's Brat Little Brother (Ya, I went there...)

This week's NY Times Magazine features the provocatively titled article "Will Israel Attack Iran?" that outlines the thoughts and feelings of those intimately related to the decision making process (**SPOILER ALERT**: Author Ronen Bergman, as well as everyone else in the world, thinks that they will. Further, and somewhat more boldly, he thinks that it will happen this year). The interesting bits, to me, were when officials not named Benjamin Netanyahu were discussing the possibility of an attack on Iran and, especially, when talking about the United States. In discussing the Defense Minister, Ehud Barak, the article points out that he:

dislikes this kind of criticism of the United States [about their unwillingness to attack Iran], and in a rather testy tone in a phone conversation with me on Jan. 18 said: “Our discourse with the United States is based on listening and mutual respect, together with an understanding that it is our primary ally. The U.S. is what helps us to preserve the military advantage of Israel, more than ever before. This administration contributes to the security of Israel in an extraordinary way and does a lot to prevent a nuclear Iran. We’re not in confrontation with America. We’re not in agreement on every detail, we can have differences — and not unimportant ones — but we should not talk as if we are speaking about a hostile entity."

This is almost directly contra to the view of the Obama administrations Israel policy being espoused on the right. A view that Mr. Netanyahu seems to carefully, and never quite explicitly, encourage among certain sectors of the American body-politic. Further, the GOP candidates seem pretty cavalier with American foreign policy asserting that Israel and American priorities are one in the same and virtually assuring that an attack on Iran would happen in a GOP administration. This is problematic for a number of reasons. Firstly, clearly the priorities of Israel and the United States are not one in the same. If you replace Israel with any country in the world and you can see how it is a priori false (or even simpler make the statement that my priorities are the same as x). Secondly, although a certain sect of Israeli officials, led by Mr. Netanyahu, believe that there would be a muted response by Iran, most of the rest of the world thinks that Iran retaliate with both barrels blazing and would recommit, to an even greater degree, to developing a nuke. It seems like the hawkish, Likud, portion of the Israeli government are stacking the deck for an Iranian strike with favorable intelligence estimates. Thirdly, and most importantly in my view, many, many people believe that an attack would be ineffectual. Former head of Mossad (Israel's intelligence agency), Meir Dagan, stated:

“The use of state violence has intolerable costs,” he said. “The working assumption that it is possible to totally halt the Iranian nuclear project by means of a military attack is incorrect. There is no such military capability. It is possible to cause a delay, but even that would only be for a limited period of time.” 

He warned that attacking Iran would start an unwanted war with Hezbollah and Hamas: “I am not convinced that Syria will not be drawn into the war. While the Syrians won’t charge at us in tanks, we will see a massive offensive of missiles against our home front. Civilians will be on the front lines. What is Israel’s defensive capability against such an offensive? I know of no solution that we have for this problem.”

This is a huge problem. Dagan is out and out saying that the current leadership of Israel is looking to provoke a war with Iran that will not even accomplish it's goal of stopping the Iran nuclear program. It will only slow it down. Minorly. Starting a was to create hiccup is not good policy, in MHO, and definitely not a policy that the U.S. should co-opt.

Listen, I totally get Israel's position (seen here: “Take every scenario of confrontation and attack by Iran and its proxies and then ask yourself, ‘How would it look if they had a nuclear weapon?’ ” a senior official said. “In nearly every scenario, the situation looks worse.”). It is eminently reasonable to worry about a nuclear Iran if you are Israel (or anyone else in the world for that matter). But what exactly is the point if your attack is just going to piss of Iran rather than stop them and create an anti-Israel, anti-US upheaval in a Middle East in transition in the process?

I'm going to have to go with the old hand Rafi Eitan's assessment on this one...

Asked if it was possible to stop a determined Iran from becoming a nuclear power, Eitan replied: “No. In the end they’ll get their bomb. The way to fight it is by changing the regime there. This is where we have really failed. We should encourage the opposition groups who turn to us over and over to ask for our help, and instead, we send them away empty-handed.”

It's the Arab Spring Summer Fall and Winter y'all... Israel should take a long look at encouraging that route instead.

(Image From: http://joshuapundit.blogspot.com/2011_05_01_archive.html via Google Images [as always])

Tunisia Crashes the Islamist(-ic?) Party

Tunisia held it's first post-Ben Ali election yesterday and, in preliminary tallying of the vote, the islamist (-ic?; they can't seem to decide) party Ennahda won a plurality of the votes. This news will undoubtedly lead to many getting their Opus Dei issue self-flagellating panties in a twist as, naturally, any political party that identifies mainly with Islam will eventually suppress their people (because the Tunisians will probably stand for that...) and, probably, attack America's interests. Try to ignore that hysterical shrieking my faithful readers (I'm confident that there are at least 3...booo ya) because it seems that Ennahda, much like the Justice and Development Party (AKP) of Turkey, are fairly moderate. Considering that the influence of the moderate AKP is waxing, and that of more radical islamic parties/governments is waning with the developments of the Arab Spring, the outcome of the Tunisian elections does not appear to be worrisome. Putting on the optimists cap (which doesn't fit at all and is quite uncomfortable), there is the chance that Ennahda will continue to follow in the footsteps of the AKP and create a new paradigm for governance in the Middle East. The process seems to be underway as Ennahda immediately began working on creating a coalition government with two more liberal political parties. According to Ennahda's founder, it "is not a religious party and claims no special authority in interpreting Islam. Instead, he says the party's members merely draw their values from Islam." Despite all the above, I am sure the far right (read: all) of the GOP will be having a fit about this. I mean your religion informing your values and thus politics? Whoever heard of such a thing?