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In a post on Bill Kristol's appearance in New York, Scott McConnell reminds us that George W. Bush called Kristol and Charles Krauthammer "the bomber boys" because they pressured him to bomb Iran. McConnell says the neocons may have had George W. Bush wrapped up, but he had real misgivings about them.

I just got Bush's book, Decision Points (2010). And it shows some real passive-aggressive tendencies with respect to the neocons.

Here's Bush's sole reference to neocon Paul Wolfowitz, during a post-911 meeting on Afghanistan:

At one point, Deputy Defense Secretary Paul Wolfowitz suggested that we consider confronting Iraq as well as the Taliban.... [Saddam's regime] had a long record of supporting terrorism, including paying the families of Palestinian suicide bombers.... Colin cautioned against it.

Oh so it was Wolfie's stupid idea. And it was because of Palestinians suicide bombers.

Here's Bush's sole reference to neocon Elliott Abrams, during the runup to the Iraq war in 2003:

Two of our biggest concerns were starvation and refugees.... An estimated two million Iraqis could be displaced from their homes during war. On January 15, Elliott Abrams, a senior NSC staffer, delivered a detailed briefing on our preparations. We planned to prestation food, blankets, medicine, tents, etc.

Translation: Abrams told me everything was under control.

Here's some other great advice Bush got. It's his sole reference to Elie Wiesel:

In the winter of 2003, I sought opinions on Iraq from a variety of sources.... One of the most fascinating people I met with was Elie Wiesel, the author, Holocaust survivor, and deserving Nobel Prize recipient. Elie is a sober and gentle man. But there was passion in his seventy-four-year-old eyes when he compared Saddam Hussein's brutality to the Nazi genocide. "Mr. President," he said, "you have a moral obligation to act against evil." The force of his conviction affected me deeply. Here was a man who had devoted his life to peace urging me to intervene in Iraq...

I've always wondered why many critics of the war did not acknowledge the moral argument made by people like Elie Wiesel.

Well because it was unhinged, Mr. President, as you note yourself. 

Neocons Fred Kagan, Eliot Cohen, and Robert Kaplan all get namechecked too, as war supporters at a time when Baghdad is "hell, Mr. President."

Curiously, there are no references in the book to Richard Perle, Douglas Feith, Bernard Lewis, David Wurmser, David Frum, Bill Kristol or that other bomber boy Charles Krauthammer re war policy.

George Bush seems to want to forget his neocon captivity as a bad dream. Frum came up with the term "axis of evil"! But he gets no airtime?!

Oh, by the way, Bush does say that he and Condi Rice solved the Israel Palestinian conflict.

By the time I left, the Palestinians had a president and prime minister who rejected terrorism. The Israelis had withdrawn from some settlements and supported a two-state solution. And Arab nations were playing an active role in the peace process.

No sweat. Time for horseshoes!

P.S. I blame the neocons too. It was their idea, and almost all of them cited Palestinian suicide bombers, as if that was our problem. But someone had to execute their theory...

Guess who's looking to spoil the party for tomorrow's nuclear negotiations with Iran? (AP)

Derisive comments from Israel’s leadership about reported progress leading up to the May 23rd second round of nuclear talks with Iran, signal that Israel wants, even needs the talks to fail:

…Benjamin Netanyahu…warned the world powers against letting Iran “push them around,” toughening his stance in a last-ditch effort to head off a nuclear agreement between the world powers and Iran at talks slated to start Wednesday in Baghdad.

…”The West is already caving in to Iran,” said one official.   The prime minister’s comments reflect a fear…that the talks…will result in an intermediate agreement that would not satisfy Israel on the one hand, and lead to the talks’ continuation for many months on the other. In that event, an Israeli military option against Iranian nuclear facilities would be off the table.

There can be only one reason for this: that Bibi Netanyahu wants a crack at Iran and to launch the F-16s, he needs a failure of the diplomatic track.

Israel fears that the western powers are prepared to sell it out in return for a watered down agreement that delays, but does not end the Iranian nuclear threat.  Israel wants Armageddon now, a final showdown in which Iran is beaten to a pulp and shown who’s boss.  The only problem is that Israel can’t deliver such a knockout blow and even an attack will only delay Iran’s nuclear program.

Maariv’s report goes even farther and has Israeli officials predicting that the talks will fail and that Iran will continue enriching uranium on its path toward nuclear capability.  And whatever the outcome of the talks, Israel arrogates to itself freedom of action to determine what is best for its security interests, which may include an attack.

Israeli leaders believe Iran is dissembling, appearing to show good faith in order to evade the burden of crippling sanctions threatened by the west; all the while intending to offer nothing of substance in return.  Paranoia seems a prerequisite for Israeli leadership.  Thus Maariv says the Israelis believe the western negotiating parties also want to draw out the talks, believing that as long as they continue Israel will have a more difficult time bucking the international consensus to allow diplomacy to run its course.

Another Israeli rejected this claim.  Bibi, according to this source, won’t allow negotiations to deter him from his own independent course.  The Israeli newspaper says that senior Israeli sources have already noted that Israel’s air force would attack “before fall.”

The Iranians, according to official Israeli thinking, believe that if they draw the talks out beyond the November presidential election, that it will strengthen Obama’s hand (presuming he wins) and weaken Israel’s, since Obama supposedly prefers the diplomatic track to an attack.

As I’ve pointed out, the irony of the entire P5+1 negotiations is that these same world powers could’ve had essentially the same deal in 2010 when Brazil and Turkey persuaded Iran to stop enriching uranium beyond 20% and to transfer its existing enriched stocks to Turkey.  Those with a sharp memory will remember that it was the U.S. which put the kibosh on that deal.  What was it the man said about “never missing an opportunity to miss an opportunity?”

UPDATE: AP reports that on his return from Tehran that IAEA chief, Yukio Amano announced that he’d reached an agreement with Iran giving inspectors access to previously off-limits nuclear facilities.  One hopes it also augurs well for tomorrow’s start to the P5+1 talks with Iran.  This will cause no end of grief in Tel Aviv.

On Sunday Israel celebrated 45 years of occupying East Jerusalem with thousands of jubilant right-wingers hurling racial epithets in a parade through the Old City and Muslim Quarter during "Jerusalem Day," a state holiday embracing the 1967 capture of the city. Nationalist ministers of Knesset lent legitimacy to the anti-Muslim/anti-Palestinian chants by praying at the Temple Mount and declaring the holy site under Israeli sovereignty.

And, although annexing of East Jerusalem is a violation of international law, Israel also released a commemorative coin for "Jerusalem Day."

"The Temple Mount is in our hands!" said minister Uri Ariel in a statement yesterday. He, along with minister Michael Ben Ari, led a group of extremists from the parade to the religious site, which prohibits Jewish visitors from public prayer. "The site is under Israeli sovereignty and therefore the Israeli government must allow every Jew to realize his autonomous rights and to go up to pray on the Temple Mount."

At the mosque, Israeli police detained Ariel, Ben Ari, and one other for violating agreements made with the Muslim religious leaders regarding the use of the sacred site. However, Ben Ari brushed off police, saying his position with the Knesset gave him immunity from the statute.

Israeli authorities suppress Palestinian protestors near the Damascus Gate during a Jerusalem Day demonstration. (Photo: JC/ActiveStills)

Meanwhile en route to the Western Wall, by way of the Damascus Gate, extremist Israelis shouted, "the Temple will be rebuilt, the mosque will be burned," "Mohammed is dead," "sons of whores," and "death to the leftists". When the right-wing marchers entered Jerusalem's Muslim Quarter, protests were sparked amongst the Palestinian residents of the city and left-wing Israelis. Police on horseback then suppressed the demonstrators, arresting five. Ten Israelis were also arrested.

Israeli police arresting a Palestinian man protesting the nationalist "Jerusalem Day" parade that celebrates the 1967 conquest of the holy city.  (Photo: Anne Paq/ActiveStills)

Preempting dissent in the West Bank near Beit Ummar Israeli authorities also blocked Palestinians from entering the Old City with boulders and concrete slabs.   And Ma'an reported the roadblocks, along with a police detail, ensured settlers from Hebron uninterrupted bicycle access to the day's events.

Footage of right-wing Israelis shouting racial slurs during Jerusalem Day 2011.
(Video: Solidarity for Sheikh Jarrah)

The Jerusalem Day parade through Palestinian neighborhoods began last year, and similar to this year, right-wingers celebrated by rhythmically shouting racial slurs. After receiving backlash, 2012 parade organizers officially banned defamatory language. But Haaretz's Nir Hasson reported, "while the organizers said only a few outliers failed to adhere to that standard hundreds of young people spent hours shouting at the Palestinians protesting near Damascus Gate."

Parliamentary elections on 10 May have provided commentators with another occasion to discuss why Algeria did not have an “Arab Spring” like so many other countries in the Arabic-speaking world and to prognosticate about why Algerian voter participation rates are likely to be so low. Not one to pass up an opportunity to share my own views, below is my take on what is at play in Algeria.

One well-worn explanation for Algeria’s lack of an Arab Spring is because the horrific bloodshed that followed Algeria’s first foray into multi-party politics in the 1990s left Algerians cagey and afraid. They watched jealously over the course of 2011 as their neighbors stood up to and toppled authoritarian regimes, but were too cowed by memory to do the same. And now presented with legislative elections and the opportunity to voice their political views post-Arab Spring, Algerians have become too apathetic to go to the polls to try to bring about political change. Voter participation is will be low, the argument goes, because Algerians think that they are impotent in the face of the deep state’s power.

A portrait of a defeated and timid population emerges from this interpretation. But anyone who has spent time in Algeria would quickly attest to Algerians’ pride and defiance. So how to explain the difference between the two profiles? One explanation is that the arguments about why Algeria did not have an Arab Spring and why Algerians are unlikely to vote are wrong.

To understand why they miss their target, it helps to go back to Algeria’s revolution against French rule in the 1950s and the early years of independence in the 1960s. The revolution was complicated, but one thing that it was not was an attempt to restore some form of government that had existed prior to France’s colonial conquest in 1830. There was no earlier form of government to restore. France ruled Algeria for 132 years and prior to that it had been ruled loosely by the Ottoman Empire. When Algeria won independence from France, the goal was to establish a republic, very much modeled along French lines only without the French. What emerged was an “Algerianized” version of the French republic, committed to the ideals of liberte¸egalite, et fraternite, and a very deep sense of citoyenneté, citizenship.

Of these, equality and citizenship are most deeply rooted. Equality manifests itself daily in Algerian life and Algerians are constantly on guard against violations of their equal status. In daily interactions, equality takes the form of respect – one does not look down upon or denigrate another. Unlike Morocco or Tunisia, there are no shoeshine boys in Algeria. No Algerian will kneel at another’s feet and clean grime off his shoes.

Algerians often talk of “le nif,” referring to pride and an unswerving adherence to principle. “Le nif” is something Algerians simultaneously boast about and somewhat disingenuously acknowledge as a shortcoming, like answering the job interview question about one’s greatest weakness by saying that one is “too truthful.”  Principles like honor and respect mean something in Algeria, but rigid commitment to them can also be a hindrance in day to day life, let alone in politics or business which are by nature fluid and malleable.  Despite its intangibility, “le nif” is real and permeates Algerian life.

The other enduring legacy of the war of independence is a strong sense of citizenship. Beyond the personal level of “le nif”, Algerians have a strong commitment to the state and its institutions. There may not be a commitment to the ways in which these institutions have evolved and how they function today, and in fact there is definitively not, but there is a commitment to the ideas and rationale that underpin them. On an institutional level, any Algerian can walk into a government office, declare that he or she is a citizen (“ana watani/ya”) and demand to be heard or seen. This may take time, sometimes an enormous amount of time, but the right to be there as a citizen is never in question. There is the belief shared by the citizen and the government functionary that the two are bound by a reciprocal bond. While they may diverge on how that bond should be acted upon and how quickly, the belief that there is indeed a bond is not challenged.

What do equality, “le nif” and citizenship mean in relation to the Arab Spring? Yes, Algerians are wary of abrupt political change, but as anyone can attest, Algerians do not shy from confrontation. There was no Arab Spring in Algeria not because Algerians were afraid. There was no Arab Spring in Algeria because Algerians did not want it. Yes, they protested against the state, as they have every week and every month for the last decade, and eventually the state acquiesced to enough of their demands. Yes, Algerians bemoan “le hogra” – the dismissive attitude of state officials to their complaints and petitions – but they see themselves as prideful citizens of the state and the messy, unruly protests in Tunisia and Egypt are unbecoming of them. It is impossible to imagine the scene from December 2011 in Cairo when supporters of the Supreme Council of the Armed Forces urinated from the rooftops on to protestors below being reenacted in Algiers.

But what of the supposed apathy that will keep Algerians away from the polls? Yes, Algerians are unlikely to vote in large numbers because they do not believe that the parliament has enough power to implement new policies that will dramatically improve their lives. And yes, they likely feel that the political parties from whom they can choose have been coopted by the deep state. But instead of apathy, there is something more forceful at work. Many Algerians do not want to compromise their principles by participating in a process that they think unworthy. Their participation, the participation of the republic’s citizenry, would validate a process that is beneath them. It is not resignation that keeps Algerians out of the polls, but pride and principle.

Traveling from Algiers to Tunis to Tripoli last month highlighted Algeria’s distinct stance. While the air in Tunis was humming with excitement about the Jasmine Revolution, and Tripoli was a froth of euphoria and anxiety after the overthrow of Col. Muammar Qadhafi, Algiers was indignant and defiant. Algerians seemed to have a longer view of history, waiting for the Tunisian and Libyan Springs to turn inevitably to unwelcome winter, fraught with chaos and instability, and bereft of Algeria’s unique pride and sense of citizenship.  The refrain in Algerian pop songs – tahya Djazair (“live up Algeria”) – is not about institutions or about the state, but about the people, about Algerians. “Live up Algeria” is an expression of the potential power of “le nif,” quite apart from an Algerian Spring or parliamentary elections. 

Like US policy in Bahrain, this looks repulsive. Credit: Arabian Business

Paul Mutter sends in this inspired analogy on US policy towards Bahrain, where the crackdown continues.

Pizza Hut’s Crown Crust Pizza is a good metaphor for up the US’s Bahrain policy: stuff ’em full of meats and cheeses in the hopes that such largesse predisposes them to better hear us out on human rights. This month the US lifted restrictions on a host of sales to the Bahraini military, going well beyond previous exemptions made since the 2011 freeze on a US$53 million arms deal, reportedly in the hopes of raising the profile of the Crown Prince at home following his visit to the US:

“The administration didn’t want the crown prince to go home empty-handed because they wanted to empower him,” said Tom Malinowski, the Washington director of Human Rights Watch, who was arrested in Bahrain while documenting protests there last month. “They placed a lot of hope in him, but he can’t deliver unless the king lets him and right now the hard-liners in the ruling family seem to have the upper hand.”

The crown prince has been stripped of many of his official duties recently, but is still seen as the ruling family member who is most amenable to working constructively with the opposition and with the United States.

Problem is, several commentators have noted, is that often times after a big meal the last thing you want to do is talk. The Crown Prince is thought to be facing down a hardline clique helmed by the Defense Minister Khalifa bin Ahmad and his brother, Royal Court Minister Khalid bin Ahmad who have conspired to force the prince out of his perch in the Defense Ministry to buttress the Sunni factions that reject dialogue with the opposition.

Since the weapons in this sale are, as usual, clearly aimed across the Gulf at Iran[1], the US also risks (or, perhaps, even intends?) to signal the royal family that it hears and takes to heart their dubious Iranian fifth columnist concerns. Which, of course, actually undermines the opposition, specifically, the Al Wefaq party, Washington says it wants the Bahrain government to — and I’m sorry for the word choice — engage. Much of the protestor “black bloc” actions that regime supporters are criticizing seems to have started appearing more and more as Al Wefaq failed to secure significant concessions from the government. As blogger Mohammad Hasan ruefully opined, “the opposition has lost the initiative.”

And lest we forget, the Ahmad brothers have been blaming both the US and Iran for encouraging the protestors for some time. Our signal to them, Justin Gengler notes, is that the demonstrators are indeed a security issue to be resolved by force, rather than a political issue to be addressed by implementing the reforms promised in the post–2001 constitutional changes. And by not making it clearer that we do not see Iran’s Gulf aspirations and Bahrain’s reformists as being in bed with each other, we are almost certainly making the state media’s propagandizing easier - though if we were clearer, then they’d simply take the extra effort to demonize the US.

I know it’s a gross oversimplification, comparing US foreign policy in the Gulf to a pizza, but then, I’d wager that to many harassed, assaulted, tortured, disappeared and jailed activists (both Shia and Sunni) in Bahrain, our largesse might seem rather “gross” to them. And whatever influence the US has allegedly given the Crown Prince back home, the situation on the streets has not changed much in the past week, judging from reports of “mass arrests” and France 24’s Nazeeha Saeed’s latest rundown of events in several predominantly Shia villages in the Northern Governorate of Bahrain:

Heavy #Police appearance in #Karanah & fire in the farms there #Bahrain

— nazihasaeed (@nazihasaeed) May 17, 2012

#police on the entrance of #abusaiba with heavy shooting of #teargas #Bahrain

— nazihasaeed (@nazihasaeed) May 17, 2012

Police cars by the entrance of #muqsha & #qadam with #molotov cocktails stains on the main road #Bahrain

— nazihasaeed (@nazihasaeed) May 17, 2012

Incidentally, the Crown Crust Pizza is marketed by Pizza Hut exclusively in the Middle East.

Subtle.

by Talal Asad, Islam Interactive, May 21, 2012

In April 2011 an international symposium was held in Riyadh, under the auspices of the King Faisal Center for Research and Islamic Studies as well as the Austrian Embassy to Saudi Arabia, on the life and work of my father. The conference as a whole was entitled “Muhammad Asad – A Life for Dialogue,” but I was asked by the organizers to write specifically on “Muhammad Asad Between Religion and Politics.” Unfortunately I was unable to attend the symposium so I sent in my written contribution to be read out by someone else at the meeting. What follows is a slightly elaborated version of the argument I sent.

I should begin by correcting a view that has become common among people interested in my father’s life and work, that his conversion can be seen as the building of a bridge between Islam and the West. He has even been described by some as a European intellectual who came to Islam with the aim of liberalizing it. Nothing could be further from the truth. When he embraced Islam (aslama, “submitted,” is the Arabic term) he entered a rich and complex tradition that had evolved in diverse ways – mutually compatible as well as in conflict with one another – for a millennium-and-a-half. Thus in his own life’s work he sought to use the methodology of the medieval Spanish theologian Abu Muhammad Ibn Hazm, he drew often and copiously on the interpretations of the nineteenth-century Egyptian reformer Muhammad Abduh, and again, despite strong disagreement on various points of substance with the fourteenth-century Syrian theologian Taqi al-Din Ahmad Ibn Taymiyya, he attempted, like the latter, to integrate reason (‘aql), tradition (naql), and free-will (irāda), to form a coherent and distinctive vision of Islam. His view of Sufism, incidentally, was also influenced by Ibn Taymiyya, for whom it was the excess of Sufis rather than Sufism as such that was the object of reproach. In fact most of what my father published in the early years of his life (Islam at the Crossroads, the translation of Sahīh al-Bukhāri, the periodical Arafāt, etc.) was addressed not to Westerners but to fellow-Muslims. I would say, therefore, that he was concerned less with building bridges and more with immersing himself critically in the tradition of Islam that became his tradition, and with encouraging members of his community (Muslims) to adopt an approach that he considered to be its essence. His autobiography was the first publication that was addressed to non-Muslims (as well as to Muslims, of course), a work in which he attempted to lay out to a popular audience not only how he became a Muslim but also what he thought was wonderful about Islam. His translation of the Qur’an into English, completed in the latter part of his life, was not simply a translation: it was a detailed presentation of his final vision of Islam. (more…)