US Foreign
Policy Set to Change Dramatically
Tesi Jim
Lobe, IPS (Inter Press Service):
Robert Gates,
neo Segr. alla Difesa
in sostituzione di Rumsfeld, ex D CIA, esperto su URSS e uomo
di Bush padre e Brent Scowcroft (suo Consigliere per la sicurezza)
è pro-apertura a
Siria e Iran.
- Ha co-presieduto con Z. Brzezinski, una task force che
ha proposto di coinvolgere Iran su terreno economico e diplomatico - Per questo accusato dai neocons di essere fautore dell’appeasement.
- Con uscita di Rumsfeld la C. Rice acquisirà maggior
spazio di manovra, Cheney emarginato. - SI completa la “svolta a 180°” dall’ideologia neo-con
al realismo politico. - Probabile che il rapporto dell’Iraqi study Group (ISG),
diretto da J. Baker, e di cui Gates è membro, rappresenti il punto di
mediazione bipartisan. - ISG in settembre si è incontrato con alti esponenti di Siria
e Iran, ed è quasi certo che raccomanderà di “engage”, coinvolgere i due
governi oltre agli altri paesi vicini all’Iraq. - Durante l’ultima guerra sul Libano, Rumsfeld, Cheney
e i neocon posero il veto alla proposta della Rice di comunicare almeno
indirettamente con Siria, come avevano bloccato anche sua proposta precedente
di offrire garanzie di sicurezza a Iran, quale parte di pacchetto nei
negoziati dei 3 EU con Iran sul congelamento del programma nucleare. - Anche nei rapporti con la Cina Rumsfeld è stato
il “principale irritante” in un rapporto altrimenti “costruttivo”.
L’Iran è la chiave per cambiare il corso in Iraq
di Trita Parsi (analista iraniano in USA), su
IPS
- Secondo Lawrence Wilkerson, ex capo dello staff
dell’ex Segr. di Stato Colin Powell, furono Cheney e Rumsfeld a far respingere l’offerta
iraniana del maggio 2003 di aprire il programma nucleare ai controlli,
mettere a freno Hezbollah, riconoscere la soluzione dei due Stati Isr-Palest, e
cooperare contro Al Qaeda. - “Per anni l’amministrazione Bush ha perseguito la
politica massimalista basata sul rigetto di ogni collegamento tra il programma
nucleare iraniano e le molte altre aree in cui Iran e USA confliggono… la
Casa Bianca di Bush puntava ad ottenere il massimo di concessioni dall’Iran in
tutte le aree, senza dover dare nulla in cambio. - “Ciò fu chiaro in Afghanistan, dove l’inviato di Bush
avviò negoziati con Iran per coordinare gli sforzi per abbattere il regime
talebano. Le intenzioni di Bush erano puramente tattiche; accettare l’aiuto
iraniano in Afgh senza… cambiare atteggiamento nei confronti dell’Iran. - “Gli iraniani d’altra parte speravano che la loro
collaborazione in Afgh avesse implicazioni strategiche fino ad un rapporto
completamente nuovo Tehran-Washington. - “Una volta che l’aiuto iraniano in Afgh non fu più
ritenuto necessario, l’atteggiamento di Washington nei confronti di Tehran si
raffreddò… molto a causa dell’influenza di Rumsfeld. Poche settimane dopo la
Conferenza di Bonn deldic. 2001, dove il contributo di Tehran fu cruciale per
trovare un compromesso tra i signori della guerra afghani, Bush inserì Tehran
nell”Asse del Male”. - Jayad Zarif, ambasciatore iraniano all’ONU, che
allora era respons. dei negoziati con USA: Iran commise errore non legando la
collaborazione in Afghanistan all’aiuto americano in altre aree, e sperando che
gli USA avrebbero reso la gentilezza”. - Di conseguenza Iran ha lasciato che USA s’arrangiassero
da soli di fronte al deterioramento della situazione in Iraq. - Sul nucleare iraniano, la posizione USA: Iran ha
l’arricchimento o non l’ha, non ha concesso alcuna mediazione. Ma in questa
partita in cui il vincitore prende tutto, è l’Iran che finora ha vinto, con gli
USA incapaci di ottenere dall’ONU neanche le restrizioni ai viaggi degli
esponenti coinvolti nel programma nucleare. - L’unica via d’uscita è legare la collaborazione
iraniana in Iraq con la disponibilità USA a trovare un compromesso sul
nucleare. - Agli inizi di ottobre Baker ha incontrat Javad Zafir
nella sua abitazione di N.Y. Gli è stat espressa disponibilità ad aiutare gli
USA in Iraq, se USA cambiano atteggiamento verso Iran. - “Senza l’Iran, gli USA non possono vincere in Iraq, e
senza legare l’Iraq alla questione nucleare i servizi di Tehran non sono
disponibili”.
Analysis by
Jim Lobe
WASHINGTON,
Nov 9 (IPS) – The abrupt replacement of Pentagon chief, Donald Rumsfeld, by
former Central Intelligence Agency (CIA) director Robert Gates, combined
with the Democratic sweep in Tuesday’s mid-term elections, appears to signal
major changes in United States foreign policy, particularly in the Middle East.
A career
CIA analyst until his retirement in the early 1990s, Gates, a favourite of both
former president George H.W. Bush and his national security advisor, Brent
Scowcroft, has shared their ‘realistic’ approach to U.S. foreign policy
and shown little patience with the neo-conservatives and aggressive
nationalists, like Vice-President Dick Cheney. Or with Rumsfeld, who
dominated the younger Bush’s first term after the Sep.11, 2001 al-Qaeda attacks
on New York and the Pentagon and led the march to war in Iraq.
As recently
as two years ago, for example, Gates co-chaired
a task force sponsored by the influential Council on Foreign Relations
(CFR) with Jimmy Carter’s national security adviser, Zbigniew Brzezinski,
which called for a policy of diplomatic and economic engagement with Iran,
a policy that was denounced as ‘appeasement’ by a number of prominent
neo-conservatives.
Indeed, in
the aftermath of Tuesday’s electoral landslide, in which the Democrats gained
at least 29 seats to win a secure majority in the House of Representatives and
appear poised to win a narrower majority in the Senate as well, and Rumsfeld’s
departure, both Cheney and his neo-conservative supporters, now appear more
marginalised than ever.
”If the
trend in the Bush second term is viewed as what a friend of mine once called
‘an imperceptible 180-degree turn’ from neo-con ideology to political
realism, then this would be a crowning achievement,” says Gary Sick, an
Iran specialist at Columbia University who worked with Gates in the National
Security Council under former president Jimmy Carter.
‘’Viewed
from my own knowledge and perspective, I think this is one of the most
significant U.S, policy shifts in the past six years,” he said, adding that,
among other things, Rumsfeld’s departure and Gates’ ascension would, at the
very least, give Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice — like Gates, a Soviet
specialist from the realist school — more diplomatic manoeuvring room than
in the past when she had to contend with both a hostile vice-president and a
secretary of defence.
Although
apparently discussed for some time, Rumsfeld’s resignation on the heels of the
election was no doubt designed at least in part as a sacrificial offering to
victorious Democrats whose performance at the polls appears to have lived up to
their greatest hopes. The quagmire in Iraq for which Rumsfeld was, of course,
one of the most visible faces was, according to both the pre-election and exit
polls, probably the single-most important factor in what Bush himself called a
Republican ‘’thumping”.
‘’At a
minimum, Rumsfeld’s departure buys the President time to adjust Iraq and other
policies without the newly empowered Democrats screaming for blood,” opines
Chris Nelson, editor of the private insider newsletter ‘The Nelson Report’.
‘’But they will start to do that pretty soon, if nothing coherent seems to be
happening.”
In his
first post-election statement, Bush vowed to find ‘’common ground” with the
Democrats on Iraq, as well as other issues — a promise that seemed
inconceivable just a month ago when he and Cheney were accusing the opposition
party of wanting to ‘’cut and run” from Iraq and handing the ‘’terrorists”
there a great victory.
For their
part, the new Democratic leadership — the House Speaker-to-be Rep. Nancy
Pelosi and the likely new majority leader Sen. Harry Reid — called for a
national summit on Iraq policy.
While the
Democrats are united on Iraq, many, if not most, including Pelosi, believe that
Washington should begin ‘’redeploying” the 140,000-plus troops from Iraq and
setting timetables for an eventual withdrawal over the next one to two years in
order to reduce the mounting costs in blood and treasure of the U.S.
intervention, extricate Washington from what appears to be a growing sectarian
civil war, and put pressure on the Iraqi government and its various factions to
prevent one.
Both
parties are likely now to defer to the recommendations of the Iraq Study
Group (ISG), a bipartisan, Congressionally-appointed task force co-chaired
by former secretary of state James Baker and former House Foreign Affairs
Committee chairman Lee Hamilton, which is supposed to release its report
between now and early next year.
Significantly,
Gates is a Republican member of the ISG which, under Baker’s guidance, met
in September with senior representatives of Iran and Syria, governments
that have been boycotted diplomatically by the Bush administration. Those
meetings prompted strong speculation that the ISG is almost certain to recommend
engaging both Tehran and Damascus as well as Iraq’s other neighbours, as part
of a strategy to facilitate a U.S. withdrawal and prevent the sectarian
conflict from spreading beyond Iraq’s borders.
Such an
approach has been anathema to Rumsfeld, Cheney and the neo-conservatives who
successfully vetoed Rice’s suggestion during last summer’s
Israel-Hezbollah conflict in Lebanon that Washington communicate at least
indirectly with Damascus and earlier efforts by her to persuade Bush to be
prepared to offer Tehran security guarantees as part of any package that
would emerge from successful negotiations between the EU-3 and Iran on freezing
its nuclear programme.
But both
approaches are likely to be advocated by Gates, and therein lies the
possibility of a major overhaul of U.S. policy, particularly in the Middle East
but also with respect to Asia, particularly China, where tension with
Rumsfeld’s Pentagon has been the main irritant in an otherwise relatively
constructive relationship under Bush. Nelson points out that Gates is
currently a leading member of the Baker policy advisory group.
Indeed,
some right-wing commentators see Rumsfeld’s replacement by Gates as a
virtual coup d’etat by the old, realist crowd around Bush’s father against
the remnants of the hawkish coalition of aggressive nationalists,
neo-conservatives, and the Christian right which seized control of Middle East
policy, in particular, after 9/11.
‘’Bottom
line, the Gates’ nomination has Jim Baker’s finger prints all over it,” said
J. William Lauderback, executive vice-president of the American Conservative
Union. That analysis will likely be echoed in the coming days by a host of
neo-conservatives howling about a realist takeover.
In fairness
to the neo-conservatives, many of them have been calling for Rumsfeld’s ouster,
some even as early as the Iraq invasion when they determined that he was
unprepared to devote the kind of resources and manpower ‘’in ground forces and
security” into the kind of ‘’model” they had envisioned for the rest of the
Arab world. In recent months, even neo-conservatives who have stood by Rumsfeld
have publicly criticised him for botching the occupation.
They had
urged Bush to choose Sen. Joseph Lieberman, a Democrat with strong
neo-conservative views on the Middle East, to replace Rumsfeld. Lieberman, who was defeated two
months ago in the Democratic primary election by a virtually unknown anti-war
candidate, Ned Lamont, was reelected with Republican votes and money to the
Senate as an independent in one of the few pieces of good news that the
hawks have received over the past 48 hours.
But
Lieberman’s reelection could not overcome the tide of bad news for the
neo-conservatives and their main sponsor and protector within the
administration, Cheney, who, now deprived of both his former chief of
staff, I. Lewis Libby (indicted for lying to a federal grand jury in October
2005), and Rumsfeld, now lies isolated and exposed.
‘’Rumsfeld
is his guy,” Woodward told the TV public-affairs programme ‘60 Minutes’ in
October. ‘’And Cheney confided to an aide that if Rumsfeld goes, next they’ll
be after Cheney.” (END/2006)
Iran Is Key to Course Change on Iraq
Analysis by
Trita Parsi*
WASHINGTON,
Nov 9 (IPS) – Two political earthquakes hit the United States this week. On
Tuesday, the Democrats took control of Congress, and the following day, Defence
Secretary Donald Rumsfeld was replaced by Robert Gates, a member of the senior
Bush’s foreign policy team.
Both events
open up opportunities for Washington to find new avenues to resolve its many
problems with Iran. The key to the elections — and to Iran — is Iraq. In
light of the soon-to-be published Iraq Study Group report, it is increasingly
clear that headway can neither be made on Iraq nor the nuclear stand-off with
Iran unless the two are linked.
The victory
of the Democrats and the firing of Rumsfeld have shifted the balance between
the pragmatists and the neoconservatives in the administration. As secretary of
defence, Rumsfeld was closely allied with Vice President Dick Cheney in
opposing every effort to open up diplomatic channels to Tehran.
According
to Lawrence Wilkerson, former Secretary of State Colin Powell’s
chief of staff, it was Cheney and Rumsfeld who made sure that Washington
dismissed Iran’s May 2003 offer to open up its nuclear programme, rein in
Hezbollah, recognise a two-state solution and cooperate against al Qaeda.
Rumsfeld was also a driving force behind using the Mujahedin-e Khalq, an
Iranian terrorist organisation opposed to the ruling clerics, to weaken Tehran.
Robert
Gates, however, belongs to a different school of Republican foreign policy
thinking. Gates’ entrance and the Republican leadership’s exit have created a
precious opportunity to change the course on Iraq — and on Iran. For years,
the Bush administration has pursued a maximalist policy based on rejecting any
links between the Iranian nuclear programme and the many other areas where the
U.S. and Iran clash. By refusing any linkages, the Bush White House has aimed
to gain maximum concessions from Iran in all areas without ever having to
reciprocate or offer any concessions in return.
This was
clearly seen in Afghanistan, where President Bush’s envoy opened up talks with Iran to coordinate
efforts to dispose the Taliban regime. Bush’s intentions were purely
tactical — accept Iranian help in Afghanistan without permitting the
cooperation to lead to a shift in attitude towards Iran. The Iranians, on
the other hand, were hoping that their assistance in Afghanistan would have
strategic implications with an entire new relationship between Tehran and
Washington as the ultimate outcome.
Once
Iran’s help in Afghanistan was no longer deemed necessary, Washington’s
approach to Tehran cooled significantly, much thanks to the influence of
Rumsfeld. Only
weeks after the Bonn Conference in December 2001 where Tehran’s assistance was
crucial in finding a compromise between Afghanistan’s many warlords, Bush put
Iran into the "Axis of Evil". Tehran’s goodwill gestures were for
naught.
"Iran
made a mistake not to link its assistance in Afghanistan to American help in other
areas and by just hoping that the U.S. would reciprocate," Iran’s U.N.
Ambassador Javad Zarif, who was in charge of Iran’s negotiations
with Washington over Afghanistan, told IPS.
The Bush
administration’s insistence on rejecting all forms of linkages has made a bad
situation worse. On the one hand, the lesson of Afghanistan for Tehran has been
to run a very hard bargain with the United States where no help is offered for
free. As a result, Washington has been left to deal with the deteriorating
situation in Iraq all by itself.
On the
other hand, Washington’s efforts to put a halt to Iran’s nuclear programme have
run into a dead-end. Washington has reduced U.S.-Iran relations to a zero-sum
game about enrichment. Either Iran has enrichment, or it doesn’t. The Bush
administration has not permitted any middle ground to exist in hopes that
it could completely deprive Iran of all nuclear know-how.
But in
this game of the winner takes it all, Iran has so far been winning. Washington has not even been able
to get the U.N. Security Council to pass a resolution imposing travel
restrictions on Iranian officials involved in Tehran’s nuclear programme.
Much
indicates that the only way out of this dead-end is to do what Bush —
and Rumsfeld — have refused to do all along: link Iranian cooperation in
Iraq to Washington’s willingness to find a compromise on the nuclear issue,
where enrichment will be seen as a continuous rather than a binary variable.
The White House refused such linkages in the past since it sought complete
victories. Now, creating linkages is necessary in order to avoid complete
defeats in both Iraq and in Iran.
James
Baker’s Iraq Study Group has already paved the way for dealing with Iran over
Iraq, though Bush is yet to sign off on the idea of linkage. Earlier in
October, Baker met with Javad Zarif at the Iranian ambassador’s residence in
New York. The meeting lasted three hours and was deemed as very helpful by
both sides. Baker was told that Iran would consider helping the United
States in Iraq if "Washington first changed its attitude towards Iran,"
a euphemism for Bush administration’s unwillingness to deal with Iran in a
strategic manner.
While the
recent political earthquakes in Washington have raised hope that a shift in
both Iraq and Iran may be forthcoming, President Bush is still the final
decision maker. Neither a Democratic Congress nor a pragmatist in charge of
the Pentagon is likely to change the course on Iraq and Iran unless the
president recognises the reality on the ground — without Iran, the United
States cannot win in Iraq, and without linking Iraq to the nuclear issue,
Tehran’s services are not available.
*Dr. Trita
Parsi is the author of "Treacherous Triangle — The Secret Dealings of
Israel, Iran and the United States" (Yale University Press, 2007).
(END/2006)
US Election Verdict Imperils India Nuclear Deal
Analysis by
Praful Bidwai
NEW DELHI,
Nov 9 (IPS) – The Democratic Party’s strong showing in the United States
Congressional elections has enlarged the question-mark which hangs over
Washington’s nuclear cooperation deal with India. But no major change in
U.S.-India relations appears to be on the cards.
The
controversial nuclear cooperation agreement was signed in July 2005 by
President George W. Bush and Prime Minister Manmohan Singh. Under its terms,
the U.S. would effectively "normalise" India as a de facto nuclear
weapons-state (NWS) and resume civilian nuclear commerce with it, which has
stood suspended since India’s first nuclear test in 1974.
The deal makes
a unique exception for India, which is not a signatory to the Nuclear
Non-Proliferation Treaty (NPT), and which conducted five nuclear weapons test
in 1998.
In return
for this special treatment, India would put 14 of its 22 nuclear power reactors
(operating and under construction) under International Atomic Energy Agency
safeguards and also secure approval for the deal from the IAEA and the
45-nation Nuclear Suppliers’ Group. India can continue to produce fuel for
nuclear weapons in its non-safeguarded facilities.
The deal
was cleared by the foreign relations committees of both chambers of the U.S.
Congress, which formulated enabling legislations. The House of Representatives
passed the relevant Bill by a 359 to 68 vote last July.
However,
the Senate is yet to vote on its own Bill. In its last session, just before the
election recess, it failed to clear it because the Democrats moved 19
amendments which could not be voted on.
Now, both
Chambers are likely to meet for what is called a "lame duck" session
next week, with their existing members participating. The Bush administration
has promised to try to get the Senate Bill passed as early as Friday next week.
The
administration is at pains to emphasise its commitment to the deal. U.S.
ambassador to India David C. Mulford in a media briefing on Thursday stressed
that the election results do not mean that the deal is off: "It still has
a chance."
"But
it is by no means certain that the deal-related Bill will be taken up by the
Senate next week", says Chintamani Mahapatra, Professor of American
Studies at Jawaharlal Nehru University here. "And if it is not passed next
week, the legislation is as good as dead."
Usually,
the lame duck session passes urgent money Bills and does not take up
substantive legislation. Besides, other legislations are competing with the
India-specific Bill for the top place in the Senate agenda, including one which
permits full trade relations with Vietnam, which Bush is due to visit soon.
"The
most important cause for a possible delay in clearing the Bill is that the
Democrats may be unwilling for domestic reasons to hand an easy diplomatic
victory to Bush," adds Mahapatra. "Relations between the Democrats
and Republicans have turned extremely fractious over the Iraq war and domestic
policies."
If the
legislation is not cleared next week by the Senate, then the planned
reconciliation of the two Bills, and their passage by the full Congress, will
not go through.
In that
case, the deal will return to the drawing-board. And the entire legislative
process will have to re-start from scratch.
"That
puts the issue in an area of great uncertainty", says Muchkund Dubey, a
former foreign secretary (chief of the diplomatic service) of India. "For,
it is by no means clear that the Democrats strengthened by their full control
over Congress will agree to the same terms and language as the original
Bills."
The
Democrats, say India’s Foreign Office sources, recently assured New Delhi that
they would move no more than 10 amendments during the lame-duck session. But it
is not clear that they would stick to that commitment. Already,
the existing Senate Bill contains clauses and language that New Delhi finds
unpalatable, including a requirement for annual certification from the President
that India is observing nuclear restraint and not diverting nuclear material to
military uses.
The Bush
administration had hoped that the reconciliation process would lead to a
dilution of these conditions in a Senate-House conference committee. But after
the Congressional elections, "the administration would be lucky to be able
to retain the clauses," holds Dubey.
If the deal
goes back to a fresh debate in Congress, its terms could well be transformed in
keeping with the Democrats’ stronger adherence to nuclear non-proliferation.
Although India would probably still not be asked to make tougher commitments,
the Manmohan Singh government will find it difficult to sell the deal as a
major diplomatic coup.
The Senate
legislation has evoked strong negative reactions from India’s political
opposition.
The Left
parties, whose support is vital for the Singh government’s survival, oppose any
change in the "original goal-posts" set by the Bush-Singh agreements
of July 2005 and this past March. And the opposition, right-wing Bharatiya
Janata Party is even more hostile to any change in the agreement’s terms.
New Delhi
will find it near-impossible to renegotiate the deal. But it has no fall-back
or fall-soft options. "It’s either a win-win situation for the U.S. and
India, or lose-lose one for both; it cannot be a win-lose situation," says
Mohapatra.
The U.S.
Congress is not the only obstacle the deal will have to overcome. The Nuclear
Suppliers’ Group (NSG) too has to clear it. At least some of its 45 member-states,
including the Nordic countries, Ireland, New Zealand and, above all, China are
known to have reservations about it.
India has
been lobbying individual NSG members. It also made a presentation on the deal
before the NSG in mid-October in Vienna. But the NSG would probably wait for
the U.S. Congress vote before deciding.
"The
nuclear deal is only one part of the India-U.S. relationship," says Dubey.
"Even if it is delayed or falls through, the overall thrust of U.S. policy
towards India is unlikely to change. There is bipartisan support in Washington
for a special strategic relationship with India. The two leaderships
increasingly see their interests as congruent, not least vis-à-vis containing
China."
There is
one respect in which things might change somewhat. If the departure of Donald
Rumsfeld as U.S. defence secretary leads to a major shift of U.S. plans for
Iraq, India might once again come under pressure to train or assist Iraq’s
military and police forces.
On two
occasions in the past, India was on the verge of sending troops to Iraq to
assist U.S. forces. The move fell through because of its immense domestic
unpopularity.
However,
with Rumsfeld’s resignation, there is likely to be some cooling off of the
enthusiasm with which India’s strategic planners welcomed the so-called
‘Revolution in Military Affairs’ involving the use of "smart"
weapons, and a technological "transformation" in war-fighting, which
the former defence secretary advocated.
The
"smart" weapons did not prove particularly effective during the last
two Gulf wars. (END/2006)