The Daily Star
Friday, September 26 2014
By Michael Glackin
So, South Sudan is still the world’s newest country. Scotland has voted against independence, and the United Kingdom remains united. For now at least.
Despite the often-zealous patriotism of Scots, the desire of many to break away from the 307-year-old union with England was less about nationalism, the doctrine that defined 19th and 20th century independence movements, and more about creating a just and equal society. Many Scots believe the free-market-obsessed government in London had increased inequality.
Even Scots who voted against independence – largely because they believed they would be worse off financially outside the union – want increased self-governance within the U.K.
In this, the Scottish independence debate had echoes of the Arab Spring. Central to the plea for universal rights made by the protesters who took to the streets across the Middle East was a demand that government be brought closer to the people. With the Arab Spring, the Middle East reached a crucial turning point, but, to borrow a phrase from European history, failed to turn.
In its wake the Middle East has descended into unparalleled ethnic and sectarian bloodletting that has plunged the region into chaos and threatens the borders and integrity of half a dozen states, from Lebanon to Yemen.
Instead of universal values, exclusivity is the mantra of both extremists and bizarrely, many liberals, who see separation and the dismantling of frontiers that divide religious and ethnic groups as the way forward. For instance the barbaric violence in Iraq between Sunnis and Shiites, along with the Kurds’ now pivotal role in combatting the threat posed by ISIS, has increased the prospect of the division of the country into at least two parts, and maybe three.
Syria could also split in three. The country’s Kurds could end up in the Kurdistan that may be won for them by their Iraqi brethren. And some have suggested that an Alawite state could take shape along the coast and hills surrounding Latakia.
It may sound ludicrous, but much learned ink has been spilt gleefully predicting the demise of the arrangements the British and French created during and after World War I, which established Syria, Lebanon, Iraq and Jordan, and later resulted in the creation of Israel.
While observers have been queuing up to pour scorn on the “artificial” nature of the states created by the 1916 Sykes-Picot agreement and subsequent arrangements, which lumped disparate tribes or peoples together, one could equally argue that their possible demise says as much about Arab unity as it does about Western imperialism. In fact, the current turmoil in the Middle East isn’t about failed states; it’s about failed governance.
On one level at least Sykes-Picot was progressive in that it established modern multi-confessional, multiethnic states. The failure of Arab rulers and governments to forge societies in which religious and ethnic minorities can properly coexist is not something that can be readily ignored.
There are those who blame British imperial “divide and rule” policies for Sudan’s woes, but the creation of South Sudan in 2011 came about because the mainly Christian and Animist people in the south were repressed by the rule of the Arab Muslim north. Western countries may have encouraged the secessionists, but their intervention would have been unnecessary had the government in the north governed its multi-confessional and multiethnic society fairly.
The Baath in Syria and Iraq proved adept at colonial divide and rule policies too, and were responsible for discriminative, in some cases genocidal, policies against ethnic groups.
If the clarion call of the Arab Spring was democracy and equality, it is surely worth asking why so many people who aspired to such values now imagine the future of their countries not as places that embrace diversity and pluralism, but as fragmented entities based on religious or ethnic identity. The divisions being discussed by those who insist that Sykes-Picot is dead are likely to create more problems than they resolve.
India was divided when Britain relinquished control because its Muslims were convinced that they could not prosper in a country with a Hindu majority. Under the able stewardship of Muhammad Ali Jinnah Pakistan was carved out of India. But within 25 years Pakistan itself split, because East Pakistan, which became Bangladesh, was largely excluded from the political process and economic development. Religious uniformity didn’t disguise injustice or hold a badly governed country together.
Talking of bad government, the changing aspirations of some long-suffering Palestinians is illustrative too. Earlier this year, before the Gaza conflict, Tareq Abbas, the son of Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas, told the New York Times that he had joined the growing number of young Palestinians who believe a one-state solution, where Palestinians would share equal rights with Israeli Jews, offers the best way to settle the region’s longstanding conflict.
Until the late 1960s Fatah also supported a bi-national solution, a single state that would “establish a free and democratic society in Palestine for all Palestinians whether they are Muslims, Christians or Jews.” It is extremely unlikely to happen, but it is also clear that many young Palestinians now view universal civil rights as more important than a narrow nationalism that defines borders by ethnic origin or religion.
At any rate, the Arab world has in the last century tended toward the super state rather than smaller states, from Sherif Hussein’s aspiration to unite Syria, Palestine, Iraq and Lebanon, under his rule right through to the Pan-Arabism of Gamal Abdel Nasser. This impulse now manifests itself in the brutal “caliphate” of ISIS, whose solution to dealing with religious minorities and political adversaries is to slaughter them.
It was fear rather than ambition or Pan-Arabism that was the immediate catalyst for Syria’s decision to “merge” with Egypt into the short lived United Arab Republic. It was prompted by the need to enlist Nasser’s protection against a possible communist takeover. The UAR broke apart because Syrian national pride, not created by Sykes-Picot, was piqued by Egyptian domination.
Despite the fact that 55 percent of Scots voted “No” to independence, the debate surrounding the issue has revealed a demand for democratic change in the U.K. that the government and the opposition parties have agreed to address.
What Scotland’s vote should tell the Arabs is that rather than act as cheerleaders for ethnic and sectarian division, they should ensure that out of the current turmoil, the process of building institutions that respect all those within its borders and create Arab unity should no longer be ignored.
Michael Glackin, is former managing editor of THE DAILY STAR. A version of this article appeared in the print edition of The Daily Star on September 26, 2014, on page 7.
Friday, 26 September 2014
Tuesday, 9 September 2014
Can the anti-ISIS alliance succeed?
The Daily Star
Tuesday September 9 2014
By Michael Glackin
An American secret service agent at last week’s NATO summit in Wales had to be rushed to hospital after a car in the presidential motorcade ran over his foot. The unfortunate agent wasn’t alone in being left nursing a wound after the summit. The idea of a unified, coherent strategy to tackle the ISIS looked distinctly fractured too.
Western leaders ramped up their rhetoric against ISIS, but offered little in the way of a meaningful strategy to bring them to heel. While a “core coalition” of 10 nations, including the United Kingdom, signed up for what is likely to be a major military onslaught, 18 other NATO members refused to join. And even within the coalition there were divisions about how to proceed.
While U.S. Secretary of State John Kerry attempted to inject much-needed momentum into tackling ISIS, calling for agreement on an international plan to deal with the group in time for this month’s meeting of the United Nations General Assembly, British Prime Minister Cameron insisted the West, and the U.K. in particular, was not “at the stage” where military action could be taken.
Indeed, there was evident irritation within Cameron’s government at Kerry’s apparent desire to hastily place Western nations at the forefront of the effort to tackle ISIS at a time when the U.K. was in the delicate process of trying to build an Arab coalition with Sunni allies in the Middle East, most notably Saudi Arabia and Qatar.
Cameron stressed the need to “proceed carefully and methodically” and, along with French President Francois Hollande, insisted it was best to wait until a new “inclusive” Iraqi government was in place before launching military action. That could take months.
Obama is to set out his “game plan” for defeating ISIS this week. But it seems clear from last weekend’s airstrikes against ISIS in Anbar province in western Iraq that Washington is not going to wait for an “inclusive” government to be formed in Baghdad.
Further differences within the “core coalition” were also exposed when Cameron lashed out at governments – widely understood to include three members of the coalition, Germany, France and Italy, along with Spain – that choose to pay ransoms to ISIS and other militant groups for the return of kidnapped nationals.
The British government is understood to be negotiating through “intermediaries” to gain the release of British national David Haines, who was paraded in a video showing the beheading of American journalist Steven Sotloff last week. However, it has steadfastly refused to pay for his release.
In fact, the 10-nation coalition agreed on one thing only: that any military action would stop short of putting conventional troops into battle, which Kerry described as “a red line for everybody.”
But while Western leaders repeat the mantra “no boots on the ground,” the reality is that a campaign against ISIS cannot prevail without at least some Western military presence to help secure the areas bombed from above.
Cameron, U.S. President Barack Obama and other leaders, are aware of this. Western special service units will be on the ground, but the West has no intention of putting large numbers of troops in harm’s way. They do not want to end up hostages to fortune, to what could again prove to be a bloody long-term military and political commitment without a clear exit strategy.
That is part of the reason, along with the need to escape the shadow of the U.S.-led invasion of Iraq in 2003, why Cameron is so keen to ensure Arab involvement in actions against ISIS. This involvement would be in the shape of cash, manpower and future political commitment. However, Arab support is likely to be patchy, and could prove impossible to broker, as Kerry may discover when he visits the Middle East this week.
That said, the meeting of Arab League foreign ministers in Cairo Sunday endorsed taking of “all necessary measures” against ISIS and promised that member states were prepared to cooperate with international efforts to defeat ISIS.
Both the American and British governments believe direct military involvement by the Arab states against ISIS could be possible within the framework of the so-called Arab League joint defense pact. Some may remember that the last effective action orchestrated under the defense pact was the ban on Elizabeth Taylor films in the Arab world during the mid-1950s, because of the actress’ support for Israel. In reality the way the pact is formulated makes collective Arab military action difficult.
For example, there isn’t much Saudi Arabia and Qatar can agree upon, and neither wants to embark on a military campaign that would aid a pro-Iranian government in Baghdad, Bashar Assad’s regime in Syria, and ultimately strengthen Tehran’s regional power. The U.K. places much faith in Jordan, but King Abdullah’s much-touted participation in the NATO summit was barely noticeable after his arrival.
Elsewhere, Egypt and the United Arab Emirates have shown a clear, some would say worrying, willingness to take responsibility for regional affairs as evidenced by their cooperation in launching airstrikes against extremist Islamist militias in Libya.
Even an Arab coalition of sorts does not address the more complex issue of whether to launch airstrikes on ISIS strongholds in Syria. When Obama talks about “defeating” ISIS, Syria is where the group must ultimately be faced. Let us hope the president can offer a coherent strategy for defeating ISIS when he speaks on Wednesday – one to which the West and regional powers can really sign up. Otherwise, the damage the West is inflicting on itself and the region will take longer to heal than the hapless secret service agent’s sore foot.
Michael Glackin, is former managing editor of Beirut based newspaper THE DAILY STAR. A version of this article appeared in the print edition of The Daily Star on September 09, 2014, on page 7.
Tuesday September 9 2014
By Michael Glackin
An American secret service agent at last week’s NATO summit in Wales had to be rushed to hospital after a car in the presidential motorcade ran over his foot. The unfortunate agent wasn’t alone in being left nursing a wound after the summit. The idea of a unified, coherent strategy to tackle the ISIS looked distinctly fractured too.
Western leaders ramped up their rhetoric against ISIS, but offered little in the way of a meaningful strategy to bring them to heel. While a “core coalition” of 10 nations, including the United Kingdom, signed up for what is likely to be a major military onslaught, 18 other NATO members refused to join. And even within the coalition there were divisions about how to proceed.
While U.S. Secretary of State John Kerry attempted to inject much-needed momentum into tackling ISIS, calling for agreement on an international plan to deal with the group in time for this month’s meeting of the United Nations General Assembly, British Prime Minister Cameron insisted the West, and the U.K. in particular, was not “at the stage” where military action could be taken.
Indeed, there was evident irritation within Cameron’s government at Kerry’s apparent desire to hastily place Western nations at the forefront of the effort to tackle ISIS at a time when the U.K. was in the delicate process of trying to build an Arab coalition with Sunni allies in the Middle East, most notably Saudi Arabia and Qatar.
Cameron stressed the need to “proceed carefully and methodically” and, along with French President Francois Hollande, insisted it was best to wait until a new “inclusive” Iraqi government was in place before launching military action. That could take months.
Obama is to set out his “game plan” for defeating ISIS this week. But it seems clear from last weekend’s airstrikes against ISIS in Anbar province in western Iraq that Washington is not going to wait for an “inclusive” government to be formed in Baghdad.
Further differences within the “core coalition” were also exposed when Cameron lashed out at governments – widely understood to include three members of the coalition, Germany, France and Italy, along with Spain – that choose to pay ransoms to ISIS and other militant groups for the return of kidnapped nationals.
The British government is understood to be negotiating through “intermediaries” to gain the release of British national David Haines, who was paraded in a video showing the beheading of American journalist Steven Sotloff last week. However, it has steadfastly refused to pay for his release.
In fact, the 10-nation coalition agreed on one thing only: that any military action would stop short of putting conventional troops into battle, which Kerry described as “a red line for everybody.”
But while Western leaders repeat the mantra “no boots on the ground,” the reality is that a campaign against ISIS cannot prevail without at least some Western military presence to help secure the areas bombed from above.
Cameron, U.S. President Barack Obama and other leaders, are aware of this. Western special service units will be on the ground, but the West has no intention of putting large numbers of troops in harm’s way. They do not want to end up hostages to fortune, to what could again prove to be a bloody long-term military and political commitment without a clear exit strategy.
That is part of the reason, along with the need to escape the shadow of the U.S.-led invasion of Iraq in 2003, why Cameron is so keen to ensure Arab involvement in actions against ISIS. This involvement would be in the shape of cash, manpower and future political commitment. However, Arab support is likely to be patchy, and could prove impossible to broker, as Kerry may discover when he visits the Middle East this week.
That said, the meeting of Arab League foreign ministers in Cairo Sunday endorsed taking of “all necessary measures” against ISIS and promised that member states were prepared to cooperate with international efforts to defeat ISIS.
Both the American and British governments believe direct military involvement by the Arab states against ISIS could be possible within the framework of the so-called Arab League joint defense pact. Some may remember that the last effective action orchestrated under the defense pact was the ban on Elizabeth Taylor films in the Arab world during the mid-1950s, because of the actress’ support for Israel. In reality the way the pact is formulated makes collective Arab military action difficult.
For example, there isn’t much Saudi Arabia and Qatar can agree upon, and neither wants to embark on a military campaign that would aid a pro-Iranian government in Baghdad, Bashar Assad’s regime in Syria, and ultimately strengthen Tehran’s regional power. The U.K. places much faith in Jordan, but King Abdullah’s much-touted participation in the NATO summit was barely noticeable after his arrival.
Elsewhere, Egypt and the United Arab Emirates have shown a clear, some would say worrying, willingness to take responsibility for regional affairs as evidenced by their cooperation in launching airstrikes against extremist Islamist militias in Libya.
Even an Arab coalition of sorts does not address the more complex issue of whether to launch airstrikes on ISIS strongholds in Syria. When Obama talks about “defeating” ISIS, Syria is where the group must ultimately be faced. Let us hope the president can offer a coherent strategy for defeating ISIS when he speaks on Wednesday – one to which the West and regional powers can really sign up. Otherwise, the damage the West is inflicting on itself and the region will take longer to heal than the hapless secret service agent’s sore foot.
Michael Glackin, is former managing editor of Beirut based newspaper THE DAILY STAR. A version of this article appeared in the print edition of The Daily Star on September 09, 2014, on page 7.
Friday, 22 August 2014
Cameron channels Western incoherence
The Daily Star
Friday, August 22 2014
By Michael Glackin
Is British Prime Minister David Cameron really making the case for the return of British armed forces to Iraq? The short answer is no. Indeed, bearing in mind the United Kingdom’s ignominious retreat from Basra in 2007, when the army was forced to negotiate a safe exit with insurgents, one wonders why he even bothered attempting to make the case in the first place.
In case you missed it, last week Cameron penned an article for a Sunday newspaper in which he warned of the threat posed to the West by the Islamic State, formerly the Islamic State of Iraq and Greater Syria. Cameron insisted that the West could not ignore the Islamic State’s “caliphate,” which could lead to a “terrorist state on the shores of the Mediterranean.”
Cameron also warned that the Islamic State could terrorize Britain’s streets. The seriousness of this proposition was underlined this week by the group’s beheading of American journalist James Foley. The killing appeared to have been carried out by a man with a London accent.
Ratcheting up the Churchillian rhetoric, Cameron continued: “We are in the middle of a generational struggle against a poisonous and extremist ideology, which I believe we will be fighting for the rest of my political lifetime.”
Two thoughts sprang to mind. First, Cameron’s “political lifetime” could arguably be measured in months as the clock ticks down to next year’s election in May, whereas the lifetime of the Islamic State, or whatever it metamorphoses into, is unfortunately likely to be measured in years.
Secondly, the last time Cameron sounded the clarion call to military action in the Middle East, against Syria 12 months ago, he was forced to back down after he was resoundingly defeated by a parliamentary vote he needlessly insisted on calling.
Indeed, fear of a revolt among parliamentarians is probably why a day after Cameron’s article appeared, he bizarrely backtracked on most of what he appeared to be favoring. From fighting the Islamic State “for the rest of my political lifetime” Cameron insisted that “Britain is not going to get involved in another war in Iraq. We are not going to be putting boots on the ground. We are not going to be sending in the British army.”
The upshot is that, once again, British policy in the Middle East remains about as clear as mud.
Quite what prompted Cameron to wade into this particular global crisis is a mystery. For months he had appeared happy to ignore the steady advance of the Islamic State, just as he has ignored the escalating crisis in Ukraine and bloody conflicts in the Gaza Strip, Libya, Nigeria and elsewhere.
Having watched the Islamic State put people of all religious denominations to the sword across Syria and Iraq, Cameron’s call to arms merely fueled the conspiracy theories of those in the region who, not entirely inaccurately, argue that the West is more interested in protecting Iraqi oil fields than Iraqis.
The area controlled by the Kurds, whom the United States is currently helping militarily against the Islamic State, accounts for almost a third of Iraq’s oil reserves.
However, the odds on British military involvement in Iraq are long. Although British Defense Secretary Michael Fallon confirmed RAF Tornado jets were carrying out surveillance flights over Islamic State positions in an operation he said would last for “weeks and months,” the RAF has played no part in the recent U.S. airstrikes across northern Iraq.
Against that backdrop, it is hard not to conclude that the saber rattling from Cameron at the weekend was aimed at a domestic audience. The black flag of the Islamic State was hoisted over an east London housing estate a few days before Cameron’s article, while leaflets urging people to join the group have even been handed out on the streets of the capital. In his article Cameron warned that anyone pulling similar stunts would be arrested.
Strong words that actually amount to nothing reflect a wider ambivalence within the British electorate about the Middle East. Voters are asking why the rich Arab Gulf states are not doing more to defeat the Islamic State. For example, what remains of the Iraqi military is operating without U.S. air cover, which is being exclusively used to help the Kurds. Yet Saudi Arabia and the United Arab Emirates are proud possessors of advanced combat aircraft, from the F-15 and the F-16 to the Typhoon.
Cameron alluded to this sentiment in his article. He wrote that the U.K. would lead a diplomatic process to tackle the Islamic State that would include the Gulf monarchies and “perhaps even ... Iran.”
But against this is the fact that current U.S. policy, which Cameron and other Western leaders are falling behind, is firmly centered on the Kurds. U.S. firepower has so far been entirely focused on supporting the peshmerga.
Arming the Kurds directly, notably bypassing the new government in Baghdad, clearly boosts Kurdish separatism. Up to now the West has sought to contain the Kurdish desires, mindful both of the impact of Iraq’s fragmentation and the repercussions an independent Kurdistan would have on Turkey and Iran, which have their own large Kurdish minorities.
Moreover, the Kurds will not defeat the Islamic State. Their sole goal is to remove the group from their region in Iraq. This hardly solves the problem of a “terrorist state on the shores of the Mediterranean.”
And while Cameron and Obama are reconciled to a Hobson’s Choice over Iran in terms of Iraq, reconciling a strategy for dealing with the Islamic State in Syria is more problematical.
Would the U.S. launch airstrikes to protect Aleppo or Damascus from the Islamic State? If so would that mark the beginning of recognition that President Bashar Assad of Syria is the lesser of two evils? It would certainly suit Iran, though definitely not Saudi Arabia.
Consequently far from making a case for British involvement in Iraq, Cameron’s doublespeak actually sums up the reality that the West still lacks a coherent long-term approach to Syria and Iraq, or to Islamist extremism. Cameron should remember the adage that sometimes it is better to say nothing and be thought a fool rather than open your mouth and prove it beyond doubt.
Michael Glackin, is former managing editor of Beirut based newspaper THE DAILY STAR. A version of this article appeared in the print edition of The Daily Star on August 22, 2014, on page 7.
Friday, August 22 2014
By Michael Glackin
Is British Prime Minister David Cameron really making the case for the return of British armed forces to Iraq? The short answer is no. Indeed, bearing in mind the United Kingdom’s ignominious retreat from Basra in 2007, when the army was forced to negotiate a safe exit with insurgents, one wonders why he even bothered attempting to make the case in the first place.
In case you missed it, last week Cameron penned an article for a Sunday newspaper in which he warned of the threat posed to the West by the Islamic State, formerly the Islamic State of Iraq and Greater Syria. Cameron insisted that the West could not ignore the Islamic State’s “caliphate,” which could lead to a “terrorist state on the shores of the Mediterranean.”
Cameron also warned that the Islamic State could terrorize Britain’s streets. The seriousness of this proposition was underlined this week by the group’s beheading of American journalist James Foley. The killing appeared to have been carried out by a man with a London accent.
Ratcheting up the Churchillian rhetoric, Cameron continued: “We are in the middle of a generational struggle against a poisonous and extremist ideology, which I believe we will be fighting for the rest of my political lifetime.”
Two thoughts sprang to mind. First, Cameron’s “political lifetime” could arguably be measured in months as the clock ticks down to next year’s election in May, whereas the lifetime of the Islamic State, or whatever it metamorphoses into, is unfortunately likely to be measured in years.
Secondly, the last time Cameron sounded the clarion call to military action in the Middle East, against Syria 12 months ago, he was forced to back down after he was resoundingly defeated by a parliamentary vote he needlessly insisted on calling.
Indeed, fear of a revolt among parliamentarians is probably why a day after Cameron’s article appeared, he bizarrely backtracked on most of what he appeared to be favoring. From fighting the Islamic State “for the rest of my political lifetime” Cameron insisted that “Britain is not going to get involved in another war in Iraq. We are not going to be putting boots on the ground. We are not going to be sending in the British army.”
The upshot is that, once again, British policy in the Middle East remains about as clear as mud.
Quite what prompted Cameron to wade into this particular global crisis is a mystery. For months he had appeared happy to ignore the steady advance of the Islamic State, just as he has ignored the escalating crisis in Ukraine and bloody conflicts in the Gaza Strip, Libya, Nigeria and elsewhere.
Having watched the Islamic State put people of all religious denominations to the sword across Syria and Iraq, Cameron’s call to arms merely fueled the conspiracy theories of those in the region who, not entirely inaccurately, argue that the West is more interested in protecting Iraqi oil fields than Iraqis.
The area controlled by the Kurds, whom the United States is currently helping militarily against the Islamic State, accounts for almost a third of Iraq’s oil reserves.
However, the odds on British military involvement in Iraq are long. Although British Defense Secretary Michael Fallon confirmed RAF Tornado jets were carrying out surveillance flights over Islamic State positions in an operation he said would last for “weeks and months,” the RAF has played no part in the recent U.S. airstrikes across northern Iraq.
Against that backdrop, it is hard not to conclude that the saber rattling from Cameron at the weekend was aimed at a domestic audience. The black flag of the Islamic State was hoisted over an east London housing estate a few days before Cameron’s article, while leaflets urging people to join the group have even been handed out on the streets of the capital. In his article Cameron warned that anyone pulling similar stunts would be arrested.
Strong words that actually amount to nothing reflect a wider ambivalence within the British electorate about the Middle East. Voters are asking why the rich Arab Gulf states are not doing more to defeat the Islamic State. For example, what remains of the Iraqi military is operating without U.S. air cover, which is being exclusively used to help the Kurds. Yet Saudi Arabia and the United Arab Emirates are proud possessors of advanced combat aircraft, from the F-15 and the F-16 to the Typhoon.
Cameron alluded to this sentiment in his article. He wrote that the U.K. would lead a diplomatic process to tackle the Islamic State that would include the Gulf monarchies and “perhaps even ... Iran.”
But against this is the fact that current U.S. policy, which Cameron and other Western leaders are falling behind, is firmly centered on the Kurds. U.S. firepower has so far been entirely focused on supporting the peshmerga.
Arming the Kurds directly, notably bypassing the new government in Baghdad, clearly boosts Kurdish separatism. Up to now the West has sought to contain the Kurdish desires, mindful both of the impact of Iraq’s fragmentation and the repercussions an independent Kurdistan would have on Turkey and Iran, which have their own large Kurdish minorities.
Moreover, the Kurds will not defeat the Islamic State. Their sole goal is to remove the group from their region in Iraq. This hardly solves the problem of a “terrorist state on the shores of the Mediterranean.”
And while Cameron and Obama are reconciled to a Hobson’s Choice over Iran in terms of Iraq, reconciling a strategy for dealing with the Islamic State in Syria is more problematical.
Would the U.S. launch airstrikes to protect Aleppo or Damascus from the Islamic State? If so would that mark the beginning of recognition that President Bashar Assad of Syria is the lesser of two evils? It would certainly suit Iran, though definitely not Saudi Arabia.
Consequently far from making a case for British involvement in Iraq, Cameron’s doublespeak actually sums up the reality that the West still lacks a coherent long-term approach to Syria and Iraq, or to Islamist extremism. Cameron should remember the adage that sometimes it is better to say nothing and be thought a fool rather than open your mouth and prove it beyond doubt.
Michael Glackin, is former managing editor of Beirut based newspaper THE DAILY STAR. A version of this article appeared in the print edition of The Daily Star on August 22, 2014, on page 7.
Tuesday, 12 August 2014
Cameron is at sea in the Middle East
The Daily Star
Tuesday, August 12 2014
By Michael Glackin
When the French philosopher and avowed atheist Voltaire was asked on his death bed to renounce Satan, he famously replied: “My good man, this is no time to be making enemies.”
Like Voltaire, British Prime Minister David Cameron also thought silence was the wisest option when he ignored the chorus of condemnation for Israel’s bloody military campaign in Gaza. Unfortunately, Cameron’s silence only succeeded in rousing his enemies. The prime minister’s failure to condemn Israel’s actions, or offer a view of whether its military response to Hamas’ rockets was “proportionate,” ignited a firestorm of criticism within his own party, with parliamentarians fearing his stance would cost them their seats in next year’s election.
In fact, with just eight months until the next election, the Gaza conflict has suddenly ambushed Cameron in much the same way as the Israeli attack against Lebanon in 2006 ensnared his predecessor Tony Blair, eventually helping facilitate his ouster.
Cameron has steadfastly refused to criticize, let alone condemn, the civilian slaughter in Gaza in which almost 2,000 Palestinians, most of them civilians, have died. Around 400 of the dead are children. Israel has said that 64 of its soldiers and three civilians have been killed.
For a man who four years ago described Gaza as a prison camp, Cameron has shown apathy to carnage that has led to a minor revolt within his government. Earlier this month Baroness Sayeeda Warsi, the United Kingdom’s first female Muslim Cabinet minister, resigned from her junior post in the Foreign Office, condemning Cameron’s Gaza policy as “morally indefensible.” Her resignation could potentially weaken Conservative Party support among ethnic minorities in marginal seats in next May’s election.
More worrying for Cameron, the issue has provided a catalyst for a number of his senior colleagues to turn on him, including the government’s former legal adviser Dominic Grieve.
The junior partner in Cameron’s coalition government, Liberal Democrat leader Nick Clegg, has also called for a ban on all arms exports to Israel, worth around $14 billion to the U.K., and for direct talks between the Israeli government and Hamas.
Meanwhile, the Labour Party leader Ed Miliband, whose Jewish father and grandfather escaped the Holocaust by fleeing to Britain during World War II, condemned what he called Cameron’s “silence on the killing of innocent Palestinian civilians caused by Israel’s military action.”
If all that wasn’t enough, Cameron’s biggest rival for the leadership of the Conservative Party, Boris Johnson, the popular Mayor of London, announced his intention to return to parliament in next year’s election. The move is widely seen as a precursor for him to challenge Cameron. Johnson was quick to describe Israel’s military action as “disproportionate” and “ugly.”
But amid the criticism and Cameron’s seeming indifference to the bloodshed, it is worth asking what exactly is British policy toward Gaza, and indeed to the wider Palestinian issue?
The government itself doesn’t seem able to articulate a strategy beyond the usual platitudes of “resolving the issues underlying the conflict,” and a commitment to “a two-state solution,” all of which should be taken with a bucket of salt.
The reality is the U.K. hasn’t uttered a meaningful word of protest in the years that Israel has consistently ignored calls for a dialogue to address the Palestinians’ plight. Having refused to engage meaningfully with the moderates, Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu has eroded the credibility of the negotiating process, deliberately pushing people toward the extremists whom Israel makes great play of refusing to negotiate with.
The U.K. has been happy to support this subterfuge. Such dialogue that does take place is merely a shroud that can no longer hide the obscenity that apparently no one cares what happens to Palestinians, even when their children are murdered. And in this, British policy toward Gaza is in line with the U.K.’s wider Middle East strategy, which is to ignore all crises and hope either the United States resolves them or that they blow over.
That said, the U.K. is, like much of the West, aware that against the backdrop of an increasingly unstable Middle East, even by the chaotic standards of the region, there is a wider proxy war being fought in Gaza, one with Iran at its center.
That is because the primary regional issue is Iran’s nuclear ambitions, caught between Iranian President Hassan Rouhani’s desire to trade parts of the program for a relaxation of sanctions and a free hand to increase Tehran’s regional influence, and supreme leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei’s apparent desire to trade nothing.
The desperation of Washington to reach a deal with Tehran before year’s end has spooked the West’s traditional regional allies, notably Saudi Arabia and Egypt. They fear the price for an agreement will see Iranian influence expanding at their expense. Like Israel, nothing short of the destruction of Tehran’s nuclear program will satisfy Riyadh and Cairo.
In a deliberate provocation to both countries, Khamenei recently called on Muslims to unite and defend Gaza, a crude attempt to position Iran as a regional leader for all Muslims, despite the earlier cooling of relations between Tehran and Hamas over the Syrian conflict. Iranian backing is crucial for Hamas, for while Qatar and Turkey – both keen to usurp Egypt’s regional influence – are substantial backers of the group, Iran appears to be its only reliable source of arms.
The U.K. sees Iran as a destabilizing influence. Its presence looms large in regional trouble spots – in Iraq, Syria and through Hezbollah in Lebanon too. Against that backdrop, the U.K., like Egypt and Saudi Arabia, along with United Arab Emirates and Jordan, is mindful that Hamas’ destruction in Gaza would cut off another potential sphere of Iranian influence in the Arab world.
At the same time, crushing Hamas, combined with the routing of the Muslim Brotherhood in Egypt, both of whom won power through the ballot box, has the added appeal to a number of conservative Arab regimes of consigning the idea of democracy as a panacea for the region’s ills to the dustbin of history.
The U.K.’s reaction to this is to quietly cheer. For all Cameron’s espousal of democracy when he visited Egypt just weeks after the fall of Hosni Mubarak, he has happily supported the military coup there which ousted the elected President Mohammad Morsi. It also explains Cameron’s silence over Gaza.
What political game plan remains will be centered on trying to re-establish the role of Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas in Gaza. The problem, as one politician pointed out to me last week, is that while the recent Palestinian unity government, including Fatah and Hamas, may have delivered a more compliant Hamas, the Gaza conflict makes any compromise much less likely.
Any attempt by Abbas to do business with Israel that did not involve the removal of both the Israeli and Egyptian blockade on Gaza will discredit him further in the eyes of most Palestinians.
With that in mind, and if the U.K. is serious about “resolving the issues underlying the conflict” it is surely time the government finally abandoned its refusal to talk to Hamas and bring it into a political framework with Abbas.
Regardless of Cameron’s silence, the bigger picture must surely be to get the gun out of Middle East politics and get all sides talking. As Churchill said, “to jaw jaw, is better than to war war.”
Michael Glackin is former managing editor of Beirut based newspaper THE DAILY STAR.
Tuesday, August 12 2014
By Michael Glackin
When the French philosopher and avowed atheist Voltaire was asked on his death bed to renounce Satan, he famously replied: “My good man, this is no time to be making enemies.”
Like Voltaire, British Prime Minister David Cameron also thought silence was the wisest option when he ignored the chorus of condemnation for Israel’s bloody military campaign in Gaza. Unfortunately, Cameron’s silence only succeeded in rousing his enemies. The prime minister’s failure to condemn Israel’s actions, or offer a view of whether its military response to Hamas’ rockets was “proportionate,” ignited a firestorm of criticism within his own party, with parliamentarians fearing his stance would cost them their seats in next year’s election.
In fact, with just eight months until the next election, the Gaza conflict has suddenly ambushed Cameron in much the same way as the Israeli attack against Lebanon in 2006 ensnared his predecessor Tony Blair, eventually helping facilitate his ouster.
Cameron has steadfastly refused to criticize, let alone condemn, the civilian slaughter in Gaza in which almost 2,000 Palestinians, most of them civilians, have died. Around 400 of the dead are children. Israel has said that 64 of its soldiers and three civilians have been killed.
For a man who four years ago described Gaza as a prison camp, Cameron has shown apathy to carnage that has led to a minor revolt within his government. Earlier this month Baroness Sayeeda Warsi, the United Kingdom’s first female Muslim Cabinet minister, resigned from her junior post in the Foreign Office, condemning Cameron’s Gaza policy as “morally indefensible.” Her resignation could potentially weaken Conservative Party support among ethnic minorities in marginal seats in next May’s election.
More worrying for Cameron, the issue has provided a catalyst for a number of his senior colleagues to turn on him, including the government’s former legal adviser Dominic Grieve.
The junior partner in Cameron’s coalition government, Liberal Democrat leader Nick Clegg, has also called for a ban on all arms exports to Israel, worth around $14 billion to the U.K., and for direct talks between the Israeli government and Hamas.
Meanwhile, the Labour Party leader Ed Miliband, whose Jewish father and grandfather escaped the Holocaust by fleeing to Britain during World War II, condemned what he called Cameron’s “silence on the killing of innocent Palestinian civilians caused by Israel’s military action.”
If all that wasn’t enough, Cameron’s biggest rival for the leadership of the Conservative Party, Boris Johnson, the popular Mayor of London, announced his intention to return to parliament in next year’s election. The move is widely seen as a precursor for him to challenge Cameron. Johnson was quick to describe Israel’s military action as “disproportionate” and “ugly.”
But amid the criticism and Cameron’s seeming indifference to the bloodshed, it is worth asking what exactly is British policy toward Gaza, and indeed to the wider Palestinian issue?
The government itself doesn’t seem able to articulate a strategy beyond the usual platitudes of “resolving the issues underlying the conflict,” and a commitment to “a two-state solution,” all of which should be taken with a bucket of salt.
The reality is the U.K. hasn’t uttered a meaningful word of protest in the years that Israel has consistently ignored calls for a dialogue to address the Palestinians’ plight. Having refused to engage meaningfully with the moderates, Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu has eroded the credibility of the negotiating process, deliberately pushing people toward the extremists whom Israel makes great play of refusing to negotiate with.
The U.K. has been happy to support this subterfuge. Such dialogue that does take place is merely a shroud that can no longer hide the obscenity that apparently no one cares what happens to Palestinians, even when their children are murdered. And in this, British policy toward Gaza is in line with the U.K.’s wider Middle East strategy, which is to ignore all crises and hope either the United States resolves them or that they blow over.
That said, the U.K. is, like much of the West, aware that against the backdrop of an increasingly unstable Middle East, even by the chaotic standards of the region, there is a wider proxy war being fought in Gaza, one with Iran at its center.
That is because the primary regional issue is Iran’s nuclear ambitions, caught between Iranian President Hassan Rouhani’s desire to trade parts of the program for a relaxation of sanctions and a free hand to increase Tehran’s regional influence, and supreme leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei’s apparent desire to trade nothing.
The desperation of Washington to reach a deal with Tehran before year’s end has spooked the West’s traditional regional allies, notably Saudi Arabia and Egypt. They fear the price for an agreement will see Iranian influence expanding at their expense. Like Israel, nothing short of the destruction of Tehran’s nuclear program will satisfy Riyadh and Cairo.
In a deliberate provocation to both countries, Khamenei recently called on Muslims to unite and defend Gaza, a crude attempt to position Iran as a regional leader for all Muslims, despite the earlier cooling of relations between Tehran and Hamas over the Syrian conflict. Iranian backing is crucial for Hamas, for while Qatar and Turkey – both keen to usurp Egypt’s regional influence – are substantial backers of the group, Iran appears to be its only reliable source of arms.
The U.K. sees Iran as a destabilizing influence. Its presence looms large in regional trouble spots – in Iraq, Syria and through Hezbollah in Lebanon too. Against that backdrop, the U.K., like Egypt and Saudi Arabia, along with United Arab Emirates and Jordan, is mindful that Hamas’ destruction in Gaza would cut off another potential sphere of Iranian influence in the Arab world.
At the same time, crushing Hamas, combined with the routing of the Muslim Brotherhood in Egypt, both of whom won power through the ballot box, has the added appeal to a number of conservative Arab regimes of consigning the idea of democracy as a panacea for the region’s ills to the dustbin of history.
The U.K.’s reaction to this is to quietly cheer. For all Cameron’s espousal of democracy when he visited Egypt just weeks after the fall of Hosni Mubarak, he has happily supported the military coup there which ousted the elected President Mohammad Morsi. It also explains Cameron’s silence over Gaza.
What political game plan remains will be centered on trying to re-establish the role of Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas in Gaza. The problem, as one politician pointed out to me last week, is that while the recent Palestinian unity government, including Fatah and Hamas, may have delivered a more compliant Hamas, the Gaza conflict makes any compromise much less likely.
Any attempt by Abbas to do business with Israel that did not involve the removal of both the Israeli and Egyptian blockade on Gaza will discredit him further in the eyes of most Palestinians.
With that in mind, and if the U.K. is serious about “resolving the issues underlying the conflict” it is surely time the government finally abandoned its refusal to talk to Hamas and bring it into a political framework with Abbas.
Regardless of Cameron’s silence, the bigger picture must surely be to get the gun out of Middle East politics and get all sides talking. As Churchill said, “to jaw jaw, is better than to war war.”
Michael Glackin is former managing editor of Beirut based newspaper THE DAILY STAR.
Monday, 7 July 2014
Secrecy in court sets a dark precedent
The Daily Star
Monday, July 7, 2014
By Michael Glackin
For a nation that traditionally prided itself on self-discipline and a stiff upper lip, the United Kingdom has suddenly developed a worrying tendency to press the panic button and overreact to the point of hysteria when it comes to national security.
Consider the case of Erol Incedal, a British national of Turkish origin, and Mounir Rarmoul-Bouhadjar, a British national of Algerian origin. Both men were due to face trial in June at the Old Bailey for terror offenses after being arrested in London last October. Incedal and Rarmoul-Bouhadjar are accused of possessing terrorist documents, including a file named “bomb making” on their mobile phones. Incedal is also charged with preparing to commit or assist in terrorist acts. Rarmoul-Bouhadjar, who until last year worked for a housing charity in the London borough of Kensington and Chelsea, also faces a further charge of improperly obtaining a British passport.
Both men deny the charges. So what? Well, until two weeks ago you were not allowed to know anything about Incedal or Rarmoul-Bouhadjar, not their names nor the fact that they had been arrested. In fact, no one in the U.K. was even allowed to know that the pair were about to face trial. And, for the first time in British legal history, their trial was to be held in camera, in secret, behind closed doors.
That’s right. The government wanted the two men arrested, tried and convicted – well, after so much secrecy there is surely little chance they could be released – without anyone ever knowing it had happened, all in the name of an as yet unspecified threat to national security.
Following legal action by media groups, the U.K. appeal court ruled that some aspects of the case could be made public, but insisted that holding the “core” of the trial in secret was justified.
A similar defense was offered after the allegations made by former National Security Agency contractor Edward Snowden, who exposed the shocking extent of government intrusion into the day-to-day lives of individuals. Unknown national security reasons “justify,” again, the abandonment of democratic scrutiny and accountability.
The parts of the trial that will be in public are the swearing-in of the jury, the reading of the charges, part of the prosecution’s opening statement, the verdicts, and any sentencing. The overwhelming majority of the trial will still be held behind closed doors.
In a bizarre twist, selected journalists will also be allowed to attend most of the proceedings, but will not be allowed to report on them. The reporters will have to sign confidentiality agreements and must leave their notes in the courtroom every day.
These few chinks of light serve only to illuminate the expanse of the black hole into which civil liberties are being sucked in this shabby affair. Increasingly, worrying precedents are being set by the British government that infringe on long-held rights. The U.K.’s approach to individual liberty these days fast resembles that of the former Soviet Union at its very worst rather than a mature liberal democracy.
Consider this. Having spent around $171 million of taxpayers’ money and employed anti-terrorism legislation to arrest and prosecute journalists who illegally hacked the phones of politicians, celebrities, and crime victims, the government now wants to impose draconian restrictions on what the newspapers can publish in the future.
These include a Royal Charter, which means basically a set of rules agreed by government and newspapers, but which Parliament would have the right to change later without recourse to the press. So for the first time in more than 300 years government would have the power to regulate what newspapers publish. That means if newspapers annoyed parliamentarians, say by exposing another expenses scandal, Parliament could get revenge by making the rules more draconian.
Meanwhile, British Home Secretary Theresa May recently called for the security services to be given even greater surveillance powers to counter the threat from “returning jihadists.” Considering the spooks are already circumventing current legal safeguards when intercepting emails and phone calls, it is chilling to imagine what further powers could allow them to do.
Indeed none of the nation’s freedoms appear to be beyond the grasp of government, not even the principle of an independent judiciary. Foreign Secretary William Hague and May are understood to have “told” the appeal court judges that if they refused to allow the bulk of the trial of Incedal and Rarmoul-Bouhadjar to be heard in camera the government would have to abandon the case, thereby setting two terror suspects free.
The government insists the need for this trial to be held in camera is “exceptional.” But it puts the principle of open trials on a decidedly shaky foundation. What happens when another “exceptional” need for a secret case arises now that we have allowed a precedent to be set?
There is a school of thought that argues the government wants to set a precedent in this case in order to protect its intelligence agencies from a range of potential legal actions over their complicity in “rendering” terror suspects to the United States through the use of Diego Garcia, a British-controlled atoll in the Indian Ocean leased to the U.S. The island is alleged to have been used to hold and torture suspects out of sight of the law. Based on assurances from the U.S., the British government has consistently denied the claims.
Yet in 2012 the government paid $3.5 million to Sami al-Saadi and his family who claimed they were forcibly transferred to Libya in 2004 via Diego Garcia when the U.K. and the U.S. were trying to curry favor with Moammar al-Gadhafi’s regime. And last year, a legal case was brought by two other Gadhafi opponents, Abdul Hakim Belhadj and his wife, who also claimed they were detained on Diego Garcia. It was turned down after the judge said their “well-founded claim” would jeopardize British national security.
There are obviously times when aspects of trials will need to be kept from the public. But safeguards already exist to allow reporters to attend a trial but which prohibit or postpone reporting. They have even been used in terror trials.
The national security concerns behind this over-reaction have not been made public and it remains uncertain whether the central proceedings of the trial of Incedal and Rarmoul-Bouhadjar, now due to take place in October, will ever be reportable.
Indeed, the question of who will choose which journalists can attend the trial remains unclear. Will it be the courts, the home secretary, the security services? In all cases the government will be dictating which journalists can attend and that is yet another worrying precedent.
Prime Minister David Cameron has talked lately about the need to instill “British values” in young Muslims living in the U.K. to prevent them from falling prey to Islamic extremism. But what message does a secret trial and the lurch to arbitrary and capricious government send to those young Muslims about British values? That democracy cannot stand up to terrorism unless it subverts what it stands for?
Justice should be seen to be done, before it can be said to be done. The need for open trials was succinctly summed up by Jeremy Bentham, the English Utilitarian philosopher, who said: “Publicity is the very soul of justice. It keeps the judge, while trying, under trial.”
The last time the British government attempted to hold secret trials was more than 300 years ago. It led to a revolution and the execution of a king and also gave birth to two more important revolutions, in America and France. The government should ensure that its needless panic doesn’t provoke a similar backlash come next year’s elections.
Michael Glackin is former managing editor of Beirut based newspaper THE DAILY STAR.
Monday, July 7, 2014
By Michael Glackin
For a nation that traditionally prided itself on self-discipline and a stiff upper lip, the United Kingdom has suddenly developed a worrying tendency to press the panic button and overreact to the point of hysteria when it comes to national security.
Consider the case of Erol Incedal, a British national of Turkish origin, and Mounir Rarmoul-Bouhadjar, a British national of Algerian origin. Both men were due to face trial in June at the Old Bailey for terror offenses after being arrested in London last October. Incedal and Rarmoul-Bouhadjar are accused of possessing terrorist documents, including a file named “bomb making” on their mobile phones. Incedal is also charged with preparing to commit or assist in terrorist acts. Rarmoul-Bouhadjar, who until last year worked for a housing charity in the London borough of Kensington and Chelsea, also faces a further charge of improperly obtaining a British passport.
Both men deny the charges. So what? Well, until two weeks ago you were not allowed to know anything about Incedal or Rarmoul-Bouhadjar, not their names nor the fact that they had been arrested. In fact, no one in the U.K. was even allowed to know that the pair were about to face trial. And, for the first time in British legal history, their trial was to be held in camera, in secret, behind closed doors.
That’s right. The government wanted the two men arrested, tried and convicted – well, after so much secrecy there is surely little chance they could be released – without anyone ever knowing it had happened, all in the name of an as yet unspecified threat to national security.
Following legal action by media groups, the U.K. appeal court ruled that some aspects of the case could be made public, but insisted that holding the “core” of the trial in secret was justified.
A similar defense was offered after the allegations made by former National Security Agency contractor Edward Snowden, who exposed the shocking extent of government intrusion into the day-to-day lives of individuals. Unknown national security reasons “justify,” again, the abandonment of democratic scrutiny and accountability.
The parts of the trial that will be in public are the swearing-in of the jury, the reading of the charges, part of the prosecution’s opening statement, the verdicts, and any sentencing. The overwhelming majority of the trial will still be held behind closed doors.
In a bizarre twist, selected journalists will also be allowed to attend most of the proceedings, but will not be allowed to report on them. The reporters will have to sign confidentiality agreements and must leave their notes in the courtroom every day.
These few chinks of light serve only to illuminate the expanse of the black hole into which civil liberties are being sucked in this shabby affair. Increasingly, worrying precedents are being set by the British government that infringe on long-held rights. The U.K.’s approach to individual liberty these days fast resembles that of the former Soviet Union at its very worst rather than a mature liberal democracy.
Consider this. Having spent around $171 million of taxpayers’ money and employed anti-terrorism legislation to arrest and prosecute journalists who illegally hacked the phones of politicians, celebrities, and crime victims, the government now wants to impose draconian restrictions on what the newspapers can publish in the future.
These include a Royal Charter, which means basically a set of rules agreed by government and newspapers, but which Parliament would have the right to change later without recourse to the press. So for the first time in more than 300 years government would have the power to regulate what newspapers publish. That means if newspapers annoyed parliamentarians, say by exposing another expenses scandal, Parliament could get revenge by making the rules more draconian.
Meanwhile, British Home Secretary Theresa May recently called for the security services to be given even greater surveillance powers to counter the threat from “returning jihadists.” Considering the spooks are already circumventing current legal safeguards when intercepting emails and phone calls, it is chilling to imagine what further powers could allow them to do.
Indeed none of the nation’s freedoms appear to be beyond the grasp of government, not even the principle of an independent judiciary. Foreign Secretary William Hague and May are understood to have “told” the appeal court judges that if they refused to allow the bulk of the trial of Incedal and Rarmoul-Bouhadjar to be heard in camera the government would have to abandon the case, thereby setting two terror suspects free.
The government insists the need for this trial to be held in camera is “exceptional.” But it puts the principle of open trials on a decidedly shaky foundation. What happens when another “exceptional” need for a secret case arises now that we have allowed a precedent to be set?
There is a school of thought that argues the government wants to set a precedent in this case in order to protect its intelligence agencies from a range of potential legal actions over their complicity in “rendering” terror suspects to the United States through the use of Diego Garcia, a British-controlled atoll in the Indian Ocean leased to the U.S. The island is alleged to have been used to hold and torture suspects out of sight of the law. Based on assurances from the U.S., the British government has consistently denied the claims.
Yet in 2012 the government paid $3.5 million to Sami al-Saadi and his family who claimed they were forcibly transferred to Libya in 2004 via Diego Garcia when the U.K. and the U.S. were trying to curry favor with Moammar al-Gadhafi’s regime. And last year, a legal case was brought by two other Gadhafi opponents, Abdul Hakim Belhadj and his wife, who also claimed they were detained on Diego Garcia. It was turned down after the judge said their “well-founded claim” would jeopardize British national security.
There are obviously times when aspects of trials will need to be kept from the public. But safeguards already exist to allow reporters to attend a trial but which prohibit or postpone reporting. They have even been used in terror trials.
The national security concerns behind this over-reaction have not been made public and it remains uncertain whether the central proceedings of the trial of Incedal and Rarmoul-Bouhadjar, now due to take place in October, will ever be reportable.
Indeed, the question of who will choose which journalists can attend the trial remains unclear. Will it be the courts, the home secretary, the security services? In all cases the government will be dictating which journalists can attend and that is yet another worrying precedent.
Prime Minister David Cameron has talked lately about the need to instill “British values” in young Muslims living in the U.K. to prevent them from falling prey to Islamic extremism. But what message does a secret trial and the lurch to arbitrary and capricious government send to those young Muslims about British values? That democracy cannot stand up to terrorism unless it subverts what it stands for?
Justice should be seen to be done, before it can be said to be done. The need for open trials was succinctly summed up by Jeremy Bentham, the English Utilitarian philosopher, who said: “Publicity is the very soul of justice. It keeps the judge, while trying, under trial.”
The last time the British government attempted to hold secret trials was more than 300 years ago. It led to a revolution and the execution of a king and also gave birth to two more important revolutions, in America and France. The government should ensure that its needless panic doesn’t provoke a similar backlash come next year’s elections.
Michael Glackin is former managing editor of Beirut based newspaper THE DAILY STAR.
Tuesday, 10 June 2014
For Britain, pointlessness in Syria
The Daily Star
Tuesday, June 10, 2014
By Michael Glackin
Last month British Foreign Minister William Hague unveiled his government’s latest big idea to achieve its goal of regime change in Syria and end the country’s bloody three-year civil war.
In response to a conflict that has now cost an estimated 160,000 lives, created more than 9 million refugees, destabilized large swathes of the Middle East and emboldened both Russia and China, Hague proudly announced the United Kingdom had “decided to upgrade the status of the Syrian National Coalition’s Representative Office in London to a ‘Mission.’”
You can imagine the fear this must have struck into what passes for Syrian President Bashar Assad’s heart. An opposition the U.K. helped to create but doesn’t trust enough to arm is now the “official” representative of a people under siege.
Assad who has just been “re-elected,” is secure in the knowledge that the West has no plans to give weapons to moderate opposition groups, or revisit the potential for imposing a no-fly zone – probably the only measure that could now force him to the negotiating table, not to mention prevent further civilian deaths.
Meanwhile, as recent attacks show, Assad’s chemical weapons capability remains a threat and the regime’s bombing, torture and murder of opponents continues unabated as the U.K. frets over the growing strength of extremist jihadists and their potential to cause mayhem at home.
It is stating the obvious to say the upgrade to mission status is symbolic. Yet Hague again stopped short of recognizing the opposition as Syria’s government and, interestingly, the move does not grant SNC members full diplomatic immunity.
It matters little. When it comes to the Middle East, the U.K. is more ostrich than lion these days. Indeed, Hague looks increasingly out of his depth as myriad crises erupt across the globe. Speculation is rife that he intends to stand down in the coming year having tired of pursuing a foreign policy largely dictated by London’s need to slavishly follow Washington’s desires. Even the upgrading of the SNC to mission status followed a similar decision by the United States weeks earlier.
The U.K. appears to have washed its hands of Syria and indeed much else in the Arab world. The Foreign Office insists it remains “engaged with the region” but its ability to influence events is nonexistent.
The fate of Syria, and indeed British involvement in the rest of the Arab world, was decided in the space of 13 critical weeks in 2013 when Parliament voted against a token show of force against Assad for having used chemical weapons, and when the Saudi-backed Islamic Front overran the headquarters of the Supreme Military Council of the Free Syrian Army at Bab al-Hawa. For all the talk in Washington and London about how much the FSA has “improved” since the Bab al-Hawa raid, and a desire to “change the dynamics on the ground in Syria,” the fact is neither the U.S. nor the U.K. trusts the SNC with weapons.
But even if the U.K. did trust the SNC, Prime Minister David Cameron’s government couldn’t even sell them a catapult without first winning a vote in Parliament. In fact, last year’s defeat in Parliament, when the lives of Syrians were sacrificed for sordid domestic British political considerations, effectively means Cameron’s government is incapable of taking any form of executive action in foreign affairs.
Cameron also has more pressing domestic issues to worry about. He must contest a parliamentary election next year amid a rising tide of public discontent that last month saw the right-wing isolationist and anti-European Union United Kingdom Independence Party triumph in British elections to the European Parliament.
Not long ago, Cameron took the lead in pushing for an intervention in Libya. But UKIP’s rise has meant that as Libya descended into chaos – largely because of a Western failure to provide follow-up support – Cameron has ducked below the parapet and remained silent.
He has adopted a similar approach in Egypt as the Arab world’s most populous nation slips back into autocracy. Egyptian Foreign Minister Nabil Fahmy’s meeting with Hague in London last month, which included ministerial level talks with a number of British businesses, was more focused on investment opportunities than the plight of the over 600 people on death row for opposing last year’s military coup – let alone the Al-Jazeera journalists on trial for simply doing their job.
Taking the lead in foreign affairs is no longer on the British government’s agenda, and Hague’s empty rhetoric and promises of support from the Friends of Syria group aren’t fooling anyone, least of all the SNC.
The SNC representative in the U.K., Walid Saffour, told me last week that the U.S. and the U.K. “have not formed a clear vision of the next step after the useless outcome of Geneva II.” He believes the West no longer knows what to do in the face of Assad’s “determination to destroy and kill in order to survive.” Saffour is aware that granting the SNC mission status does nothing for Syrians suffering from the conflict in their country.
Even the government’s “refocus” on humanitarian aid over the last six months looks half-hearted. As recently as last week, the heads of leading NGOs, including Save The Children and the International Rescue Committee, warned the British government that the humanitarian situation in Syria had deteriorated.
Much of this is due to the U.N. requirement that aid shipments be provided with the consent of the Assad regime, despite SNC claims that the Baath Party is hijacking the aid and “selling it in coastal towns.” The U.K. has now said next year it will provide a greater share of its aid – 50 percent, up from 30 percent today – to NGOs that do not seek the Syrian government’s assent. That is the extent of its help to the Syrian people.
The U.K. has cut and run in Iraq, Afghanistan and Libya. The reality isn’t just that the U.K. has failed in Syria, but that it has lost all interest in its outcome. Maybe it’s time to face facts, drop the pretense and ask Russian President Vladimir Putin what he wants to end this war.
Michael Glackin is former managing editor of Beirut based newspaper THE DAILY STAR. A version of this article appeared in the print edition of The Daily Star on June 10, 2014, on page 7.
Tuesday, June 10, 2014
By Michael Glackin
Last month British Foreign Minister William Hague unveiled his government’s latest big idea to achieve its goal of regime change in Syria and end the country’s bloody three-year civil war.
In response to a conflict that has now cost an estimated 160,000 lives, created more than 9 million refugees, destabilized large swathes of the Middle East and emboldened both Russia and China, Hague proudly announced the United Kingdom had “decided to upgrade the status of the Syrian National Coalition’s Representative Office in London to a ‘Mission.’”
You can imagine the fear this must have struck into what passes for Syrian President Bashar Assad’s heart. An opposition the U.K. helped to create but doesn’t trust enough to arm is now the “official” representative of a people under siege.
Assad who has just been “re-elected,” is secure in the knowledge that the West has no plans to give weapons to moderate opposition groups, or revisit the potential for imposing a no-fly zone – probably the only measure that could now force him to the negotiating table, not to mention prevent further civilian deaths.
Meanwhile, as recent attacks show, Assad’s chemical weapons capability remains a threat and the regime’s bombing, torture and murder of opponents continues unabated as the U.K. frets over the growing strength of extremist jihadists and their potential to cause mayhem at home.
It is stating the obvious to say the upgrade to mission status is symbolic. Yet Hague again stopped short of recognizing the opposition as Syria’s government and, interestingly, the move does not grant SNC members full diplomatic immunity.
It matters little. When it comes to the Middle East, the U.K. is more ostrich than lion these days. Indeed, Hague looks increasingly out of his depth as myriad crises erupt across the globe. Speculation is rife that he intends to stand down in the coming year having tired of pursuing a foreign policy largely dictated by London’s need to slavishly follow Washington’s desires. Even the upgrading of the SNC to mission status followed a similar decision by the United States weeks earlier.
The U.K. appears to have washed its hands of Syria and indeed much else in the Arab world. The Foreign Office insists it remains “engaged with the region” but its ability to influence events is nonexistent.
The fate of Syria, and indeed British involvement in the rest of the Arab world, was decided in the space of 13 critical weeks in 2013 when Parliament voted against a token show of force against Assad for having used chemical weapons, and when the Saudi-backed Islamic Front overran the headquarters of the Supreme Military Council of the Free Syrian Army at Bab al-Hawa. For all the talk in Washington and London about how much the FSA has “improved” since the Bab al-Hawa raid, and a desire to “change the dynamics on the ground in Syria,” the fact is neither the U.S. nor the U.K. trusts the SNC with weapons.
But even if the U.K. did trust the SNC, Prime Minister David Cameron’s government couldn’t even sell them a catapult without first winning a vote in Parliament. In fact, last year’s defeat in Parliament, when the lives of Syrians were sacrificed for sordid domestic British political considerations, effectively means Cameron’s government is incapable of taking any form of executive action in foreign affairs.
Cameron also has more pressing domestic issues to worry about. He must contest a parliamentary election next year amid a rising tide of public discontent that last month saw the right-wing isolationist and anti-European Union United Kingdom Independence Party triumph in British elections to the European Parliament.
Not long ago, Cameron took the lead in pushing for an intervention in Libya. But UKIP’s rise has meant that as Libya descended into chaos – largely because of a Western failure to provide follow-up support – Cameron has ducked below the parapet and remained silent.
He has adopted a similar approach in Egypt as the Arab world’s most populous nation slips back into autocracy. Egyptian Foreign Minister Nabil Fahmy’s meeting with Hague in London last month, which included ministerial level talks with a number of British businesses, was more focused on investment opportunities than the plight of the over 600 people on death row for opposing last year’s military coup – let alone the Al-Jazeera journalists on trial for simply doing their job.
Taking the lead in foreign affairs is no longer on the British government’s agenda, and Hague’s empty rhetoric and promises of support from the Friends of Syria group aren’t fooling anyone, least of all the SNC.
The SNC representative in the U.K., Walid Saffour, told me last week that the U.S. and the U.K. “have not formed a clear vision of the next step after the useless outcome of Geneva II.” He believes the West no longer knows what to do in the face of Assad’s “determination to destroy and kill in order to survive.” Saffour is aware that granting the SNC mission status does nothing for Syrians suffering from the conflict in their country.
Even the government’s “refocus” on humanitarian aid over the last six months looks half-hearted. As recently as last week, the heads of leading NGOs, including Save The Children and the International Rescue Committee, warned the British government that the humanitarian situation in Syria had deteriorated.
Much of this is due to the U.N. requirement that aid shipments be provided with the consent of the Assad regime, despite SNC claims that the Baath Party is hijacking the aid and “selling it in coastal towns.” The U.K. has now said next year it will provide a greater share of its aid – 50 percent, up from 30 percent today – to NGOs that do not seek the Syrian government’s assent. That is the extent of its help to the Syrian people.
The U.K. has cut and run in Iraq, Afghanistan and Libya. The reality isn’t just that the U.K. has failed in Syria, but that it has lost all interest in its outcome. Maybe it’s time to face facts, drop the pretense and ask Russian President Vladimir Putin what he wants to end this war.
Michael Glackin is former managing editor of Beirut based newspaper THE DAILY STAR. A version of this article appeared in the print edition of The Daily Star on June 10, 2014, on page 7.
Tuesday, 13 May 2014
Why peace without justice is an illusion
The Daily Star
Monday, May 13, 2014
By Michael Glackin
“History,” Winston Churchill is reputed to have told Soviet dictator Joseph Stalin during World War II, “is written by the victors.” He might have added that justice is pretty much left in their hands too.
In the last week, news in the United Kingdom has been dominated by the arrest of Gerry Adams, the leader of Sinn Fein, the political arm of the paramilitary Irish Republican Party (IRA). Adams, now an elected parliamentarian in the Irish Republic, is the architect and linchpin of the Northern Ireland peace process, which in 1998 ended 30 years of violence that killed more than 3,000 people. Adams delivered the gunmen to the negotiating table and his party now jointly governs Northern Ireland.
Adams was arrested by police investigating the kidnapping and murder 40 years ago of Jean McConville, a widowed mother of 10 children, and one of Ireland’s “disappeared.” Adams is accused of involvement in her death and of being in charge of an IRA unit that kidnapped, tortured and “disappeared” 15 other people whom it believed were informers during the blood-soaked troubles of the 1970s and 1980s. To date, the bodies of just nine of the disappeared have been found.
Adams’ brush with the law poses an uncomfortable question, but one that is familiar to the Lebanese: How far should justice for past crimes be pursued if it risks the peace and stability of the present?
His arrest raised fears for the still fragile peace he negotiated. His party indicated that its support for the police, support that has been critical for the peace process, would be “reviewed” if Adams were charged – a decision that is now in the hands of Northern Ireland’s Public Prosecution Service. Oddly enough, the head of public prosecutions, Barra McGrory, used to be Adams’ solicitor – such are the spoils of war. He has said he will delegate the prosecution decision to his deputy.
Lebanon has its own disappeared, of course. The official figure is around 15,000, even if some who have followed the issue believe the figure is lower. These cases have never been properly investigated, and successive governments have failed to lift a finger to elucidate the fate of the disappeared, despite the fact that nearly all those responsible for crimes during the Civil War have benefited from a general amnesty.
Like Northern Ireland, Lebanon’s failure to examine past crimes, indeed current crimes, is partly attributable to the presence in government of many of those involved in the violence.
But in both countries, the resistance also stems from the not unimportant fact that investigating past events is likely to reopen old wounds, cause civil unrest and, in the final analysis, is not going to bring victims back to their loved ones. In Lebanon, the decision earlier this year by the Shura Council finally allowing families of the disappeared access to two separate commissions of inquiry into the fate of their loved ones is progress of a sort. It may shed some light on the fate of many of the disappeared but without a strong nudge from government, it will not provide justice.
Moreover, it is unlikely to offer much solace to the families of those buried in mass graves uncovered after Syria’s withdrawal from Lebanon in 2005, including the 30 bodies found near the former Syrian army intelligence headquarters in Anjar. The commission set up to investigate that tragic episode never produced a report.
In Lebanon, even the assassinations of politicians tend to go largely uninvestigated and certainly unpunished. The much-trumpeted Special Tribunal for Lebanon does not appear to be an exception. The dock in The Hague is glaringly empty.
“Collective amnesia” is also on offer in Northern Ireland. People are encouraged to ignore a complex and gruesome past, lest the truth reignite old hostilities and fracture the fragile fault lines of the present. In short, it is better to forget individual crimes for the greater good, to put the interests of the state, its harmony and stability, above those of justice.
The rickety scaffolding that supports this distinctly dodgy argument is that in post-Civil War societies – Lebanon, Northern Ireland and others – there is a straight choice between justice and peace. You cannot have both.
Chilean dictator Augusto Pinochet was ensured immunity from prosecution as part of the country’s transition to democracy. Spain had its “pact of silence” and later, as it moved to its post-Francisco Franco democracy, an amnesty law. And in Argentina, a series of amnesty laws in the late 1980s protected those who committed heinous crimes during the “Dirty War” of the 1970s.
In each of these cases, the denial of justice to victims of former regimes was deemed to be a fair price to pay for peace.
But the argument that justice should not be allowed to undermine peace is a false one. A society where justice is denied, or shelved, cannot in reality have a peace worthy of the name. People are simply asked to suppress what they remember only too well. That doesn’t suggest peace, merely a cease-fire. Better than nothing certainly, but neither stable nor permanent.
Events prove that lack of justice is what really undermines peace and stability, and will do so as long as crimes go unpunished.
When Pinochet died in 2006, he was finally facing trial as public unrest grew at the amnesty in a democratic Chile. Similar pressure saw Argentina’s parliament scrap its amnesty laws 11 years ago and prosecute hundreds of former high-ranking military officials. Meanwhile, Spain remains under pressure to abandon its amnesty, as hundreds of Spaniards turn to the Argentine courts to seek justice for crimes committed during Franco’s rule, causing a big headache for Spain’s government and its courts.
The question we should be asking isn’t whether there is a stark choice between justice and peace in places such as Lebanon and Northern Ireland; but why the political structures in both countries remain too weak to withstand the pursuit of justice.
While meeting Stalin, Churchill also confessed he had helped organize attacks on the Soviet Union after World War I. “I hope you can forgive me,” he joked. Stalin, who once studied for the priesthood, replied: “It is for God to forgive.”
On Earth, we have to be content with justice. It shouldn’t be denied to anyone.
Michael Glackin is former managing editor of Beirut based newspaper THE DAILY STAR. A version of this article appeared in the print edition of The Daily Star on May 13, 2014, on page 7.
Monday, May 13, 2014
By Michael Glackin
“History,” Winston Churchill is reputed to have told Soviet dictator Joseph Stalin during World War II, “is written by the victors.” He might have added that justice is pretty much left in their hands too.
In the last week, news in the United Kingdom has been dominated by the arrest of Gerry Adams, the leader of Sinn Fein, the political arm of the paramilitary Irish Republican Party (IRA). Adams, now an elected parliamentarian in the Irish Republic, is the architect and linchpin of the Northern Ireland peace process, which in 1998 ended 30 years of violence that killed more than 3,000 people. Adams delivered the gunmen to the negotiating table and his party now jointly governs Northern Ireland.
Adams was arrested by police investigating the kidnapping and murder 40 years ago of Jean McConville, a widowed mother of 10 children, and one of Ireland’s “disappeared.” Adams is accused of involvement in her death and of being in charge of an IRA unit that kidnapped, tortured and “disappeared” 15 other people whom it believed were informers during the blood-soaked troubles of the 1970s and 1980s. To date, the bodies of just nine of the disappeared have been found.
Adams’ brush with the law poses an uncomfortable question, but one that is familiar to the Lebanese: How far should justice for past crimes be pursued if it risks the peace and stability of the present?
His arrest raised fears for the still fragile peace he negotiated. His party indicated that its support for the police, support that has been critical for the peace process, would be “reviewed” if Adams were charged – a decision that is now in the hands of Northern Ireland’s Public Prosecution Service. Oddly enough, the head of public prosecutions, Barra McGrory, used to be Adams’ solicitor – such are the spoils of war. He has said he will delegate the prosecution decision to his deputy.
Lebanon has its own disappeared, of course. The official figure is around 15,000, even if some who have followed the issue believe the figure is lower. These cases have never been properly investigated, and successive governments have failed to lift a finger to elucidate the fate of the disappeared, despite the fact that nearly all those responsible for crimes during the Civil War have benefited from a general amnesty.
Like Northern Ireland, Lebanon’s failure to examine past crimes, indeed current crimes, is partly attributable to the presence in government of many of those involved in the violence.
But in both countries, the resistance also stems from the not unimportant fact that investigating past events is likely to reopen old wounds, cause civil unrest and, in the final analysis, is not going to bring victims back to their loved ones. In Lebanon, the decision earlier this year by the Shura Council finally allowing families of the disappeared access to two separate commissions of inquiry into the fate of their loved ones is progress of a sort. It may shed some light on the fate of many of the disappeared but without a strong nudge from government, it will not provide justice.
Moreover, it is unlikely to offer much solace to the families of those buried in mass graves uncovered after Syria’s withdrawal from Lebanon in 2005, including the 30 bodies found near the former Syrian army intelligence headquarters in Anjar. The commission set up to investigate that tragic episode never produced a report.
In Lebanon, even the assassinations of politicians tend to go largely uninvestigated and certainly unpunished. The much-trumpeted Special Tribunal for Lebanon does not appear to be an exception. The dock in The Hague is glaringly empty.
“Collective amnesia” is also on offer in Northern Ireland. People are encouraged to ignore a complex and gruesome past, lest the truth reignite old hostilities and fracture the fragile fault lines of the present. In short, it is better to forget individual crimes for the greater good, to put the interests of the state, its harmony and stability, above those of justice.
The rickety scaffolding that supports this distinctly dodgy argument is that in post-Civil War societies – Lebanon, Northern Ireland and others – there is a straight choice between justice and peace. You cannot have both.
Chilean dictator Augusto Pinochet was ensured immunity from prosecution as part of the country’s transition to democracy. Spain had its “pact of silence” and later, as it moved to its post-Francisco Franco democracy, an amnesty law. And in Argentina, a series of amnesty laws in the late 1980s protected those who committed heinous crimes during the “Dirty War” of the 1970s.
In each of these cases, the denial of justice to victims of former regimes was deemed to be a fair price to pay for peace.
But the argument that justice should not be allowed to undermine peace is a false one. A society where justice is denied, or shelved, cannot in reality have a peace worthy of the name. People are simply asked to suppress what they remember only too well. That doesn’t suggest peace, merely a cease-fire. Better than nothing certainly, but neither stable nor permanent.
Events prove that lack of justice is what really undermines peace and stability, and will do so as long as crimes go unpunished.
When Pinochet died in 2006, he was finally facing trial as public unrest grew at the amnesty in a democratic Chile. Similar pressure saw Argentina’s parliament scrap its amnesty laws 11 years ago and prosecute hundreds of former high-ranking military officials. Meanwhile, Spain remains under pressure to abandon its amnesty, as hundreds of Spaniards turn to the Argentine courts to seek justice for crimes committed during Franco’s rule, causing a big headache for Spain’s government and its courts.
The question we should be asking isn’t whether there is a stark choice between justice and peace in places such as Lebanon and Northern Ireland; but why the political structures in both countries remain too weak to withstand the pursuit of justice.
While meeting Stalin, Churchill also confessed he had helped organize attacks on the Soviet Union after World War I. “I hope you can forgive me,” he joked. Stalin, who once studied for the priesthood, replied: “It is for God to forgive.”
On Earth, we have to be content with justice. It shouldn’t be denied to anyone.
Michael Glackin is former managing editor of Beirut based newspaper THE DAILY STAR. A version of this article appeared in the print edition of The Daily Star on May 13, 2014, on page 7.
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