Oriente Próximo (Continuación)

MundoOriente Próximo

EL pasado 11 de diciembre, mientras todos los medios de comunicación imaginables dedicaban su atención al informe del Grupo de Estudio de Irak, el presidente Bush se reunía en la Casa Blanca con cinco expertos de los que esperaba obtener lo que el informe de Jim Baker y Alan Simpson no le había dado: un plan de victoria en Irak. Porque la clave a la hora de analizar el manido informe bipartidista está en ver si quienes lo han redactado han cumplido con la misión que se les encomendó. Y la respuesta sólo puede ser negativa porque ni una sola vez aparece en el informe Baker una mención a la victoria en Irak.…  Seguir leyendo »

MundoOriente Próximo,

La guerra civil latente que se libra hasta en los hospitales de Palestina no acaba de ser entendida por los occidentales en general y los europeos en particular. Muchos analistas del Viejo Continente creen de verdad que Al Fatah es el pasado y que Hamas es el futuro, desconociendo la ideología y los objetivos de la organización que hoy gobierna en los territorios palestinos. Hamas nació como la rama palestina de los Hermanos Musulmanes, que, a su vez, fue fundada por Hasan Al-Bana en 1928 en Egipto, como reacción, fundamentalmente, a la supresión del Califato el 3 de marzo de 1924 por Mustafa Kemal Attaturk.…  Seguir leyendo »

MundoOriente Próximo

Arabia Saudí intenta reproducir en el ámbito de la política lo que ya practicó en el mercado del petróleo, en el que se conduce como uno de los países denominados comodín,capaces de atender las necesidades del sector según los vaivenes de la coyuntura mundial y susceptibles de fijar el precio del crudo abriendo o cerrando el grifo de la producción del oro negro. La cuestión estriba en saber si la combinación del poder del rigorista islamismo wahabí y el dinero se demostrará tan eficaz como en el caso del petróleo.

El wahabismo es la religión oficial de Arabia Saudí, que practican tanto la familia real como el 20% de la población a cuyos ojos el chiismo es una herejía.…  Seguir leyendo »

MundoAméricaMundoOriente Próximo,

Above is the redacted version of a draft Op-Ed article we wrote for The Times, as blacked out by the Central Intelligence Agency’s Publication Review Board after the White House intervened in the normal prepublication review process and demanded substantial deletions. Agency officials told us that they had concluded on their own that the original draft included no classified material, but that they had to bow to the White House.

Indeed, the deleted portions of the original draft reveal no classified material. These passages go into aspects of American-Iranian relations during the Bush administration’s first term that have been publicly discussed by Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice; former Secretary of State Colin Powell; former Deputy Secretary of State Richard Armitage; a former State Department policy planning director, Richard Haass; and a former special envoy to Afghanistan, James Dobbins.…  Seguir leyendo »

MundoOriente PróximoEuropaUnión Europea,

It has been another awful week for Tony Blair, perhaps even worse than the mid-summer meltdown triggered by his fatally misjudged support for the Israeli invasion of Lebanon. First there was the craven surrender to Saudi Arabia’s demand for the suspension of Britain’s anti-corruption laws if they impinge on the personal finances of Saudi princes. Next came the derisive rejection of Mr Blair’s latest effort to “kick-start the Middle East peace process” by every leader in the region. This was followed by the devastating report from Britain’s leading foreign policy institute, explaining how the Prime Minister had subordinated national interests to his unrequited love affair with President Bush.…  Seguir leyendo »

MundoOriente Próximo

Once again American officials are growing dissatisfied with an Iraqi government. In Baghdad and in Washington, officials privately and the press publicly suggest that the Bush administration would prefer that Prime Minister Nuri Kamal al-Maliki fell, and that Adil Abdul Mahdi, a French-educated economist who is a vice president, would replace him. Mr. Maliki is politically too dependent, the reasoning goes, on the young Shiite militia leader Moktada al-Sadr, a scion of a prestigious clerical family and the boss of a pivotal bloc of votes in Iraq’s Parliament.

Mr. Mahdi may look like a good bet for Washington. He is a far more amiable gentleman than Mr.…  Seguir leyendo »

MundoOriente PróximoEuropaUnión Europea,

Tony Blair claimed yesterday that Iran poses a "strategic challenge" to moderate Middle East governments and the west as a whole, in a message that will gratify the ruling hardliners in Tehran. They believe the US and Britain have conspired to undermine the Islamic republic created after the 1979 revolution - and have failed to recognise its legitimate interests and aspirations. The prime minister's onslaught will be seen in those quarters as an acknowledgement that post-Khomeini Iran is finally emerging as a powerful regional player.

Mr Blair certainly did not mean to be complimentary. Little more than a month after floating a civil "partnership" with Tehran in his annual Guildhall speech, he filed a petition for divorce in Dubai.…  Seguir leyendo »

MundoOriente Próximo

Cuatro meses después de la guerra del verano entre Israel y Hizbulah, la más larga que el Estado judío ha librado desde la de 1948-1949 y la única que no se ha saldado sin una clara ventaja militar, parece que esta ciudad no anda sobrada de optimismo. En el lado israelí se aprecia un talante teñido por los reproches y la necesaria reorganización de la estrategia militar. Vivimos ahora un periodo carente de líderes y personalidades enérgicas y marcadas, sean militares o civiles. Los israelíes continúan debatiendo sobre quién se equivocó en la guerra tal como se planteó y ejecutó; siguen, por lo demás, teniendo a Olmert en baja estima.…  Seguir leyendo »

MundoOriente Próximo,  

Bashir Assad, the President of Syria, has repeatedly offered peace talks with Israel. Most recently he has added that he has no preconditions for negotiations — he is not even demanding that Israel promise in advance to return the Golan Heights. The response of Ehud Olmert has been astonishing. We can’t, Israel’s Prime Minister says, act against our friend, George W. Bush, who has no interest in an accommodation between Israel and Syria.

Therefore, Israel refuses to grasp the hand that Syria has offered.

There were times — when Israel still behaved like an independent country, rather than as a client of the United States — that the demand for direct, unconditional talks with the Arab countries was the heart of Israel’s policy.…  Seguir leyendo »

MundoOriente Próximo

Robert Gates, the new secretary of defense, warned this week that an American failure in Iraq would be a "calamity" that would haunt the United States for decades. Unfortunately, he's right. But what is a realistic definition of success? If we "surge" tens of thousands more troops into Iraq and march them up the hill, how will we march them back down?

What is a satisfactory and achievable outcome in Iraq? That's a question we all should have examined more carefully in 2003, and we're back to that same issue now as President Bush reviews a change in strategy. I worry that in this debate Bush will be tempted anew to seek a military victory that is unrealistic -- and might not be desirable even if it were possible.…  Seguir leyendo »

MundoOriente Próximo

The Iraq Study Group's recommendations will accomplish nothing in Iraq. Its expressions of "gratitude" to those of us Iraqis who fought on the battlefield for freedom and liberty ring hollow. The report ignores our accomplishments, dreams and sacrifices in favor of a concern for those whose ultimate goal is the destruction of democracy.

Our federal constitution, which the majority of the Iraqi people voted for, is treated flippantly, as though it were a negotiable document rather than the hard-fought result of lengthy negotiation among those willing to participate in the new Iraq. Further, the study group's approach is driven by the concerns of the countries in this region rather than by the concerns of the Iraqi people.…  Seguir leyendo »

MundoOriente Próximo

President Hamid Karzai's lined, care-worn face is as good a record as any of five years of terror and counter-terror in Afghanistan. The strain is plain for all to see. Speaking in Kabul last week, George Bush's favourite Muslim democrat was in tears as he talked about Afghan children killed in the west's latest campaign against the Taliban."We're not as strong as the foreigners ... We can't prevent the terrorists coming from Pakistan. We can't prevent the [Nato] coalition from bombing terrorists. And our children are dying because of that," Mr Karzai said. "Cruelty at the highest level. The cruelty is too much ..."…  Seguir leyendo »

MundoOriente PróximoEuropaUnión Europea,

Once a war goes badly wrong and its justifications are shown to be lies, to insist that a "democratic" Iraq is visible on the horizon and that "we must stay the course" becomes a total fantasy. What is to be done?In the US a group of Foggy Bottom elders was wheeled in to prepare a report. This admitted what the whole world (Downing Street excepted) already knew: the occupation is a disaster and the situation gets more hellish every day. After US citizens voted accordingly in the mid-term elections, the White House sacrificed the Pentagon warlord, Donald Rumsfeld.

The warlord of Downing Street, however, is still at large, zombie-like in his denials that anything serious is wrong in Baghdad or Kabul.…  Seguir leyendo »

MundoOriente Próximo

Here's an idea: Let's send more U.S. troops to Iraq. The generals say it's way too late to even think about resurrecting Colin Powell's "overwhelming force" doctrine, so let's send over a modest "surge" in troop strength that has almost no chance of making any difference -- except in the casualty count. Oh, and let's not give these soldiers and Marines any sort of well-defined mission. Let's just send them out into the bloody chaos of Baghdad and the deadly badlands of Anbar province with orders not to come back until they "get the job done."

I don't know about you, but that strikes me as a terrible idea, arguably the worst imaginable "way forward" in Iraq.…  Seguir leyendo »

MundoOriente Próximo

The wise men (and woman) don't know their history. In boldly suggesting that "all key issues in the Middle East are inextricably linked," the authors of the Iraq Study Group report seem stunningly indifferent to the past 25 years of Middle East politics.

The basic proposition -- linkage -- is not new. President George H.W. Bush and his secretary of state, James Baker, tried 15 years ago to build an Arab-Israeli peace process on American success in the Persian Gulf War. In the current Bush administration, some advocates of toppling Saddam Hussein echoed that argument when they predicted that a change in Iraq would open new avenues for Israeli-Palestinian peacemaking.…  Seguir leyendo »

MundoOriente Próximo,

As Hamas and Fatah supporters took to the streets to protest at or support Mahmoud Abbas's decision to call for early presidential elections, congratulatory gestures landed at Abbas's door from the three major international players that have imposed the sanctions regime against the Palestinians. The White House, Tony Blair and the Israeli government urged the world community to support Abbas in his latest bid to rid them of a Hamas-led government. These three carry the burden of Palestinian blood shed as a result of the crisis.

Despite months of sanctions, the grip of the "international community" could not prevent Hamas from bringing in enough money to maintain basic health and educational services.…  Seguir leyendo »

MundoOriente Próximo, ,

Mahmoud Abbas declared yesterday: "Let the people decide for themselves what they want." But there already is a national consensus: there must be Palestinian elections, not for a president of the Palestinian Authority, or for members of its legislative council, but for the Palestinian National Council, the institutional body that forms the sovereign base of the Palestine Liberation Organisation and is the sole legitimate representative of the Palestinian people. The Palestinian people have already elected a legislative council that represents a proportion of the body politic. They now demand elections for the entire Palestinian population.

When Fatah lost power to Hamas in January, Fatah needed to avail itself of the democratic benefits that accrue to those who lose power in an election: the opportunity to reconnect with their constituents, to learn why it had lost and how to regain their people's trust.…  Seguir leyendo »

MundoAméricaMundoOriente Próximo,

When America's top general in charge of Iraq, John Abizaid, told Congress last month that our Army was unable to increase the number of troops deployed in Iraq, it was a first-of-its-kind admission from a senior defense official: that our ground forces had reached their capacity for military action. "This is not an Army that was built to sustain a 'long war,' " Abizaid told students at a Harvard lecture two days later. This is an Army built to achieve victory with speed and precision. This is a short-war Army fighting a long war.

On Dec. 6, the day after Robert Gates told Congress that he is "open to the possibility of an increase" in the size of our ground forces, the Iraq Study Group released its report, which declared that "America's military capacity is stretched thin."…  Seguir leyendo »

MundoOriente PróximoEuropaUnión Europea, ,

Air Blair to the Middle East is hardly a comfortable experience. This tour — dashing through Turkey to Egypt, the detour to Iraq, back to Israel and the West Bank — will be more bumpy (physically and politically) than is customary. Nor was there much likelihood from the outset that the Prime Minister would be able to return home in triumph. It is instead an invitation to others to portray the region as a disaster partly of his own making.

So why is he there? The roots of this trip lie in Tony Blair’s farewell address to the Labour Party conference when he promised that he would work as hard on the Middle East peace process in his remaining months in office as he had on its equivalent in Northern Ireland.…  Seguir leyendo »

MundoOriente Próximo

The niceties are up for debate: phased or partial withdrawal from Iraq would entail pulling troops back to their bases across the country, or leapfrogging backward to the nearest international border, or redeploying to bases in nearby countries.

But whatever the final prescription, the debate must include a sober look at the street-level impact of withdrawal. What will become of Iraqi villages, towns and cities as we pull out? Although past is not necessarily prologue, recent experience in Anbar Province may be instructive.

American units have already withdrawn from the western Euphrates River valley — twice, in fact. As the insurgency heated up in early 2004, the Seventh Marine Regiment pulled up stakes and went to fight insurgents in eastern Anbar, leaving the rest of the province in the hands of a battalion of troops.…  Seguir leyendo »