June 22, 2005

World Media Watch

by Gloria R. Lalumia

BuzzFlash Note: WMW provides BuzzFlash readers foreign views and perspectives that are not usually available from the media here in the U.S. The presentation of these articles from these international publications is not an endorsement of their viewpoints.

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WORLD MEDIA WATCH FOR JUNE 22, 2005

1//WorldPress.org, US--NUCLEAR WARRIOR REPLACES BOLTON AS ARMS CONTROL CHIEF (The top United States government official in charge of arms control advocates the offensive use of nuclear weapons and has deep roots in the militarist political camp. Moving into the old job of John Bolton, the administration’s hard-core unilateralist nominee to be the next ambassador to the United Nations, Robert G. Joseph is the right-wing’s advance man for counter-proliferation as the conceptual core of a new military policy. … Not a high-profile hardliner like John Bolton or former undersecretary of defense for policy Douglas Feith, Joseph successfully avoided the public limelight — that is until the scandal of the 16 words in Bush’s 2003 State of the Union Address about Iraq’s alleged nuclear weapons development program. Press reports and congressional testimony by Central Intelligence Agency officials later revealed that the C.I.A. had vigorously protested the inclusion of any assertion that Iraq was developing nuclear weapons since their intelligence would not support such a conclusion. Alan Foley, the C.I.A.’s top expert on weapons of mass destruction, told Congress that Joseph repeatedly pressed the C.I.A. to back the inclusion in Bush’s speech of a statement about Iraq’s attempts to buy uranium from Niger.)

2//Radio Free Europe/Radio Liberty, US--LEBANON: ANALYST SAYS ELECTIONS WILL HAVE INTERNATIONAL SIGNIFICANCE (Beirut residents marked Lebanon's first election in decades without Syrian interference in spontaneous celebrations over the weekend after Saad Hariri - son of slain former prime minister Rafik Hariri - declared victory for his electoral alliance. … But the electoral alliance is an unlikely list of politicians who had been rivals during the country's civil war era. Nadim Shehadi, the acting head of the Middle East Program at the Royal Institute for International Affairs, says parliamentary alliances could differ sharply from the electoral lists. Shehadi, who also directs the Center for Lebanese Studies at Oxford University, tells RFE/RL that the impact of the Lebanese election goes far beyond local politics. … "The final outcome is that the opposition to Syria - or if you like, Hariri's list - have won in Lebanon. They are the biggest winners in the end. And they are more in alliance with Saudi Arabia and in tune with the international community, or the Americans' agenda, in the region," he says. … "The whole regional agenda of the United States as declared by President Bush is influenced by what happens in Syria in the next few months. This whole Lebanon episode, which includes the way demonstrations managed to bring down the [pro-Syrian] government in Lebanon and force a pullout of the Syrian presence in Lebanon, is bound to have an influence on internal Syrian politics. From the perspective of Washington, the result is positive," Shehadi says. Still, while international pressure can help bring about the kind of changes that Washington wants to see from Damascus, Shehadi says too much pressure from the US could have a negative impact on Bush's agenda.)

3//Asia Times Online, Hong Kong-- A HINT OF GLASNOST FOR SYRIA (A week after the Ba'ath Party conference in Syria, which many people believed could mark significant change in the country, it's clear that it was foolish to think the Ba'athists would willingly abandon their status in government. On the contrary, the conference came out with a very strong message to Syrians and the world: the Ba'ath is here, as it has always been since 1963, and plans to stay around for a whole lot longer … yet the conference came out with the advice to the Syrian leadership that the Ba'ath Party's role in daily decision-making had come to an end. The party will supervise, but not interfere in, the mechanisms of government. According to the London-based daily al-Hayat, the number of cabinet seats allocated to the Ba'ath will be reduced from 17 to 10. … This is the biggest shake-up in Ba'athist history since late president Hafez Assad came to power in November 1970. The changes put a lot of responsibility on the shoulders of the Syrian president. For five years, Syrians have believed their president was a reformer, but that those around him were not. Overnight, Assad got rid of them all. True, this pleases Syrians for today, but it also leaves no excuse for delayed reforms from now on. … With all these events taking place in Syria, many are starting to draw a parallel between the Ba'ath Party conference of 2005 and the Communist Party conference in the USSR in 1986. Syria must read the details of Mikhail Gorbachev's 1986 conference because they were the cornerstone that created the new Russia that exists today.)

4//Institute for War & Peace Reporting, UK--KEEPING FAITH WITH TRIBAL JUSTICE (Sitting on a high bench before a crowd of visitors at his home, 60-year-old Sarhad Khalifa looks like a judge. But though his rulings have no legal backing, as head of the Rughzayee clan of the Jaff tribe - the largest in Iraqi Kurdistan, with almost three million members - Khalifa’s decision sometimes holds more weight than that of a formal court. Because Iraq is a largely tribal society, people mainly rely on community leaders to resolve disputes instead of going to court – all the more so now since the government is seen as failing to establish the rule of law. “The government can’t solve problems,” said Khalifa. “There has been no law and order in this country for a long time.”)

5//Interfax, Russia--NEIL BUSH TO VISIT GEORGIA (U.S. President George Bush's brother Neil Bush will make an unofficial visit to Georgia on June 22, the Georgian media reported on Tuesday. Bush is to meet with Georgian President Mikheil Saakashvili, Prime Minister Zurab Nogaideli and other officials.)

RELATED:

6//RIA Novosti, Russia--OPINION & ANALYSIS: RUSSIA TO EXPORT ITS OIL SOUTH (Predictably, BP Azerbaijan has said that it does not want to export oil produced in the Azerbaijani sector of the Caspian Sea via the Baku-Novorossiisk pipeline. This means that Russia, which is already losing its influence on the Caucasus, will suffer serious economic losses. Baku explains its decision in terms of economic expediency. BP Azerbaijan pays $4-5 per barrel if it exports Caspian oil by rail via Georgia, whereas the Baku-Novorossiisk route costs three times more. … Russia's regional influence will be impaired, because the West now considers Azerbaijan as the main Caspian-oil supplier along this strategic route. Georgia's importance as the transit territory will also grow. Moreover, permanent U.S. military bases may soon appear to guard Caspian deposits and the pipeline itself against possible terrorist attacks.)

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1//WorldPress.org, US June 18, 2005
http://www.worldpress.org/Americas/2101.cfm

NUCLEAR WARRIOR REPLACES BOLTON AS ARMS CONTROL CHIEF
Tom Barry
International Relations Center

The top United States government official in charge of arms control advocates the offensive use of nuclear weapons and has deep roots in the militarist political camp.

Moving into the old job of John Bolton, the administration’s hard-core unilateralist nominee to be the next ambassador to the United Nations, Robert G. Joseph is the right-wing’s advance man for counter-proliferation as the conceptual core of a new military policy.

Within the administration, he leads a band of counter-proliferationists who — working closely with such militarist policy institutes as the National Institute for Public Policy (N.I.P.P.) and the Center for Security Policy (C.S.P.) — have placed preemptive attacks and weapons of mass destruction at the center of national security strategy.

Joseph replaced John Bolton at the State Department as the new undersecretary of state for arms control and international security affairs.

United States security strategy, according to the new arms control chief, should “not include signing up for arms control for the sake of arms control. At best that would be a needless diversion of effort when the real threat requires all of our attention. At worst, as we discovered in the draft B.W.C. (Biological Weapons Convention) Protocol that we inherited, an arms control approach would actually harm our ability to deal with the W.M.D. threat.”

Before the Sept. 11, 2001 attacks, proponents of national missile defense and a more “flexible” nuclear defense strategy focused almost exclusively on the W.M.D. threat from “competitor” states such as Russia and especially China, and from “rogue” states such as Iran, Iraq, Libya, Syria, and North Korea. Joseph and other hard-line strategists advocated large increases in military spending to counter these threats while paying little or no attention to the warnings that the most likely attack on the United States and its armed forces abroad would come from non-state terrorist networks.

Instead of advocating improved intelligence on such terrorist networks like Al Qaeda, which had an established record of attacking the United States, militarist policy institutes such as N.I.P.P. and C.S.P. focused almost exclusively on proposals for high-tech, high-priced items such as space weapons, missile defense, and nuclear weapons development.

After 9/11 Joseph and other administration militarists quickly placed the threat from terrorism at the centre of their threat assessments without changing their recommendations for security strategy.

Joseph points to Iran and North Korea, as well as China, as the leading post-Cold War missile threats to the homeland. Typical of strategists who identify with the neoconservative political camp, Joseph continually raises the alarm about China, alleging that China is the “country that has been most prone to ballistic missile attacks on the United States.”

(SNIP)

Not a high-profile hardliner like John Bolton or former undersecretary of defense for policy Douglas Feith, Joseph successfully avoided the public limelight — that is until the scandal of the 16 words in Bush’s 2003 State of the Union Address about Iraq’s alleged nuclear weapons development program. Press reports and congressional testimony by Central Intelligence Agency officials later revealed that the C.I.A. had vigorously protested the inclusion of any assertion that Iraq was developing nuclear weapons since their intelligence would not support such a conclusion. Alan Foley, the C.I.A.’s top expert on weapons of mass destruction, told Congress that Joseph repeatedly pressed the C.I.A. to back the inclusion in Bush’s speech of a statement about Iraq’s attempts to buy uranium from Niger.

The new undersecretary of state for arms control has said that his “starting point and first conclusion” in formulating national security strategy is the fact that “nuclear, biological, and chemical weapons are a permanent feature of the international environment.”

(MORE)

2//Radio Free Europe/Radio Liberty, US Jun 20, 2005
http://www.rferl.org/features/features_Article.aspx?m=06...

LEBANON: ANALYST SAYS ELECTIONS WILL HAVE INTERNATIONAL SIGNIFICANCE
By Ron Synovitz

Beirut residents marked Lebanon's first election in decades without Syrian interference in spontaneous celebrations over the weekend after Saad Hariri - son of slain former prime minister Rafik Hariri - declared victory for his electoral alliance.

(SNIP)

The 35-year-old Sunni Muslim businessman has risen to the top of the country's political scene with record speed since the assassination of his father in mid-February.

In the wake of the attack, Hariri created an electoral alliance by rallying around a platform of protecting the country from outside interference. In particular, Hariri harnessed the momentum of mass protests in Lebanon for an end to the presence of Syrian troops.

But the electoral alliance is an unlikely list of politicians who had been rivals during the country's civil war era. Nadim Shehadi, the acting head of the Middle East Program at the Royal Institute for International Affairs, says parliamentary alliances could differ sharply from the electoral lists.

Shehadi, who also directs the Center for Lebanese Studies at Oxford University, tells RFE/RL that the impact of the Lebanese election goes far beyond local politics. "This is one of the rare instances where a very local election acquires international importance. The outcome is relevant because Lebanon is now relevant in the region after having been relegated very much to the back burner, under Syrian control, for 15 years," Shehadi notes.

Shehadi expects the future parliamentary alliances, more than the electoral alliances, will be based on critical issues facing the country. "The final outcome is that the opposition to Syria - or if you like, Hariri's list - have won in Lebanon. They are the biggest winners in the end. And they are more in alliance with Saudi Arabia and in tune with the international community, or the Americans' agenda, in the region," he says.

(SNIP)

"What this means for the region and what is going to happen next in Lebanon is that all of the big issues - some of which were frozen for the last 15 years - are going to be determined in the next parliament. One of them is related to the region, and it is how they resume relations with Syria. The second is very important as well, and it is how do you disarm Hezbollah, or what do you do with Hezbollah," Shehadi says.

Shehadi also says the changing dynamics of Syria-Lebanon relations have far-reaching implications that could impact the agenda of US President George W Bush's administration.

"The whole regional agenda of the United States as declared by President Bush is influenced by what happens in Syria in the next few months. This whole Lebanon episode, which includes the way demonstrations managed to bring down the [pro-Syrian] government in Lebanon and force a pullout of the Syrian presence in Lebanon, is bound to have an influence on internal Syrian politics. From the perspective of Washington, the result is positive," Shehadi says.

Still, while international pressure can help bring about the kind of changes that Washington wants to see from Damascus, Shehadi says too much pressure from the US could have a negative impact on Bush's agenda.

"Change in Syria is provoked by international pressure and international intervention. But at the same time, international intervention is, in a way, strengthening the regime because people in Syria watch what is happening in Iraq. And they don't want the same thing to happen in Syria," Shehadi says. In the end though, Shehadi concludes, it will not be possible for Lebanon's new parliament to "build walls" in its relations with Syria.

3//Asia Times Online, Hong Kong Jun 22, 2005
http://www.atimes.com/atimes/Middle_East/GF22Ak02.html

A HINT OF GLASNOST FOR SYRIA

By Sami Moubayed

DAMASCUS - A week after the Ba'ath Party conference in Syria, which many people believed could mark significant change in the country, it's clear that it was foolish to think the Ba'athists would willingly abandon their status in government. On the contrary, the conference came out with a very strong message to Syrians and the world: the Ba'ath is here, as it has always been since 1963, and plans to stay around for a whole lot longer.

The majority of Syrians were misinformed about what the conference would bring. Some talked about a general amnesty. Some said that law 49, which says that membership in the Muslim Brotherhood is a capital offense, punishable by death, would be abrogated. Others dreamt of a pardon for all political exiles. Many believed that article 8 of the constitution, which says that the Ba'ath Party is the leading party of state and society, would be amended.

None of the above happened, yet the conference came out with the advice to the Syrian leadership that the Ba'ath Party's role in daily decision-making had come to an end. The party will supervise, but not interfere in, the mechanisms of government. According to the London-based daily al-Hayat, the number of cabinet seats allocated to the Ba'ath will be reduced from 17 to 10.

The Ba'ath still had a lot to offer Syria, its assembled leaders said. If anything, the conference showed that President Bashar Assad is totally in control of domestic affairs, despite what many people have speculated in the Arab and Western press.

(SNIP)

This is the biggest shake-up in Ba'athist history since late president Hafez Assad came to power in November 1970. The changes put a lot of responsibility on the shoulders of the Syrian president. For five years, Syrians have believed their president was a reformer, but that those around him were not. Overnight, Assad got rid of them all. True, this pleases Syrians for today, but it also leaves no excuse for delayed reforms from now on. The people also believed that Ba'athist interference in day-to-day affairs of the state was a damper on reforms, since whenever the Ba'athists wished they could arrest or fire people, or delay legislation, claiming that it "contradicted the principals of the revolution." At the conference, this revolutionary term has been dropped and the Ba'athists recommended that the party be separated from government affairs, echoing a law issued by the Ba'ath in 2003.

Another noted reform was the Ba'ath conference recommendation that Syria authorize the creation of political parties, not necessarily affiliated with the Ba'ath. Effectively, this breaks the Ba'ath Party's monopolization of power since 1963. A law is yet to be issued, yet a group of activists has already taken matters into its own hands and issued a declaration to create the Movement of Free Patriots, in Aleppo, Syria's second-largest city.

(SNIP)

The Soviet model

With all these events taking place in Syria, many are starting to draw a parallel between the Ba'ath Party conference of 2005 and the Communist Party conference in the USSR in 1986. Syria must read the details of Mikhail Gorbachev's 1986 conference because they were the cornerstone that created the new Russia that exists today.

Gorbachev attacked the recent past, pointing out that mistakes had been made, but individuals were responsible for them, and not the Communist Party. The Soviet conference called for a more flexible system of economic management, the loosening of outdated bureaucratic laws, encouraging greater openness, less interaction between Soviet citizens and the secret police, and more publicity about the shortcomings of the regime. This was called glasnost. It unwillingly exposed the weakness of the Soviet system and the much-needed reforms in all sectors of life. Censorship eroded, taboos were lifted, banned works were published, and writers were permitted to explore forbidden themes. Through glasnost, Gorbachev attempted to mobilize the intelligentsia to his side, in addition to the Soviet youth, something that Assad has been trying to do since 2000.

The Soviet press became more transparent, and people were allowed to learn of the mistakes of the past. When the reality of failure became so clear to everyone, Gorbachev abolished high school exams in 1988. History books in the USSR had been used to glorify the Communist Party and its role in Russian history. It was pointless to maintain these exams in 1988, since so many of these myths had been challenged or destroyed completely by the openness and transparency of glasnost. Will this take place in Syria? Syria's curriculum, after all, has concentrated on glorifying the post-1963 era and describing everything that preceded it as "regressive" and "wrong."

As the world watched in admiration, Gorbachev withdrew Soviet troops from Afghanistan, just like Assad has withdrawn his troops from Lebanon. Assad does not want to dismantle the regime of the Ba'ath Party. He wants to reform Syria from within, yet maintain the status quo. There is a general consensus in Syria of him being a true president if he succeeds in implementing glasnost.

Assad wants to restore the confidence of the Syrian people in Syria. In June 1988, at the Communist Party's 19th conference, Gorbachev dictated that party committees could no longer issue instructions to the state, or enforce (and hamper) economic legislation. The Communist Party was not above the law, he added, and should cease its role as administrator of the whole country. The USSR should democratize, he added, on the basis of multiple candidates, and this was echoed by Assad in an interview with Spanish journalists in March when he said that "the future will be for political parties in Syria."

(MORE)

4//Institute for War & Peace Reporting, UK (ICR No. 129, 21-Jun-05)
http://www.iwpr.net/index.pl?archive/irq/irq_129_3_eng.txt

KEEPING FAITH WITH TRIBAL JUSTICE
Many Iraqis have more trust in their tribal elders than the country’s judges.

By Hemin Baqir in Sulaimaniyah
Hemin Baqir is an IWPR trainee in Sulaimaniyah.

Sitting on a high bench before a crowd of visitors at his home, 60-year-old Sarhad Khalifa looks like a judge.

But though his rulings have no legal backing, as head of the Rughzayee clan of the Jaff tribe - the largest in Iraqi Kurdistan, with almost three million members - Khalifa’s decision sometimes holds more weight than that of a formal court.

Because Iraq is a largely tribal society, people mainly rely on community leaders to resolve disputes instead of going to court – all the more so now since the government is seen as failing to establish the rule of law.

“The government can’t solve problems,” said Khalifa. “There has been no law and order in this country for a long time.”

Khalifa receives visitors seeking his wisdom on a daily basis. His rulings are based on his tribe’s values of forgiveness and compensation. Sometimes, Khalifa even provides the latter, although he will not say how much, as discussing such things is against tribal code.
“Khalifa solves problems quickly and does not let them turn into bigger disputes,” said 49-year-old farmer Omer Hama-amin. “That’s why people turn to him.”

(SNIP)

Osman Qadir, head of the Sulaimaniyah court, said tribal court decisions are not legally binding and can undermine the rights of people involved. “ I deem these solution as bad deeds,” said Qadir.

But Khalifa said few dare to challenge a tribal court decision, “If someone does not agree with a ruling, he will be dismissed from the tribe.”

(SNIP)

Criminologist Jwan Ihsan Fawzi said that it will take time for Iraqis to accept state courts as institutions that can provide solutions to their problems. “The affiliation to tribes and respect for tribal chiefs are still extremely strong,” she said.

5//Interfax, Russia Jun 21 2005 10:23PM
http://www.interfax.ru/e/B/politics/28.html?id_issue=11313857

NEIL BUSH TO VISIT GEORGIA

TBILISI. June 21 (Interfax) - U.S. President George Bush's brother Neil Bush will make an unofficial visit to Georgia on June 22, the Georgian media reported on Tuesday.

Bush is to meet with Georgian President Mikheil Saakashvili, Prime Minister Zurab Nogaideli and other officials.

The media did not give any details regarding the cultural program of Bush's visit.
Saakashvili's press service did not deny or confirm the information about the visit. (End Item)

RELATED:

6//RIA Novosti (Russian News & Information Agency), Russia 21/06/2005 20:41
http://en.rian.ru/analysis/20050621/40563467.html

OPINION & ANALYSIS: RUSSIA TO EXPORT ITS OIL SOUTH

MOSCOW. (Anatoly Belyayev, for RIA Novosti) - Predictably, BP Azerbaijan has said that it does not want to export oil produced in the Azerbaijani sector of the Caspian Sea via the Baku-Novorossiisk pipeline.

This means that Russia, which is already losing its influence on the Caucasus, will suffer serious economic losses.

Baku explains its decision in terms of economic expediency. BP Azerbaijan pays $4-5 per barrel if it exports Caspian oil by rail via Georgia, whereas the Baku-Novorossiisk route costs three times more.

Economics is not the only thing that matters. The Baku-Tbilisi-Ceyhan pipeline, the main rival of the Russian route, will start operating this fall. This allegedly unprofitable and controversial project was launched in 1998 in Ankara when the presidents of Turkey, Uzbekistan, Azerbaijan, Kazakhstan and Georgia, plus then U.S. Energy Secretary William Richardson, signed a declaration committing themselves to facilitate the construction of the pipeline. However, the consortium's Western members were in no hurry to finance the project. In May 2001, David Woodward, the then Azerbaijani International Operating Company (AIOC) president, said he doubted whether most Caspian oil would be pumped along this route. To be cost-effective, the Baku-Tbilisi-Ceyhan oil pipeline would have had to pump 50 million metric tons of oil annually for the next 40 years. But the Caspian region apparently does not contain enough oil.

The September 11, 2001 terrorist attacks in the United States and rocketing global oil prices increased U.S. and EU demand for oil sources alternative to the Middle East. The United States, Israel and Turkey, all greatly interested in this route, pressured hesitant and shortsighted businessmen. Political pressure and rising fuel and energy prices made the project more attractive, and much more profitable. It is hardly surprising that BP Azerbaijan President David Woodward called the Caspian region a new promising energy source independent of the Middle East and Russia.

The Kremlin naturally wanted to pump Caspian oil via Russian territory.

(SNIP)

However, the more powerful global players - the U.S. and the European Union -- won this game, taking advantage of Kazakhstan's desire to create alternative oil-export routes. The new pipeline would then be filled to capacity. President Nursultan Nazarbayev of Kazakhstan, who spoke at the pipeline opening ceremony, suggested that the Caspian port of Aktau in Kazakhstan be included in the pipeline's name, thereby hinting that Astana wanted to export its oil via the new pipeline.

Kazakhstan will no longer have to pump its oil to Europe along the Russian route alone. In this way Russia lost a serious lever of pressure on its ally.

Russia's regional influence will be impaired, because the West now considers Azerbaijan as the main Caspian-oil supplier along this strategic route. Georgia's importance as the transit territory will also grow.

Moreover, permanent U.S. military bases may soon appear to guard Caspian deposits and the pipeline itself against possible terrorist attacks.

(MORE)