December 2, 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 DECEMBER 2, 2005

1//Asia Times Online, Hong Kong--IRAN AND THE US EXIT STRATEGY IN IRAQ (Iran may be a member of the "axis of evil" according to the Bush administration, but increasingly it has become clear that it also holds a key to the riddle of a working strategy for US troop withdrawal from Iraq. At least, that is the impression one gets by the recent statement by the US envoy to Iraq, reflected in Newsweek, regarding President George W Bush's authorization of a dialogue with Iran. Consequently, the question of future detente between Iran and the US has now gained new currency, as well as urgency. … Currently, the US must map out two exit strategies, one for Afghanistan and one for Iraq, and in more ways than one the two are interrelated, not the least because in both countries, sharing long, porous borders with Iran, there cannot be durable peace and stability without input from Iran. Contrary to the prevalent, superficial analyses of today's Iran, the foreign policy of that country toward the "new" Iraq and "new" Afghanistan features all the essential ingredients of good neighborly relations warranting an alternative assessment of the Islamic Republic as "rogue" and/or "axis of evil". In view of the steady expansion of trade and economic cooperation between Iran and its two neighbors under American occupation, there are ample grounds for perceiving Iran as a regional bastion of stability directly benefiting from the political and geostrategic windfall of the downfall of two hostile regimes in Kabul and Baghdad and their replacement with rather benign alternatives.)

2//The Daily Star, Lebanon--KHATAMI: IRAN-U.S. CONTACTS SHOULD COME AS NO SURPRISE (Former Iranian President Mohammad Khatami said Thursday that Iran wants full stability in Iraq, adding there should be no surprise if there are contacts between the US and Iran to make this possible. Speaking during a news conference during his visit to Lebanon, Khatami said: "As a former president of Iran ... I can say that the Islamic Republic wants stability and security in Iraq. Allow me to make an impossible wish for the Americans to return to the path of reason." Asked about the recent alleged contacts between the U.S. and Iran, pertaining to the situation in Iraq, Khatami said he had no exact information as to the contacts, but added that "one should not be surprised if such a thing happens.")

3//The Independent, UK--BLAIR FACES ALLEGATIONS OF COMPLICITY IN TORTURE (Pressure is mounting on the White House to answer claims that the CIA is using UK airports to fly terrorist suspects for torture in secret prisons in Europe. Elizabeth Wilmshurst, the former Foreign Office lawyer who resigned over the Iraq war, warned Tony Blair last night that he cannot duck the questions crowding in about the flights which could mean Britain has been complicit in torture. In The Independent, Ms Wilmshurst, now a fellow of Chatham House, said the Prime Minister could not justify breaking the international convention against torture by saying the "rules of the game have changed" because of the war on terrorism. Britain's European partners stepped up the pressure for details to be disclosed about hundreds of secret flights by CIA-operated jets. … EU leaders are ready to follow up their request to Jack Straw, the Foreign Secretary, to challenge the White House. On Tuesday he wrote to Condoleezza Rice, the US Secretary of State, calling for details of the secret flights to be revealed. Mr Straw said yesterday he had raised the issue with Ms Rice. She is likely to face direct challenges about flights when she visits Brussels next week.)

4//The Moscow Times, Russia--TOP GENERAL LASHES OUT AT THE WEST (The chief of the armed forces' General Staff, Yury Baluyevsky, accused the West on Thursday of trying to weaken the Russia-led Commonwealth of Independent States and of using nonproliferation regulations to sideline Russia on the world arms market. "Attempts are being observed to weaken the commonwealth through recruitment of CIS states into NATO," Baluyevsky said in an apparent reference to Ukraine, whose leadership is vying for membership in the alliance. "Russia will defend its interests" vis-a-vis this process, the four-star general said in stinging remarks to Russian reporters, Interfax reported.)

5//The Turkish Daily News, Turkey--TOP RUMSFELD ADVISER URGES KURDS TO STAY IN IRAQ ‘FOR OIL’ (In remarks that would raise eyebrows in Ankara, a top adviser to U.S. Secretary of Defense Donald Rumsfeld said that Iraq's Kurds should choose to remain part of Iraq in order to increase their chances of gaining control of northern Iraq's vast oil resources and to have protection against Turkey. Evan Galbraith, Rumsfeld's representative to Europe and defense adviser to the U.S. mission to NATO, said that Kurds "need the cover of Iraq" on disputes with Turkey, which has been concerned over the prospects of an independent Kurdish state in northern Iraq. "One might ask why the Kurds, a semi-sovereign nation already, don't just go off and do their own thing. Well, there's a question of the Turks up there," Galbraith told a Nov. 28 panel on Iraq at the Heritage Foundation, a conservative think tank in Washington. "It really is a practical matter that the Kurds need Iraq -- the cover of Iraq, being part of Iraq -- to keep them in a balanced position, shall we say, with the Turks," said Galbraith, who was a U.S. ambassador to Paris in the 1980s. … He added that Iraq's Kurds "are concerned about their relationships with Turkey. And they know they're better off if they are part of something else in dealing with Turkey." Analysts said that Galbraith's remarks would aggravate Turkey's worries over how the United States views Iraq's future.)

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1//Asia Times Online, Hong Kong Dec 2, 2005
http://www.atimes.com/atimes/Middle_East/GL02Ak03.html

IRAN AND THE US EXIT STRATEGY IN IRAQ
By Kaveh L Afrasiabi

Iran may be a member of the "axis of evil" according to the Bush administration, but increasingly it has become clear that it also holds a key to the riddle of a working strategy for US troop withdrawal from Iraq.

At least, that is the impression one gets by the recent statement by the US envoy to Iraq, reflected in Newsweek, regarding President George W Bush's authorization of a dialogue with Iran. Consequently, the question of future detente between Iran and the US has now gained new currency, as well as urgency.

Zalmay Khalilzad is, of course, no stranger to dialogue with Iran and, in fact, can take credit for making deals with Teheran in Afghanistan, particularly at the Bonn summit of Afghan factions, which shaped the nature of Kabul's government after its liberation from the yoke of the Taliban in 2001.

Recently, a revolutionary guard commander in Iran boasted to this author that he and an American general met in a tent at Baghram airport outside Kabul and reached an agreement on the number of Northern Front forces entering Kabul, thus averting the much feared bloodbath.

Currently, the US must map out two exit strategies, one for Afghanistan and one for Iraq, and in more ways than one the two are interrelated, not the least because in both countries, sharing long, porous borders with Iran, there cannot be durable peace and stability without input from Iran.

Contrary to the prevalent, superficial analyses of today's Iran, the foreign policy of that country toward the "new" Iraq and "new" Afghanistan features all the essential ingredients of good neighborly relations warranting an alternative assessment of the Islamic Republic as "rogue" and/or "axis of evil".

In view of the steady expansion of trade and economic cooperation between Iran and its two neighbors under American occupation, there are ample grounds for perceiving Iran as a regional bastion of stability directly benefiting from the political and geostrategic windfall of the downfall of two hostile regimes in Kabul and Baghdad and their replacement with rather benign alternatives.

Needless to say, on the con side there are new national security worries for Iran generated as a result of the unprecedented Americanization of regional politics over the past few years, and crafting a balance between the positive and negative ramifications of post-September 11, 2001 developments in Iran's vicinity is difficult, given the fluid and at times uncertain nature of the political-security circumstances surrounding Iran.

(SNIP)

The limits of Iran's new anti-Americanism

Iran's new president has wasted little time in whipping up anti-Americanism in Iran, accusing the US of committing war crimes in his latest speech. Ahmadinejad's comments regarding the US military's extensive use of depleted uranium in Iraq has hit a raw nerve in the American media and, interestingly, the CNN broadcast of his speech carried a little blurb at the bottom that "natural uranium" is more dangerous than depleted uranium.

But, of course, most Iraqis or Afghanis are not in proximity of natural uranium and the reported 210 tons of uranium-contaminated shells that the US military has so far fired in Iraq alone will without the slightest doubt cause serious health risk to the civilian population for a long time to come, particularly in the poor, working-class sections of Baghdad and other towns that have seen the firing might of the US war machine.

However, beyond such disturbing developments, the US's destruction of Saddam's regime and its replacement with a Tehran-friendly, Shi'ite-led political system constitutes, in fact, manna from heaven for Iran, thus laying the groundwork for a fresh start in troubled US-Iran relations.

Curiously, the rise of a militant anti-American president in Iran may actually serve this process for two reasons: (a) Iran is no longer bothered by elite factionalism hampering its diplomacy, and (b) Iran's hardline politicians at the helm mirror to some extent their neo-conservative adversaries in Washington.

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2//The Daily Star, Lebanon Friday, December 02, 2005
http://www.dailystar.com.lb/article.asp?edition_id=1&categ_id=2&article_id=20472

KHATAMI: IRAN-U.S. CONTACTS SHOULD COME AS NO SURPRISE
By Hanan Nasser and Mayssam Zaaroura
Daily Star staff

BEIRUT: Former Iranian President Mohammad Khatami said Thursday that Iran wants full stability in Iraq, adding there should be no surprise if there are contacts between the US and Iran to make this possible. Speaking during a news conference during his visit to Lebanon, Khatami said: "As a former president of Iran ... I can say that the Islamic Republic wants stability and security in Iraq. Allow me to make an impossible wish for the Americans to return to the path of reason."

Asked about the recent alleged contacts between the U.S. and Iran, pertaining to the situation in Iraq, Khatami said he had no exact information as to the contacts, but added that "one should not be surprised if such a thing happens."

On Wednesday, Iran's Foreign Minister Manouchehr Mottaki rebuffed possible negotiations with the U.S. ambassador to Iraq to discuss future security issues, saying Iran had no plans to meet U.S. officials. The U.S. State Department had given permission for Ambassador Zalmay Khalilzad to meet with officials from Iran, though Tehran and Washington have no diplomatic relations.

Khatami said "the current government is more informed of these contacts and thus is capable of making decision on what should be done. But in case contacts were established, this should not come as a surprise."

He said: "The best policies in U.S.-Iranian relations were adopted during my first presidential mandate and under the administration of [former President] Bill Clinton. There were individuals, both in Iran and the U.S., who did not want the two countries to improve their ties."

He added: "But the continuous oppression over half a century by the U.S. had created deep mistrust among the Iranian people toward U.S. policies."

"I conclude that with the presence of this faction of politicians in the U.S. administration, there is no hope for amelioration in U.S.-Iranian ties."

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3//The Independent, UK Published: 02 December 2005
http://news.independent.co.uk/uk/politics/article330660.ece

BLAIR FACES ALLEGATIONS OF COMPLICITY IN TORTURE
By Colin Brown and Andrew Buncombe in Washington

Pressure is mounting on the White House to answer claims that the CIA is using UK airports to fly terrorist suspects for torture in secret prisons in Europe. Elizabeth Wilmshurst, the former Foreign Office lawyer who resigned over the Iraq war, warned Tony Blair last night that he cannot duck the questions crowding in about the flights which could mean Britain has been complicit in torture.

In The Independent, Ms Wilmshurst, now a fellow of Chatham House, said the Prime Minister could not justify breaking the international convention against torture by saying the "rules of the game have changed" because of the war on terrorism.

Britain's European partners stepped up the pressure for details to be disclosed about hundreds of secret flights by CIA-operated jets.

Sarah Ludford, a British member of the European Parliament's civil liberties committee, said: "I am not at all reassured that there is sufficient determination by [member states] to establish the truth," she said. "The allegations are now beyond speculation. We now have sufficient evidence involving CIA flights. We need to know who was on those flights, where they went."

EU leaders are ready to follow up their request to Jack Straw, the Foreign Secretary, to challenge the White House. On Tuesday he wrote to Condoleezza Rice, the US Secretary of State, calling for details of the secret flights to be revealed. Mr Straw said yesterday he had raised the issue with Ms Rice. She is likely to face direct challenges about flights when she visits Brussels next week.

This month, prisoners were reported held in two eastern European countries, believed to be Romania and Poland, brought there on flights the CIA calls "extraordinary rendition". Michael Ratner, director of the New York-based Centre for Constitutional Rights, said: "It's a secret. No one knows what happens in the rendition process or in the gulag of secret CIA hellholes."

But journalists and campaigners have tracked some of what is happening by monitoring the flight records of planes known to be used by the CIA. Plane-spotters have helped compile information on the aircraft - including one Gulfstream originally identified as N379P but now renumbered N44982 - and their movements.

(SNIP)

Increasingly, politicians in Britain and Europe are showing a determination to find out whether the US has "black sites" in eastern Europe where harsh treatment of suspected terrorists would raise fewer questions. Alexander Alvaro, a German Liberal MEP and member of the European civil liberties committee, said Angela Merkel, the Chancellor, would raise the issue in talks with George Bush. "I think our Chancellor will point out that Germany would not tolerate secret camps in Europe."

There are growing calls at Westminster for Mr Blair to block the CIA flights. The Labour MP Harry Cohen said: "It is not for the UK Government to connive in and facilitate people disappearance. The Government's blind-eye approach to enforcing the law is not acceptable."

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4//The Moscow Times, Russia Friday, December 2, 2005. Issue 3308. Page 2
http://www.themoscowtimes.com/stories/2005/12/02/011.html

TOP GENERAL LASHES OUT AT THE WEST
By Simon Saradzhyan

The chief of the armed forces' General Staff, Yury Baluyevsky, accused the West on Thursday of trying to weaken the Russia-led Commonwealth of Independent States and of using nonproliferation regulations to sideline Russia on the world arms market.

"Attempts are being observed to weaken the commonwealth through recruitment of CIS states into NATO," Baluyevsky said in an apparent reference to Ukraine, whose leadership is vying for membership in the alliance.

"Russia will defend its interests" vis-a-vis this process, the four-star general said in stinging remarks to Russian reporters, Interfax reported.

Baluyevsky's remarks followed a warning by Defense Minister Sergei Ivanov that Russia would end military-technical cooperation with Ukraine if it joined NATO. Security Council chief Igor Ivanov earlier this week accused the United States and NATO of pressuring former Soviet republics in Central Asia.

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Baluyevsky also accused the Organization for Security and Cooperation in Europe of "often turning into a body that oversees principles of democracy in Russia and other CIS countries."
"The United States is present to some extent in these processes," he said.

Baluyevsky said the United States was misusing the Missile Control Regime to put pressure on competitors on the world arms market, including Russia. While using the agreement to press Russia, the United States itself was "cooperating in missile technologies with Israel and South Korea," he said.

He also claimed that deployment of a U.S. missile defense system in Europe could harm the environment.

5//The Turkish Daily News, Turkey Thursday, December 1, 2005
http://www.turkishdailynews.com.tr/article.php?enewsid=29567

TOP RUMSFELD ADVISER URGES KURDS TO STAY IN IRAQ ‘FOR OIL’
Ambassador Galbraith says Kurds ‘need cover of Iraq’ in facing Turkey

Washington - TDN Defense Desk

In remarks that would raise eyebrows in Ankara, a top adviser to U.S. Secretary of Defense Donald Rumsfeld said that Iraq's Kurds should choose to remain part of Iraq in order to increase their chances of gaining control of northern Iraq's vast oil resources and to have protection against Turkey.

Evan Galbraith, Rumsfeld's representative to Europe and defense adviser to the U.S. mission to NATO, said that Kurds "need the cover of Iraq" on disputes with Turkey, which has been concerned over the prospects of an independent Kurdish state in northern Iraq.

"One might ask why the Kurds, a semi-sovereign nation already, don't just go off and do their own thing. Well, there's a question of the Turks up there," Galbraith told a Nov. 28 panel on Iraq at the Heritage Foundation, a conservative think tank in Washington.

"It really is a practical matter that the Kurds need Iraq -- the cover of Iraq, being part of Iraq -- to keep them in a balanced position, shall we say, with the Turks," said Galbraith, who was a U.S. ambassador to Paris in the 1980s.

He said that also being part of Iraq would make a settlement much more feasible and practical with regard to northern Iraqi oil.

"The Kurds are in a position where they can do pretty much what they want to. But they have to recognize that the major oil asset that they have up in the north, which is substantial, has got several claims on it," Galbraith said. "They are going to have a better seat at the table and a stronger voice in discussing this if they remain as part of Iraq. ... If [they were] outside, the Kurds would have a lot more difficult job to do."

He added that Iraq's Kurds "are concerned about their relationships with Turkey. And they know they're better off if they are part of something else in dealing with Turkey."

Analysts said that Galbraith's remarks would aggravate Turkey's worries over how the United States views Iraq's future.

Close allies of U.S. forces since the start of the 2003 Iraq war, the Kurds are seeking to win control of most of northern Iraq's vast oil resources and the regional capital of Kirkuk, a multiethnic city of Sunni Arabs, Turkmen, Christians and Kurds and a major oil center. Non-Kurdish residents of Kirkuk have been accusing Kurds of altering the city's demographic structure by moving in tens of thousands of their kinsmen since the war's end.

Turkey opposes Kirkuk's inclusion in the Kurdish region and insists that the whole of Iraq's oil should be controlled by the central government in Baghdad. Under a new constitution adopted in October, Kirkuk's status should be determined by a referendum in the area in 2007.

Last year, Jalal Talabani, leader of one of the two large Iraqi Kurdish groups, was elected Iraq's president, and Massoud Barzani, the other key Kurdish leader, became president of the Kurdish region. Both leaders separately visited Washington recently and saw a top-level reception, including meetings with President George W. Bush at the White House.

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