US to grant more funds to Israel’s Iron Dome missile system
Press TV – March 28, 2012
The United States is planning to grant more money to Israel’s Iron Dome missile system designed to intercept short-range rockets and mortars.
“Supporting the security of Israel is a top priority of President Obama and Secretary (Leon) Panetta… [The Department of Defense] intends to request an appropriate level of funding from Congress to support such acquisitions based on Israeli requirements and production capacity,” Pentagon Press Secretary George Little said in a statement on Tuesday.
The Obama administration and the US Congress allocated $205 million to Israel’s Iron Dome system in the 2011 budget. The budget for next year demands $3.1 billion in military aid to Israel, which is more than the current level and the highest for any foreign country.
Although the Pentagon statement provided no specific numbers, congressional sources said the purchase of 10 battery systems at a cost of $50 million each is likely to be requested.
Related articles
- Pentagon asks for extra $100 million to Israel for Iran defense (and Congress doubles the tip) (alethonews.wordpress.com)
- Gaza truce declared as Israel hails new missile defense (alethonews.wordpress.com)
Syria and the Annan Plan: The Devil in the Details
By Nicolas Nassif | Al Akhbar | March 27, 2012
While the Syrian regime was pleased with last week’s UN Security Council Presidential Statement on Syria, the Syrian National Council (SNC) was not. It registered its objections, and saw it as providing another chance to President Bashar Assad. Damascus welcomed both the statement and the plan which the UN and Arab envoy to Syria, Kofi Annan, devised after gaining the approval of the international community.
Sources who got to meet high-ranking Syrian officials over the weekend sensed the extent to which the presidential statement was welcomed by Damascus. They also provided some insight into the level of cooperation between Damascus and Moscow on the substance of Annan’s initiative, and their commitment to making a success of it.
While the Syrian leadership supports the general principles of Annan’s plan, it has taken a cautious view of the mechanisms and measures which will need to be taken to implement it.
This stems from a conviction that the devil will lie in details if they are left vague, especially when the time comes for a ceasefire and political dialogue. Accordingly, while Annan completes his talks in Russia and China and prepares to begin implementing his plan, Damascus’ approach will be based on a number of considerations:
1. The initiative must be implemented through the “Syrian state” at all stages: starting with the proposed ceasefire and restoration of calm, extending to the delivery of humanitarian aid, and culminating in a national political dialogue. None of this will occur unless the process for implementing this initiative is approved by the regime and conforms with what it is describes as the “principles of sovereignty.”
Damascus’ position is that it is waiting to see how this initiative will be implemented, while affirming its endorsement of the plan. But the regime insists that any political dialogue about the future of Syria – the end-goal of the initiative – must be held under the auspices of the “Syrian state.”
2. Damascus is greatly satisfied and encouraged by the fact that the presidential statement did not reiterate the demand that the Arab League, France, the US, and Turkey had been insisting on. Namely, that the Syrian president step down and immediately transfer power so a political settlement can be concluded in isolation from him. The regime sees this tacit re-acknowledgement of its authority as a chance to open up dialogue again.
The high-ranking officials insisted to their visitors, however, that Syrian leaders had at no stage been fixated on or alarmed by this demand. They were never under any illusion that, in current international conditions, it was within the capacity of any party, domestic or foreign, to force Assad to step down.
This applies equally to the Syrian opposition, to the many declarations made by US Secretary of State Hillary Clinton and her French counterpart Alain Juppe, the Arab League in its second initiative on January 2, and Qatari, Saudi, and Turkish leaders. Damascus never commented on any of their statements. It declined to get into an argument with them about whether Assad should leave office.
The view put forward by Damascus in defense of its position is that the new Syrian constitution furnishes a mechanism for the transfer or rotation of power. But decapitating the regime – the argument Moscow has also been stressing – would be a recipe for chaos. As the regime sees it, the president stands for the integrity and cohesion of the army and the unity of the country. This position was matched by the similar stand taken by Russia and China against any external foreign military intervention to compel Assad to step down or depose him by force. Also this is why they opposed arming the opposition.
As a result, the international picture has changed significantly since the two countries blocked the attempt to issue a Security Council resolution on Syria on February 4. The threat to force Assad out has been practically dropped – though Arab and Western states may still speak of not just the president’s days, but the regime’s, being numbered – and everybody has opted for a political settlement to be brought about under him.
This approach was reinforced at Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov’s March 10 meeting with the committee of Arab foreign ministers dealing with Syria. It was confirmed in the appointment of Annan as envoy, and again in the proposals he has put forward, and the Security Council’s endorsement of it last Wednesday.
3. Damascus believes that the real gain it made from the presidential statement was the UN’s acknowledgement that there are two sides to the violence in the Syrian crisis.
This dispensed with the pretext with which the Arabs and the West had armed themselves until Lavrov’s visit to Cairo – namely, that the violence was one-sided, indiscriminate, and practised exclusively by the regime. The existence of armed anti-regime groups was either denied outright, or justified as self-defense.
But the presidential statement, by calling for a ceasefire and end to fighting, conceded that there is another party engaged in violence, and that an armed confrontation is underway. While it did not identify that other party – composed of a combination of Salafis, Muslim Brothers, and deserters – it recognized its existence. This reinforced the regime’s rationale for using decisive military force to try to eliminate members of the armed opposition in Homs, Idlib, and Deir al-Zour, so as to pre-empt any attempt to create buffer zones or similar enclaves in border areas.
Damascus is indebted to Russia and China for supporting its viewpoint and steering the Security Council in the opposite direction to which the Arab League had intended. It had insisted, without hesitation, that the violence was from one side only. The Arab League ignored the report by the chief of its own observer mission, General Mohammed Ahmed Mustafa al-Dabi, and transferred the Syria dossier to the Security Council.
But once there, it did not take long for Moscow’s view to converge with Washington’s over the issue of arming the Syrian opposition. The Americans are wary of Al-Qaeda infiltration of Syrian rebel groups, and fear their weapons could end up reaching the terrorist organization.
4. Damascus believes Annan fully understands the many difficulties involved in his task of bringing about a political settlement. Two sets of these stand out in particular: those connected to convening the proposed national dialogue, and those related to halting the violence on the streets.
Defining the party that will sit opposite the regime at the national dialogue table will be an early obstacle. It is not just that the political opposition, both at home and in exile, is deeply divided. So is the armed component of the opposition, which includes Salafi organizations, the Free Syrian Army (FSA), and the Muslim Brotherhood. The latter are part of the SNC, which has set up its own military bureau and is at odds with the FSA. That in turn is divided between followers of Colonel Riyadh al-Asaad and Brigadier Mustafa Ahmad al-Sheikh.
The political dialogue cannot include the non-SNC armed opposition when it has not yet said who speaks for it. Annan does not know who to talk to in this regard, at least not yet. In the meantime, the political dialogue stands to be between a known actor, the regime, and an undetermined interlocutor, half of which is clandestine, and the other half of which is at odds with itself.
A second obstacle lies in the measures to be taken on the ground to bring about an end to fighting, the withdrawal of gunmen and the army, and the delivery of humanitarian aid to residents of affected areas. Syrian leaders see potential problems in the plans that Annan and his aides devised for arranging these measures and deploying international observers to monitor them.
The Syrian authorities are not simply waiting to see what Annan comes up with in this regard. They have been stressing an issue of extreme sensitivity, which the Syrian leadership considers an absolute necessity for the restoration of normal life to the country: there must be no consolidation of dividing lines between army- and rebel-controlled areas, either in towns or the countryside. Also they have stressed that there must be no deployment of international observers on such lines, which would effectively enforce a fait accompli ahead of political talks.
Damascus has informed all concerned parties that it will not agree to measures which recreate the kind of “confrontation lines” that were established during the Lebanese Civil War, which entrenched the positions of the opposing parties and fuelled the conflict.
It has stressed that a ceasefire must not entail the drawing of such lines inside Syria. Rather, it should result in the disappearance of gunmen and their weapons from the streets, an end to all illegal armed activity, and the reconnection of different parts of the country with each other. Only that would justify ordering the army back to barracks.
Similarly, the task of international observers must not be to monitor a ceasefire, police ceasefire lines, or separate two warring parties, but to monitor the restoration of normalcy in the country. Damascus sees this is as a key point in the Annan initiative which all sides must respect.
Nicolas Nassif is a political analyst at Al-Akhbar.
Related articles
- UN – Arab League envoy hails Syria’s plan acceptance (alethonews.wordpress.com)
- Syrian govt accepts Annan’s 6-point peace plan (rt.com)
UN – Arab League envoy hails Syria’s plan acceptance
Press TV – March 27, 2012
UN-Arab League envoy Kofi Annan has praised the Syrian government for accepting his six-point plan to end the unrest in the country.
“I indicated that I had received a response from the Syrian government and will be making it public today, which is positive, and we hope to work with them to translate it into action,” Annan told reporters after meeting Chinese Premier Wen Jiabao.
In a Tuesday statement, Annan’s spokesman Ahmad Fawzi confirmed that Damascus has written to the Joint Special Envoy Kofi Annan accepting his six-point plan, endorsed by the United Nations Security Council.
Fawzi added that Annan views this as an important initial step that could create an environment conducive to a political dialogue that would fulfill the legitimate aspirations of the Syrian people.
Annan’s proposal includes a ceasefire, access for humanitarian aid agencies as well as political dialog between Damascus and the opposition.
Earlier, the Chinese premier expressed his support for Annan’s efforts for a peaceful end to the crisis.
Meanwhile, Russian President Dmitry Medvedev has said Western calls on President Bashar al-Assad to step down are short-sighted, adding that Assad’s departure will not end the conflict in Syria.
Syria has been experiencing unrest since mid-March 2011.
Related articles
- Syrian govt accepts Annan’s 6-point peace plan (rt.com)
- Syria’s future ‘matter for Syrians’ – Annan (laaska.wordpress.com)
India: The World’s Biggest Arms Recipient
By Sajjad Shaukat | News Center PK | March 24, 2012
In its report, the Stockholm International Peace Research Institute (SIPRI) disclosed on March 20 this year that volume of international transfers of major weapons was 24 percent higher in the period 2007-11 compared to the 2002-06 period. While indicating the purchases of arms and weapons by various countries, the report pointed out, “India is the world’s largest recipient of arms… India’s imports of major weapons increased by 38 percent between 2002-06 and 2007-11.”
It is of particular attention that under the pretext of military build up by China and Pakistan, India on March 16 this year, boosted military spending by 17 percent to $40 billion. In this regard, announcing the 2012-13 budget, Finance Minister Pranab Mukherjee told the parliament, the government is engaged in a massive programme to upgrade the country’s ageing military hardware, increasing defence spending to $40 billion for the financial year to March 31, 2013.
Now, India is the biggest importer of arms in the world. New Delhi’s military is acquiring a slew of new equipment from combat aircraft to submarines and artillery. It is currently finalising a deal with France’s Dassault Aviation to buy 126 Rafale fighter jets in a contract worth an estimated $12 billion.
Despite a series of political setbacks which exposed vulnerability of India’s beleaguered regime, it avoided bold reforms in its annual budget to shore up growth and modest targets to rein in a bloated deficit. The government reflects investors’ disappointment with Mukherjee’s half-hearted attack on the worst deficit among the emerging-markets.
However, on November 2 last year, the United States agreed to sell India the most expensive—the new F-35 fighter jets. In a report to the US Congress, the Pentagon said, “We believe US aircraft such as the Joint Strike Fighter (JSF)… to be the best in the world”, referring to the radar-evading F-35 jet. The Pentagon indicated that the programme faces rising costs, with a price tag of nearly $150 million each. It also noted that India is working with Russia on developing a fifth-generation fighter aircraft.
Notably, on November 3, 2011, CNN TV channel pointed out, “The Pentagon is portraying India as a major customer for US military arsenal… India also decided a major purchase of US F-16 and F-18 fighters…is a reminder of the vast sums in play.”
James Hardy, Asia Pacific Editor of Jane’s Defence Weekly stated, “With a potential contract price of US$9 billion to US$14 billion, this is the single biggest competition in the global defence aviation industry.”
While the Pentagon’s government-to-government program of foreign military sales to India have included C-17 and C-130 aircraft, Northrop Grumman E-2D, the latest version of the E-2 Hawkeye, aircraft radar systems, Harpoon weapons and specialised tactical equipments. It will cost 232 million dollars. Besides, America signed a deal of civil energy technology with India in 2008, which lifted sanctions on New Delhi in order to import nuclear technology.
In recent years, India has bought reconnaissance aircraft from US aerospace major Boeing worth 2.1 billion-dollars, medium range missiles for 1.4 billion dollars from Israeli Aerospace Industries, and signed a contract with the Russian Aircraft Corporation to upgrade its MiG 29 squadrons for 965 million dollars. Several deals are planned for the near future including one of the largest arms contracts of recent times—an 11-billion-dollar project to acquire 126 multi-role combat aircraft.
As regards New Delhi’s purchases from Israel, India’s The Tribune wrote, “Tel Aviv “agreed to share its expertise with India in various fields such as surveillance satellites and space exploration.” With the support of Israel, New Delhi has been acquiring an element of strategic depth by setting up logistical bases in the Indian Ocean for its navy.
Nevertheless, Indian defence expenditures have no bounds. In the past decade, India has spent billions of dollars on purchases of arms, planes, radars and ships from the US, Russia, Britain, Germany, Israel and France including other western countries.
Over the next 12 years, India is set to spend a whopping US$200 billion on defence acquisitions to replace its outdated inventory. In this respect, on February 15, 2010, a report of the Indian strategic defense magazine (India Strategic’s DefExpo) had pointed out that 70 per cent of the inventory of the Indian armed forces is 20-plus years old, and needs to be replaced with the modern technology. It explained that nearly half of this funding ($100b) will go to the Indian Air Force (IAF), which would need to replace more than half of its combat jet fleet as well as the entire transport aircraft and helicopter fleet. The army needs new guns, tanks, rocket launchers, multi-terrain vehicles, while the navy needs ships, aircraft carriers and a new range of nuclear submarines.
It is noteworthy that from 1994 to 1997 India’s defence budget was increased from 20 percent to 24.4 percent. In 2009, New Delhi increased its defense budget by a whopping 28.2 percent or Rs 130,000.00 million. Some experts estimate that military spending will increase further, totaling as much as 200 billion dollars over the period to 2022.
While exposing India’s ambitious defence policy, Washington-based Center for Strategic & International Studies (CSIS) has revealed in its report of April 2011, “India’s defence budget has roughly quadrupled (in real terms) since 2001—reaching $36.3 billion in the 2011–2012 budget—and enabled the implementation of long-term acquisition plans. Of the total defence budget, approximately 40 percent (some $14.5 billion) is allocated to the defence capital outlay budget.”
In fact, currently, more than half of India’s budget is allocated for armed forces, but its major portion is being expended on defence purchases and debt servicing, which leaves less than half for everything else including infrastructure development projects, education, healthcare, poverty alleviation, and various human services. New Delhi’s latest arms purchases will leave even less for what India needs most to lift hundreds of millions of its citizens from abject poverty, hunger, illiteracy and disease.
Indian defence analyst Ravinder Pal Singh, while calling New Delhi’s unending defence spending at the cost of poverty-alleviation—with security requirements competing with socio-economic concerns for money calls it a guns-versus-butter question.
In this context, a report of the United Nations pointed out that India ranks 134th of 182 countries on the United Nations Development Programme’s Human Development Index. It estimated that 50 per cent of the world’s undernourished population lives in India. Nearly 31 per cent of the billion-plus Indians earn less than a dollar a day.
Secretary General of the Control Arms Foundation of India Binalakshmi Nepram remarks, “When people are dying of poverty and bad sanitation, what protection will arms provide them?”
Indian civil society organisations, while complaining of excessive defence spending on buying, indicated that the defence budget is rapidly increasing every year because of India’s unending defence imports.
While, the world is rapidly moving towards the idea of one world as in the cyber age, states prefer welfare of their people at the cost of undue defence expenditures. Europe which learnt a drastic lesson from the two world wars, presents an ideal model by integrating the continent through the European Union. On the other side, despite criticism from various circles, the Indian government’s unlimited defence purchases are in full swing.
Ignoring regional problems and resolution of Indo-Pak issues-especially the thorny dispute of Kashmir, Indian rulers claim that they do not have any aggressive designs. But it becomes a big joke of the 21st century, reminding a maxim, “armed to the teeth, but no enemy”, if we take cognisance of India’s unlimited defence imports, raising India as the biggest arms recipient of the world.
~
Sajjad Shaukat writes on international affairs and is author of the book: US vs Islamic Militants, Invisible Balance of Power: Dangerous Shift in International Relations
Email: sajjad_logic@yahoo.com
Related articles
- Indian demand drives growth in arms trade (smh.com.au)
U.S. Ambassador-Designate: Georgia To Join NATO
Civil Georgia | March 22, 2012
Tbilisi – U.S. Ambassador-designate to Georgia, Richard Norland, outlined priority areas of U.S. cooperation with its “reliable partner”, Georgia, during a nomination hearing in the Senate Foreign Relations Committee on March 21, saying that upcoming elections would be “a very important litmus test” for Georgia’s NATO aspiration. […]
He reiterated the U.S. support to Georgia’s NATO aspirations and said that the Alliance’s upcoming summit in Chicago would provide an opportunity “to highlight Georgia’s progress towards meeting membership criteria, as well as its significant partnership contributions.”
He stressed on importance of Georgia’s contribution to the Afghan operations, where “brave” Georgian soldiers operate without caveats in the Helmand province, noting that Georgia would become the largest non-NATO contributor to ISAF after it deploys an additional battalion in Afghanistan this fall.
Responding to Republican Senator Richard Lugar’s question about Georgia’s NATO integration, the Ambassador-designate said that the Alliance had already declared that Georgia would become a NATO member.
“So the issue really has to do [with] how and when,” Norland said. “There is no single path to NATO membership. As it stands now, I understand, the Annual National Program and the NATO-Georgia [Commission] are the primary mechanisms to which Georgia and the Allies are pursuing the issue of Georgia’s membership.”
He also said that “a lot of emphasis” was also placed on steps Georgia was already taking, including its contribution to the ISAF mission, defense reforms, as well as steps towards democratic and economic reforms.
“These are all part of the package that go[es] into meeting the criteria for NATO membership,” Norland said.
He said that “serious efforts” were being undertaken by the U.S. administration to use upcoming NATO summit in Chicago “to signal acknowledgment for Georgia’s progress in these areas and to work with the Allies to develop a consensus on the next steps forward.” … Full article
Related articles
- A New NATO Ally? (andrewsullivan.thedailybeast.com)
- U.S. and NATO are on the march worldwide – Part II (alhittin.com)
- ‘US builds hospitals in Georgia, readies for war with Iran’ (alethonews.wordpress.com)
An Attack on Iran Would Be Illegal. What Does the UK Media Say?
News Unspun, 23 March 2012
The ‘option’ of a military attack on Iran by Israel, the UK and the US has been increasingly discussed in the UK media since 2011.
Government threats of military action have come in various forms, with Israel warning of potential air strikes against Iran in the next few months, and Obama and Cameron stating that ‘no options are off the table’.
This is combined with what could at best be described as ambiguous reporting on Iran’s nuclear programme, at times baselessly claiming that Iran has nuclear weapons, and, at others, relying on repetition of snippets like ‘the US and its allies believe Iran is trying to develop nuclear weapons – a charge Iran denies.’
In the media, one fact is not (yet) up for debate (despite the attempts of the Telegraph’s Dan Hodges [below]): that any invasion of Iran would be a violation of international law – even if Iran was in the process of developing nuclear weapons. The United Nations Charter also outlaws the ‘threat of the use of force’, an act in which much of the media, in its uncritical stance towards government threats, has made itself complicit.
The solution to these awkward details, it seems, is to ignore them almost completely. Failure to reinforce the illegality of such an act of war has resulted in much coverage discussing the ‘inevitability’ of a war on Iran.
This study looks at the news, blogs and comment articles about Iran since October 2011 – around the time that aggressive official rhetoric towards Iran upped a notch – and seeks to answer a simple question:
How often do the British media inform us that a military attack on Iran would be illegal?
Four online news providers were studied – BBC News, The Guardian, The Independent, and The Telegraph*. In total, there were 4 mentions of the fact that an invasion would be illegal. The results, in summary, are as follows:
BBC News
One mention of the illegality of an invasion of Iran is made on the BBC news website. In an analysis article, ‘How would Iran respond to an Israeli attack?’ (7 March 2012), Jonathan Marcus states:
For all the uncertainties as to whether Israel would attack Iran and indeed how Iran might respond, one thing is clear – in terms of international law, such a strike would be illegal.
This article was a balance to a previous analysis article that Marcus wrote, entitled ‘How Israel might strike at Iran’ (27 February 2012). Preoccupied with presenting the reader with dotted bomber flight path lines from Israel to Iran and military hardware specification sheets, this report failed to raise the issue of legality.
In contrast, the BBC News website has run 9 articles which have relayed politician’s musings (Hague, Clegg, Hammond and US officials) which insinuated violation of international law on the part of Iran.
The Guardian
The ‘News’ section of The Guardian did not make any mention of the illegality of an attack on Iran. The ‘Comment is Free’ section ran three articles which correctly pointed out that an invasion would violate international law.
Abbas Edalat wrote on 1 December 2011:
But Iran itself has been targeted for many years by a series of western and UK policies that are gross violations of international law. Repeatedly threatening Iran with a military attack, thinly disguised under the phrase “all options are on the table” and publicly announcing that the west must use covert operations to sabotage Iran’s nuclear programme (as John Sawers, the head of MI6, demanded two years ago), are only two examples of the UK’s disrespect for the UN charter.
On 21 February 2012, Seumas Milne wrote, in an article entitled ‘An attack on Iran would be an act of criminal stupidity’:
If an attack is launched by Israel or the US, it would not just be an act of criminal aggression, but of wanton destructive stupidity. As Michael Clarke, director of the British defence establishment’s Royal United Services Institute, points out, such an attack would be entirely illegal: “There is no basis in international law for preventative, rather than pre-emptive, war.”
On 12 March 2012 in a Q&A piece, Saeed Kamali Denghan responds to a question about the threat from Iran as follows:
Well, bombing Iran is illegal under international law in the first place. Little has been said about the legality of the issue, so one might mistake it as to be justified, where as it is not.
In contrast, The Guardian website has run 14 articles which have insinuated violation of international law on the part of Iran.
The Independent
No mention of the illegality of an attack on Iran was found in The Independent for this time period.
In contrast, The Independent website has run 6 articles which have insinuated violation of international law on the part of Iran.
The Telegraph
No mention of the illegality of an attack on Iran was found in The Telegraph for this time period.
In contrast, The Telegraph website has run 2 articles which insinuated violation of international law on the part of Iran. In addition, Dan Hodges argues in his Telegraph Blog that under international law there ‘probably is a case for’ an attack on Iran:
There is then the question of pre-emptive action. Again, Prof Blix is a Juris Doctor in International Law, and I have two A-levels and a grade 2 CSE in French. But I would hazard a guess that under international law there probably is a case for taking some form of pre-emptive action against an aggressor who expresses a public desire to wipe you off the map. Sorry, there’s that unfortunate phrase again. It just keeps popping up, doesn’t it?
Conclusion
Apart from a few admirable exceptions, the media takes little interest in informing us that threats of war, and war itself, are illegal. This fact is only found once in a BBC analysis article, and three times in the Guardian’s Comment section. Government claims that Iran has either acted or is threatening to act outside of international law are, however, free to flourish and propagate their way through the mainstream.
Suggestions that attack on Iran would violate international law: 4
Suggestions that Iran has, could have, or might violate international law: 31
How the dataset was created:
BBC News – search results for the term ‘Iran’ from 1 Oct 2011 (534 articles)
The Guardian – articles in the ‘Iran’ category from 1 Oct 2011 (500 articles)
The Independent – search results for the term ‘Iran’ from 1 Oct 2011 (584 articles)
The Telegraph – search results for the term ‘Iran’ from 1 Oct 2011, as well as all articles from ‘Iran’ category page.
* The Telegraph website’s search engine did not pick up all articles containing the word, and the category page dated back to 9th Feb, resulting in a somewhat limited dataset (261 articles).
Please contact us if you would like to see a copy of the data used for this study.
Turkey Should Have Thought Twice on Syria
By Michel Sailhan | France Press | March 23, 2012
Turkey may have acted too fast when it took its tough stance against Damascus, expecting a rapid fall for the regime, some observers have argued ahead of a “Friends of Syria” conference in Istanbul.
Now, a number of commentators in Turkey are suggesting it might be time to think again.
“Turkey had better revise its policy toward its southern neighbor, ahead of the second gathering of the Friends of Syria group on April 1 in Istanbul, by placing diplomatic efforts in front of all other options,” wrote Serkan Demirtas in the Hurriyet Daily News.
Those other options circulating in Ankara, as well as Western and Arab capitals, run from humanitarian corridors, to a buffer zone in Syria to accommodate refugees, or even direct assistance to rebels.
Many rebel leaders, including ex-general Riad al-Asaad, are already in Turkey.
Turkish Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdogan raised the stakes sharply on March 6 when he called on Damascus to allow for the “immediate” opening of humanitarian corridors.
While his words matched international calls from western powers, the demand lacked substance. It was not clear if Turkey would gear up for the task, given its 910-kilometre (560-mile) common border.
The creation of a buffer zone is another issue that Ankara has not been clear on, since it implies sending troops to secure the area. But it is still on the agenda as Turkey already houses 17,000 Syrians, and its Red Crescent organization says it is preparing for half a million.
“We are determined to consider every possible measure,” Foreign Minister Ahmet Davutoglu said Monday, adding that the move would aim at ending the suffering of Syrians, but also at securing the border.
Critics however say the buffer zone would be an “interventionist policy” that could prove Ankara too reckless, and too adventurous.
Forming a buffer zone, Demirtas wrote, “would not only break the image Turkey has built in the region, but is also inconsistent with its general foreign policy principles, the main pillar of which is peace.”
“Without a UN resolution to back it up, a buffer zone would be a daring initiative for Ankara,” added analyst Sinan Ulgen from the Istanbul-based Centre for Economics and Foreign Policy Studies.
As for the rebels, Ankara is silent about plans to arm or train them for counter-attacks on Syria’s security forces. The regime in Damascus has already denounced “incursions” into its territory from refugee camps in Turkey.
On Wednesday, AFP journalists witnessed smugglers carry a cargo of shotguns and buckshot into Syria, but the load contained no major weapons of war.
Erdogan embraced the Syrian political opposition after having failed to get President Bashar al-Assad to introduce reforms.
“The day will come when you will also have to go,” he told Assad in late November. But according to columnist Semih Idiz, the Syrian president has “outfoxed Ankara.”
“(Ankara’s) expectation was that the uprising in that country would not drag on for long and that Bashar al-Assad would be toppled relatively quickly — the way it happened in Tunisia, Egypt and Libya– with Turkey emerging as a key mentor for the new Syria,” he wrote.
Along with the threat of a massive influx of refugees, mostly Sunnis, Ankara has also had to contend with dissent at home over its policy on the crisis, Idiz added. Its large Alevi population, close to Syria’s dominant but minority Alawites, are “not all that pleased about Turkey’s stance on Syria.”
The Syrian regime looks to remain in place “for much longer than Ankara expected or is prepared for,” he concluded. That possibility has also prompted the main opposition Republic People’s Party (CHP) to attack Ankara’s decision to cut ties with the Damascus regime.
“For now, the Syrian regime is not ready to leave or be overthrown,” Faruk Logoglu, a CHP lawmaker, told AFP. “Ankara should have kept channels of dialogue and communication open with Damascus.”
Western and Arab countries will join Syrian opposition groups at the April 1 meeting in Istanbul.
But Turkey is not the only nation struggling with its approach to Damascus.
“Does the Western alliance have a plan for Syria? Does the Syrian opposition offer a credible image?,” asked another columnist from the Milliyet daily, Kadri Gurselhe.
Mali renegade soldiers claim control of government
Press TV – March 22, 2012
Renegade Malian soldiers say they have toppled the government of President Amadou Toumani Toure and seized power in the West African state.
“We are in control of the presidential palace,” AFP quoted one of the rebels as saying on Thursday.
The rebellion ignited Wednesday afternoon over criticism against the government’s handling of a Tuareg insurrection in the north and turned into an apparent coup.
Following an armed conflict, the rebels seized the presidential palace and arrested several ministers, including Foreign Minister Soumeylou Boubeye Maiga and Interior Minister Kafouhouna Kone, the report said.
Toure, however, has managed to escape from the premises, an independent source said.
Lieutenant Amadou Konare, the spokesman of the soldiers, calling themselves National Committee for the Establishment of Democracy, appeared on television and announced the dissolution of state institutions and suspension of the constitution.
Konare also said a curfew will be in place from midnight to six a.m. local time.
He added that upon consultations with all the Malian political factions, a national unity cabinet will be formed in the coming days and the transitional government will run the country until power is ceded to a civilian government after “free and transparent” elections in near future.
The spokesman cited the former government’s security failures in northern Mali and its “inability” to fight terrorism as well as threats to national unity, and the uncertainty shadowing general elections in 2012 as some of the major reasons behind the mutiny.
Pakistan parties warn against reopening of NATO supply lines
Press TV – March 21, 2012
Pakistan’s main religious parties, Jamaat-e-Islami (JI) and Difa-e-Pakistani Council (DPC), have warned the country against reopening NATO supply routes into Afghanistan, Press TV reports.
Addressing a large crowd in the Bat Khela area of the Malakand division in northwestern Pakistan on Wednesday, JI Chief Amir Syed Munawar Hassan said the members of the party along with Pakistani people would close all the routes if the parliament decided to reopen the passageways.
“The leaders and government are following a US agenda,” he said.
Meanwhile, DPC Chairman Maulana Samiul Haq said reopening the routes was unacceptable.
“Democratic tactics would be used for blockade of supply to NATO forces in Afghanistan,” he added.
Samiul Haq announced that a related protest rally would be held in front of Pakistan’s parliament on March 27.
The gathering comes days after a meeting between high-ranking Pakistani officials, including President Asif Ali Zardari, Amy Chief General Ashfaq Parvez Kayani, Director General of the Inter-Services Intelligence (ISI) Lieutenant-General Ahmed Shuja Pasha, and Premier Yousuf Raza Gilani along with his senior ministers.
The meeting was held to discuss channels to normalize the relations with the US-led forces in Afghanistan and restore the supply routes.
In November 2011, Islamabad closed the routes to the supplies headed for the US-led foreign forces deployed in Afghanistan in reaction to the Western military alliance of NATO’s airstrikes that killed 26 Pakistani soldiers near the Afghan border earlier in that month.
The relations between Pakistan and the US have also significantly soured in the past year over the unsanctioned US drone strikes against the former’s northwestern tribal belt.
There have been large-scale protests in Pakistan against the drone strikes, which might force Islamabad to condition the reopening of the supply lines to the halting of the attacks.
Featured Video
Broke Princes: Saudi Arabia’s Powder Keg
or go to
Aletho News Archives – Video-Images
From the Archives
Registered Israeli foreign agent driving contrived campus antisemitism crisis
By Wyatt Reed | The Grayzone | December 17, 2023
Lawsuits accusing top US universities of harboring antisemitism all originate from one source: a corporate law firm that fielded the pro-settler ex-US ambassador to Israel, and which was registered as a foreign agent of an Israeli principal as recently as 2021.
The firm now represents professional Israel lobby activists posing as victimized “Jewish students” and seeking to crush the free speech rights of Palestine solidarity activists. … continue
Blog Roll
Aletho News- Israeli Soldiers Inadvertently Prove Their Own Genocidal Guilt
- Ukraine arrests woman who exposed Azov battalion’s ‘torture chamber’
- Did Israel lose the midterms?
- How Iran defeated Trump’s Israel First GOP
- De-escalating the conflict: What the OSCE, the UN, and Europe are (not) doing to prevent war
- Desperate For A Renewed Iran War, Israel Dusts Off The WMD Deception.
- US Elections Offer Choice Between ‘Bad and Worse’ as Both Parties Serve War Lobby – ex-UN Expert
- Ghalibaf warns US government not to betray voters who rejected war
- Broke Princes: Saudi Arabia’s Powder Keg
- Albania’s Crisis: Rama, Israeli Investments and the Demand for Accountability
- If Americans Knew
- An error has occurred; the feed is probably down. Try again later.
- No Tricks Zone
- New Study: The Net Fossil Fuel Contribution To Rising Atmospheric CO2 Has Been Zero For 500 Years
- Germany’s Green Energy Transition Becoming Increasingly Expensive…Another 6 Trillion Euros!
- Sudden Stratospheric Warming, Powerful El Niño Combination May Lead To Extreme Europe Cold, Energy Crisis!
- Two New Studies Find Thwaites Glacier Melt Cannot Be Driven By Human Activity Or A Warming Ocean
- E-Cars Reduce CO2 Emissions By Only 41% Compared To Internal Combustion Engine Vehicles
- Predictions Made By Renowned Climate Professor Over Past Decades Have Been Proven To Be Poor
- New Study Suggests Large Regions Of The Pacific Ocean Have Been Cooling For The Last 80 Years
- Germany’s Green Energy Debacle: High Energy Costs Force Kahla Porzellan to Close After 182 Years!
- New Study: 50 Years Of The Most Aggressive ‘Net Zero’ Policies Can Only Affect The Global Climate By 0.03°C
- US September “Heat” Was No Record…Many Records Set Decades Ago
