Iran
Nuclear talks with Iran are showing
signs of progress and hope. Unfortunately that doesn't stop
some in Congress from threatening additional sanctions against
Iran as the next round of talks gets underway. The
increasingly-ridiculous House of Representatives has passed a
resolution requiring additional sanctions. In the Senate, which
should know better, the Banking Committee is now considering a
similar move. These actions do nothing but poison the negotiating
atmosphere. The Christian Science Monitor reports
on the comments of Iran Foreign Minister Mohammad Javad Zarif,
speaking in Turkey on November 1. Zarif "warned that the
international community risked missing a chance to strike a deal over
Iran’s nuclear program and lambasted a “zero-sum” diplomatic
approach in which each side tried to make gains at the expense of the
other." That approach has failed to achieve any progress in the
one and half years of talks and both sides need a fresh approach. Zarif said that "Iran was ready to
“do everything in our negotiations with the P5+1 to ensure that
even the perception that Iran has anything but peaceful intentions
for its nuclear program will be removed, because we believe that even
the perception that Iran pursues a nuclear weapons program is not
only wrong, but dangerous.”
The
Obama Administration is not standing still in the face of the hawkish
Congressional rhetoric. The Guardian.in an October 25 article, reported Undersecretary of State Wendy Sherman's comments to Voice of
America that a delay in new sanctions will let the US see if talks
over Iranian nuclear ambitions can gain traction. "The public
nature of Sherman's statement was seen as a significant gesture to
Tehran. 'I thought it was a very positive statement...the most
forward-leaning statement that I can recall an Obama administration
official using, when discussing sanctions, at any time over the past
four to five years.' said Reza Marashi, research director at the
National Iranian American Council. "It was very specific. That
not only sends a message to Congress but it also sends a message I
think to the Iranians as well. That shows a certain level of
seriousness to make these kinds of statements publicly."
Syria
Syria has met the first deadline set by
arms inspectors for the destruction of its chemical weapons. "The Organisation for the Prevention of
Chemical Weapons (OPCW) announced ...that Syria's declared chemical
weapons production and mixing facilities had all been destroyed – a
day ahead of the target it had set. It means that Syria can no
longer produce any new chemical weapons, although it has yet to start
destroying its existing stockpile. This is estimated at about 1,000
tonnes of chemicals and weapons, including mustard gas and the deadly
nerve agent sarin." But the humanitarian crisis continues with the recent confirmation of a polio outbreak among Syrian children. David Miliband, a former British foreign secretary and head of the International Rescue Committee called it a "terrifying indication of what can happen when a country falls apart under the weight of war".[The Guardian, October 31]
Besides polio, other diseases are taking hold along the Syria-Turkey border. "According to doctors struggling to cope
with minimal state help in the frontier region, measles and other
infectious diseases such as cutaneous leishmaniasis [which causes
skin sores] have started to appear on both sides of the border. The
World Health Organisation has already raised an alert about the
revival of polio in northern Syria. All were previously illnesses
under control in the neighbouring countries...."Communicable diseases like measles, typhoid or TB are now popping up in Turkish cities," said Dr. Ramazan Kaya, a specialist for internal diseases. Speaking of Qamishli refugee camp, Kaya said "Sanitary conditions are dismal. Water is no longer chlorinated, rubbish isn't collected anymore.
Syria is known to have had very good healthcare. Since the beginning of this conflict, the system has started to break down, and it is getting worse by the day. There are shortages of everything – medicine, vaccines, medical equipment." [The Guardian, November 1]
In an October 28 article, The Carnegie Endowment for International Peace notes Saudi Arabia's increasing involvement in
the Syrian civil war. "The shift to an increasingly assertive
stance on the Syrian crisis reflects the Saudi leadership’s dismay
about the U.S.-Russian agreement on dismantling Syria’s chemical
weapons capability. The effort effectively removes the specter of
U.S.-led military action against the regime and potentially
rehabilitates Assad as a partner of the international community.
Riyadh has long pushed for a tougher line. The additional prospect of
a U.S.-Iranian understanding on the nuclear file has only made the
Saudi leadership more grimly determined to bring down Assad." As CEIP's Yezid Sayigh explains, the "Saudi plan to build a
new national army for the Syrian opposition is polarizing the rebels
and potentially undermining Riyadh’s objectives in Syria."
The Saudi effort will complicate the planned Geneva II peace
conference. Sayigh concludes "The Saudi leadership
should be careful what it creates in Syria: [the rebel group]
Muhammad’s Army may eventually come home to Mecca."
Bringing both sides to the negotiating table without preconditions is the only hope for an end to this tragic conflict. The United Nations Security Council should consider imposing an immediate arms embargo on Syria. With neither side having a clear advantage, the humanitarian crisis will only worsen as long as this civil war, fueled by imported arms, continues.
The Self-fulfilling Prophecy of Perpetual War
The October 29 TomDispatch post presents the case against drone warfare. Along with the blanketing surveillance (including that of allied world leaders), the increased use of drones is a symptom of a larger disease. "Devoted since [9/11] to perpetual war across significant parts of the planet and to a surveillance apparatus geared to leave no one anywhere in privacy, the U.S. now resembles a rogue superpower to an increasingly resistant and restless world." The post contains, in its entirety, the epilogue to Jeremy Scahill's Dirty Wars: The World is a Battlefield. Tom Englehardt writes: "No single reporter has done more than Jeremy Scahill to bring us back news of how, in the post-9/11 years, Washington took its wars into the darkness, how it helped create a landscape of blowback abroad, and just how such roguery works when it comes to a superpower." Recent investigations of drone attacks that resulted in civilian deaths in Yemen and Pakistan were investigated by Human Rights Watch and Amnesty International. Human Rights Watch found evidence of the killing of civilians "indiscriminately in clear violation of the laws of war." Amnesty International "has serious concerns that this attack [in Pakistan] violated the prohibition of the arbitrary deprivation of life and may constitute war crimes or extrajudicial executions." Besides the ethical and legal arguments, there is also the practical argument. After a recent visit to Pakistan, UN special rapporteur on drones Ben Emmerson said, “The consequence of drone strikes has been to radicalize an entirely new generation." Addressing drone attacks in his epilogue, Scahill writes
that today "decisions on who should live or die in the name of
protecting America’s national security are made in secret, laws are
interpreted by the president and his advisers behind closed doors,
and no target is off-limits, including U.S. citizens....At the end of the day, U.S.
policymakers and the general public must [ask]...are our own actions, carried out in the name
of national security, making us less safe or more safe?...As
large-scale military deployments wound down, the United States had
simultaneously escalated its use of drones, cruise missiles, and
Special Ops raids in an unprecedented number of countries. The war on
terror had become a self-fulfilling prophecy. The question all
Americans must ask themselves lingers painfully: How does a war like
this ever end?"
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