[WCUSP] Fwd: Just Foreign Policy News, July 16, 2008

[Odile Hugonot Haber]

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From: Just Foreign Policy <naiman at justforeignpolicy.org>
Date: Jul 16, 2008 5:27 PM
Subject: Just Foreign Policy News, July 16, 2008
To: odilehh at gmail.com




Just Foreign Policy News
 July 16, 2008

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 FAIR: WaPo's McCain-Friendly Poll misleads on Iraq position
 FAIR nails the Washington Post's push poll on Iraq withdrawal.
 http://www.fair.org/index.php?page=3575

 Rep. Mike Thompson Raises Objections to H.Con.Res. 362
 "[Foreign Affairs Chair] Berman has indicated that he has no
intention of moving the bill through his committee unless the language
is first altered to ensure that there is no possible way it could be
construed as authorizing any type of military action against Iran...I
will withdraw my support for the bill if this change is not made."
 Ask your Rep. to join with Wexler, Frank, and Thompson in opposing
endorsement of a blockade on Iran.
 http://www.justforeignpolicy.org/involved/hconres362.html

 UFPJ: Call to Action July 19-21: No War With Iran
 Find an event; post an event.
 In DC: protest John Hagee's "Christians United for Israel," Monday,
July 21, 5pm, 9th and Mass NW.
 http://www.unitedforpeace.org/article.php?id=3915

 Summary:
 U.S./Top News
 1) President Bush has authorized the most significant US diplomatic
contact with Iran since 1979, sending the State Department's
third-ranking official for a meeting this weekend on Iran's nuclear
program, the New York Times reports. One analyst suggested that the
precondition that Iran suspend enrichment before the U.S. would talk
about the nuclear issue had effectively been dropped.

 2) A phobia promoted by the Bush Administration about a timetable for
withdrawal from Iraq is a made-up issue masquerading as a serious
military argument, writes former national security reporter John
Diamond for USA Today. The fact is that we are not going to sneak out
of Iraq. The realities of moving large armies dictate that there is no
way the U.S. can significantly reduce its troop presence in Iraq
without it becoming known well in advance.

 3) President Karzai said Afghanistan opposes U.S. use of its
territory for launching an attack against Iran, Reuters reports.
"Afghanistan does not want its soil to be used against any country and
Afghanistan wants to be a friend of Iran as a neighbor which shares
the same language and religion," Karzai said.

 4) All of the Bush administration's negotiating partners,
particularly the Europeans and the Russians, have been pressing
Washington to join the talks with Iran, the New York Times reports.
They welcomed the decision to send Burns as a signal by the Bush
administration that it is seeking a peaceful solution to the nuclear
crisis and not moving toward military action. Ayatollah Khamenei said:
"Our red lines are clear and if the other parties respect ... these
red lines, our officials will negotiate as long as no one makes any
threats against Iran." Iran has made clear its "red lines" refer to
its insistence that it has the right to peaceful nuclear energy,
including the enrichment of uranium.

 Iran
 5) President Ahmadinejad said Monday he would welcome direct talks
with the U.S. if both parties are on equal footing, AP reports.
Ahmadinejad said if the US formally requested to set up an interests
section in Iran, "we will study it with a positive view."

 Iraq
 6) The entire bloc of Kurdish lawmakers walked out of Iraq's
Parliament Tuesday to protest a proposed provincial election law, the
New York Times reports. The originally scheduled date of Oct. 1 for
provincial elections appears unlikely, the Times says.

 Cuba
 7) Obama's criticism of aspects of the US embargo on Cuba and
statement he is prepared to open talks with the Cuban government
appear to be resonating in Cuban Miami more than predicted, the New
York Times reports. Some Cuban-Americans suggest that their community
was always more politically diverse than it was frequently portrayed.

 Colombia
 8) Switzerland has started a "diplomatic procedure" aimed at getting
Colombia to stop harassing Swiss mediator Jean-Pierre Gontard, who
helped release prisoners held by the FARC, Bloomberg reports. Last
week, Colombian Defense Minister Juan Manuel Santos accused the Swiss
mediator of conveying $500,000 to the FARC after the release of two
hostages in 2001. The Swiss Foreign Affairs Ministry has rejected the
claim.

 Contents:
 U.S./Top News
 1) U.S. Envoy To Join Meeting With Iranian
 Steven Lee Myers, New York Times, July 16, 2008
 http://www.nytimes.com/2008/07/16/world/middleeast/16iran.html

 President Bush has authorized the most significant American
diplomatic contact with Iran since the Islamic Revolution in 1979,
sending the State Department's third-ranking official to Geneva for a
meeting this weekend on Iran's nuclear program, administration
officials said Tuesday.

 The decision appeared to bend, if not exactly break, the
administration's insistence that it would not negotiate with Iran over
its nuclear programs unless it first suspended uranium enrichment, as
demanded by three resolutions of the United Nations Security Council.

 Still, after months of accusations and counteraccusations from the
United States and Iran, the meeting raised the prospect of an
intensified diplomatic push to resolve concerns over Iranian nuclear
activity, not unlike the lengthy and painstaking talks that resulted
in a deal last month with North Korea.

 William J. Burns, the under secretary of state for political affairs,
will attend a meeting on Saturday with the European Union's foreign
policy chief, Javier Solana, and Iran's nuclear negotiator, Saeed
Jalili, a senior administration official said, speaking on condition
of anonymity ahead of an official announcement on Wednesday.

 At the meeting, Jalili is expected to present Iran's formal response
to a package of economic and diplomatic incentives that Germany and
the Security Council's five permanent members, Russia, China, France,
Britain and the United States, presented Iran in June. Representatives
from those countries will also attend the meeting.
 ...
 The package, which revived an earlier European offer to provide
civilian nuclear assistance and increased trade, met at first with
official disdain in Iran but has since prompted conflicting signals
among senior Iranian officials. That led the administration to
conclude that there could be more chance of a diplomatic resolution
than some Iranian declarations and a battery of missile tests last
week suggested.

 Bush approved the contact "to press the advantage," a second official
said. The officials emphasized that Burns's participation was a
one-time decision, that he would not meet one-on-one with Jalili and
that he would reiterate the administration's demand that Iran suspend
uranium enrichment.
 ...
 Clifford Kupchan of the Eurasia Group, a consultancy in Washington,
said the meeting, even with strict limits, was "a much-needed and an
extremely welcome correction" in the Bush administration's policy.
 ...
 "Disclaimers notwithstanding," he added, "the precondition that Iran
must suspend before the U.S. will talk about the nuclear issue will by
every standard have been dropped."

 2) The Truth About Timetables
 The U.S. is not going to sneak out of Iraq.
 John Diamond, USA Today, July 16, 2008
 http://blogs.usatoday.com/oped/2008/07/the-truth-about.html

 [Diamond is former national security reporter for USA Today.]

 Iraqi Prime Minister Nouri al-Maliki's statement that he would
consider agreeing to a scheduled withdrawal of U.S. troops from his
country brings up one of the great canards of the Iraq war: the idea
that giving a "date certain" for drawing down our forces helps the
enemy.

 The Bush administration rejects talk of timetables, asserting that
Iraqi insurgents would use the heads-up about our departure to prepare
the great blow that would fall on the Iraqi government once we were
gone. The implication is that anyone talking about timetables  -  a
Democratic candidate for president, say  -  is giving aid and comfort
to the enemy, a polite phrase for committing treason.

 This timetable-phobia is a made-up issue masquerading as a serious
military argument. The irony is that the people claiming the expertise
are the ones showing their military naiveté.

 Let's all try to grasp a basic point: We are not going to sneak out
of Iraq. The insurgents are not going to wake up one morning and find
that U.S. forces have stolen home in the dead of night. The realities
of moving large armies dictate that there is no way the U.S. can
significantly reduce its troop presence in Iraq without it becoming
known well in advance. Indeed, it already is known. U.S. troops have
been steadily  -  on a timetable  -  ramping down their numbers in
Iraq from the peak of the "surge" of 170,000 last year. By summer's
end, the U.S. troop level is expected to be down to 140,000.

 The challenge lies not in keeping the enemy guessing about how long
we'll stay but ensuring the Iraqi government can resist that enemy
once we are gone.

 As for the element of surprise, withdrawal timetables can always be
changed, much as troop rotations have been extended, often at the last
minute, throughout this war. If an insurgent uprising on a scale
sufficient to threaten the Iraqi government were in the offing, our
increasingly adroit tactical intelligence would detect those
preparations, and our forces, along with those of our Iraqi ally,
could adjust accordingly.

 Opposition to timetables is based on an antiquated understanding of
the enemy we face in Iraq. It assumes that we're up against a
quasi-industrial entity that would use the time prior to a withdrawal
to ramp up war production and fit out troops for the big,
post-withdrawal offensive. There is no such enemy in Iraq. We face a
politico-insurgent force that fights without uniforms or industrial
underpinnings and which can ramp up on an hour's notice, let alone a
day's.

 Banning talk of timetables has lent a "forever" quality to the U.S.
commitment to Iraq that has deepened opposition at home. It will be
the responsibility of the next president, whether John McCain or
Barack Obama, to see the Iraq effort through to the best possible
conclusion, and some level of popular support for that effort will be
critical to success.

 Putting timetables off limits has also deprived the U.S. of a key
lever against the Iraqi government, a way of saying, "You're on the
clock  -  this is how much time we're giving you to get your act
together."

 Now it is the Iraqi government talking about imposing timetables upon
us. This should be regarded not as an affront to sound military
tactics but as a positive sign that the government in Baghdad looks
ahead to a day when it can stand on its own.

 Let's put timetables back where they belong  -  back on the table,
back into the conversation, so that our leaders, our soldiers, our
allies, and most of all our people can engage in a sensible discussion
about how best to conclude our participation in this painful conflict.

 3) Karzai opposes U.S. use of Afghan soil against Iran
 Sayed Salahuddin, Reuters, Mon Jul 14, 2008 1:58pm BST
 http://uk.reuters.com/article/worldNews/idUKISL22561720080714

 Afghanistan opposes U.S. use of its territory for launching a
possible attack against neighbouring Iran, President Hamid Karzai said
in an interview broadcast on Monday.
 ...
 "Afghanistan should not become the battleground of differences of any
country," he said in a wide-ranging interview. "Afghanistan does not
want its soil to be used against any country and Afghanistan wants to
be a friend of Iran as a neighbour which shares the same language and
religion." Karzai said his government had facilitated talks between
Tehran and Washington, and had also served as a messenger between both
in the past.

 4) Policy Shift Seen in U.S. Decision on Iran Talks
 Elaine Sciolino, New York Times, July 17, 2008
 http://www.nytimes.com/2008/07/17/world/middleeast/17iran.html
 ...
 All of the Bush administration's negotiating partners, particularly
the Europeans and the Russians, have been pressing Washington to join
the talks. They welcomed the decision to send Burns as an important
signal by the Bush administration, in its final months in office, that
it is seeking a peaceful solution to the nuclear crisis and not moving
toward military action against Iran.

 "We are awaiting the formal announcement from Washington, and if this
is the case, we are very pleased by the administration's decision,"
said Cristina Gallach, Solana's spokesman, in a telephone interview.
"It is a clear signal to the Iranians of the engagement of the United
States and its commitment to pursue a negotiated solution. At the same
time, it is a clear message to the Iranians of the seriousness of this
exercise."
 ...
 The officials added that the mere presence of an American at the
table will help to still the rhetoric of those calling for military
action against Iran because of both its recent expansion of its
uranium enrichment program and its unwillingness to cooperate more
fully with the International Atomic Energy Agency on explaining
suspicious past nuclear activities.
 ...
 In Tehran, Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, Iran's supreme leader and the
country's ultimate authority, said on Wednesday on state television
that his country would not bow to any threat made during negotiations,
Agence France-Presse reported.

 "Iran has decided to take part in negotiations but it will not accept
any threat," the ayatollah was quoted as saying. He added, "Our red
lines are clear and if the other parties respect the Iranian people,
the dignity of the Islamic republic and these red lines, our officials
will negotiate as long as no one makes any threats against Iran."

 Iran repeatedly has made clear that its "red lines" refer to its
insistence that it has the right to peaceful nuclear energy as a
signatory to the nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty, including the
enrichment of uranium.
 ...
 Earlier this month, Iran formally responded to a proposal of broad
political and economic incentives by the six powers aimed at resolving
the nuclear impasse, but ignored the key issue of its uranium
enrichment activities.

 Instead, the response, which came in a letter by Iran's Foreign
Minister Manouchehr Mottaki addressed to Solana and the six world
powers, said that Iran would be willing to open a comprehensive
negotiation with them.

 That the letter was also addressed to Ms. Rice as well as the foreign
ministers of the five other countries was seen as a sign of Iran's
willingness to engage directly with the United States and may have
factored into the American decision to send Burns.

 Iran
 5) Iran President Would Welcome Direct Talks with US
 Ali Akbar Dareini, AP, July 15, 2008
 http://ap.google.com/article/ALeqM5hdVphwtHPpy9Q9tjjJ_nrCbbPG3gD91TT5980

 Iran's hardline president said Monday he would welcome direct talks
with the U.S. if both parties are on equal footing, adding such talks
could happen "in the near future."

 President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad did not say whether any definite plans
for such bilateral talks were under way. "We will hold talks with the
United States if they come to us on equal footing," Ahmadinejad said
in a live speech on state TV.
 ...
 The Swiss Embassy in Tehran looks after U.S. interests in Iran, while
the Iranians have an interest section in Pakistan's embassy in
Washington.

 Last month, the Bush administration said it was considering setting
up a diplomatic outpost in Iran in what would mark a dramatic U.S.
return to the country nearly 30 years after the two nations severed
relations. "They haven't demanded it (formally) yet. But if they do
... we will study it with a positive view," Ahmadinejad said Monday.

 Iraq
 6) Kurds Protest Iraqi Election Law
 Campbell Robertson, New York Times, July 16, 2008
 http://www.nytimes.com/2008/07/16/world/middleeast/16baghdad.html

 The entire bloc of Kurdish lawmakers walked out of Iraq's Parliament
on Tuesday to protest a proposed provincial election law, contending
that part of it was unconstitutional.

 The walkout by roughly a fifth of Parliament's 275 members delayed
voting on the bill, which governs provincial council elections
scheduled to take place across Iraq this fall.

 The dispute could yet be resolved quickly, but it introduced more
uncertainty into preparations for the nationwide elections. Parliament
will meet again on Thursday to discuss the bill, several members said,
and talks are continuing in small meetings.
 ...
 Under the Constitution, the referendum was scheduled to take place by
the end of last year, but logistics and the security situation have
delayed the process. Many Arab and Turkmen lawmakers have insisted
that Kirkuk vote at the time of nationwide provincial elections. The
originally scheduled date of Oct. 1 for those elections appears
unlikely.

 The Kurdish officials who walked out on Tuesday said they had been
prepared to vote on the draft election law, with the understanding
that the only point open on Kirkuk was whether to delay the election.
But attached to the bill was a separate power-sharing proposal,
requested by more than 100 Arab and Turkmen lawmakers, to create a
provincial council in Kirkuk of 10 Kurds, 10 Arabs and 10 Turkmens,
with 2 more representatives from the region's small Christian
population.

 The Kurds contend that this arrangement, which had a good chance of
passing, would not reflect their numbers. "If you already pick the
seats before the election, why vote?" asked Mahmoud Uthman, a member
of the Kurdish bloc in Parliament. Uthman expressed confidence that an
agreement would be reached but said the Kurds would not show up
Thursday if the proposal was not removed.
 ...
 The Kirkuk question is just one of several issues in the proposed
election law that have provoked significant debate. Others include
whether to keep a 25 percent quota for women in provincial councils;
whether to ban the depiction of religious figures and symbols in
campaign materials; and whether to switch to an open list system of
elections, under which voters can choose individual candidates rather
than parties.

 The walkout took place before any of these issues came up for
discussion, but two seemed to have been resolved beforehand. A
consensus has formed around an open list system, according to several
lawmakers. And the Islamic Supreme Council of Iraq, a Shiite party,
which was the only party to publicly fight the proposed ban on the use
of religious figures, said last week that it was dropping its
resistance at the request of Shiite clerics.

 Cuba
 7) Will Little Havana Go Blue?
 David Rieff, New York Times, July 13, 2008
 http://www.nytimes.com/2008/07/13/magazine/13CUBANS-t.html
 ...
 Most officeholders in Florida and, for that matter, most national
politicians continue to at least pay lip service to the dream of a
post-Communist Cuba, even though, early this year, Fidel Castro
succeeded in seamlessly handing over power to his brother Raúl -
testimony, if any was needed, to the stability of the regime.

 Yet if Cuban Miami does indeed continue to dream, it is also
beginning, quietly, tentatively and painfully, to adjust. Backstage,
something very new is happening. Call it the Miami Spring, or
Cuban-American glasnost. This community that has clung for decades to
its certainties - about the island itself, about the role the exile
community would play after the Castro brothers passed from the scene,
about where Cuban-Americans should situate themselves in terms of U.S.
domestic politics - is in ferment. This matters not only in terms of
the destiny of the Cuban-American community itself but also in terms
of the 2008 elections since, despite claims made on background by some
of Barack Obama's advisers, Florida is likely to play a pivotal role
in determining whether Obama or John McCain becomes president, and the
Cuban-American vote is likely to play its usual outsize role in
deciding which candidate prevails in the state.

 In the past, both Democratic and Republican contenders tried to
conform to the hard-line expectations they perceived as the
overwhelming consensus within the Cuban-American community. But Obama
has recently strayed from orthodoxy by criticizing aspects of the
American embargo on Cuba and asserting that he is prepared to open
talks with the regime. This might seem like a golden opportunity for
McCain to solidify his hold on the Cuban-American vote, but Obama's
views appear to be resonating in Cuban Miami more than anyone could
have predicted. Two Democratic Congressional candidates in the Miami
area - Joe Garcia and Raul Martinez - were added last month to the
Democratic Congressional Campaign Committee's list of potential "red
to blue" conversions, bringing to 37 the number of seats nationally
that the Democrats hope to flip away from the Republicans. For the
first time, the hard-line consensus is being challenged. There is real
debate in Cuban Miami these days about the embargo, above all about
the series of further restrictions that were imposed by the Bush
administration in 2003 and 2004. These limited travel for so-called
people-to-people educational exchanges, abolished the category of
"fully hosted" travel (under which travel to and from Cuba was
underwritten by non-U.S. citizens and which Washington long suspected
of being a scheme for money-laundering), reduced family visits to once
every three years and limited the sending of money from Cubans or
Cuban-Americans living in the United States to the sender's immediate
family - parents, siblings, children - rather than, as before, to his
or her extended family. A decade ago, support for such restrictions
and any other confrontational policy was a certainty in Cuban South
Florida. So was its domestic corollary: dependable support for
Republicans both locally and nationally. Today, and quite suddenly,
that unwavering support for Republicans is no longer a given.

 Even sudden change has roots, and this is true in South Florida.
Eduardo Padrón, the president of Miami Dade College and himself a
Democrat, told me recently: "This community was always a great deal
more politically diverse than it was given credit for. And Cubans have
always been more socially liberal than their voting patterns might
suggest." The architect Raúl Rodríguez - whom I accompanied on a
number of family visits to the island in the early 1990s and who has
been involved in civic affairs in South Florida for many years - put
it more sharply: "This community has always been caricatured."

 Colombia
 8) Switzerland Asks Colombia to Stop Harassing Swiss Mediator
 Marc Wolfensberger, Bloomberg, July 16
 http://www.bloomberg.com/apps/news?pid=20601086&sid=aLs6oRQN3jBU

 Switzerland has started a "diplomatic procedure" aimed at getting
Colombia to stop harassing Swiss mediator Jean-Pierre Gontard, who
helped release prisoners held by the Revolutionary Armed Forces of
Colombia.

 The Foreign Affairs Ministry is taking "very seriously" Colombian
media reports about the "possible opening" by Bogota of an
investigation against Gontard, it said in an e-mailed statement late
yesterday. The ministry reiterated its support for Gontard, who
"together with the French mediator worked in an extremely difficult
environment, often risking their lives."

 Last week, Colombian Defense Minister Juan Manuel Santos accused the
Swiss mediator of conveying $500,000 to the FARC after the release of
two hostages in 2001, according to an interview with Colombian
newspaper El Tiempo. The Swiss Foreign Affairs Ministry has since
confirmed that a payment was made following the release of two
employees working for a Swiss company, but it denies Gontard carried
the money.

 Colombia's ambassador to Switzerland, Claudia Jimenez, said last week
that her country would no longer rely on Swiss mediation efforts to
liaise with the FARC.

 -
 Robert Naiman
 Just Foreign Policy
 www.justforeignpolicy.org

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