วันพฤหัสบดีที่ 29 สิงหาคม พ.ศ. 2556

(CNN) -- The U.S. invasion and occupation of Iraq led to nearly 10 years of occupation, nearly 5,000 deaths among the U.S. military and the few allies that joined "Operation Iraqi Freedom," a visceral sectarian-based insurgency and the meddling of neighbors all seeking to influence post-Saddam Iraq. What was intended as an act of liberation -- then-Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld expected the troops to be coming home in a few months -- became a quagmire.
Here are some possible lessons to be learned from that experience.
1. Don't get involved
The first lesson of Iraq as applied to events in Syria is a simple one: don't get involved, and certainly not with boots on the ground. Rather than entertaining grand illusions about making the Middle East safe for democracy, understand the very real limitations of intervention in a region beset with sectarian, religious and ethnic fault lines that cross, rather than follow, borders. The nearly 168,000 U.S. troops in Iraq could only stifle the violence, and the Pentagon has estimated that 70,000 troops would be needed just to secure Syria's chemical weapons, so the number needed to stand a chance of ending the bloodshed in Syria would be daunting -- and a logistical nightmare.

President Barack Obama put it this way in his speech in Cairo four years ago. "America has a dual responsibility: to help Iraq forge a better future -- and to leave Iraq to Iraqis," he said. "We will support a secure and united Iraq as a partner, and never as a patron."
His audience applauded.
The downside of this lesson, according to critics of the Obama administration, is that the United States is now afraid to lead and has been seared by the appalling cost -- in terms of lives, dollars and reputation -- of Iraq. The wars in both Afghanistan and Iraq became so unpopular at home that anything more than a token intervention in Syria would be a huge political risk.
Christopher Chivvis, senior political scientist at the RAND Corporation, says that looming large over policy toward both Libya and Syria "is the dreaded cost -- human and financial -- of yet another entanglement, yet another war and the prospect of more American casualties."
He notes that Libya has been left in a precarious place by a "reflexive fear of boots on the ground, pessimism about the very concept of nation-building, and an excessive emphasis on keeping the international presence to a minimum."

2. Know your end-game
The invasion of Iraq and the prospect of limited strikes against Syrian President Bashar al-Assad's military are two very different scenarios. The initial goal in Iraq, which was to remove Saddam Hussein, was rapidly achieved. There was a pause -- and a lot of looting by Iraqis -- before much thought was given to what should come next. The "handover" was never really thought through -- to whom, under what conditions? A deteriorating security situation was exacerbated by the demobilization of the Iraqi army. There was rivalry among U.S. departments and agencies and many of the plans for reconstruction that had been drawn up, notably by the State Department, were ignored.
I recall attending a somewhat fractious inter-agency meeting inside the Green Zone, the massive U.S. hub in the heart of Baghdad, early in 2004. The official who was trying to revive Iraq's legal system pounded the conference table and exclaimed "Security, security -- I can't do anything if there's no security."
As a state, Iraq virtually collapsed.
Many observers thought the strategy for Iraq was bedeviled by a dangerous combination of complacency and blind ambition. The goals in Syria appear to be at the other end of the spectrum: they are very limited; designed only to influence a regime's behavior rather than remove it or level the battlefield. They are much more similar to the Clinton administration's goals with Operation Desert Fox against Iraq -- three days of cruise missiles and airstrikes in 1998 after Saddam Hussein's regime had obstructed U.N. weapons inspectors for the umpteenth time. Those had a limited duration and goal: contain a dictator.

Obama, as an up-and-coming politician in 2002, echoed this approach in his opposition to an invasion of Iraq, saying Saddam Hussein posed no "imminent and direct threat to the United States or to his neighbors."
Similarly, on Syria, White House spokesman Jay Carney said Tuesday: "I want to make clear that the options that we are considering are not about regime change." So there doesn't need to be an exit strategy.
But what comes next? If elements of the Syrian regime use chemical weapons again, will another batch of cruise missiles be fired? What if Islamist militants, among the most effective rebel groups, take advantage of the gradual erosion of the Syrian military? Would missile strikes snuff out any lingering hopes for a political accommodation?

Above all, after any "punishment strikes," is the bloody stalemate in Syria allowed to continue, with one million refugees and ongoing sectarian atrocities? Once you begin to intervene, the dreaded mission creep too often sets in.
"We have learned from the past 10 years... that it is not enough to simply alter the balance of military power without careful consideration of what is necessary in order to preserve a functioning state," Gen. Martin Dempsey, the chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, wrote to U.S. senators last month.
"Should the (Syrian) regime's institutions collapse in the absence of a viable opposition, we could inadvertently empower extremists or unleash the very chemical weapons we seek to control," the general warned.
As Dempsey intimated, Iraq has shown that al Qaeda thrives in a vacuum and, once entrenched, can be exceptionally difficult to flush out. By 2006, al Qaeda was well established in Iraq under the murderous leadership of Abu Musab al Zarqawi. Only the U.S. troop surge and the Awakening Movement, a bargain struck between Gen. David Petraeus and Sunni tribal chiefs to work against al Qaeda, turned the tide.
In their book "Endgame," about the war in Iraq, Michael Gordon and Bernard Trainor recount a meeting between then-Sen. Obama and Petraeus in Baghdad in July 2008.
"Obama returned to his main theme," they write, "the need to expedite the withdrawal from Iraq to free up more forces for Afghanistan."
"Obama said: 'Afghanistan is the central front in the war on terror.' Petraeus challenged the argument. 'Actually, senator, Iraq is what al Qaeda says is the central front.'"
The experience of both Iraq and Syria (as well as Yemen and Libya and increasingly, Egypt) is that al Qaeda sees new hunting grounds across the Arab world. And Syria, at the heart of a very volatile region, is perhaps the most dangerous, because groups associated with al Qaeda such as the al Nusra Front are already well organized.

3. Be prepared for the aftermath
The importance of a "functioning state" is all the more important because neither Iraq nor Syria are "natural" countries. They were arbitrarily created by British and French diplomats in the infamous Sykes-Picot agreement in 1916, which carved up the Middle East into spheres of influence and created grab-bags of very different tribes and religious affiliations that crossed borders rather than followed them. The 20th century history of these countries was one of weak government and instability intermixed with ruthless dictatorships. Power was invariably transferred by assassination, never by meaningful elections.
So another lesson of Iraq might be this: If you want to remove a ruthless dictator, be prepared for the violent explosion of pent-up hatreds and fears. That happened in Iraq, and is still going on. July was the deadliest month in Iraq in the past five years since the peak of sectarian violence in 2006 and 2007; increasingly the Sunni minority talk in terms of armed resistance against an overbearing Shia-dominated government in Baghdad. In Syria, al-Assad's gradual loss of control has led to enclaves of Alawites, Sunnis and Kurds, while other minorities, the Christians and Shia, fear for their very existence.
Very much part of this lesson: it is virtually impossible for foreigners to broker political solutions in these complex societies of ancient and overlapping loyalties and divisions. U.S. officials in Iraq failed to understand the importance of the tribes and the nuances of inter-communal relationships for years. Frequently, officers were on their second or third tours before they began to understand local allegiances. Ambassador Chris Stevens, who was killed in Benghazi nearly a year ago, was one of the few non-Libyans to understand the subtlety and intricacy of the country's regional differences.

4. Don't count only on military action
The most obvious lesson of Iraq is that boots on the ground -- or any other form of military intervention -- may change the battlefield or topple a dictatorship, but they will not create the conditions for a political settlement. This is also the lesson of Libya, where a NATO no-fly zone and substantial weapons shipments to the rebels eventually tipped the balance against Moammar Gadhafi. But a country that had known no form of civic society in 40 years was left bereft of leadership and expertise. Tearing down a statue of Saddam Hussein, a Gadhafi compound or the headquarters of the Syrian Army's Fourth Division is a whole lot simpler than building something sustainable in its place.
The invasion of Iraq also showed that acting without a genuine international coalition soon undermines the credibility of the mission. It was clear from the arguments at the United Nations on the eve of the Iraqi invasion in 2003 that the Bush administration was committed to military action regardless of what others thought. The Arab League (except Kuwait) and Turkey were vocal in their opposition, as was much of Europe. To begin with, that lack of support didn't matter, but as the going got tough, the United States (and then-British Prrime Minister Tony Blair) became more and more isolated in their efforts to stabilize the country. By contrast, the first President Bush spent months stitching together a coalition (one that even included Syria) and pushing a number of U.N. Security Council resolutions through before ousting Iraqi troops from Kuwait in 1991.
The United States is unlikely to get a U.N. Security Council resolution authorizing the use of military force in Syria, given Russia's support for al-Assad. But Obama has made it clear that the United States will not act unilaterally on Syria. Beyond support from NATO members -- France, Britain, Germany and Turkey, most importantly -- the United States has the significant backing of the Arab League and the Organization of the Islamic Conference, which have both called for measures against the al-Assad regime. And in this instance, Washington can also draw on popular outrage around the world that any state would use poison gas indiscriminately against its own children.

5. Define the doctrine
The (at best) mixed report cards from Iraq and Afghanistan have called into question the capacity of the world's greatest power to fashion change in remote places. In Afghanistan, a counter-insurgency strategy based on massive social and economic investment has sat uneasily with a counter-terrorism strategy that is much more limited in scope. In his early days in office, Obama spoke of bringing opportunity and justice to Afghanistan, with "agricultural specialists and educators, engineers and lawyers." But by 2010 there was a much narrower goal: degrade the Taliban and force it to the peace table,and secure population centers in the Pashtun south.
A retreat into isolation -- recalling the old slogan "No Entangling Alliances" -- is not an option. The United States is still the "indispensable nation."
"As long as it maintains precedence in world affairs, the U.S. will be called upon to help resolve crises like those in Libya and Syria," writes Chivvis.
"There are no simple formulas or maxims to guide policymakers through the uncertain waters they must navigate," he adds.
But some diplomats says a new doctrine is yet to emerge.
"In my meetings with American policy makers I often detect a conversation between ghosts," Michael Oren, the Israeli ambassador in Washington, told the New York Times. "The ghosts of Afghanistan and Iraq are vying with the ghosts of Rwanda and Kosovo."
Michael Noonan, who served in Iraq before joining the Foreign Policy Research Institute, argues: "Unless the U.S. enters a new phase of national strategy where the nation simply conducts punitive expeditions and then leaves immediately following the initial actions then we must be prepared for what the U.S. military has called "Phase IV" operations" (stabilization and reconstruction).
David E. Sanger has written about the emerging Obama doctrine in his book "Confront and Conceal." Post-Iraq, he says, it amounts to "a targeted, get-in-and-get-out fashion, that avoids, at all costs, the kind of messy ground wars and lengthy occupations that have drained America's treasury and spirit for the past decades."
In his first election campaign, the president frequently dwelled on Iraq as the "wrong war," tapping into a war weariness among Americans. He will no doubt be aware of the polling on Syria showing that precious few Americans support any meaningful intervention in the Middle Eastern country.
But to pick battles according to how quickly and cheaply they can be won brings its own risks. The president told the American people after military action had begun against Gadhafi that there were moral and strategic reasons to act.
"To brush aside America's responsibility as a leader and -- more profoundly -- our responsibilities to our fellow human beings under such circumstances would have been a betrayal of who we are. Some nations may be able to turn a blind eye to atrocities in other countries. The United States of America is different. And as president, I refused to wait for the images of slaughter and mass graves before taking action," Obama said at the time.
Critics will ask why the much worse violence in Syria, over more than two years, does not deserve similar action. Sanger wrote last year that Syria is "a laboratory experiment in the limits of our power to intervene."
The experiment is still unfinished. Syria could be the first of several states in the region to unravel completely, much as the former Yugoslavia did, rendering null and void the old imperial borders imposed by Sykes-Picot.

Syria allies: Why Russia, Iran and China are standing by the regime

By Holly Yan, CNN
August 30, 2013 -- Updated 0101 GMT (0901 HKT)
Watch this video

U.N. Security Council deadlocked on Syria


(CNN) -- Allegations of a chemical weapons attack carried out by the Syrian regime last week have heightened tensions internationally. There's been tough talk from Western leaders and a flurry of activity by the United States -- all of which seem to suggest that a military strike against the regime could be in the offing.
But through it all, Syria seems to retain the support of some good friends.
Why do Russia, Iran and China continue to support a regime that's accused of slaughtering tens of thousands of civilians in the 2-year-old civil war?
Here's why.

UK votes against action on Syria

RUSSIA
Why it cares:
Two main reasons: One has to do with economics; the other with ideology.
a) Economics: Russia is one of Syria's biggest arms suppliers.
Syrian contracts with the Russian defense industry have likely exceeded $4 billion, according to Jeffrey Mankoff, an adjunct fellow with the Center for Strategic and International Studies Russia and Eurasia Program.
He noted the Stockholm International Peace Research Institute estimated the value of Russian arms sales to Syria at $162 million per year in both 2009 and 2010.
Moscow also signed a $550 million deal with Syria for combat training jets.
Russia also leases a naval facility at the Syrian port of Tartus, giving the Russian navy its only direct access to the Mediterranean, Mankoff said.
b) Ideology: Russia's key policy goal is blocking American efforts to shape the region.
Russia doesn't believe revolutions, wars and regime change bring stability and democracy. It often points to the Arab Spring and the U.S.-led war in Iraq as evidence.
Russia also doesn't trust U.S. intentions in the region. It believes humanitarian concerns are often used an excuse for pursuing America's own political and economic interests.
"Russia's backing of (Syrian President Bashar) al-Assad is not only driven by the need to preserve its naval presence in the Mediterranean, secure its energy contracts, or counter the West on 'regime change,'" said Anna Neistat, an associate program director at Human Rights Watch.
"It also stems from (Russian President Vladimir) Putin's existential fear for his own survival and the survival of the repressive system that he and al-Assad represent. In Putin's universe, al-Assad cannot lose because it means that one day he, Putin, might as well."
McCain: There is no end game here
Source: Intercept discusses Syria attack
Gen. Hayden: We've got to act on our own
Analysis:Syria is a political chess game
What it's saying:
Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov insists there's no proof yet Syria's government is behind the chemical weapons attack. And any plans to strike Syria would challenge provisions of the U.N. charter, the ministry said.
The ministry accused Washington of trying to "create artificial groundless excuses for military intervention."
On Wednesday, Russia walked out of a U.N. Security Council meeting where Britain was expected to pursue a resolution to authorize the use of force against Syria.
"The West handles the Islamic world the way a monkey handles a grenade," Russian Deputy Prime Minister Dmitry Rogozin tweeted.
Why it matters:
Russia is a permanent member of the U.N. Security Council. It has the power to veto Security Council resolutions against the Syrian regime and has done so repeatedly over the past two years. So, if the United States and its allies are relying on a U.N. mandate to greenlight a military strike, they may be waiting a long time.
IRAN
Why it cares:
Iran and Syria are bound by two factors: religion and strategy.
a) Religion: Iran is the world's most populous Shiite Muslim nation. The Syrian government is dominated by Alawites, a Shiite offshoot, and the rebels are dominated by Sunnis.
That connection has bound them for quite a while. Iran counted on Syria as its only Arab ally during its eight-year war with Iraq. Iraq was Sunni-dominated.
The last thing Iran wants now is a Sunni-dominated Syria -- especially as the rebels' main supporters are Iran's Persian Gulf rivals: Qatar and Saudi Arabia.
b) Strategy: For Iran, Syria is also a strategically key ally. It's Iran's main conduit to the Shiite militia Hezbollah in Lebanon, the proxy through which Iran can threaten Israel with an arsenal of short-range missiles.
In 2009, the top U.S. diplomat in Damascus disclosed that Syria had begun delivery of ballistic missiles to Hezbollah, according to official cables leaked to and published by WikiLeaks.
So, it's in Iran's interest to see al-Assad's regime remain intact.
Western intelligence officials believe the Islamic Republic has provided technical help such as intelligence, communications and advice on crowd control and weapons as protests in Syria morphed into resistance.
A U.N. panel reported in May that Iranian weapons destined for Syria but seized in Turkey included assault rifles, explosives, detonators, machine guns and mortar shells.
Ayham Kamel of Eurasia Group believes the Iranians must be alarmed that the tide is turning against al-Assad.
"Iran probably has excellent information regarding Assad's position. That information would make clear that Iran is increasingly likely to lose its only ally in the region, greatly reducing its strategic reach," he said.
What's it saying:
Iran has cast events in Syria as part of a much broader ideological battle. It's a "war between the front of hegemony and the front of resistance," Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei has said.
Iran's position, as outlined by Foreign Minister Javad Zarif and new President Hassan Rouhani, is that the Syrian government is a victim of international plots.
Iran believes the West and almost all Arab countries are in cahoots in an effort to implement regime change in Syria. Iran says the main objective of this plot is to make the region safer for Israel.
This week, Zarif warned of "graver conditions" in Syria is attacked.
"If any country attacks another when it wants, that is like the Middle Ages," Zarif said Wednesday.
Why it matters:
Many believe Iran is Washington's greatest threat in the region, especially with its nuclear potential. It's unclear how Iran might respond if Syria is attacked. But the rhetoric certainly has been ominous.
"Starting this fire will be like a spark in a large store of gunpowder, with unclear and unspecified outcomes and consequences," Khamenei told Iranian Cabinet members this week.
"The U.S. threats and possible intervention in Syria is a disaster for the region and if such an act is done, certainly, the Americans will sustain damage like when they interfered in Iraq and Afghanistan."
CHINA
Why it cares:
China's relationship with Syria is more nuanced.
Some say it wants to maintain its financial ties. It was ranked as Syria's third-largest importer in 2010, according to data from the European Commission.
"Beijing's renewed interest in Damascus -- the traditional terminus node of the ancient Silk Road ... indicates that China sees Syria as an important trading hub," according to a 2010 report from The Jamestown Foundation, a Washington-based research and analysis institute.
But there's a bigger factor at play.
China has said foreign countries shouldn't meddle in Syria's internal affairs -- and perhaps for good reason. China has had its own share of international controversies over its policies with Tibet as well as allegations of human rights violations.
Finally, China doesn't want to reprise what happened with Libya.
It abstained from a U.N. Security Council resolution on that one, clearing the way for a NATO military intervention in Libya.
"It was rather disappointed with the payoff," said Yun Sun of the Brookings Institution, writing in the East-West Center's Asia Pacific Bulletin. "Neither the West nor the NTC (Libyan National Transitional Council) showed much appreciation for China's abstention."
So, he says, China has "formulated a far more sophisticated hedging strategy" when it comes to Syria.
"Rather than siding with either Assad or the opposition and standing aside to 'wait and see,' Beijing is actively betting on both."
What's it saying:
China said it is firmly opposed to the use of chemical weapons and supports the U.N.'s chemical weapons inspectors.
It also said it wants a political solution for Syria -- though some say hopes for such an ending have waned.
"A political solution is always the only realistic means to resolve the Syria issue," Foreign Minister Wang Yi said.
Like Russia, China also walked out of Wednesday's U.N. Security Council meeting where Britain planned to pursue a resolution on Syria.
Why it matters:
China is a permanent member of the U.N. Security Council. And like Russia, China has repeatedly blocked sanctions attempts against the Syrian regime -- leading to a perpetual stalemate at the U.N. body to take any serious action on Syria.
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A Prickly Sensation Like No Other


A Prickly Sensation Like No OtherThe man behind the prickly king of fruit.
Our Makanguru, KF Seetoh, calls him the “hottest (or coolest) thing to durian knowledge for foodies online since Peter Fonda wore Ray Ban shades while riding his Harley.” Yet, this humble man only calls himself a “durian enthusiast.” He is Tommy Lim, the writer behind Prickly Sensations, a blog where he talks about planting durian like Al Gore talks about global warming in awakening, interesting and inspiring ways.
For 30 minutes, his description and story-telling about the different types of durian enticed us more than the aroma of these prickly fruits. What’s best is after all that long talk, that seed of durian tasted like it’s never been before. It is like falling in love with your spouse all over again after 30 years of marriage. It is like we are in a wine appreciation class, except this is with a durian connoisseur. Now Lim organises a durian feast regularly, which he calls the Durian Connections, “it’s all about connecting people of all walks of life through durian,” he says.
“My first encounter with durians precedes my arrival to this world,” describes Tommy in his blog. Both his parents were durian aficionados, his mother was stuffing herself with durian during pregnancy (she believed it is beneficial), and the smell of durian was almost always present in the house and even in the car. It was a smell that calls for excitement, “I can smell durian even from a mile away,” he laughs. It was in the early 2000 when Lim had his first appreciation ‘class’ by a durian seller in Geylang. Ever since then, Lim had never stopped learning about durian and continuously shares his knowledge with people around him – how to plant a durian, how to choose and how to best enjoy. “When I first met my wife, she thought durian is all the same mah! But now she can explain the differences,” he says.
A Prickly Sensation Like No OtherTommy at one of the durian stalls he frequent (Ah Loon, 227 East Coast Rd)
For all the durian lovers out there, there are two reasons why you need to be durian-literate. First, by knowing how to differentiate types of durian, you are also avoiding the chances of being conned and paying sky high prices for lousy variants. But more importantly, when you have the knowledge, durian sellers will tend to reserve the best durian for you. “It’s etiquette. Durian sellers will not want to waste good durians, they only sell it to people who know how to appreciate them,” explains Tommy.
Now a full-time banker, husband, father and a dreamer, Tommy hopes to own his own durian plantation one day. “So that I can cultivate a cultivar that is suited for my friends, according to their durian preferences. Then name each tree after them,” and he continues “For generations that come after to have something they can relate to, they can say proudly that their grandpa and grandma gave their family heirloom, a heritage, something symbolic and meaningful.” Durian trees that used to take a generation to grow, has been enabled by new agriculture technology and can be grown in a decade. If you start planting your durian tree now, you will have a chance to taste your own cultivar. That is if Lim’s dream comes true soon.
“This year’s durian season can easily lasts until October,” says Ah Loon, a durian seller at 227 East Coast Rd. Although durian is available all year long, these few months would be the best time to try out all these different types of durian.
Durian 101
A Prickly Sensation Like No OtherThe most beloved Mao Shan Wang
Mao Shan Wang: Sometimes called the “butter durian,” Mao Shan Wang has a creamier, firmer and heavier texture compared to other durians. Its smell is pungent and strong. [Here’s a post on how to identify fake Mao Shan Wang, shared by Tony Johor Kaki in his blog who calls Lim his durian teacher: http://bit.ly/16hDBNT]
Red Prawn: A sought after cultivar from Penang which is hard to find in Singapore. It has an orange reddish flesh and is very aromatic. The closest one to this is probably the D13.
D13: The flesh of this cultivar is slightly reddish like the Red Prawn. It has a subtler and softer texture, like custard, but with a shorter bittersweet aftertaste compared to Red Prawn.
A Prickly Sensation Like No OtherD13 comes with slightly reddish flesh.
D101: This durian is easy on palate, good for beginners. D101’s flesh looks similar to Mao Shan Wang, but has big full seeds, whereas Mao Shan Wang usually has flat and shrunken seeds.
XO: It greets the eater with an alcoholic punch to the palate. Fast as it goes, fast as it fades away. It does not have much body to it, flat thereafter. But often much sought after among the bitter durian fans.
A Prickly Sensation Like No OtherXO has more watery consistency with bitter after taste
Golden Phoenix: This durian leaves palates dancing with joy, while the creaminess coats the palates. It leaves an enjoyable refreshing aftertaste. Small it may be, but it does hold its status as the Queen, after Mao Shan Wang.
To enjoy: Lim likes to go on a roller-coaster with all these different cultivars. It is recommended to start with a milder durian, like D101, and gradually moves to stronger and more bitter durian. But in between, Lim would add in the XO, the most bitter among all and ends on a high note with Mao Shan Wang. In between, drink a lot of water to clean your palate.
For more on durian, check out Tommy’s blog at http://pricklysensations.blogspot.sg/ or better yet, go to one of his durian connections. Don’t call him a durian expert, he insists, “I am just a guy who is passionate about durian and loves to eat durian,” he says, crediting his wife (Ms Song), food buddies (David, Mark, Jason and Andrew) and his durian expert (Trevor) for all the prickly sensations he has created.

วันอังคารที่ 20 สิงหาคม พ.ศ. 2556

Drought Called a Factor in Syria’s Uprising

Adilla Finchaan, 50, and her husband, Ashore Mohammed, 60 walk their dried-up farmland in Iraq in this 2009 photograph. The Tigris-Euphrates region suffered consecutive years of drought.
Adilla Finchaan, 50, and her husband, Ashore Mohammed, 60 walk their dried-up farmland in Iraq in this 2009 photograph. The Tigris-Euphrates region suffered consecutive years of drought.

David Arnold
Two-and-a-half years ago, a group of children in the Syrian city of Dara’a triggered one of the bloodiest conflicts in the 21st century when they painted some anti-government graffiti on a school wall in the ancient farming community.

The children were quickly detained and tortured, leading to widespread protests in the city that were met with harsh repression.  The government’s brutal response led to a nationwide revolt that has now stagnated into a bloody stalemate with no end in sight.

Dara’a is a mostly agricultural community in a region that has suffered an unrelenting drought since 2001. Some experts say it’s no accident that Syria’s civil war began there.

In 2009, the United Nations and other international agencies found that more than 800,000 Syrian farmers and herdsmen had been forced off their lands because of drought, with many crowding into cities like Dara’a.  Additionally, thousands of illegal wells were drilled, drastically lowering the nation’s ground water supply.

The effects of drought and water-mismanagement in the region were highlighted recently by the publication of U.S. National Aeronautic and Space Administration satellite photographs of Syria, Turkey and Iraq.

Faced with drought, Syrians crowding these farm towns started drilling deeper for fresh water in the aquifer beneath them. Experts estimated that 60 percent of the aquifer has been lost due to illegal drilling, and a total of 177 million-acre feet of water disappeared, the second-largest aquifer loss in the world.

Satellite images reveal depth of drought

“I actually don’t think the aquifer will recover,” said Jay Famiglietti, a hydrologist and leader of a study of seven years of NASA satellite data that show the Tigris-Euphrates region second only to India in the speed of its groundwater loss.

“The Middle East is the dry part of the world and now that climate change is expressing itself very clearly, one of the things that we will see is that the dry parts of the world will get drier,” Famiglietti said.

“Think of it as a persistent prolonged drought.”

Because of climate change, the Tigris-Euphrates basin and the underground reservoirs of fresh water that once nurtured this fragile desert climate may not be able to sustain future populations in Syria.

It all started in Dara’a

The Syrian uprising was unlike political uprisings in Egypt, Yemen and other Middle East states, all of which started in the major cities. Dara’a was a regional agricultural hub with a pre-war population of 90,000.

“Dara’a is the capital of an agricultural province, one of the most significant agricultural areas,” said Syria scholar Ayel Zisser of the Tel Aviv University.

Their protests spread from Dara’s at Syria’s southern border to communities north of Aleppo and across the vast al-Jazira plain that stretches from the banks of the Euphrates to the banks of the Tigris. The pattern of the protests followed the rural path of the drought.

“Even until today it’s been a peasant revolt isolated to the rural areas,” Zisser said.
                    
Assad’s economic reforms focused on global trade that benefitted the urban middle classes, thereby worsening the plight of Syria’s farmers, according to Zisser.

The reforms were implemented “at the expense of the population in the rural areas, where they abolished agricultural subsidies,” Zisser said. “The regime turned its back to the rural population and the result was the revolt.”

Like other Middle Eastern countries, Syria’s population has increased dramatically in recent years.  

“This is the first time in history that in less than 30 years, the Middle East doubled its population. It was between 1950 and 1980,” said Arnon Soffer, a demographer and the head of research at the University of Haifa and Israel’s National Defense College.

“If that’s not tragic enough, from 1980 to 2010 – another 30 years – this crazy area doubled itself again,” Soffer added.

Even before climate change threatened less rainfall in the region, water was a hot-button issue.

In 1973, Iraq rushed troops to Syria’s eastern border as upstream, Syria began filling its Tagba Dam with Euphrates water to create Lake Assad.

The real water power in basin is Turkey.

Syria and Iraq depend on the waters of the Euphrates and the Tigris, which flow from southern Turkey, for most of their agricultural irrigation. Farmers on both sides of the border also rely on traditional irrigation techniques that waste water resources.

“Turks use most of the water of the Euphrates,” said Bogochan Benli, a water expert who worked in the Aleppo labs of the International Center for Agricultural Research in Dry Areas during the years of the drought. Aleppo and many northern Syrian communities traditionally also depended on the Euphrates for their drinking water, he said.

In Turkey, Benli said since the 1970’s the Southeastern Anatolia project has created employment for a poor and arid region of Turkey. It’s the main income-generator for the region and their water policy “will never change.” The project is an ambitious development of 22 dams and 19 hydroelectric power plants to irrigate and provide electrical power in nine Turkish provinces.

The centerpiece is the massive Ataturk Dam and hydroelectric power plant that opened in 1990. According Arnon Soffer of Haifa University a few months before the dam was completed, then-Turkish president Turgut Ozal told Syria’s president, Hafez al-Assad, “Now you can wash yourself for the next two months, but I will close the Ataturk Dam and I will dry the Euphrates River.”

He said Ozal’s abrupt pronouncement to Hafez Assad was devastating to Syria. “The Euphrates became a wadi, a dry valley,” said Soffer. Assad Dam closed for a month. “The dam was empty and there was no electricity. Even up to today, I could not imagine how they could recover.”

Though Turkey and its downstream neighbors have discussed sharing their waters, Turkey has not signed away any rights.

With little or no regional cooperation on water issues, experts fear that the turmoil now wrecking Syria could be a prelude to other conflicts in the region.

วันพุธที่ 7 สิงหาคม พ.ศ. 2556

Can Iran’s New U.S.-Educated Foreign Minister Mend Ties with Washington?

Mohammad Javad Zarif, the man tapped to be Iran's next Foreign Minister, has been dealing with the U.S. for over two decades. Can he lead the push for rapprochement?
From left: Iranian President Hassan Rowhani talks to Mohammad-Javad Zarif at the presidential office in Tehran, on Aug. 4, 2013.
ABEDIN TAHERKENAREH / EPA
From left: Iranian President Hassan Rouhani talks to Mohammad Javad Zarif at the presidential office in Tehran, on Aug. 4, 2013.
The U.S. and Iran maintain no formal diplomatic ties. Neither country stations an ambassador in the other’s capital nor do their top diplomats talk to each other all that much. Three decades of tensions mean both American and Iranian politicians are far more practiced at demonizing the other than reaching compromise. But Mohammad Javad Zarif has long proven an important exception to the rule: the Iranian career diplomat received a doctorate at the University of Denver, his children were born in the United States and his fluent English carries little trace of an accent. As Iran’s ambassador to the United Nations from 2002 to 2007, he built up a world of contacts in Washington, even once taking a train on his own from New York to call on a senator in the U.S. capital. Here’s an Iranian who can speak American. And here is Iran’s next Foreign Minister.
Zarif’s appointment was announced Aug. 4 by new Iranian President Hassan Rouhani following the latter’s inauguration. A forthcoming confirmation vote in parliament is expected to be a formality. His emergence alongside Rouhani, say some analysts, marks a hopeful shift in Iranian foreign policy from the bellicose antics of former President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad, whose eight years in power deepened the Islamic Republic’s isolation and led to rounds of international sanctions that hobbled Iran’s economy. Rouhani, a moderate cleric, has used the days since assuming office to extend an olive branch to the U.S., expressing his wish for “serious and substantive” talks. Zarif will be at the helm of this new effort. “I think we should be very optimistic,” says Hooman Majd, an Iranian-American writer and commentator based in New York. “Zarif is far more capable of compromise and diplomacy, which was virtually non-existent under Ahmadinejad.”
Zarif, 53, is a known entity in Washington, with some twenty years of experience in dealing with American interlocutors. Since Iran has no formal ties to the U.S., its mission at the U.N. is doubly important, attracting some of the country’s sharpest civil servants. “There’s a tradition of clever, subtle Iranian diplomats,” says Alvaro de Soto, a former senior U.N. official. “A sense of thousands of years of Iranian history and culture informs their diplomacy deeply—there’s no question about it.” Zarif distinguished himself in particular and was seen by colleagues to be a talented, suave operator who charmed many on Manhattan’s diplomatic circuit. He faced the American press, including an appearance on the Charlie Rose show, and was able to speak with both confidence and candor.
Alongside Rouhani, he was one of Iran’s lead negotiators in a 2003 bid to achieve a “grand bargain” with the U.S. over Tehran’s nuclear program—negotiations that collapsed after the Bush administration lumped Iran together with North Korea and Iraq into the “axis of evil.” Two years earlier, in 2001, Zarif was Iran’s main representative at the Bonn Conference, which brought together regional players in the aftermath of the U.S. invasion of Afghanistan and the ousting of the Taliban. His American counterpart at the summit, James Dobbins—who was recently named the Obama administration’s special envoy to Afghanistan—wrote in the January 2010 issue of Washington Quarterly both of the Iranian’s good humor and seriousness about getting things done. The two met repeatedly “over morning coffee and cakes” and worked together to thrash out a deal that led to the installation of Afghan President Hamid Karzai’s government weeks later in Kabul. It was the most successful instance of joint U.S.-Iranian diplomacy since the 1979 Revolution.
But Zarif’s appointment won’t thaw relations between Washington and Tehran overnight. “People who are celebrating should be a little more cautious,” says Edward Luck, a former high-ranking U.N. official who is now dean of the Joan B. Kroc School of Peace Studies at the University of San Diego. “We’ll get a better face, better music, but the basic fundamentals of the relationship with the U.S. will be the last thing to change, not the first.”
As Foreign Minister, Zarif of course will have a global agenda, not just an American one, and will enter office at a delicate moment at home. “He will have to be a little careful, he’ll have to look over his right flank,” says Luck. The Rouhani administration has to wade through an economic mess inherited from Ahmadinejad’s tenure and do damage control in the neighborhood. Relations with key regional players like Saudi Arabia are at the lowest of ebbs. “There’s also the situation with the Arab Spring, conflicts in Syria, tensions in Egypt. The U.S. is not the central part of the conversation,” says Trita Parsi, president of the National Iranian American Council, which seeks to build bridges between Washington and Tehran.
Iranian nuclear policy, moreover, is dictated by the Supreme Leader, Ayatullah Ali Khamanei, who has presided over a decade of intensifying enmity with the U.S. Zarif is known to be close to Khamanei and will not likely be rewriting many scripts in Tehran. After the 2005 election of Ahmadinejad—a demagogic firebrand who, according to some observers, frustrated Zarif deeply—Zarif managed to keep his post at the U.N. for a year and a half even as many of his peers in the Iranian diplomatic corps lost their jobs. “Even if he didn’t agree with Ahmadinejad,” says Majd, “Zarif is patriotic and loyal to his government and country.” Moreover, after the disappointment Zarif, Rouhani and others experienced when attempting negotiations with the U.S. a decade ago—”they were the ones who got burned,” says Parsi—their return to prominence may mean simply a more cautious Iranian approach to nuclear talks, not the more conciliatory one some in the U.S. seem to expect.
Meanwhile, despite the changing of the guard in Tehran, Washington’s hawkishness shows little sign of abating. On the same day last week that news leaked of Zarif’s appointment, the U.S. House of Representatives passed a tough new sanctions bill on Iran, which will go to the Senate in September after summer recess. On Monday, 76 U.S. Senators signed a letter to President Obama urging him to ratchet up the pressure on Iran. This adversarial climate won’t lead to productive diplomacy, says Vali Nasr, a former foreign policy adviser to the Obama administration and dean of the John Hopkins School of Advanced International Studies in Washington. “If [the American] approach is going to continue to be demands backed by escalating sanctions, it will not matter who Iran’s chief diplomat is. There will be no forward movement,” Nasr tells TIME. While Zarif may be a figure with whom the U.S. can do business, he will only succeed, says Nasr, “in so far as he can show Tehran that diplomacy pays dividends.” That requires signals from Washington that it, too, desires engagement and rapprochement, Nasr says. The White House should put forward its own “serious interlocutor,” he adds.
A lot has to happen before the hope that surrounds Iran’s new leadership translates into tangible progress on the diplomatic stage. But if Zarif musters both the charm and endeavor on display while he was stationed at the U.N. he might be able to help usher in a new era of communication between Iran and the U.S. “In political systems [like the one in Iran], where institutions aren’t that strong, personalities make a huge difference,” says Parsi. “And Zarif is a heavyweight.”
 
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