Tues. 16 Feb. 2011

YEDIOTH AHRONOTH 'Assad wants to improve relations with West' ……………….1

OXFORD BUSSINESS GROUP Syria: a decade of reform posting economic growth ……...…2

INDEPENDENT Robert Fisk: Three weeks in Egypt show the power of

brutality – and its limits…………………………………..….4BALTIMORE SUN

Egypt revolution puts Israel at risk ………………………….7

WASHINGTON POST Condoleezza Rice: The future of a democratic Egypt ……….8

NYTIMES Mikhail Gorbachev: Egypt's Agonizing Choice ………...…11 U.S. Follows Two Paths on Unrest in Iran and Bahrain …...15

COUNTER PUNCH Fidel Castro: The Revolutionary Rebellion in Egypt ……....19

ASIA TIMES Tom Engelhardt: Driving through the gates of hell ……….25

JERUSALEM POST Analysis: Lebanon and the limits of protest ………………..35

HAARETZ Netanyahu is beginning to resemble his friend Mubarak …..38

GUARDIAN Robert Mally: The Arab world is dead ……………………..41 Ice queens of the Arab world ……………………………....45 Defector admits to WMD lies that triggered Iraq war ……..48

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HOME PAGE'Assad wants to improve relations with West' Jewish leader Malcolm Hoenlein discusses 1-day visit to Damascus last December, says he was not acting as Israel's envoy. 'I assume my invitation came because Assad wants to improve some things,' he says Yedioth Ahronoth (original story is by Associated Press),15 Feb. 2011,

A top American Jewish leader said Monday that a secret visit he recently made to Syria could be a sign that President Bashar Assad wants to improve relations with the West.

Malcolm Hoenlein, the executive vice chairman of the Conference of Presidents of Major American Jewish Organizations, also said the international community should proceed with caution as the Arab world begins to embrace democracy.

In an interview with The Associated Press, Hoenlein confirmed his one-day December visit to Damascus at the invitation of Assad.

Hoenlein said his mission was humanitarian, that he was not acting as an envoy for Israel, and that he spent hours discussing a variety of issues with Assad. "There was no interpreter. It was just the two of us," he said.

Hoenlein refused to divulge details. "I assume my invitation came because he wants to improve some things," he said. "Maybe out of all of this some good can come."

Israel and the US have expressed numerous concerns about Assad, ranging from Syria's poor human rights record to its support for Hezbollah guerrillas in Lebanon, Hamas militants in the Gaza Strip and links to armed anti-American groups in Iraq. Hoenlein's visit to Syria came several weeks before popular unrest erupted in Egypt, forcing longtime President Hosni Mubarak to step down last week. The developments in Egypt, as well as similar unrest that forced Tunisia's longtime ruler to flee the

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country, have fueled calls throughout the region for democratic reforms.

Hoenlein said he believes people in the Arab world are ready for democracy, but questioned whether the necessary institutions are in place for true reform.

He stressed that neither Israel nor the American Jewish community should be a factor in any transition. "These are decisions that people there in the region have to make," he said

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Syria: a decade of reform posting economic growth Oxford Business Group & Global Arab Network,Tuesday, 15 February 2011

Syria’s economy outperformed those of many other countries in 2010, posting growth of around 5%, according to initial estimates from the government. Despite the economic reforms that have been set in motion since President Bashar Al Assad came to power in 2000, Syria is still in the early stages of integrating into the global economy, which has served to a certain extent as protection against volatility in light of the global economic slowdown. However, the reform process has progressed to a stage where new opportunities have opened up for employment and imports, which has resulted in a significant increase in opportunities and demand in the retail sector. Over the past five years, GDP growth has averaged 5.4%, Global Arab Network reports according to OBG.

Nevertheless, the retail market in Syria remains relatively underdeveloped in comparison to many countries in Europe and North America, or even neighbouring countries such as Jordan or Lebanon. Small independent retailers, often family businesses operating in the grey economy, continue to dominate the market, which has relatively few modern retail outlets, such as shopping malls. The few developments that exist are mostly focused on the

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higher end of the market, with relatively few outlets catering to the middle segment.

Despite the current under-development, the scene is changing quickly. The first purpose-built shopping mall in Syria, the 35,000-sq-metre Town Centre on the main road to Jordan, opened in 2004, followed by the 80,000-sq-metre Cham City Centre in 2006 and the 24,000-sq-metre Damasquino Mall in 2009. In the wake of the world recession, Gulf money, looking for a relatively safe haven, has moved to Syria, and several larger mixed-use developments are in the pipeline that incorporate retail space. Gulf-backed projects include the 200,000-sq-metre Mall of Syria, which is being built by UAE-based Majid Al Futtaim Properties as part of a mixed-use development near Yaafour and is expected to be completed by 2014. Fellow UAE firm Emaar’s Eighth Gate, a mixed-use project offering housing, office space and 200,000 sq metres of retail space, is due to open in 2013. Closer to home, Syria’s own Cham Holding is planning a redevelopment of Damascus’s Hijaz railway station to include office towers and retail space, while Souria Holding is converting the Beramke transport terminal in Damascus into another office and retail complex, called Abraj Souria.

International chains are also eying the Syrian market. Spain’s Inditex, the owner of brands such as Massimo Dutti and Zara, opened its first stores in Syria in 2009, joining the likes of Benetton and Mango. Moreover, a number of regional brands, such as Beirut-based luxury clothing brand Aichti and various Turkish chains, have entered the Syrian market in recent years. Additionally, France’s Carrefour Group, a leading international hypermarket chains, opened its first store in Syria in Aleppo, anchoring the 130,000-sq-metre Shahba Mall, and plans to open another in Damascus in 2012.

This is not to say that the road ahead is entirely smooth. For one thing, the government intends to introduce a value-added tax (VAT) in 2011, though it has not yet specified a date or the rate at which the tax will be set. Initially, however, the tax is likely to

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have a greater impact on high-end retailers. The exemption threshold has been set at S£30m ($700,000) and items such as staple foodstuffs and pharmaceuticals are to be exempt. Given that many Syrians still make most of their purchases from small neighbourhood traders, often in the informal economy, the burden of the tax is likely to fall on the middle classes who shop in formal outlets. On the plus side, however, VAT may accelerate a move from high-end to mid-range retailing, which remains a relatively untapped market in Syria.

Lack of competition remains an issue. Although international brands and products are more available, they are sold at higher prices – and sometimes with lower quality standards – than in neighbouring countries. Turkey in particular has been a beneficiary of this situation, with Syrians from across the north of the country – particularly Aleppo, which is only 50 km from the border – crossing into Turkey to access a wider range of goods at lower costs. Reform of the customs, franchise and rental law regulations will be a key step in increasing competition, driving down prices and pushing up quality.

For Syria’s rising middle class, however, the ability to visit a shopping mall and buy foreign brands is becoming a status symbol. Syria is likely to see the emergence of a new style of shopping – visiting a retail centre as a destination in itself, but not necessarily making any purchases – as a form of leisure activity, which means the prospects are bright for new retail-focused developments.

This article is published in partnership with Oxford Business Group

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Robert Fisk: Three weeks in Egypt show the power of brutality – and its limitsAs he leaves Cairo, our writer reflects on the lessons of an extraordinary uprising for protesters and police alikeIndependent,

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Wednesday, 16 February 2011

After three weeks of watching the greatest Arab nation hurling a preposterous old man from power, I'm struck by something very odd. We have been informing the world that the infection of Tunisia's revolution spread to Egypt – and that near-identical democracy protests have broken out in Yemen, Bahrain and in Algeria – but we've all missed the most salient contamination of all: that the state security police who prop up the power of the Arab world's autocrats have used the same hopeless tactics of savagery to crush demonstrators in Sanaa, Bahrain and Algiers as the Tunisian and Egyptian dictators tried so vainly to employ against their own pro-democracy protestors.

Just as the non-violent millions in Cairo learnt from Al-Jazeera and from their opposite numbers in Tunis – even down to the emails from Tunisia urging Egyptians to cut lemons in half and eat them to avoid the effects of tear-gas – so the state security thugs in Egypt, presumably watching the same programmes, have used precisely the same brutality against the crowds as their colleagues in Tunis. Incredible, when you come to think about it. The cops in Cairo saw the cops in Tunis bludgeoning government opponents to a bloody mess and – totally ignoring the fact that this led to Ben Ali's downfall – went into copy-cat mode.

Having had the pleasure of standing next to these state security warriors in the streets of Cairo, I can attest their tactics from personal experience. First, the uniformed police confronted the demonstrators. Then their ranks parted to allow the baltagi – the former policemen, drug-addicts and ex-prisoners – to run forward and strike the protesters with sticks, police coshes and iron crowbars. Then the criminals retreated to police lines while the cops doused the demonstrators with thousands of tear-gas canisters (again, made in the US). In the end, as I watched with considerable satisfaction, the protesters simply overwhelmed the state security men and their mafiosi.

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But what happens when I turn on Al-Jazeera to see where we should travel next? On the streets of Yemen are state security police baton-charging crowds of Sanaa's pro-democracy demonstrators then parting ranks to allow plain-clothes thugs to attack the protestors with sticks, police coshes, iron bars and pistols. And the moment the cop-criminals retreat, the Yemeni police douse the crowds with tear-gas rounds. A few minutes later, I am watching Algerian cops batoning the crowds, allowing plain-clothes men to race forward with crow-bars and coshes, then spraying tear-gas across the streets. Then Bahrain where – I don't need to tell you, do I? – cops baton the demonstrators and slop thousands of tear-gas rounds into the men and women with such promiscuity that the police themselves, overcome by the gas, retch speechless on to the road. Weird, isn't it?

But no, I suspect not. For years, the secret services of these countries have been mimicking their mates for one simple reason: because their intelligence capos have been swapping tips for years. Torture tips, too. The Egyptians learnt how to use electricity in their desert prisons far more forcefully on genitals after a friendly visit from lads based at the Chateauneuf police station in Algiers (who specialise in pumping water into men until they literally burst apart). When I was in Algiers last December, the head of Tunisian state security dropped by for a fraternal visit. Just as Algierians visited Syria back in 1994 to find out how Hafez el-Assad dealt with the 1982 Muslim uprising in Hama: simple – slaughter the people, blow up the city, leave the corpses of innocent and guilty for the survivors to see. Which is what le pouvoir then did to the vicious and armed Islamists as well as their own people.

It was infernal, this open university of torture, a constant round of conferences and first-hand "interrogation" accounts by the sadists of the Arab world, with the constant support of the Pentagon and its scandalous "strategic co-operation" manuals, not to mention the enthusiasm of Israel. But there was a vital flaw in these lectures. If the people once – just once – lost their fear, and rose up to crush their oppressors, the very system of pain and frightfulness would

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become its own enemy, its ferocity the very reason for its collapse. This is what happened in Tunis. This is what happened in Egypt.

It's an instructive lesson. Bahrain, Algeria and Yemen are all following the identical policies of brutality that failed Messrs Ben Ali and Mubarak. That's not the only strange parallel between the overthrow of these two titans. Mubarak really thought on Thursday night that the people would suffer another five months of his rule. Ben Ali apparently thought much the same.

What all this proves is that the dictators of the Middle East are infinitely more stupid, more vicious, more vain, more arrogant, more ridiculous than even their own people realised. Ghengis Khan and Lord Blair of Isfahan rolled into one.

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Egypt revolution puts Israel at risk Al Eisner, Silver SpringBaltimore Sun,February 15, 2011

The collapse of the Mubarak regime will have dire consequences on the future of the Middle East and the State of Israel. The warning signs are there now, and a domino-style collapse of moderate Arab regimes could lead Israel to war, just like it did in1948.

Hosni Mubarak's resignation from power in Egypt and the growing turmoil in nearby Jordan are ominous and bad signs for Israel.

The relations between Egypt and rest of civilized world will be determined by the army of Egypt under pressure by the Islamic Brotherhood both in and out of Egypt. Historically, the Islamic Brotherhood traces it's existence to the Mahdi's army, in Khartoum, Sudan. It was responsible for the wiping out of the British forces, under mercenary general Charles "China" Gordon.

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Field Marshal Kitchener had to lead a punitive expedition to eradicate the religious zealot Mahdi's forces.

The reality is that history is repeating itself, and the lack of maturity and experience by President Obama puts American interests at risk. He has sold out Egypt and will sell out Israel next. Hopefully, Israel will survive the seriously misguided Obama administration.

Religious extremism currently seen with Iran, Hamas and the Islamic Brotherhood is disregarded by President Obama as his administration is unable to recognize and hold responsible the countries that coddle religious crazies.

Israel will face a regional if not greater war, and thus Israel could be in great danger. President Obama's shift to effectively support the Islamic Brotherhood Instead of Hosni Mubarak was once again the wrong decision and will have dire consequences in the near future.

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The future of a democratic Egypt Condoleezza RiceWashington Post,Wednesday, February 16, 2011;

As I watched Hosni Mubarak address the Egyptian people last week, I thought to myself, "It didn't have to be this way."

In June 2005, as secretary of state, I arrived at the American University in Cairo to deliver a speech at a time of growing momentum for democratic change in the region. Following in the vein of President George W. Bush's second inaugural address, I said that the United States would stand with people who seek freedom. This was an admission that the United States had, in the Middle East more than any other region, sought stability at the expense of democracy, and had achieved neither. It was an affirmation of our belief that the desire for liberty is universal - not

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Western, but human - and that only fulfillment of that desire leads to true stability. For a time it seemed that Egypt's leadership was responding - not so much to us but to their own people, who clamored for change. Egyptians had just witnessed the retreat of Syrian troops in Lebanon and the election of a new government; the purple-fingered free elections in Iraq; and the emergence of new leadership in Palestine. A few months later, freer if not fully free presidential elections followed raucous civic debate in Egypt's cafes and online. Though Mubarak's party won overwhelmingly, it seemed a kind of Rubicon had been crossed.

But shortly thereafter Mubarak reversed course. Parliamentary elections were a mockery, the hated "emergency law" remained in place and opposition figures such as Ayman Nour were imprisoned again. Egyptians seethed - anger that would eventually explode into Tahrir Square. The lesson to others in the region should be to accelerate long-delayed political and economic reforms.

Now the Mubarak regime is gone. There are understandable fears that these events will not turn out so well. The Muslim Brotherhood represents the most organized political force in Egypt. Mubarak always said that the choice was between him and the Brotherhood, and he pursued policies that fulfilled that prophecy. While many decent, more secular political leaders were harassed and jailed by the regime, the Brotherhood organized in the mosques and provided social services the regime could not. It will take time to level the playing field.

The United States knows democracy to be a long process - untidy, disruptive and even chaotic at times. I do not mean to understate the challenge to American interests posed by an uncertain future in Egypt. For all his failings, Mubarak maintained a cold peace with Israel, which became a pillar of Egyptian foreign policy. He supported moderate Palestinian leadership and helped keep Hamas at bay. But he could never do so fully because he was afraid of "the street." Authoritarians don't know or respect their people, and

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they fear them. The United States has taken a good deal of public blame from friends who secretly supported our policies - fueling hatred against us while shielding themselves.

We cannot determine the foreign policy preferences of Egypt's next government. But we can influence them through our ties to the military, links to civil society, and a promise of economic assistance and free trade to help improve the lot of the Egyptian people.

The most important step now is to express confidence in the future of a democratic Egypt. Egyptians are not Iranians, and it is not 1979. Egypt's institutions are stronger and its secularism deeper. The Brotherhood is likely to compete for the writ of the people in free and fair elections. They should be forced to defend their vision for Egypt. Do they seek the imposition of sharia law? Do they intend a future of suicide bombings and violent resistance to the existence of Israel? Will they use Iran as a political model? Al-Qaeda? Where will Egypt find jobs for its people? Do they expect to improve the lives of Egyptians cut off from the international community through policies designed to destabilize the Middle East?

Much has been made of Hamas's 2006 electoral "victory" and the strength of Hezbollah in Lebanon. Many factors set these cases apart. But even in these examples, extremists have struggle when faced with the challenges of governance.

What comes next is up to Egyptians. Many are young and full of revolutionary fervor. Democratic politics will be challenged by tenets of radical political Islam. This struggle is playing out across the region - in Iraq, Lebanon and especially Turkey, where decades of secularism have given way to the accommodation of religious people in the public square. In Egypt, Christians and followers of other religions will also have to find a place and a voice.

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The next months, indeed years, are bound to be turbulent. Yet that turbulence is preferable to the false stability of autocracy, in which malignant forces find footing in the freedom gap that silences democratic voices.

This is not 1979, but it is not 1989 either. The fall of communism unleashed patriots who had long regarded the United States as a "beacon of freedom." Our history with the peoples of the Middle East is very different. Still, the United States should support the forces of democracy, not because they will be friendlier to us but because they will be friendlier to their own people.

Democratic governments, including our closest allies, do not always agree with us. Yet they share our most fundamental belief - that people must be governed by consent. It is as true today as it was when I said in 2005 that the fear of free choices can no longer justify the denial of liberty. We have only one choice: to trust that in the long arc of history those shared beliefs will matter more than the immediate disruptions that lie ahead and that, ultimately, our interests and ideals will be well served.

The writer was secretary of state from 2005 to 2009.

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Egypt's Agonizing Choice By MIKHAIL GORBACHEVNYTIMES,February 15, 2011,

First in Tunisia and now in Egypt, the people have spoken and made clear that they do not want to live under authoritarian rule and are fed up with regimes that hold power for decades.

In the end, the voice of the people will be decisive. The Arab elites, Egypt’s neighboring countries and the world powers should understand this and take it into account in their political calculations.

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The events now unfolding will have far-reaching consequences for Egypt itself, for the Middle East and for the Muslim world. Yet a lot of anxiety has surfaced in comments by politicians and the media. Many voice the fear that the popular movement could lead to chaos and then to fundamentalist reaction and confrontation between the Islamic world and the international community. Behind these fears is mistrust of the Egyptian people and of other Arab nations.

For too long, conventional political thinking about the Arab world was based on a false dichotomy: authoritarian regimes or fundamentalism, extremism, terrorism. The leaders of those regimes also seemed to believe in their roles as guardians of stability. Behind the façade, however, severe social and economic problems kept mounting. Stagnating economies, pervasive corruption, the widening chasm between rich and poor, and a life of frustration for millions of young people fueled social unrest.

Egypt is the key country in the Middle East and in the Arab world. Its stable development is in everyone’s interest. But is stability tantamount to living under a perpetual state of emergency, which for nearly three decades “suspended” all rights and freedoms and gave the executive branch unlimited powers, a license to arbitrary rule?

The people who filled Tahrir Square in Cairo and the streets of other Egyptian cities wanted to end this charade. I am sure that most of them equally abhor authoritarianism and extremism, religious or otherwise.

By announcing his decision not to seek another presidential term, Hosni Mubarak in effect recognized that the country’s problems couldn’t be solved within the old system. Just as everywhere else, the only way forward in the Arab world, with its tortuous history, unique culture and numerous risks and dangers, is toward democracy, with the understanding that the path is difficult and that democracy is not a magic wand.

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Mubarak could have played a role in the difficult transition. But that did not happen.

Mubarak made an undeniable contribution to the search for a peaceful settlement of the Middle East conflict, and he has his supporters in Egypt. I met him, and I know he is a man of strong character and willpower. But the majority of Egyptians saw the transition process he announced as nothing but an attempt to play for time. The Supreme Military Council, to which power was handed after the president’s resignation, must keep that in mind.

The equation to be solved in Egypt and other countries of the Arab East has many unknowns. The most unpredictable is the Islamic factor. What is its place in the people’s movement? What kind of Islam will emerge?

In Egypt itself, Islamic groups have so far behaved with restraint, while outside the country some irresponsible and provocative pronouncements have been made.

It would be a mistake to see Islam as a destructive force. The history of Islamic culture includes periods when it was a leader in the development of world civilization. Its contributions to science, education and literature cannot be disputed. Islamic doctrines strongly advocate social justice and peace. An Islam that emphasizes those values can have great potential.

Already, democratic processes and genuine socioeconomic achievements in countries like Turkey, Indonesia and Malaysia offer optimism.

Everyone involved in Egypt’s transition must now behave with utmost responsibility and a sense of balanced judgment and action. The lessons to be learned from the events in Egypt concern more than just the Arab world.

Similar regimes exist just about everywhere. Their ages and origins differ. Some resulted from rollbacks that followed popular

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democratic revolutions. Others took hold due to a favorable trade environment and high commodity prices. Many have focused on speeding economic development, often with success.

At a certain point, many observers concluded that these regimes and the people had struck a kind of bargain: economic growth in exchange for freedom and human rights.

All these regimes have one serious flaw: the gap between government and people, the lack of feedback, which sooner or later leads to unaccountable and uncontrolled power.

The leaders of such regimes have been served a warning. They may continue to persuade themselves that their case is different and that they have the situation “under control.” Yet they must wonder how sustainable that control is. In their hearts, they must understand that it can’t last forever, because much of it is a sheer formality.

So the inevitable question emerges: What next? Continue to go through the motions of fake democracy, which invariably gives the ruling group 80 percent to 90 percent of the vote? Or, just maybe, seek a transition to genuine democracy?

It’s an agonizing choice, and the second alternative is daunting. It means ensuring that there is a real opposition, and knowing that a real opposition will come to power sooner or later. Then abuses will come to light, the networks of corruption leading to the top will be broken, and someone must be held accountable for all that. Is that a prospect an authoritarian regime wants to contemplate? One needs to muster courage for real change, because power without accountability cannot last. This is what hundreds of thousands of Egyptian citizens, whose faces we’ve seen on television, stated loud and clear. Looking at those faces, one wants to believe that Egypt’s democratic transition will succeed. That would be a good example, one the entire world needs. Mikhail Gorbachev was the leader of the Soviet Union from 1985 until its collapse in 1991.

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U.S. Follows Two Paths on Unrest in Iran and Bahrain By MARK LANDLER and DAVID E. SANGERNYTIMES,15 Feb. 2011,

WASHINGTON — The Obama administration has responded quite differently to two embattled governments that have beaten protesters and blocked the Internet in recent days to fend off the kind of popular revolt that brought down Egypt’s government.

With Iran — a country under sanctions pursuing a nuclear program that has put it at odds with the West — the administration has all but encouraged protesters to take to the streets. With Bahrain, a strategically important ally across the Persian Gulf from Iran, it has urged its king to address the grievances of his people.

Those two approaches were on vivid display at a news conference on Tuesday.

President Obama accused Iran’s leaders of hypocrisy for first encouraging the protests in Egypt, which they described as a continuation of Iran’s own revolution, and then cracking down on Iranians who used the pretext to come out on the streets. He then urged protesters to muster “the courage to be able to express their yearning for greater freedoms and a more representative government.”

But speaking to other restive countries, including Bahrain, Mr. Obama directed his advice to governments, not protesters, illustrating just how tricky diplomacy in the region has become. He said his administration, in talking to Arab allies, was sending the message that “you have a young, vibrant generation within the Middle East that is looking for greater opportunity; and that if you are governing these countries, you’ve got to get out ahead of change. You can’t be behind the curve.”

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Mr. Obama’s words on Iran, on the other hand, were among the strongest he has ever voiced in encouraging a street revolt, something his administration initially shied away from doing in June 2009, after a disputed presidential election provoked an uprising that was crushed by the government. Later, the administration embraced the protests, but by then the “Green Movement” in Iran had been crushed.

But now, administration officials see an opportunity to expand the fissures in Iranian society and make life more difficult for the mullahs.

“This isn’t a regime-change strategy,” a senior administration official insisted in recent days. “But it’s fair to say that it’s exploiting fractures that are already there.”

Dealing with other countries in the region is more complicated, however, particularly if they are strategic allies — which was true of Egypt and which prompted criticism that the White House was initially reluctant to put more pressure on such a crucial partner. The same complexities apply to Bahrain, an island state that is home to the United States Navy’s Fifth Fleet.

Two protesters have been killed in Bahrain. The authorities also blocked a video channel that was carrying images uploaded by demonstrators in Pearl Square, a traffic circle the protesters have dubbed Bahrain’s Tahrir Square.

But on Tuesday, Mr. Obama did not mention the violence in Bahrain and chose to draw his distinction between Egypt’s successful uprising and the 2009 crackdown in Iran.

“What’s been different is the Iranian government’s response, which is to shoot people and beat people and arrest people,” he said.

Secretary of State Hillary Rodham Clinton drew a similar distinction in a speech on Tuesday on Internet freedom. Both

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Egypt and Iran temporarily shut down the Web and cellphone networks, she said.

In Iran, she said, “after the authorities raided homes, attacked university dorms, made mass arrests, tortured and fired shots into crowds, the protests ended. In Egypt, however, the story ended differently.”

In addition to those two countries, Mrs. Clinton listed China, Cuba and Syria as other nations that have censored Facebook and other social networking services.

A senior administration official said the White House had been consistent in calling for all these countries to respond to the demands of their frustrated young people, to allow them to assemble freely and to avoid violence.

But the official said there were deep differences between Iran and Bahrain.

In Iran, the supreme leader, Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, declared that Egypt had followed in the footsteps of the 1979 Islamic Revolution, an “Islamic awakening” he said would result in the “irreparable defeat” of the United States and Israel.

“Frankly, Iran presented this opportunity itself when Khamenei was the only leader in the region who attempted to take credit for Egypt,” said the official, who spoke on the condition of anonymity because he was not authorized to speak publicly. “Our messaging on this is simply to underscore the hypocrisy.”

The official said the administration deplored violence anywhere it occurred, and late on Tuesday the State Department issued a statement saying it was “very concerned” about the two deaths in Bahrain. But the official noted that Bahrain’s monarch, King Hamad bin Isa al-Khalifa, had responded to the deaths by calling on Tuesday for an investigation and promising to continue a process of political reforms.

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King Hamad has been a stalwart American ally in isolating Iran; in fact, in documents released by WikiLeaks, he was quoted by American diplomats as urging the United States to attack Iran’s nuclear facilities.

Likewise, in Jordan, another close ally of Washington, the administration official said that King Abdullah II had attempted to stay ahead of popular unrest by dismissing his government and replacing it with officials who have pledged to pass a more fair election law and rights of assembly.

Last weekend, the State Department sent William J. Burns, a senior diplomat and former ambassador, to meet with King Abdullah in Jordan. Mr. Obama’s chief counterterrorism adviser, John O. Brennan, has played that role with Yemen, speaking regularly by telephone with its president, Ali Abdullah Saleh, whom he has also urged to avoid violence in responding to protests, the official said.

The administration’s response to Yemen, where demonstrators have marched on the presidential palace, is complicated by the fact that the United States conducts counterterrorism operations with Mr. Saleh’s government.

Mr. Obama used his news conference to argue that while the revolution in Egypt started quickly, the next act could take far longer. Drawing on studies he had asked for inside the government, he said “the history of successful transitions to democracy have generally been ones in which peaceful protests led to dialogue, led to discussion, led to reform and ultimately led to democracy.”

He cited Eastern Europe and the country where he spent much of his youth: Indonesia, “a majority Muslim country that went through some of these similar transitions,” which he said did not end up dividing the nation.

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Poverty, Food Prices and the Crisis of Imperialism The Revolutionary Rebellion in EgyptBy FIDEL CASTROCounter Punch,15 Feb. 2011,

Several days ago I said that Mubarak’s fate was sealed and that not even Obama was able to save him.

The world knows about what is happening in the Middle East. News spreads at mind-boggling speed. Politicians barely have enough time to read the dispatches arriving hour after hour. Everyone is aware of the importance of what is happening over there.

After 18 days of tough struggle, the Egyptian people achieved an important objective: overthrowing the main United States ally in the heart of the Arab nations. Mubarak was oppressing and pillaging his own people, he was an enemy to the Palestinians and an accomplice of Israel, the sixth nuclear power on the planet, associated with the war-mongering NATO group.

The Armed Forces of Egypt, under the command of Gamal Abdel Nasser, had thrown overboard a submissive King and created a Republic which, with the support of the USSR, defended its Homeland from the Franco-British and Israeli invasion of 1956 and preserved its ownership of the Suez Canal and the independence of its ancient nation. For that reason, Egypt had a high degree of prestige in the Third World. Nasser was well-known as one of the most outstanding leaders of the Non-Aligned Movement, in whose creation he took part along with other well-known leaders of Asia, Africa and Oceania who were struggling for national liberation and for the political and economic independence of the former colonies.

Egypt always enjoyed the support and respect of that international organization which brings together more than one hundred

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countries. At this precise time, that sister country is chairing NAM for a corresponding three-year period; and the support of many of its members for the struggle its people are engaged in today is a given.

What was the significance of the Camp David Agreements, and why do the heroic Palestinian people so arduously defend their most essential rights?

At Camp David ?with the mediation of then-President of the United States Jimmy Carter?, Egyptian leader Anwar el-Sadat and Israeli Prime Minister Menahem Begin signed the famous treaties between Egypt and Israel.

It is said that secret talks went on for 12 days and on September 17th of 1978 they signed two important treaties: one in reference to peace between Egypt and Israel; the other having to do with the creation of the autonomous territory in the Gaza Strip and the West Bank where, el-Sadat was thinking – and Israel was aware of and sharing the idea –the capital of the State of Palestine would be, and whose existence, as well as that of the State of Israel, was agreed to by the United Nations on November 29, 1947, in the British protectorate of Palestine.

At the end of arduous and complicated talks, Israel agreed to withdraw their troops from Egyptian territory in the Sinai, even though it categorically rejected Palestinian participation in those peace negotiations.

As a product of the first treaty, in the term of one year, Israel reinstated Sinai territory occupied during one of the Arab-Israeli wars back to Egypt.

By virtue of the second agreement, both parties committed to negotiate the creation of the autonomous regime in the West Bank and the Gaza Strip. The first of these included 5 640 square kilometres of territory and 2.1 million inhabitants; and the second one, 360 square kilometres and 1.5 million inhabitants.

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The Arab countries were offended by that treaty where, in their opinion, Egypt had not defended with sufficient energy and resolution a Palestinian State whose right to exist had been the focal point of the battle fought for decades by the Arab States.

Their reactions reached such a level of indignation that many of them broke off their relations with Egypt. Thus, the United Nations Resolution of November 1947 was erased from the map. The autonomous body was never created and thus the Palestinians were deprived of their right to exist as an independent state; that is the origin of the never-ending tragedy they are living in and which should have been resolved more than three decades ago.

The Arab population of Palestine are victims of genocidal actions; their lands are confiscated or deprived of water supplies in the semi-desert areas and their homes are destroyed with heavy wrecking equipment. In the Gaza Strip a million and a half people are regularly being attacked with explosive projectiles, live phosphorus and booby-trap bombs. The Gaza Strip lands are being blockaded by land and by sea. Why are the Camp David agreements being talked about to such a degree while nobody mentions Palestine?

The United States is supplying the most modern and sophisticated weaponry to Israel to the tune of billions of dollars every year. Egypt, an Arab country, was turned into the second receiver of US weapons. To fight against whom? Another Arab country? Against the very Egyptian people?

When the population was asking for respect for their most basic rights and the resignation of a president whose policy consisted of exploiting and pillaging his own people, the repressive forces trained by the US did not hesitate for a second in shooting at them, killing hundreds and wounding thousands.

When the Egyptian people were awaiting explanations from the government of their own country, the answers were coming from

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senior officials of the United States intelligence or government bodies, without any respect for Egyptian officials.

Could it possibly be that the leaders of the United States and their intelligence agencies knew nothing at all about the colossal thefts perpetrated by the Mubarak government?

Before the people were to protest en masse from Tahrir Square, neither the government officials nor the United States intelligence bodies were uttering one single word about the privileges and outrageous thefts of billions of dollars.

It would be a mistake to imagine that the people’s revolutionary movement in Egypt theoretically obeys a reaction to violations on their most elementary rights. Peoples do not defy repression and death, nor do they remain for nights on end protesting energetically, just because of merely formal matters. They do this when their legal and material rights are being mercilessly sacrificed to the insatiable demands of corrupt politicians and the national and international circles looting the country.

The poverty rate was now affecting the vast majority of a militant people, young and patriotic, with their dignity, culture and beliefs being trampled.

How was the unstoppable increase of food prices to be reconciled with the dozens of billions of dollars that were being attributed to President Mubarak and to the privileged sectors of the government and society?

It’s not enough now that we find out how much these come to; we must demand they be returned to the country.

Obama is being affected by the events in Egypt; he acts, or seems to act, as if he were the master of the planet. The Egyptian affair seems to be his business. He is constantly on the telephone, talking to the leaders of other countries.

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The EFE Agency, for example, states: “…I spoke to the British Prime Minister David Cameron; King Abdala II of Jordan, and with the Turkish prime minister, the moderate Muslim Recep Tayyip Erdogan.”

“…the president of the United States assessed the ‘historical changes’ that the Egyptians have been promoting and he reaffirmed his admiration for their efforts …”.

The principal US news agency, AP, is broadcasting some reasoning that we should pay attention to:

“The US is asking Middle Eastern leaders leaning towards the West, who are friendly with Israel and willing to cooperate in the fight against Islamic extremism at the same time they are protecting human rights.”

“…Barack Obama has put forward a list of ideal requisites that are impossible to satisfy after the fall of two allies of Washington in Egypt and Tunisia in popular revolts that, according to experts, shall sweep the region.”

“There is no hope within this dream scenario and it’s very difficult for one to appear soon. Partially this is due to the fact that in the last 40 years, the US has sacrificed the noble ideals of human rights, that it so espouses, for stability, continuity and oil in one of the most volatile regions of the world.”

“‘Egypt will never be the same’, Obama said on Friday after praising the departure of Hosni Mubarak.”

“In the midst of their peaceful protests, Obama stated, the Egyptians ‘will change their country and the world’.

“Even as restlessness persists among the various Arab governments, the elite entrenched in Egypt and Tunisia has not shown signs of being willing to hand over the power or their vast economic influence that they have been holding.”

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“The Obama government has insisted that the change should not be one of ‘personalities’. The US government set this position since President Zine El Abidine Ben Ali fled Tunis in January, one day after Secretary of State Hillary Rodham Clinton warned the Arab rulers in a speech in Qatar that without reform the foundations of their countries ‘would sink in the sand’.”

People don’t appear to be very docile in Tahrir Square.

Europe Press recounts:“Thousands of demonstrators have arrived in Tahrir Square, the epicenter of mobilizations that caused the resignation of the president of the country, Hosni Mubarak, to reinforce those continuing in that location, despite the efforts of the military police to remove them, according to information from the BBC.

“The BBC correspondent stationed in the downtown square of Cairo has assured us that the army is appearing to be indecisive in the face of the arrival of new demonstrators …”

“The ‘hard core’ […] is located on one of the corners of the square. […] they have decided to stay in Tahrir […] in order to make certain all their claims are being met.”

Despite what is happening in Egypt, one of the most serious problems being faced by imperialism at this time is the lack of grain.

The US uses an important part of the corn it grows and a large percentage of the soy harvest for the production of biofuels. As for Europe, it uses millions of hectares of land for that purpose.

On the other hand, as a consequence of the climate change originated basically by the developed and wealthy countries, a shortage of fresh water and foods compatible with population growth at a pace that would lead to 9 billion inhabitants in a mere 30 years is being created, without the United Nations and the most

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influential governments on the planet, after the disappointing meeting at Copenhagen and Cancun warning and informing the world about that situation.

We support the Egyptian people and their courageous struggle for their political rights and social justice.

We are not opposed to the people of Israel; we are against the genocide of the Palestinian people and we are for their right to an independent State.

We are not in favour of war, but in favour of peace among all the peoples.

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Driving through the gates of hell By Tom Engelhardt Asia Times,10 Feb. 2011,

As we've watched the dramatic events in the Middle East, you would hardly know that we had a thing to do with them. Oh yes, in the name of its "war on terror", Washington had for years backed most of the thuggish governments now under siege or anxious that they may be next in line to hear from their people.

When it came to Egypt in particular, there was initially much polite (and hypocritical) discussion in the media about how our "interests" and our "values" were in conflict, about how far the US should back off its support for the President Hosni

Mubarak regime, and about what a "tightrope" the Barack Obama administration was walking.

While the president and his officials flailed, the mildest of questions were raised about how much we should chide our erstwhile allies, or encourage the massed protestors, and about

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whether we should "take sides" (as though we hadn't done so decisively over the last decades). .

With popular cries for "democracy" and "freedom" sweeping through the Middle East, it's curious to note that the George W Bush-era's now-infamous "democracy agenda" has been nowhere in sight. In its brief and disastrous life, it was used as a battering ram for regimes Washington loathed and offered as a soft pillow of future possibility to those it loved.

Still, make no mistake, there's a story in a Washington stunned and "blindsided," in an administration visibly toothless and in disarray as well as dismayed over the potential loss of its Egyptian ally, "the keystone of its Middle Eastern policy", that's so big it should knock your socks off.

And make no mistake: part of the spectacle of the moment lies in watching that other great power of the Cold War era finally head ever so slowly and reluctantly for the exits. You know the one I'm talking about. In 1991, when the Soviet Union disappeared and the United States found itself the last superpower standing, Washington mistook that for a victory most rare. In the years that followed, in a paroxysm of self-satisfaction and amid clouds of self-congratulation, its leaders would attempt nothing less than to establish a global Pax Americana. Their breathtaking ambitions would leave hubris in the shade.

The results, it's now clear, were no less breathtaking, even if disastrously so. Almost 20 years after the lesser superpower of the Cold War left the world stage, the "victor" is now lurching down the declinist slope, this time as the other defeated power of the Cold War era.

So don't mark the end of the Cold War in 1991 as our conventional histories do. Mark it in the early days of 2011, and consider the events of this moment a symbolic goodbye-to-all-that for the planet's "sole superpower".

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Abroads, near and farThe proximate cause of Washington's defeat is a threatened collapse of its imperial position in a region that, ever since president Jimmy Carter proclaimed his Carter Doctrine in 1980, has been considered the crucible of global power, the place where, above all, the Great Game must be played out.

Today, "people power" is shaking the "pillars" of the American position in the Middle East, while - despite the staggering levels of military might the Pentagon still has embedded in the area - the Obama administration has found itself standing by helplessly in grim confusion.

As a spectacle of imperial power on the decline, we haven't seen anything like it since 1989 when the Berlin Wall came down. Then, too, people power stunned the world. It swept like lightning across the satellite states of Eastern Europe, those "pillars" of the old Soviet empire, most of which had (as in the Middle East today) seemed quiescent for years.

It was an invigorating time. After all, such moments often don't come once in a life, no less twice in 20 years. If you don't happen to be in Washington, the present moment is proving no less remarkable, unpredictable, and earthshaking than its predecessor. Make no mistake, either (though you wouldn't guess it from recent reportage): these two moments of people power are inextricably linked. Think of it this way: as we witness the true denouement of the Cold War, it's already clear that the "victor" in that titanic struggle, like the Soviet Union before it, mined its own positions and then was forced to watch with shock, awe, and dismay as those mines went off.

Among the most admirable aspects of the Soviet collapse was the decision of its remarkable leader, Mikhail Gorbachev, not to call the Red Army out of its barracks, as previous Soviet leaders had done in East Germany in 1953, Hungary in 1956, and Prague in 1968. Gorbachev's conscious (and courageous) choice to let the

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empire collapse rather than employ violence to try to halt the course of events remains historically little short of unique.

Today, after almost two decades of exuberant imperial impunity, Washington finds itself in an uncomfortably unraveling situation. Think of it as a kind of slo-mo Gorbachev moment - without a Gorbachev in sight.

What we're dealing with here is, in a sense, the story of two "abroads". In 1990, in the wake of a disastrous war in Afghanistan, in the midst of a people's revolt, the Russians lost what they came to call their "near abroad", the lands from Eastern Europe to Central Asia that had made up the Soviet Empire.

The US, being the wealthier and stronger of the two Cold War superpowers, had something the Soviets never possessed. Call it a "far abroad". Now, in the midst of another draining, disastrous Afghan war, in the face of another people's revolt, a critical part of its far abroad is being shaken to its roots.

In the Middle East, the two pillars of American imperial power and control have long been Egypt and Saudi Arabia - along with obdurate Israel and little Jordan. In previous eras, the chosen bulwarks of "stability" and "moderation", terms much favored in Washington, had been the Shah of Iran in the 1960s and 1970s (and you remember his fate), and Saddam Hussein in the 1980s (and you remember his fate, too). In the larger region the Bush administration liked to call "the Greater Middle East" or "the arc of instability", another key pillar has been Pakistan, a country now in destabilization mode under the pressure of a disastrous American war in Afghanistan.

And yet, without a Gorbachevian bone in its body, the Obama administration has still been hamstrung. While negotiating madly behind the scenes to retain power and influence in Egypt, it is not likely to call the troops out of the barracks. American military intervention remains essentially inconceivable. Don't wait for Washington to send paratroopers to the Suez Canal as those fading

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imperial powers France and England tried to do in 1956. It won't happen. Washington is too drained by years of war and economic bad times for that.

Facing genuine shock and awe (the people's version), the Obama administration has been shaken. It has shown itself to be weak, visibly fearful, at a loss for what to do, and always several steps behind developing events. Count on one thing: its officials are already undoubtedly worried about a domestic political future in which the question (never good for Democrats) could be: Who lost the Middle East? In the meantime, their oh-so-solemn, carefully calibrated statements, still in command mode, couched in imperial-speak, and focused on what client states in the Middle East must do, might as well be spoken to the wind. Like the Cheshire Cat's grin, only the rhetoric of the last decades seems to be left.

The question is: How did this happen? And the answer, in part, is: blame it on the way the Cold War officially ended, the mood of unparalleled hubris in which the United States emerged from it, and the unilaterialist path its leaders chose in its wake.

Let's do a little reviewing.

Second-wave unilateralismWhen the Soviet Union dissolved, Washington was stunned - the collapse was unexpected despite all the signs that something monumental was afoot - and then thrilled. The Cold War was over and we had won. Our mighty adversary had disappeared from the face of the Earth.

It didn't take long for terms like "sole superpower" and "hyperpower" to crop up, or for dreams of a global Pax Americana to take shape amid talk about how our power and glory would outshine even the Roman and British empires. The conclusion that victory - as in World War II - would have its benefits, that the world was now our oyster, led to two waves of American "unilateralism" or go-it-alone-ism that essentially drove the car of

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state directly toward the nearest cliff and helped prepare the way for the sudden eruption of people power in the Middle East.

The second of those waves began with the fateful post-9/11 decision of Bush, vice president Dick Cheney, defense secretary Donald Rumsfeld, and company to "drain the global swamp" (as they put it within days of the attacks in New York and Washington). They would, that is, pursue al-Qaeda (and whomever else they decided to label an enemy) by full military means.

That included the invasion of Afghanistan and the issuing of a with-us-or-against-us diktat to Pakistan, which reportedly included the threat to bomb that country "back to the Stone Age". It also involved a full-scale militarization, Pentagonization, and privatization of American foreign policy, and above all else, the crushing of Iraqi dictator Saddam and the occupation of his country. All that and more came to be associated with the term "unilateralism", with the idea that US military power was so overwhelming Washington could simply go it alone in the world with any "coalition of the billing" it might muster and still get exactly what it wanted.

That second wave of unilateralism, now largely relegated to the memory hole of history by the mainstream media, helped pave the way for the upheavals in Tunisia, Egypt, and possibly elsewhere. As a start, from Pakistan to North Africa, the Bush administration's global "war on terror", along with its support for thuggish rule in the name of fighting al-Qaeda, helped radicalize the region.

(Remember, for instance, that while Washington was pouring billions of dollars into the American-equipped Egyptian army and the American-trained Egyptian officer corps, Bush administration officials were delighted to enlist the Hosni Mubarak regime as "war on terror" warriors, using Egypt's jails as places to torture terror suspects rendered off any streets anywhere.)

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In the process, by sweeping an area from North Africa to the Chinese border that it dubbed the Greater Middle East into that "war on terror", the Bush administration undoubtedly gave the region a newfound sense of unity, a feeling that the fate of its disparate parts was somehow bound together.

In addition, Bush's top officials, fundamentalists all when it came to US military might and delusional fantasists when it came to what that military could accomplish, had immense power at its command: the power to destroy. They gave that power the snappy label "shock and awe", and then used it to blow a hole in the heart of the Middle East by invading Iraq. In the process, they put that land, already on the ropes, onto life support.

It's never really come off. In the wars, civil and guerrilla, set off by the American invasion and occupation, hundreds of thousands of Iraqis undoubtedly died and millions were sent into exile abroad or in their own land. Today, Iraq remains a barely breathing carcass of a nation, unable to deliver something as simple as electricity to its restive people or pump enough oil to pay for the disaster.

At the same time, the Bush administration sat on its hands while Israel had its way, taking Palestinian lands via its settlement policies and blowing its own hole in southern Lebanon with American backing (and weaponry) in the summer of 2006, and a smaller hole of utter devastation through Gaza in 2009. In other words, from Lebanon to Pakistan, the Greater Middle East was destabilized and radicalized.

The acts of Bush's officials couldn't have been rasher, or more destructive. They managed, for instance, to turn Afghanistan into the globe's foremost narco-state, even as they gave new life to the Taliban - no small miracle for a movement that, in 2001, had lost any vestige of popularity. Most crucial of all, they and the Obama administration after them spread the war irrevocably to populous, nuclear-armed Pakistan.

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To their mad plans and projects, you can trace, at least in part, the rise to power of Hezbollah in Lebanon and Hamas in Gaza (the only significant result of Bush's "democracy agenda", since Iraq's elections arrived, despite Bush administration opposition, due to the prestige of Ayatollah Ali Sistani).

You can credit them with an Iran-allied Shi'ite government in Iraq and a resurgent Taliban in Afghanistan, as well as the growth of a version of the Taliban in the Pakistani tribal borderlands. You can also credit them with the disorganization and impoverishment of the region. In summary, when the Bush unilateralists took control of the car of state, they souped it up, armed it to the teeth, and sent it careening off to catastrophe.

How hollow the neo-conservative quip of 2003 now rings: "Everyone wants to go to Baghdad. Real men want to go to Tehran." But remember as well that, however much the Bush administration accomplished (in a manner of speaking), there was a wave of unilateralism, no less significant, that preceded it.

Our financial jihadis Though we all know this first wave well, we don't usually think of it as "unilateralist", or in terms of the Middle East at all, or speak about it in the same breath with the Bush administration and its neo-con supporters.

I'm talking about the globalists, sometimes called the neo-liberals, who were let loose to do their damnedest in the good times of the post-Cold-War Bill Clinton years.

They, too, were dreamy about organizing the planet and about another kind of American power that was never going to end: economic power. (And, of course, they would be called back to power in Washington in the Obama years to run the US economy into the ground yet again.) They believed deeply that we were the economic superpower of the ages, and they were eager to create their own version of a Pax Americana. Intent on homogenizing the world by bringing American economic power to bear on it, their

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version of shock-and-awe tactics involved calling in institutions like the International Monetary Fund to discipline developing countries into a profitable kind of poverty and misery.

In the end, as they gleefully sliced and diced subprime mortgages, they drove a different kind of hole through the world. They were financial jihadis with their own style of shock-and-awe tactics and they, too, proved deeply destructive, even if in a different way.

The irony was that, in the economic meltdown of 2008, they finally took down the global economy they had helped "unify". And that occurred just as the second wave of unilateralists were facing the endgame of their dreams of global domination. In the process, for instance, Egypt, the most populous of Arab countries, was economically neo-liberalized and - except for a small elite who made out like the bandits they were impoverished.

Talk about "creative destruction"! The two waves of American unilateralists nearly took down the planet. They let loose demons of every sort, even as they ensured that the world's first experience of a sole superpower would prove short indeed. Heap onto the rubble they left behind the global disaster of rising prices for the basics - food and fuel - and you have a situation so combustible that no one should have been surprised when a Tunisian match lit it aflame.

That this moment began in the Greater Middle East should be no surprise either. That it might not end there should not be ruled out. This looks like, but may not be, an "Islamic" moment. If the second wave of American unilateralists ensured that this would start as a Middle Eastern phenomenon, conditions for people power movements exist elsewhere as well.

The gates of hellNobody today remembers how, in September 2004, Amr Musa, the head of the Arab League, described the post-invasion Iraqi situation. "The gates of hell," he said, "are open in Iraq." This was not the sort of language we were used to hearing in the US, no

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matter what you felt about the war. It read - and probably still reads - like an over-the-top metaphor, but it could as easily be taken as a realistic depiction of what happened not just in Iraq, but in the Greater Middle East and, to some extent, in the world.

Our unilateralists twice drove blithely through those gates, imagining that they were the gates to paradise. The results are now clear for all to see.

And don't forget, the gates of hell remain open. Keep your eyes on at least two places, starting with Saudi Arabia, about which practically no one is yet writing, though one of these days its situation could turn out to be shakier than now imagined. Certainly, whoever controls the Saudi stock market thought so, because as the situation grew more tumultuous in Egypt, Saudi stocks took a nosedive.

With Saudi Arabia, you couldn't get more basic when it comes to US policy or the fate of the planet, given the amount of oil still under its desert sands. And then don't forget the potentially most frightening country of all, Pakistan, where the final gasp of America's military unilateralists is still playing itself out as if on a reel of film that just won't end.

Yes, the Obama administration may squeeze by in the region for a while. Perhaps the Egyptian high command - half of which seems to have been in Washington at the moment the you-know-what hit the fan in their own country will take over and perhaps they will suppress people power again for a period. Who knows?

One thing is clear inside the gates of hell: whatever wild flowers or weeds turn out to be capable of growing in the soil tilled so assiduously by the victors of 1991, Pax Americana proved to be a Pox Americana for the region and the world. Tom Engelhardt, is the author of The End of Victory Culture, a history of the Cold War and beyond, as well as of a novel, The Last Days of Publishing. He also edited The World According to TomDispatch: America in the New Age of Empire (Verso, 2008), an alternative history of the mad Bush years. His latest book is The American Way of War: How Bush’s Wars Became Obama's.

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Analysis: Lebanon and the limits of protest Experience suggests the pro-Iran camp can continue to happily observe pro-US regimes in the region tear themselves apart. By JONATHAN SPYER Jerusalem Post,02/16/2011,

Former Lebanese prime minister Saad Hariri’s declaration this week that his March 14 movement will enter the opposition serves to clarify the situation in Lebanon.

The country is today openly under the control of a coalition of pro-Iranian and pro-Syrian forces.

The seemingly permanent Lebanese political crisis is today overshadowed by more dramatic events under way in Egypt and Iran.

The state of affairs in tiny Lebanon may nevertheless offer some clues as to the likely direction of events further afield.

Hariri listed three elements as underlying his decision.

These were: March 14’s commitment to the Lebanese constitution, its support for the Special Tribunal on Lebanon (investigating the murder of Rafik Hariri) and its opposition to ‘the predominance of weapons’ (code for Hezbollah’s private military capacity, held without seeking the consent of other Lebanese sects).

These have been the basis of the March 14 project since its inception.Hariri’s decision is therefore an acknowledgement of political defeat. This defeat has come despite his movement’s narrow electoral victory in 2009.

In his speech, the former prime minister offered ironic congratulations to the Hezbollah-led forces which have bested him.

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“We congratulate them on a majority that was hijacked by the intimidation of weapons,” he said. “And we congratulate them on a power that was stolen from the will of the voters.”

This is a fairly accurate summary of the situation.

The independence intifada, or Cedar Revolution of 2005, was supposed to husband a new age of representative and constitutional politics in Lebanon. Of this ambition, there remains the Hariri Tribunal. It remains only because it is internationally constituted, and therefore cannot simply be intimidated out of existence by the arms of Iranian or Syrian proxies.

The now near-forgotten Cedar Revolution was in many ways a prototype of the two uprisings just witnessed in Tunisia and Egypt: A youthful, technologically savvy stratum of the population was at the center of the events.

(Or at least prominently involved in the events, and favored by the Western media in its coverage of them.) The demand of the demonstrators seemed to set them apart from the familiar currents of politics in the Arab world.

They presented themselves as neither Islamist, nor old-style Arab nationalist. Indeed in essence their demand seemed to be precisely for their country to move beyond these narrow definitions, and to embrace the trans-national possibilities of the 21st century.

The Cedar Revolution enjoyed its brief moment of triumph in the spring of 2005, with the withdrawal of Syrian forces from Lebanon.Iran, Syria and their allies then spent the subsequent halfdecade patiently working to destroy any chances for the March 14 project to succeed.

The methods employed to ensure this were somewhat oldschool: proxy political-military organizations and a campaign of terror.

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These methods succeeded.

Hariri’s announcement this week was an acknowledgement of this.

Still, the defeat of the March 14 movement by Iran, Hezbollah, Syria et al was not simply the defeat of the new world by the old. It wasn’t just Twitter and Facebook versus the clanking, brutal methods of the mid-20th century.

On the contrary, Hezbollah and its allies also know about popular mobilization and social media, and are masters at messaging and propaganda.

In this, they resemble their March 14 rivals – and differ sharply from the old-world Arab dictators just laid low in Tunisia and Egypt. Yet their ability to tell a story goes hand-in-hand with, and complements, their readiness to kill.

March 14 only had the former.This absence proved their undoing.Mubarak, of course, only had the latter, and when his patrons refused to let him use it, that was the end of him.

Which brings us to the present.

As of now, the current wave of unrest has brought down two old-fashioned, pro-Western Arab leaders.

It cannot be predicted which forces will rise in these countries in the months ahead. But from a strategic point of view – again as of now – the net result has been the weakening of the pro-Western regional camp, and hence by default the strengthening of the pro-Iranian and Islamist alliance.

Unrest has now broken out in Iran, the mother-ship which made possible the victory of Hezbollah et al in Lebanon.

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In the past – as the microcosm of Lebanon and March 14, and the Iranian demonstrations of 2009 show – the methods of the Islamic Republic and its proxies have been sufficient to see-off the dreams of young, secular, Western-oriented demonstrators.

The meaning of the current wave of regional unrest will thus be decisively defined on the streets of Tehran.

If, as past experience in Lebanon and Iran suggests is most likely, the regime succeeds in suppressing the dissent, this will mean that the pro-Iranian camp can continue to happily observe pro-US regimes in the region tear themselves apart.

They can rest easy in the knowledge that they themselves have developed a version of brutal, authoritarian, ideological rule which can trump any card the protestors can play.

The resultant collapse of confidence in the US as a guarantor will play directly into their hands.

If not, then the March 14 precedent does not apply, and we will be entering a new era in the region.

The game’s afoot. Let’s wait and see.The writer is a senior research fellow at the Global Research in International Affairs Center, IDC, Herzliya.

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Netanyahu is beginning to resemble his friend MubarakNetanyahu, unlike Mubarak, does not face hundreds of thousands of demonstrators demanding his departure, but the political atmosphere here is oppressive.By Aluf BennHaaretz,15 Feb. 2011,

Security at the Prime Minister's Office in Jerusalem has been tightened up, with visitors being asked to remove their shoes, as if

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they were entering a mosque or an American airport. The stricter examinations suit the zeitgeist: Benjamin Netanyahu holed up inside his office, on the defensive against the outside world, as his hold on the government steadily slackens. It must be how Hosni Mubarak felt during the two weeks between the start of the demonstrations in Cairo and his resignation. The symbols of government remain in place - the expansive palace, the limousine motorcade, the battalions of bodyguards and the telephone calls from world leaders - but the power of influence is gone.

Netanyahu, unlike Mubarak, does not face hundreds of thousands of demonstrators demanding his departure, but his situation is, nevertheless, beginning to resemble that of his deposed friend. Instead of leading, he allows decisions to be imposed on him. The appointments of Benny Gantz and Ron Prosor, as chief of staff and UN ambassador, respectively, as well as the rollback of the gasoline excise tax, were carried out despite his initial opposition. He was dragged into them.

The political atmosphere is oppressive. The disintegration of the Labor Party did not "contribute to governability and stability," as Netanyahu promised; it impeded them. Foreign Minister Avigdor Lieberman continues to bully him publicly, making him look like a doormat who cannot even deliver an ambassadorial posting for a close adviser. Likud MKs, led by Vice Prime Minister Silvan Shalom, warned Netanyahu that the rising prices of basic goods and utilities would cost their party the next election. Kadima chairwoman Tzipi Livni's popularity is climbing, and Lieberman is consolidating his position as the leader of the right, while Likud is ruptured from within by disagreements over the oppression of left-wing organizations and the Arab community. In today's Israel, it is difficult to live up to the Likud campaign slogan, "both nationalist and liberal." You have to choose one.

World leaders are turning their backs on the prime minister. German Chancellor Angela Merkel came to Israel in order to scold Netanyahu over the stasis in the peace process. No invitations from his counterparts abroad are forthcoming. Netanyahu

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managed to drive his great rival, U.S. President Barack Obama, out of the region by refusing to extend the construction moratorium in the settlements. Obama folded, backing down from his own peace initiative, only to return in force as the great prophet of change and democracy. His early zigzagging over the Egyptian crisis has been forgotten: His heart was always on the popular, victorious side, with the protesters. A similar thing happened with Prime Minister Yitzhak Shamir, who sent President George H.W. Bush packing when he rejected an international peace summit only to face him later, riding high after the 1991 Gulf War and the fall of the Soviet Union.

The Egyptian revolution provided Netanyahu with a Churchillian moment. It's the reason he was elected. The voters trusted in his ability to make the right decision, in contrast to Livni the tyro. And he failed. His expectation that Mubarak would defeat the demonstrators went unmet. His support for the Egyptian president demonstrated that he looks after his friends - all well and good, but in politics there are no rewards for fans of the losing team. Mubarak went, leaving Netanyahu with his fears of a "second Iran" in Egypt and with calls to expand Israel's military budget, to build "Fortress Negev" and to create alternatives to the Suez Canal. Even if his predictions turn out to have been correct, they are not shared by the public; the Tel Aviv Stock Exchange did not fall and the depreciation of the shekel was minuscule. The "world" views Netanyahu as a fossil of an era that is disappearing before our very eyes.

Before the election Netanya promised that he could rule the country. The state is in pretty good shape: There are no wars or terror attacks and the economy is growing nicely. But the public feels that things are working out on their own, that there is no chief executive up above who can take the reins and make decisions. In Netanyahu's eyes, that's his tragedy: Even when everything seems fine, he doesn't get the credit and no one praises him.

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Alone in his discordant office, without a clear message or direction, Netanyahu is hoping for a miracle to save him from Lieberman's political liquidation campaign against him. The head of Yisrael Beiteinu put Netanyahu into power and is now threatening to remove him from it. A criminal indictment against Lieberman won't help: Aryeh Deri controlled a political machine and led Shas to election victory even after he was prosecuted. There's no reason for Lieberman to do any differently, if Attorney General Yehuda Weinstein decides to prosecute. Netanyahu will need a much bigger miracle in order to be seen as politically relevant and to regain his influence. For now he is marking time with meaningless decisions, such as appointing the "governance committee" to renovate the regime. There could be no clearer sign of the prime minister's political wane.

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The Arab world is dead, but the Egyptians may revive it Egypt's revolution has not just deposed a dictator, it has breathed life into an exhausted idea: Arab self-determinationHussein Agha and Robert Malley,Guardian,15 Feb. 2011,

The protesters on the streets of Cairo who, in just 18 days, ended the three-decade rule of Hosni Mubarak were not merely demanding the end of an unjust, corrupt and oppressive regime. They did not merely decry privation, unemployment or the disdain with which their leaders treated them. They had long suffered such indignities. What they fought for was something more elusive and more visceral.

The Arab world is dead. Egypt's revolution is trying to revive it.

From the 1950s onwards, Arabs took pride in their anti-colonial struggle, in their leaders' standing and in the sense that the Arab world stood for something, that it had a mission: to build independent nation-states and resist foreign domination.

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In Egypt, Gamal Abdel Nasser presided over a ruinous economy and endured a humiliating defeat against Israel in 1967. Still, Cairo remained the heart of the larger Arab nation – the Arab public watched as Nasser railed against the west, defied his country's former masters, nationalised the Suez canal and taunted Israel. Meanwhile, Algeria wrested its independence from France and became the refuge of revolutionaries; Saudi Arabia led an oil embargo that shook the world economy; and Yasser Arafat gave Palestinians a voice and put their cause on the map.

Throughout, the Arab world suffered ignominious military and political setbacks, but it resisted. Some around the world may not have liked the sounds coming from Cairo, Algiers, Baghdad and Tripoli, but they took notice. There were defeats for the Arab world, but no surrender.

But that world passed, and Arab politics fell silent. Other than to wait and see what others might do, Arab regimes have no clear and effective approach towards any of the issues vital to their collective future, and what policies they do have contradict popular feeling. It is that indifference that condemned the leaders of Tunisia and Egypt to irrelevance.

Most governments in the region were resigned to or enabled the invasion of Iraq; since then, the Arab world has had virtually no impact on Iraq's course. It has done little to achieve Palestinian aspirations besides backing a peace process in which it no longer believes. When Israel went to war with Hezbollah in 2006 and then with Hamas two years later, most Arab leaders privately cheered the Jewish state. And their position on Iran is unintelligible; they have delegated ultimate decision-making to the US, which they encourage to toughen its stance but then warn about the consequences of such action.

Egypt and Saudi Arabia, pillars of the Arab order, are exhausted, bereft of a cause other than preventing their own decline. For Egypt, which stood tallest, the fall has been steepest. But long

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before Tahrir Square Egypt forfeited any claim to Arab leadership. It has gone missing in Iraq, and its policy towards Iran remains restricted to protestations, accusations and insults. It has not prevailed in its rivalry with Syria and has lost its battle for influence in Lebanon. It has had no genuine impact on the Arab-Israeli peace process, was unable to reunify the Palestinian movement and was widely seen in the region as complicit in Israel's siege on Hamas-controlled Gaza.

Riyadh has helplessly witnessed the gradual ascendancy of Iranian influence in Iraq and the wider region. It was humiliated in 2009 when it failed to crush rebels in Yemen despite formidable advantages in resources and military hardware. Its mediation attempts among Palestinians in 2007, and more recently in Lebanon, were brushed aside by local parties over which it once held considerable sway.

The Arab leadership has proved passive and, when active, powerless. Where it once championed a string of lost causes – pan-Arab unity, defiance of the west, resistance to Israel – it now fights for nothing. There was more popular pride in yesterday's setbacks than in today's stupor.

Arab states suffer from a curse more debilitating than poverty or autocracy. They have become counterfeit, perceived by their own people as alien, pursuing policies hatched from afar. One cannot fully comprehend the actions of Egyptians, Tunisians, Jordanians and others without considering this deep-seated feeling that they have not been allowed to be themselves, that they have been robbed of their identities. Taking to the streets is not a mere act of protest. It is an act of self-determination.

Where the United States and Europe have seen moderation and co-operation, the Arab public has sensed a loss of dignity and of the ability to make free decisions. True independence was traded in for western military, financial and political support. That intimate relationship distorted Arab politics. Reliant on foreign nations' largesse and accountable to their judgment, the narrow ruling class

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became more responsive to external demands than to domestic aspirations.

Alienated from their states, the people have in some cases searched elsewhere for guidance. Some have been drawn to groups such as Hamas, Hezbollah and the Muslim Brotherhood, which have resisted and challenged the established order. Others look to non-Arab states such as Turkey, which under its Islamist government has carved out a dynamic, independent role, or Iran, which flouts western threats and edicts.

The breakdown of the Arab order has upended natural power relations. Traditional powers punch below their weight, and emerging ones, such as Qatar, punch above theirs. Al-Jazeera has emerged as a fully fledged political actor because it reflects and articulates popular sentiment. It has become the new Nasser. The leader of the Arab world is a television network.

Popular uprisings are the latest step in this process. They have been facilitated by a newfound fearlessness and feeling of empowerment – watching the US military's struggles in Iraq and Afghanistan, as well as Israel's inability to subdue Hezbollah and Hamas, Arab peoples are no longer afraid to confront their own regimes.

For the US, the popular upheaval lays bare the fallacy of an approach that relies on Arab leaders who mimic the west's deeds and parrot its words, and that only succeeds in discrediting the regimes without helping Washington. The more the US gave to the Mubarak regime, the more it lost Egypt. Arab leaders have been put on notice: A warm relationship with the United States and a peace deal with Israel will not save you in your hour of need.

Injecting economic assistance into faltering regimes will not work. The grievance Arab peoples feel is not principally material, and one of its main targets is over-reliance on the outside. US calls for reform will likewise fall flat. A messenger who has backed the

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status quo for decades is a poor voice for change. Attempts to pressure regimes can backfire, allowing rulers to depict protests as western-inspired and opposition leaders as foreign stooges.

Some policymakers in western capitals have convinced themselves that seizing the moment to promote the Israeli-Palestinian peace process will placate public opinion. This is to engage in both denial and wishful thinking. It ignores how Arabs have become estranged from current peace efforts; they believe that such endeavours reflect a foreign rather than a national agenda. And it presumes that a peace agreement acceptable to the west and to Arab leaders will be acceptable to the Arab public, when in truth it is more likely to be seen as an unjust imposition and denounced as the liquidation of a cherished cause. A peace effort intended to salvage order will accelerate its demise.

The Arab world's transition from old to new is rife with uncertainty about its pace and endpoint. When and where transitions take place, they will express a yearning for more assertiveness. Governments will have to change their spots; their publics will wish them to be more like Turkey and less like Egypt.For decades, the Arab world has been drained of its sovereignty, its freedom, its pride. It has been drained of politics. Today marks politics' revenge.

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Ice queens of the Arab world As protests hot up across the Middle East, the lavish lives of aloof Arab royal wives are in the spotlightNesrine Malik,Guardian,15 Feb. 2011,

It started with Leila Trabelsi, the wife of President Ben Ali – the Arab world's answer to Imelda Marcos, the Lady Macbeth of Tunisia, who allegedly made off with copious amounts of gold after the uprising that ousted her husband.

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Attention then shifted to Suzanne Mubarak, Egypt's ex-first lady, who shares her husband's estimated $70bn fortune.

In the wake of King Abdullah's dismissal of the government in Jordan this month, the latest Arab Wag in the spotlight is Queen Rania. Last week she was the subject of an unprecedented attack by a group of Jordanian tribal figures complaining about the ruling family and widespread corruption. According to the statement, the queen and "her sycophants and the power centres that surround her" are dividing Jordanians and "stealing from the country and the people".

As the wave of dissent sweeping the region puts Arab presidents and monarchs under the spotlight, their wives are also being scrutinised for their lavish lifestyles and "interference" in politics.

Queen Rania in particular, a regular "frow" (front row) fixture at fashion shows in Paris and Milan and Giorgio Armani's "muse" is well known for her fashion credentials and her Tatler-like lifestyle. Feted in the west, Rania is queen of one of the poorest countries in the region.

Most first ladies in the Arab countries are western educated (Suzanne Mubarak is half British) and thus are more comfortable in western circles of diplomacy and royalty. While they may be beautiful, articulate and impeccably styled ambassadors, on their home turf they often appear out of touch with the concerns of citizens.

In the oil-rich Gulf states, due to generally high living standards, the indulgences of first ladies (often more than one per monarch) do not particularly grate. In addition, the conservative monarchies of the Gulf are generally more low profile and it is inconceivable that any of the Saudi king's wives would tweet a picture of herself watching football in Barcelona.When Gulf Wags do make a rare outing, they are mostly noted for their style. Sheikha Moza of Qatar caused a frenzy last year with her icicle-heeled Chanel boots on a state visit to the UK.

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The latest royal spouse to make an outing is Princess Amira, wife of the unconventional Saudi multi-billionaire, Prince Waleed bin Talal. Rarely seen in the obligatory Saudi abaya, she recently accompanied her husband to the opening of the refurbished Savoy Hotel in London. She has commented that she is "ready to drive" in Saudi Arabia and is often photographed meeting her husband's charity causes in the kingdom in jeans and T-shirts.

While there is nothing uncommon about the wives of political leaders coming under scrutiny for their appearance (Michelle Obama's choices of dress and designer are in the headlines almost as often as her husband's policy making), Arab first ladies are even more celebrated in the west for their exotic take on western styles.

While it is understandable that Queen Rania's international jetsetting, along with her large palace office and entourage, might be provocative to some Jordanians, the local criticisms of her are not devoid of prejudice. The queen is of Palestinian origin, part of a Palestinian emigre community in Jordan that has an often tense relationship with native Jordanians. Old-fashioned misogyny also creeps into the discourse: a youthful, tweeting, Armani-clad, charity-sponsoring queen does not go down well with the traditional tribal leaders who wield considerable power in the country.

Since public criticism of the king and the institution of monarchy is taboo in Jordan (and carries a penalty of three years' imprisonment), the queen also provides a softer target. Those who criticised her last week were actually firing a warning salvo aimed at the king.

Queen Rania talks eloquently about change and women's rights on Oprah, yet Jordan's human rights record under the stewardship of her husband has been poor. Most tragically, Jordan still has the highest incidence of honour killings in the Arab world and, according to Amnesty International's 2010 report on Jordan,

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"perpetrators of such killings continued to benefit from inappropriately lenient sentences".

Irrespective of whether the attack on Queen Rania is fair, it is increasingly clear that the wives of kings and presidents across the Arab world are being seen and treated as an extension of the unaccountable regimes presided over by their husbands.

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Defector admits to WMD lies that triggered Iraq war • Man codenamed Curveball 'invented' tales of bioweapons• Iraqi told lies to try to bring down Saddam Hussein regime• Fabrications used by US as justification for invasionMartin Chulov and Helen Pidd in Karlsruhe,Guardian,15 Feb. 2011,

The defector who convinced the White House that Iraq had a secret biological weapons programme has admitted for the first time that he lied about his story, then watched in shock as it was used to justify the war.

Rafid Ahmed Alwan al-Janabi, codenamed Curveball by German and American intelligence officials who dealt with his claims, has told the Guardian that he fabricated tales of mobile bioweapons trucks and clandestine factories in an attempt to bring down the Saddam Hussein regime, from which he had fled in 1995.

"Maybe I was right, maybe I was not right," he said. "They gave me this chance. I had the chance to fabricate something to topple the regime. I and my sons are proud of that and we are proud that we were the reason to give Iraq the margin of democracy."

The admission comes just after the eighth anniversary of Colin Powell's speech to the United Nations in which the then-US secretary of state relied heavily on lies that Janabi had told the

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German secret service, the BND. It also follows the release of former defence secretary Donald Rumsfeld's memoirs, in which he admitted Iraq had no weapons of mass destruction programme.

The careers of both men were seriously damaged by their use of Janabi's claims, which he now says could have been – and were – discredited well before Powell's landmark speech to the UN on 5 February 2003.

The former CIA chief in Europe Tyler Drumheller describes Janabi's admission as "fascinating", and said the emergence of the truth "makes me feel better". "I think there are still a number of people who still thought there was something in that. Even now," said Drumheller.

In the only other at length interview Janabi has given he denied all knowledge of his supposed role in helping the US build a case for invading Saddam's Iraq.

In a series of meetings with the Guardian in Germany where he has been granted asylum, he said he had told a German official, who he identified as Dr Paul, about mobile bioweapons trucks throughout 2000. He said the BND had identified him as a Baghdad-trained chemical engineer and approached him shortly after 13 March of that year, looking for inside information about Saddam's Iraq.

"I had a problem with the Saddam regime," he said. "I wanted to get rid of him and now I had this chance."

He portrays the BND as gullible and so eager to tease details from him that they gave him a Perry's Chemical Engineering Handbook to help communicate. He still has the book in his small, rented flat in Karlsruhe, south-west Germany.

"They were asking me about pumps for filtration, how to make detergent after the reaction," he said. "Any engineer who studied in this field can explain or answer any question they asked."

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Janabi claimed he was first exposed as a liar as early as mid-2000, when the BND travelled to a Gulf city, believed to be Dubai, to speak with his former boss at the Military Industries Commission in Iraq, Dr Bassil Latif.

The Guardian has learned separately that British intelligence officials were at that meeting, investigating a claim made by Janabi that Latif's son, who was studying in Britain, was procuring weapons for Saddam.

That claim was proven false, and Latif strongly denied Janabi's claim of mobile bioweapons trucks and another allegation that 12 people had died during an accident at a secret bioweapons facility in south-east Baghdad.

The German officials returned to confront him with Latif's version. "He says, 'There are no trucks,' and I say, 'OK, when [Latif says] there no trucks then [there are none],'" Janabi recalled.

He said the BND did not contact him again until the end of May 2002. But he said it soon became clear that he was still being taken seriously.

He claimed the officials gave him an incentive to speak by implying that his then pregnant Moroccan-born wife may not be able to travel from Spain to join him in Germany if he did not co-operate with them. "He says, you work with us or your wife and child go to Morocco."

The meetings continued throughout 2002 and it became apparent to Janabi that a case for war was being constructed. He said he was not asked again about the bioweapons trucks until a month before Powell's speech.

After the speech, Janabi said he called his handler at the BND and accused the secret service of breaking an agreement that they would not share anything he had told them with another country.

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He said he was told not to speak and placed in confinement for around 90 days.

With the US now leaving Iraq, Janabi said he was comfortable with what he did, despite the chaos of the past eight years and the civilian death toll in Iraq, which stands at more than 100,000.

"I tell you something when I hear anybody – not just in Iraq but in any war – [is] killed, I am very sad. But give me another solution. Can you give me another solution?

"Believe me, there was no other way to bring about freedom to Iraq. There were no other possibilities."

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Daily Telegraph: ‘ WikiLeaks: Egypt’s new man at the top 'was against reform '’..

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Guardian: 'US embassy cables: Bahrainis trained by Hezbollah, claims King Hamad'..

Haaretz: 'Report: Iran recovered quickly from cyber-attack on nuclear plant'..

Guardian: 'WikiLeaks row intensifies as US makes 'privacy' move against Twitter'..

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