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We correctly predicted in our Jan 18th Bulletin (IMMEDIATE
DANGERS) that Hamas would win in
Palestine, and thus upset all kinds of middle-east
checks and balances. It is hard to see how any
peace process can continue with Hamas as the new
government whilst being dedicated to the
destruction of the state of Israel and maintaining
an armed faction. Additionally Hamas is a
religious party, with close links to IRAN.
It would be unlike the Israelophobe Iranian
president, Ahmadinejad, not to mix-in with a
little (or a lot) of triumphalism, which would
certainly intensify the provocation that Israel
will feel! But maybe Hamas having seen the power
of the ballot box has come to the fork in the road
and may opt for politics rather than the gun - if
they can understand that they cannot do both.
Peace in Palestine, the two state solution, was to
have been the centerpiece of eventual
Arab-American reconciliation, now another casualty
of this election. But the people have spoken, as
they tend to do in elections and not always for
the convenience of those promoting democracy.
They didn't vote this way because they think Hamas
can actually lead them into the destruction of
Israel, and it is possible that Hamas having so
successfully tried the democratic political
alternative to terrorism, will see that their
immediate next step should be to repudiate the
'armed struggle' and stand down their militia,
other perhaps than to restrain the other armed
groups, as Fatah patently were unable to do. Their
policy of the destruction of the State of Israel
is obviously unachievable, thus absurd. It might
do as sloganising for a never-ending guerilla war
but for a neighbouring elected government it is
almost tantamount to a declaration of war,
particularly if terrorist acts were to continue.
When one remembers how harshly Israel dealt with
Yasser Arafat for years in his almost bombed-out
Ramallah HQ, for failing 'to prevent' terrorist
acts in Israel, how would an actively belligerent
Hamas fare any better? They were persuaded to try
the political path and the logic is now to
capitalize on that, be recognized internationally
and then honourably proceed on behalf of the
Palestinian people with the negotiations towards a
two-state solution. Anything less than that means
no progress whatever in resolving the future of
Palestine.
We can expect that the first suicide bombing in
Israel following this election, be it from Hamas
or others, will likely be regarded as a positive
invitation by Israel to chastise them big time,
targeting amongst others, their military wing.
Restraint, so obviously needed now, is in short
supply in the Palestinian - Israeli confrontation.
The question of funding the Palestinian Authority
has already arisen, as the EU and others, whilst
cutting some slack by deciding to provisionally
continue writing cheques this side of the
appointment of the first Hamas administration,
will not financially support a terrorist
organization, which is how Hamas have long been
listed. Hamas has already appealed to other Arab
nations for financial help, but since many of
those have long ago agreed with the US not to
allow finance to reach terrorist organizations,
that is unlikely to solve their funding problems.
But if IRAN, as a result, were to pick up that
financial burden, how could Palestine avoid being
regarded as their satellite in the Islamic
Revolution?
A NEW PERSIAN EMPIRE?
It is extraordinary that TWO
cherished US & UN policies - Nuclear
Proliferation and the Palestine Peace Process have
fallen apart simultaneously. The Islamic Republic
of IRAN
is the common factor. They have through the
troubled times since 9/11 extended their
considerable political influence against all the
odds in western foreign-policy considerations.
They are powerful from the western and Shi'ite
provinces of AFGHANISTAN,
where they are heavily invested; initially through
the solidly Shi'ite southern areas of IRAQ,
latterly through the majority religious government
of that country; Iranian power extends further
through the beleaguered state of SYRIA
(whose only international friend they are); into
Lebanon via the influential Hezbollah; and now
through their Palestinian clients Hamas, right up
to the borders of Israel - indeed also those of
Jordan and Egypt.
The US invasion of IRAQ
was hardly calculated to produce the unlooked for
hegemony of religious shi-ite politics in that
benighted country, which given the democratic
choice, emphatically rejected the secular parties,
as now in Palestine, in favour of the religious.
Thus the decline of secular Arab politics
parallels the spectacular growth of the emerging
'Persian empire.'
Hamas is not a Shi'ite group, but its core policy
- the destruction of the state of Israel exactly
matched the teachings of the Ayatollah Khomeni,
thus of Iranian policy ever since. In December,
the leader of Hamas, Khaled Meshaal was in Tehran
meeting Ahmadinejad, it is believed seeking
financial support. They declared then that they
represented a 'United Front' against Israel.
The nuclear impasse looks baffling enough for the
western countries, but the USA which has conducted
2000 'controlled' nuclear explosions in the sixty
years since Hiroshima and Nagasaki, and isn't
prepared to definitively state that it has
finished yet, has hardly held the moral high
ground in this matter. IRAN's
circumlocutions and NORTH
KOREA's hard-nosed stance, together
amount to the admittedly nightmare prospect of the
nuclear genie being out of the bottle with no
prospect of it going back - indeed copycat
expansion must now be expected, unless the
Security Council reference of IRAN
is effective in curtailing their nuclear programme.
The UN badly needs a 'Plan B' because Nuclear
Proliferation is now with us. We certainly do not
rule out however, that the Israeli Air Force will
intervene in IRAN as they did decisively in 1981
at IRAQ's
Osirak reactor. Other states may talk and strike
attitudes, but imagine how it must look to Israel
and the Israelis, with IRAN's
Islamic revolution having leapfrogged onto their
frontiers with a proxy army waiting there for them
- perhaps to receive at some future time, nuclear
weaponry! No need for rockets - just walk it over
the frontier!
At the time of the Osirak intervention, Israel's
government issued this terse statement:
"Under no circumstances will we allow an
enemy to develop weapons of mass destruction
against our people." So, what can be said to
have significantly changed over the last 25 years?
Although Israel is in many ways a US client, they
developed their own nuclear bomb because in the
last analysis, they will ultimately be reliant on
no other power on earth for their survival as a
nation. It seems unlikely that they would make a
pre-emptive strike without the nod from
Washington. Maybe it cannot effectively even be
done without assistance from USAF assets. But it
is noteworthy that in 1991, ten years after Osirak,
the Israeli Air Force general who had commanded
the pre-emptive strike, received a framed
satellite photograph of the destroyed reactor
accompanied by a inscription with thanks and
congratulations, "on the outstanding job you
did." It was signed by Dick Cheney.
Whoever leads them, the Israeli government must
have calculated these contingencies and will have
determined in what circumstances they would pre-emptively
attack their perceived enemy, and we cannot know
that critical path. But they would surely allow a
few weeks for Hamas to just possibly drop the
armed struggle in order to be able to negotiate
the state of Palestine; or alternatively to
reiterate their call for the destruction of
Israel. Also, the Security Council proceedings
will shortly take place.
The US might still just consider in the
circumstances, depending on the success or lack of
it, of the Security Council reference of IRAN,
that an Israeli pre-emptive strike on Iranian
nuclear facilities might be the least-worst
option, even though it would lead to a regional
meltdown in the many places including Shi-ite IRAQ,
where IRAN
could bring this about. Wiser councils might point
out that the current US National Intelligence
estimate is that IRAN
is six to ten years away from having their own
nuclear weapons.
'DISASTERSTAN'
This month we are pleased to add the forty first
nation to our regular monthly reports on nations
in transition. BANGLADESH,
once East Pakistan, is the words largest poor
country with a population of 144,319,000, many
millions of whom (45%) are below the poverty line!
In the field of geopolitics, BANGLADESH
with such a vast and poor population, mainly
Moslem, cannot be ignored, or only at the peril of
the developed nations by so doing.
It is so badly led politically, so corrupt, so
unprotected against natural disasters, that
probably it is not possible to imagine a more
unfortunate nation, and yet…. they do have
something admirable at the micro-level. The
praiseworthy Grameen Bank is truly a 'peoples
bank,' more accurately a womens bank, which has
led the way worldwide in micro-banking and which
in that nation, shines forth like a good deed in a
naughty world. Lending at rates comparable to
commercial banks, it is itself a commercial bank
but without the need for collateral, it has
brought a transforming new element into village
life and a proven way of attacking the poverty
line from underneath.
Their web site outlines the amazing story at www.grameen-info.org/bank/GBGlance.htm
FATHER OF THE POTENTIAL NATION
This month has seen the anticipated death from
lung cancer, of the chain-smoking president of the
Yugoslav province of Kosovo, Ibrahim Rugova. This
is a region that has produced an impressive
line-up of world-class villains : the prisoner at
The Hague, Milosevic of SERBIA;
the deceased President Tudjman of CROATIA;
the fugitives: Serb general Ratko Mladic, and
Bosnian-Serb president Radovan Karadic. In this
company, Ibrahim Rugova, a pacifist of all
unlikely things in such a lethally quarrelsome
place, never failed to impress. A pacifist, a
professor of literature, a poet and a leader of
men. This is not a normal combination, but his
embattled character reminded us of the Gandhian
alternative to Kalashnikovs and M16's. Sad that he
has gone, just as the complicated future of Kosovo
is about to take centre stage in the long-running
Balkans drama. We shall not soon see his like
again, more is the pity.
Whilst in the Balkans, we reproduce at BOSNIA-HERZEGOVINA
an important think-piece by distinguished European
observers of that divided nation, with its many
contradictions stemming from a once essential - to
stop the ethnic killing - Dayton agreement. Ten
years afterwards, the authors make a powerful case
for Dayton to be replaced by a more appropriate
constitutional agreement.
NATIONS ON THE EDGE - THE HOTSPOTS
This month, early in the New year, we offer a very
full series of reports, including for each, a new
review of 2005 and forecast for 2006 (how they got
where they are now, and where they are going), for
the hot-spots, AFGHANISTAN,
IRAN
and IRAQ,
all of which will get the casual follower of
events in those troubled and troublesome countries
up-to-speed. The specialist reader may just choose
to fast-forward to this month's UPDATE
of what has gone before. The Palestinian triumph
of the IRANIAN
sponsored Hamas, also creates a further twist in
the already complicated story of this ancient
Western Asian nation which currently so troubles
the mighty of this world.
'POWER' BY ANY OTHER NAME
RUSSIA
and its former colonies, UKRAINE,
GEORGIA,
MOLDOVA,
all unhappy energy clients; and suppliers: TURKMENISTAN
and KAZAKSTAN,
are all linked by hydro-carbon bonds of gas and
oil, also electricity, along with an AZERBAIJAN,
no longer dependent on Russian pipelines. We have
long observed and reported RUSSIA's
strategic objective of acquiring control of energy
supplies throughout its former empire, be it
pipelines, electricity supply, even as in the case
of KYRGYZSTAN,
Russian companies financing the building of new
dams for generating power for export. This month
we review the situation with each of these energy
clients as well as those producers outside of RUSSIA's
control but dependent on their pipelines, which of
course amounts to the same thing. Not for nothing
is manufactured energy also known as 'power'.
One should never take one's eye off RUSSIA
whose energy-imperialism has now surfaced publicly
after years of patiently building up their
international network of pipelines, electrical
generation and distribution, together with the
diplomatic squeezing of former satellites. RUSSIA
under Putin does not accept that it is a
post-imperial state. When the Europeans finally
discarded their world empires it was not on any
serious politician's agenda to re-establish the
previous polity, although undoubtedly there was
for some years an ex-colonial economic dependence
that largely, over time, dwindled away.
This month's report on RUSSIA
looks particularly at the implications of the
first 'confrontation' between President Putin and
the new German Chancellor, Angela Merkel in the
wake of the short lived crisis of gas supply on
the first day of the year.
MARCH ELECTION IN UKRAINE
UKRAINE's
story of course also looks at the upcoming
election where Yushchenko's Orange revolution is
under great threat of being substantially snuffed
out in the March parliamentary elections, by the
same voters that put them in to power. This was
the second New Year 'warning' in our 18th January
Bulletin and again we hope that we are wrong. But
on present indications, this may not be so. The UKRAINE
story remains a murky one illustrated by the
pervasive stories of corruption at the highest
levels. It is illustrated by the amazing outcome
of the New Years Day gas-transmission crisis being
resolved by what was called a compromise: A
mysterious Swiss based intermediary 'half-owned'
by Gazprom with unnamed directors, which somehow,
without going broke, can 'buy at 200 and sell at
100,' with billions of dollars involved. This is
an 'in-your-face' example that the world (and
Ukrainian voters) heard about, but sadly UKRAINE
watchers have plenty more.
NORTH
KOREA - READING THE RUNES
IRAN
for the last month certainly took the lime-light
off this other international nuclear pariah whose
leader, as we describe, took an unannounced trip
to China. By all the evidence he had sprung the
visit on them at virtually no notice, let alone
the rest of the world. Although there were
economic factors in this trip based on his
itinerary, we describe the undoubted political
implications, given the obvious importance the
Chinese gave to his visit. Obviously, Kim Jong-il
and his advisors will be following every nuance of
the way in which the western allies are handling
the IRAN
nuclear crisis. China as well as RUSSIA,
both permanent members, have just agreed that IRAN
should be referred by the IAEA to the Security
Council which will surprise many - perhaps even
the dear leader?
Clive Lindley: Publisher
In addition to reports on the seventeen nations
highlighted here, we also feature
FEBRUARY UPDATES on twenty-four other
nations in transition.
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