Category: America

America and the rise of middle powers
US foreign policy is stuck in a cold war mindset of imperial dominance. It’s time to listen to allies like Turkey and adjust
- Stephen Kinzer
- guardian.co.uk, Tuesday 11 January 2011
President Barack Obama, with Turkish prime minister Recep Tayyip Erdogan. The US would do well, argues Stephen Kinzer, to foster closer ties with its longstanding Nato ally Turkey, a Muslim country with a strong democratic tradition, more reliably opposed to extremism than other US partners like Saudi Arabia and Pakistan. Photograph: Susan Walsh/AP

The dramatic rise of Turkey in the councils of world power was one of the main geopolitical developments of 2010. Iran‘s emergence as a serious regional power was another. They are harbingers of what will be one of the main trends of global power in coming decades: the rise of middle powers.

This era is an exciting one for rising countries. Their drive to assert themselves, though, poses an inevitable challenge to powers accustomed to dominating the world, chiefly the United States.

One of the immutable patterns of history is the rise and fall of great powers. Those that survive are the ones that adapt as the world changes. Thus far, however, the US shows little sign that it is willing to accommodate the rise of middle powers. American leaders are frozen into denial and caught in a straitjacket of policies shaped for another era. Unless they can become more nimble, the US risks losing both global influence and domestic prosperity.

In the Middle East, Washington is pursuing policies shaped to fit a cold war security environment that no longer exists. Saudi Arabia and Israel have been America’s closest partners there for the last half-century. Yet Saudi society has nothing in common with western societies, and some long-term Saudi security interests, like promoting radical Islam around the world, run counter to western interests. Israel gives signs of careening toward self-destruction, taking steps that undermine the regional stability that is its only guarantee of long-term security.

Alliances and partnerships produce stability when they reflect realities and interests. In the Middle East, the US should stop acting as if it, alone, knows what is best, and instead, seek a Muslim partner. Turkey is the logical choice. It is a longtime Nato ally and booming capitalist democracy, and has unique influence around the Islamic world.

Turkey has been urging the US to change its approach to Iran by abandoning its policy of threats and sanctions. It suggests an approach based on rational self-interest rather than emotion: offer unconditional talks, not limited to the nuclear issue but aimed at a “grand bargain” that would recognise Iran’s new role and give it a stake in regional security. India has recently made this same appeal to Washington. Yet the US, locked into outdated paradigms, continues on steady course even as global conditions change.

Iran bets on Middle East forces like Hamas and Hezbollah, which win elections. The US bets on the Saudi monarchy, the Pharaonic regime in Egypt, the Palestinian Authority, and increasingly radical politicians in Israel. The future will require interest-based partnerships that meet the needs of a new age.

One could be a “power triangle” linking the US with Turkey and Iran. These two countries make intriguing partners for two reasons. First, their societies have long experience with democracy – although for reasons having to do in part with foreign intervention, Iran has not managed to produce a government worthy of its vibrant society. Second, these two countries share many security interests with the west. Projecting Turkey’s example as a counter-balance to Islamic radicalism should be a vital priority. As for Iran, it has unique ability to stabilise Iraq, can also do much to help calm Afghanistan, and is a bitter enemy of radical Sunni movements like al-Qaida and the Taliban. Contrast this alignment of interests to the dubious logic of western partnerships with Saudi Arabia and Pakistan, so-called allies who also support some of the west’s most violent enemies.

Adroit geo-strategists take new realities into account as they try to imagine how global politics will unfold. In the foreign policy business, however, inertia is a powerful force and “adroit” a little-known concept. Reconceiving entire regions of the world is not a pursuit at which government bureaucrats excel. Yet, this is not all that American leaders must reconceive. The new century requires them to question the assumption – central to American strategic thinking for generations – that that the world is a dangerous place in need of management, and that the United States must do the managing. A better course for the 21st century would be to withdraw from adventures and listen more closely to friends.

• Stephen Kinzer is giving a series of talks in the UK this week on these themes
January 12, 2011
FETULLAH’s Islamic group is CIA front, ex-Turkish intel chief says

By Jeff Stein

The Washington Post

A memoir by a top former Turkish intelligence official claims that a worldwide moderate Islamic movement based in Pennsylvania has been providing cover for the CIA since the mid-1990s.

The memoir, roughly rendered in English as “Witness to Revolution and Near Anarchy,” by retired Turkish intelligence official Osman Nuri Gundes, says the religious-tolerance movement, led by an influential former Turkish imam by the name of Fethullah Gulen, has 600 schools and 4 million followers around the world.

In the 1990s, Gundes alleges, the movement “sheltered 130 CIA agents” at its schools in Kyrgyzstan and Uzbekistan alone, according to a report on his memoir Wednesday by the Paris-based Intelligence Online newsletter.

The book has caused a sensation in Turkey since it was published last month.

Gulen could not be reached for comment.

But two ex-CIA officials with long ties to Central Asia cast doubt on Gundes’s charges.

Former CIA operative Robert Baer, chief of the agency’s Central Asia and Caucasus operations from 1995 through 1997, called the allegations bogus. “The CIA didn’t have any ‘agents’ in Central Asia during my tenure,” he said.

It’s possible, Baer granted, that the CIA “turned around this ship after I left,” but only the spy agency could say for sure, and the CIA does not comment on operational sources and methods.

A U.S. intelligence official, speaking on condition of anonymity, also said Gundes’s “accounts are ringing no bells whatsoever.”

Likewise, Graham Fuller, a former CIA station chief in Kabul and author of “The Future of Political Islam,” threw cold water on Gundes’s allegations about Kyrgyzstan and Uzbekistan.

“I think the story of 130 CIA agents in Gulen schools in Central Asia is pretty wild,” Fuller said by e-mail.

“I should hasten to add that I left CIA in 1987 — nearly 25 years ago — and I have absolutely no concrete personal knowledge whatsoever about this. But my instincts tell me the claim is highly improbable.”

Fuller added, “I cannot even imagine trying to credibly sell such a scheme with a straight face within the agency. As for Nuri Gundes, I am not aware of who he is or what he has written. But there is a lot of wild stuff floating around in Turkey on these issues and Gulen is a real hot button issue.”

Imam Gulen, “whose views are usually close to U.S. policy,” according to Intelligence Online, favors toleration of all religions, putting his movement in direct competition with al-Qaeda and other radical groups for the affection of Muslims across Central Asia, the Middle East and even Europe and Africa, where it has also expanded its reach.

Gundes, who was Istanbul station chief for Turkey’s MIT intelligence agency, “personally supervised several investigations into Gulen’s movement in the 1990s,” according to the newsletter’s report on his memoir, which has not been translated into English. The purpose of Gundes’s investigation was not immediately clear. His own religious views could not be determined, but the influence of radical Islamist forces in Turkey swelled in the 1990s.

The imam left Turkey in 1998 and settled in Saylorsburg, Pa., where the movement is headquartered. According to Intelligence Online, he obtained a residence permit only in 2008 with the help of Fuller and George Fidas, whom it described as head of the agency’s outreach to universities.

Fuller says that’s wrong.

“I did not recommend him for a residence permit or anything else. As for George Fidas, I have never even heard of him and don’t know who he is.”

“What I did do,” Fuller explained, “was write a letter to the FBI in early 2006 …at a time when Gulen’s enemies were pressing for his extradition to Turkey from the U.S. In the post 9/11 environment, they began spreading the word that he was a dangerous radical. In my statement to the FBI I offered my views…that I did not believe he posed a security threat of any kind to the U.S. I still believe that today, as do a large body of scholars on contemporary Islam.

“I do not at all consider Gulen a radical or dangerous.” Fuller continued. “Indeed in my view–and I have studied a lot of Islamist movements worldwide–his movement is perhaps one of the most encouraging in terms of the evolution of contemporary Islamic political and social thinking…”

Fidas could not be reached for comment, nor would the CIA answer questions about him. George Washington University’s Elliot School of International Affairs lists him as a visiting professor and “Director for Outreach in the Office of the Assistant Director of Central Intelligence for Analysis and Production.”

But the title was abolished when the Directorate of National Intelligence was created several years ago, an informed source said.

https://www.washingtonpost.com/, 05/01//2011

January 6, 2011
How to Stay Friends With China

By ZBIGNIEW BRZEZINSKI

Washington

THE visit by President Hu Jintao of China to Washington this month will be the most important top-level United States-Chinese encounter since Deng Xiaoping’s historic trip more than 30 years ago. It should therefore yield more than the usual boilerplate professions of mutual esteem. It should aim for a definition of the relationship between the two countries that does justice to the global promise of constructive cooperation between them.

I remember Deng’s visit well, as I was national security adviser at the time. It took place in an era of Soviet expansionism, and crystallized United States-Chinese efforts to oppose it. It also marked the beginning of China’s three-decades-long economic transformation — one facilitated by its new diplomatic ties to the United States.

President Hu’s visit takes place in a different climate. There are growing uncertainties regarding the state of the bilateral relationship, as well as concerns in Asia over China’s longer-range geopolitical aspirations. These uncertainties are casting a shadow over the upcoming meeting.

In recent months there has been a steady increase in polemics in the United States and China, with each side accusing the other of pursuing economic policies that run contrary to accepted international rules. Each has described the other as selfish. Longstanding differences between the American and the Chinese notions of human rights were accentuated by the awarding of the 2010 Nobel Peace Prize to a Chinese dissident.

Moreover, each side has unintentionally intensified the suspicions of the other. Washington’s decisions to help India with nuclear energy have stimulated China’s unease, prompting increased Chinese support for Pakistan’s desire to expand its own nuclear energy potential. China’s seeming lack of concern over North Korea’s violent skirmishes with South Korea has given rise to apprehension about China’s policy on the Korean peninsula. And just as America’s unilateralism has in recent years needlessly antagonized some of its friends, so China should note that some of its recent stands have worried its neighbors.

The worst outcome for Asia’s long-term stability as well as for the American-Chinese relationship would be a drift into escalating reciprocal demonization. What’s more, the temptations to follow such a course are likely to grow as both countries face difficulties at home.

The pressures are real. The United States’ need for comprehensive domestic renewal, for instance, is in many respects the price of having shouldered the burdens of waging the 40-year cold war, and it is in part the price of having neglected for the last 20 years mounting evidence of its own domestic obsolescence. Our weakening infrastructure is merely a symptom of the country’s slide backward into the 20th century.

China, meanwhile, is struggling to manage an overheated economy within an inflexible political system. Some pronouncements by Chinese commentators smack of premature triumphalism regarding both China’s domestic transformation and its global role. (Those Chinese leaders who still take Marxist classics seriously might do well to re-read Stalin’s message of 1930 to the party cadres titled “Dizzy With Success,” which warned against “a spirit of vanity and conceit.”)

Thirty years after their collaborative relationship started, the United States and China should not flinch from a forthright discussion of their differences — but they should undertake it with the knowledge that each needs the other. A failure to consolidate and widen their cooperation would damage not just both nations but the world as a whole. Neither side should delude itself that it can avoid the harm caused by an increased mutual antagonism; both should understand that a crisis in one country can hurt the other.

For the visit to be more than symbolic, Presidents Obama and Hu should make a serious effort to codify in a joint declaration the historic potential of productive American-Chinese cooperation. They should outline the principles that should guide it. They should declare their commitment to the concept that the American-Chinese partnership should have a wider mission than national self-interest. That partnership should be guided by the moral imperatives of the 21st century’s unprecedented global interdependence.

The declaration should set in motion a process for defining common political, economic and social goals. It should acknowledge frankly the reality of some disagreements as well as register a shared determination to seek ways of narrowing the ranges of such disagreements. It should also take note of potential threats to security in areas of mutual concern, and commit both sides to enhanced consultations and collaboration in coping with them.

Such a joint charter should, in effect, provide the framework not only for avoiding what under some circumstances could become a hostile rivalry but also for expanding a realistic collaboration between the United States and China. This would do justice to a vital relationship between two great nations of strikingly different histories, identities and cultures — yet both endowed with a historically important global role.

Zbigniew Brzezinski was the national security adviser in the Carter administration.

, January 2, 2011

January 4, 2011
Nurturing Musical Dreams in a Wheelchair

By JENNIFER MASCIA

Published: January 1, 2011

At the flip of some switches on his computer, Jason Celik’s room fills with a melodic hip-hop beat. After a few bars, his older brother’s sleepy, streetwise rhymes kick in, reminiscent of the young rapper Drake. Their father, Muzzafer, who is from Istanbul, stands in the background and proudly bobs his head, delighted by the strains of traditional Turkish music woven into the track.

“ ‘Leylim Ley,’ ” Mr. Celik said, identifying the song his son has sampled.

Jason Celik’s musical talents are all the more impressive given that he is able to move only his right hand and two fingers on his left. Now 21, he is paralyzed as a result of Duchenne muscular dystrophy, characterized by the progressive loss of muscle strength.

When he was a toddler, his mother, Ann Marie, 48, recalled, “I noticed he had a problem going up the stairs.” By the time he was 7, he was in a wheelchair.

Respiratory and cardiac problems are common with Duchenne, and when Jason Celik was 18, his respiratory muscles were so weak that he was intubated for six weeks and nearly died.

“Six weeks of fighting,” Ms. Celik calls it, and during that time she clashed with insurance companies and doctors who wanted her son to have a tracheotomy tube permanently inserted.

“By the grace of God, he’s been O.K.,” Ms. Celik said.

His room, littered with medical devices, betrays how completely his life revolves around his illness. A cough-assist machine sucks phlegm from his lungs when his muscles are too weak. Without it, he would be plagued by bronchitis and pneumonia. He wears a brave smile, but he cannot scratch his own itches, use the bathroom without help, roll over in the middle of the night — his mother sleeps next to him so she can help with that — or haul himself into the shower. His musical collaborator and brother, Peter, 24, helps him to do that.

“But as God as my witness, he never complains,” Ms. Celik said as her husband nuzzled Jason’s cheek.

She added, however, “Jason is a man, and he wants to retain his dignity and have a shower.” She described plans to install a rolling shower in one of the bathrooms.

More drastic renovation was required before the Celiks could move into their four-bedroom house in Cedarhurst on Long Island. Doorways were widened for her son’s wheelchair, and a sturdy wooden ramp was installed on one side of the house. It has been a vast improvement over the two-bedroom apartment the family shared in Elmont, which had holes in every wall from being hit by the wheelchair.

The Celiks needed space, but it was not until they found a program called Partners in Dignity at FEGS Health and Human Services System that they imagined state funds could pay for their relocation and home renovations.

At the agency, the Celiks learned of the Nursing Home Transition and Diversion Medicaid Waiver Program, which grants money to people with disabilities so they can alter their houses to accommodate their needs.

Finding the house was difficult because landlords are often unwilling to accept the subsidy or to have their properties modified, especially since the state does not pay to have the work undone if the disabled tenant moves out, said Lori Hardoon, the director of Partners in Dignity.

“Thank God for this grant, because, quite honestly, we never would have been able to move in here,” said Ms. Celik, a 23-year veteran of the United States Postal Service.

FEGS is a beneficiary of UJA-Federation of New York, one of the seven organizations supported by The New York Times Neediest Cases Fund. The fund contributed half the broker’s fee, or $1,190.

Ms. Celik home-schooled her son, who taught himself how to produce music with the help of computer programs.

“He’s a real go-getter,” she said. More than anything, he wants a music internship. A framed print hanging above the futon in Peter’s room, which doubles as a music studio, reads, “Find your stage door and open it.”

“People aren’t very receptive,” Ms. Celik said, gesturing to Jason in his wheelchair. “But they don’t know just how much he can really do.”

Video:

via Nurturing Musical Dreams in a Wheelchair – Neediest Cases – NYTimes.com.

January 2, 2011
Obama to Appoint Six Without Senate Okay

By Dan Weil

President Barack Obama will use recess appointments to install six executive branch officials, bypassing Senate confirmation. The appointments include James Cole, his controversial choice for deputy attorney general — the No. 2 spot at the Justice Department.

The six officials will bring Obama’s recess appointment total to 28, eclipsing the 23 made by former President George W. Bush at a similar point in his presidency.

With Republicans gaining six Senate seats in last month’s elections, confirmation would only grow more difficult for the White House appointees. Obama, who is vacationing in Hawaii with his family, announced the move in a news release, explaining only that the posts have “been left vacant for an extended period of time.”

But the White House and its allies in Congress are upset by what they see as Republican delays to consider Obama’s nominees, particularly Cole, a close friend of Attorney General Eric Holder. Republicans are concerned that he is soft on terrorism and too closely tied to A.I.G., the insurance giant bailed out by the government.

Rep. Peter King, R-N.Y., incoming chairman of the Homeland Security Committee, blasts Obama’s move, calling the Cole appointment “absolutely shocking.” In a statement, King says, “The appointment indicates that the Obama Administration continues to try to implement its dangerous policies of treating Islamic terrorism as a criminal matter.”

The appointees have been on hold in the Senate for an average of 114 days, administration officials say. Another 73 candidates for politically-appointed jobs, including many judges, were waiting for confirmation when the Senate adjourned. Obama will have to re-nominate them if he wants them in office.

The recess appointments permit Cole and the other nominees — four ambassadors and the head of the Government Printing Office – to serve for one year before they must be re-appointed.

Deputy White House chief of staff, Jim Messina, says Obama felt he had no alternative, especially with Cole. “We’ve been working hard with the Republicans and have seen some movement forward,” Messina told The New York Times.

“There were some that, for whatever reason, they could not help us with and we felt were mission critical, and clearly the deputy attorney general is a critical position to help enforce the laws of the land.”

While the White House wants to put all the blame for delays on Republicans, that’s not accurate, experts say. The number of Senate-confirmed positions has jumped, nominees must submit substantial background information that requires extensive investigation, and a single senator can put a hold on any nominee, Paul Light, a New York University expert on the presidential nomination process, tells The Times.

“Obama has set the record for the slowest process since J.F.K.,” he says, referring to the amount of time it has taken to get his first group of about 550 appointees confirmed. “It’s really a mess.”

The other five nominees include ambassadors Matthew Bryza, Azerbaijan; Robert Stephen Ford, Syria; Frances Ricciardone Jr., Turkey; Norman Eisen, Czech Republic and William Boarman as public printer.

January 2, 2011
Obama Bypasses Recessed Senate to Appoint Ambassadors to Syria and Turkey

President Barack Obama bypassed the Senate today to appoint two career diplomats as ambassadors to countries critical to the execution of his Middle East strategy.

The recess appointments of Robert Ford as ambassador to Syria and Francis Ricciardone as ambassador to Turkey fill “key administration posts that have been left vacant for an extended period of time,” the White House said in an e-mailed statement.

Both men can serve without Senate confirmation until the end of the next session of Congress, or for about a year. The first of two sessions of the 112th Congress begins Jan. 5.

Ford had long been the administration’s choice to fill a position left vacant since 2005, when President George W. Bush recalled his envoy to Damascus following Syria’s alleged involvement in the assassination of former Lebanese Prime Minister Rafiq Hariri. Obama nominated Ford in February, and the Senate Foreign Relations Committee reported his nomination favorably to the full Senate in April.

Republicans raised objections, seeing the full resumption of diplomatic relations as a reward for Syria in spite of its close ties to the Lebanese paramilitary group Hezbollah, which is on the State Department’s list of foreign terrorist organizations.

The U.S. administration has made engagement with Syria, a key player in the region, a part of its efforts to make peace between Israel and its Arab neighbors.

Still, Obama renewed economic sanctions on Syria following allegations that it had transferred missiles to Hezbollah. Sanctions were initially imposed in May 2004.

Syria, Israel, Turkey

Indirect peace talks between Israel and Syria, mediated by Turkey, halted in December 2008, when Israel began a three-week military offensive in the Gaza Strip that it said was aimed at stopping Islamic militants from firing rockets into southern Israel. Peace talks between Israel and the Palestinian Authority resumed on Sept. 1 of this year, only to break down three weeks later.

The U.S. has had no ambassador in the Turkish capital, Ankara, since July, when James Jeffrey was named ambassador to Iraq. Ricciardone was nominated that same month, and the Foreign Relations Committee sent his name to the Senate in August.

Filling that position has been a priority for Obama, given the diplomatic tensions over Turkey’s stance on Iran and its threats to break ties with Israel.

Turkey, a secular democracy with a predominantly Muslim population, has become more assertive on the international stage. In June, it voted against a U.S.-backed resolution in the United Nations Security Council for tighter sanctions against Iran. It also has demanded an apology from Israel after Israeli commandos killed nine Turks in a May 31 raid on an aid flotilla seeking to break the blockade of the Gaza Strip.

Difficult Assignments

Both of the newly appointed ambassadors have experience with tough assignments. Ford was ambassador to Algeria from 2006 to 2008. He served twice as political counselor at the U.S. embassy in Baghdad and also was deputy chief of mission, the second-ranking post, there.

Ricciardone, a former U.S. ambassador to Egypt, served most recently as deputy chief of mission in Afghanistan. From 1999 to 2001 he was Secretary of State Madeleine Albright’s special coordinator for the transition of Iraq. He began his Foreign Service career in Turkey and has also served in Ankara as a political adviser and as deputy chief of mission.

Other recess appointments made by Obama today include career diplomat Matthew Bryza as ambassador to Azerbaijan, a central Asian nation with important gas reserves, and Norman Eisen, most recently special counsel to the president for ethics and government reform, as ambassador to the Czech Republic.

To contact the reporter on this story: Indira Lakshmanan at in Washington or [email protected];

To contact the editor responsible for this story: Mark Silva at [email protected]

via Obama Bypasses Recessed Senate to Appoint Ambassadors to Syria and Turkey – Bloomberg.

January 1, 2011