Syria may want reward for helping Iraq
By SALAH NASRAWI, Associated Press WriterSun Nov 26, 1:24 PM ET
As the U.S. debates whether to reach out to Syria for help in calming Iraq, some close to the Syrian regime say the country would be willing to help, but only if it got something valuable in return.

Syria certainly is interested in political dialogue with the West and wants talks with Washington, many here say. But the regime of President Bashar Assad will want, in return, help on issues it cares deeply about — such as a return of the Golan Heights, the strategic plateau Israel captured in the 1967 Mideast War.

The regime itself has refused to say what it envisions, though it has expressed willingness to help with Iraq and broader peace deals.

But Issa Darwish, a writer and former deputy foreign minister, said: "Syria won't be bitten from the same hole twice," referring to a widespread Syrian feeling that it got nothing in return from the U.S. after it agreed to participate in the earlier 1991 Gulf war to push then-Iraqi leader Saddam Hussein from Kuwait.

"Why should Syria help the Americans to leave Iraq in honor (this time), if they are not ready to reciprocate?" he asked in a recent interview with The Associated Press.

Washington is debating whether the Bush administration should engage Syria and also Iran — two countries it regards as pariah states that work to destabilize the entire Middle East. Some claim Syria could use its control over Iraq's most porous border to alleviate insurrection against the U.S. occupation, and ongoing civil conflict between Shiites and Sunnis in Iraq.

But it is far from certain President Bush will decide to reach out, even if the influential Iraq Study Group recommends it. Last week Bush strongly endorsed his administration's past tough line with both countries, Iran and Syria.

Syria has done some outreach of its own on Iraq. Its foreign minister arrived in Baghdad last week to underline his country's readiness to help stabilize Iraq. While there, he announced a full restoring of diplomatic relations.

Shortly before the Syrian foreign minister arrived, however, a Syrian suicide bomber blew himself up in Hilla, a city to the west, killing 22 Iraqis — and again underscoring how tangled Syria is in its war-wrecked neighbor.

Damascus has repeatedly denied involvement in such attacks, claiming that if Syrians are involved, they are acting on their own because of outrage at the American occupation.

And, Iraqi officials cautioned against any dramatic immediate results from Syria's overture.

"We have expected Syria to show more understanding toward us ... and the first (thing is) to start cooperation with us," Prime Minister Nouri al-Maliki was quoted as telling the Syrian foreign minister, according to a statement by his office.

His foreign minister, Hoshyar Zebari, was more specific.

He told AP that Syria should help ensure scrutiny of the border, stop infiltration of insurgents and hand over to Iraq insurgency leaders who are believed to be in Syria.

Iraqi officials have long accused Syria of harboring leaders of the former Baath Party who run much of the Sunni-based insurgency. They also accuse Damascus of opening its border for infiltrators and weapons smuggled to the insurgents.

Syria has never made a secret of its opposition to the Americans in Iraq and the government they have installed in Baghdad. The government-run media lavishly praise the insurgents, calling them resistance fighters.

The situation may be further clouded since last week's assassination of another anti-Syrian politician in Lebanon — the last in a string of such slayings that began with the 2005 murder of former Lebanese Prime Minister Rafik Hariri.

The United States immediately questioned if Syria were trying to destabilize Lebanon — something that might make the Bush administration even less willing to reach out. The Hariri investigation, which has deeply angered Syria, also seems likely to intensify, not wane, after the latest death.

Overall, political dialogue with Washington would be good for Syria, said Aymen Abdel Nour, a political analyst linked to the reform wing of the ruling Baath party in Damascus.

But he also warned it would come at a high price: Damascus would certainly demand that Washington help Assad regain the Golan Heights from Israel, stop efforts to isolate his regime and also put an end to attempts to implicate Syria in Hariri's death.

"Syria is talking about a package — you either take or leave it," Abdel Nour said. He acknowledged, however, that this "might be difficult for the Bush administration to swallow."

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Barnett: Will Democrats build bridges or walls?
By THOMAS P.M. BARNETT, tom@thomaspmbarnett.com
November 26, 2006

Globalization is more domestic policy than foreign policy because, when America connects to the world outside, that outside world inevitably penetrates our communities, our workplaces, our homes. This recent election had a lot to do with modulating America's connectivity to the world, whether we're talking immigration, trade or Iraq.
The question for ruling Democrats is: Will they build bridges or will they build walls?

There are really two types of people in this world - those who believe there are two types of people in this world and those who do not. I fall into the former category.

I believe everyone's either an extrovert or an introvert: You're either energized by spending time with other people or you're exhausted and require solitude.

You see this distinction in religion: Some want to spread their faith while others want their faith to remain as separate as possible from a corrupt world.

We call the former "evangelicals," and they exist in every faith. We call the latter "fundamentalists," and they, too, exist in every faith.

Many look around our world and see rising intolerance, in large part because the radical jihadist movement that we fight in this Long War is made up of true fundamentalists.

But religious experts will tell you the opposite is occurring: As globalization spreads, we see increasing evangelicalism in all faiths, not fundamentalism - more selfless missionaries than suicide bombers.

We see the same phenomenon among states. Membership in the World Trade Organization grows with each passing year, as do bilateral and multilateral trade accords. Yes, we spend a lot of time worrying over the dictatorships that keep their populations cut off from the outside world, but this list grows smaller, not larger.

Viewing the world as a system, we clearly see the same balance overwhelmingly in favor of connectivity over isolation. A quarter century ago the "global" economy consisted merely of the West, a sliver of the world's population controlling the bulk of its productive wealth.

But now that functioning core of globalization has expanded to include an additional half of the world's population: the 3 billion-plus new capitalists found in the former Soviet bloc, south and east Asia, and Latin America. Today, globalization's connected core encompasses roughly two-thirds of humanity and over 90 percent of global GDP.

Yes, one-third of humanity remains largely disconnected from that global economy, their trade narrowly defined by raw materials such as energy. This "nonintegrating gap," as I call it, stretches from the Caribbean Rim through virtually all of Africa, the Middle East and Central Asia to the littoral states of Southeast Asia.

Within these regions, since the end of the Cold War, we can locate virtually all of America's overseas military interventions.

Why?

Millions have perished in endemic conflicts and civil strife inside globalization's gap regions over the past decade and a half, even as globalization's core regions have lifted hundreds of millions out of poverty.

Some see a split between haves and have-nots, but I see a divide between connected and disconnected. There's plenty of poverty inside the core (e.g., India, China); it's just that these states tackle that challenge by successfully globalizing their societies.

Increasing any nation's connectivity to the outside world demands change of the most intimate sort. Don't believe me? Then just watch how ineptly the male-dominated Middle East adapts itself to a global economy in which women's empowerment rises commensurately with their growing role in labor.

America's newly empowered Democrats face many difficult calls: Do we continue connecting the Middle East to globalization or do we accept Osama bin Laden's offer of civilizational apartheid?

Do we successfully conclude the WTO's "Doha development round" or deny Africa's entry into globalization's core through our continued protectionism in agriculture?

Do we raise income levels in Latin America through more fair trade or simply raise a fence to deter all those economic refugees?

In sum, do we continue our nation's historic role as a revolutionary connective force in global affairs, expanding globalization's core that was built on America's source code of free markets, free trade, collective security and transparency?

Or do we retreat from that burdensome effort through trade protectionism, anti-immigration bills and unilateral "phased redeployments"?

America has displayed two distinct political personalities throughout its history - expansionist and isolationist. Democrats must decide which is theirs for now.

Do we connect or disconnect?

Thomas P.M. Barnett is a visiting scholar at the University of Tennessee's Howard Baker Center and the senior managing director of Enterra Solutions LLC. Read his blog at www.thomaspmbarnett.com/weblog. Contact him at tom@thomaspmbarnett.com.

Baghdad still under curfew as president calls off Iran trip
Nov 25 4:50 AM US/Eastern



Baghdad is under curfew for the second straight day after an explosion of violence killed hundreds of Iraqis and forced President Jalal Talabani to delay his much-anticipated visit to Tehran.
At least 300 people have died since Thursday's wave of car bombings in the politically sensitive Baghdad Shiite district of Sadr City killed at least 202 people in the war-torn country's deadliest attack since the US-led war in 2003.

The massive outbreak of insurgent and sectarian killing forced the authorities on Thursday to impose an indefinite curfew on Baghdad, the epicentre of carnage in the country.

The airport was also closed Saturday, forcing Talabani to postpone his trip to Tehran to discuss the country's security situation with his Iranian counterpart Mahmoud Ahmadinejad.

Talabani said that he will make the trip when the airport reopens. His talks in Iran are expected to focus on engaging the former foe to play a greater role in helping to curb the raging bloodshed in Iraq.

"If it is open on Sunday, I'll go then," Talabani told reporters after a meeting of the Political Council for National Security late Friday.

His meeting with Ahmadinejad will come in a rapidly changing regional political environment, with Iraq already obtaining assurances from its western neighbour Syria that it will combat trafficking of militants across the border.

On Tuesday Syrian Foreign Minister Walid Muallem visited Baghdad and restored ties with Iraq after a 26-year break, also pledging to help in stabilising the country.

The growing warmth between the three nations comes as Washington is to clarify its stand on the role Iran and Syria should play in Iraqi affairs.

The US is under pressure from within as well as from strong ally Britain to allow Tehran and Damascus to help Iraq tackle the crisis that threatens to descend into all-out civil war.

President George W. Bush and Iraqi Prime Minister Nuri al-Maliki are due in Jordan on November 29 to thrash out new strategies for Iraq, especially after growing calls from Democrats -- newly victorious in mid-term congressional elections -- to bring the US troops home.

But the scheduled meeting in Amman has triggered political turmoil in Baghdad, with Maliki's strong supporter radical Shiite cleric Moqtada al-Sadr threatening to withdraw from the national unity government if the two leaders meet.

On Friday, Sadr's political group -- which has 30 MPs in parliament -- said "it will pull out from the government if Bush and Maliki meet," adding that the presence of US troops was the main cause of the rising bloodshed in Iraq.

Sadr's people also accuse US troops of complicity, if not outright participation, in Thursday's grisly Sadr City blasts.

By far the largest attack in Iraq since the 2003 war in terms of the number of people killed, the bombings sparked Shiite reprisals against Sunni Arabs in both Baghdad and nearby Baquba.

Militiamen allegedly from Sadr's Mahdi Army attacked at least four mosques and a number of Sunni homes in the capital and killed nearly 30 people, security officials said.

Top Sunni leader Adnan al-Dulaimi said that "a number of innocent civilians were killed" in the tit-for-tat violence.

Militiamen seen firing rockets and mortars from Sadr City into neighbouring Sunni districts also came under attack from a US helicopter which destroyed their launchers.

On Saturday the US military raided a bomb-making facility near Taji, north of Baghdad, during which 10 insurgents and a teenager were killed, while another 12 insurgents were killed in a separate clash nearby, the military reported.

November 25, 2006
Globalist
Globalization’s Reality: The Wheel That Turns

By ROGER COHEN
International Herald Tribune
HO CHI MINH CITY You wander into a Disney store in the United States or an IKEA outlet in Europe and, seeing stuffed furry animals for kids, you don't immediately imagine close to 2,000 young Vietnamese women in light blue uniforms hand-stitching an eye to Kermit the Frog, attaching a leg to Winnie the Pooh, or a head to a baby lion.

Nor, of course, do you necessarily consider the fact that the price of the toy - perhaps $12 - represents about 20 percent of the monthly wage of an 18-year-old girl from the Mekong Delta who grew up in a rice paddy, made her way to this booming city, and now works a six-day week hoping she won't also dream of Mickey Mouse once she's done stitching on those outsized ears.

Nor, with the kids saying they want this and that, do you have time to imagine these young women sleeping three to a room, spending their Sundays off watching TV, getting water from a well in the poorer quarters, dreaming that some guy from the furniture company opposite - only men are employed there - might take an interest and so offset repetition with romance.

You don't see these crates full of multicolored giraffes, turtles and frogs, IKEA labels attached, awaiting shipment from Vietnam, or imagine tables arrayed in lines across the vast factory floor of the Danu Vina company, where these young women, laboring beneath ceiling fans, are bent over their work for 48 hours a week, excluding overtime.

But the reality of the global economy is precisely this. The line that stretches from Wal-Mart or IKEA or Nike to a restless girl whose father labors and has always labored in a field of rice or sugar cane may seem remote, but the Asian economies exploding into the world market have brought them together. A young woman who would once have stayed in her village now sews Disney toys like the appropriately named Stitch.

Whether that is seen as exploitation or opportunity depends on where you sit, how you look at the world, and what you make of globalization. I'm on the opportunity side of that debate, but the exploitation school is vigorous.

In European countries like France and Italy, where the "precariousness" of jobs has become a persistent complaint, and a six-day, 48-hour week sounds like an outrage, the migration of these young women from village to factory jobs is essentially threatening. They are seen as abetting a "race to the bottom" in the labor market that, for example, makes the 35-hour French workweek look untenable.

In several American states, not least those with surviving textile industries like North Carolina, Vietnam's booming export-led growth, second only to China's at 8.4 percent last year, can also look menacing.

Although Vietnam's admission to the World Trade Organization has now been approved, a bill to grant "permanent normal trading relations" to the country failed to pass in the U.S. House of Representatives this month.

That's a temporary setback for Vietnam, but in the image of the thousands of cellphone-clutching young people on motorbikes threading through its city streets daily (this place has gone from a bicycle to a motorbike economy in a decade), the country looks to have a sinuous momentum.

Vrida Oktavianti, the Indonesian sales chief of the Korean-owned Danu Vina company that ships those millions of stuffed animals a year to Disney and IKEA, has pondered the exploitation-or-opportunity conundrum. Here's her answer:

"We see things from a different angle," she said. "These women were working in the fields and now they're in a building. That's good enough, that's O.K. for us. So, there's no air- conditioning, but there are fans. They see an improvement where you may see something that is below standard."

She continued: "The global economy is a wheel. South Korea was once good for making these toys. Now they make cars. Perhaps in the future the toy business will move to another country, because Vietnam will be developed, and developed countries don't manufacture toys."

From her point on the wheel, Nguyen Hien, a 19-year-old factory worker, sees a mixed picture. She misses her family, but village life was boring and there were no jobs. She's tired of the furry animals - "We know them too well" - but she's happy to be in the city. She's heard of Mickey Mouse, but not Disney; she's heard of "cowboys" but not "Hollywood." She's inching into the world.

"I'll stay here until some lover finds me," she said, poking her chopsticks into a pale green plastic bowl of fish and rice in the company canteen.

After lunch, many workers stretch out under the table for a quick nap. It's hot in southern Vietnam; the siesta resists the pressures of globalization.

Can those pressures be cruel? Yes. International capital has abruptly found hundreds of millions of new potential workers at its disposal with the emergence of China, India, Russia, Vietnam and the like into the global economy.

Is globalization therefore to be decried? No, because it has delivered the chance of a better life to a wider swath of humanity than at any other single time in history.

Earlier this year, Danu Vina experienced its first strike. Prompted by rumors the government would raise the minimum wage, it lasted five days.

The company had to raise wages about 40 percent to a starting level of $60 a month, said Choi Moo Rim, the director.

"Our margins have been cut," said Andy Kim, the business manager. But the company plans to raise prices on new products, and the Vietnamese minimum wage remains more than a third lower than in China.

Wages will rise in Vietnam over time, as they have in China. Nguyen, the factory worker, will have more in her pocket. She may meet the right furniture worker; they'll stay in the city, make their way.

And so the wheel turns. Wars on terror notwithstanding, we live in a time of hope.

E-mail: rocohen@nytimes.com

Cheney Visits Saudis Amid Iraq Upheaval
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Nov 25, 11:22 AM (ET)

By DONNA ABU-NASR

(AP) US Vice President Dick Cheney, left, walks with the Saudi Crown Prince and Deputy Prime Minister...
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RIYADH, Saudi Arabia (AP) - Vice President Dick Cheney arrived Saturday in Saudi Arabia for talks with King Abdullah, apparently seeking the Sunni royal family's influence and tribal connections to calm Iraq after an especially violent week.
The vice president's one-day visit to the kingdom comes at a time of upheaval across the region, with a potentially explosive crisis in Lebanon, a logjam in the Arab-Israeli peace process and the nuclear standoff with Iran.
Iraq has been thrown into a turmoil ahead of talks scheduled for Wednesday and Thursday between President Bush and Iraqi Prime Minister Nouri al-Maliki in the Jordanian capital, Amman.
A string of car bombings by Sunni insurgents killed 215 people in a Shiite district of Baghdad, prompted revenge attacks and threatened to unleash an outright civil war. After Thursday's bloodshed, a top Shiite political party that al-Maliki depends on for power threatened to withdraw from the government if he meets Bush. The White House said the meeting was still on.
The unusual series of visits to the region by the president and vice president underlined Washington's determination to rally its allies at a time when it is considering overhauling its Iraq policy.
Iran, the United States' top rival in the Middle East, had planned its own summit Saturday, inviting the presidents of Iraq and Syria in what was seen as a bid to assert its role as a powerbroker in the Iraqi conflict.
But Syria never responded to the invitation - perhaps afraid of annoying the United States. Iraqi President Jalal Talabani was unable to go to Iran on Saturday because Baghdad's airport was ordered closed after the burst of violence and he said he would be unable to visit Iran before Sunday at the earliest.
Cheney arrived in Saudi Arabia in the afternoon and was expected to meet King Abdullah later in the day, the U.S. Embassy in Riyadh said. No other stops were planned, his office said.
A Saudi official said Cheney and Abdullah would discuss "the deteriorating situation in Iraq" as well as the situation in Lebanon, the Israeli-Palestinian peace process and the standoff with Iran. Cheney will also meet the Saudi Crown Prince Sultan, the official said, speaking on condition of anonymity because he was not authorized to talk to the press.
Gulf countries worry about Iran's nuclear program and its attempts to expand its influence in the Middle East, but they also fear the repecussions from the West's attempts to force Iran to back down.
The United States also accuses Iran - along with its ally Syria - of trying to overthrow Lebanon's U.S.-backed government. The power struggle in Lebanon has reached a dangerous precipice after Tuesday's assassination of an anti-Syrian politician, and many fear the political crisis there could turn violent, splitting the country.
Saudi Arabia has strong links to the anti-Syrian bloc that dominates Lebanon's government as well as influence with the Palestinian militant group Hamas.