Analyses
Culture War
By Azar Nafisi, New Republic 13/4/07
Apr 17, 2007, 09:09

Thinking of the dominant views among American policymakers on Iran, I am reminded of the great Persian poet Jalaledin Rumi's story about a group of people trying to describe an elephant exhibited in a dark room. One felt the elephant's back and claimed that it resembled a great throne. Another, touching its ear, declared it was in fact a huge fan. A third felt its leg and concluded it must be a large pillar.


The Islamic Republic has been with us for almost three decades, yet still it manages to amaze and confuse the experts. In the 1990s, Mohammed Khatami inspired the majority of Western commentators to believe that Iran was on the verge of upheaval. But, while Khatami may have distinguished himself from his predecessors by ushering in a milder version of the Islamic Republic, he was, and remains, very much a part of that system. Today, Mahmoud Ahmadinejad has persuaded us that the same system is an imminent menace and must, therefore, be overthrown. Yet, while Ahmadinejad may be more repressive and violent than previous presidents, his reactionary tendencies are fundamentally a sign of the Iranian system's weakness--not its strength.

The problem is that Western pundits are only feeling part of the elephant--the political one--and ignoring the most important part: the Iranian people themselves. If you take the long view of Iranian history and focus on the country's people rather than its rulers, a very different picture emerges: that of an Iranian order in crisis.

Evidence for this proposition is everywhere. A cursory look at Iran's publications and blogs shows that, although some Iranians--for a variety of reasons--support their regime's nuclear ambitions, most are far more interested in trying to redress day-to-day problems like corruption, the struggling economy, rising unemployment, political and social repression, and a general lack of freedom. Few are well-informed about the nuclear program, and most are embarrassed and disturbed by the image of their country in the world. Indeed, Iran's new international isolation and pariah status is deeply unpopular at home, and the fact that the government is emptying its coffers to foment revolution abroad rather than to support the welfare of the Iranian people has turned many of Ahmadinejad's supporters against him. Workers' protests have lately escalated in at least ten cities. Angry union leaders have held the president responsible for the weakening of the economy. In the recent city council elections in Tehran, only two of 13 winners were supporters of Ahmadinejad.

This discontent has seeped upward to high levels of Iranian politics--for instance, members of parliament, who, during Ahmadinejad's presentation of the annual budget last December, noisily protested the worsening economic conditions. There has even been serious talk about impeaching him. Since his election, Iranian hard-liners have openly divided into two opposing factions, creating a great deal of anxiety among conservative leaders who have been trying to mend the breach. Prominent reformist dissenters, such as Ayatollah Montazeri, have accused the government of using the country's considerable resources to meddle in other people's affairs. Even Ahmadinejad has occasionally sounded dispirited. He recently conceded that 28 years of Islamic rule has failed to eliminate liberal elements from Iranian society. Almost 30 years ago, in his prophetic essay "The Power of the Powerless," Václav Havel wrote that "a specter is haunting eastern Europe: the specter of what in the West is called dissent.'" That specter has now moved to Iran.

The fact that neither Khatami nor Ahmadinejad has been able to foster unity--even within the ruling elite--is a good indication of the crisis within the system. For over two decades, the main resistance to that system has come from within Iranian civil society. And it is Iranian civil society that will ultimately prove to be the Achilles heel of the Islamic Regime.

Knowing this, our target must be the Iranian people more than the Iranian government. Openness and freedom are far more likely to come from a change of mindset than from regime change. We must realize that our best weapons against autocracy and terrorism are not military or even diplomatic but ideological and cultural. The fight for Iranian democracy is not simply a political one; in this respect, Iran is very much like communist Eastern Europe and apartheid South Africa. The story of how those countries were liberated reminds us that human rights extend beyond the realm of government. In places where the state has politicized not just the cultural and social arenas but also the most private aspects of citizens' lives, resistance to a repressive system takes on an existential dimension: It is not just a struggle for political rights but also for the right of individual citizens to live the way they choose.

Who in the West will champion these existential rights on behalf of Iranians? No government--no matter how liberal--can devote itself only, or even primarily, to the defense of human rights and personal freedoms abroad, so we must rely on other actors to push the cause of liberty. I am speaking, of course, of nongovernmental organizations. What is needed is for human rights groups, activists, and journalists to take up the cause of the Iranian people. The secular journalist Faraj Sarkuhi, the former revolutionary and dissident Akbar Ganji, and the reformists Emadeddin Baghi and Ramin Jahanbegloo owe their freedom to a great degree to the efforts of organizations like PEN, Amnesty International, Human Rights Watch, and Reporters Without Borders, as well as to the attention of journalists throughout the world. In the case of a recent transportation strike--a strike that received little coverage in the U.S. press despite being brutally repressed by the Iranian government--Western labor unions played an important role in the release of the protest's organizers. The progressive women who have staged two demonstrations since the start of Ahmadinejad's presidency are in the midst of a campaign to garner one million signatures demanding equality and justice for women in Iran. U.S. feminist groups should be doing far more to support them in their struggle.

Of course, this is not to say that governments have no part to play. A firm and united stand by the international community on Iranian human rights will send a message to the regime that it cannot bend other countries to its will, while encouraging more moderate and dissatisfied elements within the ruling elite to voice their displeasure.

In taking such a stand, Western governments must carve a path between the extremes of appeasement and belligerence. On the one hand, displays of weakness from the international community--such as the U.N. Human Rights Council's recent decision to stop monitoring Iranian and Uzbek human rights violations, even though executions in Iran are currently on the rise--suggest to Tehran that the West does not care about the fate of Iranian activists. "The council's action amounts to an endorsement of crackdowns on human rights in Iran and Uzbekistan," explained Peggy Hicks, the global advocacy director for Human Rights Watch. "It shows utter disregard for the human rights activists who are struggling in these countries."

At the same time, the notion that Iran will be subdued into compliance with a handful of precision-guided missiles is as dangerous and fanciful as the belief that an invaded Iraq would serve as a model of enlightened democracy. Indeed, to attack Iran at this point would be to send a lifeline to the regime's most militaristic elements, which would use an attack as an excuse to quash all domestic dissent.

Meanwhile, military action would damage the credibility of Iranian liberals. From studying the example of Eastern Europe, they have learned that the ends of democratic revolution must be the sum total of the means employed--that an open and democratic society can be reached only through open and demo- cratic methods. Fortunately, we can help them. The most important weapon in the U.S. arsenal is not its military might but its culture. Vigorously defending and promoting those values the United States was long thought to represent--freedom of expression, freedom of movement, freedom of conscience--will do a great deal more than any missile to neutralize Iranian radicals. And, though this wide-ranging task is probably beyond the capability of American politicians, it is not beyond the capability of America.

Russia Plans World's Longest Tunnel, a Link to Alaska (Update4)
By Yuriy Humber and Bradley Cook

April 18 (Bloomberg) -- Russia plans to build the world's longest tunnel, a transport and pipeline link under the Bering Strait to Alaska, as part of a $65 billion project to supply the U.S. with oil, natural gas and electricity from Siberia.

The project, which Russia is coordinating with the U.S. and Canada, would take 10 to 15 years to complete, Viktor Razbegin, deputy head of industrial research at the Russian Economy Ministry, told reporters in Moscow today. State organizations and private companies in partnership would build and control the route, known as TKM-World Link, he said.

A 6,000-kilometer (3,700-mile) transport corridor from Siberia into the U.S. will feed into the tunnel, which at 64 miles will be more than twice as long as the underwater section of the Channel Tunnel between the U.K. and France, according to the plan. The tunnel would run in three sections to link the two islands in the Bering Strait between Russia and the U.S.

``This will be a business project, not a political one,'' Maxim Bystrov, deputy head of Russia's agency for special economic zones, said at the media briefing. Russian officials will formally present the plan to the U.S. and Canadian governments next week, Razbegin said.

The Bering Strait tunnel will cost $10 billion to $12 billion, and the rest of the investment will be spent on the entire transport corridor, the plan estimates.

``The project is a monster,'' Yevgeny Nadorshin, chief economist with Trust Investment Bank in Moscow, said in an interview. ``The Chinese are crying out for our commodities and willing to finance the transport links, and we're sending oil to Alaska.''

In Alaska, a supporter of the project is former Governor Walter Joseph Hickel, who plans to co-chair a conference on the subject in Moscow next week.

``Governor Hickel has long supported this concept, and he talks about it and writes about it,'' said Malcolm Roberts, a senior fellow at the Anchorage-based Institute of the North, a research policy group focused on Arctic issues. Hickel governed Alaska from 1966 to 1969 as a Republican and then from 1990 to 1994 as a member of the Independence Party.

Alaska's current officials, however, are preoccupied with other issues, including a plan to develop a pipeline to transport natural gas from the North Slope to the lower 48 U.S. states, Roberts said.

The U.S. government's Federal Railroad Administration isn't directly involved in talks about the link, agency spokesman Warren Flatau said today.

Finance Agencies

Tsar Nicholas II, Russia's last emperor, was the first Russian leader to approve a plan for a tunnel under the Bering Strait, in 1905, 38 years after his grandfather sold Alaska to America for $7.2 million. World War I ended the project.

The planned undersea tunnel would contain a high-speed railway, highway and pipelines, as well as power and fiber-optic cables, according to TKM-World Link. Investors in the so-called public-private partnership include OAO Russian Railways, national utility OAO Unified Energy System and pipeline operator OAO Transneft, according to a press release which was handed out at the media briefing and bore the companies' logos.

Russia and the U.S. may each eventually take 25 percent stakes, with private investors and international finance agencies as other shareholders, Razbegin said. ``The governments will act as guarantors for private money,'' he said.

The World Link will save North America and Far East Russia $20 billion a year on electricity costs, said Vasily Zubakin, deputy chief executive officer of OAO Hydro OGK, Unified Energy's hydropower unit and a potential investor.

Transport Electricity

``It's cheaper to transport electricity east, and with our unique tidal resources, the potential is real,'' Zubakin said. Hydro OGK plans by 2020 to build the Tugurskaya and Pendzhinskaya tidal plants, each with capacity of as much as 10 gigawatts, in the Okhotsk Sea, close to Sakhalin Island.

The project envisions building high-voltage power lines with a capacity of up to 15 gigawatts to supply the new rail links and also export to North America.

Russian Railways is working on the rail route from Pravaya Lena, south of Yakutsk in the Sakha republic, to Uelen on the Bering Strait, a 3,500 kilometer stretch. The link could carry commodities from eastern Siberia and Sakha to North American export markets, said Artur Alexeyev, Sakha's vice president.

The two regions hold most of Russia's metal and mineral reserves ``and yet only 1.5 percent of it is developed due to lack of infrastructure and tough conditions,'' Alexeyev said.

Cluster Projects

Rail links in Russia and the U.S., where an almost 2,000- kilometer stretch from Angora to Fort Nelson in Canada would continue the route, would cost up to $15 billion, Razbegin said. With cargo traffic of as much as 100 million tons annually expected on the World Link, the investments in the rail section could be repaid in 20 years, he said.

``The transit link is that string on which all our industrial cluster projects could hang,'' Zubakin said.

Japan, China and Korea have expressed interest in the project, with Japanese companies offering to burrow the tunnel under the Bering Strait for $60 million a kilometer, half the price set down in the project, Razbegin said.

``This will certainly help to develop Siberia and the Far East, but better port infrastructure would do that too and not cost $65 billion,'' Trust's Nadorshin said. ``For all we know, the U.S. doesn't want to make Alaska a transport hub.''

The figures for the project come from a preliminary feasibility study. A full study could be funded from Russia's investment fund, set aside for large infrastructure projects, Bystrov said.

To contact the reporters on this story: Yuriy Humber in Moscow at yhumber@bloomberg.net ; Bradley Cook in Moscow at bcook7@bloomberg.net .

Last Updated: April 18, 2007 16:38 EDT

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Coalition Helps Iraq Secure Rule of Law
By Linda D. Kozaryn
American Forces Press Service
WASHINGTON, April 18, 2007 – Coalition efforts are underway to help the Iraqis in the important business of building their nation's rule of law, U.S. Army Maj. Gen. William Caldwell said today during a briefing in Baghdad

"Iraq has a proud history of legal development -- a history they will need to draw upon as they emerge from the tyranny of these last forty years," said Caldwell, Multinational Force-Iraq spokesman. He noted that Hammurabi, former King of Babylon ( Iraq's name in ancient times) produced one of the first written codes of law in about 1260 B.C.
"The Iraqi security forces and coalition forces are hard at work to improve the security situation so the Iraqi people can make progress building their government and their laws," Caldwell said.
For about two months now, he said, coalition and Iraqi forces have been executing Operation Enforcing the Law.
"We have seen both inspiring progress and too much evidence that we still face many grave challenges," Caldwell said. "We have always said that securing Baghdad would not be easy. Last week, events illustrated exactly what kind of enemy the Iraqi people face.
"Murderers blew up a bridge," he said. "They attacked the cafeteria of the Iraqi Council of Representatives. They showed that as Iraq builds, they will try and destroy. They showed that they will meet unity and law with violence and attempts to divide."
Last Friday, the Iraqi Council of Representatives met and unanimously passed a resolution condemning these "vicious and senseless attacks," he said. "Their resolve is a clear illustration that people can disagree about many things, but all agree that law must stand against murder."
Coaltion officials are seeing evidence of this commitment in the streets, he noted. As Iraqi Security Forces move into joint security stations and increase their presence, they're gaining the confidence of the people. This leads to growing confidence in the "professionalization" of the Iraqi Security Forces and the belief that they can be loyal to all their people.
"This is producing greater cooperation, particularly in the form of tips," Caldwell said. "Security forces are being directed to more stockpiles of weapons and are taking more guns and bombs out of the hands of murderers."
The number of episodes of sectarian violence is down and some families are returning to their homes in flashpoint areas, he added. Signs of progress extend beyond Baghdad, Caldwell said.
A year ago, many considered Al Anbar Province lost to lawlessness, he said. "Today the people of Al Anbar are drawing lines in the sand, rejecting violence and fighting al Qaeda."
Last month, they held a security conference to coordinate their stand, he said, and this led to a strong show of support for the forces of law and order, he said.
"Recruits for the ISF in that region have increased this month from 500 in the first week to over 1,500 candidates in the second week - that's a growth of about 300 percent. Over the last two months, violent attacks are down 50 percent. The combined casualties from those attacks are down about 65 percent.
"Improvements in security, led by increasingly capable Iraqi forces and institutions, are what enable coalition forces to transfer responsibility to the Iraqis," he said, noting that earlier in the day, Maysan Province became the fourth of 18 provinces to be turned over to Iraqi control.
"Four years ago, Iraqis lived under the rule of fear," Caldwell said. "Two years ago, too many Iraqis lived under the rule of the gun. Just one year ago, 12 million Iraqis chose the rule of law. Since then many brave Iraqis have worked to develop that rule of war. Multinational Force-Iraq works every day to support their efforts."

An errant push for democracy first
In Iraq, the U.S. has failed to heed Woodrow Wilson’s lesson of self-determination. Instead, dysfunctional borders merely cement foreign policy failures of the past.

By Ralph Peters

Perhaps the worst of the countless mistakes the Bush administration has made in its attempt to open the Middle East to democracy was the rush to hold elections in Iraq before questions of ethnic and religious identity had been resolved.

(Illustration by Sam Ward, USA TODAY)

We confuse the will of the people with democracy, but the latter is a tool, the first a passion. Democracy, as we know it, presumes a national community of interests. The lust for self-determination — as manifested by the various factions in artificial states such as Iraq — seeks the supremacy of an exclusive group.

Humans can't be chided into "just getting along."

Because the administration and its partners lacked the vision and fortitude to dismantle Iraq and draw more promising borders for Shiites, Sunnis and Kurds, the series of elections in which Iraqis braved terror to go to the polls had nothing to do with strengthening a nation and everything to do with empowering ethnic supremacists and religious demagogues.

Dismissed as a naive dreamer by the Washington establishment, President Woodrow Wilson got it right nine decades ago: Significant population groups who possess (or assert) a unique identity must be given a chance at statehood.

Not all new states will succeed and frontier revisions will never be perfectly just, but the violence-spawning conditions we face today — thanks to dysfunctional borders drawn for European advantage — will only worsen until men and women from Darfur through Kurdistan and Baluchistan to the Karenese in Burma enjoy the right to state, "I am X, this is my land, and this is my flag." We seek to reason with those possessed by a dream. It never works.

'Failed borders'

For 500 years, Europe deformed the world. The irony of our times is that the United States, history's greatest force for freedom, spent the years since 1991 maintaining failed borders drawn by the ministers of kaisers, czars and kings. We have dug our trenches on the wrong side of history.

By attempting to leapfrog over the issue of ethnic and religious self-determination in Iraq, we guaranteed that each successive election would reflect embattled identities, rather than common national interests. Until more-rational borders have been established, attempts at democracy throughout the developing world will continue to follow the African model, in which the largest tribe or religious group dominates the election, then perceives its victory as a license to loot the entire country.

Resolve the issues of identity and land; then vote. Otherwise, we will continue to get ramshackle pseudo-democracies that rely for their survival on our troops, our money and our ability to rationalize failure.

While democracy remains a noble — and wise — long-term goal, we need to master that great American weakness, impatience. Democracy takes time: It's a grapevine, not a weed. Elections work best in two polar-opposite types of states: Those, such as the USA, where no single group can dominate and political parties rely upon fluid coalitions reflecting shifting interests, and those, such as Norway, where homogeneous populations vote strictly on issues, not over ethnicity or faith. The many countries in between those poles are the problem.

Admittedly, a people's self-determination doesn't guarantee a smooth transition to democracy. The try-it-out phases of self-rule in a newly minted state can produce anything from ethnic fascism to a religious junta. But populations have to make their own mistakes and learn from them. Democracy is self-taught.

We have to face a fundamental question: Can democracy be "given," rather than learned?

Democracy is progressing around the world, but that progress is not without setbacks. Sudden freedom can be as terrifying as it is exhilarating. In states such as Russia, voters accept the curtailment of political freedom in return for greater social freedoms and a sense of security. Even established democracies, such as Venezuela's, may vote for strongmen who despise the ballot box.

Expedience wins out

Two bipartisan failings in Washington hinder our efforts to help others achieve democracy: first, our blind acceptance of the world order left behind by collapsed European empires, and second, our prompt default to oppressive regimes in the name of maintaining stability. Even now, many on both sides of the aisle in Washington advise a retreat into the embrace of the Saudi royal family and despots such as Egyptian President Hosni Mubarak — precisely the approach that put us on the path to 9/11.

We consistently choose the expedient option over the more difficult, but ultimately more promising, course in foreign policy. Without self-determination for major population groups that feel themselves wronged by history, we shall continue to fall short of our noblest goals.

Of course, amending borders to recognize Wilson's dream can't be done by the United States alone, nor need we pursue such a policy aggressively. It would be an enormous step forward if we only grasped opportunities to redraw faulty borders as they come — we threw away a great chance in Iraq. But we cannot go on standing on history's beach commanding the massive waves to freeze in place.

Those in Washington who have career-long stakes in the dysfunctional global order will insist that change is too hard, that small or landlocked states cannot survive, that smaller minorities inevitably would be slighted. The reasons for clinging to the past are always legion — and usually wrong.

Until the remaining nations-without-a-state are allowed to assert their identities, elections will continue to be about bloodlines and faith, not democracy as we cherish it.

Ralph Peters is a member of USA TODAY's board of contributors and the author, most recently, of Never Quit The Fight.

Fourth Iraqi Province Transfers to Local Control
By Jim Garamone
American Forces Press Service
WASHINGTON, April 18, 2007 – Maysan province has become the fourth of 18 Iraqi provinces to transfer to provincial Iraqi control, marking another step toward a stable and secure Iraq, according to Multinational-Force Iraq officials.

In a ceremony today at the provincial capital of Al Amarah, Iraqi officials assumed total control of governing the southern province. The province is in the British-led Multinational Division Southeast area of operations.
Multinational Force Iraq officials said the transfer shows that the Iraqi government is keeping its election promises to the people. "Step-by-step, the Iraqi government is assuming control of the country," an official said.
The transfer also gives Iraqis security responsibility for the majority Shiia province.
The first province to transfer to Iraqi control was Muthanna in July 2006. Neighboring Dhi Qar province transferred in September 2006. Najaf province transferred in December 2006. The remaining 14 provinces will transfer when they meet the conditions, officials said.
In Maysan, Iraqi police and soldiers will assume control of all law enforcement and security operations. Coalition units will continue to partner with Iraqi security forces, and small military and police training teams will continue to help Iraqi forces as they gain more hands-on experience, an official said.
Iraqi officials can call on coalition forces in Basra province if they face a situation they cannot handle, the official said.
Coalition forces will also help Iraqi border police. The province has a long border with Iran and coalition forces will continue to help the police patrol the border, the official said.
Investment in the province will continue. In all, the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers has completed more than 200 projects totalingalmost $100 million in Maysan Province. There are currently 41 projects under construction and another 15 projects planned. Health care, electricity and water are the most important projects in the province, the official said.