Gates: U.S. Should Engage Iran With Incentives, Pressure

By Karen DeYoung
Washington Post Staff Writer
Thursday, May 15, 2008; A04

The United States should construct a combination of incentives and pressure to engage Iran, and may have missed earlier opportunities to begin a useful dialogue with Tehran, Defense Secretary Robert M. Gates said yesterday.

"We need to figure out a way to develop some leverage . . . and then sit down and talk with them," Gates said. "If there is going to be a discussion, then they need something, too. We can't go to a discussion and be completely the demander, with them not feeling that they need anything from us."

In the meantime, Gates told a meeting of the Academy of American Diplomacy, a group of retired diplomats, "my personal view would be we ought to look for ways outside of government to open up the channels and get more of a flow of people back and forth." Noting that "a fair number" of Iranians regularly visit the United States, he said, "We ought to increase the flow the other way . . . of Americans" visiting Iran.

"I think that may be the one opening that creates some space," Gates said.

The Bush administration has said it will talk with Iran, and consider lifting economic and other sanctions, only if Iran ends a uranium enrichment program the administration maintains is intended to produce nuclear weapons, a charge Iran denies. Although the U.S. and Iranian ambassadors to Baghdad met three times last year for discussions on Iraq, Iran has refused to continue that dialogue.

Others, including Sen. Barack Obama (D-Ill.), who is running for president, have said that talks with Iran on a range of issues might be useful.

Gates publicly favored engagement with Iran before taking his current job in late 2006. In 2004, he co-authored a Council on Foreign Relations report titled "Iran: Time for a New Approach." At the time, he explained yesterday, "we were looking at a different Iran in many respects" under then-President Mohammad Khatami. Tehran's role in Iraq was "fairly ambivalent," he said. "They were doing some things that were not helpful, but they were also doing some things that were helpful."

"One of the things that I think historians will have to take a look at is whether there was a missed opportunity at that time," Gates said. Khatami was replaced in 2005 by hard-line President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad.

Gates was also a member of the bipartisan 2006 Iraq Study Group, which advocated reaching out to Iran. He resigned from the group when President Bush nominated him as defense secretary in November that year; the report was published on Dec. 6, the day of his confirmation.

The administration charges that Iran is now deeply engaged in training and arming Shiite militias fighting U.S. troops in Iraq. In his remarks yesterday, Gates said evidence to that effect is "very unambiguous."

But, he said, "I sort of sign up" with New York Times columnist Thomas L. Friedman, who wrote yesterday that the "right question" for the United States is not whether to talk with Iran but "whether we have leverage or don't have leverage."

"When you have leverage, talk," Friedman advised. "When you don't have leverage, get some -- by creating economic, diplomatic or military incentives and pressures that the other side finds too tempting or frightening to ignore. That is where the Bush team has been so incompetent vis-à-vis Iran."

A number of senior U.S. military officials have emphasized the need for robust diplomacy toward Iran, while not ruling out the use of force. "I'm a big believer in resolving this diplomatically, economically and politically," Adm. Michael Mullen, chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, said in a recent interview with The Washington Post. "The military aspect of this, which I think is a very important part of the equation and must stay on the table," Mullen said, is an option of "last resort."

Gates said yesterday that the U.S. military remained "stretched" by deployments in Iraq and Afghanistan, although he said that all service branches had met their recruitment and retention goals last month. "There is no doubt that . . . we would be very hard-pressed to fight another major conventional war right now," he said. "But where would we sensibly do that, anyway?"

Future conflicts, Gates said, will be asymmetric. "Other countries are not going to come at us in a conventional war."

SARS WAKE UP CALL IS PAYING OFF

By Jason Subler

BEIJING (Reuters) - China's prompt, open response to the devastating earthquake that hit Sichuan province on Monday results in large part from tough lessons learned through the SARS epidemic in 2003, a senior government adviser said on Saturday.

Beijing's quick mobilization of tens of thousands of troops and rescue workers following the disaster, together with its allowing information about it to flow freely, stands in sharp contrast to its botched handling of the SARS crisis, which officials initially covered up.

Shan Chunchang, an adviser to the State Council, or cabinet, and head of its team of experts on emergency management, told Reuters that SARS had been a wake-up call across the government.

"We realized that we had to build up a response mechanism not just for health, but for all aspects of society, including confronting natural disasters, dealing with accidents, security," Shan said in a telephone interview from Beijing.

Shan has since criss-crossed the country, following disaster wherever it strikes, looking for the lessons to be learned and formulating ways to improve the evolving response system and cooperation among government agencies.

"These few years of building that system up have paid off significantly this time," he said.

Echoing President Hu Jintao, Shan said that in the current relief effort, rescue workers must continue looking for survivors as long as there is even a glimmer of hope that more people could still be found alive.

More survivors were found on Saturday, five days after the quake, including a German tourist. China has put the known death toll at almost 29,000 but has said that it could exceed 50,000.

AIDING THE SICK, INJURED

Still, Shan stressed that in the coming days, significant resources needed to be allocated to helping survivors.

"Even though those people have been rescued, many are injured and they could start to get all sorts of diseases. We really need to ensure their health and safety," he said.

He added that the quake underlined the need to improve people's basic knowledge of survival skills and first aid.

"Across the country, people's overall awareness in terms of protecting themselves and one another is still relatively limited," he said.

Shan said he thought China deserved credit for its response to the quake, adding that he considered it fair to say that it had done a better job than the U.S. government did in the wake of Hurricane Katrina in 2005.

"It doesn't mean we can't improve in the future, but we think we've really done our best and acted as quickly, as sincerely as we could to save the victims," he said, pointing to the 1976 earthquake in the northeastern city of Tangshan, which killed up to 300,000 people, as evidence of how far China had come.

Under the slogan "Chinese people are fully capable of surmounting all difficulties", China turned down international offers of support after the Tangshan quake and sought to prevent news of it from spreading.

"That's been a big improvement -- in the past we were relatively closed-minded," Shan said. "Now, we've got a much more open stance, and we're really grateful for all the concern and support from governments and people around the world."

(Editing by David Fox)

I think it should be called the DEPARTMENT OF PEACE, because that is the endgame of US foreign policy. The pulling of folks from STATE and DOD, and other agencies is like seeding the inevitable outcome of a new 'brand' for the USA.

I like DEPARTMENT OF PEACE. Scholar and writer Thomas PM Barnett calls it the SYS ADMIN -System Administrators in his books BLUEPRINT FOR ACTION and PENTAGON'S NEW MAP.

I think its a perfect time for the USA to re-brand itself in light of the lowering of the USA's image in the world. Out front, when possible (and its not always possible as in the case of Saddam) as when we sent relief to the Tsunami victims in Indonesia with our RED CROSS floating hospital.

This department will take some time to evolve, and I hope it does as quickly as possible.

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Pentagon scales back AFRICOM ambitions
Opposition in Africa means the new command's headquarters will more likely be in US or Europe.
By Gordon Lubold | Staff writer of The Christian Science Monitor

from the May 16, 2008 edition

Washington - When Pentagon strategists sought to create a new military command to oversee Africa, they believed they could build one that deemphasized military might and would serve as an exemplar of what so-called US soft power could do around the world.

But in recent months, the Pentagon has had to scale back its ambitious vision to adapt Africa's political terrain, military officials acknowledge, adding they remain committed to the original idea of a military command to promote peace in the region.

For now, officials have ruled out basing the headquarters anywhere in Africa and may in fact locate it on the East Coast, a senior defense official says. They have also backed away from selling the new command as a full "interagency" organization that spans military and nonmilitary entities.

"We sort of admitted all along that we were building something that we'd never built before," says one senior defense official, on how the command has changed. "So you gotta start somewhere, you gotta take a stab at it."

As the US Africa Command – or AFRICOM – works to stand on its own by October, the change in plans illustrates the limits of the US trying to use the military to try to broaden its influence across the globe.

The creation of AFRICOM represents a major reorganization of the Defense Department's family of six regional commands, and recognizes the strategic, security, and economic interests the US has begun to confront in Africa.

In addition to the continent's vast oil reserves, the US is wary of China's continued investment there. Military officials also believe the porous borders of many African countries allow havens for terrorist training and smuggling.

As the symbol of the new command's stature, the location of the headquarters has long been a source of controversy, with even some strong US allies refusing to host the command.

Countries like Liberia were privately receptive, say defense officials, who had launched an extensive lobbying effort to counter the notion that the US was trying to establish military bases on the continent. The effort even included a high-profile visit in February by President Bush.

Still, they were unable to sway opposition in African countries, where many viewed the new command as a neocolonialist move to secure US oil interests and counterbalance China's influence. American officials could not overcome the "paranoid rhetoric," said a defense official.

The headquarters will now either stay at its current home in Stuttgart, Germany, or be moved to the East Coast of the US. Technically, AFRICOM remains under European Command until its official launch October 1.

Officials have had to make other adjustments. Initially billed as a "whole of government" approach to solving the region's problems, the new, hybrid command had sought to marry military and civilian expertise.

"To make it more effective, we want to incorporate other nonmilitary US players working in Africa so the security piece is optimized," says Col. Pat Mackin, a spokesman for US Africa Command. But, he adds, "There is no government mechanism to create a true interagency headquarters."

The command of about 1,300 people will still be half civilian and half military, and agencies such as the US State Department will be given senior positions.

But the military will likely remain in the driver's seat. "They are significantly walking back from interagency," says Kathleen Hicks, a senior fellow at the Center for Strategic and International Studies in Washington. "What they're now saying is that they will more efficiently and effectively deliver military programs."

At the same time, officials now recognize that one entity can't do it all. Gen. William "Kip" Ward, AFRICOM's commander, has tried to soften a typically aggressive military approach and instead take a more deliberative tack.

General Ward has also sought to lower the command's public profile, notes Ms. Hicks, to focus on showing what it can do and move it away from controversy.

For example, Navy officials recently completed the first deployment of a program called the Africa Partnership Station, conducting training programs in more than a dozen nations. Capt. John Nowell Jr., commodore of the naval ships in the program, says the project is about "the maritime safety and security piece. And we think we do generate a lot of goodwill and in many cases come up with projects where we can combine the two, but we're not just out there for goodwill."

The command has also begun taking a different approach to public relations.

Its website hosts a chat room where people can post their views, a stark contrast to the stodgy sites of most military commands. One man, identified as Kuol Mangar, wrote in: "It is clear to me that General Ward would be seen as acting like those ancient Africa chiefs who sold the continent to the white man."

But several others countered his views. Stephanie, who identified herself as Kenyan by birth, wrote, "We always complained the US government did not pay Africa any attention, now they are listening and responding we still hear complaints from a few ignorant [people] that don't take the time to research and learn what the organization like AFRICOM is trying to do for the continent."

May 22, 2008
OP-ED CONTRIBUTORS
Kennedy Talked, Khrushchev Triumphed

By NATHAN THRALL and JESSE JAMES WILKINS
IN his inaugural address, President John F. Kennedy expressed in two eloquent sentences, often invoked by Barack Obama, a policy that turned out to be one of his presidency’s — indeed one of the cold war’s — most consequential: “Let us never negotiate out of fear. But let us never fear to negotiate.” Arthur Schlesinger Jr., Kennedy’s special assistant, called those sentences “the distinctive note” of the inaugural.

They have also been a distinctive note in Senator Obama’s campaign, and were made even more prominent last week when President Bush, in a speech to Israel’s Parliament, disparaged a willingness to negotiate with America’s adversaries as appeasement. Senator Obama defended his position by again enlisting Kennedy’s legacy: “If George Bush and John McCain have a problem with direct diplomacy led by the president of the United States, then they can explain why they have a problem with John F. Kennedy, because that’s what he did with Khrushchev.”

But Kennedy’s one presidential meeting with Nikita Khrushchev, the Soviet premier, suggests that there are legitimate reasons to fear negotiating with one’s adversaries. Although Kennedy was keenly aware of some of the risks of such meetings — his Harvard thesis was titled “Appeasement at Munich” — he embarked on a summit meeting with Khrushchev in Vienna in June 1961, a move that would be recorded as one of the more self-destructive American actions of the cold war, and one that contributed to the most dangerous crisis of the nuclear age.

Senior American statesmen like George Kennan advised Kennedy not to rush into a high-level meeting, arguing that Khrushchev had engaged in anti-American propaganda and that the issues at hand could as well be addressed by lower-level diplomats. Kennedy’s own secretary of state, Dean Rusk, had argued much the same in a Foreign Affairs article the previous year: “Is it wise to gamble so heavily? Are not these two men who should be kept apart until others have found a sure meeting ground of accommodation between them?”

But Kennedy went ahead, and for two days he was pummeled by the Soviet leader. Despite his eloquence, Kennedy was no match as a sparring partner, and offered only token resistance as Khrushchev lectured him on the hypocrisy of American foreign policy, cautioned America against supporting “old, moribund, reactionary regimes” and asserted that the United States, which had valiantly risen against the British, now stood “against other peoples following its suit.” Khrushchev used the opportunity of a face-to-face meeting to warn Kennedy that his country could not be intimidated and that it was “very unwise” for the United States to surround the Soviet Union with military bases.

Kennedy’s aides convinced the press at the time that behind closed doors the president was performing well, but American diplomats in attendance, including the ambassador to the Soviet Union, later said they were shocked that Kennedy had taken so much abuse. Paul Nitze, the assistant secretary of defense, said the meeting was “just a disaster.” Khrushchev’s aide, after the first day, said the American president seemed “very inexperienced, even immature.” Khrushchev agreed, noting that the youthful Kennedy was “too intelligent and too weak.” The Soviet leader left Vienna elated — and with a very low opinion of the leader of the free world.

Kennedy’s assessment of his own performance was no less severe. Only a few minutes after parting with Khrushchev, Kennedy, a World War II veteran, told James Reston of The New York Times that the summit meeting had been the “roughest thing in my life.” Kennedy went on: “He just beat the hell out of me. I’ve got a terrible problem if he thinks I’m inexperienced and have no guts. Until we remove those ideas we won’t get anywhere with him.”

A little more than two months later, Khrushchev gave the go-ahead to begin erecting what would become the Berlin Wall. Kennedy had resigned himself to it, telling his aides in private that “a wall is a hell of a lot better than a war.” The following spring, Khrushchev made plans to “throw a hedgehog at Uncle Sam’s pants”: nuclear missiles in Cuba. And while there were many factors that led to the missile crisis, it is no exaggeration to say that the impression Khrushchev formed at Vienna — of Kennedy as ineffective — was among them.

If Barack Obama wants to follow in Kennedy’s footsteps, he should heed the lesson that Kennedy learned in his first year in office: sometimes there is good reason to fear to negotiate.

Nathan Thrall is a journalist. Jesse James Wilkins is a doctoral candidate in political science at Columbia.

rom the March 11, 2008 edition -
http://www.csmonitor.com/2008/0311/p01s03-woeu.html

Turkish scholars aim to modernize Islam's Hadith
Theologians are revisiting the collections of the prophet Muhammad's sayings that Muslims use as a guideline for daily life.
By Yigal Schleifer | Correspondent of The Christian Science Monitor

Ankara, Turkey

For centuries, the Hadith – a collection of the words and deeds of the prophet Muhammad – has guided Muslims in their daily lives and served as a basis for Islamic jurisprudence, offering direction on everything from hygiene to war.

The Hadith deals with events that took place some 1,400 years ago, but an ambitious Turkish project is aiming to reinterpret them to create a collection addressing modern-day concerns and stripping out elements that many theologians say contradict the Koran and Muhammad's teachings.

Observers here say the project is part of a continuing effort by a growing segment of Turkish society to reconcile faith and modernity – a struggle being played out among Muslims worldwide, from African immigrants in Paris to young Arabs in Saudi Arabia.

Many Islamic scholars even say that parts of the Hadith have been falsely attributed to Muhammad and that while many Hadith interpretations may have applied in the early Islamic period, particularly regarding women and Islam's relation to other religions, they deserve a new look.

"There have been things that people say the prophet did or said which conflict with the Koran," says Ismail Hakki Unal, head of the Hadith department at Ankara University's divinity school, where the Hadith project is centered and is increasingly known as a hotbed of liberal Islamic thinking. "The Koran is our basic guide. Anything that conflicts with that, we are trying to eliminate."

As an example, Mr. Unal mentions Hadith-based interpretations that say it is forbidden to teach women to read or write, or that they are of "lesser mind and faith."

"The issue of women being of lesser mind and faith was something that was accepted in those days without any argument, but it is not today, which is one of the reasons that we are trying to eliminate it," he says. "We are saying that this is not in line with how the prophet lived and the Koran itself, so it cannot be accepted."

As the project's authors envision it, the new collection will draw on the ancient Hadith to answer decidedly up-to-date questions, such as how to behave behind the wheel (Turkey has one of the world's highest accident rates) and what is the Islamic response to climate change.

The Hadith, which are not part of the Koran, the holy book of Islam, began as oral traditions that were only written down long after the prophet's death. Much of Islamic, or sharia, law is derived from the Hadith.

The meaning of many Hadiths has been lost and the cultural or geographical context of a text is forgotten, said Mehmet Gormez, deputy head of Turkey's Religious Affairs Directorate, or Diyanet.

Asked whether his project could lead to changes in the way women are perceived in the Islamic world, Mr. Gormez said nothing in Muslim texts could be used to justify such practices as "honor killings" of women or the stoning of adulterers. "Islam is misunderstood. For example, you cannot show me from the 600-year history of the Ottoman Empire a case of a person being stoned for adultery or a thief whose hand was amputated."

Launched two years ago by the Diyanet, the Hadith project is scheduled to be completed by December and translated into Arabic, English, and Russian. Some 80 theologians from across Turkey are involved.

"Today, Islamic knowledge, both in the East and the West, seems to be very confusing, especially concerning the prophet and his teachings.... We wanted to contribute towards clarifying this confusion," says Gormez. "During the last century, there hasn't been such a deep, wide-ranging study of the Hadith."

Turkey's place in the Islamic world

Although Turkey is often described as secular, the state is actually deeply involved in religious life. Second only to the military and education system in size and budget, the Diyanet is responsible for managing some 78,000 mosques – including which imams are allowed to preach and what they're allowed to say. Now, it's trying to create a more "healthy" understanding of Islam and the prophet Muhammad through the Hadith project.

But Ankara University theologians involved stress that it's not an attempt to change Islam. Rather, it's an attempt to identify and strip away cultural beliefs or practices of Muhammad's era that were grafted onto Islam but have no root in it.

In the context of Turkey, however, the Hadith project is more than a reexamination of religion: it's also seen as part of an ongoing attempt by the current Turkish government, led by the liberal Islamic Justice and Development Party (AKP), to reassert itself as a force in the Islamic world.

"Turkey is hoping to be a kind of example Muslim nation, with its politics and its theology," says Mustafa Akyol, a Turkish writer who covers Islamic affairs. "Turkey has a growing Muslim middle class that is becoming modern in many ways, but which also wants to be loyal to its faith. From this comes the demand for 'modern Islam,' for a new interpretation of Islamic sources."

The Hadith's long tradition

The Hadith started being collected after the death of Muhammad, when Islamic scholars realized the need to write down sayings and actions attributed to the prophet that had previously been passed down orally. In the first few centuries after Muhammad's death, the number of Hadith grew to such an extent that Islamic scholars decided to separate them into those deemed sahih, or trustworthy, and those that were not.

While Muslim scholars have been producing Hadith collections for over a thousand years, Turkey's tackling of some of these more "problematic" Hadith "would be an incredibly bold and dramatic move," says Omid Safi, a professor of Islamic studies at the University of North Carolina in Chapel Hill, N.C.

A recent BBC report about the Diyanet's project likened it to the Protestant Reformation in Christianity – a comparison the project's supporters eschew for its connotations of controversy and schism. Indeed, the BBC article led to a storm of criticism in the Muslim world, with the Turkish effort being called by some a project dictated by the Western demands for some kind of new Islam.

Wary of the criticism, those involved in the Hadith reinterpretation are careful to describe it as cleaving very closely to the religion's roots. "It does not aim to change the theological fundamentals of the religion. It is a study aimed at interpreting and understanding these theological fundamentals," says Diyanet's Gormez.

Adds Unal, the Ankara University theologian: "We don't see this as a reform, but as trying to go back to the basics and origins of Islam."
• Material from Reuters was used in this article.

Hadith: Islam's record of the prophet Muhammad

The Hadith is an account of the words and deeds of the prophet Muhammad, literally meaning "news" or "reports."

Only 80 of the 6,616 verses in Islam's holy book, the Koran, concern legal issues.

Since the prophet Muhammad had governed a realm, there was an oral record of what he had said and done as a judge and administrator.

His companions made notes about what he said for their own guidance.

These notes later paved the way for the codification of the prophet's Sunna, or practice, when Muhammad ibn Idris al-Shafii (AD 767–820) ruled that all legal decisions must be based on a tradition stemming from the prophet himself.

Islamic law, or sharia, has largely, but not exclusively, been drawn from Koran and the Hadith.

The Koran recommends that believers look to the prophet as example, equates obeying God with following the prophet's commands, and stipulates punishment for disobedience.

In Sunni Muslim context, the Hadith are technical and legal reports and observations of the prophet Muhammad.

About 2,700 acts and sayings were collected and published in six canonical works, "Al Hadith," first by Muhammad Al Bukhari in AD 870.

It is a secondary source of guidance, after the Koran as the chief source for textual authority for most Muslims.

Among Shiite Muslims, the Hadith includes the words, deeds, and observations of the Imams, or prayer leaders.

Shiites accepted those traditions, traced through Imam Ali ibn Abu Talib, and came up with their collections, compiled by Abu Jaafar Muhammad Al Kummi and Abu Jaafar Muhammad al-Tusi.

The process of authenticating and collecting the body of the Hadith also led to rise of Sunna, or the prophet's authoritative practices, from which normative Islamic practice came to be known.

Daily Muslim faith is inextricably linked to the Hadith, since they are critical to Islamic ritual.

It also provides a comprehensive record on how to perform the prayers, the fast, and the pilgrimage – all pillars of Islam.

A project to order and clarify classic Islamic texts occurred in Turkey in the 1920s as the meaning of many hadith has been lost and cultural and geographic context is forgotten.
Sources: Encyclopedia of Islam in the United States, The Essential Middle East, Reuters.