Isolated: The West or Iran?

By Maaike Warnaar

Western policy makers should be better aware of what their actions mean in the context of Iran’s political discourse. If they were, they would realise that much of their current policies are counterproductive. Though intended to isolate Iran, their measures contribute to Iran’s message of resistance against the West. With their policies on Iran Western governments are not isolating Iran, but themselves.

The revolutionary ideology of the Islamic Republic of Iran is intrinsically linked to foreign relations. An inheritance, undoubtedly, of the 1979 Iranian Revolution against the Shah and the foreign powers supporting his rule. The Islamic Republic’s identity today is one of continuing resistance against these powers and their supposed unrelenting attempts to dominate others. The statements of Iran’s leadership are replete with examples of the efforts of Western countries to meddle in other country’s affairs, particularly in the Middle East. At the same time, Iran posits itself as a positive force, both in the region and internationally. The Islamic Republic in this understanding provides the necessary resistance to status quo power relations and stands by other oppressed people, particularly the Palestinians. However, Iran finds itself continuously undermined by the United States and other ‘arrogant powers’. The United States is seen as the prime ‘bullying power,’ undermining Iran’s natural role in the region and threatening Iran’s security.

Iran’s ideological struggle against the ‘domineering powers’ is supporting Iran’s increasingly authoritarian regime. Particularly with the reformist revival in 2009, after which every effort has been made by rightwing hardliners to frame opposition to Ahmadinejad’s re-election as a pre-planned ‘velvet coup’ planned by Western powers. Credibility to this understanding is added by the United States’ calls for regime change in the past, by the support it has granted to democratisation initiatives in Iran, and by its presumed support for terrorist organisations such as Jundallah and Mojahedin-e Khalq.

Against this background, Western policies help shape the future of Iran both domestically and internationally. Double standard behaviour by the United States is immediately picked up by Iran’s right wing hardliners to support the argument that the United States is disproportionally targeting Iran. Criticism of the Iranian nuclear programme is interpreted as an attempt to undermine Iran’s scientific progress. And support for reformism in Iran is evidence of Western interference in Iran’s domestic affairs. Western countries’ policies towards Iran, in sum, only add to the credibility of the hardline discourse, discredit reformists and strengthen the regime.

Iran’s nuclear development meanwhile is progressing despite Western efforts of halting it. Internationally, Iran is finding other partners who allow Iran more negotiating space. These governments may recognise some of their own frustrations in Iran’s views on international affairs in which the West is seen as unduly overbearing. Meanwhile, the West’s unfriendly attitude towards Iran, particularly calls from U.S. partners in the Middle East to bomb Iran, only increase the likelihood of Iran developing a nuclear weapon. If Western policy makers continue their confrontational course, it is not contributing to Iran’s isolation, but to their own.

Maaike Warnaar is a PhD candidate at the University of St Andrews focusing on the role of ideology in Iranian foreign policy.

Shifting Sands is the blog of the Middle East International Affairs Programme at LSE IDEAS, analysing current events in the Middle East and contributing to the ongoing deliberations over policy prescriptions.

Silvia L. Peneva, Editor

Wikileaks: how Web Technologies are changing the game for Freedom of Information.

A true information and political earthquake resulted from the collision of the two great plates of internet freedom and US diplomacy. The epicenter? Wikileaks, a well known website led by Julian Assange since 2006 that encourages online whistle-blowing with the guarantee to keep the source a secret. Coming from Chile, it is difficult for me not to think about earthquakes when describing such a big political crash. However, being fair with Wikileaks, earthquakes have a doubtless destructive power that the website arguably does not have: at least the picture of Wikileaks is one of a rich variety of grey, rather than plain black or white.

Much has been said about the journalistic nature of Wikileaks, or the underlying motivation that has driven Assange to publish nearly 250,000 cables linked to US diplomacy. More interesting than the latter, some groups have argued that what we really witness is the struggle for Internet freedom. A battle where the real heart of the Web has been challenged, unveiling the uncomfortable truth of a Net that is much more controlled than we thought. Doug Rushkoff expresses the case: “the Net is a great illusion of democracy... a top-down structure driven by ads” (RushKoff, Doug in the Personal Democracy Forum Symposium on Wikileaks and Internet Freedom, December 11th,2010) or at least by a small number of clearly identifiable interests. Having all this translated into the language of political science, one could argue that free access to the Net is a policy driven by few but powerful veto-players which control a vast part of the institutions that give life to the world wide web.

I subscribe the idea of those who argue that focus should be given to the implications of Wikileaks for the case of Internet freedom; it’s an exciting debate to have. But perhaps a prior debate to the one of Internet Freedom, has to do with Freedom of Information itself. Thatʼs right, the old right to request and communicate public information recognized since 1948 as a human right and essential complement to the very right to freedom of expression. After all, in simple, the core debate behind Wikileaks is whether citizens have or not have the right to know, and under what circumstances. Answers to most of these questions are offered by Freedom of Information Acts (FOIA) which have spread around the world since the first Swedish law of 1776, followed by the US FOIA (that this year celebrates its 34th birthday) reaching today almost 80 countries under some sort of FOI regulation.

Freedom of Information laws basically recognize the right to access public Iinformation no matter if such has been obtained due to proactive disclosure by a public agency, because of an answer to a particular information request, or because of sharing with someone who previously obtained public information. The right to information is recognized as the general rule for every governmental record or information that is an accessory to such a record. This general rule allows limitations or exceptions, typically when transparency affects personal privacy, national security, international relations, crime prosecution, public health and the economy, among other examples. Curiously enough, the typology of FOI exceptions are fairly the same among a rich variety of countries ranging from the United States to Chile, China, South Africa, the United Kingdom, Uruguay, or even autocratic Zimbabwe. What makes the FOI exception-regime different among countries is not the letter of the law (FOIA) but the actual interpretation of the norm, and the role played by the institutions of a particular country.

In the words of institutional theorists such as Peter Hall and David Schonkige (see Hall, Peter and Soskice, David (2001) in Varieties of Capitalism, Oxford University Press), agents and institutions set a particular historical path through which every policy innovation must walk through, so that FOI, and Internet-Freedom are no exception to this rule, at least in theory. To say that institutions and agents frame particular policy innovations is perhaps one of the oldest ideas in political theory; Change is difficult, and because it is resisted by institutions, agents and veto-players, policy change often moves only incrementally (see Lindblom, Charles (1959) "The Science of Muddling Through", Public Administration Review, Vol. 19, pp. 79–88, 1959). Applying this principle, countries with similarities in their Freedom of Information laws but with differences in terms of the applied institutional settings, should exhibit also different transparency outcomes.

The use of the word “should” has been well-picked. It is true that in most cases, the luck of transparency policies will depend on the actors and institutions involved, but this is not the case for online FOI policies such as, for example, open data platforms.

What I aim to argue is that web-technologies such as the one applied by Wikileaks is changing the rules of Freedom of Information. This is happening not only in infrastructurele terms (such as the online proactive disclosure of public records, and the exchange of info requests and responses by electronic means) but also in more substantive terms. Returning to institutional theory, I argue that the proactive disclosure of online data (not only documentation) by-passes, at least partially, the institutional settings that right constraint the release of public information, in a way that there are no institutions nor agents filtering public information flows, or separating information requesters (typically citizens) from online public data. The partiality of this effect remains because, there still is someone who has to decide wether to publish online public data in the first place.

However, even this potential constraint is limited giving that such person cannot (even with the intention of filtering transparency) anticipate the use that information softwares can give to that particular piece of information, by cross-referencing this data with other sources of information. In this sense, information that in a first glance may seem harmless, can be extremely sensible when crossed with another set of public data. Wikileaks even takes a few steps further in the FOI rule-changing idea, so that access to governmentally held information is possible no matter if its with or without authorization. The limit seems to be online availability of data; if its online, Wikileaks can probably obtain the information even if its secret, it is just a matter of time.

To conclude: the rise of web-technologies is changing the rules of the Freedom of Information game, traditionally framed by particular country agents and institutions. Webtechnologies partially by-pass these bodies, reducing the gap that separated information requesters from online data-bases. Additionally, web-technologies are opening new prospectus for the use and re-use of public information thanks to sophisticated software technology. Wikileaks is an example of the web-technology for transparency (Technology for Transparency Project, Global Voices) phenomenon, that even crosses the frontiers of what is known as public or private.

To revisit the debate on Freedom of Information, and how this is influenced by the new means of web-technologies, seems strongly advisable. Wikileaks offers new insights to this conversation by making pretty much evident the role that web-technologies can play for the purpose of Transparency, and also by providing us with a rich case-study where the limits of publicity and privacy are put into question. Finally, Freedom of Information Law offers limits or exceptions to transparency and access to public information, but these law provisions will have to change such as the overall FOI game is changing due to Web technology.

Wikileaks is only the beginning.

Felipe Heusser is a Chilean lawyer, Master in Public Policy and PhD Candidate in Government, both at the London School of Economics, where he conducts research in the field of Freedom of Information. Ashoka Fellow since 2010, Felipe is also the Founder of Fundacion Ciudadano inteligente, a Chilean based NGO that promotes Transparency and Citizen Participation by Internet means.

National Intelligence Estimate Reaffirms Pakistan’s Role in Defeating Taliban

The latest National Intelligence Estimates (NIE) for Afghanistan and Pakistan report what most analysts of the region and the wars there already know: the U.S. intervention in Afghanistan won’t work unless the Pakistani government and military rounds up its Taliban allies and breaks the back of the various groups that constitute the Taliban in both Afghanistan and Pakistan.


The New York Times was leaked the documents and, yesterday, Elisabeth Bumiller wrote an intriguing piece announcing the findings of the reports:


“The reports, one on Afghanistan and one on Pakistan, say that although there have been gains for the United States and NATO in the war, the unwillingness of Pakistan to shut down militant sanctuaries in its lawless tribal region remains a serious obstacle. American military commanders say insurgents freely cross from Pakistan into Afghanistan to plant bombs and fight American troops and then return to Pakistan for rest and resupply.”


She further wrote that the NIE offers the “the consensus view of the United States’ 16 intelligence agencies, as opposed to the military, and were provided last week to some members of the Senate and House Intelligence Committees.” She reported that military officers are far more open to an optimistic outcome, given the military’s somewhat successful push into Kandahar, the local hotbed of the Taliban insurgency in Afghanistan. The differing views on the likely short to medium outcome in the Af/Pak region might pertain to a widely held view within the intelligence services that there exists a strategic stalemate between the partisan and near boiling civil war there, unless Pakistan makes a move against its own strategic prerogatives. Those strategic prerogatives require that the Pakistan government and military aid and abet the Taliban in order to maintain, so-called, strategic depth in Afghanistan as a countermove to the perceived Indian intervention into Afghanistan’s domestic politics—and by extension, intervention in the very heart of Pakistan. The military fighting in the field might well require that the world be such that victory in Afghanistan and Pakistan is possible and indeed, likely. Otherwise, soldiers might think, why fight?


President Obama will release his December, mid-policy review tomorrow (Thursday December 16th). Along with the spate of news that fares badly for his efforts in the Af/Pak region, the recent death of his Special Envoy, Richard Holbrooke has surely dealt him a blow. Further, that his 30,000-troop spring time surge only worked into the field this past September can’t help the politics of the policy much. Whatever the merits of the surge, there’s simply not been sufficient for the surge to ramp up and show results, so say both intelligence analysts and military officers. And results matter: President Obama’s re-election hinges on a feasible exit strategy that politicos might credibly defend as victory in Afghanistan.


For all this and more, the political scene has been awash with the speculation that President Obama will segue to a narrower counter-terrorism policy directed against the insurgents in the tribal regions on the shared border between Afghanistan and Pakistan, the meat of which Vice President Biden has long supported. This policy would demand fewer boots on the ground and would be consistent with both the 2011 draw down and the commitment to stay in Afghanistan and Pakistan until at least 2014.


The National Intelligence Estimate (NIE) simply confirms a political fact that most analysts concerned with Afghanistan and Pakistan have known for at least a year. The War in Afghanistan is lost to the U.S and NATO, in every credible form, under every credible definition that applies to “loss”, unless Pakistan digs in and thrashes out the Taliban.


The trouble is that Pakistan will likely not turn out the Taliban. Leaders of the government and the military in Pakistan think they need those groups of militants to secure Afghanistan for their own interests after the U.S and its NATO allies leave. Indeed the recent Wikileaks diplomatic cables show that India is worried about the Taliban return to power.


A series of cables have surfaced that bear on conversations between Indian Defense Minister A.K. Antony and then-U.S. National Security Advisor James Jones.


One cable reads: “The Indian military is concerned by the situation in Afghanistan, Antony admitted, and stressed that the international community’s operations there must succeed because the India cannot imagine for a moment a Taliban takeover of its “’extended neighbor”. Pakistan’s government is worried that its Indian counterpart intends to push into Afghanistan to create a bulwark against Pakistan’s moves to spur on an ongoing insurrection in Kashmir and to engage in acts of terrorism or Indian soil, in the name of that distant insurrection.
Pakistan’s government may be right to worry. The leaked cables show that among India’s top concerns is that NATO and the U.S. supply and resupply their troops in Afghanistan through Pakistani land-routes. Indian officials worry that given the transport route, Taliban forces, known to bribe and buy off border guards, stand to siphon off a great deal of explosive material for their home made improvised explosive devices (I.E.D’s). Thus, India is worried that NATO and the U.S military indirectly funds the insurgency that they are fighting. Since the funding and supply chains seem near endless, so then is the insurgency in Afghanistan and Pakistan.


Suppose then that it were possible to pay off the Pakistani military to do the U.S. and NATO’s bidding and maintain strict and incorruptible border controls. Suppose the Pakistani military were offered unlimited caches of weapons and fighter jets and so on, along with financial aid to increase pay rates in the armed forces, for instance. Even then, it is unlikely that the U.S and its NATO allies would be able to buy out the Pakistani military and intelligence officials. (This is perhaps the greatest obstacle to curbing corruption in Pakistan’s government and military institutions.)


For, the Pakistani military’s ambivalence with the U.S and its NATO allies has little to do with money. The military is already awash with foreign aid funds, from major NATO donors. The problem lies in the perceived idea that the NATO is trying to steal away from Pakistan’s its source of credible deterrent from a possible Indian military invasion. Again, the Wikileaks cables show that the U.S and NATO have long been interested in removing a store of highly enriched uranium from Pakistan for fear of it falling into the hands of Taliban insurgents, and worse, Al Qaeda, based in Pakistan.


The strategic game afoot in Afghanistan and Pakistan, the one that the Obama Administration’s Af/Pak policy is meant to draw toward U.S interests, is intractably complicated. And, perhaps, irreparably geared against those U.S interests because, at the end, Pakistan is afraid that it will lose everything that it values-- its arms, its nuclear weapons, its very identity-- to India’s intervention. In this, it may not matter that the fear is nearly as unfounded as the belief that Pakistani government and military leaders will be able to control the Taliban that they have long bred and reared.

Faheem Haider is the Senior Blogger on Asia for the Foreign Policy Association.

Election time in Egypt: a Rehearsal for the Big Show

By Yaniv Voller

The recent election campaign for the Egyptian People’s Assembly turns the limelight once again to this key regional actor. The elections themselves saw a predictable landslide victory for President Husni Mubarak’s National Democratic Party (NDP) – including in some areas considered to be strongholds of the Muslim Brotherhood (MB) and other Islamist opposition groups. The elections did not get much coverage by the foreign media, other than sporadic reports on the violent clashes between MB supporters and the security forces, or some incidental reports on the accusation of fraud. Yet, mainly because of their proximity to the presidential elections, due to take place in September 2011, the elections provide us with an opportunity to assess future developments in Egypt.

Egyptian politics is often portrayed as a bipolarised system, an arena of struggle between the two ‘giants’ of Egyptian political life: the security apparatus, Mubarak’s political habitat, on the one side; and political Islam, in particular the MB, on the other. Albeit being the NDP’s presidential candidate, and therefore, in reality, the single candidate, Mr. Mubarak’s advanced age (82) and rumoured shaky health have led some analysts to argue that he is soon to step off the chair of the presidency. Even if running for the presidency, the pundits suggest, he will not be able to complete the six years-term. In such case, they predict, the MB or other Islamist groups might make a move and try to cease control through a popular revolution à la Iran.

Although this scenario is not utterly unthinkable, it is quite a remote possibility. There are too many people in Egypt who prefer the status-quo to remain as it is – and this is not only the ruling oligarchy of officers, their allies among the businessmen, and bureaucrats but also the urban middle classes. Being well rooted in Egyptian society, the current Egyptian state is rather robust. And of course, we should not forget the role of the Mukhabarat (secret police), a formidable wall against revolutionary attempts. Finally, Mubarak and his cronies still enjoy American support – baffled by the consequences of the former administration’s democracy promotion in the region, the Obama Administration only tepidly protested against the obvious frauds in the election campaign.

This is not to imply that Egyptians are prone to choose only between different forms of tyranny, as some commentators might suggest. Surely, given the opportunity, most Egyptians would be happy to vote for a responsible regime whose main aim is to meet the needs of the Egyptian people. But under current historical circumstances, the above presented scenarios are the most likely.

The real competition, probably, is within the elite. There is a near consensus that Mubarak is preparing his younger son, Gamal, as his successor. The President himself has made not much effort to refute such rumours. It is necessary to remember, nevertheless, that such a step may encounter wide public resistance. Gamal Mubarak is now a powerful member of the NDP and has a wide base of support – but is surely aware of the consequences of such an unpopular step. Another potential candidate, whose name has often been mentioned, is ‘Omar Suleiman, the powerful director of the General Intelligence Directorate. Some argue that he may serve as an interim president, to be replaced in the future by Gamal Mubarak, but others view him as the current real power in Egypt and the future leader of the Egyptian state.

In terms of foreign policy, both men represent continuation of traditional approaches. Egypt will probably keep playing the mediating role between the Israelis and Palestinians, serve as pivotal member in the war on terror, and a bulwark against the perceived (real or exaggerated) Iranian threat.

It is worthwhile, nevertheless, to try and assess an Egypt dominated by the MB, or any other Islamist movement. Representatives of the MB have declared on various occasions that they would cut off relations with Israel if elected to power. Undoubtedly, the MB would be far less enthusiastic participants in the war against terror – although it should be recalled that the MB must not be affiliated with al-Qaeda and that the organisation has an interest to distance al-Qaeda affiliated factors from Egypt. Finally, Egypt under the MB may cease being an essential element in the camp which objects to the Iranian arms race (and by arms race I do not necessarily mean a nuclear arms race). In other words, Egypt under the MB would cease to be a stabilising factor in the region. And, if a central actor such as Egypt ceases to play the role of a regional moderator, all parties in the region might spiral into a period of distrust and uncertainty. With tensions already growing, this is probably the last thing states in the region need.

Yaniv Voller is a PhD candidate at the LSE International Relations Department.

Shifting Sands is the blog of the Middle East International Affairs Programme at LSE IDEAS, analysing current events in the Middle East and contributing to the ongoing deliberations over policy prescriptions.

Silvia L. Peneva, Editor

The lack of substance behind Brazil's and Argentina's recognition of Palestinian independence

By Guy Burton

Brazilian flags have been highly visible on Ramallah streets over the past few days, almost as much as in June and before the country crashed out of the World Cup. Their presence has much to do with public sentiment in the West Bank this week and following Brazil’s decision to recognise a Palestinian state within the 1967 Green Line. Brasilia’s announcement was followed by Argentina’s decision to do the same, a statement which should bring out many similarly mothballed Argentine flags in the de facto Palestinian capital as well.

This Latin American diplomatic charge is expected to continue, with Uruguay, Chile, Paraguay and Peru all making similar statements in the next few months. Palestinian policymakers may feel some degree of satisfaction, especially those around Prime Minister Salam Fayyad, whose government presented a two-year plan to achieve Palestinian independence in August last year. However, they should not be getting too carried away, since the Brazilian and Argentine positions give little away.

At the same time, Brazil and Argentina have been at the brunt of a predictably critical Israeli reaction. Israel claims that the Brazilian and Argentine decisions were taken outside the accepted mode, by being unilaterally announced rather than as a result of negotiations between themselves and the Palestinians. In its official statement, the Israeli Ministry of Foreign Affairs argued that the Oslo Accords require the final status of the West Bank and Gaza to be settled through negotiations while the Road Map laid out a vision of a Palestinian state to be achieved through Israeli and Palestinians negotiations. The appeal to both Oslo and the Road Map are designed to emphasise legitimacy, especially by the latter: the Road Map was endorsed by the Quartet, which includes the UN and is therefore the expression of the international community.

Israel has strong backing for its position. On 7 December, PJ Crowley, a US State Department spokesman, said that “the only way to resolve the core issues within the process is through direct negotiations. That remains our focus. And we do not favor that course of action. As we’ve said many, many times, any unilateral action, we believe, is counterproductive.” Although why exactly the move was counterproductive, he failed to say while also overlooking Americans’ acquiescence of the ‘right’ kind of unilateralism.

While Washington criticizes Brasilia and Buenos Aires for their ‘wrong’ unilateral decisions, American policymakers refuse to say the same of Israel. After nearly three years without direct negotiations between the Israeli and Palestinian leaderships, they restarted in September only to flounder weeks later, when the Israelis’ 10-month settlement freeze – which was partial because it was only limited to new constructions and not those that already had planning permission or which were based in Jerusalem – ran out. For both the Palestinians and Americans, extending the freeze would have been a sign of good faith for talks to continue. But Israel refused and despite American efforts to bribe the Netanyahu government with a $3bn arms package to extend the moratorium for a further three months, Washington appears to have admitted defeat on a future freeze.

This American failure matters far more than any statement by a Latin American government – which will reassure the Israelis while deceiving the Palestinians. Even within the Israeli peace camp, the section of society most inclined to accept international involvement in the process, the Latin Americans’ influence has been largely disregarded. A prominent Israeli activist, Gershon Baskin of the Israel Palestine Centre for Research and Information, effectively overlooked Brazil and Argentina when he said that their decisions highlighted the vacuum in the current stalled negotiations and American absence in bringing the two sides together. For him and others like him, only Washington matters.

At the same time, the Argentine and Brazilian decisions promise more than they deliver by failing to back up support for Palestinian sovereignty. On one hand, their capacity and willingness to construct a Palestinian state within the Green Line is extremely marginal. The amount pledged (as opposed to have been spent) by Brazil to the Palestinians has been $20m since the mid-1990s. By way of comparison, the EU and Washington contribute $600m and $350m respectively per year.

On the other hand, it is not clear what action either country will take to hold Israel to various UN resolutions and legal obligations as an occupying force in the West Bank. It is doubtful that they will apply economic leverage, especially given rising trade across the Atlantic. Israeli-Argentine trade amounts to around $300m per year while Israeli-Brazilian trade was around $1bn in 2009 (down from $1.6bn in 2008). Much of that trade constitutes Israeli exports ($1.2bn), many of them related to the arms industry. Moreover, both Latin American countries’ trade with Israel has been formalized through a free trade agreement between Israel and the regional, trading bloc, Mercosur, which came into effect in April.

Why then have Argentina and Buenos Aires taken the decision to recognize Palestine? With regard to Israel, Israeli policymakers can bluster against the Latin Americans’ diplomatic recognition of Palestine – but its leaders know that politically, when compared to the US, neither Brazil nor Argentina matters. Their involvement in the process to date has been very limited. Moreover, neither country is likely to damage economic ties between themselves and Israel; diplomatic pressure remains disconnected from the business of trade.

As for Palestine, the benefits of offering diplomatic recognition by Argentina and Brazil far outweigh the (verbal) opposition heaped by Israel. Both the Argentine and Brazilian positions present a degree of foreign policy continuity. The two countries – indeed Latin America generally – have become increasingly pro-Arab since 1967. In part this reflected economic pressures from the early 1970s when the then military dictatorships struggled to secure reliable and reasonably priced oil inputs to supply their import substitution industrialization policies at the time. Brazil even signed up to an anti-Zionist resolution at the UN in this period (subsequently reversed at the end of the Cold War).

More recently, links between the Arab world and Latin America have increased. The past decade has coincided with a rise in trade between Latin America and the Middle East on the one hand and greater diplomatic contact on the other. In 2003 Brazil’s President Lula proposed an Arab-South American summit, the first which took place in Brasilia in 2005 and followed by Doha in 2009 (with Peru to follow next year). At both meetings, the issue of Palestinian sovereignty has been given particular airing in the speeches and space in the final declarations. Meanwhile, Brazil has been courting support for it to become a permanent member of the Security Council. To achieve this it has sought to project itself beyond its hemisphere and to present itself as a leader of the developing world.

Consequently, for both Brazil and Argentina, extending diplomatic recognition for an independent Palestine is an easy way of building up credibility in the Arab world and with little risk of any action beyond harsh Israeli words. In other words, that the two countries have taken the course they did demonstrates a decision based on weighing the relative costs and benefits. In this instance, both realized that there was little to lose and much to gain, especially in the Arab world where Palestinian sovereignty remains a primary concern (albeit more rhetorical than acted upon these days) and with little risk of losing valuable Israeli markets.

Guy Burton is a researcher at the Centre for Development Studies at Birzeit University and a research associate for the Latin America International Affairs Programme at the LSE Ideas Centre.

Dynamics between Hezbollah and the Special Tribunal for Lebanon

By Filippo Dionigi

Although the main threat to Lebanese stability over the last months was the possibility of an Israeli attack, Lebanon is now dealing with internal tensions in connection to the indictment of Hezbollah members by the Special Tribunal for Lebanon (STL).The tribunal, in charge of investigating the killing of Rafiq al-Hariri in 2005, initially focused on the involvement of the Syrian regime. Following the release of the initial suspects on the grounds of insufficient evidence, a stream of leaks indicated the possible indictment of members of Hezbollah.

Despite the potentially destabilising effects of the STL, the United States has been at the forefront of international support for the tribunal through financial contributions and high level declarations. Regionally, diplomatic efforts had a major role in preventing an escalation of the situation in Lebanon. Riyadh and Damascus, protagonists of an unprecedented phase of rapprochement, are playing an important role in containing the possibility of instability in Lebanon. The entente is perhaps explained by a convergence of interests. On the one hand Saudi Arabia is interested in curbing the influence of Iran. On the other Syria is on the lookout to regain its decisive role in Lebanese politics. Iran has also been proactive. In a recent visit to Lebanon (reciprocated by Hariri a few days ago) President Ahmadi Nejad showed Iran’s interest in taking an active role. Despite negative expectations the visit served to defuse tensions.

Hezbollah is infuriated by the allegations of its involvement in what has been perceived by the Lebanese public as a heinous crime. If its involvement is ascertained Hezbollah’s role as a credible resistance movement might be discredited. At the earlier stages of the investigations Hezbollah was not entirely uncooperative. Some of its members were summoned as witnesses and no major concerns were raised. Reactions varied until the more insistent rumours of indictment came about. The Hezbollah response now is to try and drag the issue of the tribunal into the more familiar framework of the conflict with Israel. Recently, Hezbollah’s leader Sayyid Hasan Nasrallah presented footage intercepted from Israeli military intelligence indicating Israeli involvement in the 2005 events. Hezbollah also suspects the infiltration of Lebanese telecommunications by Israeli intelligence officers which is the source of evidence for the allegations against Hezbollah. The Hezbollah strategy does not seem completely clear as on the one hand, they asked the tribunal to consider the possibility of an Israeli role in Hariri’s assassination while on the other the movement has threatened to “chop the hand” of those who aim to thwart the Resistance in Lebanon.

If the indictment against Hezbollah is issued, there are several possible ensuing scenarios. The most worrisome is the possibility of armed conflict as a result of a Hezbollah indictment. In the accusations by the STL prosecutor an important element will be the degree of involvement of Hezbollah’s members. If the indictment provokes a violent reaction from Hezbollah this could easily slip into a confrontation along sectarian lines.

A second possibility is a paralysis of the executive which, already, seems to be underway. Lebanon is governed by a national unity government with fifteen of its thirty members loyal to the March 18 coalition majority. Ten members come from the ranks of the opposition, including Hezbollah. The remaining five members are from the presidential quota and may tip the delicate balance thus endangering the neutral role of the president. A ministerial vote over for example the approval of the state budget, which includes the STL’s funding, may provide the occasion for the withdrawal of the opposition members from the government thus suspending its executive capacity. A third scenario could involve the withdrawal of Lebanese governmental support for the tribunal thus undermining its effectiveness.

Neither of these options can be excluded. However the likelihood of the use of force by Hezbollah must be weighed against the internal strife which would be caused and the resulting sharp contrast to Hezbollah’s political identity of resistance within Lebanon. Though not completely immune from it, the Shiite movement condemns sectarian conflict, and has always been careful not to fall into a spiral of violence which may affect its popularity. Furthermore, a violent reaction to the indictment may not guarantee a cessation of the STL proceedings; quite the contrary it might be interpreted as a sign of guilt.

Governmental paralysis seems the more likely course of events. Lebanon has been in this situation before. Nonetheless, the outcomes of this scenario would be uncertain as Israel may choose to take issue with these Lebanese dynamics. Thus, the situation may precipitate into the first scenario of violence or may be solved through the neutralisation of the STL with the diplomatic support of regional powers such as Syria which would play a pivotal role. However, since the STL enjoys robust international support, its dismissal might be costly for the Lebanese government majority.

Filippo Dionigi is a PhD Candidate in International Relations at the LSE.

Shifting Sands is the blog of the Middle East International Affairs Programme at LSE IDEAS, analysing current events in the Middle East and contributing to the ongoing deliberations over policy prescriptions.

Silvia L. Peneva, Editor

Wikileaks, Blood Ties, and the Special Relationship: "America is the essential power"

It was inevitable that Julian Assange's wikileaks would give unwelcome publicity to the enduring and unequal relationship between Britain and the United States. The Guardian newspaper, under the headline "Tories promised to run a 'pro-American regime'" has exposed the Coalition government of Cameron and Clegg once again. While during the election campaign both leaders were proclaiming their "independence" of the United States, and criticising New Labour's "slavishness" towards the US, Cameron's foreign policy and national security team were paying homage to their imperial overlord. They promised a thoroughly "pro-American regime", if elected.

Like a puppy in desperate need of demonstrations of approval and affection from his master, Cameron's team - William Hague, Liam Fox, now heading the FCO and MoD, respectively - reassured the Americans they would be loyal and subservient. In future war-fighting, Liam Fox suggested the advantages of improved levels of "interoperability". Future Anglo-American wars - already being considered when Britain was/is in the depths of an economic and financial crisis? One hopes for more on this from wikileaks.

Told by an American representative that the US wanted a "pro-American regime" in Britain in the interests of the US and, of course, the world, William Hague reassured him of his loyalty by invoking blood ties: his sister is American. He also spends his holidays there. America, he said, is the "'other country to turn to'", the "essential" relationship, for people like him - "Thatcher's children". He could not vouch for anyone else, however, perhaps a nod towards those lacking kith and kin or ties of blood with the American 'cousin'. Was this also a hint of questioning of President Barack Obama's loyalties too? After all, he has, according to one cable, no "natural" ties to Britain. He's not an Anglo-Saxon, in other words....

Ahead of his first visit as PM to Washington, DC, last July, David Cameron, you may recall, admonished the press for "obsessing" about the special relationship, looking for every little sign that things were looking up or going sour. Now it turns out that the removal by president-elect Obama of a bust of Churchill's from the Oval office appeared to cause "paranoia" in both New Labour's and Cameron's circle that the special relationship was in peril.

Luckily, American officials provided reassurance that Britain was safe and special: it provides "unparalleled" help in achieving American foreign policy objectives and national interests. The same official thought it would be quite a wheeze to "keep HMG off balance about its current standing with us" as it might make London "more willing to respond favourably when pressed for assistance..." But British support was too important to play with.

"The UK's commitment of resources - financial, military, diplomatic - in support of US global priorities remains unparalleled". Britain is able and willing to fight wars in faraway lands alongside the United States and try to marshal others' support as well. This makes Britain almost indispensable to the US. So, the "essential" nation to Britain appears indispensable to the US too. Together, the Anglo-Americans keep going the global system.

None of this will be especially surprising to anyone remotely familiar with British foreign policy. What is interesting is the thoroughly subservient tone and character brought out by the wikileaks cables and the complete confidence that the special relationship remains central to the UK. This was as true of New Labour, Hague acknowledges in one secret cable, as it is of the Tories.

Of the New Labour government's national security strategy, Hague notes that his own party fully supported it although it required greater depth and detail. This suggests that talk of the death of the special relationship earlier in 2010 was, indeed, premature.

Other wikileak revelations concerning Anglo-American relations offer evidence of the enduring alliance between the two countries: evading laws to permit the US to keep cluster bombs on UK territory; protecting US interests in the Iraq inquiry, and trying to block the return of the people of Diego Garcia to their homeland, several decades after Britain evicted them to make for a US military base in the Indian Ocean.

The racial-colonial attitude at the heart of the relationship - pointed out above and in previous blog posts on this site - is further underlined in regard to Diego Garcia: their people are referred to as "Man Fridays" in the wikileaks cables. Man Friday was 'discovered' by Daniel Defoe's Robinson Crusoe on 'his' desert island, and civilised by him after a suitable period of tutelage.

President Dwight Eisenhower got it right in the 1950s when he referred to Britain as "my right arm". He was referring to Tory PM, Anthony Eden, in the wake of the Suez disaster. During the Korean War, PM Clement Attlee declared Britain would stand shoulder to shoulder with the Americans; the Union Jack would follow the Stars and Stripes. After Basra and in Helmand, despite all the muttering about British military failures, Blighty remains America's indispensable ally.

And the Tories remain as much committed to delivering a "pro-American regime" in Britain as did New Labour.

Inderjeet Parmar is Professor of Government at the University of Manchester, Vice Chair of the British International Studies Association and an Associate of the LSE IDEAS Transatlantic Relations Programme.  This post first appeared at his excellent US Blog.

Insights into US-Latin American relations through Wikileaks

By Guy Burton

Much of the recent attention to the leaked American diplomatic cables has involved gossip and various unflattering pen portraits of world leaders. In the case of Latin America this has already emerged in relation to Argentine President Cristina Kirchner’s mental state. Today there is the exposure of Bolivia’s President Evo Morales and his tumour treatment which will doutbless be seized upon.

However, what has been overlooked is the extent to which much of the dispatches that have been published to date between Washington and its Latin American missions confirm what we already know – namely its primary concern with regional security and the ambiguous relationship that exists between Washington and much of Latin America.

First, in the case of regional security the US arguably relies on the regional power, Brazil – which itself is the subject of most of the cables so far released. The relationship between the US and Brazil is also significant since it illustrates the scope of American engagement. There is a strong recognition by American officials that there are limits which may be summarised as ‘Friendly Cooperation, But Not Strong Friendship’. This is due to a tension between the more sceptical position towards the US at the top of the Brazilian government and the willingness and level of cooperation within it at the operational level. In January 2008, for example, the US embassy in Brasilia notes the tussle between the defence and foreign affairs ministries over whether to sign a defence cooperation agreement with Washington.  Similarly, although the embassy comments that Brazil’s National Defence Strategy and the decision to restructure its armed forces does coincide with American interests at greater regional security and peacekeeping and offers opportunities for American businesses and armed forces and their counterparts, it has to deal with a publically ambivalent Brazilian government.  This is made explicit in the discussion between the American ambassador and Brazil’s defence minister, Nelson Jobim, that the US-Colombian agreement over American airbases and an Air Force budget memo ‘showed “a complete lack of understanding” of Latin America and said that [Jobim] had to discuss the issue with the President to urge “moderation” from Lula.’ By contrast the ambassador ends with the comment that Brazil’s ‘insistence on painting [Colombian President] Uribe as the primary source of Andean tensions may limit the [Government of Brazil]’s effectiveness’.

American concern with security is also apparent in its preoccupation with regional rivals. First (and not surprisingly) Venezuela features prominently in American communications. For example, in May 2005 the US ambassador to Brazil complains about the role that Venezuela’s president, Hugo Chavez, is playing in preventing Brazilian leadership in the region. In response, his interlocutor, the Minister for Institutional Security, General Jorge Armando Felix, reminds the ambassador that Chavez is ‘very much a part of the “Latin American” reality.’  But while Latin Americans have accept Chavez as part of the scene, it is not apparent that the US is comfortable with this. By 2008 Brazil was proposing to contain Venezuela ‘exporting instability’ by bringing the country into a South American Defence Council, an approach which the embassy commented on as ‘impractical.’ At the same time, the State Department was seeking information on the attitudes of the Paraguayan presidential election candidates towards Venezuela and Cuba and the level of domestic intervention being played by the two in that country.

Second, Washington has become increasingly concerned with external actors in the region, both state and non-state. In terms of state actors, American officials at the State Department have been specifically requesting information on Chinese and Iranian involvement in the region, including military cooperation and communications in Paraguay. With regard to non-state actors, although a number of transnational issues such as the drug trade, arms smuggling and money laundering have been problems in the Tri-Border Region (TBR) between Argentina, Brazil and Paraguay since the 1990s, there has been a shift in focus. This reflects a change in American priorities from tackling these transnational issues to countering radical Islam over the past decade, following the 9/11 attacks.

US officials are actively seeking information on the involvement of radical Islamist individuals and organisations, such as Hamas and Hezbollah and their respective links, support networks and funding. At the same time the cables recognise that the issue is no longer contained to the TBR. Instead efforts have to be made to the wider Muslim population in the continent. In Brazil, for example, the US embassy reports greater attention being paid to counter-terrorism measures.  These include greater cooperation to tackle illicit financial transactions and other activities taking place between American and Brazilian law enforcement agencies even while official government rhetoric remains relatively distant.

Despite this involvement, American officials cannot contain their criticism. The American response to the Brazilian government’s lack of concern with passing anti-terrorism legislation is broadly negative. In an April 2008 cable the embassy notes that the proposed bill, which would have treated the participation, financing and support of terrorist groups as a crime, was shelved by Lula’s chief of staff, Djilma Rousseff, on the grounds that it might be used against social groups and movements that support the government.  This has promoted the Americans to seek alternative ways to engage the issue, including the use of outreach activities between its São Paulo consulate and moderate Muslim leaders in the city.

More generally, the nature of American attitudes towards their Latin American counterparts demonstrates a critical, partial and equivocal stance. For example, American analysis of Argentina reveals not only a lack of knowledge about Cristina Kirchner – despite having been in office for nearly two years - but it also echoes the opposition’s criticisms, namely that it is ‘extremely thin-skinned and intolerant of perceived criticism.’  In addition, the US maintains a reputation for being equivocal. The dispatch from its embassy in Honduras a month after last year’s coup illustrates this point neatly. Following the enforced exile of the then president, Manuel Zelaya, the embassy recommends a search to ‘provide a face-saving “out” for the two opposing sides in the current standoff’. On the one hand, this presents the US as standing above the fray. Indeed, at the time of the coup the American position was extremely vocal, with Barack Obama condemning it swiftly. The embassy too criticized Zelaya’s forced exile and the assumption to the presidency of Congress’s speaker, Roberto Micheletti.

On the other hand, the American position was not as virtuous as it appears. That Zelaya was an ally of American rivals such as Venezuela’s president Hugo Chavez and his peers in Ecuador, Cuba and Bolivia may have discouraged more extensive American support. Indeed, the embassy claims that Zelaya may have been partly to blame, by having ‘committed illegalities and may have even violated the constitution.’ This is based on the embassy’s decision to seek out legal advice regarding the constitution and the grounds for presidential removal. Its recommendation to find a solution amenable to both did not therefore mean a return to the presidency for Zelaya, but rather one that removed both Micheletti and Zelaya from the picture. That “out” was achieved at the end of the year when the scheduled presidential election took place, resulting in quick American acceptance of the result even as other Latin American governments continued to protest.

That Washington was looking for a solution in the latter part of last year was no secret. In this regard, along with the detail of the other dispatches so far published does not shake up our fundamental assumptions about American interests, attitudes and actions in Latin America over the past few years. If anything, they merely confirm that Washington pursues its interests throughout the region – regional security, radical Islam, external threats, drug trafficking, arms smuggling and money laundering – and making common cause with those who share them. At the same time, they are extremely useful at revealing the limitations of American influence and that Washington is not able to impose its will on individual countries – even small ones such as Honduras. Finally, the leaked documents are fascinating at providing a contemporary insight into the way that American policymakers view their priorities and concerns in the region, along with their own estimation of their Latin American counterparts. With the publication of further dispatches from the region, the opportunity to analyse the role of Washington and others in the region in greater detail is certainly one not to be missed.

Guy Burton is a research associate for the Latin America International Affairs Programme at the LSE Ideas Centre.

WikiLeaks Disclosure Sets off Defensive Posture in the International Politics of Pakistan.

The recent news on Pakistan’s international relations that came out of the latest WikiLeaks document cache has been remarkably easy to bear.  Nothing untoward has happened.  All the players have played their parts. International politics between the U.S and Pakistan continues in recognizably similar ways as it did yesterday, and the day before.  Of course, strategic politics has nakedly come to the fore and understandably so; the real news however is non-news--that though everyone has grumbled, moaned, they have all walked away into their own corners of politics and chicanery to hold onto their share of power in Pakistan.

Indeed, each partisan to Pakistan’s politics is doing its best to preserve necessary ties while claiming priority for its own prerogative.  The media is leading the charge here, and both the central government in Islamabad and its U.S allies are on the defensive. The right is blaming President Asif Ali Zardari, pointing to Saudi King Abdullah’s criticism of the political situation in Pakistan—a rather veiled threat? -- that “when the head is rotten, it affects the whole body.”  The left and the center in Pakistani politics, the majority of Pakistanis therefore, are talking about sovereignty as they have always done. Already, judging by a series of opinion polls conducted by organizations like Pew Research and the New American Foundation over the summer, Pakistanis distrust the U.S intervention in Pakistan and blame the U.S squarely for the intensifying drone attacks in the tribal regions.  The new revelations that the U.S. had been intent on removing enriched uranium from a nuclear site and therefore, had been intervening in Pakistan’s favorite national capability, its nuclear arsenal, can only inflame that distrust and disdain.

So far, the Zardari administration in Islamabad has been loath to deal with the rightists in Pakistani politics.  Thus the right-leaning English language newspaper, The News front page piece chiding President Zardari drew an unsurprisingly mild response from the executive office: Zardari claimed that King Abdullah is like his older brother.  ”Call me names”, he seemed to say, “and I will turn the other cheek.”  He might well have added that he is doing this to maintain his precarious grip on power.

Consider that Zardari needs to brush aside this offensive rebuke. Hardliner Saudi Wahhabis help fund the Taliban in Pakistan, as much as they do in Afghanistan. Perhaps to contain the domestic criticism laid against him, King Abdullah spoke to appease the homebred Wahhabis; perhaps not. There is no doubt, however, that Zardari bowed before King Abdullah in order to staunch as much of the runaway support of the right as he can.  In order to not fall in the way of his democratically elected predecessor, and current opposition leader, Nawaz Sharif he needs to kowtow to the right.  Perhaps more importantly he needs to court the military to his side, though he has long bristled at that fact.

President Zardari and his ruling Pakistan People’s Party (PPP) have been deferring to the military after a terrible summer of misrule and missed opportunities.  After the devastating summer floods that ruined farms and fertile fields in large swathes of the countryside, the people of Pakistan sanctioned the Pakistani military as the only functioning authority in the country.  (Note how many are clamoring for the seemingly misremembered clarity and purpose of General Musharraf’s rule!)  Since then Zardari and his Prime Minister Yousuf Raza Gilani have been looking for a way to undercut the military for their political benefit.

Indeed, the recent news might have provided that opportunity.  Upon the disclosure that the U.S. had been trying to get rid of a cache of enriched uranium in Pakistan for fear that it would wind up at the disposal of militants, even the left leaning English daily Dawn that often defends the Zardari administration, raised the specter of Pakistan’s contested sovereignty. It’s front-page headline: “Pakistan’s nuclear capability a source of strength: PM”. At the same stroke as defending Pakistani national pride, Prime Minister Gilani tied together the fate of Pakistan with the fate of the ruling party.  Notice though that even though he spoke to the pride of place of the nuclear arsenal, and therefore of Pakistani national security, he failed to mention that the Pakistani military might have anything at all to do with securing Pakistan’s nuclear capability.

In response to Gilani’s bold move, the U.S. government, through the person of the newly appointed U.S. Ambassador to Pakistan, Cameron Munter, has argued for the continued cooperation of sorts that it enjoys with Pakistan, without backtracking from its criticism of the Zardari government and without disavowing the moves it reportedly made against Pakistan’s nuclear, military complex.

These moves and counter-moves raise the haunted ghost of previous U.S. interventions in Pakistan.  Those interventions have not gone well for the Pakistani people. How might the U.S. now defend itself against the claim that it is charging head-long into occupying Pakistan, when it has been shown to have interfered into Pakistan’s favorite public capability: its nuclear arsenal?  Little surprise then that Ambassador Cameron Munter moved to calm those in the military and in the political right and published an op-ed piece this morning in the right-leaning newspaper The News, announcing in part that:

Pakistan is an important strategic partner of the United States. Of course, even a solid relationship will have its ups and downs. We have seen that in the past few days, when documents purportedly downloaded from US Defense Department computers became the subject of reports in the media.

Moreover he claimed, the U.S foreign policy team:

…will continue to work to strengthen our partnership with Pakistan and make progress on the issues that are important for our two countries. We can’t afford anything less. I am in close contact with Pakistan’s leadership to make sure we continue to focus on the issues and tasks at hand. President Obama, Secretary Clinton, and I remain committed to being trusted partners as we seek to build a better, more prosperous world for everyone.

It is too early to tell if the U.S government’s overtures to the Pakistani people, over the summer and now, going forward, will smooth out years of implacably opposed opinion on unhelpful interventions in Pakistan’s politics.  Most Pakistanis think that American promises aren’t worth much. Promises of a longer stay coupled with more productive moves to ensure the safety of Pakistanis in the tribal regions, plans to spur on economic growth, raise education standards, fall to daily drone strikes.  But maybe there is yet a third way.

Faheem Haider is the Senior Blogger on Asia for the Foreign Policy Association.

Why Nations Fight? Past And Future Motives For War

Last night at IDEAS, Richard Ned Lebow launched his new book, Why Nations Fight. Here he outlines the key argument of the book, which analyses a wholly new data-set of inter-state wars.

Following Plato and Aristotle, I posit spirit, appetite and reason as fundamental drives with distinct goals.  They generate different logics concerning cooperation, conflict and risk-taking. They require, and help generate, characteristic forms of hierarchy based on different principles of justice. A fourth motive – fear -- enters the picture when reason is unable to constrain appetite or spirit. Fear is a powerful emotion, not an innate drive.  In real worlds, multiple motives mix rather than blend, giving rise to a range of behaviors that often appear contradictory. 

In modern times the spirit (thumos) has largely been ignored by philosophy and social science. I contend it is omnipresent. It gives rise to the universal drive for self-esteem which finds expression in the quest for honor or standing.  By excelling at activities valued by our peer group or society, we win the approbation of those who matter and feel good about ourselves.  Institutions and states have neither psyches nor emotions.  The people who run these collectivities or identify with them do.  They often project their psychological needs on to their political units, and feel better about themselves when those units win victories or perform well. Transference and esteem by vicarious association are especially pronounced in the age of nationalism where the state has become the relevant unit.  

I documented the relevance of the spirit for war in a series of case studies in A Cultural Theory of International Relations.  In this book, I extend my analysis to war throughout the modern era and analyze war initiation in terms of the relative power of states and their respective motives for war.  I derive six propositions from my theory about war initiation concerning the kinds of states that start wars, their motives for going to war, who they fight against, their rate of successes, the extent to which general wars arise from miscalculation and the propensity of weaker states to attack stronger ones.  To test these propositions, I constructed a data set of all inter-state wars involving great and aspiring rising powers from 1648 to the present.  

Contrary to realist expectations, I find security responsible for only 19 of 94 wars.  A significant number of these wars pitted great powers against other great powers and none of them were associated with power transitions.  Material interests are also a weak motive for war, being responsible for only 8 wars, and most of those in the eighteenth century.    Standing, by contrast, is responsible for 62 wars as a primary or secondary motive.  Revenge, also a manifestation of the spirit, is implicated in another 11.  There is no evidence for wars between rising and dominant powers, as predicted by power transition theory.  There can be little doubt that the spirit is the principal cause of war across the centuries, and that it and its consequences have been almost totally ignored in the international relations literature.

In examining the future of war we need to recognize important changes that are taking place in how actors understand war in relation to their goals.  Interest shows a sharp decline as a cause of war once mercantilism gave way to more sophisticated understandings of wealth.  Security-motivated wars show no similar decline by century but come in clusters associated with bids for hegemony by great or dominant powers.  The most recent clusters of security-related wars were associated with the run up and conduct of the two world wars of the twentieth century.  Now that this era has passed in Europe and is receding in much of the Pacific rim, and hegemony achieved by force is now longer considered a legitimate ambition, the security requirements and fears of great powers should decline.  Wars of standing can also be expected to decline as successful war initiation no longer enhances standing.  It may actually lead to loss of standing in the absence of United Nations’ approval of the military initiative in question.  The chance of war among great and rising powers is therefore diminishing and we may be cautiously optimistic that interstate war as an institution will see a sharp decline in this century. 

Richard Ned Lebow the James O. Freedman Presidential Professor of Government at Dartmouth College and the Centennial Professor of International Relations at the London School of Economics and Political Science.

Myanmar 2010 Elections: Outcomes and Implications

This event served to discuss the political situation in Burma/Myanmar after the elections of 7 November as well as the release from house arrest of Daw Aung San Suu Kyi six days later. The chair, Dr Jürgen Haacke, briefly reminded the audience that the elections were part of the military regime’s roadmap to a so-called ‘discipline-flourishing multiparty democracy’. He also outlined some of the core features of the political system that the 2008 Constitution sets out, highlighting among other the ways in which military leaders are keen to play a role in the country’s national politics, not least by retaining significant influence in both the executive and legislative branches of government. Bo Bo Lansin, a consultant editor of Mizzima News, used his introductory remarks to focus on the results of the elections and the various reasons why these should be seen as having been seriously flawed. In particular, he pointed to the phenomenon of advance votes for the junta that produced unfavourable outcomes for candidates from opposition and ethnic parties. Derek Tonkin, a former UK diplomat and now Chairman of Network Myanmar, discussed the ineffectiveness of existing sanctions and the role that Daw Aung San Suu Kyi would likely now play, not least as a possible mediator between Burma/Myanmar and the international community on the issue of sanctions.

The ensuing discussion focused on two broad themes: the current domestic political situation and the issue of sanctions. In relation to the former the audience for instance asked the panellists whether they thought the elections constituted a successful exercise in the re-branding of Myanmar and the ruling junta. Other questions focused on the state of the National League for Democracy, Daw Aung San Suu Kyi’s relations with other leaders of the pro-reform and pro-democracy camp. In response, Bo Bo Lansin spoke about the current fluidity of Burmese politics, focused on the significant legitimacy issues faced by the military junta and also emphasised the tensions between Naypyidaw and a number of ethnic nationalities. Derek Tonkin pointed out that in previous months and years neither members of the business community nor the armed forces had rejuvenated NLD party ranks. Panellists pointed to past problems of factionalism within the NLD, while highlighting Daw Suu’s stated preparedness to work with other political leaders.

The question arose whether human rights organisations working on Burma/Myanmar should expect that Western governments would follow their advice of now putting more pressure on the regime. The panel thought that this was unlikely without the governments first consulting with Daw Aung San Suu Kyi on this issue. Derek Tonkin pointed out that Daw Suu has argued that if the people of Burma wanted sanctions to be lifted, she would consider it. It was moreover noted that the US government is clearly interested in persisting with pragmatic engagement, a position reflected in the remarks made by State Department speaker Phillip J. Crowley on 15 November 2010.

There was agreement that sanctions imposed on Naypyidaw have hitherto failed. Derek Tonkin distinguished between three broad categories of sanctions: the blocking of funding by Western countries from international financial institutions (which leaves Burma/Myanmar with less than a quarter of development assistance received by neighbouring Laos or Cambodia); the official discouragement of trade, investment and tourism; and statutory sanctions specifically targeting regime representatives and associated cronies. He recounted how the European Union had on one occasion - mistakenly - imposed sanctions against a significant number of private businesses with no obvious connections to military or ‘crony’ interests. He suggested that the regime’s leadership was at best inconvenienced by targeted Western sanctions. Also, by employing sanctions Western countries had undermined any influence with the military they might once have enjoyed.

Given the political realities and the challenges facing Aung San Suu Kyi and, more broadly, the country’s pro-reform and democracy camp, Bo Bo Lansin and Derek Tonkin both remained sceptical concerning the more immediate prospects for significant political change within Burma/Myanmar.

By Dr Jürgen Haacke

The Complexities of Power Sharing in Iraq

By Caelum Moffatt

On 25 November, Iraqi President Jalal Talabani officially invited incumbent Prime Minister Nouri al-Maliki to form a government. According to the Iraqi Constitution, the Shiite leader of the State of Law Coalition (SLC) will now have 30 days to negotiate with the major political blocs and establish an all inclusive cabinet that attempts to break the eight-month political impasse.

In order to render the process as democratic as possible, a points system has been devised whereby available positions within the cabinet are allocated a numerical value depending on their importance. If, as it is speculated, one point is equal to 2.4 parliamentary seats, each political entity will only be permitted to hold positions that its parliamentary share allows. Although every party will be able to nominate candidates for each place, the interior and defence ministries will be reserved for independents and the ‘sovereign ministries’ – oil, finance and foreign affairs – will be divided between the three major blocs. Once nominations have been submitted, al-Maliki will decide who is appointed.

Members of al-Maliki’s inner circle remain optimistic that this method will reap tangible and effective results. However the initiation of the points system does not work to diminish the competition for positions both within and between political blocs as parties assign different meanings to each post.

The sine qua non for success is Iraqiyah, the largest bloc in the Council of Representatives and an alliance that draws most of its support from Iraq’s Sunni population. A notable absentee from al-Maliki’s inauguration ceremony, Iraqiyah’s leader, Iyad Allawi, reiterates that there are three preconditions for compliance: the establishment of a National Council for Strategic Policies (NCSP), chaired by Iraqiyah and awarded executive powers; the recognition of this Council as the centre for promoting national reconciliation; and the exoneration of four Iraqiyah colleagues who were accused by the Accountability and Justice Commission before the elections of being affiliated to Saddam Hussein’s Ba’ath Party.

Iyad Allawi, believing that his coalition has already conceded its constitutional right to form a government, warned that Iraqiyah will not concede on these matters. Despite this explicit threat, al-Maliki, who spent his first term centralising executive powers to his office, publicly opposes bestowing executive authority on the NCSP, insisting that it act purely as an advisory body for foreign, security and domestic affairs.

The implementation of the de-Ba’athification process is also a highly sensitive subject that extends beyond al-Maliki. Iraq may be fraught with sectarian divisions but the Kurdish and Shiite blocs are unanimous in their unequivocal commitment to ensure the removal of remnant Ba’ath loyalists from the political process. Whether links between Iraqiyah and the Ba’ath Party can be substantiated or whether they merely serve as a political expedient to legitimise the marginalisation of Iraqiyah is a discussion that exceeds the remit of this piece. Either way, a political frame that associates Iraqiyah with Saddam Hussein risks damaging the prospects for national reconciliation by widening the chasm between Iraqiyah and the other political blocs, leading to a split that could exacerbate tensions and further destabilise Iraq as disgruntled Sunni militants mobilise in response to this exclusion.

Aside from Iraqiyah, al-Maliki must manage other internal disputes that could undermine any prospective power-sharing agreement and the establishment of a functional government. These include balancing between the dichotomous views of Iraqi nationalists and his Kurdish allies regarding oil and land in the north as well as granting the Sadrists enough influence to satisfy their expectations and reflect the party’s standing without considerably enhancing the public profile of the recalcitrant Muqtada al-Sadr.

The removal of Saddam Hussein unleashed the manifestation of an endemic deficiency of trust that plagues Iraqi politics. As a result, al-Maliki has the unenviable task of reaching a compromise between mutually suspicious sectarian elites that viscerally protect their status and vigorously pursue the interests of their respective constituencies.

In a more evolved democracy, Iraqiyah would inevitably sit in opposition, expose the government’s shortcomings and construct national policies that aim to supersede sectarian narratives. Unfortunately, in the present climate, such a strategy would enable the Shiites and Kurds to monopolise and consolidate the corridors of power. Additionally, the bonds that unite Iraqiyah may erode as Sunnis become alienated and further disenchanted with politics.

For this reason, Iraq is frequently compared to Lebanon’s consociational democracy and predictions foretell the gradual ‘Lebanonisation of Iraq’. For now however, sectarianism in Iraq is not as entrenched or institutionalised as it is in Lebanon. Neutralising the impact of sectarianism requires limiting the channels and contexts through which it can be exploited. Power-sharing is a fundamental step to the development of Iraq’s experiment with democracy in presenting an opportunity for cooperation through the composition of a national agenda that assists in building trust amongst its politicians.


Caelum Moffatt is a PhD candidate in Middle East Politics at Durham University, focusing on the politicisation of armed Islamic social movements.

Shifting Sands is the blog of the Middle East International Affairs Programme at LSE IDEAS, analysing current events in the Middle East and contributing to the ongoing deliberations over policy prescriptions.

Silvia L. Peneva, Editor

Lifted Lines and Lacks Vision: Cameron's Guildhall Speech on Britain's Global Role

It is said by many informed commentators that David Cameron's recent speech on Britain's global role was partly lifted from one delivered by former PM Gordon Brown and also lacked "vision". USBlog contends that is an impoverished and superficial conclusion from Cameron's speech.

"We have the resources - commercial, military and cultural - to remain a major player in the world. We have the relationships - with the most established powers and the fastest-growing nations - that will benefit our economy. And we have the values - national values that swept slavery from the seas, that stood up to both fascism and communism and that helped to spread democracy and human rights around the planet - that will drive us to do good around the world."

So spoke David Cameron at Guildhall last week. Britain is strong, capable, and a Force for Good in the World.

Those lines owe their origins not to Gordon Brown, or Tony Blair, or Margaret Thatcher - their provenance reaches back into British history - an imperial mentality forged over generations. Lord Palmerston said it in the 1860s; George Canning said it even earlier; Gladstone and Disraeli said it in their own ways in the 1870s and 1880s; the Foreign Office's Eyre Crowe sort of said it in 1907; Clement Attlee said it over and over after 1945, showing that 'de-colonisation' need not interfere with imperialism.

As Cameron acknowledged in his speech, Britain has "a glorious past" of "deep engagement around the world", an imperial "instinct to be self-confident and active well beyond our shores"; it's "in our DNA", no less.

No mention of "empire" of course when he talks about India, and China, and Korea, and Zambia, but "deep engagement" or "centuries-long engagement" which has "left a rich legacy". No mention of the rich legacy Britain left in Afghanistan in the imperial era, or the legacy it is organising there now in that tragic country, with hundreds of thousands dead in their wake.

Britain's national interests appear to focus on big business, as strong a military as Britain can afford (to assist its flexible approach to "threats" through "Brigade-diplomacy"), and the deployment of foreign aid more closely tied to building security and stability. Cameron does not aspire to a "perfect democracy" in Afghanistan, just a place from which "al Qaeda can never again pose a threat to us". The "us" means "US", I think, as 9-11 occurred on US soil.

And the United States remains not just "special" but "crucial" to Cameron's Britain - through G8, G20, NATO, intelligence cooperation, counter-terrorism, and the like. An attack on the US is an attack on "us" - a quiet assumption that has run through British foreign policy since the 1940s and shows no signs of abating.

Cameron's lines have been lifted from past prime ministers' Guildhall speeches; there is a Vision. It just isn't very inspiring for anyone with a sense of history, especially a sense of western interventions in the 'third world'. We have been here before. When will British elites learn that it is possible to be global in outlook, to see the interconnectedness of things, but realise that imperialinterventions - for whatever purposes, usually prestige, power, or material gain - are totally counter-productive? Just look at Iraq and Afghanistan.

But what can you do about imperial DNA?


Inderjeet Parmar is Professor of Government at the University of Manchester, Vice Chair of the British International Studies Association and an Associate of the LSE IDEAS Transatlantic Relations Programme.  This post first appeared at his excellent US Blog