Policy
Saturday, 26 March 2011
Thursday, 24 March 2011
Wednesday, 23 March 2011
Asia Times Online :: Central Asian News and current affairs, Russia, Afghanistan, Uzbekistan
Gaddafi triggers Kremlin rift
By M K Bhadrakumar
The Libyan crisis has triggered a hairline fracture in the Russian power structure. It all surfaced late on Monday.
But the day began innocuously. Russian Prime Minister Vladimir Putin, while on a visit to a missile production complex somewhere in the Urals, chose to give factory workers some plain-speaking on developments in Libya. He came down heavily on the Western air strikes. "The Security Council resolution [1973] is deficient and flawed; it allows everything and is reminiscent of a medieval call for a crusade. It effectively allows intervention in a sovereign state."
He added for good measure, "This US policy is becoming a stable trend," recalling the US air strikes on Belgrade under Bill Clinton
and Afghanistan and Iraq under the two Bush administrations. "Now it's Libya's turn - under the pretext of protecting civilians. Where is the logic and conscience? There is neither. The ongoing events in Libya confirm that Russia is right to strengthen her defense capabilities."
The metaphor of the crusades and the analogy of the West's dismantling of the former state of Yugoslavia cannot be accidental. Nor, perhaps, the implicit criticism of the raison d'etre of Russia's much-wonted ''reset'' with the United States, a process attributed to President Dmitry Medvedev.
Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov also delivered plain-speaking in a phone call to Arab League Secretary General Amr Moussa. According to Russian media, Lavrov told Moussa: "We strictly oppose using military force against civilians, this is why Russia joined the international call to end violence against civilians [in Libya]. Nobody could now predict the consequences of the situation in Libya. We hope they will be minimal and will not damage the territorial integrity of Libya and the whole region.''
Lavrov seemed to imply that Western intervention in Libya, leading to a civil war or the country's disintegration, might have serious consequences for several African countries similarly placed in terms of the fragility of their post-colonial nationhood. Russian experts have been voicing apprehension in this direction.
However, on a parallel track on the same day, Medvedev also took a major decision that will have a bearing on the future course of Russian diplomacy over Libya. He appointed a new special representative on ties with African countries. Curiously, his choice fell on the well-known politician Mikhail Margelov, who is a quintessential ''insider'' in Russian politics today but has a past as a liberal-minded aide to Yabloko leader Grigory Yavlinsky. Margelov currently heads the foreign affairs committee of the Russian Duma's upper house and is an influential and familiar voice on Russian foreign policy. Although a specialist on Africa by academic background, his current forte is Russia's relations with the West. On this, he comes out as an ardent enthusiast of the United States-Russia reset.
Margelov uses very colorful language (not unusual for Russian politicians) and two weeks ago he called Muammar Gaddafi a "demoniac colonel" whose regime is doomed. "Gaddafi's regime is agonizing. It is dead-trapped, as hunters say. Not only Libyans are fed up with Gaddafi, but also the international community." Margelov hoped that the blood of those killed in Libya will put an end to the "eerie list of crimes by the demoniac colonel."
So, all things taken into account, Medvedev's decision is quite interesting. His main consideration for the Kremlin must have been that the Americans will feel comfortable with Margelov. Margelov already has a track record for having voiced Russian support for recognizing the result of the referendum in Sudan paving the way for the country's division.
Zigzagging, frayed nerves
Equally, Medvedev announced his appointment of Margelov just as US Defense Secretary Robert Gates was arriving in Russia for a three-day visit. The fact that Gates was away from US when military operations in Libya had just begun also merits attention. It was no doubt intended to show that Washington prioritizes Russian cooperation, Moscow's rhetoric on Libya notwithstanding. En route to Russia, Gates said he appreciated Russia's abstention at the United Nations Security Council on Friday and hoped that more cooperation would be forthcoming. He said Libya was on his agenda for talks in Moscow.
On the whole, the Russian line on Libya is zigzagging. Quite probably, Washington is cognizant of the war going on in Moscow for the soul of the Russian policy on Libya, which of course is destined to impact on the overall trajectory of US-Russian relationship. The overall trend of Russian media commentaries has been highly critical of the West's air attacks on Libya. Put simply, Gates hopes to make things easier for Medvedev to ensure that the war in Libya doesn't rock the US-Russia reset.
So far so good. However, Medvedev has taken matters a little further and opened up a huge battlefront that until yesterday was foggy. He chose to criticize Putin's statement on Libya. With the exception of the chaotic Boris Yeltsin years, such public discord between the president and the prime minister hasn't happened in the post-Soviet Russian politics. The novelty is itself shocking when the cultivated impression so far has been that the Medvedev-Putin ''tandem'' is working fine like a Bolshoi symphony orchestra.
Medvedev's suo moto interview came in the nature of an exposition of the Russian line on Libya toward the end of which he ticked off Putin. Interestingly, his interview was a long-winded explanation of why Russia didn't cast its veto in the UN Security Council over Resolution 1973 and the tone was manifestly defensive. Medvedev claimed that he is surprised at the unilateral way in which the West has interpreted R-1973 to take ''real military action''. And he appealed to the West ''who are using their armed forces'' to ''act with the understanding that any steps they take must be in the Libyan people's interests and in order to prevent further loss of life and Libya's disintegration as a country.''
Medvedev didn't say how he proposes to influence the West to behave humanely and thoughtfully when it is an old maxim that all is fair in matters of love and war. Actually, he bemoaned helplessly that the West hasn't cared to follow up R-1973 with ''consultations''. All Medvedev could do was to hope for the best: ''I hope that the international community's coordinated efforts will succeed in bringing peace to Libya, and that comprehensive measures will be taken to prevent the conflict from spreading further in Africa and into other countries,'' he said in the interview.
Medvedev then contradicted himself that Russia's move to abstain over R-1973 was a ''conscious decision on our part'', a ''qualified decision'' and ''the consequences of this decision were obvious." He chastised Russian critics - ''It would be wrong to start flapping about now and say that we didn't know what we were doing'' - and admitted the decision was his and that the foreign ministry acted on his specific instructions. Medvedev then went on to admit that events are spinning out of control:
So, what is his solution? He offers that Moscow can mediate between the West and Gaddafi. On balance, Medvedev seems to realize he is on a weak wicket and that he took a decision that may prove hard to justify as days and weeks pass. And in a sign of frayed nerves, he voiced annoyance that Putin isn't helping matters. Medvedev's best hope could be to deflect the heat of the Libyan policy by generating a steaming political controversy at home. Without naming Putin, Medvedev said:
Medvedev has asserted that the buck stops with him, and he is the czar of Russia's foreign policy. How much of all this was known to former CIA boss Gates, and what prompted his present boss President Barack Obama to tell the ex-CIA director to drop everything and make a dash for Moscow. becomes an interesting thought too. Washington has never hidden its dislike toward Putin and its preference for Medvedev.
As a Cold War veteran and classic Kremlinologist, Gates knows how to put a knife into a Kremlin wound and lacerate it so deftly that healing is virtually impossible. Washington interfered effectively in the Mikhail Gorbachev era to exacerbate tensions within the Soviet leadership. Today's Russia is also not lacking in political constituencies that court American support in settling their domestic political battles. Libya seems to have ripped open tensions accruing in Russian politics and a divide in the leadership has sailed into public view. Russians know there can only be one czar at one time. Gaddafi may be laughing on his way to walking into the sunset.
By M K Bhadrakumar
The Libyan crisis has triggered a hairline fracture in the Russian power structure. It all surfaced late on Monday.
But the day began innocuously. Russian Prime Minister Vladimir Putin, while on a visit to a missile production complex somewhere in the Urals, chose to give factory workers some plain-speaking on developments in Libya. He came down heavily on the Western air strikes. "The Security Council resolution [1973] is deficient and flawed; it allows everything and is reminiscent of a medieval call for a crusade. It effectively allows intervention in a sovereign state."
He added for good measure, "This US policy is becoming a stable trend," recalling the US air strikes on Belgrade under Bill Clinton
and Afghanistan and Iraq under the two Bush administrations. "Now it's Libya's turn - under the pretext of protecting civilians. Where is the logic and conscience? There is neither. The ongoing events in Libya confirm that Russia is right to strengthen her defense capabilities."
The metaphor of the crusades and the analogy of the West's dismantling of the former state of Yugoslavia cannot be accidental. Nor, perhaps, the implicit criticism of the raison d'etre of Russia's much-wonted ''reset'' with the United States, a process attributed to President Dmitry Medvedev.
Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov also delivered plain-speaking in a phone call to Arab League Secretary General Amr Moussa. According to Russian media, Lavrov told Moussa: "We strictly oppose using military force against civilians, this is why Russia joined the international call to end violence against civilians [in Libya]. Nobody could now predict the consequences of the situation in Libya. We hope they will be minimal and will not damage the territorial integrity of Libya and the whole region.''
Lavrov seemed to imply that Western intervention in Libya, leading to a civil war or the country's disintegration, might have serious consequences for several African countries similarly placed in terms of the fragility of their post-colonial nationhood. Russian experts have been voicing apprehension in this direction.
However, on a parallel track on the same day, Medvedev also took a major decision that will have a bearing on the future course of Russian diplomacy over Libya. He appointed a new special representative on ties with African countries. Curiously, his choice fell on the well-known politician Mikhail Margelov, who is a quintessential ''insider'' in Russian politics today but has a past as a liberal-minded aide to Yabloko leader Grigory Yavlinsky. Margelov currently heads the foreign affairs committee of the Russian Duma's upper house and is an influential and familiar voice on Russian foreign policy. Although a specialist on Africa by academic background, his current forte is Russia's relations with the West. On this, he comes out as an ardent enthusiast of the United States-Russia reset.
Margelov uses very colorful language (not unusual for Russian politicians) and two weeks ago he called Muammar Gaddafi a "demoniac colonel" whose regime is doomed. "Gaddafi's regime is agonizing. It is dead-trapped, as hunters say. Not only Libyans are fed up with Gaddafi, but also the international community." Margelov hoped that the blood of those killed in Libya will put an end to the "eerie list of crimes by the demoniac colonel."
So, all things taken into account, Medvedev's decision is quite interesting. His main consideration for the Kremlin must have been that the Americans will feel comfortable with Margelov. Margelov already has a track record for having voiced Russian support for recognizing the result of the referendum in Sudan paving the way for the country's division.
Zigzagging, frayed nerves
Equally, Medvedev announced his appointment of Margelov just as US Defense Secretary Robert Gates was arriving in Russia for a three-day visit. The fact that Gates was away from US when military operations in Libya had just begun also merits attention. It was no doubt intended to show that Washington prioritizes Russian cooperation, Moscow's rhetoric on Libya notwithstanding. En route to Russia, Gates said he appreciated Russia's abstention at the United Nations Security Council on Friday and hoped that more cooperation would be forthcoming. He said Libya was on his agenda for talks in Moscow.
On the whole, the Russian line on Libya is zigzagging. Quite probably, Washington is cognizant of the war going on in Moscow for the soul of the Russian policy on Libya, which of course is destined to impact on the overall trajectory of US-Russian relationship. The overall trend of Russian media commentaries has been highly critical of the West's air attacks on Libya. Put simply, Gates hopes to make things easier for Medvedev to ensure that the war in Libya doesn't rock the US-Russia reset.
So far so good. However, Medvedev has taken matters a little further and opened up a huge battlefront that until yesterday was foggy. He chose to criticize Putin's statement on Libya. With the exception of the chaotic Boris Yeltsin years, such public discord between the president and the prime minister hasn't happened in the post-Soviet Russian politics. The novelty is itself shocking when the cultivated impression so far has been that the Medvedev-Putin ''tandem'' is working fine like a Bolshoi symphony orchestra.
Medvedev's suo moto interview came in the nature of an exposition of the Russian line on Libya toward the end of which he ticked off Putin. Interestingly, his interview was a long-winded explanation of why Russia didn't cast its veto in the UN Security Council over Resolution 1973 and the tone was manifestly defensive. Medvedev claimed that he is surprised at the unilateral way in which the West has interpreted R-1973 to take ''real military action''. And he appealed to the West ''who are using their armed forces'' to ''act with the understanding that any steps they take must be in the Libyan people's interests and in order to prevent further loss of life and Libya's disintegration as a country.''
Medvedev didn't say how he proposes to influence the West to behave humanely and thoughtfully when it is an old maxim that all is fair in matters of love and war. Actually, he bemoaned helplessly that the West hasn't cared to follow up R-1973 with ''consultations''. All Medvedev could do was to hope for the best: ''I hope that the international community's coordinated efforts will succeed in bringing peace to Libya, and that comprehensive measures will be taken to prevent the conflict from spreading further in Africa and into other countries,'' he said in the interview.
Medvedev then contradicted himself that Russia's move to abstain over R-1973 was a ''conscious decision on our part'', a ''qualified decision'' and ''the consequences of this decision were obvious." He chastised Russian critics - ''It would be wrong to start flapping about now and say that we didn't know what we were doing'' - and admitted the decision was his and that the foreign ministry acted on his specific instructions. Medvedev then went on to admit that events are spinning out of control:
''At this stage, the possibility of [Western] ground operations cannot be ruled out... the situation is not going to be easy. The main problem in my view is that there is no coalition carrying out coordinated policy. Some countries, some of our partners, are taking action of their own to try to bring order to the situation, but these are not coordinated, jointly organized actions… The other problem is who to talk with there. Most of the Western countries consider the current Libyan leader, who says he holds no state post, someone they cannot shake hands with, someone they will not have dealings with.''One czar at a time
So, what is his solution? He offers that Moscow can mediate between the West and Gaddafi. On balance, Medvedev seems to realize he is on a weak wicket and that he took a decision that may prove hard to justify as days and weeks pass. And in a sign of frayed nerves, he voiced annoyance that Putin isn't helping matters. Medvedev's best hope could be to deflect the heat of the Libyan policy by generating a steaming political controversy at home. Without naming Putin, Medvedev said:
''At the moment various words are being used to describe the events taking place. I think we need to be very careful in our choice of wordings. It is inadmissible to say anything that could lead to a clash of civilizations, talk of 'crusades' and so on. This is unacceptable. Otherwise we could see a situation far worse even than what is happening today. We must all keep this in mind.''These 71 words are destined to play out in Russian politics in a profound way as a tough election year to choose Russia's next president is approaching. Conventional wisdom is that Putin is Russia's most popular politician. In the Libya issue, he also seems to have the support of the Russian foreign, security and military establishment. In fact, Putin spoke out on Libya while announcing that Russia proposes to double the production of strategic and tactical missile systems by 2013 - on a day when indications came that Russia is also beefing up its Black Sea Fleet with new submarines.
Medvedev has asserted that the buck stops with him, and he is the czar of Russia's foreign policy. How much of all this was known to former CIA boss Gates, and what prompted his present boss President Barack Obama to tell the ex-CIA director to drop everything and make a dash for Moscow. becomes an interesting thought too. Washington has never hidden its dislike toward Putin and its preference for Medvedev.
As a Cold War veteran and classic Kremlinologist, Gates knows how to put a knife into a Kremlin wound and lacerate it so deftly that healing is virtually impossible. Washington interfered effectively in the Mikhail Gorbachev era to exacerbate tensions within the Soviet leadership. Today's Russia is also not lacking in political constituencies that court American support in settling their domestic political battles. Libya seems to have ripped open tensions accruing in Russian politics and a divide in the leadership has sailed into public view. Russians know there can only be one czar at one time. Gaddafi may be laughing on his way to walking into the sunset.
Friday, 11 March 2011
Thursday, 10 March 2011
Wednesday, 9 March 2011
Arab revolt reworks the world order
India, Brazil and South Africa have put a spoke in the American wheel, which seemed up until Tuesday inexorably moving, turning and turning in the direction of imposing a "no-fly" zone over Libya.
Arguably, the United States can still impose a zone, but then President Barack Obama will have to drink from the poisoned chalice and resurrect his predecessor's controversial post-Cold War doctrine of "unilateralism" and the "coalition of the willing" to do that. If he does so, Obama will have no place to hide and all he has done in his presidency to neutralize America's image as a "bully" will come unstuck.
New Delhi hosted a foreign minister-level meeting with Brazil and South Africa on Tuesday, which was to have been an innocuous occasion for some rhetorical "South-South" cooperation. On the contrary, the event soared into the realm of the troubled world order and shaky contemporary international system. The meeting took a clear-cut position of nyet vis-a-vis the growing Western design to impose a "no-fly" zone over Libya.
All indications are that the US and its allies who are assisting the Libyan rebels politically, militarily and financially have been hoping to extract a "request" from the Libyan people within a day or two at the most as a fig-leaf to approach the United Nations Security Council for a mandate to impose sanctions under the auspices of the North Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO). The Libyan rebels are a divided house: nationalist elements staunchly oppose outside intervention and the Islamists among them are against any form of Western intervention.
'Unilateralism' only option on table
NATO defense ministers held a meeting in Brussels on Tuesday to give practical touches to a possible intervention by the alliance in Libya. That the meeting was attended by US Defense Secretary Robert Gates was indicative of the importance attached to the run-up to the alliance's proposed intervention in Libya. Gates missed an earlier informal NATO defense ministers' meeting on Libya held on the outskirts of Budapest a fortnight ago.
United States-British diplomacy was moving on a parallel track drumming up a unified position by the Libyan rebels to seek an international intervention in their country and specifically in the form of a "no-fly" zone. The Arab League and the African Union also maintain an ambiguous stance on the issue of such a zone.
Obama's calculation is that if only a Libyan "people's request" could be generated, that would in historical terms absolve him and the West of the blame of invading a sovereign member country of the United Nations - from a moral and political angle, at least - as well as push the Arab League and African Union into the enterprise.
Being a famously cerebral intellectual also, Obama is a politician with a difference and can be trusted to have an acute sense of history. His predecessor George W Bush would have acted in similar circumstances with "audacity", an idiom that is ironically associated with Obama.
Obama's tryst with history is indeed bugging him in his decision-making over Libya. Robert Fisk, the well-known chronicler of Middle Eastern affairs for the Independent newspaper of London, wrote a sensational dispatch on Monday that the Obama administration had sought help from King Abdullah of Saudi Arabia for secretly ferrying American weapons to the Libyan rebels in Benghazi, for which Riyadh would pick up the tab so that the White House would need no accountability to the US Congress and leave no traceable trail to Washington.
The moral depravity of the move - chartering the services of an autocrat to further the frontiers of democracy - underscores Obama's obsessive desire to camouflage any US unilateral intervention in Libya with "deniability" at all costs.
Now comes the body blow from the Delhi meeting. The three foreign ministers belonging to the forum that is known by the cute acronym IBSA (India-Brazil-South Africa) thwarted Obama's best-laid plans by issuing a joint communique on Tuesday in which they "underscored that a 'no-fly' zone on the Libyan air space or any coercive measures additional to those foreseen in Resolution 1970 can only be legitimately contemplated in full compliance with the UN Charter and within the Security Council of the United Nations".
Brazilian Foreign Minister Antonio de Aguiar Patriota told the media in Delhi that the IBSA statement was an "important measure" of what the non-Western world was thinking". He said, "The resort to a 'no-fly' zone is seen as expedient when adopted by a country but it weakens the system of collective security and provokes indirect consequences prejudicial to the objective we have been trying to achieve." Patriota added:
Equally significant was the fact that the trio of foreign ministers also penned a joint statement on the overall situation in the Middle East. Dubbed as the "IBSA Declaration", it reiterated the three countries' expectation that the changes sweeping across the Middle East and North Africa should "follow a peaceful course" and expressed their confidence in a "positive outcome in harmony with the aspirations of the people".
A highly significant part of the statement was its recognition right at the outset that the Palestinian problem lay at the very core of the great Middle Eastern alienation and the "recent developments in the Region may offer a chance for a comprehensive peace ... This process should include the solution of the Israeli-Palestinian conflict ... that will lead to a two-state solution, with the creation of a sovereign, independent, united and viable Palestinian State, coexisting peacefully alongside Israel, with secure, pre-1967 borders, and with East Jerusalem as its capital."
'P-5' loses shine
Israel will be hopping mad over the declaration. That apart, does it matter to Obama and NATO if three countries from three faraway continents stand up with a common stance on a "no-fly" zone? Who are these countries anyway? But, it does matter. Put simply, the three countries also happen to be currently serving as non-permanent members of the UN Security Council and their stance happens to have high visibility in the world's pecking order on Libya.
The indications in Delhi are that at least one more non-permanent member of the Security Council is their "fellow-traveler" - Lebanon. Which means the "Arab voice" in the Security Council. In short, what we hear is an Afro-Asian, Arab and Latin American collective voice and it cannot be easily dismissed. More importantly, the IBSA stance puts at least two permanent veto-wielding great powers within the Security Council on the horns of an acute dilemma.
Russia claims to have a foreign policy that opposes the US's "unilateralism" and which strictly abides by the canons of international law and the UN charter. China insists that it represents developing countries. Now, the IBSA stance makes it virtually impossible for them to enter into any Faustian deal with the US and Western powers over Libya within the sequestered caucus of the veto-holding powers of the Security Council - commonly known as the P-5.
Therefore, the IBSA joint statement, much like the Turkish-Brazilian move on the Iran nuclear problem, is virtually mocking at the moral hypocrisy of the P-5 and their secretive ways.
Ironically, Delhi adopted the IBSA communique even as US Vice President Joseph Biden was winging his way to Moscow for wide-ranging discussions on the future trajectory of the US-Russia reset. Any US-Russian tradeoff over Libya within the ambit of the reset would now get badly exposed as an act of unprincipled political opportunism.
China's predicament will be no less acute if it resorts to realpolitik. China is hosting the summit meeting of the BRICS (Brazil, Russia, India, China and South Africa) in Beijing in April. Three "brics" out of BRICS come from IBSA. Can the BRICS afford to water down the IBSA joint communique on Libya? Can China go against the stance of three prominent "developing countries"?
On balance, however, China may heave a sigh of relief. The IBSA position may let the US pressure off China and delist the Libyan "no-fly" zone issue from morphing into a bilateral Sino-American issue. China cooperated with last week's Security Council resolution on Libya. It was an unusual move for China to vote for a resolution that smacked of "intervention" in the internal affairs of a sovereign country.
Western commentators were euphoric over the shift in Chinese behavior at the high table of world politics and were egging on the leadership at Beijing to finally shape up as a responsible world power that is willing to work with the West as a "stakeholder" in the international system - like Russia does.
Clearly, China is being cajoled to go a step further and jettison its other red line regarding a "no-fly" zone. There is no indication that China is about to concede its red line by succumbing to flattery. But, now, if China indeed does, it will be in broad daylight under the gaze of the developing countries. And it will be very difficult for Beijing to cover up such "pragmatism" with the veneer of principles. In a way, therefore, pressure is off China on the "no-fly" zone issue.
India regains identity
An interesting thought occurs: Is India forcing China's hand? Delhi has certainly taken note that the Libyan crisis provided China with a great opportunity to work with the US in a cooperative spirit that would have much positive spin-offs for the overall Sino-American relationship. The "no-fly" zone issue would have been turf where China and the US could have created an entirely new alchemy in their relationship. Beijing knows that Obama's presidency critically depends on how he acquits in the Middle East crisis.
All the same, Delhi's move cannot be dismissed as merely "China-centric". In geopolitical terms, it constitutes a highly visible slap on the American face. And there will be a price to pay in terms of Obama's wrath. That Delhi is willing to pay such a price - when so much is at stake in its bid for a permanent seat in the UN Security Council - makes the IBSA move highly significant. Indeed, it is after a very long time that Delhi will be refusing to stand up and be counted on a major American foreign policy front.
It is much more than a coincidence, too, that the declaration vociferously supported the Palestinian cause. India has taken the calculated risk of incurring the displeasure of Israel and the Israel lobby in the US. Besides, there are other signs, too, that Delhi has embarked on a major overhaul of its Middle East policies and the IBSA is only one template of the policy rethink - and, possibly not even the most far-reaching in the geopolitics of the region.
Even as the IBSA adopted its stance on Libya and the Middle East situation staunchly favoring Arab nationalism, India's National Security Adviser Shiv Shankar Menon, a key policymaker of high reputation as a consummate diplomat and who works directly under Prime Minister Manmohan Singh, was engaged in an engrossing and meaningful conversation elsewhere in the Middle East - with Iranian President Mahmud Ahmadinejad.
Away from the glare of television cameras, Menon handed over a letter from Manmohan to Ahmadinejad. According to the statement issued by Ahmadinejad's office, the Iranian leader told Menon:
Most important, Menon's arrival in Tehran at the present tumultuous juncture on a major path-breaking political and diplomatic mission to energize India-Iran strategic understanding also underscores the growing recognition in the region that the era of Western dominance of the Middle East is inexorably passing into history and the world order is not going to be the same again.
Arguably, the United States can still impose a zone, but then President Barack Obama will have to drink from the poisoned chalice and resurrect his predecessor's controversial post-Cold War doctrine of "unilateralism" and the "coalition of the willing" to do that. If he does so, Obama will have no place to hide and all he has done in his presidency to neutralize America's image as a "bully" will come unstuck.
New Delhi hosted a foreign minister-level meeting with Brazil and South Africa on Tuesday, which was to have been an innocuous occasion for some rhetorical "South-South" cooperation. On the contrary, the event soared into the realm of the troubled world order and shaky contemporary international system. The meeting took a clear-cut position of nyet vis-a-vis the growing Western design to impose a "no-fly" zone over Libya.
All indications are that the US and its allies who are assisting the Libyan rebels politically, militarily and financially have been hoping to extract a "request" from the Libyan people within a day or two at the most as a fig-leaf to approach the United Nations Security Council for a mandate to impose sanctions under the auspices of the North Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO). The Libyan rebels are a divided house: nationalist elements staunchly oppose outside intervention and the Islamists among them are against any form of Western intervention.
'Unilateralism' only option on table
NATO defense ministers held a meeting in Brussels on Tuesday to give practical touches to a possible intervention by the alliance in Libya. That the meeting was attended by US Defense Secretary Robert Gates was indicative of the importance attached to the run-up to the alliance's proposed intervention in Libya. Gates missed an earlier informal NATO defense ministers' meeting on Libya held on the outskirts of Budapest a fortnight ago.
United States-British diplomacy was moving on a parallel track drumming up a unified position by the Libyan rebels to seek an international intervention in their country and specifically in the form of a "no-fly" zone. The Arab League and the African Union also maintain an ambiguous stance on the issue of such a zone.
Obama's calculation is that if only a Libyan "people's request" could be generated, that would in historical terms absolve him and the West of the blame of invading a sovereign member country of the United Nations - from a moral and political angle, at least - as well as push the Arab League and African Union into the enterprise.
Being a famously cerebral intellectual also, Obama is a politician with a difference and can be trusted to have an acute sense of history. His predecessor George W Bush would have acted in similar circumstances with "audacity", an idiom that is ironically associated with Obama.
Obama's tryst with history is indeed bugging him in his decision-making over Libya. Robert Fisk, the well-known chronicler of Middle Eastern affairs for the Independent newspaper of London, wrote a sensational dispatch on Monday that the Obama administration had sought help from King Abdullah of Saudi Arabia for secretly ferrying American weapons to the Libyan rebels in Benghazi, for which Riyadh would pick up the tab so that the White House would need no accountability to the US Congress and leave no traceable trail to Washington.
The moral depravity of the move - chartering the services of an autocrat to further the frontiers of democracy - underscores Obama's obsessive desire to camouflage any US unilateral intervention in Libya with "deniability" at all costs.
Now comes the body blow from the Delhi meeting. The three foreign ministers belonging to the forum that is known by the cute acronym IBSA (India-Brazil-South Africa) thwarted Obama's best-laid plans by issuing a joint communique on Tuesday in which they "underscored that a 'no-fly' zone on the Libyan air space or any coercive measures additional to those foreseen in Resolution 1970 can only be legitimately contemplated in full compliance with the UN Charter and within the Security Council of the United Nations".
Brazilian Foreign Minister Antonio de Aguiar Patriota told the media in Delhi that the IBSA statement was an "important measure" of what the non-Western world was thinking". He said, "The resort to a 'no-fly' zone is seen as expedient when adopted by a country but it weakens the system of collective security and provokes indirect consequences prejudicial to the objective we have been trying to achieve." Patriota added:
It is very problematic to intervene militarily in a situation of internal turmoil, Any decision to adopt military intervention needs to be considered within the UN framework and in close coordination with the African Union and the Arab League. It is very important to keep in touch with them and identify with their perception of the situation.He explained that measures like a no-fly zone might make a bad situation worse by giving fillip to anti-US and anti-Western sentiments "that have not been present so far".
Equally significant was the fact that the trio of foreign ministers also penned a joint statement on the overall situation in the Middle East. Dubbed as the "IBSA Declaration", it reiterated the three countries' expectation that the changes sweeping across the Middle East and North Africa should "follow a peaceful course" and expressed their confidence in a "positive outcome in harmony with the aspirations of the people".
A highly significant part of the statement was its recognition right at the outset that the Palestinian problem lay at the very core of the great Middle Eastern alienation and the "recent developments in the Region may offer a chance for a comprehensive peace ... This process should include the solution of the Israeli-Palestinian conflict ... that will lead to a two-state solution, with the creation of a sovereign, independent, united and viable Palestinian State, coexisting peacefully alongside Israel, with secure, pre-1967 borders, and with East Jerusalem as its capital."
'P-5' loses shine
Israel will be hopping mad over the declaration. That apart, does it matter to Obama and NATO if three countries from three faraway continents stand up with a common stance on a "no-fly" zone? Who are these countries anyway? But, it does matter. Put simply, the three countries also happen to be currently serving as non-permanent members of the UN Security Council and their stance happens to have high visibility in the world's pecking order on Libya.
The indications in Delhi are that at least one more non-permanent member of the Security Council is their "fellow-traveler" - Lebanon. Which means the "Arab voice" in the Security Council. In short, what we hear is an Afro-Asian, Arab and Latin American collective voice and it cannot be easily dismissed. More importantly, the IBSA stance puts at least two permanent veto-wielding great powers within the Security Council on the horns of an acute dilemma.
Russia claims to have a foreign policy that opposes the US's "unilateralism" and which strictly abides by the canons of international law and the UN charter. China insists that it represents developing countries. Now, the IBSA stance makes it virtually impossible for them to enter into any Faustian deal with the US and Western powers over Libya within the sequestered caucus of the veto-holding powers of the Security Council - commonly known as the P-5.
Therefore, the IBSA joint statement, much like the Turkish-Brazilian move on the Iran nuclear problem, is virtually mocking at the moral hypocrisy of the P-5 and their secretive ways.
Ironically, Delhi adopted the IBSA communique even as US Vice President Joseph Biden was winging his way to Moscow for wide-ranging discussions on the future trajectory of the US-Russia reset. Any US-Russian tradeoff over Libya within the ambit of the reset would now get badly exposed as an act of unprincipled political opportunism.
China's predicament will be no less acute if it resorts to realpolitik. China is hosting the summit meeting of the BRICS (Brazil, Russia, India, China and South Africa) in Beijing in April. Three "brics" out of BRICS come from IBSA. Can the BRICS afford to water down the IBSA joint communique on Libya? Can China go against the stance of three prominent "developing countries"?
On balance, however, China may heave a sigh of relief. The IBSA position may let the US pressure off China and delist the Libyan "no-fly" zone issue from morphing into a bilateral Sino-American issue. China cooperated with last week's Security Council resolution on Libya. It was an unusual move for China to vote for a resolution that smacked of "intervention" in the internal affairs of a sovereign country.
Western commentators were euphoric over the shift in Chinese behavior at the high table of world politics and were egging on the leadership at Beijing to finally shape up as a responsible world power that is willing to work with the West as a "stakeholder" in the international system - like Russia does.
Clearly, China is being cajoled to go a step further and jettison its other red line regarding a "no-fly" zone. There is no indication that China is about to concede its red line by succumbing to flattery. But, now, if China indeed does, it will be in broad daylight under the gaze of the developing countries. And it will be very difficult for Beijing to cover up such "pragmatism" with the veneer of principles. In a way, therefore, pressure is off China on the "no-fly" zone issue.
India regains identity
An interesting thought occurs: Is India forcing China's hand? Delhi has certainly taken note that the Libyan crisis provided China with a great opportunity to work with the US in a cooperative spirit that would have much positive spin-offs for the overall Sino-American relationship. The "no-fly" zone issue would have been turf where China and the US could have created an entirely new alchemy in their relationship. Beijing knows that Obama's presidency critically depends on how he acquits in the Middle East crisis.
All the same, Delhi's move cannot be dismissed as merely "China-centric". In geopolitical terms, it constitutes a highly visible slap on the American face. And there will be a price to pay in terms of Obama's wrath. That Delhi is willing to pay such a price - when so much is at stake in its bid for a permanent seat in the UN Security Council - makes the IBSA move highly significant. Indeed, it is after a very long time that Delhi will be refusing to stand up and be counted on a major American foreign policy front.
It is much more than a coincidence, too, that the declaration vociferously supported the Palestinian cause. India has taken the calculated risk of incurring the displeasure of Israel and the Israel lobby in the US. Besides, there are other signs, too, that Delhi has embarked on a major overhaul of its Middle East policies and the IBSA is only one template of the policy rethink - and, possibly not even the most far-reaching in the geopolitics of the region.
Even as the IBSA adopted its stance on Libya and the Middle East situation staunchly favoring Arab nationalism, India's National Security Adviser Shiv Shankar Menon, a key policymaker of high reputation as a consummate diplomat and who works directly under Prime Minister Manmohan Singh, was engaged in an engrossing and meaningful conversation elsewhere in the Middle East - with Iranian President Mahmud Ahmadinejad.
Away from the glare of television cameras, Menon handed over a letter from Manmohan to Ahmadinejad. According to the statement issued by Ahmadinejad's office, the Iranian leader told Menon:
Iran and India are both independent countries and they will play significant roles in shaping up the future of the international developments ... The relations between Iran and India are historic and sustainable. Iran and India due to being [sic] benefited from humanitarian viewpoints towards the international relations, should try to shape up the future world system in a way that justice and friendship would rule.Menon reportedly told Ahmadinejad:
The ruling world is coming to its end and is on the verge of collapse. Under the current conditions, it is very important how the future world order will take shape and care should be taken that those who have imposed the oppressive world order against the mankind would not succeed in imposing it in a new frame anew ... Iran and India will be playing significant roles in the future developments in the world. Our two nations' cultures and origins are what the world needs today.
New Delhi is for the establishment of comprehensive relations with Iran, including strategic ties ... many of the predictions you [Ahmadinejad] had about the political and economic developments in the world have come to reality today and the world order is going under basic alterations [sic], which has necessitated ever-increasing relations between Iran and India ... The relations between the Islamic Republic of Iran and the Republic of India are beyond the current political relations, having their roots in the cultures and the civilizations and the two nations and both countries have great potentials for improvement of bilateral, regional and international relations.Nothing needs to be added. Nothing needs to be said further. In sum, this sort of Iran-India high-level political exchange was unthinkable until very recently and it highlights how much the Middle East has changed and Iran's role in it, and Delhi's perceptions and the Indian thinking regarding both.
Most important, Menon's arrival in Tehran at the present tumultuous juncture on a major path-breaking political and diplomatic mission to energize India-Iran strategic understanding also underscores the growing recognition in the region that the era of Western dominance of the Middle East is inexorably passing into history and the world order is not going to be the same again.
what about E-cigratte?
Electronic Cigarette
The Electronic Cigarette is just starting to show up in the US, but they have already found a home in many parts of the world. The electronic cigarette was just an idea in 2000, then 3 years later, the idea was patented in China and the first electronic cigarette was ready to sell. In 2006, the electronic cigarette was brought to Europe, where it was showcased at a business conference, and from that point on the electronic cigarette gained worldwide attention and is thought to have more than 300,000 users worldwide with more
than one million electronic cigarettes sold.Electronic Cigarettes have many different names Ecigs, e-cigs, smokeless cigarettes and even the electric cigarette. An electronic cigarette is a device made to mimic a traditional cigarette completely but without all the harmful additives. Electronic cigarettes are smoke free, flame less and do not contain any carcinogens. E cigs come in many different flavors, all the same flavors traditional cigarettes provide (light, menthol, full flavor) in addition to many extras like cherry, pineapple and even pinacolada. Electric cigarettes can contain nicotine as most do but you can get them nicotine free. If you are a smoker like me, e-cigs are a great way to get your nicotine fix without the harmful side effects of the smoke!
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There are three parts to an electronic cigarette :
So why should you buy an electronic cigarette?
Smokeless Cigarettes and Your Health
There have been numerous studies conducted on the adverse health effects of cigarette smoking and most of those health problems come from the burning of tobacco, tar and the chemicals found in cigarettes. Smoking traditional cigarettes account for 1 out of 5 deaths each year in the US. According to the CDC, more deaths are caused each year by tobacco use than by all the deaths caused by HIV, drug and alcohol use, auto accidents, suicides and murders combined.
Smoking is responsible for strokes, COPD, lung, throat and mouth cancers, emphysema, as well as cardiovascular disease. Cigarette smoking is also well known for causing infertility, preterm delivery, stillbirth, low birth weight, and SIDs.
Smoking is responsible for strokes, COPD, lung, throat and mouth cancers, emphysema, as well as cardiovascular disease. Cigarette smoking is also well known for causing infertility, preterm delivery, stillbirth, low birth weight, and SIDs.
How Will Electronic Cigarettes Reduce or Eliminate These Risks?
Nicotine in itself does not cause any of those diseases! Nicotine is what makes you feel good, what makes your keep coming back for more, and what makes you overlook the detrimental effects of traditional cigarette smoking. Again, nicotine in and of itself is relatively harmless, it just makes smoking a pleasurable experience.
Electronic Cigarettes are composed of a battery, an atomizer and a nicotine cartridge. The nicotine cartridge contains liquid nicotine, that is vaporized by way of the atomizer, which is powered by the battery. The end result? A nicotine vapor that looks just like cigarette smoke, without the tar, chemicals and carcinogens.
Electronic Cigarettes are composed of a battery, an atomizer and a nicotine cartridge. The nicotine cartridge contains liquid nicotine, that is vaporized by way of the atomizer, which is powered by the battery. The end result? A nicotine vapor that looks just like cigarette smoke, without the tar, chemicals and carcinogens.
Visit our Electronic Cigarette Review for the most up to date information on the best electronic cigarettes.
How Electronic Cigarettes Work
There are three parts to an electronic cigarette :- A Battery – Powers the e-cig
- An Atomizer – Heating element
- The Cartridge – The cartridge of the smokeless cigarette holds the nicotine and flavor
When the user puffs on an electronic cigarette the cartridge releases flavor and nicotine into the atomization chamber. The atomizer heats up the liquid and it becomes a vapor the user inhales. Once inhaled the nicotine will enter your system like a traditional cigarette. When exhaled you release the vapor from your lungs and it looks exactly like smoke. The Electronic cigarette is a healthy alternative to smoking.
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