Today, the prosecutor of the International Criminal Court filed genocide charges against Omar Hassan al-Bashir, Sudan’s president. “Prosecution evidence shows that Bashir masterminded and implemented a plan to destroy in substantial part the Fur, Masalit and Zaghawa groups on account of their ethnicity,” said Luis Moreno-Ocampo, the prosecutor, in a news conference. The charges are the first in that court against a sitting head of state.
Diplomats, especially China’s Wang Guangya, have said that the move will jeopardize peace talks, and that is undoubtedly true, but negotiations were going nowhere. In the meantime, the Janjaweed militia has, one way or another, killed an estimated 300,000 people in Darfur and displaced another 2.2 million since February 2003 when conflict erupted. Ocampo has done the right thing because, despite the political consequences, the world’s worst criminals must be brought to justice. “Charging President al-Bashir for the hideous crimes in Darfur shows that no one is above the law,” says Richard Dicker of Human Rights Watch.
Well, not quite. As Dicker also noted, “It is the prosecutor’s job to follow the evidence wherever it leads.” And at this moment there are still other malefactors who have yet to be named. Bashir was able to mastermind and implement these past years because he had friends. And he had no more important backer than Beijing, Khartoum’s largest arms supplier and principal commercial partner.
Last week revealed just how close the two governments are. A couple days ago the BBC charged that China “is fueling war in Darfur.” Apparently the Chinese have been supplying military trucks and providing pilot training in violation of a United Nations arms embargo. And a few days before that the Wall Street Journal reported that Chinese oil companies are preparing to go exploring for oil in Darfur.
So going after Bashir is only a first step. Ocampo should finish his job by bringing charges against Khartoum’s collaborators. It would be especially sweet if he could do that before August 8, the date of the opening ceremonies of the world’s premier sporting event. After all, they don’t call this extravaganza the “Genocide Olympics” for nothing.
gee Abey – what part about “unclenching the fist” didn’t you get?
“I fear Iranian human rights activists are the next group to become disenchanted with Barack Obama.”
Interesting assertion – check pollster.com – Obama weighs in at about 71 percent favorable – but I get where you’re coming from – you – also – probably view the Republican defeat on the stimulus as a shocking setback to Obama’s agenda…
“But what that group has yet grasp is that Obama didn’t campaign on closing down Evin prison.”
And George Bush ran AGAINST [democratic] nation building – but that didn’t stop his inept invasion, applauded heartily by guys like you…
Warpublican Review:
Here are Obama’s “unclenching” remarks in context:
“Now, the Iranian people are a great people, and Persian civilization is a great civilization. Iran has acted in ways that’s not conducive to peace and prosperity in the region: their threats against Israel; their pursuit of a nuclear weapon which could potentially set off an arms race in the region that would make everybody less safe; their support of terrorist organizations in the past — none of these things have been helpful.
“But I do think that it is important for us to be willing to talk to Iran, to express very clearly where our differences are, but where there are potential avenues for progress. And we will over the next several months be laying out our general framework and approach. And as I said during my inauguration speech, if countries like Iran are willing to unclench their fist, they will find an extended hand from us.”
He spoke about threats against Israel, the pursuit of nukes and support of terrorism. What about this suggest Iran’s unclenching its fist has a thing to do with human rights?
Abe
These sorts of articles are misleading. The article begins: “Human rights activists and those pushing for democratic changes in the Islamic republic believe they could benefit from improved relations between Iran and the United States. They are encouraged by what they see as a change of tone by Washington.”
Surely it should read that “*some* human rights activists believe…”? Has the author spoken to all of the human rights and democracy activists in Iran? It seems to me that Golnaz Esfandiari wants to fight against the notion that treating with Ahmedinejad strengthens him and therefore weakens the positions of those who stand against the regime. It’s easy enough to find a few people who think that Obama’s approach serves their interests better. He only cites two who actually make that claim. The others urge Obama to make human rights a part of any dialogue; they say nothing about whether Obama’s approach is better.
Before, Iran was isolated, its economy in ruins, and its leader a subject of mockery around the world. There was pressure on Ahmedinejad to change his ways. Now, why should he change his ways? He held his ground, and the other side changed. Things are going his way now. With Bush there was a clear ultimatum: unless you change your behavior, you will remain absolutely isolated and poor. With Obama the Iranian government can stay just the way it is, and still expect their condition to improve.
The Mullahs just kicked Obama in the teeth as a response to his overture (at least publicly).
Why the Iranian activists believe that the increasingly empowered Iranian authourties will loosen up as a result is mystifying.
I think they are mistaken, but time will tell.
Tangentially, a buddy of mine had the idea that perhpas Obama had to make the overture to Iran to satisfy his campaign promise.
Now that the’s done it, and gotten rebuffed, Obama can plausibly argue to his base that he must now have the freedom to ratchet up the pressure, up to and including military action.
I think this is equally delusional, but time will tell.
“But I do think that it is important for us to be willing to talk to Iran, to express very clearly where our differences are, but where there are potential avenues for progress.”
I would suggest that the above quote could easily incorporate human rights into the issue – but even if it doesn’t, isn’t it a bit hypocritical for the right-wing to raise a stink about Human rights – as if Bush invaded either Afghanistan or Iraq for human rights issues? Had the Taliban surrendered bin laden and had Saddam disarmed, both would still be in power today (in fact, one still kinda is)…
“Now that the’s done it, and gotten rebuffed, Obama can plausibly argue to his base that he must now have the freedom to ratchet up the pressure, up to and including military action.”
That’s the thing that greenwald and Ahithophel just don’t get. Dimplomacy – backed by the strongest military in the history of the world, is MORE effective than pure “bring it on” bluster that ONLY lends itself for a military solution. Ahithophel says that Bush laid out an ultimatum – well, in Bush’s eight years, how’d that work for him? Obama can ALWAYS drop bombs… but his diplomacy gives cover should a military soultion be needed…
6
Bush engaged in diplomacy as well. For years, via the euros.
It is too late for diplomacy now, and Obama’s repeat of Bush’s path will only give them the time to attain their goal.
Warpublican, do you honestly think that anyone is advocating, as you call it, “pure ‘bring it on’ bluster”? That’s a rather simplistic view of things. Everyone agrees that a military solution is a last resort, only taken with great reluctance and only taken when the alternative–doing nothing–would be even worse. We just disagree on when the other alternatives have proven fruitless or counterproductive. So, for instance, our military action against Iraq was undertaken after years and years (roughly 12 years) of diplomacy and containment. Conservatives thought that the diplomacy route was a decisive failure, that Saddam was using it to his advantage, and that stringing it along much longer was dangerous. I don’t mean to get into the whole Iraq war debate, but just to say that it was preceded by diplomacy; the question was never about whether diplomacy should be used before the military, it was about when the time has come to abandon diplomacy as useless or worse than useless.
With regard to Iran, we have been engaging with Iran for a very long time, using an assortment of sticks and carrots. We have not managed to overturn their regime, but in many ways we have contained it and perhaps limited the damage it could do. It’s hard to say what Iran might have done, or where they would be now, if we had not adopted various measures to keep their resources limited. Perhaps we slowed the progress toward the bomb. And who knows what might have been accomplished if Ahmedinejad didn’t know that he only had to outlast Bush and then he would have a President he could deceive and push around more easily?
The point is that treating Ahmedinejad in this way, writing him a personal letter from the President, just gives Ahmedinejad a PR victory. Whatever pressure may have been building from within, from people who see that his course of action is only resulting in isolation and weakness, just dissipated a little. If we invite Iran into a lengthy series of diplomatic exchanges, they’ll follow through on none of their promises, make a mockery of the process, use it as an opportunity to broadcast their insane propaganda, and stall long enough to make the bomb. This is not a game. It’s not a matter of middle school friends getting over a little spat. We need to prevent Iran from getting the bomb, and thus far the carrots-and-sticks process isn’t working.
Actually, you don’t know that to be true at all. What you mean to say is that, if the Taliban and Saddam had knuckled under to non-negotiable demands from the US and its allies, then there wouldn’t have had to be any fighting. If they had been capable of acting upon our ideas about their and their theoretical constituents’ interests, however, they wouldn’t have gotten into trouble in the first place. Whether organizations or regimes built around cults of defiance can survive in the aftermath of surrender – at least without undergoing transformations that turn them into something different, under whatever name – is another question. The Taliban and Saddam preferred to fight.
The Iranian regime appears to be in a somewhat similar position. Giving up 30 years of “Death to America!” or what all the world perceives to be a drive to an Iranian nuke would either imply or call forth fundamental political changes in Iran, most likely accompanied by violence and an eventual re-division of spoils. The hard-liners will prefer to fight and to defy as they have grown accustomed to doing, and not just because it preserves their access to power and Paradise: It’s who they are and an end in itself for them. The evolution of US-Iranian relations amounts to a continual testing of their relative influence within a maturing, post-revolutionary Iranian polity. But the larger point is that the struggle against them from the West, as against the Taliban or the Ba’ath (or Hamas or Hezbollah), is always already a struggle for political change, a struggle to establish governance that can function according to our concepts of the social contract rather than merely as a rallying point for tribal militarism.
That’s why Obama comes across like such a wimp. The tribalists on both sides will disdain his overtures and soothing tones, whether or not a few “human right activists” can be found, even in a 3rd World Revolutionary Islamist country, who also happen to speak Obamian. I don’t think it means that there’s no hope for progress, but, as they supposedly say in the Middle East, watch the hand, not the mouth. When and if Iran is ever ready to make a deal, the words that dress it up will come easily to both sides.
” If we invite Iran into a lengthy series of diplomatic exchanges, they’ll follow through on none of their promises, make a mockery of the process, use it as an opportunity to broadcast their insane propaganda, and stall long enough to make the bomb. ”
You have no reason to believe that – and absolutely no proof of it, unless you’re just worried that Iran will ape OUR history in that region: the USA – through our CIA, that meddled in Iranian internal affairs – and openly helped Iraq develope chemical weapons to use on Iran during the Iran/Iraq war. Not to mention, while we chastise Iran for persuing nukes – a charge they deny, we wink at Israel’s possesion of “secret” nuclear weapons. Since we’ve not entered into sincere diplomatic relations with iran since 1979 – and since we have a distinct military edge, i’d say let’s give diplomacy a chance. Don’t worry, we’re still killing Muslims in Pakistan and Afghanistan – ain’t that enough to keep you happy?
“but, as they supposedly say in the Middle East, watch the hand, not the mouth…”
How about them 20 dead “militants” in Pakistan last week – or is that wimpy as well? Iranians may be nuts – but they’re not stupid. Obama still has an army in iraq and one in Afghanistan – so why should they suppose that his overtures are anything but cover for the massive butt-kicking they’ll endure if they keep up with their race to a nuclear weapon?
The Contensionsistas want to hear “Bomb Bomb Iran” over & over in an endless Musak loop.
The Iranians know that Obama – just like Bush before him, just like Israel under whichever party or coalition – is restrained by a simple fact: A modern democratic capitalist state fights for its interests, which imply and are subject to a cost-benefit analysis that, much to the chagrin of warriors and religious ideologues, holds no value, no spot of land, no concept of honor, no past commitment, no political arrangement, and certainly no mere theory about the meaning of an Iranian bomb, as sacred. The revolutionary has the advantage of his weakness: He’s fighting for his own existence, and the setbacks he suffers tend to reinforce him – up to and in some cases even including his destruction. From our point of view he is both nuts and stupid. The day that he – or his country without reference to him – submits to what we consider a rational calculation of his interests is the day we’ve defeated him.
I’m also watching Obama’s hand, which is why I’m not ready to give up on him just because appalling and harmful things happen to fall out of his mouth from time to time.
“—whichever party or coalition – is restrained by a simple fact: A modern democratic capitalist state fights for its interests, which imply and are subject to a cost-benefit analysis”
I would love to see an objective cost-benefit analysis for the War on Terror. We’d have to keep the Neocons and the BDSers out of the loop to have a reliable assessment. I know what you’re going to say,”we haven’t been attacked since 9/11.” That overly simplistic judgement did justify WW4. I like to see an objective analysis of that also,no Neocons,BDSers are allowed to contribute.
“I know what you’re going to say”
You clearly don’t have the slightest idea what I, at least, would say.
#15
The you is 2nd person plural,I’m referring to the Collective Consvciousness of the Contensionsistas. That’s known as 3C in some circles.
Warpublican review #5:
In Bush’s speeches before the invasion of Iraq, he said plenty about the way Saddam was brutalizing his own people. Human rights were not the only justification for the invasion, but they played a major, explicit role.
No, Warpublican, I cannot prove to you that Ahmedinejad would just use a series of diplomatic meetings in the way I described. But I certainly do have abundant historical reason to believe it.
But don’t fall into the mistake of believing that just because Bush was not writing sweet letters to Ahmedinejad there was no “diplomacy” going on. Really, no one is disputing that there should be diplomacy. It’s a question of what that diplomacy should look like, and at what level it should take place. The Bush administration allowed much of its diplomacy to be carried out at lower levels and through European governments, because they knew that a tete-a-tete with the President of the United States is a PR coup for a guy like Ahmedinejad. It was a major boost to Ahmedinejad’s regime when Obama decided to write him a personal letter. Whether it will do us any good, we shall soon discover. Call me doubtful.
Wow, that’s a Logic’s lesson:
if Iran represses its dissidents, it’s because of America (not because it is an intolerant regime), whose
high moral standards of freedom and democracy are just an excuse to interfere in the internal affairs of sovereign nations.
If America waterboards terrorists, it is going against its high moral standards [values that are not respected by sovereign nations that torture innocent dissidents - i.e. homosexuals, opposition leaders, women's rights activists]
The solution? America lowers its high moral standards by not exerting pressure on intolerant regimes and letting them work in business-as-usual mode, which will then be more tolerant, since there’s no pressure…
sounds crazy? Yes, it is.
Warpublican writes: “You have no reason to believe that – and absolutely no proof of it, unless you’re just worried that Iran will ape OUR history in that region. . .”
NO reason to believe that??? We have six years worth of reasons to believe exactly that. For six years the Europeans have been jaw-jawing with Iran about getting off the A-bomb track, and every single report from the IAEA has come back with essentially this: “Iran appears not to be complying.” The “appears” is strictly CYA. THere is no evidence to suggest anything other than that they are intent on acquiring nuclear weapons and the means to deliver them.
Every time the Euros call for more talks, the Iranians are the soul of agreeableness. Sure! Let’s talk some more. Let’s talk all this month and all this year and all next year. WE love to talk. And after some time has elapsed, we learn that they do not appear to be doing anything at all – anything whatsoever – to dismantle or even slow down their program. If anything, they have accelerated it. If you can’t recognize that simple dynamic for what is, talk and delay and press on the while, I hope that Obama can.
Of course, what he recognizes and what he’ll do post-recognition are two entirely different matters.
PS, Warpublican the remark about our worrying that Iran will “ape” our behavior is a complete non sequitur with respect to the current discussion.
Warpublican:
You need to stop sniffing the glue while you’re working on your famous utopians scrapbook. It wouldn’t matter if Mary Tyler Moore was president, the Iranians have goals that don’t correspond to U.S. goals. The Shiite mullahs that have spread their bishts over the Peacock Throne want power over the secular West and the Sunni Muslims that have held them in bondage these many centuries as well as the removal of Israel from the planet. The U.S. wants their own version of free trade that enhances the American economic hegemony and a status of forces that keeps the U.S. as the most powerful military establishment on earth. Reconciling these two disparate objectives is an impossible chore for diplomacy. Regime change would make it easier. There’s been regime change in the U.S., the mullahs expect it to work in their favor. They will keep spinning the centrifuges, gathering up the materials for nuclear Armageddon, because there is no reason for them to stop. The U.N. sanctions don’t have enough teeth in them to keep the Iranians from building atomic weapons that they have promised to use against the West. Since the mullahs decide who the candidates for public office will be, there’s no immediate danger of regime change there. The most interested western parties will let those most in danger, the Israelis, take steps to neutralize the situation and then chastise them for protecting themselves.
Its interesting to see the discussion among neocons and Israel lovers on this site about a country they have never bothered to understand.
The world does not rotate around the United States or Israel. In fact, the world is a place where each country has the right, in fact the duty to do whats best for itself.
Iran has NEVER stated that it wants a nuclear weapon. Iran has been accused of wanting weapons. But those accusations are made by the very countries that have nuclear weapons and want to keep a monopoly on them. Its interesting to me that countries in the west are so scared of Iran.
As Chomsky said, they are not scared because Iran is a threat to them, on the contrary, they are scared because Iran represents a radical change in world order. If Iran goes nuclear, and uses nuclear energy to produce electricity, to further its own technological knowledge, then other countries who are currently surrogate states (Saudi, Jordan, Egypt, Pakistan…) will have a lot to answer to their people. The fact is that the People of the middle east hate american foreign policy, which is filled with hypocrisy and filled with one sided support of our 51st state.
But the truth is, and everyone here knows it, Iran will get its nuclear reactor up and running, it will eventually get 20% of its electricity and energy needs from nuclear power, and there is nothing that the United States will do about it. It’s not in the United States’ interest to enter another protracted war with a country 3 times the size of Iraq, and 100 times the popular backing of Iraq. Capitalism wants to make money, it does not want to enter into a war which would possible end US hegemony in the world.
Israel will not do anything as well. And if Iran chooses to obtain nuclear weapons one day. Well there are no rules written in stone where it states that Nuclear weapons should only be in the hands of the west, or that some countries are unfit to obtain that technology. On the contrary, each debate has two sides to it, and unfortunately, people on this site, and Neocons in general like to view the world through the prism of imperialism, where ameria is the shining beacon for the a dark scary world. The day will soon come, where that image will be shattered by world events.
*** Well there are no rules written in stone where it states that Nuclear weapons should only be in the hands of the west, or that some countries are unfit to obtain that technology. On the contrary, each debate has two sides to it, and unfortunately, people on this site, and Neocons in general like to view the world through the prism of imperialism, where ameria is the shining beacon for the a dark scary world. The day will soon come, where that image will be shattered by world events. ***
Maybe it is “viewing the world through the prism of imperialism” to be apprehensive about the possession of nuclear weapons by a state that enforces the stoning of adulteresses and homosexuals, considers Jews the sons of pigs and monkeys, and promises 77 virgins to those that die in jihad. Hard to get out of my mind, though.
Chuck
Maybe a state that has the highest incarseration rate in the world shouldn’t have nuclear weapons. maybe a state that has pre-emtively attacked other nations without cause should be disallowed nuclear weapons. Maybe a State, whose people believe that regular person was the son of god and who is sitting in some mythical place, as their savior, should not be allowed to have nuclear weapons.
Like I said, every argument has two sides. The jews hate arabs, so why allow them to have nukes. When you start making reasonable arguments not based on dogma and ideology, then respond to my post.
Sam,
has Iran EVER said Israel is a “rotten corpse” and that it wants to “wipe it out of the map”?
Just asking…