[Peace-discuss] Just Foreign Policy News, November 22, 2006

[Robert Naiman]

Just Foreign Policy News
November 22, 2006

No War with Iran: Petition
More than 25,400 people have signed the Peace Action/Just Foreign
Policy petition. In the new Congress there will be a bipartisan effort
to push the Bush Administration towards direct negotiations with Iran
on all issues in dispute without preconditions. More signatures on the
Peace Action/Just Foreign Policy petition will contribute to this
effort. Please sign/circulate if you have yet to do so:
http://www.justforeignpolicy.org/involved/iranpetition.html

Out of Iraq: Petition
Res Publica - the "international cousin" of MoveOn.org - has gathered
60,000 signatures for its petition which it has published in the
Guardian and the Washington Post Express.
http://www.ceasefirecampaign.org/

Just Foreign Policy News daily podcast:
http://www.justforeignpolicy.org/podcasts/podcast_howto.html

Summary:
U.S./Top News
President Bush could choose military action over diplomacy and bomb
Iran's nuclear facilities next year, AFP reports. "I think he is going
to do it," said John Pike of Globalsecurity.org, suggesting Bush would
bomb Iranian nuclear facilities next summer. Seymour Hersh has said
that White House hawks led by Vice President Cheney were intent on
attacking Iran with or without the approval of the US Congress. Joseph
Cirincione of the Center for American Progress also believes the US
government could decide to attack Iran. "It is not realistic but it
does not mean we won't do it," he said. "If you look at what the
administration is doing, it seems that it is going to inevitably lead
us to a military conflict," he said, adding that no alternative
solution was being sought, including discussions with Iran on Iraq,
which could lead to talks on Iran's nuclear program and role in the
region.

The Pentagon is drafting its own new options for winning in Iraq, in
part, to give President Bush counterproposals in case the Iraq Study
Group comes up with ideas he does not like, the Washington Times
reports.

The US use of snipers is proving less successful in many areas of Iraq
than had been hoped, the New York Times reports. Many of the best
sniping positions are already well known to insurgents.

Some experts say the assassination of Pierre Gemayel in Lebanon shows
the weakness of the U.S. in the region, the Washington Post reports.
Gemayel was closely associated with the Bush Administration. U.N.
Ambassador Bolton seemed to suggest that Syria was behind the
assassination. Syria's U.N. ambassador denied his government had a
hand in the killing, saying Syria condemned the assassination as a
"horrible" crime.

The assassination attempt against the speaker of Iraq's parliament was
one of the most serious breaches of security yet within the Green
Zone, the New York Times reports.

Illinois Senator Barack Obama Monday excoriated the Bush
administration for its "misguided" war in Iraq and supported dialogue
with US adversaries in the region, the Chicago Tribune reports. He
said the U.S. should begin reducing troops in the next 4-6 months and
pressure Iraqis to work out agreements among warring factions. Obama
said Iraq should convene a regional conference including Syria and
Iran. His plan positions him among centrist Democrats in Congress
supporting a slow and careful withdrawal of troops, rather than a
quick exit or a build-up of military personnel, says the Tribune.

Just Foreign Policy board member Tom Hayden, writing in Huffington
Post, recounts diplomatic moves by the U.S. to negotiate with the
Iraqi insurgency that have been reported in Arabic news media.

Inside Higher Ed reports on the controversy around campaigns to
prevent universities from hiring faculty who criticize policies of the
Israeli government. The Middle East Studies Association has expanded
the work of its academic freedom committee - which had focused on
helping scholars in the Middle East - to engage in efforts on behalf
of colleagues in the US. Juan Cole, president of MESA, characterized
the groups' activities as "the privatization of McCarthyism" and said
that they represented the most serious threat today to academic
freedom in the US.

Turning conscripts into battle-ready troops would take a year or more
in the unlikely event the government revived the draft, USA Today
reports. Rep. Charles Rangel has said he will reintroduce a bill that
would reinstate the draft. Military leaders call a draft neither
necessary nor practical. Rangel doesn't expect Congress or Bush to
support reviving the draft, says a spokesman, but wants to spark a
discussion.

Iran
Denying Iran's request for assistance at Arak is a no-brainer, says
the New York Times in an editorial castigating some IAEA board members
for wanting to defer the decision rather than reject the request
outright. But the editorial calls for the Bush Administration to offer
Iran explicit security guarantees in exchange for giving up technology
that could support a nuclear weapons program.

Right-wing Israeli politician Avigdor Lieberman will be hosted by the
Conference of Presidents of Major American Jewish Organizations in new
his capacity as deputy prime minister in charge of strategic threats,
the Jewish Daily Forward reports.  Lieberman is known for his proposal
to transfer part of Israel's Arab population. But he is slated to
speak about Iran. The admirable spirit of dialogue expressed in the
article by Lieberman's liberal Jewish critics contrasts sharply with
the view of some groups towards the prospect of US dialogue with Iran,
or towards the notion that critics of US or Israeli government
policies should be able to freely express their views.

Iraq
Iraqi government officials acknowledge that their efforts have been
mostly a failure, the Los Angeles Times reports. Iraq's officials have
been unable to overcome mistrust of one another and improve security
or tackle major political and economic issues - from murderous cops to
sewage. Officials say Baghdad's authority has been undermined by the
ubiquity of U.S. troops and by militias, and the sectarian balance on
which the government was formed has made it impossible make big
decisions or ferret out corruption or incompetence.

The UN said Wednesday that 3,709 Iraqi civilians were killed in
October, the highest monthly toll since the March 2003. The UN tally
was more than three times higher than the total AP had tabulated for
the month.

British forces may hand over security responsibilities in Basra to
Iraqi forces by the spring, Foreign Secretary Margaret Beckett said
Wednesday. The leader of the Liberal Democrats criticized the
government for not saying if this would lead to a reduction of British
troops in Iraq, accusing the government of being "unduly subject to
American influence."

Lebanon
The White House is under pressure domestically and abroad to engage
with Syria and Iran to quell the violence in Iraq, notes the New York
Times. But suspicion that Syria is trying to destabilize Lebanon will
make it hard for the US to send a full ambassador back to Syria
without appearing to have abandoned the Lebanese government. Syrian
officials and their Lebanese allies said the only beneficiaries of
Gemayel's death were anti-Syria forces.

Ecuador
Mark Weisbrot of the Center for Economic and Policy Research says the
outcome of the presidential election in Ecuador won't adversely affect
Ecuador's economy, regardless of who wins. A CEPR report says the
economic crisis of the late 1990s is not likely to be repeated, since
the conditions that caused it are no longer present. Among other
changes, the country has adopted the dollar as its national currency,
which eliminates the currency risk and instability that played a
central role in the 1998-2000 economic collapse. The report notes that
the US has not followed through on threats to punish Nicaraguans for
re-electing Daniel Ortega.

Mexico
Mexican authorities have quietly released a report that describes how
three Mexican governments killed and tortured political opponents from
the late 1960s until 1982, reports the Washington Post. The new report
is posted on the web site of the National Security Archive.

Contents:
U.S./Top News
1) US Could Bomb Iran Nuclear Sites in 2007: Analysts
Agence France Presse, Wednesday, November 22, 2006
http://www.commondreams.org/headlines06/1122-07.htm
President Bush could choose military action over diplomacy and bomb
Iran's nuclear facilities next year, political analysts in Washington
agree. "I think he is going to do it," John Pike, director of
Globalsecurity.org, a military issues think tank, told AFP. "They are
going to bomb WMD facilities next summer," he added, referring to
nuclear facilities Iran says are for peaceful uses and Washington
insists are really intended to make nuclear bombs, or weapons of mass
destruction. "It would be a limited military action to destroy their
WMD capabilities" added the analyst, believing a US military invasion
of Iran is not on the table.

Journalist Seymour Hersh also said at the weekend that White House
hawks led by Vice President Dick Cheney were intent on attacking Iran
with or without the approval of the US Congress, both houses of which
switch from Republican to Democratic control in January after the
November 7 legislative elections. The New Yorker weekly published an
article by Hersh saying that one month before the elections, Cheney
held a meeting on Iran in which he said the military option would
never be discarded. The White House promptly issued a statement saying
the article was "riddled with inaccuracies."

Joseph Cirincione, Senior Vice President for National Security and
International Policy at the Center for American Progress, a
Democrat-friendly think tank, also believes the US government could
decide to attack Iran. "It is not realistic but it does not mean we
won't do it," he told AFP. "It is less likely after the elections but
it is still very possible."

"If you look at what the administration is doing, it seems that it is
going to inevitably lead us to a military conflict," he said, adding
that no alternative solution was being sought, including discussions
with Iran on Iraq, which could lead to talks on Iran's nuclear program
and role in the region. "Senior members of the (Bush) administration
remain seized with the idea that the regime in Iran must be removed,"
Cirincione said. "The nuclear program is one reason, but their deeper
agenda is this belief that American military power can be used to
fundamentally transform the regimes in the Middle East," he added.

With the resignation of Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld, hardliners
in the government have lost one of their leading advocates, and his
replacement, former CIA  chief Robert Gates, has in the past favored
direct talks with Iran, said the expert. "But they remain within the
administration at the highest level, the office of the vice president,
the national security council staff, perhaps the president himself,"
Cirincione added.

He also accused neoconservative circles of promoting the military
option against Tehran. In a Sunday op-ed piece in the Los Angeles
Times, Joshua Muarvchik, resident scholar at the neoconservative
American Enterprise Institute, called for getting tough with Iran. "We
must bomb Iran," he said. "The path of diplomacy and sanctions has led
nowhere ... Our options therefore are narrowed to two: we can prepare
to live with a nuclear-armed Iran, or we can use force to prevent it."

2) Pentagon Cites Alternative To Baker Report
Rowan Scarborough, Washington Times,November 22, 2006
http://www.washtimes.com/national/20061122-121959-6535r.htm
The Pentagon is drafting its own new options for winning in Iraq, in
part, to give President Bush counterproposals to fall back on in case
the Iraq Study Group comes up with ideas he does not like, defense
officials say. Meanwhile, study group co-chairman Lee Hamilton told
The Washington Times yesterday that he and co-chair James Baker have
nearly completed a first draft report. Hamilton said the two men hope
to complete it this weekend, give it to the eight other Iraq Study
Group members in time for a meeting next week to review it. The report
contains Hamilton's and Baker's assessment of the Iraq situation and
recommendations to Bush. The 10 members will then accept, reject or
modify the ideas, and Hamilton cautioned that the panel has no
deadline to produce a final report. "The whole thing could be
changed," Hamilton said.

Baker has said publicly he believes in talking to one's enemies, an
indication that the study group will recommend opening dialogues with
Syria and Iran, two U.S. adversaries that border Iraq and support the
insurgents. The Baker-Hamilton group will not be the only source of
new ideas on Iraq for the president in a war that an increasing number
of Americans say lacks progress. The Pentagon is also leading an
extensive review. The defense officials said they do not want the Iraq
Study Group's options to go unchallenged in case it proposes items
that Bush does not like, such as a timetable for removing troops.

3) Perfect Killing Method, But Clear Targets Are Few
C. J. Chivers, New York Times, November 22, 2006
http://www.nytimes.com/2006/11/22/world/middleeast/22sniper.html
More than three years after the insurgency erupted across much of
Iraq, sniping - one of the methods that the military thought would be
essential in its counterinsurgency operations - is proving less
successful in many areas of Iraq than had been hoped, Marine officers,
trainers and snipers say.

In theory, Western snipers are a nearly perfect method of killing
Iraq's insurgents and thwarting their attacks, all with little risk of
damaging property or endangering passers-by. But in practice, the
snipers say, they are seeing fewer clear targets than previously, and
are shooting fewer insurgents than expected.

In 2003, one Marine sniper killed 32 combatants in 12 days, the
snipers say, and many others had double-digit kill totals during tours
in Iraq. By this summer, sniper platoons with several teams had
typically been killing about a dozen insurgents in seven-month tours,
with totals per platoon ranging from 3 to as high as 26.

The gap between the expectations and the results has many causes, but
is in part a reflection of the insurgency's duration. With the war in
its fourth year, many of the best sniping positions are already well
known to the insurgents, and veteran insurgents have become more savvy
and harder to kill.

In some areas of Iraq, where the insurgents are less experienced or
still fight frontally, snipers have had better rates of success,
including the platoon with 26 kills. But many areas, the snipers say,
have become maddening places in which to hide and hunt.

"A lot of Marine battalions have rotated through these same areas for
six or seven months at a time," said Staff Sgt. Christopher Jones, the
platoon sergeant of the Scout Sniper Platoon in the Second Battalion,
Eighth Marines. "But the insurgents live here. They know almost all
the best places that have been used. Before we even get here, they
know where we are going to go."

Moreover, the insurgents have developed safeguards, using shepherds
and children to look for snipers in buildings and heavily overgrown
areas, and networks of informants to spread the word when a sniper
team has taken up a new position. "These days we're lucky if we can go
12 hours without getting compromised," he said.

4) Assassination Increases Tensions With Syria, Iran
Robin Wright, Washington Post, Wednesday, November 22, 2006; A01
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2006/11/21/AR2006112101022.html

President Bush blasted Syria and Iran yesterday after the
assassination of Christian cabinet minister Pierre Gemayel for trying
to destabilize Lebanon, reflecting tensions between Washington and its
two Middle Eastern rivals that are increasingly playing out in Lebanon
as well as Iraq.

While the president stopped short of blaming Syria for the killing, he
warned that the US remains "fully committed" to supporting Lebanon's
democracy despite attempts by Damascus, Tehran and their allies in
Lebanon "to foment instability and violence." During remarks to U.S.
troops in Hawaii, he also charged that the regime of Syrian President
Bashar al-Assad is in violation of two U.N. resolutions for its
ongoing meddling in Lebanon.
…
And having the US as an ally is no protection. "The assassination
highlights to what extent the US is in a position of weakness in the
region... It doesn't matter what statements the U.S. makes about coups
and assassinations, it still happens," Emile el-Hokayem, an expert on
Lebanon at the Henry L. Stimson Center said. Indeed, the bullets that
raked Gemayel's car also fired on U.S. policy, analysts say.

"The bullets were meant for an outspoken critic of Syria. The Cedar
Revolution is seen as an extension of American power, so the
assassination of Gemayel was by extension a way of striking the U.S.
as well," said Augustus Richard Norton, a former U.N. peacekeeper in
Lebanon and now a professor at Boston University. Added Lebanese
columnist Rami Khouri, currently on a speaking tour in the US: "This
is the new Cold War."

U.N. Ambassador Bolton said Gemayel's assassination brought new
attention to the danger that Syria and Iran are attempting, through
Lebanese allies such as Hezbollah, to conduct a coup d'etat against
the pro-Western government led by Prime Minister Fouad Siniora. Over
the past week, Hezbollah has threatened to hold large protests to
demand more cabinet seats for a bloc that also includes the followers
of Christian Michel Aoun.

In an interview with MSNBC, Bolton came the closest of any
administration official to blaming Damascus. "One pattern we discern
in these political assassinations of Lebanese leaders - journalists,
members of parliament - they are all anti-Syrian. So I suppose one can
draw conclusions from that," he said.

Bashar Jaafari, Syria's U.N. ambassador, denied that his government
had a hand in Gemayel's killing. "Syria has nothing to do with this,"
he said, adding that Damascus condemned the assassination as a
"horrible" crime.

5) Baghdad's Green Zone hit by car bomb
Edward Wong, New York Times, November 22, 2006
http://www.nytimes.com/2006/11/22/world/middleeast/22iraq.html
A bomb exploded in an armored car among those belonging to the speaker
of Parliament, wounding the American security guard who was driving it
out of a parking area in the government Green Zone and disrupting a
meeting of lawmakers nearby, a parliamentary aide said.

Though the speaker, Mahmoud al-Mashhadani, was not in the vehicle and
was unscathed, the assassination attempt was one of the most serious
breaches of security yet within the Green Zone, the heavily fortified
government district on the west bank of the Tigris River.

6) Obama urges gradual withdrawal from Iraq
Christi Parsons & David Mendell, Chicago Tribune, November 20, 2006,
8:28 PM CST http://www.chicagotribune.com/news/local/chi-061120obama-iraq,0,3495200.story
Amid intense speculation about whether he will run for president, Sen.
Barack Obama on Monday used the spotlight to showcase his strategy for
the war in Iraq, excoriating the Bush administration for its
"misguided" war and describing a solution that includes dialogue with
hostile nations in the region.

In his speech to the Chicago Council on Global Affairs, the Illinois
Democrat said the U.S. should end its "coddling" of the Iraqi
government by beginning a reduction of troops in the next four to six
months and pressuring Iraqis to work out agreements among their
warring factions. "Our troops can help suppress the violence, but they
cannot solve its root causes," Obama told members of the council. "And
all the troops in the world won't be able to force Shia, Sunni, and
Kurd to sit down at a table, resolve their differences, and forge a
lasting peace."

Offering a few new specifics, Obama said he thinks Iraq should convene
a regional conference that includes Syria and Iran, two countries with
which the U.S. does not currently have diplomatic relations. He also
said that, as the U.S. redistributes troops around the Middle East,
some of them should be deployed to Afghanistan and northern Iraq.

Substantively, Obama's talk to the council was not markedly different
from the one he gave there a year ago. He echoed many of the themes of
that speech - as well as from his highly publicized new book, "The
Audacity of Hope." Politically, the plan he embraced positions him
alongside many centrist Democrats in Congress who are calling for a
slow and careful withdrawal of troops, rather than a quick exit or a
build-up of military personnel in Iraq.

7) U.S. Retreat from Iraq? The Secret Story
Tom Hayden, Huffington Post, 11.21.2006
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/tom-hayden/us-retreat-from-iraq-t_b_34675.html
According to credible Iraqi sources in London and Amman, a secret
story of America's diplomatic exit strategy from Iraq is rapidly
unfolding. The key events include:

First, James Baker told one of Saddam Hussein's lawyers that Tariq
Aziz would be released from detention by the end of this year, in hope
that he will negotiate with the US on behalf of the Baath Party
leadership. The discussion recently took place in Amman, according to
the Iraqi paper al-Quds al-Arabi.

Second, Secretary of State Rice personally appealed to the Gulf
Cooperation Council in October to serve as intermediaries between the
US and armed Sunni resistance groups [not including al Qaeda],
communicating a US willingness to negotiate with them at any time or
place. Speaking in early October, Rice joked that if then-Secretary of
Defense Rumsfeld "heard me now, he would wage a war on me fiercer and
hotter than he waged on Iraq," according to an Arab diplomat.

Third, there was an "unprecedented" secret meeting of high-level
Americans and representatives of "a primary component of the Iraqi
resistance" two weeks ago, lasting for three days. As a result, the
Iraqis agreed to return to the talks in the next two weeks with a
response for the American side, according to Jordanian press leaks and
al-Quds al-Arabi.

Fourth, detailed email transmissions dated November 16 reveal an
active American effort behind the scenes to broker a peace agreement
with Iraqi resistance leaders, a plot that could include a political
coup against Prime Minister Nuri al-Maliki.

Fifth, Bush security adviser Stephen Hadley carried a six-point
message for Iraqi officials on his recent trip to Baghdad: include
Iraqi resistance and opposition leaders in any initiative towards
national reconciliation;general amnesty for the armed resistance
fighters; dissolve the Iraqi commission charged with banning the Baath
Party; start the disbanding of militias and death squads; cancel any
federalism proposal to divide Iraq into three regions, and combine
central authority for the central government with greater self-rule
for local governors; distribute oil revenues in a fair manner to all
Iraqis, including the Sunnis whose regions lack the resource.

Prime Minister Al-Maliki was unable to accept the American proposals
because of his institutional allegiance to Shiite parties who believe
their historic moment has arrived after one thousand years of Sunni
domination. That Shiite refusal has accelerated secret American
efforts to pressure, re-organize, or remove the elected al-Maliki
regime from power.

8) Input or Intrusion?
Inside Higher Ed, November 21, 2006
http://www.insidehighered.com/news/2006/11/21/disputes
Hiring and tenure decisions are typically decided (and appropriately
decided, most in academe would say) by academics. A series of lobbying
campaigns by pro-Israel groups, however, have some scholars worried
that those who criticize Israel are being subjected to political tests
and having their jobs endangered.

At Barnard College, Nadia Abu El-Haj, an anthropologist who is coming
up for tenure, is under attack by some alumnae and pro-Israel groups
for a book, published by the University of Chicago Press, that was
critical of Israeli archaeology and its use in the context of the
Israeli-Palestinian conflict. At Wayne State University, similar
groups are pushing the university not to hire Wadie Said for a faculty
position in the law school. In that case, critics of Said are
attacking him and his late father, the literary theorist Edward Said,
saying that both Saids' activism on behalf of the Palestinian cause
has amounted to support for violent groups.

These debates follow the cancellation last month of a lecture by Tony
Judt, a professor at New York University, at the Polish consulate in
New York City, amid charges that the Anti-Defamation League had
encouraged Polish officials to call off the talk. And in June, Yale
University turned down Juan Cole, a University of Michigan professor
who is a leading figure in Middle Eastern studies, for a position -
after a lengthy period in which critics of Cole argued that he was not
a suitable choice for the position, in part because of his criticism
of Israel. And Princeton University has faced criticism over a
possible hire as well.

This weekend, the Middle East Studies Association, of which Cole is
the president, voted to expand the work of its academic freedom
committee - which has focused on helping scholars in the Middle East -
to engage in efforts on behalf of colleagues in the US.

"The subtext of these controversies is whether it is going to be
allowed for Palestinians to hold positions in academe in the US. Is it
going to be allowed for people who are not Zionists to hold positions?
Is there a Zionist litmus test in the US?" said Cole in an interview
Monday. He characterized the pro-Israel groups' activities as "the
privatization of McCarthyism" and said that they represented the most
serious threat today to academic freedom in the US.

9) Draft Viewed As Impractical, Unnecessary
Matt Kelley, USA Today, 11/22/2006 4:05 AM ET
http://www.usatoday.com/news/washington/2006-11-21-military-draft_x.htm
Turning conscripts into battle-ready troops would take a year or more
in the unlikely event the government revived the draft, military
experts say. Rep. Charles Rangel said this week that he will
reintroduce a bill he sponsored in 2003 that would reinstate the
military draft. Defense Secretary Rumsfeld and other military leaders,
however, oppose the plan and call a draft neither necessary nor
practical. House Speaker-elect Nancy Pelosi said Monday she opposes
the plan.

Rangel doesn't expect Congress or President Bush to support reviving
the draft, says Emile Milne, the congressman's spokesman. Instead,
Rangel wants to spark a "discussion among the people who represent the
American people here in Congress."

If the draft resumed, draftees wouldn't join the military for at least
six months. The nation's dormant draft law gives the Selective Service
System 193 days to deliver the first inductees following the revival
of conscription. Fully training those troops would take months more.
The Army starts with a nine-week basic training course that's followed
by individual training that lasts another month for the infantry, two
months for tank crews or three months for military police.

Iran
10) Iran and Arak
Editorial, New York Times, November 22, 2006
http://www.nytimes.com/2006/11/22/opinion/22wed3.html
Denying the request should be a no-brainer - especially at a time when
Iran is defying a Security Council order that it stop enriching
uranium, usable for nuclear reactor fuel or potentially a nuclear
bomb. But Tehran is adept at whipping up the suspicions of the board's
nuclear have-nots, who jealously guard their right to all civilian
nuclear technology, no matter the potential dangers.

The board needs to soundly reject Iran's request. Anything less - some
members of the notoriously conflict-averse board are calling for
deferring the decision - will only confirm Tehran's belief that the
international community is not serious about containing its nuclear
ambitions.

Even more worrisome, the Security Council still cannot agree on how to
punish Iran for continuing to enrich uranium - nearly three months
past a Council-ordered cutoff.

Moscow and Beijing, which have been protecting Tehran at the Council,
need to focus less on Iran's oil wealth and more on the dangers of a
nuclear-armed Iran. The Bush administration, which has agreed to talk
with Iran if it suspends enrichment, needs to go further, offering
Tehran explicit security guarantees in exchange for giving up
technology that could feed a nuclear weapons program.

11) U.S. Groups To Host Rightist Minister With Anti-Arab Plan
Marc Perelman, Jewish Daily Forward, Fri. Nov 24, 2006
http://www.forward.com/articles/us-groups-to-host-rightist-minister-with-anti-arab/
In a further indication of his acceptance into the political
mainstream, controversial right-wing Israeli politician and newly
minted government minister Avigdor Lieberman will be hosted next month
in New York by the most influential umbrella organization of American
Jewish groups.

The leader of the secular nationalist Yisrael Beitenu party, Lieberman
is best known for his proposal to transfer part of Israel's Arab
population by turning over territory within the 1967 border to the
Palestinians. But he is slated to speak about Iran on December 12,
when he addresses the Conference of Presidents of Major American
Jewish Organizations in his capacity as deputy prime minister in
charge of strategic threats.

In recent years, leading liberals, as well as some prominent
centrists, have claimed that the Presidents Conference was tilting
toward the right. Yet the decision to host Lieberman, a pariah among
Israeli doves, has not drawn any public objections from members of the
conference. Lieberman is also scheduled to appear in front of the
hawkish Middle East Forum, a think tank run by conservative scholar
Daniel Pipes.

Rabbi Eric Yoffie, the outspoken liberal voice who is president of the
Union for Reform Judaism, said that it was a "good idea" for the
Presidents Conference to offer Lieberman the opportunity to explain
his views and hear the voices of the American Jewish community. "I
would never object to the conference bringing an Israeli government
minister," Yoffie told the Forward. "This is part of their job as long
as the policy is applied to the full range of the political spectrum."

Yoffie, who met Lieberman in Israel before he became a minister, said
next month's meeting would be helpful, since it would expose Lieberman
to the same diverging opinions he faces in Israel. According to
Yoffie, the invitation does not represent an endorsement or the
granting of legitimacy to Lieberman and his views. "We wouldn't want
to give him the impression that we deem his extremist views as
acceptable to the conference, to American Jews and to the American
government," Yoffie said.

Iraq
12) Iraq's Government Hampered By Suspicions
Elected officials acknowledge that they haven't accomplished much.
Borzou Daragahi, Los Angeles Times, November 22, 2006
http://www.latimes.com/news/nationworld/world/la-fg-iraqgovt22nov22,1,5528371.story
When the Ministry of Municipalities and Public Works dispatched crews
to the Amil neighborhood last month to repair a sewer line that had
been spewing raw human waste into the street for weeks, residents were
encouraged. But instead of repairing the pipe, the workers wound up
rupturing the freshwater line. They left the entire mess for someone
else.

Iraqis elected their leaders in December, hoping that a government by
the people would do something for the people. Eleven months later,
officials acknowledge that their efforts have been mostly a failure.
And, as with the busted sewer line of Amil, government involvement
often creates a bigger problem than it solves. Despite U.S. pressure
for results, Iraq's elected officials have been unable to overcome
their mistrust of one another and improve security or tackle the major
political and economic issues - from murderous cops to the sewage woes
of Amil.

Fed up with ministers he says were foisted on him by political
factions, Prime Minister Nouri Maliki has promised a Cabinet
reshuffle. He is scheduled to convene the body this week to address
the deepening political divisions and a threatened walkout by the
Sunni Arab bloc. But his resolve may not be enough to overcome the
government's inherent frailties and limitations.

Officials say Baghdad's authority has been undermined by the ubiquity
of U.S. troops and by militias, neither of which answers to the
government. But above all, the sectarian balance on which the
government was formed has made it impossible make big decisions or
ferret out corruption or incompetence. "If Maliki discovered that one
of his ministers in one of the political parties was involved in
corruption or brutality, he could not fire him, because [the minister
is] backed up by another political party," said Salim Abdullah
Jabouri, a spokesman for Iraq's main Sunni party, which is part of the
ruling coalition.

The government even backtracked on its controversial decision to issue
an arrest warrant for the country's leading Sunni cleric, Harith
Dhari, amid threats that the Sunni coalition would pull out of the
government. Some blame U.S. policy, saying it puts too much faith on
consensus and balance as a panacea for Iraq's ills.

13) Iraqi Civilian Deaths Reach New High, U.N. Says
Associated Press, November 22, 2006, Filed at 11:06 a.m. ET
http://www.nytimes.com/aponline/world/AP-Iraq.html
The UN said Wednesday that 3,709 Iraqi civilians were killed in
October, the highest monthly toll since the March 2003 U.S. invasion
and another sign of the severity of Iraq's sectarian bloodbath. The
U.N. tally was more than three times higher than the total AP had
tabulated for the month, and far more than the 2,866 U.S. service
members who have died during all of the war.

The report on civilian casualties, handed out at a U.N. news
conference in Baghdad, said the influence of militias was growing, and
torture continued to be rampant, despite the government's vow to
address human rights abuses. "Hundreds of bodies continued to appear
in different areas of Baghdad handcuffed, blindfolded and bearing
signs of torture and execution-style killing," the U.N. Assistance
Mission for Iraq report said. "Many witnesses reported that
perpetrators wear militia attire and even police or army uniforms."

The report painted a grim picture across the board, from attacks on
journalists, judges and lawyers and the worsening situation of women
to displacement, violence against religious minorities and the
targeting of schools. Based on figures from the Iraqi Health Ministry,
the country's hospitals and the Medico-Legal Institute in Baghdad, the
report said October's figure was higher than July's previously
unprecedented civilian death toll of 3,590.

14) Britain May Hand Over Basra in Spring
Robert Barr, Associated Press, Wednesday, November 22, 2006; 9:43 AM
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2006/11/22/AR2006112200525.html
British forces may hand over security responsibilities in Basra to
Iraqi forces by the spring, Foreign Secretary Margaret Beckett said
Wednesday. It was the first time that a government minister had set
even a vague target for handing over security in Basra, but officials
stressed that this was a hope, not a timetable. "We expect Najaf to be
the next province to be transferred to Iraqi control in December,"
Beckett told lawmakers.

"In our own area of responsibility, we expect Maysan to follow in
January," she said. "The progress of our current operation in Basra
gives us confidence that we may be able to achieve transition in that
province too at some point next spring." Last month, Defense Secretary
Browne said Britain was "quite far down the process" of transferring
responsibility to the Iraqis.

The Ministry of Defense said the timing of a handover in Basra
depended on conditions on the ground. "We are saying we hope to be in
a position in spring to be able to transition," a ministry spokesman
said. "But it is too early to say whether it is going to happen or
what the effect would be on troop numbers."

British officials recently have spoken of cutting troop levels in Iraq
from the current 7,000 to between 3,000 and 4,000 by mid-2007, but no
firm date for withdrawal has been set. "Beckett's comments are notable
as much for what she doesn't say as for what she does," said Sir
Menzies Campbell, leader of the Liberal Democrats. "There is no
indication that if control of Basra were to be handed over next spring
the deployment of British troops would be reduced. "The government's
position remains of having neither a strategy for staying or for
going. We are still unduly subject to American influence," Campbell
said.

Lebanon
15) Thousands Mourn Slain Minister in Lebanon
Michael Slackman, New York Times, November 22, 2006
http://www.nytimes.com/2006/11/22/world/middleeast/23lebanoncnd.html
The killing also is likely to complicate any American effort to enlist
Syria's help to stabilize Iraq. The US withdrew its ambassador from
Damascus after Hariri was assassinated nearly two years ago and
suspicion fell heavily on Syria. Now the White House is under pressure
domestically and abroad to engage with Syria and Iran to quell the
violence in Iraq.

But the suspicion that Syria is behind the efforts to destabilize
Lebanon will make it nearly impossible for Washington to send a full
ambassador back to Damascus without appearing to have abandoned the
Siniora government.

At the same time, any allegation of Syria's involvement is likely to
antagonize Syrian officials - and make them even more reluctant to
back off of a military, political and economic alliance with Iran.
…
In recent days, Syria has found its strategic stature in the Middle
East bolstered by the surge of violence in Iraq, and the suggestion
that Washington might soon ask for its help. While it has denied any
role in any of the Lebanon violence, it has not denied its desire to
reinsert itself as the primary force in Lebanon. "This is a crime
against Lebanon, all of Lebanon," Hassan Khalil, a pro-Syria member of
Parliament and member of the Shiite Amal party, said in a television
interview on Tuesday. "This is a crime that we condemn."

In the complex and shadowy world of Lebanon's long-warring factions,
conspiracy theories can cut both ways. Syrian officials and their
Lebanese allies said the only beneficiaries of Gemayel's death were
anti-Syria forces. They also argued that the newly inflamed
environment would make it impossible for Hezbollah to follow through
anytime soon with its promised protests.

Ecuador
16) Ecuador's Presidential Election: Background on Economic Issues
Mark Weisbrot, Luis Sandoval, & Belén Cadena, Center for Economic &
Policy Research, November 21, 2006
http://www.cepr.net/index.php?option=com_content&task=view&id=568&Itemid=77
"The 'fear factor' has been a key strategy of the right in Latin
American elections this year," said Mark Weisbrot, CEPR Co-Director
and the lead author of the report. "But there is no reason to think
that the outcome of this election would adversely affect Ecuador's
economy, regardless of who wins."

The report notes that the severe economic crisis of the late 1990s is
not likely to be repeated, since the conditions that caused it are no
longer present. Among other changes, the country has adopted the
dollar as its national currency, which eliminates the currency risk
and instability that played a central role in the 1998-2000 economic
collapse.

Mexico
17) Details of Mexico's Dirty Wars From 1960s to 1980s Released
Murders, Torture of Dissidents Chillingly Documented in Report
Juan Forero, Washington Post, Wednesday, November 22, 2006; A15
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2006/11/21/AR2006112101740.html
Mexican authorities have quietly released an 859-page report that
describes how three Mexican governments killed, tortured and
disappeared dissidents and political opponents from the late 1960s
until 1982.

The release of the "Historical Report to the Mexican Society" marks
the first time that Mexico has officially accepted responsibility for
waging a dirty war against leftist guerrillas, university students and
activists. It includes declassified government records, photographs
and details about individuals who were killed under the rule of the
Institutional Revolutionary Party, or PRI, the authoritarian party
that ruled the country for 71 years before being ousted in 2000. [The
National Security Archive has published the report online:
http://www.gwu.edu/~nsarchiv/NSAEBB/NSAEBB209/index.htm]

-
Robert Naiman
Just Foreign Policy
www.justforeignpolicy.org

Just Foreign Policy is a membership organization devoted to reforming
U.S. foreign policy so it reflects the values and interests of the
majority of Americans.