{"id":2662,"date":"2009-04-12T18:05:38","date_gmt":"2009-04-12T18:05:38","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/joshualandis.com\/blog\/?p=2662"},"modified":"2009-04-12T18:05:38","modified_gmt":"2009-04-12T18:05:38","slug":"news-round-up-12-april-2009","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/joshualandis.com\/blog\/news-round-up-12-april-2009\/","title":{"rendered":"News Round Up (12 April 2009)"},"content":{"rendered":"
\n
\"Easter<\/a>

Easter in Damascus - Parade from Bab Touma to Bab Sharqi by John Wreford<\/p><\/div>\n

\u201cSo much for Lebanon\u2019s so-called Cedar Revolution\u2026<\/a>\u201d by Qifa Nabki, who discusses Michael Young<\/p>\n

Edging in from the cold?<\/a>
\nApr 9, 2009 by Michael Petrou
\nMacleans.ca – Canada\u2019s only national weekly current affairs magazine.<\/p>\n

Edging in from the cold? George W. Bush never included Syria on his list of countries making up what he described as an \u201cAxis of Evil,\u201d but it was clear that he considered the regime of Bashar al-Assad a security threat that needed to be isolated and punished. In April 2002, shortly after his Axis speech and at a time when the United States still seemed willing and able to take down hostile regimes, Bush said the time had come \u201cfor Syria to decide which side of the war against terror it is on.\u201d He later accused Syria of sponsoring Palestinian terror groups, assassinating politicians in Lebanon, and doing little to prevent jihadists from crossing its border with Iraq to attack American troops there. Bush pulled the U.S. ambassador out of Syria in 2005. He imposed wide-ranging sanctions on the country. And in October 2008, as one of his last major acts while still in office, he approved a helicopter raid on a Syrian village near the Iraq border where a senior al-Qaeda operative was purportedly sheltering.<\/p>\n

Now, only three months into his presidency, Barack Obama has radically reversed his predecessor\u2019s policy of isolating Syria and is instead reaching out to Assad as part of a broader U.S. policy of engaging with America\u2019s enemies, including Iran. In March, the United States sent two senior envoys\u2014State Department official Jeffrey Feltman and Daniel Shapiro of the National Security Council\u2014to Syria for talks. Imad Moustapha, the Syrian ambassador to Washington, has been received at the State Department after being shunned for years. And a State Department spokesman said Syria can play \u201ca positive role in the region by trying to help bring peace and stability to the Middle East.\u201d<\/p>\n

Assad, for his part, says he would like to meet Obama and is open to resuming indirect peace talks with Israel, which were suspended during the war in Gaza. He\u2019s sat for a series of interviews with Western newspapers. A photo of one such interview, helpfully made available by the Syrian government press office, depicts Assad rocking back casually, a warm and delighted smile on his lips. The image is the Middle Eastern dictator\u2019s equivalent of a sweater vest, and the message is the same: trust me.<\/p>\n

Part of this apparent thaw between Washington and Damascus is driven by necessity. The peace talks Israel opened with Syria in 2007 made America\u2019s cold shoulder policy less tenable. But there\u2019s more to it than that. American policy-makers see Syria as a lever that just might readjust the balance of power in the Middle East by weakening Iran and undermining Israel\u2019s enemies. Syria is Iran\u2019s primary ally and gives Iran a foothold on Israel\u2019s doorstep through Hezbollah in Lebanon, and Hamas in Gaza. Peeling Syria away from Iran would help isolate Iran, a regime Israel considers a mortal threat, and would cut off support to militias with which Israel has fought three wars in the last three years.<\/p>\n

\u201cThe ultimate goal is to change Syria\u2019s behaviour on a variety of issues\u2014on its interference in Lebanese internal affairs, on its support for Palestinian terrorist groups that oppose the Palestinian Authority, on, most importantly, acting as a land bridge between Iran and Hezbollah, where Hezbollah gets all its arms,\u201d said Elliott Abrams, a senior fellow for Middle Eastern studies at the Council on Foreign Relations, in an interview with Maclean\u2019s. \u201cThose are the ultimate United States goals, and there is a view that this really requires a kind of strategic reorientation on the part of the Syrian regime, away from Iran and Hezbollah and toward the West.\u201d<\/p>\n

These were America\u2019s goals when Bush was president as well. In fact, as a deputy national security adviser to the former president, Abrams played an important roll in shaping this strategy. But at the time, Bush believed Syria could be muscled into co-operation, and he probably nursed a faint hope that the regime might be overthrown outright. Looking back at this policy today, Abrams says the United States succeeded in isolating Syria for a time, but accomplished little strategically. \u201cIn the narrowest sense, the efforts to isolate them succeeded,\u201d he says. \u201cIf you go more deeply than that and say, \u2018Well, that\u2019s fine, but what did that achieve? Did you get them through that policy to change their conduct?\u2019 Then the answer is no.\u201d<\/p>\n

According to Joshua Landis, co-director of the Center for Middle East studies at the University of Oklahoma, Obama is now engaging Syria because Bush\u2019s efforts to isolate and confront the regime failed. \u201cGeorge Bush had run his non-engagement policy into the ground,\u201d he says. \u201cNon-engagement wasn\u2019t working. We\u2019ve got to go back to realism.\u201d Landis cautions that while realism suggests the United States should talk to Syria, it\u2019s not realistic to expect Syria to turn away from Iran. Imad Moustapha, Syria\u2019s ambassador to Washington, has told him as much. Syria and Iran share too many interests\u2014in Lebanon, in Iraq, and regarding Kurdish minorities in both their countries.<\/p>\n

Similarly, Landis says, Syria won\u2019t sever ties with Hezbollah. The militia and political movement affords it substantial influence in Lebanon, a country Syria considers part of its sphere of influence (if not a de facto province), and one that it needs as a gateway to the wider world. The drive from Damascus to Beirut and the Mediterranean Sea is a short one through Lebanon. Without this outlet, the Syrian capital is snookered behind Lebanon\u2019s coastal strip.<\/p>\n

Magnus Norell, a specialist on Hezbollah and a visiting fellow at the Washington Institute, agrees that Syria is unlikely to be \u201cflipped,\u201d or made to turn against Hezbollah. Lebanon is simply too important to Damascus. He thinks the most that can be hoped for is that Syria reins in some of the more radical Palestinian organizations it arms and sponsors, including Hamas. Landis believes something similar is possible with Hezbollah. Syria won\u2019t cut its ties to the movement, but perhaps it will try to persuade Hezbollah that it is not in its best interests to go to war with Israel. These would be positive steps, but they hardly constitute a strategic realignment of the Middle East.<\/p>\n

Why, then, is President Obama investing energy and political capital reaching out to Syria? Why is Israel open to talking to Damascus, even as it fights wars with Syria\u2019s proxy militias? It is a measure of just how intractable many of the conflicts in the Middle East are that the one between Israel and Syria\u2014despite the problems outlined above\u2014arguably remains the easiest to solve. Peace between Israel and the Palestinians will require painstaking negotiations about borders, degrees of sovereignty, and refugees. Lebanon will not make peace with Israel until Syria does, and the situation is complicated by the fact that it is Hezbollah, not the Lebanese government, that controls Lebanon\u2019s border with Israel.<\/p>\n

The outlines of an agreement between Israel and Syria are comparatively more straightforward. They hinge on the Golan Heights, which Syria lost during the Six Day War of 1967. The fact that the current frontier between Israel and Syria is quiet leads many in Israel to think they could safely withdraw from the Golan without facing the rocket attacks that marked their withdrawals from both southern Lebanon and the Gaza Strip. Twice before, in 1996 and 2000, the two countries have come close to a deal.<\/p>\n

\u201cThere have always been and there are now people in the Israeli military who think this is something that is quite attractive to look at,\u201d says Elliott Abrams. \u201cBecause if there were a deal with Syria,…..<\/p>\n

The daily star<\/a>:<\/p>\n

They don’t want to face the prospect of having to deliver these to an ‘opposition’ controlled Parliament and government….. “David Hale said that most of the new arms, including 41 howitzers, 12 Zodiac boats, 12 Raven air vehicles, one Cessna and 10 M60s, would be delivered in May and April…..In addition, it reported that Hale said the US would not deal with Hizbullah regardless of the parliamentary poll results. …..Concern in Lebanon has grown following statements by US State Department officials that US assistance to Lebanon will be reevaluated after the June 7 elections, which will decide who runs the next government. But officials in Washington reaffirmed their commitment to boost the LAF…”<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

Syrian International Bank for Trade Jumps 15% in Damascus Debut<\/strong>
\n2009-04-06 By Nadim Issa<\/p>\n

April 6 (Bloomberg) — International Bank for Trade & Finance surged 15 percent as it traded for the first time on the Syrian bourse. United Group JSC and Arab Bank-Syria also gained.<\/p>\n

IBTF, a Damascus-based lender that is 49 percent owned by Jordan\u2019s Housing Bank for Trade & Finance, listed shares last week. They closed at 977.5 Syrian pounds ($20.75) today. The closing price will serve as the so-called reference price, Omar Ghraoui, chief operating officer at Bemo Saudi Fransi Finance, said today by phone from Damascus.<\/p>\n

The Damascus Securities Exchange, open twice a week, started trading shares March 10 and has since struggled to attract liquidity. Once a reference price is set shares can fluctuate as much as 2 percent per trading day. The fluctuation limit is impeding trading and the brokerages are hoping the bourse will change the regulation, Ghraoui said last month.<\/p>\n

\u201cThe same problem is occurring every trading session where we are seeing lots of buy orders but not enough sell orders,\u201d Ghraoui said.<\/p>\n

United Group added 1.9 percent to 214.5 pounds today, while Arab Bank-Syria rose 2 percent to 878 pounds. The remaining four listed companies on the bourse did not trade. The shares of Al-Ahliah Vegetable Oil Co. are expected to be listed \u201cvery shortly,\u201d Ghraoui said.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

Damascus Securities Exchange Posts Record Daily Trading Value<\/strong>
\n2009-04-09 11:51:08.618 GMT<\/p>\n

By Nadim Issa
\nApril 9 (Bloomberg) — The Damascus Securities Exchange traded a record 2.53 million Syrian pounds ($54,150) worth of shares today, the most since the bourse opened on March 10. More investors are opening accounts with brokers and trading was led by demand for Banque Bemo Saudi Fransi stock, said Sufian Haikal, operating manager at Cham Capital LLC, a Damascus-based brokerage company, by phone today. Seven stocks are listed on the exchange including Bank of Syria & Overseas, Bank Audi-Syria, International Bank for Trade & Finance, Arab Bank-Syria, United Group JSC, Al-Ahliah for Transport and Banque Bemo Saudi Fransi.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

Syriatel Mobile Telecom<\/a>: “For Syria there are ongoing negotiations…and we will have a presence (there) in the near future,” Barrak said. Kuwait’s Mobile Telecommunications Co. plans to spend up to $5 billion on new acquisitions by 2011.<\/p>\n

Syria\u2019s Mufti Outlaws Smoking, Water Pipes, Al-Hayat Reports<\/strong>
\n2009-04-06
\nBy Massoud A. Derhally<\/p>\n

April 6 (Bloomberg) — Syria\u2019s highest authority on Islamic law has banned cigarette and water-pipe smoking, Al-Hayat reported. Grand Mufti Ahmad Badr Eddin Hassoun also banned the purchase and sale of tobacco products and renting shops to retailers that sell tobacco, the Saudi-owned newspaper reported. Smokers in Syria spend $600 million a year on tobacco, or about 8 percent of their income each to purchase 3 kilograms (6.6 pounds) to 6 kilograms of cigarettes each, the newspaper reported, citing Syria\u2019s General Organization for Tobacco. As many as 15 percent of Syria\u2019s 23 million people smoke, Al-Hayat said, citing a study by the organization.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

Interview with Italian Foregn Minister Frattini<\/a>, “Everyone wants to talk with Bashar el Assad. <\/span><\/strong>ISRIA (Thanks to “friday-lunch-club”<\/a> <\/span>)<\/p>\n

“…Everyone wants to talk with Bashar el Assad. \u201cMrs. Clinton and Senator Kerry told me that when we met\u201d, Frattini confirmed. After France legitimised the Syrian Rais during last year\u2019s July 14th festivities, efforts to open up to Damascus have multiplied. Barak Obama\u2019s arrival in the White House has strengthened that strategy, extending it to include Iran, becoming a key interlocutor in the solution to the Afghan question; so much so that the State Department has expressed its desire to participate \u201ccompletely\u201d in all negotiations on Teheran\u2019s nuclear programme (Iran\u2019s perennial coldness is cause for concern, as witnessed yesterday with the inauguration of its first plant for the production of nuclear fuel in Isfahan). Does Syria deserve so much legitimacy? Frattini is cautious, but optimistic. \u201cThere are three elements that give us cause for hope\u201d, he explains, \u201cAssad\u2019s willingness to dialogue with Israel; his pressure on the Arab League to avoid ruptures with Israel; and the beginning of normalisation with Lebanon\u201d. Words, yes, statements, but \u201cbefore this there weren\u2019t even those\u201d. The most visible signs regard Lebanon: the announcement of a Syrian diplomatic mission in Beirut, \u201ceven though there is no ambassador yet\u201d, the minister specifies, and Assad\u2019s \u201cnew pragmatism\u201d. And yet the Lebanese are worried: Hezbollah has veto rights in the government and its power is increasingly solid \u2014especially its military power. \u201cSyria has to do more\u201d, Frattini admits, \u201cIt has clarify its borders with Lebanon and control weapons trafficking southward to the Israeli border\u201d, where our troops are engaged on the UNIFIL mission….”<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

Hezbollah’s political evolution<\/a>
\nMohanad Hage Ali
\nGuardian, Friday 10 April 2009<\/p>\n

The democratisation of the party and its engagement in public life should be an example to other militant Islamic groups<\/p>\n

Hezbollah \u2013 the party of God, in Arabic \u2013 was notorious throughout the 1980s for being an extremist militant organisation involved in a string of kidnappings targeting westerners in the 1980s. But since the early 1990s, the Lebanese Shia fundamentalist group has slowly engaged in the Lebanese post-civil war political process, while retaining its military wing, the Islamic Resistance, to fight Israel’s occupation of South Lebanon.<\/p>\n

Last Week, the party’s leader, Hassan Nasrallah, announced its candidates for June’s parliamentary elections. In his slate are three new candidates, including an academic, Ali Fayyad, a PhD holder who runs the party’s think tank, and Nawaf al-Musawi, a French-educated old guard who runs Hezbollah’s external relations.<\/p>\n

This “intellectual” slate, as one Lebanese columnist dubbed it, marked yet another change in Hezbollah’s political evolution from a secluded shadowy organisation into a larger party concerned with its public image……<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

SYRIA: List of top 100 businessmen signals another turning point – LA times
\n<\/a><\/p>\n

For the Arabic see all4syria.info<\/a><\/p>\n

……Gaining access to the financial records of Syria\u2019s most powerful men constitutes a major feat of investigative journalism.<\/p>\n

\u201c[The list] took nearly a year to compile,\u201d Al-Iqtisadi executive editor Hamoud Mahmoud told Syria-news.com. \u201cIt took a lot of research to get all the information, which is being published for the first time.\u201d<\/p>\n

The list includes short biographies of 100 businessmen from 39 families, along with indicators of their wealth, such as the number of companies in their name and the estimated value of their investments in Syria and abroad.<\/p>\n

Most of the individuals on the list made their fortunes in manufacturing, trade and car sales.<\/p>\n

\u201cThe magazine tried, via the Iqtisadi100, to give the major businessmen their rightful recognition and increase transparency in the business sector, which carries the Syrian economy towards a new economy,\u201d Mahmoud said.<\/p>\n

Still, there are holes.<\/p>\n

Mahmoud told Syria-news.com and confirmed to Babylon & Beyond that it was nearly impossible to get exact numbers on many wealth indicators because the Ministry of Finance refused to share information from their own list of the largest taxpayers in Syria based on an agreement between the businessmen and the ministry.<\/p>\n

\u201cSome of [the businessmen] did not even want to tell us how many people they employed, because they were not paying taxes on them,\u201d Mahmoud told Babylon & Beyond.<\/p>\n

Despite the difficulties he and his news team encountered, Mahmoud is optimistic about Syria\u2019s new direction. \u201cIn the last few years, they have amended the tax laws and issued new ones\u201d holding businessmen more accountable, he said.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

Israel is profiting from Egypt-Hezbollah quarrel <\/a>– Haaretz “friday-lunch-club”<\/a>)<\/p>\n

“…Nasrallah’s address once again highlights his willingness to gamble, to the point of direct conflict between his organization and the country until recently considered the leader of the Arab world. Nasrallah has been insulting Mubarak since the 2006 Second Lebanon War, when Hezbollah found out that Cairo was pressuring the Olmert government to continue its military attack on Hezbollah. The Egyptian response, for now, is somewhat hesitant, despite the firm steps it has taken on the ground. The most senior official to mention the affair as of last night has been a representative of the general prosecution in Cairo. So far, only anonymous officials have been quoted, warning that Mubarak would not allow Hezbollah to turn his country into a second Lebanon. Weekend editorials in the Egyptian press called Nasrallah an “Iranian agent.” In terms of practical steps, the past two days have seen reports of the uncovering of a rocket factory in Egyptian Rafah, the arrest of smugglers on the Israeli border and the capture of a man attempting to smuggle $2 million to Hamas in the Gaza Strip. …<\/p>\n

Israel, which can regard the events with some satisfaction, is keeping a low profile. Hezbollah’s penetration into Egypt, now facing a close race for Mubarak’s successor, leaves no doubt as to Iran’s intentions. This may result in increased security coordination between Israel and Egypt against arms smuggling into the Strip, and will apparently also dictate Cairo’s continued cool stance toward Gaza.”<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

Israel: the age of permanent war?<\/a> By Tom Ricks in FP
\n
\nIs the west thwarting Arab plans for reform?<\/a> (Thanks to Massoud Derhally)
\nBy David Gardner, Photomontage by Charlie Bibby
\nThe Financial Times – April 10 2009<\/p>\n

….The minute the Brothers began to develop an agenda independently from the Palace, however, King Hussein changed the rules, enacting new electoral laws to guarantee majorities in parliament of Bedouin loyalists and tribal grandees. As the peace Jordan signed with Israel in 1994 grew ever more unpopular, moreover, so the king rolled back his democratic reforms, limiting change to largely meaningless changes of government (he ran through 56 prime ministers in 46 years).<\/p>\n

This episode nonetheless remains important, and transcends Jordan. King Hussein\u2019s volte face meant an opportunity was lost to develop new forms of legitimacy \u2013 democratic legitimacy \u2013 by one of the few Arab leaders who had any reserves of this precious commodity left. Yet in the following two decades, there would be repeated attempts \u2013 from Khatami\u2019s Iran to post-Saddam Iraq, from Erdogan\u2019s Turkey to King Abdullah\u2019s Saudi Arabia \u2013 either to synthesise Islam and democracy or tilt towards forms of modernity the region\u2019s religious heritage could sustain.<\/p>\n

The Islam and modernity debate, which accompanied the collapse of the Ottoman empire after the first World War, has emerged again nearly a century later. But there is an important difference. Few Muslims now invest much hope in the democratic western powers (essentially the US, Britain and France) that back the rulers who oppress them, even if, against the odds, they still admire \u201cwestern\u201d values, science and culture. There is no endemic or intrinsic conflict between Christians and Muslims. Rather, the root of the problem is that a majority of Muslims is convinced that the west \u2013 interested only in a stability based on regional strongmen, the security of Israel and cheap oil \u2013 is engaged in a war against Islam and is bent on denying them the freedoms it claims for itself….<\/p>\n

Democracy, in this unpromising context, could open a long period of illiberal politics that may be inimical to stability. Yet the west\u2019s only realistic choice is to foster, or at least not actively obstruct, the right of Arabs to decide their own future, in whatever form they wish. That form will be heavily influenced by Islamism. Yet the west should be able to see the similarities between Islamism (or Islamic revivalism) and 19th-century nationalism in Europe. Both started as a sort of forced march into the future and then they detoured in sinister and destructive ways: fascism then and the jihadi cult of death now. Any sane policy would be devoted to preventing the evolution of a lethal form of radical Islam, in no small part by finding space for a thoughtful Islamism to emerge.<\/p>\n

That is no longer easy. The freedom agenda proclaimed by George W. Bush has been discredited. Yet the insight brought to the west so violently by al-Qaeda on September 11 2001 and subsequently \u2013 that tyranny breeds terrorism and instability, infantilises politics and holds back development \u2013 is no less valid. Not the least of the challenges facing Barack Obama is to rescue that insight before it is too late….. [this is an excellent article and should be read completely.<\/a>]<\/p>\n<\/div>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

\u201cSo much for Lebanon\u2019s so-called Cedar Revolution\u2026\u201d by Qifa Nabki, who discusses Michael Young Edging in from the cold? Apr 9, 2009 by Michael Petrou Macleans.ca – Canada\u2019s only national weekly current affairs magazine. Edging in from the cold? George W. 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Apr 9, 2009 by Michael Petrou Macleans.ca – Canada\u2019s only national weekly current affairs magazine. Edging in from the cold? George W. 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