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BBC chief quits over abuse row
2012-11-12
[Bangla Daily Star] BBC director general George Entwistle has resigned over airing of mistaken allegations of child sex abuse against a former leading politician.

The resignation came on Saturday, just two months after he got the job.

Meanwhile,
...back at the pool hall, Peoria Slim had found another sucker...
BBC's governing board chief Chris Patten yesterday called for a radical overhaul of the world's largest broadcaster.

Patten, also a prominent political figure, said accepting Entwistle's resignation had made for one of the saddest nights of his public life.

He said the crisis had revealed a need for a "thorough, structural, radical overhaul" of the organization, although he said he would not be quitting.

Entwistle's departure leaves the state-funded broadcaster in chaos as it struggles to restore trust in its journalism and battles the scandal surrounding Jimmy Savile, the late BBC television star now alleged to have been a prolific child sex offender.

The organization issued a full apology on Friday, but early on Saturday Entwistle had to admit under questioning from his own journalists that he had not known in advance about the Newsnight report, weeks after being accused of being too hands-off over a previous scandal involving the same programme.

He resigned saying the unacceptable standards of the Newsnight film had damaged the public's confidence in the 90-year-old BBC.

"As the director general of the BBC, I am ultimately responsible for all content as the editor-in-chief, and I have therefore decided that the honourable thing for me to do is to step down," he said.
Link


India-Pakistan
Success in Afghanistan requires democracy in Pakistan
2006-05-10
WSJ Op/Ed by Euro Chris Patten EFL

Four and a half years after the fall of the Taliban, Afghanistan is still highly unstable. Yet while the international community has done an enormous amount to help the country recover from its failed-state condition, it has resisted tackling the problem at its very root -- Islamabad. Truth is, Afghanistan will never be stable unless Pakistan's military government is replaced with a democracy.

Pakistan's primary export to Afghanistan today is instability. On the most basic level, attacks in Afghanistan, including suicide bombings, are often planned and prepared at Taliban training camps across the border. Islamabad claims to be doing all it can to stop this infiltration. But President Pervez Musharraf's protests ring hollow when he has done so little to address the concerns raised by his Afghan counterpart Hamid Karzai, that Taliban leaders are operating out of sanctuaries in Pakistan.

One needs only to look at the military's close relations with religious radicals to understand how unreliable a partner it is in stabilizing Afghanistan. Militant Islamist groups that Mr. Musharraf banned under the international spotlight following 9/11 and the 7/7 London bombings still operate freely. Jihadi organizations have been allowed to dominate relief efforts in the aftermath of the October 2005 earthquake. The military has repeatedly rigged elections, including the 2002 polls, to benefit the religious parties over their moderate, democratic alternatives.

In short, Pakistan is ruled by a military dictatorship in cahoots with violent Islamist extremists. The military has no interest in democracy at home, so why does the outside world expect it to help build democracy next door?

That civilian government, when it comes, will also be moderate in character and far more inclined to tackle, in earnest, the scourge of Islamic radicalism. Even in the rigged 2002 election, the religious parties polled only 11% of the vote. A fully free and fair race will squeeze out radical forces that have thrived under military rule and which play havoc with Pakistan's weak neighbor to the northwest. In addition, unlike the military, which always thrives in a hostile environment, a civilian government will have a stronger interest in peace with India. And who wouldn't sleep safer knowing that Pakistan's nuclear bomb was in democratic hands?

Democratic governance would also bring a much-needed opportunity to overhaul the country's education system. As the state system has consistently failed young people for decades, madrassas have taken up the slack, with the most extreme religious schools helping to radicalize tens of thousands of Pakistanis -- and Afghans -- filling heads with intolerant visions of Islam, far from the mainstream of South Asian Muslim society. The country needs a properly funded, state-run, secular education system.

Bringing all this about is an enormous task, but demilitarizing and deradicalizing Pakistan is truly the key to bringing about stability in Afghanistan and the wider region. Governments now working so hard to support Afghanistan will only be spinning their wheels until they make Pakistan a top priority and apply maximum pressure on Islamabad to ensure the 2007 elections are actually free and fair, by applying clearly defined benchmarks and insisting on competent international observers. As long as the military and the madrassas rule just across the border, Afghanistan will never find peace.
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Europe
Defeating Defeatism - The End of the Phony War (Wolfgang Bruno)
2006-03-07
Opinion piece by an european collaborator of Faith Freedom who has interesting texts on his blog.
I have stated before that we in the West need to face down our internal enemies, the twin trolls of Denial and Defeatism, before we can have any chance of dealing with Islam. Yes, the Islamic threat is very real and could lead to a cataclysmic world war unless stopped. No, it’s not too late to win this. Not yet. Writer Mark Steyn does a good job at devouring the former troll, but insists on feeding the latter. As Lawrence Auster demonstrates, Steyn continues to claim that we have in fact already lost, and must settle for "a Muslim majority world.” He talks as if he is the Churchill of our age, yet displays a resigned defeatism that would have made even Neville Chamberlain blush. Contrary to the views expressed by many, the madness of the Muhammad cartoons issue can in hindsight turn out to have been a blessing in disguise. Eurabia’s legions of spin doctors were quite successful in placing the blame for 9/11, the Madrid and the London bombings on US and Israeli foreign policies. These attacks may actually have strengthened Eurabia. Not so this time. The first cracks in this wall came with the murder of Theo van Gogh. With the Danish cartoon case, these cracks have now grown into a chasm.

The Phony War was a phase in early WW2 marked by few military operations in Continental Europe, in the months following the German invasion of Poland. What we have witnessed during these past few months is the end of the Phony War against Islamic Jihad. The election of hard-line president Ahmadinejad in Iran and of Hamas in the Palestinian Territories, the Muslim riots in France and the international unrest triggered by the Muhammad cartoons case mark a watershed in this battle. After having carefully, and one must admit skilfully, built up the mythology of Islamic tolerance for decades, Muslims now blew their own cover. This is end of taqiyya, and from the Muslim point of view, it probably came too soon. It is indeed possible for Muslims to win this, but it would have made more sense for them to lay low for another couple of decades, and quietly continue the demographic Jihad through migration conquest. Of course, being Muslims, they have to boast and brag all the time, and haven’t got the patience to wait that long. This critical character flaw, more than infidel strength, is why they will most likely lose. Just like the Japanese during WW2, who hailed the attack on Pearl Harbor as a great victory, the sheer arrogance of their creed blinds them from realizing when they make huge mistakes that could eventually cost them victory. There is now a critical mass of Europeans who see clearly that Islam and Muslim immigration constitute a mortal danger to their freedom and their civilization. They feel confused and scared, but first of all angry. If this is the true face of Islam, doesn’t that mean that our academic elites, our media and our political leaders have lied to us systematically for decades? Muslims misunderstand the mentality and potential response from the infidels because they see mainly the appeasement of the political class. What they don’t see is the simmering defiance that is growing at the grassroots level.

What we need now is not another column by Mark Steyn telling us that all I lost and we might as well surrender pre-emptively. What we need now is anger. Anger gives you energy, instead of the resigned passivity bred by defeatism. However, we should be careful not direct this anger towards that favorite Eurabian boogeyman, the USA and Israel, nor should we resort to the time-tested European tradition of targeting random “foreigners.” It wasn’t the Americans or the Israelis who brought us into this mess, and it certainly wasn’t the Indian dentist or the Chinese shopkeeper down the corner. It was in fact our very own EU elites.

Americans tend to consider the EU as a joke. It’s not, because it’s not funny. Apart from a few vague statements, the EU has largely abandoned Denmark during the cartoon incident. “European unity” only exists whenever Brussels wants to subvert the democratic process in individual member states and force more Islam down our throats, selling us out behind our backs through the intricate networks of the Euro-Arab Dialogue. The Danish embassies had hardly burnt down before Javier Solana, the “Foreign Minister” of the European Union, promised his real masters the Saudis that the EU would henceforth work to limit freedom of speech for half a billion people. And he can’t be held responsible for this by the European public, since he doesn’t answer to any democratically elected government. The EU is not a joke, the EU is evil, destroying freedom across an entire continent and spreading instability far beyond the borders of Europe. The Cold War was won when Ronal Reagan publicly labelled the Soviet Union “the Evil Empire.” A generation later, we are witnessing the rise of another Evil Empire. Not the Soviet Union, but the European Union. It’s time to bring this one down, too. The European Union, not the USA and definitely not Israel, is the greatest threat to world peace today. It is appeasement by the EU that has emboldened the Islamic Jihad, and not just in the West. The EU is an increasingly totalitarian entity that is post-democratic and neo-feudalist. The buildings of the European Commission should be turned into a museum of the history of dhimmitude and Jihad across the world. Parts of it could be torn down and displayed next to pieces of the Berlin Wall, symbols of past tyranny and oppression and the ultimate triumph of freedom. Javier Solana, Chris Patten and their ilk should be tried for treason in public trials to reveal the full scale of the Eurabian project.

There is a growing estrangement between the peoples of Europe and their elites. People sense that they are not being told the truth, and feel betrayed. Somebody needs to show them just how deep the rabbit hole goes. Publish Bat Ye’or’s book “Eurabia” online, both in the full version and in abridged versions of 50 and 5 pages. Pay the author whatever she wants for the copyrights, and encourage the translation of the book into multiple European languages. Store it online on websites such as Faith Freedom International and Jihad Watch, as well as major blogs based outside of Eurabian jurisdiction, and encourage visitors to download the text or display it on their own websites. This principle could be repeated with a number of books critical of Islam, creating a flood of information bypassing politically correct media and official censorship. Such an operation could receive clandestine support of the Bush administration. It would cost a fraction of the war in Iraq, and achieve a lot more, both in the West and in the world in general.

Perhaps in stead of pinning our hopes on an Islamic Reformation that will probably never materialize, Westerners should rather focus on an Enlightenment and a new Renaissance. Not in the Islamic world, but in Europe and the West. Wishful thinking, you say? Well, although the situation is now very serious, it is in fact not impossible to imagine such an outcome. Moreover, it is important that somebody formulates an alternative, positive vision to rival that of Islam and Eurabia, or the only alternatives ordinary Europeans will be stuck with are extremist political movements. And then we will end up with a Clash of Fascisms and the death of European democracy. Hope is important. Without formulating a positive vision of hope we can never win this.

Muslims always claim that the West owes much to Islam, and that Islamic influences triggered the Renaissance. That’s not true. But maybe it will be this time. It is true that the West in general and Europe in particular has lost its way at the beginning of the 21st century. Perhaps this life-and-death struggle with Islam is precisely the slap in the face that we need to regroup and revitalize our civilization. Europe will now be forced to rethink her culture and the entire basis of Western civilization, if she is going to cure the weaknesses that are currently making her vulnerable to Islamic infiltration. We need to rebuild a stronger sense of Western unity, much fractured by the Eurabian Union and the anti-Western, pre-Enlightenment ideology of Multiculturalism. If so, Islam would indeed be responsible for triggering a Western Renaissance, the Second Renaissance. Ironically, Islam itself would be critically, perhaps mortally wounded by this struggle, and Bernard Lewis would be proved wrong. Europe, or at least most of Europe, will not be Islamic by the end of his century. It is more likely that Islam itself will have ceased to be a global force of any significance by that point. But it is important to realize that such a result will not come by itself. It will require Europeans, Westerners and infidels in general to grow some backbone, end appeasement and openly confront the very real Islamic threat we are now facing. If we do so, I remain confident that we will prevail. We just have to listen a bit less to the defeatist siren song of Mark Steyn.
Link


Syria-Lebanon-Iran
U.S. may have to go it alone in Iran (without UK)
2006-02-06
What would we do without experts?
Policy experts warn that the United States may not be able to rely on perennial ally the United Kingdom for support over Iran's nuclear program. "We can't look to Britain for (help) on Iran because they've paid the price on Iraq," said Jeffrey McCausland, director of leadership in conflict initiative at Dickinson College. "In Iraq, the coalition of the willing has become the Brits and the Yanks. How Iraq turns out will have a dramatic effect on the relationship (between the United States and the United Kingdom)," he said.
Gee, ya think?
The European Union should shoulder more global leadership responsibility, said Chris Patten, Chancellor of Oxford University, England, and former European Commissioner for External Relations. "That's what Europe should be seeking to do with the United States ... seeking to be a partner in economic, political, and security terms."

Instead, the EU is a "dead end," said John Hulsman, senior research fellow at the Heritage Foundation, a Washington, DC-based think tank. "The United States and the United Kingdom are the only two that can do things around the world," he said. "The United Kingdom is the default (ally) in a crisis. On Sept. 11, nobody said, 'get Brussels on the phone,'" he said. If U.S.-U.K. relations worsen, the United Kingdom might not rush to the head of the line to back U.S. action. The United Kingdom could become "not the first of three allies but the third of three," to support U.S. objectives, he said.

"The [U.S.-U.K.] 'special relationship' is in trouble," said Andrew Apostolou, assistant director of programs at the Saban Center for Middle East Policy at the Brookings Institution, a Washington, DC-based think tank. Michael Calingaert, executive vice president of Brookings' Council for United States and Italy, agreed. "U.S. policy and attitudes have damaged our relationship with the United Kingdom and the rest of the world."
No agenda here, just pure objective scholarly commentary
IIRC, Bush offered Tony Blair a pass on Iraq, but Tony opted not to take it because (going into Iraq) was the 'right thing to do.'
In a 2005 Pew poll, only 55 percent of Britons had a favorable opinion of the United States, down from 75 percent in 2002, pre-Iraq. Patten said there has always been a "seam of anti-Americanism in European attitudes." The relationship between the United States and Europe is so important to both sides, he said, he doesn't believe that recent trends indicate a major shift. "Over the years there were rows about Vietnam, Central America ... but overall (U.S.-Europe relations have been) a huge success," he said. "I hope we may find some way in which we can work together on the real threat of Iran becoming a nuclear power."
Yeah, it would be nice.
Link


Home Front: WoT
GLOBALIZATION IN REVERSE
2004-12-12
The world can now count on one geopolitical earthquake every 10 years.

Between 1985 and 1995, it was the fall of the Berlin Wall, the implosion of the Soviet Union, the collapse of Communist parties the world over, and America's emergence as the world's only superpower. Between 1995 and 2005, it was the 9/11 attacks against the World Trade Center and the Pentagon that triggered a war on, and the defeat of, Afghanistan's despotic Taliban regime followed by a war on, and the defeat of, Saddam Hussein's bloody tyranny. So between 2005 and 2015, what's on the global menu?

Movers and shakers as well as long-range thinkers and planners meet in a wide variety of intelligence and think tank huddles. These over-the-horizon, out-of-the-box appraisals range from good news scenarios (the minority) to the kind of global unraveling funk whose only antidote would be the shelter and solace of a desert island.

Behind all the geopolitical jargon about the "functioning core of globalization," "system perturbations," and "dialectics of transformation," there is the underlying fear of a Vietnam-like debacle in Iraq that would drive the United States into isolationism - a sort of globalization in reverse.

Among the most interesting and optimistic librettos in the game of nations is peace in the Middle East made possible by a deal with Iran. Keeping this kind of negotiation with the ayatollahs secret in the age of the Internet and 4 million bloggers taxes credulity. It would also take a Kissinger or a Brzezinski to pull it off. However, if successful, it would look something like this:

-- A nuclear Iran removed from the "axis of evil," and recognized as the principal player in the region, is the quid.

-- For the quo, Iran agrees to recognize Israel and the two-state solution that establishes a "viable" Palestinian state in the West Bank and Gaza.

-- Iran ends all support for terrorist activities against Israel. Iran-supplied and funded Hezbollah disarms and confines its activities to the political and economic arena in Lebanon.

In reality, Iran is automatically the region's dominant power after U.S. armed forces withdraw from Iraq. The Shia side of Islam, long the persecuted majority in Iraq, will emerge victorious in forthcoming free national elections. A minimum of 1 million Iranians have moved into Iraq since Operation Iraqi Freedom 2œ years ago. The Iran-Iraq border is porous, mountainous, largely unguarded, and no one has even an approximate count. The Jordanian intelligence service believes the Iranian influx into Iraq could be as high as 3 million.

In Syria, the Alawi regime, in power since 1970, is also a Shia sect of Islam. In Lebanese politics, the Hezbollah party is a Shia movement. The oilfields of Saudi Arabia are located in the eastern province of the kingdom where, Shia are the majority - and Iran is a hop, skip and jump away.

One all too realistic geopolitical nightmare scenario was a WMD terrorist attack on the West Coast. A nuclear device detonates in a container ship about to enter Long Beach in California. News had just broken about the pollution of the U.S. food supply, and most analysts assumed transnational terrorism was behind it. The United States can kick butts anywhere, but seems helpless in coping with asymmetrical warfare.

In quick succession:

-- The dollar ceases to be the world's reserve currency

-- The shaky coalition that governs Iraq collapses, and civil war breaks out between Sunni and Shia

-- The fear of the unknown produces a new consensus in the United States that global civilization is no longer America's business.

-- The debate in the United States shifts to the requirements for adequate city perimeter defenses.

-- Now that the United States is no longer the global cop, the defense budget of almost half a trillion dollars can be drastically pruned and savings transferred to homeland security.

-- U.S. client states are informed they are now on their own. Congress abolishes the global aid function.

-- Egypt loses its annual stipend of $2.5 billion; Taiwan and Israel are told they will now have to fend for themselves.

-- Social trust becomes the new glue of society - bonding with like-minded neighbors that share each other's values.

-- International coalitions dissolve and new ones emerge. China seizes new opportunities for its short- and long-range needs for raw materials in the developing world - from Brazil to sub-Sahara's pockets of mineral wealth.

-- The United States, Canada and Mexico form a new stand-alone alliance with Britain.

-- Turkey, Israel and Iran become a new core group for self-protection against dysfunctional neighbors that have no upward mobility.

-- The European Union and Russia, in continuing decline, close ranks; the EU inherits de facto responsibility for Africa south of the Sahara, plagued by genocidal wars and the AIDS epidemic.

-- China and India, with one-third of the world's population, and competitive with Western countries in high-tech jobs and technology, move into a de facto alliance.

-- Pakistan's pro-American President Pervez Musharraf does not survive the 9th assassination plot; an Islamist general takes over and appoints Dr. A. Q. Khan, the former CEO of an international nuclear black market for the benefit of America's "axis of evil" enemies, as Pakistan's new president.

-- The House of Saud is shaken to its foundations as a clutch of younger royal princes, who have served in the armed forces, arrest the plus 70-year-olds now in charge - known as the Sudairi seven - and call for the kingdom's first elections.

-- Osama Bin Laden returns to Saudi Arabia, where he is welcomed as a national hero. Bin Laden scores an overwhelming plurality in the elections and is now the most popular leader in the country.

-- Dr. A. Q. Khan sends Bin Laden a message of congratulations and dispatches his new defense minister, Gen. Hamid Gul -- a former intelligence chief and admirer of the world's most wanted terrorist, who hates America with a passion -- to Riyadh. His mission is to negotiate a caliphate that would merge Pakistan's nuclear weapons with Saudi oil resources and monetary reserves.

-- Northern Nigeria sends a message to Islamabad and Riyadh requesting that it be considered as a member of the caliphate.

-- Absent the long-time global cop, and traditional alliances in shambles, transnational criminal enterprises thrive as they enjoy unfettered access the world over.

-- U.S. multinational companies, unable to protect their plants and employees, devolve back whence they came.

-- International airlines morph back into inter-regional air links.

-- Switzerland, a small defensive country with compulsory military service, is in vogue again; larger countries with several ethnic groups begin breaking down a la Yugoslavia.

-- Goods stamped "Made in China. Secured in Singapore" are back in business, smuggled into the United States.

-- The EU can no longer cope with millions of North Africans and sub-Sahara Africans flooding into Spain, Italy, France, who then roam freely and hungry in the rest of Europe. Islamist radicals sally out of their European slum tenements to join the siege of U.S. Embassies to protest their jobless plight.

-- Japan goes nuclear after U.S. troops are withdrawn from South Korea.

A slight detour from this global ship o' fools imaginary cruise had Pakistan and India, no longer restrained by the United States, stumbling into miscalculation and exchanging a nuclear salvo over Kashmir. One billion Indians survive minus one city, Islamabad. Pakistan, part of India prior to independence in 1947, collapses as a unitary state, and becomes part of India again.

To be warned is forewarned. Short of WMD terrorism, the intelligence insiders are concerned about implosions in the former Soviet Muslim republics. They also say there is no more important objective for the Bush 43B Administration than to repair transatlantic relations. Chris Patten, the EU's outgoing foreign minister says, "The world deserves better than testosterone on one side and superciliousness on the other."
Link


Syria-Lebanon-Iran
US prefers diplomacy with Iran, but conflict possible
2004-11-05
Of all the foreign policy challenges facing President Bush in his second term, none — apart from Iraq — looms larger than Iran.

Twenty-five years after Iranian students seized U.S. diplomats as hostages, Iran and the United States are at the brink of a potentially more serious confrontation over Iran's apparent determination to develop a nuclear bomb.

Iran says it wants nuclear energy to generate electricity and has the right to manufacture reactor fuel. The United States has left negotiations to its European allies, who have managed to slow but not stop Iran's nuclear drive. Israel, which blew up an Iraqi reactor in 1981 when Iraq had begun a similar program, has warned it will not tolerate a nuclear Iran. So has President Bush. "Our position is that they won't have a nuclear weapon," Bush told Fox News Sept. 27.

The situation is so volatile that officials and foreign policy experts in both Iran and the USA say the possibility of armed conflict is real. "All options are on the table," Bush told Fox News.

Asked about the status of relations recently, Iranian Foreign Minister Kamal Kharrazi was blunt. "It's very bad," he told reporters Sept. 29 in New York, where he attended the United Nations General Assembly. "The question is if it can be changed or not, and if this is in the interest of Americans, Iranians and (other) people in the region to continue this animosity."

Iran is a top priority for at least three reasons:

•Nuclear proliferation. U.S. estimates of how long it will take Iran to be able to make a nuclear weapon range from one to four years.

•Iraq. Iran, which shares a lengthy border with Iraq, has close ties to Iraqi Shiite groups that could determine Iraq's political future. Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld told the Council on Foreign Relations, a New York-based think tank, Oct. 4 that the Iranians "clearly want to affect the outcome of the (Iraqi) election, and they are aggressively trying to do that. They're sending money in. They're sending weapons in." Iraq's elections are set for January.

•Terrorism. Iran supports Hezbollah and other anti-Israeli groups that have conducted numerous attacks and suicide bombings in Israel. Iran has also said it is holding al-Qaeda members who escaped from Afghanistan. In return for them, Iran wants the United States to hand over leaders of an Iranian opposition group based in Iraq.

Bush is pushing for an early confrontation with Iran at the United Nations by urging the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA), the U.N. nuclear watchdog, to refer Iran to the U.N. Security Council unless it promises not to produce nuclear fuel. The Security Council could levy punishing sanctions against Iran. The IAEA will meet to consider the issue Nov. 25. Iran has suspended enrichment of uranium, a nuclear fuel, for a year but is threatening to resume it.

But council action is by no means certain. Alternatively, the use of force could be ineffective and backfire. Destroying the nuclear program would be difficult if not impossible, because facilities are dispersed throughout Iran and much of the infrastructure is underground. Airstrikes could retard Iran's progress, but the cost could be high. Iran's hard-line Islamic government has warned that any attack on Iran would provoke a violent response, and the United States has much at risk in the region, with its troops fighting a growing insurgency in Iraq.

Asked to rate relations now on a scale of one to 10 — with 10 being relations under the shah and one the hostage crisis in 1979 — Bakhash says, "we're barely at four."

Iran's economy minister was even more negative. "We're at zero," Seyyed Safdar Hosseini said in an interview Oct. 6 in Washington, where he attended the annual meeting of the International Monetary Fund and World Bank.

He criticized the Bush administration for making demands on Iran but offering nothing in return. He blamed the administration for blocking Iran's repeated efforts to join the World Trade Organization, despite what he said was Iran's compliance with requirements that it eliminate many of its trade barriers. And he insisted the nuclear program was important for Iran's economic development: "After 25 years, the U.S. should admit that Iran is an independent country based on the support of its people and is following rational policies."

Despite having no formal diplomatic relations since 1980, the two governments have had contacts.

The most tangible thaw came after the election in 1997 of Mohammad Khatami, a moderate cleric, as Iranian president. The Clinton administration eased U.S. economic sanctions slightly in 2000 to permit trade in food, medicine and carpets. But divisions within the Iranian government between hard-liners who wanted no relations with the United States and moderates who favored engagement prevented direct official talks.

Direct talks finally began secretly in Geneva in 2002 as an outgrowth of the U.S. intervention in Afghanistan after the Sept. 11 attacks. The United States and Iran found common cause in deposing the Taliban government, which had persecuted Shiite Muslims and murdered Iranian diplomats and journalists. But the meetings ended in May 2003 after they were reported by the media and a series of bombings in Saudi Arabia was linked to al-Qaeda members who the Iranians say are under house arrest.

A new opportunity to talk at a high level could come this month, when Secretary of State Colin Powell is to attend a meeting in Egypt of foreign ministers from Iraq's neighbors and major industrial nations. Those attending will be "all together in a room, talking about the region and talking about how we can bring stability to that part of the world, beginning with Iraq," Powell said in an interview with the al-Jazeera television network Sept. 29. "And if the Iranians are in the meeting and wish to talk in a responsible manner about this problem, I will be in the room, too."

European officials say the Europeans have to be more willing to punish Iran, while the United States must be willing to offer Iran incentives for giving up efforts to produce nuclear fuel.

"An effective policy is bound to require carrots as well as sticks," says Chris Patten, former external affairs commissioner for the 25-nation European Union. "We have to be able to put a package to Iran that gives Iran an opportunity to play a normal role regionally and internationally." A must, Patten says, is assurances from the United States, which "as the world's only superpower is the country Iran is most concerned about."

Before the U.S. elections Nov. 2, Powell was cautious about making any promises. "I can't envision anything until I know whether the Iranians are willing to forewear their nuclear ambitions," Powell said in an interview Oct. 18.

Whether that attitude will change remains to be seen.

"We have very powerful mutual interests that need to be addressed," says William Miller, an Iran scholar at the Woodrow Wilson Center, a Washington research organization.
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Europe
Europe must take itself seriously, says top Brussels envoy
2004-07-30
Why? Nobody else does...
The European Union has to learn to take itself seriously before it can expect the United States to treat it as an equal, the outgoing EU ambassador to the US has warned. Speaking before the Foreign Affairs Committee in the European Parliament on Thursday, GÃŒnter Burghardt said that getting Washington to treat the 25-nation bloc as a partner "depends on how seriously we take ourselves" adding "that is something only we can manage".
No. It depends on what of any substance you actually do...
The German diplomat said that while there is an overall general will by the EU to "enter into a partnership of equals" it is undermined by the fact that some member states continue to accord bilateral interests more importance.
It's undermined by the fact that in a "partnership of equals" both sides have to be equal...
Refusing to comment on whether George W. Bush will be re-elected in November and what it would mean for transatlantic relations, Mr Burghardt said that, in 2005, the ties should be renewed anyway.
But if Bush wins it's going to cost Brussels more...
He said that the transatlantic agenda has not been updated since 1995 although since then the European Union has undergone its biggest enlargement ever and agreed a new Constitution. He says the Constitution will allow Europe to be taken more seriously as now the EU is represented by the head of the EU Presidency, the European Commission President and three foreign ministers - from the EU presidency at the time, Chris Patten (external relations commissioner) and Javier Solana (EU High Representative).
Prodi, Patten and Solana made a pretty forgettable team...
Under the new Constitution, Europe's foreign policy will be the domain of the new EU foreign minister.
Who will be allowed to be forgettable all by himself...
The ambassador, who is expected to be replaced later this year by a hockey puck former Irish prime minister John Bruton, does not deny that there are, and will continue to be, fundamental differences between the two sides. One of them is the two different attitudes to the "notion of sovereignty". The US sees its sovereignty as "unlimited" he said and this will not change whereas the EU is more about "joint sovereignty" and "multilateralism".
We have the perhaps mistaken idea that this is our country and we'll look out for our interests, if that's what you mean...
I dunno, the EU thought Saddam's sovereignty was pretty unlimited ...
The vast majority of the questions Mr Burghardt received from MEPs centred around the idea that Washington and the US President do not take Europe seriously and whether the ordinary American had any interest in Europe.
You mean other than the nude beaches? None I can think of...
By way of reply, he said there is still a huge amount of "good will" among Americans towards Europe. He added that the "extreme" neo-conservatives "are no longer setting the agenda" and that those people who spoke about new and old Europe (famously US defence secretary Donald Rumsfeld) have "suddenly dried up".
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Britain
UK: Tory leader says Iraq war vote was wrong
2004-07-19
Michael Howard was accused of opportunism last night after he tried to increase pressure on Tony Blair ahead of tomorrow's Commons debate on the Butler report by qualifying his support for the Iraq war. The Conservative leader said he would not have backed the Government in last year's crucial vote authorising war if he had known No 10's claims about weapons of mass destruction were so unreliable. Mr Blair secured narrow support for military action against a big Labour rebellion last March thanks to the votes of Tory MPs including Mr Howard, who now believes he was misled. Yesterday he sought to keep attention on the Prime Minister's credibility amid signs of Tory unease at the party's failure to make headway against Labour under his leadership.
I'm sure Howard would have done exactly the same as Blair in the same situation, and weasling around now doesn't change anything. Way to lose support, Howard...
This week will mark the final opportunity for Mr Howard to attack Mr Blair - either in tomorrow's debate or at question time on Wednesday - before Parliament rises for the summer recess. But it will also be a test of Mr Howard's ability to command the support of his MPs, who were dismayed to see the Tories slump to third place in last week's by-elections. Although there is no threat to his position, he may struggle to dispel a growing feeling among Tories that the optimism of his first six months as leader has evaporated and that the party is destined for a third consecutive general election defeat. Lord Tebbit, the former Tory chairman, said the Tories were "waffling along" under a "colourless" leader. Chris Patten, another former chairman, urged Mr Howard not to be "panicked" into moving to the Right.
That what Patten said? Time to go right, then.
Mr Howard stopped short of calling for Mr Blair's resignation, but he claimed that he could not have supported the Government motion last year because it referred to Iraq's "weapons of mass destruction and long-range missiles" posing "a threat to international security".
Tory officials denied that he had performed a U-turn. But Labour accused Mr Howard of plumbing "new depths of opportunism and hypocrisy". Hilary Benn, the International Development Secretary, said: "He lacks any credibility whatsoever."
Sounds like an attempt at opportunism, more worthy of Charles Kennedy. If Howard has doubts now, then he has to admit he misjudged things before. Methinks he missed a good opportunity to keep quiet.
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Europe
Portuguese leader poised to become new EC president
2004-06-27
The Portuguese Prime Minister, Jose Manuel Durao Barroso, has emerged as the strong favourite to become the European Commission’s next president. Mr Durao Barroso could be appointed as Romano Prodi’s successor at a meeting of European Union leaders on Tuesday, bringing months of wrangling to an end. Diplomats in Brussels say support is swinging behind the centre-Right politician, who is fluent in several languages.

The search for Mr Prodi’s successor reached stalemate at an EU summit in Brussels earlier this month, with Britain blocking Guy Verhofstadt, the Belgian prime minister, and Jacques Chirac, the French president, retaliating by scuppering the chances of Chris Patten, the former Conservative Cabinet minister. Downing Street officials signalled that Britain would not try to block Mr Durao Barroso, 48, from the presidency. If he gets the job it could pave the way for Tony Blair to decide whether to appoint Peter Mandelson, the former Northern Ireland secretary, as Britain’s European commissioner. The Prime Minister is said to be "itching" to give Mr Mandelson the post, but he is also said to fear a backlash by voters that could scupper Labour’s chances of holding Mr Mandelson’s Hartlepool seat in a by-election. Mr Blair cannot make the appointment until the new commission president is known.
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Iraq-Jordan
Bush to Seek European Support in Iraq
2004-06-26
Five days before the transfer of power in Baghdad, President Bush opened a European trip Friday with growing confidence that NATO would take a bigger role in Iraq despite reservations from France and Germany. The administration expects NATO, at a summit in Turkey, will pledge military training and equipment, answering an urgent plea from Iyad Allawi, prime minister of Iraq's interim government, for NATO assistance "to defeat the terrorist threat and reduce reliance on foreign forces."
This trip is just for show, right?
European Union External Affairs Commissioner Chris Patten said persistent violence could cause Iraq to unravel. "All of us in the international community are worried that the violence directed against moderate leadership in each of the communities and directed against attempts at long-term, sustainable reconstruction ... could lead to Iraq flying apart in the next few months," Patten said. He said the EU is "absolutely determined" to help reconstruct Iraq and ensure that elections are held but that violence could derail those goals.
Which is why NATO is leaping to help out ... oh right.
The United States expects NATO to make a broad commitment to training Iraqi forces - inside and outside Iraq - and to determine how to meet specific needs after consulting with Baghdad. "While I don't think this will be very specific, we would certainly hope that NATO is prepared to make a commitment to the training of Iraqi forces in order to answer Allawi," said a senior official with Bush on Air Force One. The official, speaking on condition of anonymity in order not to upstage Bush, expressed confidence about the outcome. In an interview aired Friday with Ireland's RTE television, Bush defended his decision to invade Iraq and insisted that most of Europe backed the move. "What was it like Sept. 11, 2001?" he said. "I wouldn't have made the decisions I did if I didn't believe the world would be better. Why would I put people in harm's way if I didn't believe the world would be better?" "History will judge what I'm about," the president said. He said, "Most of Europe supported the decision in Iraq. Really what you're talking about is France, isn't it? And they didn't agree with my decision. They did vote for the U.N. Security Council resolution. ... We just had a difference of opinion about whether, when you say something, you mean it."
The welt on your face will take some time to fade, Jacques.
In a separate interview with Turkey's private NTV television, Bush said it was unlikely that NATO countries would contribute additional troops to Iraq but he was hopeful some would help train Iraqi forces.
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Europe
EU admits it may have funded Bad Guys™
2004-03-31
Tens of thousands of euro of EU funds may have been diverted to people linked with Palestinian terrorism, according to a report from the European Parliament, obtained by the EUobserver. The report cites documentary evidence seen by a Parliamentary working group- set up last year after allegations that EU funds to the Palestinian Authority (PA) had been misused - that between 21,500-39,000 US dollars of EU funds may have been transferred to terrorists. It is the first time that the EU has judged its own funds to Palestine may not been used for their intended purpose.

The allegations relate to funds given by the EU directly to the Palestinian Authority account from June 2001 until December 2002. The report details the work of a 13-member cross-party parliamentary group. It is due to be finalised this evening (31 March) behind closed doors and is, in many ways, inconclusive. The group says it does not yet have enough evidence to show funds were transferred directly to terrorists, but can show that monies were transferred from the PA to members of the Fatah group, which is linked to the 'Al Aqsa Martyrs Brigades' - a group on the EU's terror list. The Israeli intelligence services say that evidence yielded from military operations in the Palestinian territories show 2.5 million euro which was "requested and delivered" to the PA fell into terrorists hands, of which 39,000 US dollars can be proven to have been actually paid out. "Examination of the documents by the European Commission showed that payments to alleged Fatah activists had been authorised for a sum of 21,000 US dollars", according to the report. Although it adds: "a link between the Palestinian Authority budget structure and the financing of Fatah is difficult to clearly picture".
Especially when you're determined not to look very closely...
The EU paid around 10 million euro a month directly into the Palestinian Authority's budget during between June 2001 and December 2002 to help avert its financial collapse after Israel withheld tax transfers. The retention of the tax left the authority unable to pay staff and pay for basic public services, promoting the EU and other international donors to step in. The EU withdrew its direct assistance shortly after Israel resumed payments in June 2002.

The Parliamentary report backed the Commission's aim of propping up the PA but criticised the method chosen. "The Commissioner [External Relations Commissioner Chris Patten] showed his best intentions in order to stabilise the situation and to encourage the reform of the PA institutions in a very difficult context". However it does conclude: "Budgetary Assistance was not the most appropriate financial instrument to be implemented". Sources taking part in the talks say there is still discussion over what constitutes evidence of funding terror which could change some details of the final text of the document. It is not clear when the Parliament will publish the report.
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Israel-Palestine
Arafat funding terror with EU aid
2004-02-12
The German daily Die Welt reports that the European Commission’s Anti-Fraud Office (OLAF) has concluded that tens of millions of dollars in humanitarian aid, donated by the EU to the PA has been utilized for terrorist operations against Israel.
Surprise! surprise!
The findings, which have deliberately been covered up, confirm Israeli allegations that Palestinian leader Yasser Arafat has diverted millions of dollars in EU funding to the Fatah Tanzim and Hamas terrorist organizations.
This has been pointed out in posts here on Rantburg, in the last few weeks
The OLAF findings are based upon documents recovered from the PA headquarters by Israeli military forces during the course of Operation Defensive Shield. OLAF agents recently visited Jerusalem to be briefed by Israeli security officials and to ascertain the authenticity of the documents. The OLAF investigators have accepted that the captured documents are genuine and evidence of Arafat’s wide-spread diversion of the EU’s humanitarian aid to Palestinian terrorist operations that targeted Israeli civilians. The Israeli documents had been presented to the EU’s Commissioner for External Affairs Chris Patten last year. Patten, however, refused to recognize their authenticity and denied they established that Arafat was using EU funds for terror attacks. Under increasing pressure from European parliament members, Patten was forced to order an OLAF investigation into the Israeli allegations.
Patten's credibility drops a bit further, not that it's got much further room to drop...
The documents include letters signed by Arafat ordering payments to eleven terrorist leaders for what he termed guerilla operations. In addition, there are receipts for the payments of the mortgages of the families of Hamas suicide bombers, as well as a cash awards of several thousand dollars to the family members. Other documents detail how European funds were used by the PA’s Preventative Security Forces to stage "spontaneous" demonstrations in support of imprisoned Fatah Tanzim Marwan Barghouti, who was placed on trial in Israel for masterminding terror attacks that killed 26 Israelis.
Things like that happen when you dump loads of money into Paleostine with no controls, not even a receipt...
Following the signing of the Oslo Accords, the EU pledged to provide funding to the PA for civilian projects, primarily to pay the salaries of the PA’s municipal workers. The EU donates approximately $10 million a month and more than $1.5 billion to the PA since 1994. The plaintiffs allege that the EU failed to undertake any steps to monitor or scrutinize how the PA was utilizing the donated money.
That's what I said...
OLAF has not denied the veracity of the report. It denied having been pressured to keep the results of the investigation under wraps, saying that it had not been published because it was still incomplete. It also complained that the article was based on confidential "in camera" briefings that had been leaked.
And how's that different from keeping it "under wraps"?
In May 2002 Shurat HaDin, a non-profit Israeli Law Center filed a NIS 100,000,000 civil action against the EU on behalf of the Blumberg family in the Tel Aviv District Court. According to the suit, on August 5, 2001, Palestinian police officers moonlighting as Fatah-Tanzim terrorists opened fire from another vehicle at the Blumberg’s car, killing 35 year old Tehiya Blumberg, a mother of five children pregnant at the time of the attack. Her husband Steve and their daughter Zipporah were severely injured. The Blumberg law suit, which is brought by attorney Nitsana Darshan-Leitner, alleges that the EU recklessly provided the PA with massive sums of financial aid, while knowing that the money was being diverted from its intended civilian purposes to Palestinian terrorist groups. The court papers assert that the EU was repeatedly warned by Israel that its aid was financing Palestinian attacks on Israelis. The OLAF report should be immediately released to the public and the EU’s aid to the PA suspended for good," said Shurat HaDin Director Darshan-Leitner. "Without the EU’s reckless provision of financing to the Palestinians, hundreds of Israeli terror victims would still be alive and thousands of others would never have had to suffer their tragic injuries", Darshan-Leitner said. "European taxpayers must now acknowledge that they are the ones who have been financing the Palestinian terror attacks and accept that they must pay compensation to the families of the victims", added Darshan-Leitner.
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