WHITHER THE KYOTO PROTOCOL?

BY PHILIP J CUNNINGHAM

One of the wonderful things about Kyoto is how well the environment has been preserved, thanks in part to savvy citizens, ample public transportation and the popularity of bicycle use. On the other hand, what at first glance might seem a pristine environment is quickly being eroded by the boom of automotive culture.


Riding my bike past the historic site where the Kyoto Protocol was signed I always find it surprising to see how many motorists chose this otherwise pristine symbolic setting to idle away. Cars, taxis, trucks alike park with engines on, whiling away the hours on a tree-lined roadside, in violation not only of parking laws but also violating Kyoto's mild and generally ineffective ordinances against idling.

Similar scenes of drivers with their vehicles left running, idling noisily away while napping, smoking, watching DVDs or just killing time can be seen everywhere in Kyoto, winter, spring, summer and fall.

But it is especially odd to note that some of the most scenic, quiet spots with the cleanest air, such as the street in front of Kyoto's International Conference Hall, where the famous anti-global warming protocol was signed, attract droves of needlessly polluting vehicles like a magnet.

More disconcertingly, since after all, the Kyoto International Conference Hall and accompanying hotel, despite the symbolic significance, are primarily designed for out-of-town VIP visitors, is the way idling drivers lurk in front of local children's playgrounds and public parks, historic streets and temple grounds that are part and parcel of daily life in this proud ancient capital city.

The accompanying amateur video was filmed on location on an IPhone, mostly from the vantage point of a bicycle in motion. For more photos and related articles, see my blog, Frontier International.



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TIME FOR CHANGE

(from the Bangkok Post)
Time for change the Japanese can really believe in
Writer: PHILIP J CUNNINGHAM
Published: 15/09/2009 at 12:00 AM

Japan has a new prime minister and a new ruling party. Prime ministers come and go in Tokyo on almost an annual basis, 50 of them in the post-war period alone, so the change of guard at the top of a huge, humming, well-oiled bureaucratic machine might not seem like news. But Hatoyama's ascension to power might be significant, if the long impotent opposition, now crystalised as the Democratic Party of Japan (DPJ), takes the helm long enough to steer Japan, Inc in a new direction.

Yukio Hatoyama, who was born on Sept 11, 1947, is nicknamed "The Alien" by his fellow party members for his quirky appearance and different way of thinking.

The DPJ's Hatoyama - like his predecessors in the Liberal Democratic Party (LDP) Shinzo Abe, Yasuo Fukuda and Taro Aso - is a political blueblood and financially secure. He is a member of the elite, which as Japanese like to see it, puts him a cut above the average man.

Like his elite predecessors, the new prime minister has strong personal links to America, not so much in terms of old-time family links with the Bushes or through party hacks on the CIA payroll or through verbal compliance with US fundamentalisms, but rather in meritocratic terms; he earned an advanced graduate degree at Stanford. He knows America but it's not the old boy network all over again. Much has been made of Mr Hatoyama's stated position that Japan needs to adjust its relationship with the US, setting off alarm bells in the corridors of entrenched power in Washington and Tokyo.

But that's just the old guard reasserting itself. What's wrong with some adjustments in a critical bilateral relationship that has been shaped by heavy-handed demands on one side and sneaky non-compliance on the other? Isn't it time to change, time to rejuvenate and re-define the bilateral relationship rather than relying on anachronistic and ossified patron-client links?

It is not as if the US-Japan security treaty is up for grabs, though it can and should be discussed and improved where necessary. After half a century of one-party rule in Japan, a fresh approach to foreign policy and collective security is not really an option, it's a necessity.

The Liberal Democratic Party, born of the ashes of WWII, branded with the imprint of US Occupation, has always been an odd hybrid, neither particularly liberal nor democratic, but an opportunistic mish-mash that was fine-tuned into a winning political machine.

Even if the US was uniformly enlightened in its Japan policy, which is hardly the case, being forced to rely on the Godzilla-like LDP as the main conduit for the conduct of bilateral relations has led to mutations and destructive distortions over the years.

One need only look at recent headlines to see how the LDP's past has continued to haunt the present, whether it be glorifying the lost cause of the last war at Yasukuni Shrine, or the vestiges of anti-communism in foreign policy and anti-labour practices, or the not-so-subtle intimidation of progressives by organised crime and rightwing groups for hire that are themselves relics of US occupation days.

More recently, a bungling obsession with North Korea continues to invoke unfinished business of Japan's historic annexation of its neighbour and what later became America's Korean war.

Then there's the LDP's almost military mindset when it comes to promoting big business and coddling modern-day zaibatsu, all the while building bridges to nowhere and churning out endless pork-barrel spending to nourish a rural elite/big business electoral juggernaut.

It's time for a change, all right, and the DPJ has seized the mantle of electoral legitimacy. The only question is whether the much-needed change will come about or will it be stalled, co-opted and buried by attack campaigns from the right, in concert with passive-aggressive non-compliance from powerful vested interests.

Prime Minister Hatoyama would be wise to take note of how US President Obama, who started out with so much promise, and such a huge mandate for change, only to end up tacking to the right and frittering much of his mandate away, betraying his own reform-minded base in the hopes of placating Wall Street, the Pentagon and America's implacable right wing. Mr Hatoyama and the DPJ face a comparable test, and early indications suggest they too will compromise and bend and revive existing patronage patterns, perhaps until the day that they are not recognisably different from the "fat cats" and the complacent ruling party that they have ostensibly replaced.

For change to have any real meaning, it has to exit the realm of rhetoric and enter the realm of action.

If the DPJ, with Mr Hatoyama at the helm, and former LDP stalwart Ozawa Ichiro navigating at his side, keep their promise to help Japan become a more normal nation - less dependent on the whims of US foreign policy, less beholden to Japan's own elite with its malignant, murky roots in the last world war, and more responsive to ordinary citizens and taxpayers, then Japan is indeed entering a period of change that people can believe in.

If, instead, however, the new government avoids friction by continuing along the beaten-down path created by the LDP, and in doing so sustains the unholy marriage between big business and an entrenched bureaucracy and concommitantly inflates its own military reach while hiding in the shade of the US security umbrella, then the demise of the LDP has been greatly exaggerated.

Even if they stick to their professed ideals, the new ruling team may still succumb to the inertia and stagnation that characterise Japan's body politic today, failing not only to fulfil the promises they made while not in power, but putting themselves out of power again.

In which case DPJ rule will prove not only brief, but may be one day understood not so much as a change in the power structure, but as a short-lived victory for some frustrated, veteran pols of the LDP reform wing, who will give Japan the illusion of change before deftly steering things back to the status quo of big business, big-bureaucracy as usual.

(first published in the Bangkok Post)

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IS THE EAST STILL RED?

Click here for a sneak preview of China's National Day TV extravaganza on and off the big stage.

http://jinpeili.blogspot.com/

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Aflghanistan elections as seen from China

To view a recent Chinese television program on the issue of the elections in Afghanistan with guests Aykut Tavsel, Philip Cunningham and CCTV-9 anchor Yang Rui, please click the following link:


http://english.cctv.com/program/e_dialogue/20090903/106145.shtml

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Is Commander Jafari Stupid?

Farideh Farhi

Tehran is buzzing about a speech by Major General Mohammad Ali Jafari, the commander of Islamic Revolution’s Guard Corps (IRGC) that was made public on September 2 by Fars News, a hard-line news agency. It was delivered in front of some of the early military leaders of the Iran-Iraq War and elicited immediate sharp responses.

It is noteworthy for several reasons.

First and foremost was Jafari's open acknowledgment that at least since February 2009, well before the June election, the IRGC was closely monitoring the reformists of all hue in order to keep in check their presumed efforts to weaken or undermine the office of the leader (rahbari) Ayatollah Ali Khamenei.

This acknowledgment came in reference to an attribution of a statement to the former president Mohammad Khatami, which according to Jafari was uttered in February 2009. Jafari did not reveal how this statement was accessed. Setting aside the real possibility of distortions, a wiretap should probably be considered a good bet.

According to Jafari, Khatami said, “If in this election Ahmadinejad falls, then rahbari will be effectively eliminated; if at any cost reforms return to the executive branch, rahbari will have no authority in society… through the defeat of principlists, we must contain the power of rahbari.”

Indeed, in Jafari’s telling, the IRGC had to enter the fray well before the election took place in order to prevent the weakening or even elimination of rahbari. It did this by taking note of what the reformists were doing and identifying them as enemies of the Islamic state as embodied in rahbari.

This is an astounding public admission by the commander of a body that is presumably supposed to stay out of partisan politics. Of course, Jafari’s likely riposte is that Article 150 of Iran’s constitution gives the IRGC the responsibility of “guarding the revolution and its achievements.” Hence by identifying key reformist leaders as enemies of rahbari, the commander offers justification for taking sides in the election and even more so for manipulating the election.

If Jafari is be taken at his words, even if in the official narrative the election had been won by Mir Hossein Mussavi, then IRGC would have had no choice but to enter the fray and overturn the results since such a victory would have brought to power people who wanted to undermine the Islamic Republic.

Considering that in the minds of many Iranians doubtful of election results, this is precisely what the IRGC did, such an admission was probably imprudent if not outright stupid.

But at this point Jafari is probably less concerned about the doubts of the Iranian population and more interested in justifying the intrusive role the body he heads has taken in Iranian politics, particularly to many members of the Iranian elites who are fence sitters as neither full-fledged reformists nor comfortable conservatives with the increasing role of military in politics.

Jafari’s second admission - and this one quite explicit - was that in his mind, there is really no difference between a change in the policy direction of the country – change of behavior he called it - and regime change. Again this is a significant admission since important policy differences in both domestic and foreign arenas have generally been accepted in the Islamic Republic.

The distinction made is between a barandaz - someone who wants to overthrow the regime - and a critic. The equation of behavior or policy change with regime change and the argument that policy differences now amount to the challenges to the foundations of the Islamic Republic, transforming the Islamic Republic’s revolutionary character along the lines designed by the country’s external enemies, is a clear admission that differences about how the country should conduct itself is at the core of the current crisis.

Individuals are called traitors not because they have done anything illegal, but because they think differently about policies.

Again this is an astounding admission in the midst of major trials of some of the reformist leaders. From Jafari’s point of view, they should be prosecuted and convicted not because they broke laws but because through an electoral process they wanted to change the policy direction of the country.

Jafari’s third admission came in the form of reporting on the previously unreported prison confessions of two key reformist leaders – Mohammad Ali Abtahi and Mohammad Atrianfar, effectively acknowledging IRGC's access to prisoners that have been kept in the Intelligence Ministry’s Ward 209 at Evin Prison.

Again, probably not a smart move to openly acknowledge the IRGC’s role in the imprisonment and interrogation of prisoners. As the violent crackdown has unfolded since the election, there has been a lot of talk about the unknown sources of violence dished out to the population. In effect no one has wanted to take responsibility and unidentified “rogue elements” or "plain-clothes men" have been the usual suspects.

Jafari’s speech has now made it much easier for people to pin institutional responsibility and blame for the post-election gratuitous violence, indiscriminate arrests, deaths, tortures (of white and physical kind), and forced confessions.

The question is, even if IRGC was indeed the leading force in making sure the reformists did not win and also the headquarter of the post-election crackdown, why would Jafari decide to acknowledge this openly, eliciting immediate reactions from reformist leaders and organizations accusing him of not only improper institutional conduct but also slander?

The leader of the reformist faction in the Parliament, Mohammadreza Tabesh, went as far as to suggest that “those who have given license to Sepah’s [IRGC’s] entry into elections and interrogations should be prosecuted and not those whose background and responsibilities chronicle their attachment to the system, rahbari and the deceased Imam.” The Association of Combatant Clergy, whose two leading members Khatami and Mohammad Mussavi Khoeiniha were accused by Jafari of plotting against rahbari, in turn asked the new prosecutor general to do something about the type of slander that is being thrown around. Presidential candidate Mehdi Karrubi firmly suggested to Jafari to go back to the barracks.

It is difficult to decipher the reasons for Jafari’s public admissions. It is possible that his frank talk marks the beginning of a move against high ranking former leaders of the Islamic Republic. By making the transition from accusing the reformists of “doubting” the election results – which no where is stated to be a crime in Iran - to one of an attempted effort to undermine rahbari – which is considered a crime, Jafari may be setting the stage for a much bigger purge of reformist leaders than the one already in progress and put together by the now replaced Prosecutor General of Tehran, Saeed Mortazavi.

Another possibility is that Jafari’s talk is about justifying IRGC's actions in the face of the reality that the trials and forced confessions have so far not revealed any committed crimes.

To be sure, individual prisoners have acknowledged their mistake in doubting the election results, lamented the influence of foreign ideas and concepts on university curricula, talked about the pernicious role of the foreign press in highlighting divisions inside Iran, and deliberated in length on external designs to sow dissent inside Iran.

But none of the defendants have confessed to a serious crime . In their confessions, some have accused others not present in the courtroom and roaming free of financial misbehavior in the election and desire to win by all means. But no concrete evidence has been offered. In other words they have “confessed” to crimes committed by other people, which in no body of laws, including Iranian and Islamic laws, is considered sufficient for prosecution; just accusations hurled against others that cannot be accepted as fact and used in public the way Jafari has done without corroborating evidence.

Beyond justification, Jafari’s words may also be about intimidation. Threatening Khatami, Mussavi and Mussavi Khoeiniha – a cleric who was ironically the so-called spiritual leader of US embassy hostage takers and today many hardliners consider to be the eminence grise of the reform movement – with treason may be a way to try to silence the outcry and change the national conversation from a focus on the responsibility for the people killed by the security forces – latest confirmed figures are 72 according to a key Mussavi advisor – and crimes of rape and savage beatings that have taken place in various prisons against young men and women who were simply exercising their constitutionally protected rights to peaceful protest.

Unfortunately for Jafari, though, none of the people he may be trying to intimidate is showing any sign of backing down. Karrubi’s dogged efforts to find the sources of violence have finally led to the creation of a three-member committee to investigate the crimes in the Judiciary. Khatami and the reformist clerical organization to which he belongs also keep challenging the kind of narrative put out by Jafari and the same is true of Mussavi.

The only way to silence them is to incarcerate them on charges of sedition against rahbari; a move that simply cannot take place without the assent of the commander-in-chief or Khamenei himself.

The issue is not whether Jafari would like the arrests to happen. His speech clearly suggests he does. The intriguing question is why he is talking about all this publicly, in effect pleading or calling for the arrests?

Why doesn’t he, like all good military men intent on maintaining the status quo, simply work behind the scene to arrange for arrests and silencing without implicating himself and the IRGC in such a public manner? Why the urge to speak?

The answer to this key question in all likelihood is found in the felt need to defend the indefensible in front of a crowd of old Iran-Iraq War commanders who remain highly skeptical of IRGCs politicization and its use as an instrument of repression against Iranian citizens in the name of saving the Islamic republic and its leader.

If so, this was not a speech given from a position of strength.



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Mr. Nice Guy is not good enough

THE POLITICAL MAN


by PHILIP J CUNNINGHAM

Published in the Bangkok Post: 15/08/2009 at 12:00 AM
Newspaper section: News


What is it about politics that makes it so hard to find a leader both decent and effective? Why is it so hard to find both qualities in one individual? If an electorate facing urgent problems must choose between a mild-mannered politician in service of the status quo, and an unpredictable Machiavellian manipulator, who offers the greater hope and who the greater liability?

A recent Thai Rath editorial compared current Thai PM Abhisit with fugitive former premier Thaksin, suggesting one man was clearly more decent, but the other more capable. The comparison ended with the lament about the difficulty of finding a leader who was both keng and dee (clever and good). Both terms are praiseworthy attributes, but the former is a kind of efficacious talent or power, the latter a rather more static moral quality.

To reduce complex, internally conflicted adult individuals to simple stereotypes of "clever" and "good" is to employ the language of the schoolyard to over-simplify things a bit. But it's a catchy media angle and it raises interesting questions.

Is the current prime minister being damned with faint praise when he is described as being good but essentially ineffective? Or is it a withering critique of Thaksin to portray him as rather more clever than good? What's better, what's worse?

The editorial gives both pols a slap in the face, suggesting that one is likable but lacking as a politician, the other not particularly likable but perhaps fit for politics. Is there something about the rough and rumble world of politics that makes the concept of a "good politician" an oxymoron? Is it really so hard to combine the two? The Thai dilemma has interesting parallels to the situation in America at the moment. What kind of man is President Obama, if not a nice man? He rode into office on a wave of niceness, he exuded a basic civility lacking in his opponents. And yet he increasingly is showing himself to be far more complex than nice.

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Ahmadinejad’s Predicament and Iran’s Political Crisis

Farideh Farhi

HONOLULU, Hawaii, Aug 10 (IPS) - With the confirmation of his re-election by Ayatollah Khamenei and his oath of office taken, Mahmoud Ahmadinejad will begin his second term facing much steeper challenges than any of Iran’s previous second-term presidents.

In fact, despite the proclaimed support of 24 million Iranians, his government is by far the weakest post-revolutionary government. Ironically, it is this weakened position that tempts him to be a force of constant agitation and confrontation.

Challenges facing Ahmadinejad include open hostility from a large section of the Iranian elite which Ayatollah Khamenei characterised in Ahmadinejad’s confirmation speech as "angry and wounded"; highly charged criticisms of his appointments and policies from within the conservative ranks; continued civil disobedience; a public mood that has turned from mostly inattentive and apolitical to concerned and angry; general unhappiness among the clergy about the harsh crackdown; and a much more hostile international environment.

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Suryanarayanan: India: Climate Diplomacy

As the countdown to the Copenhagen UN Climate Summit begins, India’s role in building a framework for the new global climate change regime becomes pertinent for two reasons. First, India is the fourth largest carbon dioxide emitter after United States, China and Russia. Hence, with rising global temperatures, the pressure is mounting on India to reduce its greenhouse gas emissions. Any binding emission reduction measures will have a significant impact on India’s economy given the strong linkages between energy consumption, economic growth and environmental pollution. Second, the impact of climate change will be detrimental on the livelihoods of people and on food security. Given this conundrum, what are India’s options to effectively mitigate greenhouse gases and at what costs to the economy?

India has already adopted some mitigation strategies. For instance, one of the important missions of the National Action Plan on Climate Change (NAPCC) is to harness solar energy on a large scale in the next 20-25 years. A change in energy strategy is pertinent for India as its energy sector is highly dependent on coal. More than 80 per cent of all generated power comes from coal and it accounts for one-third of India’s annual carbon dioxide emissions. Besides harnessing solar energy, India can also decrease its dependency on fossil fuels by developing its nuclear energy. With the Indo-US nuclear deal in place, India is looking to generate 60,000 megawatts by 2030 and 250,000 megawatts by 2050.

It will be beneficial for India to invest in energy efficient technologies now since its economic sectors are still developing. In the long run, cleaner technology will help the country to move to a low carbon economy. According to the Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development (OECD) report on Climate Change and Development, with a low carbon energy strategy, a cumulative carbon emissions reduction by 30 per cent without any annual reduction targets over a period of 30 years, will reduce India’s GDP by 1.4 per cent and the number of poor people in the country will increase by 6 per cent. Hence, in the absence of a global financial architecture and transfer of clean technology from industrialised countries the cost of change in energy strategy is going to be heavy for India.

It is clear that the climate change process cannot be halted and mitigation strategies will only reduce or postpone future vulnerabilities. Also, the incentive to adopt mitigation strategies is low in the absence of external financial assistance. For India, the effects of climate change on agriculture and livelihood is going to be significant. Sea level rise and increased occurrences of extreme weather events can cause displacement of millions of people. Given this, will adaptation to the adverse affects of climate change be a better development strategy for India in the short term?

Climate change studies have estimated that even with farm level adaptations, an increase in temperature by 2 degree Celsius and precipitation increase of 7 per cent, the total net farm level revenue would fall by 9 per cent. The socio-economic cost of climate change without adaptation strategies is likely to be even greater for a developing country like India. However, implementation of adaptation measures on a large scale will not be simple as it depends on the level of development of economic sectors. In addition to this, external funding would play a key role in implementing adaptation measures. According to the recent Annual Economic Survey, India is already spending over 2 per cent of its gross domestic product to adapt to climate change.

In summary, India has taken voluntary policy initiatives to reduce its greenhouse gas emissions. However, it cannot implement its mitigation and adaptation strategies on a large scale since it will have an overbearing impact on its balance of payments. India’s stand on the climate change debate has always been guided by the principle of equity. The uncomfortable reality faced by India is that global climate change policies are moving towards effectiveness rather than equity. The climate change talks held at the G8 Summit in L'Aquila, Italy, from 8 to 10 of July 2009, saw consensus among countries that the global temperatures should not increase above 2 degree Celsius or 3.6 degree Fahrenheit. Although there have been no emission binding cuts imposed on the developing countries like India and China, they will be expected to mitigate their greenhouse gases.

Therefore, at the domestic level, India must continue to implement policies that are economically feasible to reduce emissions growth. In addition to this, a concrete and transparent mechanism must be established to regulate, monitor and evaluate the climate-related projects. At the international level, India must work towards initiating and strengthening bilateral and multilateral partnerships to enable investment in research and technology transfer. For this an international framework must be developed, which is not just limited to transfer of technology and finance, but also disseminates information and provides training in specific areas to enable people to adapt to future climate changes.

India must participate in the Copenhagen UN Climate Summit in December with a clear and precise negotiating agenda as an environmentally responsible actor. In addition to this, it must excise its bargaining power as a country most vulnerable to climate change so that the new climate change agreement set to replace the existing Kyoto Protocol in 2012 reflects its social and economic concerns as a developing nation.

Ms. Sowmya Suryanarayanan is a research analyst at Strategic Foresight Group, a political think tank based in Mumbai – India.




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THE AMERICAN PRISM OF RACE

Commentary by Philip Cunningham


Looking at the world through the prism of race is something of an American obsession, one that other countries would be wise not to emulate.

The brouhaha over the arrest of Harvard professor Henry Louis Gates by Cambridge police sergeant James Crowley has been marketed from the start as a story about race, which says much about how the American media works and how it feeds off predictable fault-lines in America’s racially fractured society.

But the instant freeze-framing of an ambiguous incident in racial terms, be it a trivial scuffle on a tree-lined street abutting an Ivy League campus or the more serious "racial" tensions that wrack the world, --the most recent manifestation being the deadly rioting in Xinjiang-- serves to obscure rather than elucidate and can end up shedding more heat than light.

Taking sides in a race conflict is a patterned reflex, stoked by the media inculcation. The public takes cues from way the media frames a case to posit good and bad, or in the case of more incendiary dust-ups, to feed the flames of identity politics.

That’s not to say there aren’t cases in which the examination of racial antagonisms, real and perceived, is ultimately necessary to get at the root of a problem, but race, scientifically baseless concept that it is, makes for a very bad starting point of inquiry.

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Lines Are Drawn in Iran

Farideh Farhi

HONOLULU, Jul 22 (IPS)- With the historical Friday Prayer sermon given by former president and current chair of the Council of Experts and Expediency Discernment Council Akbar Hashemi Rafsanjani on Jul. 17, and the riposte by Supreme Leader Ali Khamenei three days later, lines have been drawn in unprecedented ways in Iran.

It is now clear that the Islamic Republic's ever-present political frictions and cleavages can no longer be managed in ways they have been in the past, either through behind-the-scenes lobbying at the top or selective repression or some combination of the two.

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THE SHOE ON THE OTHER FOOT

Commentary by Philip J Cunningham

The recent ethnic riots in Xinjiang are a tragic development for the world’s most populous country. Ethnic strife, probably as old as humankind, is as cruel as it is unnecessary. Part of what makes it so potent are unchallenged habits of mind coupled with the nearly universal human tendency to divide the world into “we” and “them.”

A lack of empathy for those who are “different” is clearly part of the problem. So, too, is the failure to better appreciate the complex, conflicted reality of those close to a tragedy, a tragedy which has become a spectacle for the international news consumer. Behold the Schadenfreude with which the post-1949 “other” is now pitted against the post-911 “other.”

In the old days, rumors traveled narrowly at the speed of sound through word of mouth whispers, while today, electronic communications spread malicious misinformation far and wide at the speed of light, increasing the potential for flash mob action.

Given the global reach of today’s media, one country’s grievous problems can become a spectator sport for the rest of the world. When something big happens in China, US interest is piqued, especially if the big news is bad news.

Politicians and pundits weigh in with quotable quips, often in utter ignorance, and far more often than is prudent. The hungry maw of the 24/7 media machine demands a constant flow of words and images. This free flow of information, including bad, biased and incorrect information, is celebrated as a basic American right.

Of course, free speech is important to the health of any society. But let us just consider, in a make-believe role reversal, what it might be like if the shoe was on the other foot.

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People & Power: Iran - Inside the Protest

This is a very well done documentary about what transpired immediately after the June 12 election with striking pictures and interviews.


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Links for the Mousavi election fraud report, released July 4, 2009

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The Failure of the Iranian Model

Twelve years ago, with the election of Khatami as President of Iran, it became obvious that in large cross sections of the Iranian society the revolutionary zeal has petered out. The clergy was determined to keep the revolution that brought it to power alive and prevent its moderation and for that aim went to great length to limit free elections and democracy. With Ahmedinejad’s first (and only) election there was an attempt to revive its zeal internally and, as is customary with revolutions, project it outwards by linking it with local grievances, in this case, in Lebanon and the Occupied Palestinian Territories.

The rigging of the elections and the violent clampdown on peaceful protestors that began today, demonstrates that the uneasy combination of an Islamic state and democracy has failed. By choosing revolution over the remaining vestiges of democracy, the clergy ensured that Iran will no longer serve as a model of mass supported Islamic Revolution. While internally the revolution has been saved, its foreign influence is likely to vane. Nor, as we learned, is it possible to make a peaceful transition from an Islamic to a democratic state, as happened in the aftermath of communism. Instead, Iran is coming to resemble the authoritarian regimes of the region.
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State of Decay

My new piece is up at The Review (National), State of Decay. It argues, by taking a longer historical look at the idea of Pakistan, that the relationship between the provinces and the federal govt. determine what the future for Pakistan holds :

Twenty years of military dictatorships, under Ayub Khan and Zia ul Haq, cemented the rule of the few over the many. Their policies led to the emergence of specific grievances by sub-nationalist groups in Baluchistan and Sindh. In the decade of Pervez Musharraf’s rule, these tensions grew dramatically, and pushed the state into a greater alienation from its own citizens.

Musharraf’s dictatorial regime sought to polish over any internal incoherence with a unified foreign front aimed primarily at operating militarily in Afghanistan, NWFP and Baluchistan. The influx of cash, some $6 billion, into the coffers of the military propelled the army to new-found heights as the country’s largest landlord, largest employer and largest business. But maintaining this new oligarchy came at a steep price for Pakistan.

X-posted at CM. Read more on this article...