Prisoners at Guantanamo (Photo: http://www.telegraph.co.uk)

A hunger strike by prisoners and President Obama’s remarks at a press conference last week have revived interest in the question of Guantánamo, the U.S. naval base in Cuba where 166 men (down from the original 779) have been held for up to eleven years in connection with the war on terrorism. Guantánamo (its nickname, Gitmo, is derived from the official abbreviation for the naval base, GTMO) has been a symbol of Bush era policies and has undermined the United States’ standing around the world. Obama restated his previous objective to close the site.

In making his case, the president cited the need to engage the public and the Congress. While Congress has imposed several obstacles to resolving the Guantánamo issue, a number of observers have pointed out that the president already has the power to deal with parts — not all, but parts — of the Guantánamo issue. This is technically true, but it misrepresents the political character of the Guantánamo issue and the nature of today’s heightened political atmosphere.

First, it should be stated that the name Guantánamo encapsulates a number of separate issues that are often conflated and confused. One of these is the mere location. This has taken on considerable symbolic significance because the place has become identified with a set of policies and because it was selected as a location where (the relevant decision makers originally assumed) U.S. courts would not have jurisdiction. Even though, in terms of substance, this is probably the least important aspect of the question, it has been fully wrapped up in the politics. Four years ago, when Obama proposed moving the prison population to a maximum-security facility in Illinois, Congress formally forbade the use of government funds to relocate Guantánamo inmates to the mainland.

The second aspect has to do with the treatment of prisoners at Guantánamo and the nature of the courts established to try them. Improvement in this area is substantively more important than the physical location of the facility. Advances have been made in both these areas over the years, although issues remain.

A third aspect concerns the question of indefinite detention. This remains unresolved, and it is unclear that efforts are being made to address it. Of the 166 current detainees, only seven have been convicted by a military commission; 36 have been designated for trial but have yet to be tried; 86 (a slight majority) were cleared for release in 2009 but have not been released; and 46 have simply been designated for indefinite detention without any prospect of being charged, tried or released. This last category, anomalous in the extreme, includes people who have committed no crime or for whom there is no admissible evidence of a crime, but who are considered too dangerous to release, presumably because they are so angered by their incarceration that they are expected to become terrorists if they ever get the opportunity. There is no provision in the normal U.S. penal system for holding people indefinitely without charge or trial. Technically, they are being held under the military rule whereby prisoners of war are disarmed and kept in detention until the end of hostilities, and even that could become questionable when U.S. forces withdraw from Afghanistan at the end of next year. (Officials are just beginning to grapple with the question of how and when to declare the war on terror over.) Jennifer Daskal, a human rights attorney, has recently suggested that it might be better to keep Guantánamo open for the time being (reversing her previous position on closing the facility) rather than to introduce the precedent of holding people in indefinite detention in the regular federal prison system.

The reason for the inaction with regard to the fate of the Guantánamo inmates appears to be tied to the political dynamics surrounding the site and the war on terror. A pattern evolved over the course of years. The Bush administration opened the prison facility in 2002 as a site outside of normal U.S. jurisdiction and also, owing to a fluke of history, effectively outside the jurisdiction of Cuba, the country it is in. The administration declared the inmates “unlawful enemy combatants” and asserted that the designation meant they were outside the purview of the Geneva Conventions. Military commissions were established with unique, and highly controversial, rules, procedures, and standards of evidence, such that military prosecutors were extremely uncomfortable with them. Lawyers for the detainees repeatedly took their objections to the system to the Supreme Court, and the Court repeatedly shot down the administration’s ad hoc arrangements. The Court, however, then deferred to Congress, which in turn deferred to the president; Congress took much—not all, but much—of what the Supreme Court had struck down and made it legal retroactively.

When Obama became president, the flow of deference was reversed, with the president deferring to repeated moves by Congress to obstruct his efforts to close the facility. (While Republicans generally took the lead, Democrats have participated in some of these moves as well.) The president was barred from relocating inmates to the U.S. mainland, from trying them in federal courts, and from moving them to countries deemed too unstable. The president, himself, barred the release of inmates to Yemen after the “underwear bomber” tried to blow up an airliner over Detroit on Christmas Day, 2009. (The bomber was from Nigeria, but he had been recruited and trained by a group in Yemen, which subsequently became less stable as well. The majority of Guantánamo inmates who are designated for release but still in custody are from Yemen.)

While the direction of deference had been reversed, however, an underlying theme remained the same. Just about everyone, but especially Congress, has been deferring to a fairly crude understanding of national-security requirements, law, and the Constitution, in other words, to their view of the average American voter. Decisions have been made less on the basis of justice or national security than out of fear of retaliation by an electorate with little regard for legal niceties, still anxious in the aftermath of 9/11, and on some issues, easily manipulated. This may not be a profile in courage, but neither is it an unreal concern.

Obama, no doubt, has been especially sensitive to this because of the Republicans’ recent proclivity to take advantage of such situations. When a party condemns you simultaneously for (1) making cuts to Medicare and (2) refusing to make “necessary adjustments to entitlements” (defined as cuts to Medicare), as Romney did last fall, that party is not going to shrink before the opportunity to denounce you for alleged efforts to free terrorists to attack the United States, even if the inmates in question were to be turned over to another country’s prison system. Moreover, such a charge would find immediate resonance in a sizable part of the public. Obama hinted at this concern during his press conference, when he said, “It’s easy to demagogue the issue. That’s what happened the first time this came up [in 2009].” That concern presumably lies behind his lack of action and his stated need to explain the situation to the public and engage with Congress — thus making Congress a partner in any potentially controversial decision — in order to do something that he technically has the right to do already.

The rapidly escalating conflict in Syria is raising the collective volume of voices asking, “What can and should President Obama do in Syria?” The reality is that Syria’s future is inextricably tied to the future stability of the entire MENA region. Today, I turn to Cassie Chesley, Chair of the Coalition for a Democratic Syria Public Relations Committee & Media Coordinator for the Syrian Emergency Task Force, to explain why ignoring President Obama’s red line will give a green light to a worsening humanitarian and security crisis in the region and beyond. **

Through every step of the Syrian revolution, the Assad regime has tested the international community by slowly but consistently escalating the nature and degree of its attacks against the Syrian people. There is a clear pattern that has surpassed the ubiquitous snipers and checkpoints, first with the introduction of helicopter gunships, then cluster munitions, then SCUD missiles, and now we see the beginning of what every Syrian knows will become widespread use of chemical weapons.

 On April 25, Secretary of Defense Hagel publicly confirmed that the chemical weapon (CW) sarin gas was used in Syria, which should have triggered U.S. action in Syria.  As the Obama administration begins to consider military action in Syria including arming vetted elements of the Free Syrian Army (FSA), a no-fly zone, and limited military strikes, it is crucial to outline the options and why a clear, timely response to the Assad regime’s use of CW is important. The United States must send a clear, strong message, or a dangerous precedent will be set for the Assad regime and for other “red lines” in the region and beyond. If the United States hesitates, we will see an escalation in widespread use of CW, before a consensus is reached.

The opposition does not seek intervention in Syria that requires American ground troops. The Syrian government has already lost territorial control of 60 percent of the country (see map). Selectively arming vetted elements of the opposition through FSA commander Gen. Salim Idris and the Supreme Military Council, and the creation of a no-fly zone, will both aid the FSA in protecting this territorial control, and protect countless civilians in the liberated areas. A no-fly zone could be achieved as carried out in Libya, or by extension of the Patriot Missiles in Turkey to cover Syrian soil.

An immediate and effective response to Assad’s CW use would be a series of strikes against strategic military sites, not near civilian populations, that house airplanes and missiles, which can even be carried out by unmanned drones. The destruction of missiles capable of carrying chemical weapons would inhibit the regime’s ability to carry out attacks against the civilian population, while signaling to the world that CW use is unacceptable. Additionally, while confirmation of CW is in progress, the United States and others should provide medical equipment, such as Atropine (antidote for sarin/nerve gas), for those experiencing CW symptoms, and equipment to protect against exposure.  Relief organizations, such as the Syrian American Medical Society, are treating patients exhibiting symptoms consistent with sarin gas exposure and providing their tissue and blood samples to U.S. government agencies.

The United States must act for moral and national security reasons. As in Rwanda, some are parsing words to excuse inaction.  In 1994, the Clinton administration abstained from intervention through a legal loophole, terming the incident an “act of genocide” rather than “genocide,” which would have required international intervention. Failure on the part of the Obama administration to take an immediate stand against the use of CW is a green light for the Assad regime to escalate their use of CW while sending a similar message to Iran.

As the Assad regime has done with conventional weapons, it will escalate to widespread CW attacks if the U.S. does not take strong action now. The use of tactical CW attacks is consistent with the Assad regime’s strategy. The escalation is clear – airstrikes, SCUD missiles, and now small-scale CW attacks.  The United States must act now and launch a series of strategic strikes against the Assad regime’s military operations, or else risk further escalation of the conflict and setting a dangerous precedent. Secretary Kerry said “we need to change the calculations of Bashar Al Assad,” and the only means of achieving this is to take serious action now showing Assad and his inner circle that they cannot act with impunity.

Intervention alone does not provide a full solution to the many problems facing Syria.  We must acknowledge that the country is in dire need of the utmost international pressure to enter into a negotiated transfer of power, so that its people, with robust international support, can proceed to the difficult tasks of rebuilding and reconciliation that lies ahead.  Intervention is needed now to save lives and accelerate the process. –Cassie Chesley

There is a good rule taught in newsrooms early in one’s reporting life that goes along the lines of why one should listen to so-called crazy people. It is because, sometimes, they actually say the truth.

By dint of luck or perhaps true insight, Syrian President Bashar al-Assad has stumbled into that equation. He warned that the U.S. support for Syrian rebels would result in another bastion of Al Qaeda terrorists – should the rebels somehow manage to win, of course.

“The West paid heavily for funding al Qaeda in its early stages in Afghanistan. Today it is supporting it in Syria, Libya and other places, and will pay a heavy price later in the heart of Europe and the United States,” he told al-Ikhbariya channel.

http://uk.reuters.com/article/2013/04/17/uk-syria-conflict-assad-idUKBRE93G0ZP20130417

Not satisfied by making one cogent point, win, Assad then went on to suggest that the U.S. should switch sides and join with him since his government is the best hope for the Syrian people.  And then a few days later, he used chemical weapons on some of those Syrian people. How he thought that might aid is argument remains, well, more on the crazy than cogent side.

http://www.latimes.com/news/nationworld/world/middleeast/la-fg-us-syria-chemical-weapons-20130426,0,2526791.story

What is new is that the U.S. has increased its focus on aiding some elements of the Syrian opposition. Secretary of State John Kerry – showing his years of knowing the world and its players – continues to craft a plan to provide increased support to targeted entities.

Kerry, attending a conference in Turkey of the coalition and its 11 main foreign supporters, announced a doubling of non-lethal U.S. assistance to $123 million. Some of that reportedly will be supplies of night-vision equipment, armored vehicles, body armor and radios to the group’s military wing.

The NATO alliance also has deployed missile-defense batteries in neighboring Turkey to dissuade Assad from attacking Syrian rebel bases and refugee camps there. In addition, the U.S. decided to send 200 troops to Jordan in the coming weeks to boost defenses in the face of the worsening conflict in neighboring Syrian, a Jordanian cabinet minister said.

http://uk.reuters.com/article/2013/04/17/uk-syria-crisis-jordan-usa-idUKBRE93G14920130417

Yet Assad’s point of sleeping with the wrong enemy still is a top concern. The U.S., France, Britain and others face a Hobson’s choice; they cannot support elements of the Syrian opposition that may have Al-Qaeda ties, which sadly have been the most successful fighting force taking on Assad.

That extremist force also makes Assad look prophetic – he once spoke of “ten Afghanistans” in Syria once outside elements and extremists enter the fight. The Assad regime will say it has been proven right, as will Russia, China and Hezbollah

In addition, it divides Syria’s political opposition even more. An Al Qaeda group on the battlefield creates a quandary for other rebel groups: Do they bed down with these well-organized extremists or continue the lonely fight?

http://www.theglobeandmail.com/news/world/syria-live/are-we-seeing-bashar-al-assads-second-wind/article11222855/

Under the “no good options” umbrella comes the chemical weapons moment.

U.S. intelligence has concluded “with some degree of varying confidence,” that the Syrian government has used sarin gas as a weapon, Defense Secretary Chuck Hagel said. President Obama has said the use of chemical weapons would be a “game-changer” in the U.S. position on intervening in the Syrian civil war, and the letter to Congress reiterates that the use or transfer of chemical weapons in Syria is a “red line for the United States.” However, the letter also hints that a broad U.S. response is not imminent.

http://www.bloomberg.com/news/2013-04-26/obama-s-syria-red-line-tested-by-chemical-weapons-report.html

Despite a lack of conclusive evidence, the U.S. intelligence assessments that the Syrian regime has used chemical weapons on a small scale intensified pressure on President Obama to give yet more help to rebels fighting Assad.  And that goes back to the Hobson’s choice.

“This is a case where there is nothing but bad options,” said Anthony Cordesman, an expert with the Center for Strategic and International Studies.

Randa Slim of the Middle East Institute said Obama must take some kind of action or risk large-scale regime chemical attacks on opposition enclaves that Assad’s forces appear to be carving out around Damascus, the city of Homs and the border with Lebanon.

If Obama doesn’t “do something now,” she said, “we will see Assad upping the ante and using CW (chemical warfare) on a larger scale.” She agreed that Obama’s choices are “between bad and worse.”

http://www.mcclatchydc.com/2013/04/25/189715/obamas-options-to-curb-syria-range.html?utm_source=twitterfeed&utm_medium=twitter#storylink=cpy

Cordesman warned that sending U.S. special forces into Syria to destroy the regime’s chemical weapons stocks before they could be stolen or used in major attacks is too risky and would likely end in disaster. “It’s a great movie, but that’s where it ends,” he said.

That’s not the movie anyone thinks will be made.

(Photo credit: MSNBC Media)

DHS ready to deport Saudi student questioned in Boston

The show must go on. Two days ago, I opined that the Boston Bomber, if identified as a Saudi national (the pressure cooker bombs at the site in Boston are most typically employed in Pakistan, Iraq, Afghanistan and India), would put our Saudi-friendly administration, with its reach-out to the Muslim world and most recently, the AQI-linked Free Syrian Army, between an economic rock and a political hard place.

The result would be a scramble on the part of the administration and U.S. law enforcement officials, to control the investigation and contain the media coverage. The phone lines between D.C. and Riyadh, I’m betting, would be burning up. According to reports, President Obama attended an unscheduled meeting with the Saudi Ambassador to the U.S. on April 17, when Ali Alharbi became a “non-suspect.”

No matter. The ensuing slew of confused and just plan wrong news reports tells us somebody did his or her job well.

A whopper of a story by Time’s “entertainment writer”and TV critic, James Poniewozik, is worth reading twice. Pay special attention to the bold allusion by a CNN broadcaster to a “theory that CNN had been intentionally misled by law-enforcement authorities as a strategy to catch the bomber.”

The media might have been intentionally misled, but someone who describes the motivation behind such diversionary tactics as a legitimate “strategy to catch the bomber” is overly generous or, a better suggestion, irritated but still keen to stay employed.

Here’s a piece of Poniewozik’s article –the title is “Un-Arrested Development: On Boston Bomber, Media Outlets Walk Back a Big Story, Again.” And entertaining it is,

Last June, after CNN (and Fox News) blew one of the biggest stories of the year by misreading an opinion and wrongly reporting that the Supreme Court had overturned Obamacare, the network said it was launching an internal investigation into what went wrong and how: “We take mistakes seriously, especially mistakes on such important stories. We are looking into exactly what happened and we will learn from it.”

Sure enough, as CNN was covering the fast-moving investigation into the Boston Marathon bombing, it didn’t make the same embarrassing mistake on an important story. It—and a few others—made a brand-new embarrassing mistake on an important story. It started just before 2 p.m. ET, when CNN’s John King, citing multiple sources, reported that a suspect had been arrested. And Fox News did. And the AP did. (And time.com posted the wire service’s report.) And The Boston Globe did.

He continues,

And NBC… didn’t. Pete Williams–who you might remember being the first, with Dan Abrams, to correctly read the Bush v. Gore ruling in 2000–went on a special report with Brian Williams and said that his multiple sources said there had been no arrest. Live on air, he stuck to his guns even as Brian Williams read the numerous competitor reports contradicting him.

It was a standoff. Pete Williams won. Over the next, excruciating hour, the reports of the arrest fell apart, on live TV, in real time. NBC stood its ground; CBS joined it. Behind the scenes, calls were made. And as Anderson Cooper, Chris Cuomo, and Juliette Kayyem filled time on the street in Boston, their language began to get more tentative: If an arrest had been made. If our sources are correct. “Suspect Arrested” in CNN’s breaking-news chyron silently changed to “Sources: Suspect Arrested.”

Then the FBI weighs in,

Finally, CNN got a report on live air from former FBI assistant director Tom Fuentes, who, citing separate sources, told the funereal on-air trio that their breaking report was wrong. “Ok, now,” Cuomo vamped, “We don’t know what’s right or not right at this point…” (Can we get James Earl Jones to say that in the ads? “CNN: We don’t know what’s right or not right at this point!”) And just as smoothly, “Sources: Suspect Arrested” changed–poof!–to “Conflicting Reports.”

Eventually, King came on to debunk his own report: “Anyone who said there is an arrest is getting ahead of themselves,” he said, as though he had no idea who “themselves” might be. At one point, Kayyem floated the theory that CNN had been intentionally misled by law-enforcement authorities as a strategy to catch the bomber. It was ghastly. It was awkward. I began to wonder if my TV set could be short-circuited by flop sweat.

I’m thinking Time should make Poniewozik its lead political and foreign affairs writer. Good job, guy.

Clues

Ali Alharbi on his way home to Saudi Arabia

Let’s revisit that last blog I dashed off on April 16 — the one in which I pointed out that in the United States, law enforcement officials could not have obtained a search warrant, which is what they did in regard to the Saudi national here on a student visa, unless they were able to convince a judge they had “probable cause” to believe that individual could have been a criminal actor and that evidence supporting that supposition was to be found at his residence, among his belongings, in his vehicle, etc.

But no one told the media that, and no one in the media, including broadcasters with law degrees of their own, made that connection. Law enforcement officials (Fourth Amendment again) don’t present affidavits in order to obtain search warrants unless their target is a real “suspect.” But government and enforcement spokespeople were telling the media that the Saudi student wasn’t a “suspect” or even “a person of interest.” Later, there were reports that he might have been characterized as a “witness.”

I’m with Poniewozik: It was ghastly.

Worse, even, than the stampede of cabinet officials and law enforcement heads to the U.N. in reponse to the Georgetown bistro assassination attempt by Mexican cartel hitmen on behalf of the Iranian government against the Saudi Ambassador to the U.S. As you may recall, this push to distract the press occurred when media coverage of “Fast and Furious,” a government-inspired operation that allowed (whistleblowers say “facilitated”) 2000+ combat-ready weapons to pass unnoticed into the land of los Zetas and their compatriots–was heating up. And Attorney General Eric Holder was bemoaning the efforts of the media “to get us.”

Under Deportation Order

But the obfuscation, or confusion — it’s your call — in the Boston Bomber case is masterful. Now we hear reports that Ali Alharbi the young Saudi national in Boston on a student visa, the same young man authorities released after questioning him so he could “get back to classes” (and who issued the order to release him is still unknown) is under a DHS-issued deportation order based on an investigation that determined he has “suspicious terrorist ties” and has been determined by the U.S. government to be “a security risk.” (Please see my blog of February 26–”ICE Agents Claim Napolitano Forcing Them to Violate U.S. Law–New Immigration Directives Invitation to Terrorists and Cartels.”)

QED: Let’s assume enforcement officials used the fact that Ali Alharbi had been investigated and was scheduled for deportation, and that it was this information, that the young man had already been tagged as a “national security risk,” that helped authorities convince a judge that a search warrant was in order.

So what’s happening now? Will the Saudi student with the black backpack be retained in the U.S. while enforcement officials continue to work with him to obtain more information? Keep him around, look for connections, leads, associations? Makes sense, don’t you think?

Not to the FBI, apparently, nor to Janet Napolitano, who heads the Department of Homeland Security (DHS). DHS, it is rumored, is said to be following through with Alharbi’s deportation and getting ready to send him back home to Saudi Arabia.

The administration wants that boy gone.

Why?

Congressman Jeff Duncan (R-SC) is confused and upset. Like a lot of us, he doesn’t understand the rush: If Ali Alharbi was deemed a security risk previous to the Boston bombing and served with a deportation order issued by DHS (which Alharbi either ignored or the deportation date was subsequent to April 15), why is DHS so bent on implementing the deportation, asap, of a Saudi national who may, at the very least, be able to play an important part in the ongoing FBI investigation?

From an April 18 report by Blaze correspondent (yes, it’s a conservative outlet) Madeleine Morgenstern:

A visibly irritated Homeland Security Secretary Janet Napolitano refused to answer a Republican congressman’s questions about the possible deportation of the Saudi national questioned as a witness in the Boston Marathon bombings.

Napolitano called South Carolina Rep. Jeff Duncan’s question “so full of misstatements and misapprehension that it’s just not worthy of an answer.”

Duncan was not put off, and Napolitano did not specifically note or attempt to dismantle his “misstatements and misapprehension.”

“We have someone who’s being deported due to national security concerns,” Duncan had said during a Capitol Hill hearing Thursday. “We’ve got this guy who was there, we know he was there…and yet we’re going to deport him? We’re going to remove him from the scene?”

“If I might, I am unaware of anyone who is being deported for national security concerns at all related to Boston,” Napolitano said.

“He is being deported,” Duncan said.

Napolitano said, as she understood it, the man was not technically a person of interest or a suspect, and “this is is an example of why it is so important to let law enforcement do its job.”

Do you understand that? I don’t, and it appears Duncan is still confused,

“I want them to do their job,” Duncan said. “Wouldn’t you agree with me that it’s negligent for us as an American administration to deport someone who was reportedly at the scene of the bombing and we’re going to deport him, not to be able to question him anymore?”

All I can say to the mainstream media is, “Good luck with this,” because when it comes to digging for the truth, it’s not the guy with the shovel you’ve got to watch — it’s the fellow with the backhoe.

President Obama Meets With Leaders of Sierra Leone, Senegal, Malawi, and Cape Verde (Official White House Photo by Pete Souza)

It was a story that many people missed. United States president Barack Obama met with four African leaders in Washington in late March 2013: President Sall from Senegal, President Banda from Malawi, President Koroma from Sierra Leone, and Prime Minister Neves from Cape Verde.

A positive step in the right direction for America in Africa, but it is time for Obama to return the favor and once again set foot on the continent.  It was announced late last year that Obama was planning a long overdue African tour sometime in 2013. As a specialist in U.S.-Africa relations and an American living in Africa, I remember thinking simply “Amen!”

There are dozens of reasons why Obama needs to be “here” but to only mention a few. Firstly, there has been a large amount of key personnel changes when it comes to American foreign policy and its African “leadership.” It would prove beneficial for these individuals to accompany Obama on Air Force One for the ride across of the Atlantic, which in turn would help smoothen the transition.

The individuals I speak of are John Kerry, who replaced Hillary Clinton as Secretary of State. The trip should also include the head of the State Department’s Africa Bureau, which until recently was held by Ambassador Johnnie Carson, who formally retired on 29 March.

Although no formal nomination has been announced, it is likely the new Assistant Secretary of State for African Affairs will have the surname “Smith.” Top guesses for Carson’s replacement include either Gayle Smith, a special assistant to Obama and senior director at the National Security Council, or Shannon Smith, the top staff member for Africa at the Senate Foreign Relations Committee who worked closely with Secretary Kerry.

General David M. Rodriguez who assumed control of U.S. Africa Command (AFRICOM) from General Carter F. Ham in Stuttgart last week, should also form part of the delegation. The General is Africom’s third commander, and he previously served as the Commanding General of U.S. Army Forces Command, and deputy commander of U.S. Forces-Afghanistan from November 2009 to July 2011.

Closer to “home,” America has a new ambassador to South Africa, Patrick Gaspard. Born in the DRC and known as a policy man, Gaspard is the former executive director of the Democratic National Committee and formerly the director of the Office of Political Affairs in the White House. He is viewed as being close to Obama, as is former U.S. ambassador to South Africa Donald Gips, who recently vacated his post in Pretoria. Mr Gips served as Assistant to Obama and ran the office of Presidential Personnel, overseeing the selection of 1000s of political appointments for the Obama Administration prior to serving as the ambassador to SA from October 2009 to January 2013.

The second reason why Obama needs to visit Africa is the economic ground America is losing, and not just to China, with its President Xi Jinping recently visiting Tanzania, South Africa and Congo Brazzaville. The fifth BRICS Summit held in Durban highlighted the influence that Brazil, Russia, India and others like Turkey have in Africa. This influence is strengthened through institutions like Beijing’s Forum on China-Africa Cooperation (FOCAC). Moscow has a similar situation through its Russia-African business forum. Adding to this dangerous mix for America is African countries’ continuously wondering [and worrying] if Washington will extend its African Growth and Opportunity Act (AGOA) when it expires in 2015.

Then there are the vast security concerns from Mali to Somalia to CAR to the DRC that needs to be discussed with key stakeholders. Obama has strengthened Washington’s efforts to stem the spread of violence on the continent. He recently sent 100 troops to construct a new drone base in Niger to target Al Qaeda. Obama also determined that Somalia may now receive U.S. military assistance meaning the Somali government is eligible for “defense articles and defense services” under American arms export and foreign aid laws.

Both the economics and security concerns boils down to good old-fashioned politics, and Obama needs to smoothen relations with individuals like new Kenyan President Uhuru Kenyatta. U.S. Vice President Joe Biden represented Obama at Kenyatta’s swearing in ceremony in Nairobi this week.

Obama told the four African leaders back in Washington that he intended to continue to engage with them through a range of programs such as America’s agency for development (USAID) and their HIV/AIDS initiatives. “But we’re also looking for new models that can potentially improve our bilateral relations even more,” Obama stipulated.

Washington launched the doing business with Africa campaign late last year through its Department of Commerce. This led to a Doing Business in Africa Forum at the White House in February. The U.S. also has its upcoming AGOA forum that will take place shortly in Ethiopia, It will bring together over 600 government leaders and private sector stakeholders from the U.S. and Africa, as well as promote discussion on the future of AGOA. And then there is the ninth Biennial U.S.-Africa Business Summit run by the Corporate Council of Africa being held in Chicago on 8-11 October 2013.

Although this may sound like enough, it is not. Washington must launch “new models” for U.S.-Africa cooperation like Obama described. One might start with America establishing a strong FOCAC type setup that can help strengthen the current initiatives and therefore the political and economic dimensions of US-Africa relations.

U.S. Senator Chris Coons, the Chair of the Senate Foreign Relations Subcommittee on African Affairs has also put forth realistic recommendations in his 7 March 2013 report “Embracing Africa’s Economic Potential” that should be carefully examined.

Overall, much has changed in recent months and one can see how the U.S. is losing ground on a continent that has an enormous amount of potential. I am not just talking about mineral and oil resources, but opportunities in financial services, tourism, telecommunications and retail. All of these sectors are further strengthened due to the continent being full of hard working and ambitious youth. If these opportunities are seized, it will undoubtedly have positive implications for the African people such as job creation and a growing middle class. This serves not only America’s political and economic interests, but ultimately its security interests as well.

President Obama, I look forward to hopefully seeing you in Pretoria soon.

Saudi Arabia’s Foreign Minister Prince Saud al-Faisal has attended Arab League meetings on Syria in a bid to halt violence in the crisis-wrecked country. (Reuters)

Not so long ago, after twelve hours in the air, I found myself stranded at an international airport at two in the morning. The flight had been delayed — my pre-arranged pickup had abandoned his mission or just not shown up, and there was one taxi about to pull out and head home for the night. I was still 90 miles from my room for the night, and offered him twice the normal rate to take on one last fare, which he pointed out, wasn’t even close, direction-wise, to his own waiting bed.

But for twice the money, and for Allah, he would do it.

Mohammad was from Damascus, a Sunni Muslim in possession of a late model Dodge SUV, gleaming white on the outside, and decked out inside with wall-to-wall prayer rugs and beads.

As we moved down the highway, slipping off the urban shoulder that hosted the airport and into some very dark and rural territory, Mohammad began to talk. I was American, he knew, and his first beef was about Syria, and President Obama giving lip service to the Sunni opposition, but no guns. “He plays both sides,” says my driver, with his beard and turban, and I nod.

“He doesn’t really want the Sunnis to win — you know why? Because we have the strongest fighters, we will not give up, and will take it all, not just Syria.”

I nod again. “I haven’t been following it much,” I lie.

“The United States and NATO want to keep the Shiites in power because they’re weak, and because they’re between us and Palestine. The West knows if the Sunnis end up next door to Palestine, we’re going to join our brothers there, give them guns, support, fight with them.”

Sounded right to me. Now here’s the rest of this story: This Sunni son of Damascus isn’t ferrying me through the hinterlands of the Middle East, but to a friend’s house in the United States.

The Rising Crescent

This is what King Abdullah of Jordan means when he talks about the “Rising Crescent” over the Middle East. When he suggests that it may be too late for Saudi Arabia to contain Islamic fundamentalism, Wahhibism, the ultra-conservative branch of Sunni Islam, and to avoid the dire prospect, for the U.S. and the West, of having to choose between soaring oil prices (or the end of Saudi-supplied oil to the U.S., with China supplanting the U.S. as the big dog vis-à-vis oil and defense contracts).

The Rising Crescent is what he sees when he considers the dilemmas inherent in sending support, including arms, to militant Islamic groups who may use these weapons against the West and/or Israel at some point, but who are nonetheless currently holding the House of Saud on a very tight leash. Sunni clerics have long suspected the royals of only a nominal fealty to Wahhibism, and even recent efforts from the royals to curb extremism, roll back corruption, and move toward a light-weight form of parliamentary representation have had little effect.

The Roots of the Problem

But let’s scroll back: Saudi Arabia, second most important supplier of oil to the U.S. after Canada, is an Islamic monarchy. Its titular heads, kings, princes, et al. — whose monthly allowances range from 19k to 270k plus regular payola for steering defense contracts toward the U.S. — are walking a high wire of their own creation: an agreement cut in the 18th century and maintained ever since that traded recognition by the powerful Sunni religious leader Muhammad ibn Abdul Wahhab of Muhammad ibn Saud, of the House of Saud, as king (and his offspring and relatives possible successors).

Islamic extremists fight with U.S. support

In return for this recognition, the royals would play protector to a rigid, puritanical Sunni hierarchy (only country in world where woman can’t drive) and remain a source of money, encouragement, schools, mosques and whatever the Wahhabis might want as time goes on. Roughly half a decade ago, the Wahhabis asked for more money to fund what they called “religious revivalism,” and apparently, the Royal Family of Saud missed the extremism, the violence, the virulent anti-Western sentiment encoded between the lines of that seemingly innocuous request.

A little known fact: Saudi Arabia, with its hundreds of billions, has very few waste and water treatment plants. When the average Saudi flushes his or her toilet, its contents flow into a neighborhood cesspool, which is pumped out daily by Filipinos or some other foreign workforce, and transported by truck to yet another giant cesspool out in the Saudi desert.

We are not dealing with a culture focused on progress or social betterment within the state or for its citizens. And the people, citizens of an iron-fisted theocracy, don’t expect it. Remember the rioters in Benghazi after the murder of Ambassador Christopher Stephens.

The signs were written, so American television viewers could understand them, in English: “We don’t want your democracy.”

The U.S. government is trying, against all odds, to find common ground with Islamic extremists rapidly gaining the upper hand across the mideast — leaders who order their followers to fix their eyes not on this world, but on their place in an eternal realm, where issues like waste treatment, pertinent only to this short ephemeral existence on earth, won’t be relevant.

Sounds to me a lot like medieval Christianity, where religious zealots welcomed martyrdom as a first-class, direct flight to heaven — or paradise, as the Wahhabis assure their followers.

Think again of the Great Wall of China, 2000 years in the making, with untold numbers of forgotten workers buried under and amidst the stone. Remember the Great Pyramids of Giza, generations of forced labor. Both monuments to ideas, notions about the sort of power that has nothing to do with improving the existence or even noting the importance of living human beings.

How did we get here?

Allow me to repeat myself: In the ’60s and ’70s, the Royal Family of Saud made a serious mistake, despite close access to CIA advisors apparently as clueless as the otherwise-occupied Royals.

They said “yes” too many times to requests by their Wahhabi overseers for money, money, and more money to fund a much-needed “Islamic revival” — a campaign so successful that Islamic fundamentalism caught fire not just in Saudi Arabia, or even the mideast, but in Central Asia, North Africa and beyond.

Osama bin Laden rode the wave from Saudi Arabia to Afghanistan all the way to New York City, where fifteen of his Saudi compatriots killed thousands of U.S. citizens. “Non-state actors,” the American people were told, and while every Saudi royal who happened to be in the U.S. on 9/11 instantly fled the country (a clue, perhaps?), it took years for the House of Saud to acknowledge that the majority of the 9/11 terrorists (fifteen out of nineteen) belonged to them.

Wahhabism gone wild. The Taliban its praetorian guard. Al Qaeda its foot soldiers. Its political front, the Muslim Brotherhood. Its supporters, the most radical, say “Break with the U.S., stop pumping so much oil, raise the price of oil, and lets support jihad against U.S. troops anywhere they stand up against Sunni upheaval.”

Since roughly 1932, when control of the Saudi oil fields was ceded to the royal family, Saudi Arabia and the U.S. have had a deal: The Saudis give us oil at good prices (forget 1973), maintain a surplus in case it’s needed, and the U.S. sells huge caches of expensive weapons to Saudi Arabia. We want to maintain the status-quo (hence the “non-state actors” in 2001).

But the truth, which Jordan’s King Abdullah just laid out to President Obama last week, is that maintaining this status quo in the Middle East may no longer be a given. And according to a recent NPR report, Obama agreed with him. It’s a dangerous game and a dangerous time to be playing it.

The Royal House of Saud (and other moderate Arab states, some say) is hanging on by a thread, threatened by the momentum triggered by “the Arab Spring” — which ushered in the chaotic rule and would-be absolutism of the Muslim Brotherhood in Egypt, Sunni despotism in Libya, sectarian debacle in Bahrain — and the destabilization of pro-western or Shiite states triggered by Islamic extremism on the Arab street.

Islamic fundamentalism – Wahhabism, the Sunni sect intent on eliminating the other Muslim team, the Shiites (the minority sect and long-time rivals, constituting 10-14 percent of the Muslim population), is muscling the Saudi Royals to rally their infidel allies, the U.S., NATO states, and pro-western Gulf nations, in support of the Sunni agenda in Syria.

At the same time, the radical jihadist fighters gunning for Assad are clearly aware of the benefits should they be able to wrest control from their “umbrella organization,” the Syrian Free Army (FSA, aka “our dog in this fight”) during, just before, or after an FSA victory.

They also admit openly that their corollary goal is to mount a down-the-road offensive (a real one, not a diplomatic coup) against the U.S., NATO states, and the moderate (pro-western, pro-capitalist) Arab states whose aid they now need to ensure the success of their offensive against Assad — a bad man, but still the standard-bearer for Shiites, Alawites and Christians in Syria.

Who’s on First?

Reports have come in that these same FSA units, the puritanical jihadists, have used chemical weapons against Assad’s forces in Syria, curious, given the rumors circulating in DC that the danger of Assad’s government unleashing the same chemical weapons against the FSA, “our side,” might be Plan C (if the American and European public resists the idea, Plan B, of armed intervention against Assad without such provocation) — justifying a swift, final military blow to the dictator’s regime.

But here’s what I want to know: Who’s really got the chemical/biological weapons — the ones U.S. intelligence reported seeing moving up the highway from Baghdad to Damascus just before U.S. troops moved into Iraq? And how do we know what we say we know?

Neither the president, nor the head of the U.S. Department of Justice, Attorney General Eric Holder, nor Janet Napolitano, Secretary of Homeland Security, nor the U.S. Secretary of State, Hillary Clinton had the slightest clue, it seems, that ATF agents on the southwest border were allowing high-powered, combat-ready assault rifles, .50 caliber guns, and shoulder-to air missile launchers to move over the U.S. border into Mexico without so much as a “Gracias, Senora.”

Help me out here

Nobody I know, and probably nobody you know, thinks Assad should stay, but when the “freedom fighters” we’re counting on to make it better kidnap U.N. workers, and we get reports that the guys we’re backing with guns (via Croatia) and money are said to be using chemical weapons themselves in the “struggle for democracy,” I’d say it’s time to step back.

There’s an old Chinese bromide, from the Ming Dynasty, in fact — “Tiger at the front gate, wolf at the back.” The Russians are gone, but Islamic terrorist groups now operate at significant strength on five continents and in 67 countries.

Take a minute.

While Obama insists the U.S. isn’t sending lethal weapons to the FSA, the New York Times reports otherwise, and a report in a Croatian newspaper claims that the U.S. (read: CIA) is sending money to Saudi Arabia for the express purpose of its purchasing weapons from Croatia with instruction that these be transferred to the FSA in Syria.

The White House declines to comment, as does the U.K., and ditto the Croatian government — responses that invariably translate into the iron ring of truth.

And it makes sense: Croatia doesn’t officially enter the EU until July 1, 2013, so technically, at least in the minds of western intelligence agencies, the plan might not violate the European Arms Sanctions currently in place. As always, the devil is in the details.

And then, there’s this — we’ve done it so many times before. Think Iran-Contra. Consider Croatia’s push to acquire weapons during the conflict in the early ’90s: a U.S. Customs operation called Czech Stop (sniper rifles whose end user certificates would read Czechoslovakia would end up in Zagreb) lured the Croatian Minister of Defense to a carefully constructed “illegal arms distribution center” near Phoenix, AZ, where the Defense Minister himself and a “sniper expert” he’d brought with him pulled out 300k in cash for an illegal weapons buy that, thanks to U.S. law enforcement, never materialized.

Operation Fast and Furious, of course, was a different story, a scenario in which it “wasn’t us,” but straw buyers working for the cartels who managed to sneak more than 2000 combat-ready, untraceable weapons across the U.S. border into Mexico, one of which was used to kill a U.S. Border Patrol Agent. And not a soul, not one lily-white higher-up in either the U.S. or the Mexican government knew a thing about it. Go figure.

Cutouts. Straw buyers. Second and third-party transactions.

Oh, wait — we forgot to mention Mena, AK — the money, drugs and weapons scramble the U.S. mounted to aid the Nicaraguan Contras. A Senate investigative subcommittee chaired by none other than Senator John Kerry had this to say about that incident:

The Subcommittee found that the Contra drug links included:

• Involvement in narcotics trafficking by individuals associated with the Contra movement.
• Participation of narcotics traffickers in Contra supply operations through business relationships with Contra organizations.
• Provision of assistance to the Contras by narcotics traffickers, including cash, weapons, planes, pilots, air supply services and other materials, on a voluntary basis by the traffickers.
• Payments to drug traffickers by the US State Department of funds authorized by the Congress for humanitarian assistance to the Contras, in some cases after the traffickers had been indicted by federal law enforcement agencies on drug charges, in others while traffickers were under active investigation by these same agencies.”

Senate Committee Report on Drugs,
Law Enforcement and Foreign Policy
chaired by Senator John F. Kerry

U.S. Law Prohibits Aid and Succor to the Enemy

Note: even the CIA cannot commit to transfer U.S. funds to a foreign ally, in this case Saudi Arabia, with instructions that those monies should be used to purchase weapons from another foreign country with instructions to deliver those same weapons to a third entity — in this case the FSA — without the express authorization of the President of the United States, acting in an official capacity. Even covert operations must conform to rules and regulation concordant with U.S. law.

In the case of Syria, where FSA supporters (us) appear to believe that any fleas acquired from a quick lie-down with some pretty notorious dogs is worth it, even a strategy as pragmatic as this one may be must be measured against the cost to, yes, the rule of law. If a U.S. agency has wired money to the Saudis and instructed them to buy guns that we know will end up in the hands of jihadist fighting units in Syria, we must assume this decision to team up with anti-American extremists represents a conscious choice made at the highest levels of the U.S. government.

New York Times contributor Patrick Henningsen, and Tony Cartlucci, a geopolitical writer based in Bangkok, have both put out some very interesting information.

Known terrorist groups fighting under the aegis of the FSA against Assad in Syria, with the backing of the U.S., U.K., NATO, Qatar and Saudi Arabia include Saudi intelligence-backed:

• Jabhat al-Nusra, aka the “al Mursa Front”
• The Libyan Islamic Fighting Front (Abdullah Azzam Brigades)
• Al Bakraa ibn Malik Martyrdom Brigade
• The jihadist group Ahrar al-Sham
• The PKK (in NE Syria)
• Kata’ib Mohadzherin from the Russian Caucasus region

Salafist suicide bombers are, of course, of special concern to the Russians, panicked by western support for the SFA, the al Qaeda units fighting under that aegis, and other terrorist organizations betting on being the last fighters standing in the cage.

And here’s an interesting aside: like Libya’s new militant governor of Tripoli, Abdel Hakim Belhadj, the leader of the terrorist group Kata’ib Mohadzherin, Airat Vakhitov, was also imprisoned at Guantanamo Bay in 2002 after being captured by U.S. forces in Afghanistan and then released back into the terrorist pool.

No matter. The point is that ad hoc alliances among dissident terrorist outfits often constitute an initial step in eliminating a common enemy. If Assad goes, the next battle is within the FSA itself, and like the larger struggle, this winnowing-out will mirror the interests of larger partners — Saudi Arabia, the U.S., NATO and the Gulf states.

Revolution and Counter-Revolution

In a previous blog, I jokingly (ok, half-jokingly) asked if the anti-Assad team, once they’ve achieved victory with the help of jihadist groups antagonistic to their own interests and culture, might consider turning on “the enemy within” the FSA in the same way the allies turned on the Communist partisans in the last days of World War II.

Interestingly enough, a blog by Dr. Rachel Ehrenfeld, Director, American Center for Democracy, raises a question as to whether there may already have been talk between western supporters (CIA) and “moderates” within the FSA about using drones, once the anti-Assad campaign is concluded, to target “known terrorists” involved in the inevitable Syrian power-grab.

According to Ehrenfeld,

Word is also out that the CIA has developed a contingency plan for fly-over fighting in Syria, to “size up Islamic extremists in Syria for drone strikes.” The potential victims appear to be members of Jabhat al Nusra, also known as the Nusra Front.

It’s a strategy. Not new. Not pretty. But tried, and sometimes true.

Let’s pretend it’s a plan too devious, too shaky, too obvious—especially to its potential targets—to pass muster, even at Langley, and go back to square one.

Then let’s pretend that the idea, articulated recently by newly-appointed Secretary of State John Kerry, that the U.S. can “be confident arms sent to the Syrian opposition will not fall into the wrong hands” isn’t preposterous.

The entity known as the Free Syrian Army, or FSA, is a chaotic collection of competing, adversarial ideologues, opportunists, and foaming-at-the-mouth jihadists, possessed of shifting allegiances to disparate leaders and units, and ready to kill anyone or anything (including each other) if it might advance a self-serving, no matter how momentary, agenda or impulse. The idea that it’s possible to sort out the good guys from the bad is ludicrous. So let’s just admit it, John, and move on.

Or you can ask those CIA agents on the border between Turkey and Syria whose job it’s been to decide who gets a gun and who doesn’t—they know.

Seymour Hersh, writing in The New Yorker, presaged the current dilemma in 2007. The piece is titled “The Redirection: Is the Administration’s New Policy Benefiting Our Enemies in the War on Terrorism?”

To undermine Iran, which is predominantly Shiite, the Bush Administration has decided, in effect, to reconfigure its priorities in the Middle East. In Lebanon, the Administration has coöperated with Saudi Arabia’s government, which is Sunni, in clandestine operations that are intended to weaken Hezbollah, the Shiite organization that is backed by Iran. The U.S. has also taken part in clandestine operations aimed at Iran and its ally Syria. A by-product of these activities has been the bolstering of Sunni extremist groups that espouse a militant vision of Islam and are hostile to America and sympathetic to Al Qaeda.

Ok, Seymour, the answer to your question is yes, yes, and yes again.

Another analyst moves this thinking forward with a comment about the current House of Saud: “The Royal family (now) governs a country completely disconnected from the life the Royals are living and the foreign policy they are conducting—a huge contradiction.”

What’s that I hear from that high palace window in Riyadh?

Let them eat oil?

Remember the Bastille.

Abdullah of Jordan—Ahead of the Curve

If you haven’t read Jeffrey Goldberg’s piece on King Abdullah of Jordan in the April edition of the Atlantic, take that PC out of your cubicle, find a quiet place, and click here now—it’s 36 pages long, but worth it, believe me.

Salient points: Hashemite King Abdullah of Jordan is personally and emotionally the most pro-U.S. leader in the mideast. A graduate of Deerfield Academy, “Ab,” as he was called by his fellow preppies (who wouldn’t recognize a Hashemite if they fell over one) was just one of the guys, taking it on the chin and even bussing tables in the school cafeteria, like everyone else, when his turn came.

He’s a reformist, a modernizer, a believer in pluralism and representative government — a man who flies his own blackhawk helicopter (he’s a former commander, Royal Jordanian special forces), and once took an spur-of-the-moment, Kerouac motorcycle ride with some pals along the wild highways of the American west. No one recognized him, and he likes to joke with U.S. intelligence about their lack of due diligence in not detecting a gang of motocycle-riding AY-RABS (as he pronounces it) racing undetected along the backroads of the good ol’ USA.

As far as Syria is concerned, he tells Goldberg he is not hopeful.“What happens to all monarchies,” he asks. Too much has happened — the Arab Spring, revolution in the streets. King Abdullah, who has been severely criticized, as has his wife Rania, for being “too liberal, too western” — al Qaeda wants to kill him — envisions a constitutional monarchy for Jordan (“like the constitutional monarchy in the U.K.), complete with a parliament constituted not along tribal lines or based on patronage, but built of political parties driven by ideas — independent thought, idealistic stretch, debate, discussion, progress.

His greatest obstacle, the king tells Goldberg, comes not from outside Jordan, but from within, where the eastern tribes, the political heavyweights behind the throne, expect Abdullah to keep Jordan’s western tribes and the Palestinians weak and in their place. Tribal rivalries.

“More than half of all Jordanians are of Palestine origin, with roots on the West Bank of the Jordan River, but the tribal leaders are from the East Bank, and the Hashemite kings have depended on East Bankers to defend the throne since the Hashemites first came to what was then called Transjordan from Mecca almost 100 years ago…”

The status quo. Again. He takes Goldberg with him on a visit to the western tribes (“the dinosaurs’) and talks to them about employment, improvement, innovation. One elderly tribal leader remarks that street crime is up at night, and whereas young men with sticks used to patrol the streets, that was no longer the case — maybe they could re-institute that practice, buy better sticks. Bigger sticks. It would create employment.

Can Reform Outpace Revolution?

The glacial pace of change in Jordan dismays King Abdullah. But 9/11, the invasions of Afghanistan and Iraq, the Arab Spring, chaos in the streets — it’s evoked different responses from different rulers. No monarch has yet been deposed in the mideast — a game changer if it happens — and while Abdullah’s advisors caution that he may have to move faster then internal politics appear to allow, Goldberg focuses on the difference in the ways that Assad and Abdullah have handled two surpassingly important challenges to Arab leaders—the Muslim Brotherhood, on the one hand, and the existence of Israel, on the other—hints at the chasm of difference between the two families.

The Hashemites (in Jordan) have used the General Intelligence Department (GID, the state intel agency) to create dissention the ranks of the Brotherhood; they have bought off some of the group’s leaders; they have made the case to Jordanians that the Muslim Brothers are more interested in imposing the rule of fundamentalist sharia law than in making the country more democratic. The Assads, in contrast, have taken a more direct approach, killing Muslim Brothers in large numbers…in 1982 Hafez al-Assad’s forces dilled between 10,000 and 20,000 in the city of Hama.

Jordan versus the Brotherhood:

Which is not to say that the Hashemites don’t harbor visceral dislike for the Brotherhood. Abdullah says, “When you go to the State Department and talk about this, they’re like, ‘This is just the liberals talking, this is the monarch saying that the Muslim Brotherhood is deep-rooted and sinister.’ Some of his Western interlocutors, he told me, argue that “the only way you can have democracy is through the Muslim Brotherhood.” His job, he says, is to point out that the Brotherhood is run by “wolves in sheep’s clothing” and wants to impose its retrograde vision of society and its anti-Western politics on the Muslim Middle East. This, he said, is “our major fight”—to prevent the Muslim Brothers from conniving their way into power across the region.

Can Jordan’s reformist king survive?

Goldberg continues:

The king, for his part, is certain that the Muslim Brotherhood wants to see him gone. The GID has told him the Brotherhood high command in Cairo is actively fomenting unrest in Jordan. According to multiple sources, the GID claims to have intercepted communications from Brotherhood leaders in Egypt to their Jordanian affiliates, encouraging them to boycott elections and destabilize the country. Abdullah told me [Goldberg] that “behind closed doors, the Muslim Brotherhood here wants to overthrow” the government…they don’t believe in in the constitution of Jordan—they won’t swear on the constitution. They will only swear on the constitution of the Muslim Brotherhood. Their allegiance is to the murshid, the supreme guide or leader of the Brotherhood based in Cairo. Abdullah said that when Brothers win election to parliament, and swear to follow the text of the Jordanian constitution, they get a fatwa—a religious ruling—stating that ‘you can put your hand on the Koran but what you swear on the Koran is non-binding’ when you’re declaring fealty to a secular document.

And as bad as that news is, it’s not the worst.

Goldberg says, while most of the gulf monarchs remain his allies — they, too, fear the Muslim Brotherhood — the king’s expansive, moderate view of Islam has served to isolate him from the Arab world’s rising rulers. Tunesia is now ruled by Islamists. In Egypt, Hosni Mubarak, a longtime Jordanian ally, has been replaced by Mohamed Morsi, a Brotherhood leader. The king argues that a new, radical alliance is emerging, one that both complements and rivals the Iranian-led Shia crescent.

King Abdullah tells Goldberg, “I see a Muslim Brotherhood crescent developing in Egypt and Turkey. The Arab Spring highlighted a new crescent in the process of development.”

And what about Abdullah’s Islamic critics? The radical fundamentalist view? Ominous.

From Goldberg’s piece,

Zaki Bani Rashid, the chief of the Islamic Action Front’s (IAF) politburo, says that the Tunisian and Egyptian revolutions resemble the French revolution in its viral qualities. “The French Revolution caused the end of regimes all through Europe,” he says. “The Arab-world revolutions will have the same effect through our region…the [Jordanian] regime must understand that we need more democracy and more representative rule. We want a better country.” He said this while seated underneath a portrait of King Abdullah. Hamza Mansour, the IAF’s secretary-general, said that if reform did not come quickly, the possibility of ‘social violence’ would grow.”

Endings

Yes, they seldom turn out as planned. There are unchangeable realities at work in this situation: The U.S. must maintain its relationship vis-à-vis oil, defense contracts, access to Saudi air and surface space — an abrupt end is irremediable at this particular point, despite optimistic predictions that the U.S. could overtake both Saudi Arabia and Russian as the world’s largest oil producer in the future.

The U.S. government is committed to supporting the extremist Sunni militants who support the House of Saud, even though that means in some cases committing resources, money and guns, to the same terrorist groups who supported or participated in the 9/11 attacks on New York and Washington — and who have said they hope to launch more attacks on the United States in the future.

The U.S. government is reported to be arming FSA rebels, with most of the weaponry going to the most effective and committed fighting units as a matter of course: the most effective and efficient fighting units get the cream. If the U.S. is involved in a clandestine operation to arm forces hostile to the United States and its people, forces that have already engaged in attacks on U.S. soil, then Congress should be looking at this.

Britain’s greatest queen, Elizabeth I, used to say “my dogs wear my collars.”

The question here, it appears, is one even Bess might have been hard put to answer: “Which dogs are wearing whose collars?”

Yiannis Kourtoglou, Getty

On March 22, 2013, WVUM, the student radio of the University of Miami, invited me into its station in order to discuss the mess taking place in Cyprus. Despite talking for almost 15 minutes on the roots of the crisis in Cyprus and the ECB’s ultimatum, I could not resist continuing the discussion on Iran, Syria, and President Obama’s trip to Israel.

Here is the summary of the edited show:

• Cyprus is a mess; the bailout is only the beginning of the end as austerity measures will be implemented at some point and Cyprus’ banking model will have to be reformed
• Syria has been the victim of vicious bloody war waged by President Bashar Al-Assad against its people;
• Iran is a rational actor and it does make sense for Tehran to develop nuclear weapons;
• President Obama’s decision in attempting to solve the Israelo-Palestinian crisis is just part of the game of any US President.

Here is the discussion:

Up until President Obama touched down in Tel Aviv earlier this week, the headlines roared for years
about new tensions between the United States and Israel, not to mention the sour relationship between bout countries’ head of state.

During the last U.S. election, Republicans and their sympathetic pundits branded the incumbent president as one of the most anti-Israel American leaders of all time. They further extended the anti-Israel mantel onto the entire Democratic party. As evidence, we heard time and time again that President Obama has not taken a hard line against Iran, the administration does not sufficiently recognize Jerusalem as the capital of Israel, and Republicans are the only saving grace to continued U.S. support for the Jewish state.

Despite all this dominating the news cycle for the better part of four years, President Obama was greeted with open arms, captivating the hearts and minds of the Israeli people and heralded as a one of the greatest friends to Israel of all time.

Israel’s top leaders from President Shimon Peres, a long-time peace process proponent, to Prime Minister Binyamin Netanayhu, the leader of a Israel’s right-wing bloc on-and-off for two decades, all welcomed President Obama and repeatedly expressed their thanks to him.

From the ceremonial welcome at Ben Gurion Airport to the departure to Jordan, President Obama and his Israeli counterparts acted like best friends reunited for their twentieth (…to be nice…) high school reunion. President Obama joked about a hit Israeli television show and fluidly—albeit not flawlessly—spoke a few meaningful Hebrew phrases.

Israelis are very in touch politically and are not, as demonstrated by President Obama’s Jerusalem speech heckler, not wary of voicing their views.

Therefore, either the perception of Obama as anti-Israel was pure hogwash or it’s truly amazing what a warm smile and a few good jokes can do. It’s a combination of both.

Both President Obama and Israel’s leaders had to show a unified front. President Obama just faced a somewhat tough reelection fight and a damaging effort to confirm a new defense secretary that many think is not pro-Israel. Meanwhile, Prime Minister Netanyahu cobbled together a coalition, that includes the Yesh Atid party, which represent many young Israeli voters that are not as anti-Obama as the constituents of some of the other parties. Maintaining that coalition, given how difficult it was to assemble, will require some politicking by Prime Minister Netanyahu, whose outward hostility toward President Obama during the last term was not terribly welcomed in Israel. Lastly, as a potential war with Iran brews, the United States and Israel must showcase a uniform front.

More importantly, the policies—and not the rhetoric—of both President Obama and congressional Democrats demonstrate their views on Israel, and there has been nothing but support for the Jewish state.

Prominently, the United States throughout Obama’s tenure has committed hundreds of thousands of dollars to support the development of the Iron Dome missile defense system, which has saved countless lives as terrorists in the Gaza strip lob rockets and mortars at Israeli civilians in southern—and increasingly central—part of the country.

On Iran, the United States has helped promulgate tough sanctions that have demonstrated significant impacts on the Iranian economy. Militarily, the United States has dispatched more forces to the region, allegedly helped engineer a debilitating computer virus to destroy Iranian computers, and President Obama has indicated that an Iranian nuclear weapons program is unacceptable. Only time will tell if the United States follows through with military attack, but President Obama has indicated that he does not “bluff.”

With Jerusalem, the United States policy has been the same for several presidential administrations under both parties. Yet, some build a false case that somehow President Obama is changing U.S. policy.

The list goes on and on. President Obama and the Democrats continue to support Israel—in some unprecedented ways—yet some distort this record.

President Obama may have been vilified in some American circles for being anti-Israel, but the Israeli people reflected the true nature of the relationship.

As Shimon Peres said at the outset of the visit: “Mr. President, Wherever you go in our land, you will meet the friendship and warmth of the people of Israel. The people of Israel want you to feel at home. Welcome home Mr. President.”

The news media lit up late Thursday on news that North Korea threatened to use preemptive nuclear warfare against the United States and canceled its non-aggression pact with South Korea. The regime of North Korean leader Kim Jong Un, equipped with nuclear capabilities, seems less interested in peace and only throughout the last 24 hours upped its rhetoric against the West.

Sadly, these aggressive threats could become far more common in the years to come, especially if the world is subjected to another lunatic armed with nuclear weapons, this time in the form of Iran’s President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad.

To date, Iran does not have nuclear weapons. While the country’s leaders claim that they only seek domestic nuclear energy capabilities, the technology built–including the 3,000 advanced centrifuges–are only necessary for the development of nuclear warheads. 

With every passing day, Iran closes in on realizing its goals of obtaining these weapons of mass destruction, only one of which could make Israel nearly uninhabitable or annihilate thousands of U.S. troops stationed in the region.

Despite not yet having nuclear capabilities, Iran’s rhetoric outpaces that of North Korea.

For years, Ahmadinejad has called for the destruction of Israel, hoping that the the “Zionist regime” will be “wiped” off the map. These repeated direct threats against Israel are coupled with similar accusations toward the United States, from claiming that the U.S. government planned the Sept. 11, 2001 terror attacks to aspiring for a world without America.

North Korea has the nuclear capabilities and the desire to slaughter millions of people. Iran is only one step behind, but rapidly approaching parity as it enriches uranium and further develops its nuclear program.

To date, sanctions have been moderately successful in harming the Iranian economy. Covert activities — including the assassination of key scientists and the release of debilitating computer viruses — have handicapped Iran’s work. Yet, despite all these efforts, Iran continues to advance its nuclear program and is ever closer to obtaining devastating weapons with every passing day.

Unless Israel, the United States and other Western powers take decisive action against Iran soon, the world will simultaneously face two nuclear-armed regimes, both intent on committing mass genocides and directly targeting the United States and its allies.

DHS Secretary Napolitano sued by ICE agents

Been on the road, folks. Lots of airports, long security lines, plastic bins — shoes, coat, watch, laptop, any liquids? Transportation Security Administration (TSA). Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE).

“What do you do?” the fellow at U.S. immigration asks.

“Write about you guys.”

He looks up.

“How’s it going?” I ask. “You know, with the new boss. Napolitano?”

One look is still worth a thousand words.

“Watch out,” he says, his eyes moving over my right shoulder. “She’s standing right over there…”

I jump. Look. He smiles and stamps my passport.

“You know the worst thing?” he says. “We’re making it up as we go along. Everyday there’s something new we’re supposed to be on the lookout for. It’s all arbitrary.”

I know what he means, and I know why I jumped. Staying alive at Department of Homeland Security (DHS) is a full-time occupation. One slip-up, the chain quivers, the blame starts its downward flow, and if you’re an agent, you’re pulling duty in Pembina, ND, or spending the rest of your working life doodling on a yellow legal pad in an empty room at HQ/DC.

So believe me when I tell you that it takes more than a fit of pique to file a legal complaint against DHS Secretary Janet Napolitano, as the National Ice Council has done on behalf of eleven agents who believe that recent policy directives on prosecutorial discretion and the DREAM directive on deferred action are forcing them to choose between enforcing immigration and deportation laws passed by the U.S. Congress in 1996 and their professional careers.

Christopher Crane, head of the council, reports that agents who continue to enforce laws currently on the books — ignoring policy directives from the top instructing them neither to apprehend, arrest, or depart aliens who’ve entered the U.S. illegally or who’ve overstayed their visas (even illegals serving time in U.S. prisons for felonies and misdemeanors) — are targets for disciplinary action.

From the complaint filed by the National Ice Council against Napolitano, August 23, 2012 in U.S. District Court for Northern District of Texas Dallas Division:

ICE Plaintiffs reasonably fear, based upon official communications to them, their knowledge of communications to Plaintiff Doebler, Plaintiff Martin, and Plaintiff Crane from their superiors, past events, and public sources, that if they follow the requirements of federal law, contrary to the “Directive,” and arrest an alien or issue an alien an Notice to Appear (NTA) in removal proceedings, they will be disciplined or suffer other adverse employment consequences. Plaintiff James D. Doebler arrested an alien who was unlawfully present in the United States and issued the alien an NTA, contrary to the general directions of his supervisors that he should decline to issue NTAs to certain illegal aliens. Plaintiff Doebler was issued a Notice of Proposed Suspension. Plaintiff Doebler is facing a three-day suspension for arresting and processing the alien for a hearing rather than exercising the “prosecutorial discretion” commanded by his supervisors. Plaintiff Doebler requested a written directive ordering him not to issue the NTA. His supervisors have refused to give him a written directive and would not sign any paperwork authorizing the use of “prosecutorial discretion.” Plaintiff Doebler reasonably fears, based on his past experience, that if he follows the requirements of federal law, contrary to the “Directive,” and arrests an alien or issues the alien an NTA, he will be disciplined again. He reasonably fears that a second disciplinary action will result in the loss of his job.

There’s more:

On July 17, 2012, Plaintiff Samuel Martin, along with another immigration enforcement agent, picked up an illegal alien from the El Paso County Jail. While the agents were trying to place the alien in the vehicle, the alien attempted to escape, and resisted and assaulted Plaintiff Martin and his colleague. The agents regained custody of the alien and transported him to the El Paso Criminal Alien Program office for processing. Plaintiff Martin’s supervisors ordered him to release the alien without any charges being filed against the alien and ordered Plaintiff Martin not to issue an NTA. The agents who were present protested the release of the alien; but they were told “it was a management decision, based on the President’s new immigration policies.” No supervisor ever asked the agents if they were injured or if they needed assistance. It is the understanding of Plaintiff Martin, reflected in his signed statement concerning the incident, that his supervisors gave him these orders based on the Directive.

This is a big deal. Why? Because the backlash against Crane and his colleagues tells me the other side is worried.

From David Leopold, past president of the American Immigration Lawyers Association, published August 3, 2012, in the Huffington Post:

The last I checked federal bureaucrats are supposed to implement the administration’s policies, not publicly obstruct them. So why is Christopher Crane, President of the National Immigration and Customs Enforcement Council — the union of 7,000 immigration agents, officers, and employees — engaging in a pattern of open insubordination designed to thwart the president’s effort to deport dangerous criminal aliens and national security risks?

And Leopold’s not finished,

But where does Crane come off attempting to set administration policy? Since when does the soldier tell the general what to do?

Is this how the president sees himself? As a “general” issuing unquestionable orders to subordinates?

Last time I looked at the U.S. Constitution, Article I, section 1, it seemed to say something pretty important about the separation of powers:

All legislative Powers herein granted shall be vested in a Congress of the United States, which shall consist of a Senate and House of Representatives.

It’s what we call a “vesting clause,” and it means that Congress, not the President of the United States, enacts federal law as Congress did in 1996 when it passed the immigration laws currently on the books.

Now, Article II, Section 1, Clause 1 of the same constitution is another vesting clause, again meant to clarify the separation of powers:

The executive Power shall be vested in a President of the United States of America.

What does this mean? That it’s the president’s job to ensure that the laws enacted by Congress are enforced.

And here, my friends, is where we run into an argument neither Crane nor Judge Reed O’Connor, the federal judge who just ruled the ICE agents “have standing” in this matter, is ready to abandon: Does the executive or its representatives, Napolitano and Morton, have the constitutional authority to issue directives designed to reinterpret the letter of federal laws enacted by Congress? Are our elected representatives in the House and Senate expected to play “soldiers” — as David Leopold suggests — to Obama’s “general”?

Pay attention.

The argument isn’t ideological. It isn’t about whether it’s “moral” or “practical” to deport or apprehend the roughly 11 million illegal immigrants living in the U.S. It isn’t about taking children away from parents or uprooting folks who’ve become hardworking, churchgoing members of the community. The majority of Americans (who, according to the polls, value border security as much as they do a sensible approach to immigration) believe that aliens who’ve made decent, honest lives for themselves should be offered a path to citizenship.

No, the argument is much larger and much more important.

It’s about who has the power to turn laws passed by Congress inside out, to gut statutes still on the books with an eye toward rendering them unenforceable, feeble, token homage to the free will of the citizenry as opposed to the political will of the president.

The ICE agents suing their boss say it’s their job to enforce the law as it is currently and unambiguously set down. If Americans want to change immigration laws, they should communicate that desire to their elected representatives, the men and women they’ve voted into office to speak for them, and Congress should get it done.

But let’s say Congress is not ready to agree on this issue. Frustration reigns. The loyal opposition shouts “Obstruction!”

It’s still not the president’s job to step in, a political Jacques Derrida, deconstructing statutory language on the basis of its inherent “unreliability” — its inability to adequately or actually reflect what he and his constituents believe are the “true” beliefs, values, and desires of America’s citizens.

Sensitive or insensitive, right or wrong, the people have spoken through the U.S. Congress; the DREAM Act has been proposed in Congress two dozen times, and has been voted on by both the House and the Senate.

This is how democracy in the United States works. Not always pretty. Not always fast. And not always, as history has demonstrated, “on the right moral track.” Think slavery. Think suffrage. Think civil rights.

But don’t forget — champs fight fair. Because we understand that when the law goes, when the Constitution becomes irrelevant, America, with all its unresolved problems and promise, will go under as well.

If you lose, shake hands. Don’t change the rules of the game, especially when you think no one is looking.

The DREAM Act has never been passed by both houses of Congress, but its frequent introduction is a clear indication that both Congress and the White House understand that federal legislation, as opposed to the issuance of an executive order or policy directives that aim to reshape the implementation of immigration laws, is required to achieve the act’s objectives.

ICE agents Chris Crane, David Engle, Anastasia Carroll, Ricardo Diaz, Lorenzo Garza, Tre Rebstock, Fernando Silva, Samuel Martin and James Doebler — plaintiffs in Civil Action No. 3:12-ev-03247-O, in the U.S. District Court for the Northern District of Texas Dallas Division have testified, under oath, that their superiors have ordered them to break the laws they have sworn to uphold.

No one, they say, not the Secretary of DHS or the President of the United States, according to the U.S. Constitution, can twist or bend those laws to prop up an ideological imperative, not matter how high-minded, or a political agenda, no matter how opportune.

Let’s look at some background provided by the complaint filed on behalf of the ICE agents–skip it if the weeds get too high:

• In 1996 (during the Clinton administration), Congress sought to reduce executive discretion in the enforcement of federal immigration laws — i.e., “Immigration law enforcement is as high a priority as other aspects of Federal law enforcement, and illegal aliens do not have the right to remain in the US undetected and unapprehended.” H.R. Rep. 104-725 (19916), at 383.
• Enacted in 1996, 8 U.S.C. 1225 (a)(1) provides that “an alien who has not been admitted…shall be deemed for purposes of this chapter an applicant for admission.”
• 8 U.S.C. 1225(a)(c) provides that all applicants “shall be inspected by immigration officers.”
• 8 U.S.C. 1225(b)(2)(A) mandates that “if the examining immigration officer determines that an alien seeking admission is not clearly and beyond a doubt entitled to be admitted, the alien shall be detained for a proceeding under `229a of this title.”
• Deferred action [mandated by policy directive under DACA and the DREAM Act] is not specifically authorized anywhere in federal law. Historically, deferred action has been utilized sparsely for small numbers of aliens in discrete distress pending statutory or foreign policy-mandated regulatory changes. No group of aliens has been granted deferred action in the past 15 years that approaches a fraction of the size of the class of aliens subject to the June 15, 2012 DHS directive, “Exercising Prosecutorial Discretion with Respect to Individuals Who Came to the United States as Children.”
• Federal regulations do not authorize the Secretary to grant deferred action wholesale to a large number of aliens.
• Deferred action, which the attorney for the plaintiffs claims is “a substantive immigration benefit,” may not be conferred as a matter of prosecutorial discretion, but only by regulations promulgated under authority delegated by Congress.
• By definition, “prosecutorial discretion” cannot be used to confer a substantive benefit.
• U.S. Customs and Immigration Service (USCIS) is not a law enforcement agency and has no prosecutorial authority.
• ICE plaintiffs have each sworn an oath to support and defend the Constitution of the United States and the laws of the United States.
• ICE plaintiffs believe that if they follow the Directive, they will be violating their oath of office, as well as violating several laws of the United States.
• Finally, ICE plaintiffs reasonably fear, based upon official communications to them, from communications directed toward Agents Doebler, Martin and Crane, from superiors, past events, and public sources, that if they follow the requirements of federal law, contrary to the “directive,” and arrest an alien or issue an alien a Notice to Appear (NTA) in removal proceedings, they will be disciplined or suffer other adverse employment consequences.

A lot of legal jargon. But Federal Judge Reed O’Connor seems persuaded.

Not so with DHS and supporters like David Leopold, who contend that Janet Napolitano’s directive does not stop ICE agents from stopping and questioning aliens considered to be suspicious or intent on undermining security. Decide for yourself; Napolitano’s memo is here.

It sounds okay, doesn’t it, with all that talk about “background checks” and deferred action an option only on “a case-by-case basis”?

But ICE agents, as well as Kris W. Kobach, the secretary of state in Kansas, who’s representing them in their lawsuit, have a different and very frightening tale to tell: In the complaint, the agents state they’ve been ordered to ignore an entire category of illegal aliens.

The agents allege they were told to stop requesting proof of citizenship or immigration status.

“Secretary of Homeland Security Janet Napolitano and her underlings want their agents and officers to just take the word of an illegal alien without verifying his or her statement,” said former police commander David Scher. “It’s as ridiculous as releasing a suspected bank robber who states he didn’t commit the robbery without any verification by police officers,” he said.

New Immigration Policies: Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell?

Now I don’t know about you, but denying agents or cops the right to question people who strike them as suspicious doesn’t seem to jive with David Leopold’s accusation that ICE agent Chris Crane is “engaging in a pattern of insubordination to thwart the President’s effort to deport dangerous criminal aliens and national security risks.”

If you can’t question anyone, if your boss tells you the word of an illegal alien is all you need (scout’s honor), how do you distinguish between the young fellow pursuing a degree in social work at the community college and the 20-something chemistry student mixing up the next big assault on the American people? Or the 19-year-old “mule” covered with gang tattoos who understands that as long as the cocaine isn’t spilling out of his pockets, you can’t touch him — no arrest, no deportation.

Really, tell me. Years ago, I reported on the work of an astute customs agent, Jose Melendez Perez, whose “instincts” told him something was wrong about a passenger trying to enter the U.S. on 8/4/01 with one-way ticket with no luggage. Turns out the authorities believe the passenger was the twentieth 9/11 hijacker on his way to join the gang that tried to commandeer Flight 93, bound, some say, for the capitol. More on him in a bit.

And then there’s this — another “Hail Mary” pass on the part of a customs inspector on our border with Canada in 1999:

In 1999, customs officers in Port Angeles spotted a nervous Ahmed Ressam, an Algerian national who later was convicted on multiple counts for plotting to bomb Los Angeles International Airport. Custom agents found explosives in the trunk of his car when he drove off a ferry from Canada.

Two years earlier, Border Patrol agents arrested Gazi Ibrahim Abu Mezer in Bellingham. Later on, after a federal judge reduced his bail, Abu Mezer went to New York where he tried to plot an attack on the subway system.

Clearly officials will continue to exercise more initiative on our borders and at U.S. ports, but the question is what do you do when these characters manage to get over the border and through our ports?

Hardball

There are critics who say DHS and the admininstration is not only making a grab to extend executive power at the expense of the legislative branch, but that the consequences of a “kinder, gentler” approach to immigration, yes, at least 11 million votes — an endgame in this “no questions asked, no proof required” attempt to reach out to so many good guys — could be an open invitation to some very bad guys.

The under-thirty kind who promise an inquisitive ICE agent they’re here as students — maybe they overstayed their visas, or maybe they entered the United States under dodgy circumstances — but no criminal priors, no red flags in any of our data banks, and no reason, as the DREAM Act would have us believe, not to believe them.

What they might not be telling us is that they’re in the U.S. enrolled in an aviation school, an outfit that needs the tuition, the kind that let’s you acquire enough hours to take off but not to land.

Enforcement insiders report that under Napolitano’s Directive, Ziad Jarrah, who piloted Boeing 757-222 on the morning of Sept. 11, 2001, could not have been arrested or deported—even if he’d been apprehended before the event.

True story.

In 2013, DHS border control policies, including the policies governing immigration and deportation, prohibit U.S. federal agents from arresting/deporting an alien solely on the grounds that he or she has entered the U.S. illegally or that he or she has overstayed his or her visa.

Federal agents working for the U.S. government (DHS) may only arrest an illegal alien if that individual has been convicted of committing a crime, a single felony or three misdemeanors.

And here’s the rest of the tale.

The U.S. government (DHS) has told their agents that even the commission of a crime by the alien, the single felony or three misdemeanors, doesn’t automatically sanction deportation—that there are “significant” and “insignificant” crimes, and deportation of an alien convicted of a criminal offense is tied to its definition as one or the other.

Who decides which crimes are significant and which are not?

Murder and rape, says DHS, would most likely be considered significant crimes, but who makes the final determination in each individual case — and how — is unclear.

“Prosecutorial discretion.”

What this means is that federal agents now visit, on a routine basis, illegal aliens doing time in U.S. jails and prisons, only to discover that in too many cases, they are still prohibited by current U.S. (DHS) policy from deporting these lawbreakers and sending them back to their own countries, whether Mexico, Central-South America, Europe or the Mideast.

We know that Hamas, Hezbollah, and al-Qaeda operatives are living and working in Mexico and points south, cooperating and collaborating with the cartels, money launderers, arms manufacturers and traffickers of every ilk.

We know the southwest border is riddled with drug tunnels, and that ports across the southern U.S., particularly Miami and Los Angeles, are overwhelmed not just by cargo, but by arbitrary policy directives whose priorities — what to look for, what/who to detain — seem to change daily. There are whispers and rumblings about close calls leaking out of these ports, and frustration about risking one’s career for national security or risking security to protect one’s career.

And we know that if even one or two, or let’s say even 19 (the number of 9/11 terrorists), would-be terrorists are currently living in the U.S., even if they entered illegally or they’re here on expired visas, and unless they’re convicted of committing a significant crime, ICE agents can’t do much about it.

You don’t have to be Einstein to figure the odds.

Let’s scroll back to the U.S. before 911, and come at this from a different angle.

Yes, it’s that important

There are Feds who tell me that if the same immigration/deportation policies ICE agents are told they must observe today had been in place when the 9/11 terrorists were living, training and planning the attack in the United States, on student or expired visas — even if one had been apprehended during an attempt to pass through a U.S. port illegally, as authorities believe was the case on August 4, 2001, with Muhammed al-Kahtani, the suspected ‘20th 911 hijacker’ I mentioned earlier — ICE or Customs/Immigration agents would not have been permitted to arrest or deport them.

They had not yet committed any crimes.

Don’t believe me?

You’re not alone.

U.S. Immigration Policies and Mexico

Let’s agree on this: The majority of illegal aliens living in the United States are from Mexico and other countries in Central and South America.

On Jan. 29, NPR aired an upbeat “All Things Considered” interview with reporter Ted Robbins.

Topic? The Border Security Index, a quantitative tool conjured into being not long ago by DHS Secretary Janet Napolitano.

According to Robbins, the index has brought glad tidings to DHS and the country, countering the concerns of those worrywarts within and without the agency who suggest that the administration’s extensive “reach out” policies to groups and states hostile to the U.S. may be costing us not just the proverbial hand, but the arm as well.

If it ever comes to a showdown, the reasoning goes, armless men are at a disadvantage.

“Histrionics,” say defenders of the Administration’s border control policies.

But the doubt, the tiny pinch at the back of the national neck, is hard to ignore, particularly when one recalls the calm, bucolic skyscape overhead on 9/11, minutes before two hijacked U.S. aircraft ripped through the Twin Towers and a third, reportedly heading for Washington, D.C., cratered into a field in Pennsylvania.

Critics, who point to the security failure in Benghazi and the increasing mobility and geographic reach — 67 countries and five continents — of al-Qaeda and other jihadist groups, say another attack on the U.S. is inevitable and not far off.

And they say that lax, uncoordinated and politically driven border control policies along U.S. borders and at U.S. ports is an open invitation.

The rebuttal

No, no, no, says NPR reporter Robbins. According to the Border Security Index, arrests of illegal aliens have dropped from a million plus a decade ago to roughly 300,000 today.

Robbins outlines several reasons for this success. First, beefed up border security is working — ICE and Border Patrol Agents are better trained and better equipped to stop the flow, and new technologies, cameras, infrared equipment and a new detection devices/strategies that are too sensitive to explain in detail are making illegal border crossing a riskier proposition than ever before.

Second, this same beefed-up security is making it more difficult for illegal aliens inside the U.S. to exit, meaning the back and forth traffic of temporary illegal workers has come to a halt. Now, once inside, they tend to stay.

Third, the economy of Mexico is improving — stronger economic growth last year than the U.S. — so the incentive to blast on through to the other side of the border decreases as Mexico’s GDP rises.

Sounds good. Real good.

Time to get serious

There was a time when U.S. Customs and Border agents had the legal clout, authority, plus the intelligence and sources they needed to get the job done.

In 1985, when Mexican cartel thugs kidnapped and tortured DEA Agent Kiki Camarena, U.S. law enforcement — allowed at that time to operate 26 kilometers south of the U.S. border into Mexico — instantly tapped into their network of sources within Mexico and the cartels, teasing out the names of perpetrators within days. The Mexican authorities, cartel chiefs, assassins, informers and nearly all their friends and family were put on high alert: The U.S. wanted the men who tortured and killed Camarena and our agents wanted them fast.

Customs shut down the U.S.-Mexico border, blocking millions in trade, backing up traffic for hundreds of miles, and he swore the ports would remain closed until Mexico delivered. Very soon after, some very anxious individuals on the Mexican side of the border began “throwing the bodies over the fence” to feds waiting on the other side. U.S. law enforcement still had the executive and agency backing it needed to protect its own and U.S. citizens on our side of the line.

In 1992, when the U.S. and Mexico agreed on preliminary plans for the implementation of a free trade zone between the two countries, border agencies began to pull agents back toward the U.S. border. NAFTA, which U.S. policymakers believed then was too important to the nation’s economic growth to jeopardize, a view later tagged as overly optimistic, the balance of political power began to shift.

U.S. manufacturers, especially automakers and electronic outfits, were benefitting significantly from the construction of parts in Mexico (cheap labor and huge tariff reduction/elimination), and these campaign contributing corporations, as well as the American Bankers Association, became advocates for harmonious U.S.-Mexico relations.

President Clinton and Mexico’s President Salinas finalized NAFTA in 1994, and U.S. policymakers passed the word down: Mexico, whose cartels and cartel supporters continue to divvy up roughly 39 billion a year, was our new best friend. And Mexico, reason dictated, would not want to jeopardize its new trade relationship with the U.S. any more than we did — the same kind of logic that told Alan Greenspan, prior to 2008, that the banking community would never entertain any risk that might invite its own self-destruction.

Mistake.

In post-NAFTA Mexico, more than 50,000 men, women, and children (a number roughly equal to fatalities in Syria, a slaughter that triggered outcries from Hillary Clinton and David Petraeus to send combat ordnance to opposition forces there) have died in the drug wars Mexico’s government tells us it is winning.

It’s not about drugs—it’s about money

Criminal cartels move drugs into the U.S. because it’s profitable — everyone in the chain gets a taste, not cocaine, not heroin, not meth but cold hard cash. Drug kingpins want to expand the U.S. market via legal or illegal means, not because they’re ahead of the curve and understand we cannot and should not interfere with the morally-neutral demands of eight million addicts and their left-of-center supporters (their rationale is neither ideological nor “socially progressive”), but because it means money in their bank accounts.

And many of the banks are with them, barnacles on a drug blight ingenuous wealth managers prefer to ignore.

Look at HSBC. The recent scandal revealed the bank’s Mexican branches have laundering as much as 70 billion over the past few years — money on which brokers and account managers earn huge under and over-the-counter commissions.

Did HSBC know the money was dirty?

Duckwatchers I’m betting HSBC execs are not, but the fact that the bank moved tons of dirty dollars in the form of bulk cash via bank-to-bank transfers suggests someone may have understood the value of flying-under-the-radar.

Every day, millions in old-fashioned American greenbacks moved by air across the friendly skies between HSBC/Mexico to HSBC’s cash collection center in New York City.

The repatriation of cash from the HSBC Mexico City Bank averaged between 500 million to one billion every 22 business days. Bank-to-bank transactions are exempt from CMIR (Cash and Monetary Instrument Reports), a requirement for anyone who tries to cross the border carrying more than 10 thousand dollars, so there were no reports to the Treasury Department when the Mexican bank branches returned the cash to the U.S.

Drug cash crossing the border into Mexico is never counted. Banks, the venerable establishments at the core of U.S. economic growth, are exempted from CMIR reporting because bank to bank transactions are not considered “a risk.”

It’s assumed that the banks’ honest brokers have already vetted their customers.

The problem is that no one, not Financial Action Task Force (FATF), not Treasury, not ICE or DHS, vets the bank and its account managers. Not really. The civil fines, what bankers call “the price of doing business,” generally come after the fact.

And that’s too bad because the CMIR is the only instrument in place that could, if properly employed, measure the tons of drug dollars that spill out of the Mexican and Colombian cartels. CMIR is the only reliable scale we have to estimate the actual volume of drug money smuggled out of the U.S. and into Mexico, cash that is daily deposited, placed, layered and integrated back into the world economy through Mexico’s financial institutions.

Once bulk cash is returned to the U.S. or “repatriated” — almost every US bank, and every Mexican bank, benefits from what’s called “correspondent banking,” a sibling relationship between branches in both countries — the cash is placed on deposit at the Federal Reserve Bank of the United States as the asset of the depositing bank.

This is where the money is finally reckoned and how investigators in the U.S. have arrived at the 39 billion dollar figure as a rough estimate of cross-border cartel drug profits.

An ingenious scam, those bank-to-bank transfers and the CMIR exemptions — no counting at the border, no records, no delay.

The Feds also figure that over the past several years, Mexican cash traveling into and back out of the Federal Reserve vault in Brooklyn, NY, has weighed in at roughly 500 million to one billion every 22 days.

My point? There are some who say that NAFTA, designed to make the United States a productive trade partner with Mexico, may have merely made us, in many cases, its partner in crime.

News reports, too many to count, tell the same story about U.S. banking, including the criminal allegations and fines levied in recent years against HSBC, Wachovia, Citibank, Bank of America and other institutions in search of big accounts whose origins, to their shock and surprise, are discovered to be uncertain.

The pre-NAFTA clout enjoyed by U.S. law enforcement on the southwest border before 1994 quickly began to deteriorate.

Customs and DEA agents operating in Mexico had, for 30 years prior, been able to obtain credentials from Mexican authorities that permitted them to carry weapons within the Mexican states — an amenity also extended to Mexico’s police officers in the United States. Now that option disappeared, and in recent years, American  agents like Jaime Zapata, traveling unarmed in a government vehicle and ambushed at a checkpoint in northern Mexico, have paid the price.

In 1995, when it was revealed that U.S. law enforcement had, unknown to Mexican authorities, conducted a three-year money-laundering laundering investigation tagged Casablanca — the largest in U.S. history — and was about to confirm the involvement of General Enrique Cervantes, Mexico’s Secretary of Defense, in an one of the largest and most complicated money laundering schemes ever devised. Nearly every bank in Mexico was implicated, scores of bankers, brokers and traffickers identified and charged. Three of Mexico’s largest banks were indicted and convicted of money laundering.

Mexican authorities were outraged by what they saw as a breach of their national sovereignty, and the Clinton administration sent Attorney Janet Reno to Brownsville, TX, to sign an agreement with her Mexican counterpart that not only prohibited the U.S. from launching unilateral law enforcement investigations involving Mexico. The Brownsville Agreement also requires the U.S. to obtain concurrence, permission from the Mexican authorities before implementing such investigations in the future. It also compels U.S. law enforcement to work hand-in-hand with Mexican federal and state police, and forces U.S. law enforcement to brief government officials in Mexico on proposed strategies before they can be implemented.

No more finger-pointing at Mexico’s top dogs.

Which brings us back to ICE Agent Chris Crane and his colleagues who continue in their attempt to convince Congress, the courts, and the media that the U.S. has, in many ways, abandoned our borders. To highlight the fact that U.S. law enforcement personnel, once allowed to operate 26 kilometers south of the U.S. border, are now stationed in district offices located 60 or 80 miles inland. To disabuse us of the notion that jet skiers on Falcon Lake in U.S. territory and killed by cartel thugs in 2009, brought it on themselves. To counter the idea that Jesus Diaz, a Border Patrol agent doing time in a U.S. prison, deserves to be there because he forced an illegal alien — young, uncooperative and covered with gang tattoos — into a kneeling position in an attempt to restrain and search him — verboten, one suspects, under new DHS policies. The young Mexican, who was returned soon after unharmed to Mexico by bus, complained of “rough treatment” to the Mexican consulate, which complained to the Office of the U.S. Attorney in Diaz’s district. Our guy, Diaz, went to jail, not the kid with the strap marks canyoned into his shoulders, standing a few hundred feet from an abandoned backpack filled with cocaine.

So when NPR’s Ted Robbins ticks off the “probable” reasons that the arrests and deportations of illegal aliens have declined significantly, it might be prudent to give the devil his due and suggest that law enforcement personnel — ICE, DEA and Border Patrol agents who’ve seen colleagues lose their jobs, their lives and their freedom in the exercise of what they believed was their sworn duty — might merely be acquiescing to policies that preclude the apprehension, arrest and/or deportation of illegal aliens.

The border policies that fail to keep out the drugs and the dirty money are now joined by immigration policies that may fail to keep out even larger threats.

We’ll just have to wait, I suppose, along with ICE, for a crime “significant” enough to get our laws (the ones passed by Congress) working again.

Next month, March 2013, will mark the second anniversary of the Syrian uprising. This bloody conflict, as I have repeatedly written, has been characterized by the bombing of bread lines, town-wide massacres and burgeoning sectarian attacks. The enormity of the death toll, 70,000 and counting, should elicit shock to even the casual follower of international affairs.

Admittedly, the number is staggering, but when one considers the fact that the conflict is far from finished and that the rebels have yet to gain full control of even one major urban area, it will pale in comparison to the final death toll. This is not to mention that death tolls are highly unreliable, particularly in a conflict where on-the-ground reporting is difficult, if not impossible in some areas. The point of the matter is, to put it plainly, that too many Syrians have died and that the revolution in the heart of the Middle East has gone on for too long.

A stable and orderly transition may be impossible at this point, confessional hatreds too deep, the Syrian leadership implicit in Assad’s murderous rampage and a military which by all accounts has transformed into a militia; raping, pillaging and looting. The external Syria opposition has also compounded this issue, while acting as the face of the revolution for international television, individuals such as Moaz al-Khatib, the National Coalition President, have failed to bridge the divide between external organizations and fighting groups inside Syria.

At its current pace, the conflict, at minimum, will last until the end of this year, leaving more death and destruction in its wake. The international community, in particular the United States, can help resolve the Syrian conflict sooner rather than later. What is needed is concise and thought-out plan to arm vetted Syrian rebel groups, in addition to the “non-lethal” aid already supplied.

Last week’s testimony by outgoing Secretary of Defense Leon Panetta should be viewed with dismay. Panetta told the Senate Armed Service Committee that the Obama administration had scrapped plans to arm Syrian rebels, should be viewed with dismay. Under the plan, the United States, in coordination with an unnamed regional ally, would vet, train and supply rebel groups with the weaponry required for bringing the fight to Assad. While not explicitly stated, it is clear that this would include assault rifles, most probably AK-47 variants, heavy machine guns, typically of the truck-mounted and squad level varieties, anti-tank weaponry including the Russian-made Metis models, and less likely though possible, less advanced anti-air weaponry, with the SA-7 being a probable choice. Weapon systems capable of threatening the regime’s MiG fighter jets and helicopters have become a point of contention, with neighboring allies worried that they may fall into the hands of extremists and end up being used against the West or Western interests.

International Factors:

According to Panetta, three factors played into the administration’s decision not to adopt the plan put forward by now sacked CIA Director David Petraus, with the support of the Head of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, General Martin E. Dempsey and himself. Each of these issues revolved around the possible dangerous repercussions that heavier involvement in the Syrian conflict would entail. Starting at the international level, it seems that the White House believed that further involvement could elicit a response from the Iranians either within the region or internationally. Having been involved in a variety of terrorist attacks since 1979, many international observers are pointing to Tehran for Hezbollah’s bombing of an Israeli tour bus in Bulgaria last July. Needless to say, it is not above the Islamic Republic to make its disapproval known through extra-political means.

Russia and China also factor into the administration’s decision making. With the failure of the much lauded “reset” with Moscow, a pullout from Afghanistan in the near future, and recent moves by Vladimir Putin aimed at discrediting Washington; the Obama administration is not looking to step on any Russian toes.

With China, the “peaceful rise” of the Asian dragon has been met by the American pivot to Asia. Tense land disputes and a rise in military spending by the Chinese have ensured that the United States will want to approach the South China Sea, one of the world’s most vital trade routes, with caution and through a framework of cooperation. By passing China on the Syrian issue could further sour relations and in combination with a slight against Russia could make American maneuvering on the world stage slightly more difficult.

While the three abovementioned issues are of great concern for the United States, it must be acknowledged that the repercussions from the Syrian conflict may cause greater long term complications for America. The Obama administration must approach the conflict with a more robust policy, while giving assurances to Beijing and Moscow and further isolating Iran.

Inside Syria and the Region:

According to the International Herald Tribune, senior U.S. officials told the newspaper that the veto was due to fears about risks associated with becoming more deeply involved in the conflict, including weapons falling into the wrong hands. This has been an issue both internally in Syria and in regards to spill over into the neighboring states of Lebanon, Iraq, Turkey and Jordan.

This has been a repetitive theme, one which I supported at the beginning of the revolution. Arming the rebels at that point would have put a minimally better armed rag-tag against the full force of the Syrian army, which at that point had held back its full force. The issue today is that Assad’s army, a de facto militia, has utilized every weapon in its arsenal and has devolved to targeting civilian infrastructure, hospitals and schools. Rebel groups centered around military defectors, although divided into various provincial military councils and brigades, now have top-down command structures. The first factor highlights the need for robust involvement by the West and its allies, the latter shows that potential Syrian partners have the professionalism required to handle and store weapons safely.

The professionalism of these groups and the ability to easily identify these units within Syria (thanks to YouTube, social media and on the ground intelligence) ensures that a fruitful relationship between the West and these groups are plausible. Vetting, training, arming and planning along the lines of the Petraeus plan would be relatively quick and easy process. Turkey and Jordan both boast strong intelligence services with a history of supporting non-state actors in prolonged conflict and would not want to see these arms fall in the wrong hands.

While the initial payoff for such a strategy would see rebel units stepping up the pressure on the Assad regime, the secondary result of arming secular, defector-led units is just as important. Fears over weapons falling into the wrong hands and spillover associated with radical groups, such as Jabhat al-Nusra, are ever present in Washington’s decision making, and rightly so. That being said, these fears can be mitigated by Western action.

Containing the Radicals:

By bolstering the capacities of Western-friendly rebel units, particularly those under the auspices of civilian or military councils, the balance of power would shift in favor of moderate groups. Jabhat al-Nusra and its myriad of Salafist allies within the country, including the very capable Ahrar al-Sham force in Idlib governorate, have grown stronger after overcoming a variety of regime bases and airfields.

While moderate units have employed the same tactics, attacking regime soft points in rural and suburban areas, they have been unable to reap the spoils of war as concretely as Jabhat and its allies. Luckily, Jabhat has so far been unable to obtain anti-air missiles that could pose a threat to civilian airliners. The capabilities of jihadist groups should be replicated and exceed in providing weaponry to Syrian rebels in order to tip the balance of these fighting forces, helping to ensure that they become the arbiters of post-Assad Syria. Without a procurement plan the fall of Damascus could herald the birth of radical enclaves within the country and a tug-of-war between better armed jihadists and their moderate counterparts.

Containing Regional Spillover:

Assad’s survival plan has centered on pushing this internal conflict to Syria’s borders. The flow of refugees into neighboring countries has amounted to almost 800,000 and this is not to mention the nearly two million Syrians internally displaced.  Ill-equipped neighboring states, most notably Jordan and Lebanon, are seeing their internal stability weathered away by this reality. In addition, violent spillover in the latter country and Turkey has put the precarious balancing acts in both countries on edge.

If the Syrian conflict is to be further drawn out stability in all the surrounding countries will be affected creating a proverbial mushroom cloud of conflict and decay in the heart of the Middle East. Whether it is the Kurdish issue with Turkey, anti-regime protests in Jordan or the sectarian balance in Lebanon, the United States may have to pick up some or all of the pieces when this area of the world disintegrates. Providing training and weapons to the opposition will hasten the fall of Assad, ensure that spillover does not become a prolonged process and in turn save the territorial and political integrity of neighboring countries.

One note must be made though, one which has been largely absent from the discussion in Washington and other Western capitals. Those that call for the arming of Syria’s rebels must also, and vigorously, champion the allocation of funds and medical support to the neighboring countries that will see heightened inflows of refugees as a result. 

Photo Credit: KM Chaudary

For decades there have been conversations, tough questions, “ah-ha” moments, deep insights and common sense shared in one-on-one exchanges with John Kerry and Chuck Hagel. In all those times interacting with them, watching them, analyzing them, not one umbrella has been spotted.

These men are not appeasers or pleasers. They are not those who seek peace in our time at any short-term bargain that carries a risk of long-term price. They are veterans of many wars – shooting wars, political wars and personal quests. They have a determination honed of years facing enemies, enigmas, egos and elation of small triumphs; at worst, they have touches of Don Quixote, believing that foreign policy can be bipartisan, smart, bold and moral.

The current din against both men — one now the newest secretary of state, one perhaps the next secretary of defense – is that they are against a robust U.S. role in the world, that they prefer talk and not just action. That they will take the United States aback from foreign entanglements and hope that engagement with others will solve the increasingly intractable problems of the world.

The cry today is a fear of “retrenchment” that would be sparked from two persons who have literally been in the modern day equivalent of trenches.

Just not the case. There may be disagreements in policy goals, but both Kerry and Hagel seek a goal that should be embraced by all: that America keeps its word, is wise and kind, strong when needed and also strong enough to admit it does not always have the best answer.

As Hillary Clinton said in some farewell remarks, the complexities of today’s world demand the use of “smart power,” rather than military might or diplomacy alone. She used an architectural metaphor to compare the Cold War world to today’s more complex reality, saying it is like the difference between the Parthenon and Frank Gehry’s work.

“Where once a few strong columns could hold up the weight of the world, today we need a dynamic mix of materials and structures,” she told the Council on Foreign Affairs.

http://www.nydailynews.com/news/politics/hillary-clinton-calls-departure-bittersweet-farewell-speech-article-1.1252536#ixzz2Kbo4R2tP

She was not referring to Kerry and Hagel specifically — yet they certainly measure up well to those architects she portrays as needed to guide America’s role in the world.

Kerry and Hagel have never steered me wrong.  Both men are candid about themselves and the role that the United States can and should aspire for the world. In the Senate, both men were outspoken – or aloof – because of their beliefs. Such behavior is considered a cardinal sin in Washington, D.C.

Both men know how to take a punch, and have, and know how to get back up. They have learned how to use wisdom gained and experiences that seared.

Accompanying Kerry on one of his first foreign trips as a senator to Central America, one saw how he acquired information at every moment, processing and then asking for more and conveying a confidence and friendliness the opened doors and minds on those he met.

That was a Kerry trademark, one shared by Hagel. Upon returning from a trip abroad, reporters would find themselves the ones handling questions from Kerry and Hagel, seeking insights and the words from the street and the human view of America that is not always available to those in official positions. Those conversations from both showed the depth of their understanding of situations – missed by many in Washington – and that more knowledge makes better decisions.

Hagel would always break the ice by asking about my Jeep, our preferred means of ground transportation. We vowed never not to have one, at least in spirit – and that is a good analogy. The Jeep was put together for a need in a time of crisis, a solution to a problem at the moment – and it worked. Yet it also was designed to keep on working, the able to handle any situation, to adjust easily and cleverly, with guts and surprise and Yankee ingenuity. With modifications, it did so for decades.  It never failed.

Perhaps it is fitting that Hagel will be the first enlisted man to become Defense Secretary. The thought of one-time active duty members of the military assuming high role sin government is almost ancient history. Kerry and John McCain where the only Vietnam veterans to be presidential nominees; Hagel also served in that conflict. No one since John Kennedy has actually served in a shooting war.  There is something about seeing war in your face, experience the moment of decision that makes the reality of this “foreign policy tool” all the more vivid and special.

Kerry avoided a nasty confirmation hearing, in large part because the committee he chaired so well – to grudging bipartisan acknowledgement – was the first stop on his confirmation path. Confirmed by his colleagues by a vote of 94-3, Kerry was visibly emotional at times during his nearly hour-long speech as he said his goodbyes to the upper chamber. He said that “new whispers of a desire for progress” leave him convinced that they can “keep our republic strong.”

Kerry was nostalgic as he recalled his first time in the Senate as a Vietnam veteran testifying before the Senate Foreign Relations Committee some 42 years ago. “That’s how I first came to the Senate, not with my vote but with my voice,” he said. When confirmed by that same committee, he said, “It completed a circle which I never could have imagined drawing.”

http://www.politico.com/story/2013/01/john-kerry-goodbye-lauds-senate-in-farewell-speech-86954.html#ixzz2KbnJAxmH

The same is likely for Hagel, should he have the chance.  But the long knives are out. Payback time – and everything good thing that Hagel has done is finding mud on it.

Opponents of Hagel’s confirmation to be the next secretary of defense have waged a smear campaign accusing him of everything.  They plan a filibuster, although they are calling it by another name. Their latest gambit is to delay a vote by engaging in a fishing expedition into the financing of the various organizations with whom Hagel is affiliated.

A vote to have a vote is set for Friday in the Senate. Hagel needs 60 yes votes in order to get a confirmation vote on Saturday.

Hagel has a warm smile and a good heart that suggests he is not tough. Get shot at a few times when there is no one to help you and that tells you all you need to know about being tough as well as not leaving anyone behind.

He knows what needs to be done. His political enemies don’t care.

Those who can’t do, try to destroy.

“The United States is struggling to confront an uptick in threats from the world’s newest jihadist hot spot with limited intelligence and few partners to help as the Obama administration weighs how to keep Islamic extremists in North Africa from jeopardizing national security without launching war. We want to put up a map here and explain to people where this is–Egypt, Libya, Algeria, Mali, Niger.” – Chuck Todd to Secretary of Defense Leon Panetta on “Meet the Press” on Sunday, February 3, 2013.

On Sunday’s “Meet the Press,” contributing editor Chuck Todd cited a February 1, 2013 Associated Press account which highlighted the challenges facing the US as it fights terrorism in North Africa for President Obama’s second term.  Among the most recent developments was the killing of nearly 40 hostages, including 3 Americans, during a raid near a gas facility in In Amenas, Algeria after a hostage siege by operatives linked to al-Qaida in Islamic Maghreb (AQIM) based in Algeria.  Last September 11, 4 Americans including Ambassador Chris Stevens were killed during an attack on a U.S. diplomatic post in Benghazi, Libya.

As I sipped my morning coffee, I was puzzled by Todd’s map graphic as it appeared on the screen, so I pressed pause. (How did we exist before DVR’s live-tv pausing capability?) Among all the reds and oranges, threatening arrows and markers, Morocco was so greyed out that it almost went unnoticed.

Grey seems such an inappropriate color for a critical U.S. ally.

In one sense, the color choice is testimony to Morocco as a model which has maintained stability while being surrounded by an ocean on one side and chaos on all others.  It is no accident of history or fluke of policy that this chaos didn’t bleed across its borders.

However, in another sense, it’s indicative of the fact that U.S. policy in North Africa needs work.  As conflicts brew in several theaters around the world, the US must balance its domestic appetite for involvement with protecting vital security and strategic interests.  When we look to partner with other nations with their own interests wrapped up in these conflicts we find that our relationship status with them is often “complicated.”  We are forced to make strategic decisions on how we engage and partner – sometimes navigating around serious policy differences in other areas.

In North Africa, the U.S. doesn’t have that problem. What we do have is Morocco (for more than 225 years actually).

What’s more – than a history of good bilateral relations – is that we now have an official framework, the Morocco-U.S. Strategic Dialogue, which was put in place for the very purpose of making sure that our two countries can efficiently communicate, coordinate and act on several fronts, including security.  Add to this, Morocco’s role as a Non-Permanent Member of the U.N. Security Council and the 2013 Chair of the U.N. Security Council’s Counter-Terrorism Committee.

“Within this framework, the problem of security, notable in the Sahel-Sahara zone, is a shared priority [with the U.S.]” – Youssef Amrani, Morocco’s Minister-Delegate for Foreign Affairs and Cooperation.

While the growing instability in North Africa may be new to the radar screens of some in the U.S., it has, necessarily, been Morocco’s focus for some time.  As Minister-Delegate Amrani noted, “We’ve been following the worrying developments in the Sahel-Sahara zone for years and we have not stopped alerting the international community to it.” Morocco has been largely successful in combating the threat internally, but it has still suffered losses such as the bombing in Marrakech’s Argana cafe in Jemaa el-Fnaa square, which Morocco attributed to terrorists linked to AQIM.  Unlike many of its neighbors, Morocco must maintain a delicate and difficult balance of being the open, progressive and tolerant society it has been known for with tough policies, measures and enforcement against outside influences and threats.

Then there’s the Western Sahara conflict, whose significance many Americans, admittedly and understandably, don’t appreciate.  The territorial dispute between Morocco and the Polisario Front (a Cold-War era guerrilla movement) is nearing its fortieth year, but here’s why you should care now: The Polisario has holed itself away in camps in Algeria where no outsiders can see in and where thousands of refugees are in forced confinement with rejects and castaways from every conflict in the region, including “al-Qaida, its affiliates, and its wannabes.” (I stole that one from former Secretary of State Hillary Clinton.) It is already a challenge for Morocco to address the economic needs of the large number of unemployed, often disaffected, young people who are recruiting targets for terrorist networks. Imagine the vulnerable situation of the thousands of young refugees for whom the Polisario offers no alternatives for livelihoods except for smuggling, kidnapping and aiding terrorist networks who benefit from the lawless, closed nature of the Polisario camps.

Inaction is perpetuating a conflict that doesn’t have to exist. As Morocco’s King Mohammed VI has said, the conflict is from “a long-gone era,” and it’s time to move on and address very real contemporary regional crises that are threatening interests and costing lives, including American ones.  Morocco understands this threat and has presented a compromise solution which is gathering dust on the negotiating table because the Polisario’s priorities and focus are still wrapped around a fallen Wall, dead (and dying) dictators and a worldview that is older than many of the conflict’s refugees (as well as the author of this post).

The U.S. should also remember that having an ally means being an ally.  Morocco faces serious threats to its own stability and security, and vocal U.S. support for progresses made and actions to back up this support is key. Over the last two years, countries in the Middle East and North Africa have had to grapple with change and reform, and Morocco is no exception.  But it did so in a way that was productive and peaceful – so much so that it is often “greyed out” in commentaries and analyses of the “Arab Spring” fallout and follow up.  Let’s not punish the student that did his homework by ignoring him; let’s support him so he can rise to greater challenges. (I’m sure there are some easily bored former honor roll students that feel me on this one.)

In President Obama’s second term, a successful U.S. foreign policy in North Africa cannot grey out our strategic partners.  I hope that someone has taken the time to add a little color to Morocco on the maps in Secretary Kerry’s briefing books so he doesn’t overlook a ready and potentially useful ally in a region that will dominate U.S. foreign policy and attention for the near future. -CDark

Copyright: BBC – http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-europe-21293598

On February 1, U.S. Embassy in Ankara – in a calm, residential and business neighborhood — was bombed. At the time of writing this, police statements indicate that it is believed to be a suicide attack and the attacker(s) detonated the bomb inside the security checkpoint bunker, killing at least one security guard. Growing up in the nice and pleasant middle-class neighborhood around the embassy, the attack was of particular shock to me.

Who attacked the embassy or what their motives were, will definitely be clear as the investigation continues, however the timing of the attack was of particular importance. Most specifically, CNN-Turk’s Nevsin Mengu has brought several important factors into consideration:

1. Earlier in the morning on February 1, Osama bin Laden’s son-in-law Suleiman M., was captured by a joint CIA – MIT (Turkish National Intelligence Agency). The police statement indicates that Suleiman M. had entered Turkey as a political asylum-seeker, with the final goal of traveling to Saudi Arabia to reunite with his wife.
2. Israeli airstrike on Syria – and the fact that Israel had contacted Washington before the strike – infuriated not only Syria, but also Iran and Russia. A preemptive Israeli airstrike is not new in the region, but the consent and knowledge of Washington at this political juncture is seen as a very serious act of indirect hostility by the Syria-Iran-Russia axis.
3. Turkey had requested NATO Patriot-missile protection on its Syrian border later in 2012 – NATO had responded positively and a number of Patriot missile sites were established with a group of American, German and Dutch military oversight mission. The final shipment of Patriot missiles and launcher system had arrived several days earlier and the full system went operational earlier on February 1.

***

One, or a combination of these factors have possibly caused the attack today – U.S.-Turkish relations have recovered significantly from its 2003-2008 “low” and both countries have been cooperating extensively in a number of very critical strategic policy issues. U.S. Embassy bombing in Ankara may be an indicator of how this cooperation is seen as a threat, as the attack probably sought to punish both Washington and Ankara.

Chuck Hagel and President Obama at the White House

Nearly nine years ago, Senator Hagel charted out “A Republican Foreign Policy” in the July/August 2004 issue of Foreign Affairs. Hagel summarized this foreign policy with seven principles:

1)      Leadership in the Global Economy: “The rule of law, property rights, advances in science and technology, and large increases in worker productivity all have contributed to the United States’ leading edge in global markets.”

2)      Do Not Ignore Global Energy Security: “Discussions of U.S. energy policy are often detached from economic and foreign policy. The United States has an interest in assuring stable and secure supplies of oil and natural gas.”

3)      Security Interests are Connected to Alliances, Coalitions, and International Institutions: “A Republican foreign policy must view alliances and international institutions as extensions of our influence, not as constraints on our power.”

4)      Support Democratic and Economic Reform, Especially in the Greater Middle East: “We cannot lose the war of ideas. In many developing countries and throughout the Muslim world, we are witnessing an intracivilizational struggle, driven in part by the generational challenges of demography and development.”

5)      Focus on the Western Hemisphere: “The process of economic integration that began with the North American Free Trade Agreement (NAFTA) must evolve into a comprehensive program for the entire western hemisphere. Energy, trade, transportation, and immigration, as well as terrorism and illegal narcotics, are all critical to our national security interests.”

6)      Work with Allies to Combat Poverty and the Spread of Disease Worldwide: “This is one of the core challenges of governance in the developing world. Avian flu, severe acute respiratory syndrome (SARS), HIV/AIDS, tuberculosis, malaria, and other possible pandemics can begin as acute crises in Africa and Asia but quickly acquire global reach and implications.”

7)      Strong and Imaginative Public Diplomacy: “The coin of the realm for leadership is trust and confidence, and popular discontent and questioning of U.S. foreign policy intentions will undercut our efforts in the war on terrorism and initiatives in the greater Middle East.”

You can read the piece in its entirety here: “A Republican Foreign Policy.”