Cult Change

RFE-RL reports on the propaganda situation inside Turkmenistan:

"A source close to the Turkmen government told RFE/RL on condition of anonymity that all government and public institutions have been instructed to remove Niyazov's portraits as well as boards containing excerpts from Niyazov's speeches and his book 'Rukhnama,' which had become a force-fed 'spiritual guide to the Turkmen nation.'

"According to the instruction -- which is said to have come directly from Berdymukhammedov -- no portraits should be hung on buildings. Portraits of Berdymukhammedov could replace those of Niyazov but only inside government offices, a source told RFE/RL...

"Meanwhile, observers have voiced concern over a possible cult of personality being established by Berdymukhammedov himself.

"In recent months, numerous reports from Turkmenistan have said that portraits of Berdymukhammedov are replacing those of Niyazov in many places around the capital and elsewhere.

"A correspondent for RFE/RL's Turkmen Service in Lebap Province also reported on such a case. 'One school director told me that at the beginning of this school year, he was told to take down a portrait of Niyazov and put a huge picture of Berdymukhammedov in its place,' the correspondent says. '[He said] the order came from the Education Ministry's district department.'

"Western media have speculated that Berdymukhammedov has appeared to take steps toward opening up the country. Yet state television reporters now refer to Berdymukhammedov as the 'great leader' and newspaper articles extol his virtues."

I still don't understand how "not as bad as Niyazov" seems in some people's minds to equate with "democratic reformer." You can have a country open to the outside world, and still have a personality cult surrounding the dictator.

Observing Armenia

As last week's elections in Armenia seem to have been clearly unacceptable by actors on the ground and close to the scene, one question becomes why so much of Europe and the United States signed off on them. Emil Danielyan suggests Karabakh was the key:

"The observers’ findings, which have been endorsed by the European Union and the United States, essentially legitimize the transfer of power from outgoing President Robert Kocharian to his longtime chief lieutenant in the eyes of the international community. The West and the United States in particular are clearly unwilling to undercut Armenia’s two top leaders, who seem to have agreed to a resolution of the Karabakh conflict proposed by the U.S., French, and Russian mediators. During their most recent trip to Yerevan and Baku in January, the three co-chairs of the OSCE Minsk Group came away from their talks with Kocharian quite satisfied. (Ironically, Kocharian and Sarkisian had forced Ter-Petrosian to step down in 1998 for advocating essentially the same peace deal.)"

If this is the case, then the OSCE has lost a lot of credibility as a credible monitor. I still think it possible the government was simply able to avoid the monitors in some fashion.

Passive Resistance

Laila el-Haddad looks at yesterday's human chain protest within the context of calls for Palestinian passive resistance against Israel:

"I have noticed that the tide's a changing though. Hamas seems to be making a more concerted effort at such mass mobilization in Gaza, while making it clear that they shall not relinquish their 'legal right to other forms of resistance' (quote from an interview with Khaled Meshal that I will post soon).

"A prime example was the felling of the Rafah wall-initiated by a group of women and children. So to was the effort of dozens of unarmed women of the Islamic movement (including MP Jamila Shanty) to shield and help rescue several fighters under siege in a Beit Lahiya mosque a year and a half ago."

Her post inspires several comments. One is that I think the calls for Palestinian passive resistance are specifically a response to the use of attacks on Israeli civilians, especially within Israel, rather than an opposition to Palestinian militancy as such. If all Hamas, Tanzim, et al did was attack the IDF and border police, I don't think you'd see the same level of criticism.

Beyond that, I'm not sure I buy el-Haddad's take on the history of Palestinian passive resistance. One problem is that she conflates "passive resistance" with "mass mobilization." There were elements of passive resistance during the First Intifada, but there was also a lot of stone-throwing and burning tires. As these were directed at the Israeli presence within the Occupied Territories I have no problems with them, but they're not exactly the Salt March. Similarly the women in the Beit Lahiya siege were actually deploying their passive resistance in support of armed struggle.

The context of resistance to Israel's siege of Gaza is also at least somewhat murky. Frankly, I find the Israeli siege of Gaza indefensible. At the same time, I recognize that the continued Qassam fire on Sderot renders some Israeli response inevitable. I have earlier criticized this Qassam fire as simply fetishized resistance which not only does more harm than good, but frankly doesn't appear to do any good at all. Given that Hamas, too, has to recognize this, we can hope that Meshaal's statements mean that given some sort of cease-fire, and against the background of the attention which has focused on the mass efforts in Gaza, Hamas might start using such tactics as a full alternative to its more problematic armed efforts rather than just an escape hatch when they don't work out.

Election Aftermath

Events following Armenia's presidential election might be somewhat interesting after all. Instead of rallying behind the allegedly victorious government candidate Serzh Sarkisian. After a protest of 35,000 in Yerevan, a few members of the ruling coalition defected to the Ter-Petrossian camp. Or, at least, they may have. The OSCE is also coming in for some questioning. According to Deputy Prosecutor-General Gagik Jahangirian, "the scale of fraud, violence, beatings, intimidation perpetrated in these elections was unprecedented." Meanwhile, a pre-government MP in Azerbaijan says the OSCE shouldn't monitor the elections there based on the fact that organization gave high marks to the Armenian vote. This is probably a nice way to discredit monitoring of what will be a flawed re-election of Ilham Aliyev while getting in a swipe at Armenia.

Yemeni Divisions

Gulf News runs a Reuters story on southern Yemen's resentment of the north:

"Southerners complain they have lost out since unity in access to local power, jobs and land, and some even say they feel they have been subjected to a northern 'occupation'...

"The owners of property nationalised under communist rule in the 1970s were to have been compensated after unity. 'That didn't happen,' said Abdul Gani Al Iryani, co-author of a paper on southern discontent published this month by the Washington-based Middle East Institute.

"'Instead northern commanders, shaikhs and businessmen went down and, one way or another, secured over half the land in Aden and maybe 20 to 30 per cent of the agricultural land in [the province of] Abyan,' the Sana'a-based analyst added...

"Many Adeni women say they had better access to education and jobs before unity, while some voice bitterness over rigid dress codes imposed by Islamists."

This surprised me a little, as when I think of discontent in Yemen, I think of Islamist opposition in the north, home to the Zaydi Shi'ite Houthi movement. That, however, just goes to show that I don't know that much about Yemen's internal politics.

Armenian Results

If I may play a bit of catch-up, here's what happened in Armenia's presidential election:

"The official results in Armenia’s presidential elections show a first-round victory for Prime Minister Serzh Sarkisian, but the opposition is crying foul and calling protests to contest the verdict.

"Figures, released by the central electoral commission, show Sarkisian having received almost 53 per cent of the vote, with his main rival former President Levon Ter-Petrosian picking up 21.5 per cent. Former speaker of parliament Artur Baghdasarian was awarded 12 per cent of the vote, with the other six candidates far behind...

"However, on February 20, the opposition, which disputed the results organised a rally and mass march through the streets of Yerevan. Tens of thousands of demonstrators filled the whole of the city’s main avenue, Mashtots, chanting 'fight, fight to the end', 'Levon is president', and 'Serzhik, leave!' as they walked through the city to the central electoral commission. Some stayed on Yerevan’s Freedom Square into the evening.

"The electoral commission said that around 70 per cent of voters – or 1,670,000 of an electorate of 2,230,000 – had cast their ballots.

"Ter-Petrosian told his supporters that according to his calculations the number of people who had voted was actually 1.1 million and that a lot of false ballot papers had been put in boxes.

"'Our fight will not stop till our final victory,' said Nikol Pashinian, one of Ter-Petrosian’s campaign team. 'We will never surrender the Republic of Armenia and we will not give our children up to the jackals of Kocharian and Serzh.'

"Differing exit-polls clouded the waters. One by the British firm, Populus, was close to the official result, giving Sarkisian 57 per cent and Ter-Petrosian 17 per cent. However, critics pointed out that the exit poll was commissioned by the pro-government Public Television and the data came from the pro-government Armenian Sociological Association.

"Another poll, by the non-governmental organisation Alliance, gave Ter-Petrosian 38 per cent of the vote and Sarkisian 35 per cent. A third poll by the organisation Alfa GA said that Ter-Petrosian had won – but the Armenian justice ministry said Alfa GA was not a registered organisation.

"With such a lot at stake, everyone was keen to hear the verdict of the 600 international observers who, along with local observers, were monitoring the poll. They basically backed the official results.

"The joint observer mission from the Council of Europe and Organisation for Security and Cooperation in Europe said in a statement that the conduct of the election was 'mostly in line with the country's international commitments, although further improvements are necessary'.

"'Compared to the previous presidential elections, significant progress was noted with regard to the preparation and conduct of the electoral process,' said Marie Anne Isler, head of the European parliament contingent within the OSCE mission."

Given all the means the government found to oppose Ter-Petrossian in the run-up to the election, I doubt the actual conduct of the voting was as legitimate as all that. The OSCE isn't the CIS as far as monitoring goes, but they couldn't have been everywhere. Still, I doubt we'll see anything like the Rose or Orange Revolutions in Armenia, both of which were aimed at Russian influence as anything else. Russia remains popular in Armenia, and both candidates support close ties.

San Francisco

On my way back from the AHA last month, I stopped briefly in Madrid. I spent most of my time wandering the Prado, but from my window did have this view of the Basilica of San Francisco el Grande.

Imad Mughniyah

Augustus Richard Norton, perhaps the best historian of the past thirty or so years of Lebanon's history that we have, thinks Imad Mughniyah's reputation may be exaggerated:

"Last week’s assassination of Mughniyah has certainly increased the political polarization. Mughniyah--one of a cohort of young militants who imbibed the ideology of Iran’s revolution and then were radicalized by the Israeli invasion of 1982--had plenty of blood on his hands. Celebrations of his violent end have painted him as a mastermind of all manner of bloodshed and chaos over the course of the past quarter century or so. His role in some cases, such as the infamous hijacking of TWA 847 in 1985 or the kidnapping and despicable treatment of hostages in 1980s, is well-documented. His role in the early 1990s in the Buenos Aries bombings has been substantiated by Argentinean investigators.

"I am not convinced that he deserves all the credit for terrible deeds that has fallen on his corpse. For instance, was he a 21 year old Svengali who directed the bombing of the U.S. embassy in Beirut in April 1983 and the horrendously effective truck bombing of the marine barracks in the autumn of the same year? Perhaps not. Mind you, Mughniyah had plenty of blood to answer for, but hearing the litany of deeds attributed to Mughniyah one has to be a bit skeptical. The Long Commission, aptly in my view, characterized the attack on the marines in 1983 as an act of war by Iran. Mughniyah would have been a player, but not the mastermind.

"In recent years, little was ever said about Mughniyah in Lebanon. Lebanese close to Hezbollah usually noted that he was most likely in Iran, and he had been close to Pasdaran figures since at least the early 1980s. A variety of commenters, including Israeli officials, have alluded to his operational role in the 2006 war. My own hunch is that the great service that he performed in the July war of 2006 was to maintain the supply conduit between Hezbollah and Iran, as well as being the Pasdaran’s nexus with Hezbollah."

Still Around

I was away all last week at several undisclosed locations. While I was away, an unknown party or parties killed Hizbullah's number two, Imad Mughniyah. These two matters are, however, completely unrelated.

Karabakh War Drums

Azerbaijan's President Ilham Aliyev is sounding aggressive about the Karabakh conflict:

"Azerbaijan's recent windfall of oil and gas revenues appears to have persuaded Aliyev that he could turn the tables on Armenia, which has long held the military upper hand in the dispute over Nagorno-Karabakh, a predominantly ethnic-Armenian territory located within Azerbaijan.

"In talks on February 4 with Slovenian Foreign Minister Dmitrij Rupel, who was representing the current EU Presidency, Aliyev indicated Baku was contemplating waging war for control of the disputed territory, which together with a strip of adjacent Azerbaijani territory has been under Yerevan's control since a 1988-94 war between the two countries...

"Both countries are holding a presidential vote this year -- Armenia on February 19, and Azerbaijan in October. The Organization for Security and Cooperation in Europe (OSCE), which has spent more than 15 years mediating talks between the two sides, has indicated an election year is not likely to see major progress on the issue.

"Baku, however, appears impatient. The Azerbaijani leadership, Rupel said, appears to feel that 'time is not on Armenia's side.' Nor is money. Azerbaijan's defense budget this year will exceed $1 billion; Armenia's is just one-third of that figure.

"Azerbaijan has enjoyed spectacular economic growth over the past few years. The country's GDP grew by 25 percent in 2007, almost exclusively on the strength of oil and gas exports.

"Azerbaijan's minister for economic development, Heydar Babayev, says he expects his government to generate upward of $150 billion in oil and gas revenues by 2015.

"Armenia, meanwhile, has no lucrative natural resources. It is landlocked, blockaded by neighbors Turkey and Azerbaijan, and -- at Baku's behest -- bypassed by oil and gas pipelines, as well as rail and road projects, which originate in Azerbaijan."

As I've said before, I agree that delays favor Azerbaijan. The article raises the issue of Russian backing for Armenia, but a few weeks ago Gazprom made an agreement for Azeri natural gas, which could give Azerbaijan some leverage. In reality, though, I doubt Aliyev actually wants a war. In fact, this may be his own election thumping, which isn't really necessary for someone who is both a dictator and genuinely popular, but seems standard nonetheless. Karabakh is a good issue for him, as it was through wartime leadership that his father, Heydar Aliyev, went from being hated commie to respected national leader, a mantle the younger Aliyev still hasn't earned in his own right.

Minimum Wage

The Indian government has instituted a minimum wage requirement for its guest workers in Bahrain, and presumably elsewhere. In fact, India won't allow them to leave for their jobs if they can't produce contracts meeting minimum labor standards. This, of course, is why the Bahrain is starting to look into Vietnamese labor.

Clinton and McCain

Tim Burke makes a point about Hillary Clinton:

"It is incredibly important to me that we have an Administration in 2009 that will bring back a sense of playing by the rules, respecting procedures, and caring about process as much as results. I’m already skeptical about Hillary Clinton in that respect given the kind of campaign she’s run, but if the Clinton campaign continues to maneuver to claim delegates from Michigan and Florida in her column, that would be a final deal-breaker for me, in the sense of my being unable to tolerate her as the eventual nominee at all. I understand that little back-room deals are already being made for superdelegates, as well as various other shenangians. That’s one thing, it happens, that’s politics. This is something else: going back on a very clear agreement about rules in unscrupulous pursuit of personal political advantage, very much to the detriment of the system as a whole."

This is something that's been on my mind for a long time now. It actually goes beyond just following rules, though, to the power of the presidency itself. Through President Bush's arguments for the unitary executive and signing statements, we've come dangerously close to strongman rule at the federal level. Hillary Clinton has been behind too much of that for me to feel comfortable that she wouldn't just take us further down that path, whereas John McCain has quietly been saying that the presidency should be more restrained.

This isn't a small issue, and when you put it together with the fact that I suspect Clinton and McCain would run similar foreign policies, that McCain would give us the better immigration reform and move the GOP off climate change denialism, and that Clinton has, quite frankly, quietly run a campaign aiming to label Barack Obama as "the Black candidate" and thus reinforce the stereotypes that hinder African-Americans in state and national politics across the country, then it's not at all clear that Hillary Clinton is the candidate I would vote for this November. This is especially true if he chooses Sarah Palin as his running mate.

On the other hand, I'd really not have Antonin Scalia become the new centrist on the Supreme Court, and Clinton does probably get us further on health care. Is that enough?

Netroots for Obama

Ezra Klein takes a look at why leading Democratic bloggers turned so strongly toward Obama:

"I think three things turned the tide decisively against Clinton:

"The first was her post-Iowa campaign, where Bill Clinton was comparing Obama to Jesse Jackson and an endless procession of hacks were being paraded out to deliver their jabs. It isn't that much of this was beyond the pale for politics. But it's a type of politics few want to support. Where many had been surprised by how little Clinton fatigue they really felt, this left them exhausted by the duo, and dreading eight more years of these sorts of grinding campaigns. The second was that Obama simply got more specific, particularly on foreign policy. When he began speaking about ending the "politics of fear" and attacking the mindset" that led us into Iraq, he finally took, with clarity and force, a position against the politically convenient militarism which has been so deeply pernicious within the Democratic primary. It was the concrete argument for his candidacy that many had been waiting to make. And the third force was simply that his victories in Iowa and South Carolina made it look like his movement might be real. When it was just a flood of idealistic language, the natural skepticism of observers kept them from buying in. When he really changed the turnout patterns of Democratic primaries and flooded the polls with new voters, that skepticism fell away, and was replaced by a desire, on the part of many, to see if this nascent movement could mature into something -- and, in any case, to not stand in its way.

"And finally, there was the underlying ideological dynamic of the election: Obama was progressive until proven conservative, Clinton centrist until proven progressive. At various times, Obama seemed to be trying to prove otherwise, but as he curtailed his more aggravating rhetorical flights, perceptions of him snapped back to the default assumption of progressivism. Clinton, conversely, worked hard to show an unexpected liberalism and surprising amount of policy ambition, and her health plan, in particular, changed a lot of minds. But as her campaign grew more frustrating, and the foreign policy arguments sharpened, the underlying skepticism of the people around her kept folks from buying into what the policy papers and speeches suggested."

Connectivity Problems

My internet connection at home isn't working, so I'm not able to post much, or for that matter read things on which to post. Hopefully this won't last too long, as I'm finally starting to have time again.

Nakba Notations

The Jewish National Fund plans to erect historical markers on the sites of Palestinian villages destroyed in the Israeli War of Independence. This is a welcome step toward the acknowledgment of the common history of Israelis and Palestinians.

Voices of Power

President Kurmanbek Bakiyev continues to slowly stifle potential opposition voices in Kyrgystan:

"The proportional method was applied in the December election, in which the pro-presidential Ak Jol party won an outright majority, despite being set up only two months beforehand.

"The new regulations contain a controversial stipulation that the number of members of parliament allowed to speak in any legislative debate is predetermined by the amount of seats each party holds.

"The parliamentary leader of each of the three parties represented will get to address the chamber on new pieces of legislation, and then Ak Jol will be able to field a further nine speakers, as it holds 71 seats. However, the Social Democrats, who have 11 seats, will only be able to put forward three speakers, and the Communists just two, on behalf of their eight seats.

"In previous incarnations of the Kyrgyz parliament, all members had the right to make their views felt when bills were under discussion."

Discussing the Painful Past

I don't actually have anything to say about this.