The intellectual decline of the United Nations

The Intellectual Decline of the United Nations

Riad Tabbarah[1]

I wish to speak in this essay about the intellectual decline of the United Nations during the 70 years of its life, that is, from 1945 to this day. Scores of books and articles have been written on the decline of the UN from various angles: about the UN’s growing inefficiency in dealing with emergencies and peace keeping, from its costly hesitancy in the Rwanda crisis in 1994 that ended up in the slaughter of some 800,000 Hutu tribesmen, to its mishandling of the Bosnian crisis in 1995 that led to the massacre of 8000 Bosnian Muslims in Srebrenica which an internal UN report called: "the tragedy [that] will haunt our history forever"; about the internal scandals including the oil for food program which was termed “the largest financial fraud in modern times” and, according to several investigations, involved, among others, the son of the Secretary-General; about the documented sexual misconduct of UN peace keepers, most recently in the Ivory Coast, but earlier  in Congo, Cambodia, Haiti and elsewhere, including child abuse[2]; about the more subtle criticisms of the UN system’s mishandling of global development through erroneous policies, as described in Nobel Laureate John Stiglitz’s 2002  book entitled “Globalization and its Discontents”[3] or through its incompetent bureaucracy, as described in the 2013 book by the old UN hand and well known development economist William Easterly, entitled “The Tyranny of Experts[4].”

Instead, my criticism today will deal with the intellectual leadership of the United Nations which, I will argue, has fallen, during these seventy years, from a very a high global level to virtual insignificance.

My story begins in the spring of 1945 at the Conference in San Francisco which drafted the Charter of the United Nations. 50 independent countries participated in this event: 850 official delegates and their advisors, 3000 in all. As we all know, or should know, 19 of the delegates were graduates or former students of AUB, the most represented institution of higher learning at the Conference that actually established the United Nations. Five of those AUBites were among the 50 signatories of the Charter.

There was great excitement at that Conference, not only because AUB was so well represented, but mainly because the delegates to the Conference were establishing the United Nations, to promote peace and prosperity on earth, so that the 50 million people who died in the Second World War would not have died in vain. This idealism was apparent in the rush to create this world institution. The Conference started almost one month before the fall of Germany and 5 months before the surrender of Japan and the official end of the war. But this idealism was clearest in the speeches of the delegates at the Conference one of whom described the meeting as “a milestone in the long march of man to a better future.” The most important speech was, perhaps, that of the U.S. President Harry Truman: “If we should pay merely lip service to the inspiring ideals and then later do violence to simple justice,” he said, “we should draw down upon us the bitter wrath of generations yet unborn….If we seek to use [the United Nations] selfishly – for the advantage of any one nation or any small group of nations—we shall be equally guilty of that betrayal.”

Two years later, Truman, against the advice of his most respected advisers, pushed the United Nations to create the State of Israel, displacing millions of Palestinians, for what most of his biographers and associates agree were basically electoral reasons[5]. The decline of post-war idealism had already started, at least among some of the world political leadership.

In these early years, there was confusion as to what the role of the Secretary-General and his Secretariat actually was in the decision making process of the UN. The first Secretary-General, the Norwegian Trygve Lie, was appointed in 1946. Lie interpreted the provision of the Charter (article 99) that gives the Secretary General the responsibility of bringing “to the attention of the Security Council any matter which in his opinion may threaten the maintenance of international peace and security,” as allowing him a pro-active role in pushing his ideas forcefully. He passionately supported the creation of Israel which led him to the passing of military and diplomatic secrets to Israeli officials and brought on him the ire of the Arab delegations and others. He also attracted the ire of the Soviet Union when he gathered support among delegates for the intervention of the United Nations in the defense of South Korea when it was invaded by the North in 1950. He fought against the acceptance of Franco’s Spain to the UN.  He finally lost the crucial support of the United States when Joseph McCarthy accused him of hiring Americans with communist leanings. Among those was his advisor and close friend, Abe Filler, who succumbed to McCarthy’s pressure and committed suicide. In grief,[6] he resigned his position in 1952.

After toying around for several months with a Soviet idea of a troika of Secretaries General, one from each of the West, the Eastern Block, and the developing countries, the major powers agreed that the best solution is to have someone without a strong personality, or an independent mind. And the consensus fell on the Chief of the Swedish Mission at the UN, the young Dag Hammarskjold. In the words of Sir Brian Urquhart, who was part of the UN senior staff in the office of the Secretary General at the time: “it was assumed … by most people in the Security Council who didn’t know Hammarskjöld – that they’d elected a nice, competent Swedish civil servant who wouldn’t rock the boat and wouldn’t be very independent and wouldn’t create trouble[7].” They were to regret this choice for the next eight years.

Hammarskjold built an intellectually outstanding secretariat of some 3000 staff members (it has at present around 17000 civilian staff and close to 110,000 armed personnel). He based it on the principles enunciated in Articles 100 and 101 of the Charter, namely, that the staff members should possess the “highest standards of efficiency, competence, and integrity” and that they should answer only to the organization. Member States should not interfere with the work of the members of the Secretariat and “not to seek to influence them in the discharge of their responsibilities.” He mollified the major powers by appointing two under-secretaries for political affairs: one American and one Russian. The American turned out to be a remarkable intellectual and a most efficient individual and soon became Hammarskjold’s right arm for the duration of his term. His name was Ralph Bunche, the first black person to receive the Nobel Prize for Peace (1950).

The Secretariat that Hammarskjold established was one replete with outstanding scholars and remarkable diplomats. I had my first professional encounter with the UN Secretariat in the last year of Hammarskjold’s tenure, in 1961. I was writing a demographic manual for the field experts of the US Agency for International Development. At the time, the only manuals of demography, except one, were the three volumes produced by the Population Division of the United Nations. The Director of the Division was John Durand, one of the pioneers of demography. His assistant was Jean Bourgeois-Pichat, a leading mathematical demographer of the time. The Population Division, which I joined the next year, eventually also produced the basic concepts and literature of demography: In addition to the three manuals on demographic estimates and projections just mentioned, it produced the first model life tables, the methodology of stable population models, the first and last volume on the history of population thought[8] and a score of similar publications that established the basics of demography and that resulted in the creation of departments of demography in the leading universities in the U.S. and the world.

But the most important intellectual contribution of the UN at that time was, in my opinion, in the field of economic development. I shall give one example of what I mean: During the period 1953-1971, the golden age of the United Nations, some 40 African and other developing countries in Latin America and Asia joined the Organization. The main topic at the UN at the time was, naturally, how to help these countries develop. The dominant theory concerning the trade relationship between countries was basically Ricardo’s “comparative advantage” which, at the risk of some oversimplification, advocated that each country should produce what it has economic advantage in producing and trade the surplus with other countries who would do the same. Applied to the field, this theory meant that developing countries, which at the time produced generally raw material and agricultural products, should concentrate its economic activities on this type of production and trade the surplus with the basically industrial outputs of the developed countries. The international institution in charge of facilitating this exchange was the GATT (i.e. the General Agreement for Tariffs and Trade) whose stated policy was to open international markets and end all measures of tariff protection.

At this point a new school of thought appeared on the economic scene, developed independently by two economists: Hans Singer and Raul Prebisch, who happened to be both senior staff of the United Nations. Singer was senior economist at the Economic Department of the UN and Prebisch was the Executive Secretary of the Economic Commission for Latin America. The so-called Singer-Prebisch thesis showed that free trade between the developing countries and the developed countries, that is, between the primary goods of the first and the industrial goods of the latter, would lead to worsening terms of trade for the developing countries leading towards their marginalization. The developing countries needed, therefore, to industrialize but could not compete off hand with the developed countries that had a long history of industrialization, unless they had a protective tariffs policy for a certain period of time, until their industries were able to compete internationally. This protectionism went, of course, against the ideas and policies of the GATT that was created and supported by the economic powers at the United Nations.

Armed with a credible thesis emanating from a credible UN Secretariat, the developing countries at the UN demanded and obtained the organization of a world conference in Geneva in 1964 on Trade and Development. At this Conference a new organization was born, built on the ideas of Singer and Prebisch, under the name of UNCTAD (the UN Conference on Trade and Development), that later became a Specialized Agency. The Conference also saw the birth of the first grouping of developing countries, “the Group of 77” (now includes134 countries) whose aim was to protect the economic interests of developing countries and improve their negotiating position within the United Nations. The first Director-General of UNCTAD was non-other than Raul Prebisch. Hans singer became the head of UNIDO (the United Nations Industrial Development Organization).

This was indeed the intellectual golden age of the United Nations. But Dag Hammarskjold had already irritated the major powers by the independence of the Secretariat from political influence and by the prestige he and it gained globally. Most world opinion sided with Hammarskjold and his Secretariat whenever his position contradicted that of the two superpowers. But his demise came mostly as a result of his relentless drive for decolonization, specifically for the unity and independence of the Congo in 1960 and 1961(until 1960 a colony of Belgium) crossing red lines set by the major and colonial powers, and by the white regime of Northern Rhodesia (now independent Zambia), a British protectorate at the time. In September 1961 his plane was shot down by another plane over Northern Rhodesia but a British enquiry that year, rubber stamped by a further enquiry by a United Nations committee, concluded that the crash was due to pilot error. It was not until 50 years later, that a dedicated British scholar, Susan Williams, published a book[9] in 2011, entitled “Who Killed Hammarskjold?”, the result of 2 years of relentless investigation in Africa and elsewhere, which provided evidence that the death of Hammarskjold was plain murder, covered up by the major powers and the white supremacists in the southern part of Africa, which forced the United Nations to open a new investigation in 2012. The report of the UN Committee came out in 2013 much in the direction of Williams’ book. As a result, the Secretary-General Ban Ki Moon decided earlier this month to reopen a full investigation. The US, Britain, and other powers involved at the time, have so far refused to declassify documents relating to the crash…and the plot thickens.

After another bout toying with the idea of a Troika of Secretaries-General, Mr. U Thant was elected to succeed Hammarskjold. A quiet Buddhist who did not rock the boat but tried to maintain the independence of the UN Secretariat, ran the Organization for 10 years and until 1971, but some cracks in the system began to appear during this period. Nevertheless the complete loss of independence and the politicization of the Secretariat came with the next Secretary-General, Kurt Waldheim, and was institutionalized since then. Appointments became political, from the under-secretary level to the plain secretary level and many key positions became earmarked for specific nationalities. The professional staff members who once felt allegiance to their respective professions were gradually replaced by staff members who answered to the call of the political influences that gave them their jobs in the first place. Names like Ralph Bunche, Hans Singer, Raul Prebish, John Durand, Jean Bourgeois Pichat, and many other greats of the intellectual golden age of the UN were largely replaced by unknowns and the global intellectual leadership of the UN Secretariat virtually disappeared. The secretary-general who thought that he had a pro-active role in solving global problems was replaced by the secretary-general who is basically an observer of global problems. It has been recently calculated, for example, that Mr. Ban Ki Moon, since becoming secretary-general in 2007, has already expressed his “concern”, and at times “deep concern,” some 140 times, 40 of which were in relation to the situation in Yemen. This is practically all that the Secretary-General can do nowadays.

The United Nations was established on the principle of hegemony of the major powers who gave themselves the right of veto in the Security Council, the majority vote in the global economic and monetary institutions such as the World Bank and the IMF, the dominance in the choice of the Secretary-General, and the lion’s share in filling key positions in the Secretariat. In fact, the United Nations today is exactly what the major powers, the winners of World War II, wanted it to be in the first place. The Hammarskjold/U Thant era was obviously an anomaly, a period of confusion at the creation, but it represented, nevertheless, the intellectual golden age of the United Nations.

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[1] Speech at meeting on “The UN Then and Now: 70 Years later” at the American University of Beirut 25 July, 2015.

[2] See, for example, Nile Gardiner. October 13 2006. “The Decline and Fall of the United nations: Why the UN. Has failed and How it Can Be Reformed.” Heritage Foundation Lecture. http://www.heritage.org/research/lecture/the-decline-and-fall-of-the-united-nations-why-the-un-has-failed-and-how-it-can-be-reformed

[3] www. Norton

[4] Basic Books.

[5] See for example, Michael T. Benson. 1997. Harry S. Truman and the Founding of Israel. Praeger.  Pp: 175-177.

[6] Trygve Lie. 1954. In The Cause of Peace: Seven Years with the United Nations .Macmillan.

[7] UN News Center. 22 September 2011.  Interview with Brian Urquhart, former Under-Secretary-General for Political Affairs, on Dag Hammarskjöld. www.un.org/apps/news/newsmakers.asp?NewsID=42

[8] United Nations.1973. The Determinants and Consequences of Population Trends. Volumes 1 and  2. New York.

[9] Susan Williams.2011. Who Killed Hammarskjold: The UN, The Cold War, And White Supremacy in Africa. Columbia University Press. It should be noted that a young Swede serving in the region with the Swedish International Development Agency (SIDA) also undertook his own investigation almost simultaneously with Williams and reached similar conclusions. See Julian Borger.17 August 2011. “Dag Hammarskjold: evidence suggests UN chief’s plane was shot down.” The Guardian. www.theguardian.com/world/2011/aug/17/dag-hammarskjold-un-secretary-general-crash

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أربع إشكاليات أساسية يواجهها الاتفاق النووي الإيراني

رياض طبارة

    English summary at end

هل سيوقَّع الاتفاق النهائي بين مجموعة 5+1 (الدول الدائمة العضوية في مجلس الأمن زائد ألمانيا) وإيران في الموعد المحدد، أي في آخر الشهر الجاري، أم سيمدد الموعد؟ وكم سيستغرق رفع العقوبات؟ وبأي شروط؟ هناك أربع إشكاليات يجب التوقف عندها عند محاولة الإجابة على هذين السؤالين.

أولاً: العقوبات القديمة والدعاوى على إيران

بدأ فرض العقوبات أميركياً في تشرين الثاني (نوفمبر) 1979 بعد عشرة أيام من احتجاز إيران موظفي السفارة الأميركية في طهران، إذ أمر الرئيس جيمي كارتر بتجميد موجودات إيران في البنوك الأميركية وفروعها في العالم. قَدرت الإدارة الأميركية قيمتها في حينه بما بين 10 و12 بليون دولار أميركي.

عندما حصل الانقلاب على الشاه في 11 شباط (فبراير) من تلك السنة، كانت العلاقات التجارية مزدهرة بين الدولتين، بما في ذلك بيع أسلحة أميركية إلى طهران بلغت قيمتها في السنة السابقة للثورة حوالى 2,6 بليون دولار أميركي. وبالطبع كانت هناك معاملات تجارية واستثمارية غير مكتملة بين البلدين جُمِّدت بدورها من الجهتين، ما جعل الأمور أكثر تعقيداً.

واتفق الطرفان في محادثات نظّمتها الجزائر في عاصمتها في كانون الثاني (يناير) 1981 على إطلاق المحتجزين مقابل تعهد أميركي بـ: عدم التدخل في شؤون إيران الداخلية، وعدم السماح بمقاضاة المحتجزين إيران بعد إطلاقهم، ومساعدة إيران في المحاكم الأميركية للحصول على أموال الشاه، وإعادة الأموال الإيرانية المحتجزة وقيمتها حوالى 8 بلايين دولار. غير أن معظم هذه الأموال وضع في حساب لتسوية أوضاع إيران مع الشركات الأميركية. وما زال هناك خلاف على عقود سلاح دفعت إيران ثمنها ولم تسلم، تبلغ قيمتها 12 بليون دولار وفق الإيرانيين، و500 مليون دولار وفق الأميركيين، كما أن هناك شبكة من المطالب والمطالب المضادة لم يتم تفكيكها بعد. أما أموال الشاه التي قدرتها إيران في حينه بـ24 بليون دولار، فتجاهلتها أميركا بعد أن توفي الشاه في مصر وليس في الولايات المتحدة، ولكن هذه المسألة لا تعتبر محسومة بعد.

تجددت العقوبات بعد أقل من سنتين بسبب حادث تفجير مقر المارينز في لبنان باعتباره عملاً إرهابياً. وفي سنة 1995، ونتيجة لحادث هجوم على باص في إسرائيل توفيت فيه الأميركية أليسا فلاتو واتهم فيه «الجهاد الإسلامي المرتبط بإيران»، أصدر الكونغرس الأميركي قانوناً يسمح بمحاكمة حكومات أجنبية، نتج عنه حكم سنة 1998 يطالب إيران بدفع حوالى 250 مليون دولار لعائلة فلاتو، كما طالبها حكم لاحق في السنة نفسها بدفع حوالى 400 مليون دولار لأربعة أميركيين اختطفوا في لبنان وإلى أسَرهم، معظمها ذهبت للصحافي تيري أندرسون وأسرته. كل هذه الأموال وغيرها اقتطعت من الأموال الإيرانية المجمدة. الأهم من ذلك أن هذا القانون فتح المجال لدعاوى كثيرة، مثلاً من ورثة أشخاص قتلوا في تفجيرات مركز المارينز الأميركي سنة 1983 وتفجير السفارة الأميركية في بيروت في السنة نفسها، ربحها المدّعون وبلغت قيمتها بلايين الدولارات من دون الحصول على الأموال من الأصول الإيرانية المجمدة بسبب نفادها. ويعتبر البعض أن القانون الجديد يفتح المجال أيضاً لمتضررين من احتلال السفارة في 1979 أن يطلبوا تعويضاً. يقول أحد محرري «نيويورك تايمز»: «عندما تُرفع العقوبات الاقتصادية على إيران سيلاحِق محامو أصحاب الحقوق الشركات المتعاملة مع إيران بموجب قوانين أميركية تسمح بذلك»، ما قد يؤدي إلى حجز أي أموال لهذه الشركات موجهة إليها من إيران.

ثانياً: دور الكونغرس في رفع العقوبات

وضعت أميركا دفعة جديدة من العقوبات، من خلال شبكة معقدة من القوانين والإجراءات طاولت أشخاصاً ومؤسسات وتعاملات مصرفية، وذلك ابتداءً من سنة 1995 وحتى سنة 2013. هناك مسألتان يجب التطرق إليهما في هذا السياق. أولاً: بعض هذه العقوبات وضعه الكونغرس والبعض الآخر بموجب أوامر تنفيذية أصدرها رئيس الجمهورية. ثانياً: بعض هذه العقوبات يتعلق بدور إيران المساعد للإرهاب وتشمل عقوبات فرضت بعد حوادث الخطف وتفجير مقر المارينز والسفارة الأميركية في بيروت سنة 1983 بعد هجومات أيلول (سبتمبر) 2001، وبعضها الآخر لدورها في تهديد الاستقرار في المنطقة (الذي قد يعتبر مسانداً أيضاً للإرهاب ولو جزئياً) كما في الوقت نفسه لأمور لا تتعلق بالإرهاب، خصوصاً برنامج إيران النووي والصاروخي.

بالنسبة إلى المسألة الأولى، يعود الحق برفع العقوبات الرئاسية إلى رئيس الجمهورية، الذي يستطيع أيضاً «تعليق» عقوبات اتخذها الكونغرس وليس «رفعها»، وذلك بعد إعلام الكونغرس بأن السبب لوضع هذه العقوبات قد زال.

ويستطيع الرئيس نفسه أو رئيس جمهورية بعده رفع التعليق بقرار رئاسي أيضاً. ربح الكونغرس الجولة الأولى في مواجهته أوباما عندما وقع الأخير، بعد أخذ ورد وتهديدات متبادلة، قراراً للكونغرس نال تأييد كل الجمهوريين والغالبية الساحقة من الديموقراطيين في مجلسي النواب والشيوخ، يجبره على تقديم أي اتفاق ينجزه مع الإيرانيين لمطالعته من الكونغرس خلال خمسة أيام من انتهاء المفاوضات، مرفقاً بتقرير من رئيس المفاوضين الأميركيين، وزير الخارجية جون كيري، يفصّل فيه كيف باستطاعته التحقق من امتثال إيران شروط الاتفاق، وكذلك تقييم أوباما كفاية الضمانات بأن إيران لن تسعى لصنع قنبلة نووية، وتفصيل للعقوبات التي تنوي أميركا والدول الأخرى والأمم المتحدة رفعها.

على الكونغرس بالمقابل أن يتخذ قراراً بشأن قبول الاتفاق أو رفضه خلال 30 يوماً يجمَّد خلالها أي رفع للعقوبات. المشــكلة هي في أن يرفض الكونغرس الاتفاق، ما قد يدفع أوباما إلى وضع فيتو على قرار الكونغرس، الذي يجب عليه الحصول على ثلثي الأصوات في المجلسين لتجاوزه، وهذا غير محسوم حالياً، إذ سيتوقف على نوعية الاتفاق و الضغوط التي ستمارسها إسرائيل من خلال اللوبي الإسرائيلي لرفضه. على كل حال، فكلما طال الوقت كلما اقترب موعد الانتخابات الرئاسية القادمة في تشرين الثاني 2016 وكلما أصبح الرئيس أقل فاعلية واللوبي الإسرائيلي أكثر فاعلية.

بالنسبة إلى المسألة الثانية، فالإدارة الأميركية والكونغرس يتفقان على عدم رفع العقوبات المتعلقة بالإرهاب في المرحلة الأولى، ولربما حتى الوصول إلى حلول للمشكلات المتعلقة بإيران في المنطقة وفصلها عن العقوبات الأخرى، خصوصاً تلك المتعلقة ببرنامج إيران النووي والصاروخي. لكن هذه العقوبات مترابطة ومتكاملة، ففي عام 2005 مثلاً أصدرت إدارة بوش الابن سلسلة من الأوامر تم بموجبها تجميد ممتلكات شركات وأشخاص بسبب مساندتهم الإرهاب، ولكن في الوقت ذاته لأسباب أخرى، كمساندة دور إيران المهدد للاستقرار في العراق وعلاقة هؤلاء ببرنامج إيران النووي والصاروخي.

ثالثاً: دور مجلس الأمن والدول المشاركة بالعقوبات

توسعت العقوبات على إيران جغرافياً بدءاً من سنة 2006 عندما أصدر مجلس الأمن قراره الرقم 1696 تحت الفصل السابع، الذي أمر إيران بموجبه بإيقاف التخصيب كلياً، وأتبعه بخمسة قرارات كلها -إلا واحداً- تحت الفصل السابع، تم بموجبها تجـــميد أمـــوال وحظر سفر بحق أشخاص وشركات تتعامل مع إيران في برنامجها النووي، وأمر أيران بإيقاف عملها على تطوير الصواريخ البالستية ووضع حظراً على بيع الأسلحة إليها. تجاوبت دول عدة مع هذه القرارات، واتُّخذت إجراءات قانونية على أساسها، من هذه الدول أعضاء الاتحاد الأوروبي وأستراليا وكندا والهند والصين واليابان. المشكلة هنا أن الاتفاق النهائي المنتظر لا يطلب من إيران إيقاف التخصيب بل فقط تخفيض نسبته، ولا يطلب منها إيقاف عملها على تطوير الصوارخ البالستية، أي المطلبين الرئيسين الذين على أساسهما صدرت القرارات الدولية وتبعتها قرارات الدول الآنفة الذكر. سيكون على مجلس الأمن إذاً أن يرفع العقوبات من دون انتفاء الأسباب التي وُضعت العقوبات من أجلها، كما سيكون على بعض الدول التي وضعت العقوبات بناء على قرارات مجلس الأمن أن تفعل الشيء ذاته من خلال قرارات وطنية جديدة. وعلى كل حال، مازال هناك خلاف على جدولة رفع العقوبات وآلية العودة الأوتوماتيكية إليها (snap back) إذا أخلّت إيران بتعهداتها.

إن أهمية العقوبات الأميركية ليست في قيمة الأموال والممتلكات الإيرانية المحتجزة، والتي لا تشكل سوى قسم صغير من المجموع حول العالم، بل في العقوبات الأميركية الأخرى، خصوصاً المصرفية منها، التي تبعتها فيها أوروبا، والتي تجعل تعاملات إيران التجارية بالدولار واليورو صعبةً جداً، إن لم تكن مستحيلة، فالأموال الإيرانية المحتجزة حول العالم التي تقدر بما بين 50 و100 بليون دولار (لا أحد يعلم بالضبط) ناتجة في معظمها عن مبيعات النفط غير المسددة بسبب العقوبات المصرفية الأميركية والأوروبية، ومعظم هذه المبيعات هي للصين والهند واليابان ولشركات بريطانية وهندية وكورية ويونانية، ما دفع إيران إلى بيع نفطها في بعض الأحيان بعملات غير الدولار واليورو، أو بطريقة تبادل السلع (barter).

رابعاً: ضغوط وحرب إسرائيلية

وأخيراً، هناك ضغوط من دول عربية وغير عربية، كفرنسا وتركيا، لربط جدولة رفع العقوبات بتوقف إيران عن تدخلها في شؤون دول المنطقة، خصوصاً لبنان وسورية والعراق واليمن والبحرين وغيرها. الموقف الأميركي حتى اليوم يتعاطف مع هذا الطرح، كما ظهر من زيارات قام بها مسؤولون كبار لهذه الدول، وهذا لربما ما دفع وزير خارجية إيران محمد جواد ظريف، نشر مقالة استباقية في «نيويورك تايمز» (في 25 نيسان/ أبريل من هذه السنة) بعنوان «رسالة من إيران» يقول فيها «إن مساحة انخراطنا البنّاء تتعدى بكثير المفاوضات النووية. العلاقات الجيدة مع جيران إيران هي على رأس أولوياتنا. حان الوقت لإيران والمعنيين الآخرين للبدء بمعالجة أسباب التوتر في الخليج الفارسي الكبير. الحوار الإقليمي يجب أن يرتكز على أسس معترف بها وأهداف مشتركة، خصوصاً احترام السيادة، وسلامة الأراضي، والاستقلالية السياسية لكل الدول، وحصانة الحدود الدولية، وعدم التدخل في الشؤون الداخلية، وفضّ النزاعات بالطرق السلمية، وعدم جواز التهديد أو استعمال القوة، ودعم السلم والاستقرار والتقدم والازدهار في المنطقة».

يقول عدد متزايد من المعلّقين الأميركيين إن عدم إرضاء إسرائيل قد يجعلها تقوم في نهاية الأمر بحرب لإفشال الاتفاق أو إعاقة تطبيقه. الحرب كما يقول هؤلاء، لن تـــكون ضد إيران مباشرة، لأن ذلك ليس محسوباً، ولكن ضد «حزب الله» لإظهار أن إيران ما زالت راعية للإرهاب، إذ إنها تساند منظمات عدوانية تعتبرها أميركا إرهـــابيـــة. هذه الضغوط الإسرائيلية تعرفها جيداً الإدارة الأميركية، ما دفعها لأن تَعد إسرائيل بمساعدات عسكرية غير مسبوقة، لجهة حجمها ونوعية الأسلحة المتطورة التي تشملها.

خلاصة القول أن طلبات حلفاء أميركا، العرب والأوروبيين وغيرهم، لربط رفع العقوبات بعدم تدخل إيران بالأمور الداخلية لجيرانها، والضغوط الإسرائيلية المباشرة، ومن خلال الكونغرس الأميركي، إضافة إلى تعدد العقوبات وصعوبة تفكيكها، كل ذلك قد يؤخر حصول اتفاق إلى ما بعد آخر الشهر الجاري، كما سيجعل تطبيق أي اتفاق -إذا حصل- على مراحل عدة، ويستغرق وقتاً طويلاً، لربما حتى ما بعد عهد أوباما، وعندها... يخلق الله ما لا تعلمون.

*سفير لبنان السابق في واشنطن

English Summary:

We are only a couple of weeks away from the deadline for signing the above agreement between the group of 5+1 and Iran. Still four issues remain that may delay the agreement and lengthen the period of lifting of sanctions.

First: The old sanctions and related law suits

The first sanctions, the freezing of Iran’s assets in American Banks, estimated at $10 to $12 billion, were imposed by President Carter in 1979, 10 days after the employees of the US embassy in Teheran were taken hostage. Just prior, in the days of the Shah, commercial relations between Iran and the US were booming. Therefore, unsettled trade payments were also frozen by both sides.

In 1981 the two sides met in Algiers and part of the dispute was settled leaving other parts for later settlement. But in 1983 the bombing of the Marines headquarters and the US embassy in Lebanon took place and new sanctions on Iran were instituted. In 1995 a bus was blown up in Israel which claimed the life of an American woman for which a group tied to Iran was blamed which resulted in a new law by Congress permitting law suits against foreign governments which was followed by a series of successful law suits by the family of the victim and a number of Americans kidnapped in Lebanon in the 1980s who were compensated with frozen Iranian funds. The law also permitted another series of successful law suits by families of the marines and of persons who died in the bombing of the American Embassy in Beirut in 1983 resulting in claims amounting to billions of dollars but not paid because the frozen Iranian assets had been depleted.

Second: The role of Congress in lifting sanctions

Another set of American sanctions against Iran was put in place between 1995 and 2013. Some of these were imposed by Congress and some by Executive Order of the President. Furthermore, some of these sanctions were imposed because of Iran’s support to terrorism and some because Iran threatens stability in the region, and still others because of Iran’s nuclear and missile programs. Separating these has become extremely difficult because they were often placed at the same time against the same persons or institutions making the intention of lifting the nuclear program sanctions but not those relating to terrorism a particularly difficult undertaking.

Third: The role of the UN Security Council and other participating countries

Sanctions against Iran were expanded in 2006 with UN Security Council resolution 1696 adopted under Chapter VII of the Charter followed by 5 more resolutions which froze assets and restricted travel to persons and companies dealing with Iran’s nuclear program and ordered Iran to halt its work on uranium enrichment and ballistic missiles. A number of countries undertook legal action accordingly. The problem here is that the prospective agreement being worked out does not require Iran to halt work on enrichment or ballistic missiles which means that the Security Council and the countries that followed its resolutions will be asked to lift sanctions without a change in the reasons for imposing them in the first place. At any rate, disagreements on the schedule of lifting the sanctions still exist.

It should be noted that the importance of American and European sanctions lies mainly in making the sale of Iranian oil in dollars or Euros extremely difficult. The 50 to 100 billion dollars of Iranian funds held are mostly as a result of this restriction and are held by countries like China, India and Japan as well as by British, Indian, Korean and Greek companies, and not by the United States.

Fourth: Various pressures and an Israeli war

Finally, there are pressures on the American administration placed by Arab countries and others to tie the scheduling of the lifting of sanctions to non-interference of Iran in the internal affairs of countries in the region, in particular, Lebanon, Syria, Iraq, Yemen and Bahrain. The official American position is so far sympathetic with this point of view which may have prompted the Foreign Minister of Iran to publish a very congenial article in the New York Times (25 April 2015) in which he calls for dialogue with the Gulf countries to solve outstanding problems peacefully and to promote peace and prosperity in the region.

On the other hand, there is an increasing number of reports indicating the possibility of Israel starting a war with Hezbollah to demonstrate that Iran is still supporting organizations considered terrorist by the US.

In conclusion, the demands of US allies to tie the lifting of sanctions to Iran’s non-interference in the internal affairs of countries in the region, the Israeli pressures directly and through the US Congress, in addition to the difficulties in dismantling the accumulated sanction, together seem to indicate the possibility of extending the deadline for an agreement and that the eventual lifting of the sanctions will take a long time, perhaps till after Obama and, in this case, it is difficult to foresee what will happen.

Another person of Conscience speaks out: Dionne Warwick listen!

Roger Waters to Dionne Warwick: “You are showing yourself to be profoundly ignorant of what has happened in Palestine since 1947″

EXCLUSIVE: Dionne Warwick called me out by name in asserting she'd play Tel Aviv. Here's what she misunderstands

ROGER WATERS  THURSDAY, MAY 14, 2015

Singer and U.N. global ambassador Dionne Warwick recently released an interesting if puzzling statement asserting that she would, and I quote, “never fall victim to the hard pressures of Roger Waters, from Pink Floyd, or other political people who have their views on politics in Israel.”

“Waters’ political views are of no concern,” I assume she means to her, the statement read.  “Art,” she added, “has no boundaries.”

Until today, I have not publicly commented on Ms. Warwick’s Tel Aviv concert or reached out to her privately. But given her implicit invitation, I will comment now.

First, in my view, Dionne Warwick is a truly great singer.  Secondly, I doubt not that she is deeply committed to her family and her fans.

But, ultimately, this whole conversation is not about her, her gig in Tel Aviv, or even her conception of boundaries and art, though I will touch on that conception later.  This is about human rights and, more specifically, this is about the dystopia that can develop, as it has in Israel, when society lacks basic belief in equal human value, when it strays from the ability to feel empathy for our brothers and sisters of different faiths, nationalities, creeds or colors.

It strikes me as deeply disingenuous of Ms. Warwick to try to cast herself as a potential victim here. The victims are the occupied people of Palestine with no right to vote and the unequal Palestinian citizens of Israel, including Bedouin Israeli citizens of the village of al-Araqib, which has now been bulldozed 83 times by order of the Israeli government.

I believe you mean well, Ms. Warwick, but you are showing yourself to be profoundly ignorant of what has happened in Palestine since 1947, and I am sorry but you are wrong, art does know boundaries. In fact, it is an absolute responsibility of artists to stand up for human rights – social, political and religious – on behalf of all our brothers and sisters who are being oppressed, whoever and wherever they may be on the surface of this small planet.

Forgive me, Ms. Warwick, but I have done a little research, and know that you crossed the picket line to play Sun City at the height of the anti-apartheid movement.  In those days, Little Steven, Bruce Springsteen and 50 or so other musicians protested against the vicious, racist oppression of the indigenous peoples of South Africa. Those artists allowed their art to cross boundaries, but for the purpose of political action.  They released a record that struck a chord across the world. That record, “I Ain’t Gonna play Sun City,” showed the tremendous support of musicians all over the world for the anti-apartheid effort.

Those artists helped win that battle, and we, in the nonviolent Boycott, Divestment, and Sanctions (BDS) movement, will win this one against the similarly racist and colonialist policies of the Israeli government of occupation.  We will continue to press forward in favor of equal rights for all the peoples of the Holy Land.  Just as musicians weren’t going to play Sun City, increasingly we’re not going to play Tel Aviv.  There is no place today in this world for another racist, apartheid regime.

As I’m sure you know, Lauryn Hill canceled her gig in Tel Aviv last week. She did not explicitly cite Israeli oppression of Palestinians as her reason for canceling, but the subtext of her actions is clear and we thank her for her principled stand.

Dionne, I am of your generation.  I remember the road to Montgomery, I remember Selma, I remember the struggles against the Jim Crow laws here. Sadly, we are still fighting those battles, whether here in the USA in Ferguson or Baltimore, or in Gaza or the Negev, wherever the oppressed need us to raise our voices unafraid.  We need to stand shoulder to shoulder with them, our brothers and sisters, until true equality and justice are won.

Remember, “Operation Protective Edge,” the Israeli bombing of Gaza last summer, resulted in the deaths of over 2,000 Palestinians, most of them civilians, including more than 500 Palestinian children. It is hard for us over here to imagine what it is like to be exiled, disenfranchised, imprisoned, rendered homeless and then slaughtered, with no place to flee. Hopefully, in the end, love will triumph. But love will not triumph unless we stand up to such injustice and fight it tooth and nail, together.

Dionne, your words indicate that part of you is set on going through with your concert. I am appealing to another part of you, to implore that other part to join us.  We will welcome you. It is more than likely that you harbor reservations in your heart about what Israel is doing to the Palestinians, that when you see a mother’s child in ruins you wonder what if that child were mine? It is not too late to hear those reservations, to listen to that other voice, to value freedom and equality for all over the value you place on your concert in Tel Aviv.

When global pressure finally forces Israel to end its occupation, when the apartheid wall comes down, when justice is served to Palestinian refugees and all people there are free and equal, I will gladly join you in concert in the Holy Land, cross all the boundaries and share our music with all the people.

http://www.salon.com/2015/05/14/roger_waters_to_dionne_warwick_you_are_showing_yourself_to_be_profoundly_ignorant_of_what_has_happened_in_palestine_since_1947/?source=newsletter

So many wars that are won are wars that are lost

How Russians Lost the War

By MIKHAIL SHISHKIN

MAY 8, 2015

ZURICH — My father went to war as a volunteer at age 18. He was a submariner in the Baltic Sea.

When I was small, we lived in a basement on the Arbat, in central Moscow. Hanging on the wall above my bed was a photograph of his Shchuka-class submarine. I was terribly proud that my papa had a submarine, and I was always copying that photograph into my school notebook.

Every year on May 9, Victory Day in Russia — marking the anniversary of the day that news of the German surrender in 1945 reached Moscow — my father would go to the closet and take out his sailor’s uniform, which required regular alteration to accommodate his growing belly, and pin on his medals. It was so important to me to be proud of my father: There had been a war and my papa had won it!

When I grew up, I realized that in 1944 and 1945, my father was sinking ships that were evacuating German civilians and troops from Riga, in Latvia, and Tallinn, in Estonia. Hundreds, if not thousands, of people met their deaths in the waters of the Baltic — for which my father received his medals. It’s been a long time since I was proud of him, but I don’t judge him. It was war.

My father fought the evil of fascism, but he was taken advantage of by another evil. He and millions of Soviet soldiers, sailors and airmen, virtual slaves, brought the world not liberation but another slavery. The people sacrificed everything for victory, but the fruits of this victory were less freedom and more poverty.

My father was 6 when his father was arrested. A son wants to be proud of his father, but his father was called an enemy of the people. My grandfather perished in the gulag.

When the war began, the persecuted population heard from the loudspeakers, “Brothers and sisters!” The baseness of Russia’s rulers lies in the way they have always taken advantage of this remarkable human emotion: the love of homeland and the willingness to sacrifice everything for it.

So my father went off to defend his homeland. He was still a boy when he went to sea, in constant terror of drowning in that steel coffin. He ended up protecting the regime that killed his father.

The victory gave the slaves nothing but a sense of the grandeur of their master’s empire. The great victory only reinforced their great slavery.

After the war, my father drank. All his submariner friends did. What else could they do?

During the Gorbachev era, we had lean times, and my father, as a veteran, received a ration that included items from Germany. For him, this was a personal insult. He got drunk and hollered: “But we won!” Then he quieted down and began to weep.

“Tell me,” he kept asking no one I could see, “did we win the war or lose it?”

In his last years, he destroyed himself with vodka. He was the last man standing: All his submariner friends had drunk themselves into the grave long before. My father was cremated in his sailor’s uniform. He was probably eager to see his wartime buddies.

The chief Russian question is: If the fatherland is a monster, should it be loved or hated? Here everything has run together, inseparably. Long ago, a Russian poet put it this way: “A heart weary of hate cannot learn to love.”

Of course, I wish my homeland victory. But what would constitute a victory for my country? Each one of Hitler’s victories was a defeat for the German people. And the final rout of Nazi Germany was a victory for the Germans themselves, who demonstrated how a nation can rise up and live like human beings without the delirium of war in their heads.

Today, though, Victory Day has nothing to do with the people’s victory or my father’s victory. It is not a day of peace and remembrance for the victims. It is a day for rattling swords, a day of zinc coffins, a day of aggression, a day of great hypocrisy and great baseness.

For Russians have been called, once again, to fight a war against fascism. The patriotic hysteria on the television is the regime’s miracle weapon. Thanks to the “zombie box,” the population now has a make-believe idea of the world: The West wants to destroy us, so we are compelled, like our fathers and grandfathers, to wage holy war against fascism and we must be prepared to sacrifice everything for victory.

Once again, the rulers are rewriting history and leaving in it only military victories and martial glory. They have added a chapter to school textbooks about Crimea’s glorious return. A stream of hysteria flows from TV screens: “Great Russia,” “Defend the Russian language,” “Gather in the Russian world” and “We will save the world from fascism.” Anyone who objects is a “national traitor.”

In the 16th year of his rule, President Vladimir V. Putin has achieved everything a dictator could strive for. His people love him; his enemies fear him. He has created a regime that rests not on the shaky paragraphs of a constitution but on the unshakable laws of the vassal’s personal loyalty to his sovereign, from the bottom to the top of the pyramid of power.

My father was a Russian; my mother, a Ukrainian. But the Putin regime has set our peoples against each other. Sometimes, I think it’s good my parents did not live to see how Russians and Ukrainians are killing one another.

It is impossible to breathe in a country where the air is permeated with hatred. Much hatred has always been followed in history by much blood. What awaits my country? Transformation into a gigantic version of Ukraine’s eastern Donbass region?

Once again, the dictatorship is calling on its subjects to defend the homeland, mercilessly exploiting the propaganda of victory in the Great Patriotic War. Russia’s rulers have stolen my people’s oil, stolen their elections, stolen their country. And stolen their victory.

Father, we lost the war.

Mikhail Shishkin is a Russian novelist and the author, most recently, of the story collection “Calligraphy Lesson.” This article was translated by Marian Schwartz from the Russian.

http://www.nytimes.com/2015/05/09/opinion/mikhail-shishkin-how-russians-lost-the-war.html?_r=0