Hussain Abdul-Hussain: Seven steps for America to save Syria/Amir Taheri: How the nuclear issue divided the Iranian media

Seven steps for America to save Syria
Hussain Abdul-Hussain/Now Lebanon/September 21/15
US President Barack Obama speaks following a meeting with top military officials about the military campaign against the Islamic State at the Pentagon in Washington, DC, 6 July 2015. (AFP/Saul Loeb)

When New York Times columnist and staunch Obama supporter Nicholas Kristof tweets that the “White House just sounds sillier and sillier on Syria,” the Obama administration should take notice that its Syria policy has been a complete failure. “Even for those of us sympathetic to Obama, this is nonsensical,” Kristof argues.

Yet despite Obama’s failure all is not lost. Washington can still take some measures to stop the tragedies in Syria and Iraq tragedies and roll back the bad guys: ISIS, Assad, Russia and Iran. Russia’s new military deployment in Syria is for show only. In August 2013, when America parked its warships off the Syrian coast, Russia withdrew its naval assets.

To save Syria, America should do the following:
1- Create a no-fly zone that houses refugees. The US and its allies — Turkey, Saudi Arabia and Qatar — can destroy Assad’s air defenses; his fighter jets and helicopters. Assad has used his air force to punish towns that house opposition fighters by striking them indiscriminately, which has displaced Syrians en masse, sending them as far away as Europe. Those who worry that ISIS will replace Assad if he falls should know that knocking out Assad’s airpower is irrelevant to such a possibility. Assad’s airpower has rarely assumed the role of supporting ground troops or engaging enemy fighters.
2- Reconnect with the Sunni tribes that live on both sides of the Iraqi-Syrian border. Allying with Iraqi tribes in 2008 was America’s biggest success story in foreign wars since Vietnam. By providing the tribes with cash, arms and air support, Washington succeeded in peeling off the moderate elements away from Al-Qaeda in Iraq and turned them against the terrorist group. The tribes eventually ejected Al-Qaeda.
3- Act as the powerful sponsor Arab tribes usually look for, yet understand that tribes never bet on short-term allies. When Obama inherited Iraq, he handed the tribes over to their Shiite enemies, who cut tribal salaries and hunted down their chiefs. With nowhere to go, the tribes joined ISIS, but can still be won back to America’s side if Washington proves it will be there for them for the long term, as they did with the Kurds, who have been America’s faithful allies since 1991.
4- Deploy former generals who made friends with western Iraq’s Sunni tribes — David Petraeus, John Allen and Martin Dempsey, among others. In the tribal world, trust is personal. America let down the tribes in 2009, but through personal relations, the generals can reconnect with them and tell them that they are now America’s indispensable partners. America should override its ‘ally,’ Shiite Iraqi Prime Minister Haidar Abadi and his Iranian sponsors, who want to undermine any independent Sunni power in Iraq. America should promise Sunni tribes that it will preserve their autonomy, and keep Baghdad’s Shiites away, if the Sunnis eject ISIS.
5- Stop trying to recruit tribesmen individually and instead connect with their elders. Unlike in the West, where families are nuclear and citizens individual, tribal members behave collectively because without a tribe to watch your back, you are alone in a dangerous world.
6- Stop trying to trade Syria and Iraq for an alliance with Iran. Tehran’s idea of a political settlement in Syria and Iraq means that its Shiite allies take all in return for Iran ceasing to kill, bomb and displace its Sunni rivals. Iran’s idea of a solution is the surrender of America, America’s regional allies and their local protégés. As long as this injustice prevails, the Sunnis will keep fighting. If America restores balance between the Sunnis and the Shiites across the Middle East a political solution might become possible.

7- Restore a balance of terror with Iran. The nuclear agreement was over Iranian nukes only. Everything else is fair game. Washington will not strike Iran over nuclear issues, but that does not mean America has to spare Iranian cities if American assets or allies are hit anywhere around the region. The Iranian military is so antiquated that it lost a war to Saddam’s lousy army.
None of the proposed policies above suggests involving American ground troops, even though Obama should never say that in public. Obama should replace his c

current image as a reluctant president with one that shows resolve. America has a bigger variety of power tools to use. If Russia and Iran with their failing economies can project so much power in the Middle East, America can certainly make Russian and Iranian power look puny.
And while Moscow and Tehran use their powers to stir trouble and deflect domestic anger, Washington uses its power for stability and world peace. Obama does not understand this and thinks America should apologize for its power — a policy that has so far resulted in a burning the Middle East and a Europe scared of the flooding mass of distraught humans.
**Hussain Abdul-Hussain is the Washington Bureau Chief of Kuwaiti newspaper Alrai. He tweets @hahussain

How the nuclear issue divided the Iranian media
Amir Taheri/Asharq Al Awsat/September 21/15
London, Asharq Al-Awsat—For over a year one story has dominated the Iranian media: settling the dispute over the nuclear project and getting sanctions lifted. Having won the presidency with the smallest margin in the lowest turnout in the history of elections in the Islamic Republic, Hassan Rouhani was determined to transform the nuclear issue into the principal plank of his administration. Rouhani knew that any attempt at normalization with the West, especially the United States, would be immensely popular in Iran. He also knew that without settling the nuclear issue there could be no normalization. It was inevitable that the media should focus on the issue. The first hints that something was happening came in a number of papers close to the faction led by former president Akbar Hashemi Rafsanjani that had opposed outgoing president Mahmoud Ahmadinejad. The dailies Etemad and Arman reported that the Obama administration had held secret talks with Ahmadinejad envoys in Oman in 2011 and 2012, accepting virtually all of Iran’s demands right away.
Thus, when Rouhani took over he was surprised when, in private briefing, he was informed by outgoing foreign minister Ali Akbar Salehi that the Americans were “desperate for a deal, virtually any deal.

”“This is our best chance,” Salehi told Rouhani. “Obama is offering what no other US leader would. Let’s not miss this unique opportunity.”That over-simplistic reading of Obama’s intentions may have put the entire Rouhani strategy on the wrong track. Rouhani persuaded himself that he could fudge things out and secure the lifting of sanctions without offering meaningful concessions.The mood of optimism continued for several months with Iranian media relaying a message of hope. When the Lausanne talks concluded with a press statement, Rouhani presented it as an agreement and praised it as “the greatest diplomatic victory in the history of Islam.”“We are on the threshold of a new golden age,” the government-owned daily Iran asserted in a front page streamer. Within days, however, it became clear that the Lausanne document could not be regarded as an agreement in any sense of the term. Commentators noticed the difference between the English text of the “statement” and its Persian translation.

The daily Kayhan, believed to reflect the views of “Supreme Guide” Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, pointed out the differences and lashed against a Fact Sheet published by the US State Department claiming that Iran had made a series of major concessions. Foreign Minister Mohammad Javad Zarif, Iran’s point-man in the talks, tried to divert attention by claiming that the US Fact Sheet was aimed at disarming the agreement’s critics in Washington. He also telephoned John Kerry, his US counterpart, to demand that the Fact Sheet be taken off the State Department’s website. (This was done 24 hours later.)

The incident shook the confidence of many in the Iranian media.
“Are they telling us all?” demanded the radical web weekly Raja News. The implicit answer was a resounding “no.”By the time the final round of talks started in Vienna the Iranian media had been divided into two camps.One camp, a majority as far as the number of outlets is concerned, supported the talks and urged both the P5+1 and Iran to find an accommodation.Newspapers and news websites close to Rafsanjani, the bazaar, and a number of powerful Mullahs, even came close to arguing that the nuclear project was not worth the sufferings inflicted on Iran by sanctions and diplomatic isolation.

Pro-Rouhani columnist Sadegh Zibakalam even wondered whether Iran needed a nuclear project at all. If the project was aimed at producing electricity, Iran didn’t need it because the country had ample oil and gas, he argued. In any case, the project’s prohibitive cost prevented the government from investing in other areas of development.

Triggered almost by accident, the debate highlighted one surprising fact: the nuclear project had never been discussed and debated in public, not only in the media but also in the Islamic Majlis (parliament).For a few weeks, Iranians were able to read articles for and against the nuclear project. On the eve of the Vienna talks, however, the Ministry of Islamic Guidance wrote to editors warning them not to criticize Rouhani’s strategy and tactics in the negotiations. One weekly, 7 Dey, which ignored the minister’s order, was unceremoniously shut down and two other outlets critical of Rouhani, including the all-powerful Kayhan, received “stern warnings.”
Rouhani’s government has closed down more newspapers in two years than former President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad did in eight years. However, shutting papers in Iran is no easy task. All news outlets belong to someone influential within the establishment. Many publications are directly owned by the government and/or the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps. Nevertheless, the government can force many outlets into line by threatening to cut their subsidies, limit their purchases of newsprint, and cut down their share of public sector advertising. The Mullahs and the generals who own the newspapers are not ready to spend their own money on them. And because not a single newspaper covers its own cost in Iran today, none could survive without government subsidies.

Against that background, it is remarkable that the Iranian media have succeeded in generating a serious debate about the issue. They have been helped by the fact that many powerful figures within the Khomeinist establishment are opposed to any deal on ideological grounds. More importantly, perhaps, Khamenei’s refusal to take sides has been interpreted as a green light for an open debate.

The platform offered for debate enabled both sides to passionately defend their diametrically opposed positions at length and shed light on a complex issue. Former Iranian negotiator Saeed Jalili did a formidable job of exposing what he claimed was a document that “violated Iran’s independence and national sovereignty.” At the other end of the spectrum, Ali Akbar Salehi, head of the Atomic Energy Organization of Iran (AEOI) put the case for the Vienna deal by stating that in it Iran promised “not to do things we were not doing anyway, didn’t want to do, or couldn’t do at the time.” In other words, the Iranian side had obtained the lifting of sanctions without changing its nuclear program.

By last month, Rouhani had been obliged to tone down his boastful posture.He was no longer talking of a “Fath Al-Mobin” (clear victory). “We scored three goals and suffered two,” he said, using football terminology. He was no longer calling for “spontaneous celebrations” in the streets with cars tooting their horns and youths performing folkloric dances. More importantly, Rouhani stated publicly that he did not regard the Vienna “deal” as either legal or binding, hinting that Iran had no intention of implementing it in the form President Barack Obama has been boasting about in Washington. He did not want the “deal” to be voted upon by the Majlis—so as to avoid making it part of Iran’s domestic law and thus obliging the government to abide by it.It may come as a surprise to many, but having followed the coverage of the issue in the mainstream media in both Iran and the US I must admit, albeit grudgingly, that the Iranians did a better job. In the US the debate was over Obama, for or against, with the president’s ego dominating the debate. In Iran, maybe because the big ego Khamenei stayed on the sidelines, the thing itself could be discussed. As a result Iranians may now be better informed on this issue than their American counterparts.