Obama may meet Assad in Istanbul to dramatize outreach to Muslims

DEBKAfile Exclusive Report

Turkish prime minister Recip Tayyep Edrogan is leaning hard on the White House for US president Barack Obama to meet Syrian president Bashar Assad.Edrogan says this will dramatize the address Obama plans to deliver from Istanbul on April 7 extending America's hand of peace to Muslims worldwide. It will also telegraph a strong message to the new Netanyah-Barak-Lieberman government that the Obama administration wants Israel to go back to the Turkish-mediated peace talks with Syria begun by Ehud Olmert – this time with active US involvement.

According to DEBKAfile's Washington sources, which report this exclusively, the White House has neither accepted nor rejected the Turkish premier's initiative, but time for a negative is shrinking.

Obama's outreach to the Muslim world speech will be delivered the day before the start of Jewish Passover festival. Turkish premier maintains that Obama must underscore his message to the Muslim world with actions not just words; a meeting with the Syrian ruler would show he is in earnest.

While the US president's movements in the Turkish city are undisclosed for reasons of security, DEBKAfile's sources report that he has scheduled an appearance at the second forum of the Alliance of Civilizations in the first week of April in Istanbul. He will be joined on the platform by Erdogan, UN secretary Ban ki-moon, Spanish prime minister Louis Rodriguez Zapatero and one or two influential Muslim clerical figures.

To lend wings to Obama's outreach to the Muslims, White House circles Monday, March 30, leaked word that his team took a hand in persuading Israel to accept a ceasefire which cut short its anti-Hamas operation in Gaza in January. The radical Islamist terrorists had to be spared from total defeat by Israel and their leaders from capture otherwise Assad, as their backer, would be restrained from resuming peace talks with Israel for some time.

The ceasefire gave Assad enough political room to continue the negotiations without losing credibility in the Arab world.

Seymour Hersh of The New Yorker wrote in its coming issue: A major change in American policy toward Syria is clearly under way.

“The return of the Golan Heights is part of a broader strategy for peace in the Middle East that includes countering Iran’s influence… Syria is a strategic linchpin for dealing with Iran and the Palestinian issue."

According to this report, Cheney began getting messages from the Israelis about pressure from Obama when he was still President-elect. Cheney portrayed Obama to the Israelis as a “pro-Palestinian,” who would not support their efforts.

Shhh! Don't talk about "freedom" and "tolerance" in front of Muslims! You might offend them!

So says Chris Seiple in the reliably dhimmi Christian Science Monitor. "Chris Seiple is the president of the Institute for Global Engagement, a 'think tank with legs' that promotes sustainable environments for religious freedom worldwide." Apparently promoting sustainable environments for religious freedom worldwide involves tiptoeing around the volatile and easily offended, and ignoring and denying unpleasant truths. Great idea! Why didn't anyone think of it before? "10 terms not to use with Muslims," by Chris Seiple in the Christian Science Monitor, March 28 (thanks to Kathy Shaidle):

[...] As President Obama considers his first speech in a Muslim majority country (he visits Turkey April 6-7), and as the US national security establishment reviews its foreign policy and public diplomacy, I want to share the advice given to me from dear Muslim friends worldwide regarding words and concepts that are not useful in building relationships with them. Obviously, we are not going to throw out all of these terms, nor should we. But we do need to be very careful about how we use them, and in what context.

1. "The Clash of Civilizations." Invariably, this kind of discussion ends up with us as the good guy and them as the bad guy. There is no clash of civilizations, only a clash between those who are for civilization, and those who are against it. Civilization has many characteristics but two are foundational: 1) It has no place for those who encourage, invite, and/or commit the murder of innocent civilians; and 2) It is defined by institutions that protect and promote both the minority and the transparent rule of law.

The difficulty here is that there is no party in this conflict that encourages or invites the murder of innocent civilians. Islamic jihadists believe no non-Muslim is innocent. They also present themselves as the exponents of a superior civilization and speak openly about conquering the citadels of Western civilization. If we don't speak of a clash of civilizations, will they stop also?

Seiple is right in a certain sense: we need to have a searching and honest public discussion about civilizational values, concepts of human rights, and related issues that few realize are at stake in our defense against the global jihad and Islamic supremacism. Pretending that everyone involved already shares these values will do nothing to stop those who do not share these values.

2. "Secular." The Muslim ear tends to hear "godless" with the pronunciation of this word. And a godless society is simply inconceivable to the vast majority of Muslims worldwide. Pluralism – which encourages those with (and those without) a God-based worldview to have a welcomed and equal place in the public square – is a much better word.

Here again: when Seiple speaks of "pluralism," will Muslims who believe that Islamic law is the only legitimate basis for society and governance suddenly see the virtue of non-establishment of religion, whereas they wouldn't if he spoke of "secularism"? Muslims in societies such as Egypt and Pakistan may welcome the proposition that those with "a God-based worldview" should "have a welcomed and equal place in the public square," but only as a step away from the current Western-influenced governments and a step toward full implementation of Sharia. So it is not enough to speak of the virtues of "pluralism" alone.

3. "Assimilation." This word suggests that the minority Muslim groups in North America and Europe need to look like the majority, Christian culture. Integration, on the other hand, suggests that all views, majority and minority, deserve equal respect as long as each is willing to be civil with one another amid the public square of a shared society.

All right. So we stop talking about assimilation -- who today talks about it anyway? -- and allow large numbers of Muslim immigrants into the country who believe that Islamic law is superior to American Constitutional law, and must ultimately supplant it. What will then be the outcome of our discarding of the concept of assimilation?

4. "Reformation." Muslims know quite well, and have an opinion about, the battle taking place within Islam and what it means to be an orthodox and devout Muslim. They don't need to be insulted by suggesting they follow the Christian example of Martin Luther. Instead, ask how Muslims understand ijtihad, or reinterpretation, within their faith traditions and cultural communities.

Ijtihad (اجتهاد) is the process of arriving at a decision on a point of Islamic law through study of the Qur'an and Sunnah. Most Muslims consider the gates of ijtihad to be closed -- that is, independent study of the Qur'an and Sunnah are discouraged, and Muslims are instead expected to adhere to the rulings of one of the established schools of jurisprudence (madhahib, مذاهب). The gate of ijtihad must be reopened if there is ever to be any genuine Islamic reform: "Therefore it is said that 'the door of ijtihad is closed' as of some nine hundred years, and since then the tendency of jurisprudence (fiqh) has been to produce only commentaries upon commentaries and marginalia."

That's from Cyril Glasse's New Encyclopedia of Islam. Cyril Glasse is a graduate of Columbia University and a practicing Muslim. Then there's this from Muslim-Canada.org: "Thus the schools of the four Imams remain intact after a thousand years have passed, and so the 'Ulama' recognize since the time of these Imams no Mujtahid of the first degree. Ibn Hanbal was the last....Since their Imam Qazi Khan died (A.H. 592), no one has been recognized by the Sunnis as a Mujtahid even of the third class."

A mujtahid is someone qualified to perform ijtihad. Ahmed ibn Hanbal died in 855 AD. Qazi Khan died in 1196. In other words, reviving ijtihad as a mechanism for genuine reform is not going to be easy. Seiple apparently thinks that by speaking about "ijtihad" rather than "reformation," the process itself can be encouraged. This view is simply naive.

5. "Jihadi." The jihad is an internal struggle first, a process of improving one's spiritual self-discipline and getting closer to God. The lesser jihad is external, validating "just war" when necessary. By calling the groups we are fighting "jihadis," we confirm their own – and the worldwide Muslim public's – perception that they are religious. They are not. They are terrorists, hirabists, who consistently violate the most fundamental teachings of the Holy Koran and mainstream Islamic scholars and imams.

A Shafi'i manual of Islamic law that was certified in 1991 by the clerics at Al-Azhar University, one of the leading authorities in the Islamic world, as a reliable guide to Sunni orthodoxy, stipulates that “the caliph makes war upon Jews, Christians, and Zoroastrians...until they become Muslim or pay the non-Muslim poll tax.” It adds a comment by Sheikh Nuh ‘Ali Salman, a Jordanian expert on Islamic jurisprudence: the caliph wages this war only “provided that he has first invited [Jews, Christians, and Zoroastrians] to enter Islam in faith and practice, and if they will not, then invited them to enter the social order of Islam by paying the non-Muslim poll tax (jizya)...while remaining in their ancestral religions.” ('Umdat al-Salik, o9.8).

Of course, there is no caliph today, and hence the oft-repeated claim that Osama et al are waging jihad illegitimately, as no state authority has authorized their jihad. But they explain their actions in terms of defensive jihad, which needs no state authority to call it, and becomes "obligatory for everyone" ('Umdat al-Salik, o9.3) if a Muslim land is attacked. The end of the defensive jihad, however, is not peaceful coexistence with non-Muslims as equals: 'Umdat al-Salik specifies that the warfare against non-Muslims must continue until "the final descent of Jesus." After that, "nothing but Islam will be accepted from them, for taking the poll tax is only effective until Jesus' descent" (o9.8).

That understanding of jihad is mainstream in Islam -- none of the other schools of Islamic jurisprudence contradict it in any important particular. So my question for Seiple is this: how is it that the foremost religious institution in Sunni Islam, and all the other schools of Islamic jurisprudence, teach doctrines that "violate the most fundamental teachings of the Holy Koran and mainstream Islamic scholars and imams"? Does he have anything at all to back up this statement? I doubt it.

6. "Moderate." This ubiquitous term is meant politically but can be received theologically. If someone called me a "moderate Christian," I would be deeply offended. I believe in an Absolute who also commands me to love my neighbor. Similarly, it is not an oxymoron to be a mainstream Muslim who believes in an Absolute. A robust and civil pluralism must make room for the devout of all faiths, and none.

Indeed. And those Muslims who are not moderate do not want to do anything with that "robust and civil pluralism" but destroy it.

7. "Interfaith." This term conjures up images of watered-down, lowest common denominator statements that avoid the tough issues and are consequently irrelevant. "Multifaith" suggests that we name our deep and irreconcilable theological differences in order to work across them for practical effect – according to the very best of our faith traditions, much of which are values we share.

I'm with Seiple 100% on this one. Enough of "interfaith dialogue" pursued by naive and ignorant Jews and Christians (like Seiple) who assume, as a matter of dogma, that Islam is a religion of peace and that violence in the name of Islam represents a twisting and hijacking of that faith. Let's have dialogue on an honest basis, with an honest acknowledgment of the Islamic doctrines of warfare and supremacism.

8. "Freedom." Unfortunately, "freedom," as expressed in American foreign policy, does not always seek to engage how the local community and culture understands it. Absent such an understanding, freedom can imply an unbound licentiousness. The balance between the freedom to something (liberty) and the freedom from something (security) is best understood in a conversation with the local context and, in particular, with the Muslims who live there. "Freedom" is best framed in the context of how they understand such things as peace, justice, honor, mercy, and compassion.

Yes, we must safeguard the freedom of Sharia-minded Muslims to institutionalize oppression of women and non-Muslims, in accord with the norms of Sharia.

9. "Religious Freedom." Sadly, this term too often conveys the perception that American foreign policy is only worried about the freedom of Protestant evangelicals to proselytize and convert, disrupting the local culture and indigenous Christians. Although not true, I have found it better to define religious freedom as the promotion of respect and reconciliation with the other at the intersection of culture and the rule of law – sensitive to the former and consistent with the latter.

"The subject peoples," i.e., the dhimmis, says that same manual of Islamic law that I cited above, must "pay the non-Muslim poll tax (jizya)" and "are distinguished from Muslims in dress, wearing a wide cloth belt (zunnar); are not greeted with ‘as-Salamu ‘alaykum’ [the traditional Muslim greeting, 'Peace be with you']; must keep to the side of the street; may not build higher than or as high as the Muslims’ buildings, though if they acquire a tall house, it is not razed; are forbidden to openly display wine or pork...recite the Torah or Evangel aloud, or make public display of their funerals or feastdays; and are forbidden to build new churches." ('Umdat al-Salik, o11.3, 5).

Now that, to an Islamic supremacist, is religious freedom. Does that really promote "respect and reconciliation with the other"?

10. "Tolerance." Tolerance is not enough. Allowing for someone's existence, or behavior, doesn't build the necessary relationships of trust – across faiths and cultures – needed to tackle the complex and global challenges that our civilization faces. We need to be honest with and respect one another enough to name our differences and commonalities, according to the inherent dignity we each have as fellow creations of God called to walk together in peace and justice, mercy and compassion....

I'm all for honesty and mutual respect. And I don't think that lying to ourselves or anyone else has anything to do with either honesty or respect.
Thanks Jihad Watch

Raymond Ibrahim and Laurent Murawiec debate the "mind of jihad"

Some time back, I wrote a book review for The Mind of Jihad by Laurent Murawiec for the Weekly Standard. Soon thereafter, Mr. Murawiec wrote something of an angry rebuttal -- accusing me of having an "agenda" and "disfiguring" his book -- which was to be published in a forthcoming Weekly Standard issue. The editors were kind enough to have asked me to respond to his rebuttal, and I did. I just found out, however, that the Weekly Standard will not be publishing them. Therefore, as a courtesy to Mr. Murawiec, who may feel that he wasn't given the proper opportunity to vindicate himself, I am posting our exchange, for the record. Laurent Murawiec wrote:

In his review of my book The Mind of Islam (“Consider the Source,” January 26, 2009), Raymond Ibrahim made several factually erroneous points. Since they command his evaluation of the book, let me set them straight.

Far from not “[being] interested in examining Islam's own peculiar Weltanschauung” as the source of radical Islam, I devoted three chapters out of seven to just that (1, 3 and 4). I never argued that radical Islam was “heir” to Medieval European Millenarians, rather that there was a structural homology between their belief-structures. Gnosticism is not a Christian monopoly but has been integral to Islam throughout its entire history, rather than an epithet I arbitrarily affixed to Islam.

Further, the reviewer mixes up Europe’s “Dark Ages” with the Middle Ages, which he bizarrely calls “lawless.” Today’s jihadis do not “live in the modern era”, Ibrahim to the contrary: their hands use modern tools while their minds live in the 7th century – as he himself insists. Today’s Islamic world is not “much more prosperous and structured than the Dark Ages in Europe, which directly influenced the savagery of the Millenarians.” Prosperous? Structured?

Millenarian violence had overabundant scriptural support, and it was vouched for by many frocked and defrocked priests, contrary to Ibrahim’s assertions. In the four main Sunni schools of law and in mainstream Shia, jihad is a conditioned commandment, not a “pillar of Islam.” Modern Jihad innovated in this, drawing upon selective sources, e.g. Ibn Taimiyya, or using the Kharijites as antecedents, whom I repeatedly mentioned without needing his injunctions to do so.

That Islam borrowed only Europe’s totalitarian ideologies that were compatible with itself is a point that I made repeatedly – contrary to what the review states. It is Mr. Ibrahim who adopts Maududi’s view of Muhammad as “a revolutionary,” a concept that has no meaning whatsoever in 7th century Arabia. I presented Maududi as he himself did, a would-be Mahdi, as much if not more than as a “Lenin.”

In short, Raymond Ibrahim’s review puts forward his own agenda at the price of disfiguring a book that he has only briefly scanned. I would have expected a more scrupulous treatment: disagree he may, misrepresent he should not.

Laurent Murawiec
Hudson Institute
Washington, D.C.

I responded:

According to Laurent Murawiec, when I wrote he was not "interested in examining Islam's own peculiar Weltanschauung"—he omits the rest of that sentence, “as outlined by the Koran and hadith, articulated by the ulema, and codified in sharia law”—I was somehow being "factually erroneous." As evidence, he insists he devoted an entire three out of seven chapters to "just that." One would have thought a book titled "The Mind of Jihad" would have devoted seven out of seven chapters to "just that," since jihad is a strictly Islamic phenomenon. "Factually erroneous" should be reserved to when Murawiec laments that I did not credit him for noting that only totalitarian ideologies comported with Islam, when in fact I did.

Incidentally, those three "devoted-to-Islam" chapters—two of which are titled "The Gnostic Mahdi" and "Manichean Tribalism"—represent only one-third of the book. The other two-thirds deal primarily with European history and philosophy. One searches in vain for talk on the true origins of jihad (delineated in my review).

I highlighted, for instance, the importance of the Kharijites to understanding the jihad—to which Murawiec indignantly asserts, "I repeatedly mentioned [them] without needing his injunctions to do so." In fact, the word ”Kharijite(s)” appears on three pages. Conversely, Hitler, Lenin, Stalin, Marx, Trotsky, Obenhein, Seeckt, and Roy—men supposedly inextricable to understanding the “mind of jihad”— receive nearly 100 pages-worth of coverage.

But Murawiec's point is that "there was structural homology between their belief-structures." Indeed, that is the book's thesis: to make (sometimes strained, sometimes valid) connections between modern-day jihad(ists) and anyone and everything else. While an interesting (albeit purely academic) exercise, the blunt question that haunts the reader page-after-page is—"So what?"

As I agreed in my review, "It cannot be denied that parallels exist between Muslims and non-Muslims: Such is human nature, which reacts similarly to similar stimuli, irrespective of race or creed." But such connections—real or imagined—tell us little about that unique institution of jihad, and nothing about how Muslims understand it.

Murawiec writes: "Raymond Ibrahim's review puts forward his own agenda at the price of disfiguring a book that he has only briefly scanned." Aside from his otherwise flawed psychic assertion—in fact, I read his book cover-to-cover—I can assure him my only "agenda" is objectivity.

In short—and here we get to the root problem—any writer who claims to be explaining the "mind of jihad" (an admittedly bold task) had better do so, rather than further cloud the issue by making strained ties to peripheral subjects that he just so happens to be better acquainted with. Had Murawiec titled his book "The Mind of Insurgency: A Comparative Study," he would have received a review that would not now require my revisiting it.

Raymond Ibrahim
Middle East Forum
Philadelphia, PA

Obama nominee sees no "reason why sharia law would not be applied to govern a case in the United States"

On top of that, this Obama pick believes that "America's focus on the War on Terror [is] 'obsessive.'" And his list of countries that flagrantly disregard international law highlights North Korea, Iraq, and the U.S.A. -- which he collectively calls "the axis of disobedience." Obama's most perilous legal pick," by Meghan Clyne for the New York Post, March 30 (thanks to Doc Washburn):

JUDGES should interpret the Constitution according to other nations' legal "norms." Sharia law could apply to disputes in US courts. The United States constitutes an "axis of disobedience" along with North Korea and Saddam-era Iraq.

Those are the views of the man on track to become one of the US government's top lawyers: Harold Koh.

President Obama has nominated Koh -- until last week the dean of Yale Law School -- to be the State Department's legal adviser. In that job, Koh would forge a wide range of international agreements on issues from trade to arms control, and help represent our country in such places as the United Nations and the International Court of Justice.

It's a job where you want a strong defender of America's sovereignty. But that's not Koh. He's a fan of "transnational legal process," arguing that the distinctions between US and international law should vanish.

What would this look like in a practical sense? Well, California voters have overruled their courts, which had imposed same-sex marriage on the state. Koh would like to see such matters go up the chain through federal courts -- which, in turn, should look to the rest of the world. If Canada, the European Human Rights Commission and the United Nations all say gay marriage should be legal -- well, then, it should be legal in California too, regardless of what the state's voters and elected representatives might say.

He even believes judges should use this "logic" to strike down the death penalty, which is clearly permitted in the US Constitution.

The primacy of international legal "norms" applies even to treaties we reject. For example, Koh believes that the UN Convention on the Rights of the Child -- a problematic document that we haven't ratified -- should dictate the age at which individual US states can execute criminals. Got that? On issues ranging from affirmative action to the interrogation of terrorists, what the rest of the world says, goes.

Including, apparently, the world of radical imams. A New York lawyer, Steven Stein, says that, in addressing the Yale Club of Greenwich in 2007, Koh claimed that "in an appropriate case, he didn't see any reason why sharia law would not be applied to govern a case in the United States."

A spokeswoman for Koh said she couldn't confirm the incident, responding: "I had heard that some guy . . . had asked a question about sharia law, and that Dean Koh had said something about that while there are obvious differences among the many different legal systems, they also share some common legal concepts."

Score one for America's enemies and hostile international bureaucrats, zero for American democracy.

Koh has called America's focus on the War on Terror "obsessive." In 2004, he listed countries that flagrantly disregard international law -- "most prominently, North Korea, Iraq, and our own country, the United States of America," which he branded "the axis of disobedience.[...]

Even though he's up for a State Department job, Koh is a key test case in the "judicial wars." If he makes it through (which he will if he gets even a single GOP vote) the message to the Obama team will be: You can pick 'em as radical as you like.

Remembering Olmert's true record

Caroline Glick , THE JERUSALEM POST

Last week's reports that during Operation Cast Lead Israel bombed truck convoys in Sudan transporting medium-ranged Fajr-3 missiles to Gaza from Iran couldn't have come at a better time for outgoing Prime Minister Ehud Olmert. Even as defense officials were following standard practice of neither confirming nor denying the reports, Olmert was bragging like a teenage boy. In an address at the Interdisciplinary Center in Herzliya last Thursday Olmert crowed, "We are operating in every area in which terrorist infrastructures can be struck. We are operating in locations near and far and attack in a way that strengthens and increases deterrence. It is true in the north and in the south. There is no point in elaborating. Everyone can use their imagination. Whoever needs to know, knows."

Unfortunately, Olmert's bravado doesn't stand up to even the flimsiest scrutiny. What about the weapons smugglers along the Philadelphi corridor? More than Sudan, Philadelphi - Gaza's international border with Egypt - is the choke point of weapons transfers from Iran to Gaza. And along that border, during his three years and two months in office, Olmert has failed to even temporarily cut off the flow of Iranian arms entering Gaza. Throughout his tenure as prime minister, Israel never once launched a sustained operation aimed at blocking Hamas, Fatah and their sister organizations in Gaza from transporting ever more lethal weapons systems into the area through its border with Egypt.

THIS WEEK EHUD OLMERT will finally leave office. Ironically, the cause for his early departure from power - the multiple criminal probes being conducted against him - has nothing to do with his actual performance as prime minister. That is, the failures that brought him down were not his failures in office, but his private failings which predated his rise to power.

Israel's political memory is notoriously short. In the space of a few short years, politicians' past failures in office are frequently forgotten by their parties and the public. Consequently, Olmert can easily assume that if he is able to fend off the multiple felony indictments awaiting him on his return to private life, he many one day soon return to lead us.

It is due first and foremost to the prospect of Olmert one day returning to politics that it is critical to consider his actual record of service as prime minister. Only by understanding what he has done over the past three years and two months can we ensure that he will be properly remembered for what he is: the worst prime minister Israel has experienced to date. Only by recognizing his tenure in office as an unmitigated disaster for the country will we be able to avert the danger that he may one day return to office.

Olmert's failure to stop weapons smuggling into Gaza at the Philadelphi corridor and his attempt to obfuscate this failure by exaggerating the strategic significance of the reported IAF strikes in Sudan are his stock in trade. Olmert, as the only prime minister to have led the country in two wars in one term of office, does not hesitate to use force to project an image of fearless manliness to the public. And as the only prime minister to have led Israel to defeat in war - and indeed, in his case, in two wars - Olmert is the only prime minister to have wielded the sword with utter strategic incompetence.

OLMERT ENTERED office in January 2006 pledged to unilaterally surrender Judea, Samaria and large areas of Jerusalem to the Fatah terrorist organization. Olmert was both politically and ideologically committed to the Left's belief that wars are unwinnable and consequently enemies need to be appeased rather than defeated.

In light of his political predisposition, both Lebanese and Palestinian aggression presented Olmert with a difficult political challenge. In both Lebanon and Gaza, Israel had previously adopted his strategy of preemptive appeasement by unilaterally surrendering territory to its enemies. Hizbullah's and Fatah/Hamas's post-surrender aggression exposed Olmert's political platform as both wrongheaded and dangerous.

Beyond the political embarrassment Olmert suffered in the wake of both Hizbullah's 2006 aggression and Gaza's post-withdrawal transformation into an Iranian-controlled jihadist hub, he had to contend with the public outcry against their unprovoked and unrelenting attacks. In both July 2006 and in December 2008, the public demanded that Olmert defend the country by using force to defeat our enemies. Yet even in the face of the public outcry, Olmert remained ideologically committed to the belief that war is inherently futile.

Olmert's ideologically driven political and strategic mind-sets caused him to prosecute both wars as little more than mindless, violent engagements with enemy forces. In Lebanon, IDF units were sent into tactical battles that lacked any operational objectives.

The strategic aims that Olmert announced at various stages of the war in Lebanon - first to defeat Hizbullah and, later on, to "send Hizbullah a message" - were strategically illogical since they lacked any connection to the manner in which IDF forces were deployed. Absent an order to conquer southern Lebanon and defeat Hizbullah as a fighting force, the IDF could not hope to defeat Hizbullah.

Given Hizbullah's commitment to Israel's destruction and its complete subservience to Iran, there is no way for Israel to deter the group. As a result, the only "message" Israel conveyed was one of military incompetence and ideological weakness.

Although the public responded to Olmert's performance in outrage, for Olmert the outcome of the war in Lebanon was the best of all possible worlds. By failing to accomplish any strategic objectives through fighting, Olmert was able to continue to argue for preemptive appeasement in Judea, Samaria and Jerusalem as well as on the Golan Heights.

Olmert brushed aside the public's demand for his resignation by emptily, arrogantly and repeatedly pledging to correct his own mistakes. But of course, given his political and ideological blinders, he was incapable and unwilling to do so.

The IDF's improved tactical performance in Gaza two years later showed that to the extent it was able, it did learn from its mistakes in Lebanon. In contrast, Olmert's strategic leadership of Operation Cast Lead demonstrated that he remained committed to the same wrongheaded and dangerous strategic outlook with which he had led the country to ignominious defeat in Lebanon.

DIPLOMATIC ACTIVITIES UNDER Olmert were motivated by the same ideological dictates as its military engagements. Consequently, their results were equally disastrous.

By any objective measure, Israel's greatest diplomatic challenge for the past three years and two months has been to build an international consensus around the need to prevent Iran from acquiring nuclear weapons. And yet, contending with Iran was nowhere near the top of our diplomatic agenda under Olmert. Indeed, Olmert and his deputy and successor as leader of the Kadima party outgoing Foreign Minister Tzipi Livni never developed any coherent position on Iran at all.

Instead of concentrating diplomatic efforts on convincing the nations of the world to prevent Iran from acquiring the means to destroy the Jewish state and to dominate the region and the oil economy, Olmert concentrated his diplomatic efforts on strengthening the Fatah terrorist organization against the Hamas terrorist organization.

This goal - which is the central component of Olmert's appeasement-based mind-set - required him to lead his colleagues and subordinates in ignoring certain basic facts about Fatah. Israel needed to ignore the fact that Fatah rejects its right to exist and openly calls for its destruction. Israel needed to ignore Fatah's continued direct involvement in terror attacks against it and its complicity with and support for Hamas and Islamic Jihad attacks. Israel had to ignore Fatah's cozy ties with Hizbullah, Syria and Iran and the leadership role Fatah occupies in the international diplomatic offensive and political war against the Jewish state.

Due to Olmert's willingness to turn a blind eye to Fatah's belligerence, the effect of his diplomatic efforts has been the legitimization not only of Fatah but of all of Fatah's allies and supporters. That is, the effect has been to legitimize all of our enemies and encourage them to maintain and expand their campaigns on every front.

In the case of Fatah for instance, by refusing for three years and two months to confront it on its involvement in terror, Olmert paved the way for its current campaign to prosecute IDF soldiers as war criminals in international tribunals. Moreover, due to Olmert's refusal to acknowledge Fatah's lead role in terrorism, he paved the way for the current state of affairs where Fatah forces are now being trained and armed by the US military.

BY DESTROYING the IDF's international reputation as a world-class fighting force by twice committing it to war and twice refusing to allow it to fight to victory, and by transforming the Foreign Ministry into a mouthpiece for Fatah and the PLO while ordering it to ignore Iran, Olmert wrecked Israel's reputation as a steady and reliable strategic ally in Washington. Moreover, he weakened its supporters both in the US capital and throughout the world by effectively accepting the lie that Israel itself is responsible for the radicalization of the Arab and Islamic worlds and that only by cutting it down to size will the West be able to moderate the behavior of jihadists from Teheran to Karachi to Baghdad to London.

Olmert's massive incompetence has had another victim: the country's social fabric. Not only has his studied inability to defend the country attenuated many Israelis' faith in the state's ability to defend them, Olmert's refusal to countenance the public's demand that he resign after the war in Lebanon and his insistent postwar attempts to give away Judea, Samaria and Jerusalem to Fatah while wrecking the strategic alliance with the US have sown confusion and discord. This discord has led to a deepening of social and political fissures at a time when - due to the rising Iranian threat which he studiously ignored, and the steady delegitimization of Israel's right to exist that he engendered - we need to be united as never before.

To sum up then, Olmert's ideological and political commitment to appeasement, his personal arrogance and his contempt for his countrymen have made his tenure an unrelenting and unmitigated disaster for the country. Today, rather than acknowledge his failure, Olmert is using the disclosure of IAF attacks in Sudan as yet a new way to obfuscate the fact that for three years and two months he has failed to adequately protect the state.

It is in light of this that it is imperative that the public understand his record. For in the final analysis, it is not simply our ability to ensure that Olmert never returns to lead us that stands in the balance. Our wherewithal to survive with the strategic wreckage he has laid before us depends on our capacity to understand and remember the dimensions of Olmert's incompetence.

caroline@carolineglick.com

______________________________________________________________________________________________________
This article can also be read at http://www.jpost.com /servlet/Satellite?cid=1238423642959&pagename=JPArticle%2FShowFull

COP: The Futility of Hybrid Cars

Steven Milloy

Could plug-in hybrid cars actually increase greenhouse gas emissions? Is energy efficiency being oversold as a greenhouse gas reduction measure? A new report from the research arm of Congress raises troubling questions about the direction in which President Obama is taking us. Produced by the Congressional Research Service (CRS), Carbon Control in the U.S. Electricity Sector: Key Implementation Uncertainties provides the lowdown on a variety of carbon control options for the electric power sector, including energy efficiency, renewable energy, nuclear power, advanced coal technology, carbon capture and sequestration, plug-in hybrid vehicles and small-scale power generation technologies.

President Obama has proposed that we reduce our CO2 emissions to 1990 levels by 2020. For the electric power sector, this goal translates to reducing what is projected to be 2.6 billion metric tons of CO2 emitted in 2020 to approximately the 1.8 billion metric tons of CO2 that were emitted in 1990 -- a more than 30 percent reduction in emissions over a period of about 10 years.

Could this goal be achieved through gains in energy efficiency? Numerous private and government sources have claimed, after all, that 25- to 30-percent gains in efficiency are possible over a 5- to 15-year time horizon. But according to the CRS, “the diffuse nature of efficiency opportunity and the economic complexity of decision making” has historically made moving beyond the 5 percent to 7 percent electricity savings range “a persistent challenge to conservation proponents.” Although more aggressive policies could be attempted, the CRS says, there is “little track record upon which to base projections of future effectiveness.”

The CRS considered wind power and biomass as renewable energy sources. The main problem with wind, according to the report, is that while proponents assert wind could provide 20 percent of U.S. electricity needs, the U.S. electricity transmission network is already much constrained, with wind power producing only 1 percent of those needs. As much as 19,000 miles of new transmission lines would be needed to make wind work. The price tag -- a net present value of $26 billion -- isn’t the showstopper so much as public challenges to transmission line projects, which the CRS describes as “among the most serious and intractable challenges in the U.S. energy sector.”

The prospects for biofuels are worse. The CRS report cites sources that say a significant increase in biofuel production “would require harvesting various energy crops at a scale that vastly exceeds current practice.” A 2007 study from MIT estimated that as much as 500 million acres of land would be required, which would displace so much cropland that the U.S. would have to become a “substantial agricultural importer.”

Heavy use of biofuels, it seems, would simply move us from depending on foreign oil to depending on foreign food.

Nuclear power? Given the facts of green opposition to nuclear power and the decline in U.S. nuclear infrastructure over the last 30 years, the optimistic view for nuclear power is that we could perhaps build as many as 30 new U.S. reactors by 2030 -- fewer than half the number constructed during the 1963-1985 heyday of nuclear construction. The pessimistic view, as cited by the CRS, is that we aren’t likely to see a serious ramp up of nuclear power for 15 to 20 years.

Although advanced coal technology can reduce CO2 emissions, the plants “still burn coal and -- absent carbon capture technology -- still release large volumes of CO2 to the atmosphere,” observes the CRS. So what about carbon capture and sequestration (CCS)? Should we hold our breath waiting for it? Not according to the CRS. Hardly anyone expects the first CCS projects to be constructed before 2020. Then again, there are so many hurdles for CCS to overcome, “one just has to put a big question mark on it,” the CRS cited a Department of Energy official as saying.

What about plug-in hybrid vehicles? When he was running for president, Obama pledged to put 1 million of the vehicles on the road by 2015. Aside from the question of how popular they’ll be with a projected retail price of $40,000 (as compared to $23,000 for a conventional vehicle), will they actually reduce carbon emissions? Only if the power plants they get electricity from produce little if any carbon. But since most U.S. electricity production is not carbon-free, the CRS observes that the “widespread adoption of plug-in hybrid vehicles through 2030 may have only a small effect on, and might actually increase, net CO2 emissions.”

The final carbon control options addressed by the CRS are the so-called “distributed energy resources” like rooftop solar panels, fuel cells, natural gas microturbines, small scale wind turbines, and combined heat and power systems (CHP), which makes productive use of “waste” heat from electricity generation. Of these resources, only CHP is economical, accounting for nearly 9 percent of U.S. electricity generating capacity in 2007. But according to the CRS, even CHP often faces technical and utility infrastructure barriers to implementation.

Combined with the dubious reasoning behind calls to reduce CO2 emissions -- check out this YouTube video produced by JunkScience.com -- and repeated avowals by China and India to not make any special efforts to reduce their CO2 emissions, the CRS report makes clear that significant U.S. carbon reduction could very well be little more than an expensive and painful exercise in futility.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XDI2NVTYRXU

Steven Milloy publishes JunkScience.com and manages the Free Enterprise Action Fund. He is a junk science expert, and an adjunct scholar at the Competitive Enterprise Institute.

Remember this action:Arab leaders snub al-Bashir warrant

Al Jazeera

Arab Leaders meeting in Doha, the Qatari capital, have rejected an international arrest warrant for Omar al-Bashir, the Sudanese president accused of war crimes in Darfur. In a draft communique issued at the end of the first day of the 21st Arab League summit on Monday, the leaders said they considered the warrant to be in violation of the Vienna agreement of 1961.

It stated that any efforts to address the situation in Darfur would need an agreement between all Sudanese factions, rather the trial of the president.

Ibrahim al-Faqir, the Sudanese ambassador in Doha, told Al Jazeera: "We are very pleased at the Arab support to President al-bashir and we are hopeful to have the solidarity with the president in the final statement.

'Fight to the end'

"We are also hopeful that no Arab president will be let down. We are going to fight until the end."

Al-Bashir has been accused by the International Criminal Court in The Hague of war crimes in the country's western region of Darfur.

The United Nations says at least 300,000 people have died, many from disease and hunger, since fighting broke out in 2003 between black Africans and Arab militia alleged to have links to the Sudanese government.

Khartoum has dismissed the UN's account of deaths in Darfur, saying about 10,000 people have died.

The communique also set conditions for the future direction of Israeli-Palestinian peace talks.

"They say tha the Arab Peace Initiative is still there but it won't be there for long," Al Jazeera's Amr el-Kahky, reporting from the summit, said.

Prosecution sought

He said they set two conditions for the future of peace talks; that Israel halts settlement expansion in the occupied West Bank and agrees to a time limit to fulfill its obligations towards peace.

The summit statement said Arab leaders had agreed to establish a legal committee to seek to prosecute Israeli leaders over Israel's 22-day offensive in Gaza which ended in January, leaving more than 1,300 Palestinians dead.

"The communique condemns Israeli practices, is sceptical of its future policies, but at the same time commends the Obama administration on some of its declarations and the European Union on some of its steps," Marwan Bishara, Al Jazeera's senior political analyst, said.

"In terms of their own peace initiative the language has not been as strong as expected ... it says they will still try to review it ... and try to lobby the international quartet ... about making sure that Israel would adopt it."

Earlier Bashar al-Assad, Syria's president, said that, while the Arab Peace Initiative was still on the table, the new incoming Israeli government under Benyamin Netanyahu was "not a peace partner".

"Israel sees its future in removing the Palestinians to an alternative homeland," he said. "Israeli society is becoming more extremist and aggressive."

Al Jazeera's Ahmed Janabi, reporting from the summit, said: "Arab leaders have stressed in their final statement that peace wil not be achieved unless the Israeli occupation is gone from all occupied Arab lands including Syrian Golan and Palestinian West Bank."

Al-Bashir attended the summit in defiance of the warrant issued by ICC, but Qatar is not obliged to arrest al-Bashir as it is not a signatory to the ICC.

'Blind eye'

Al-Bashir criticised the UN security council, the body that mandated the ICC prosecutor to investigate the situation in Darfur, on Monday saying that its credibility was at stake with 'some countries having hegemony".

"I remain extremely concerned by the government's decision to expel key international non-governmental organisations ... that provide life-sustaining services for more than one million people"


Ban Ki-moon, the UN secretary general, had criticised Sudan's decision to expel 13 international aid agencies from the Darfur region after the ICC arrest warrant was issued.

"I remain extremely concerned by the government's decision to expel key international non-governmental organisations, and suspend the work of three national NGOs [non-governmental organisations] that provide life-sustaining services for more than one million people," he said.

Jamie Balfour-Paul, the Middle East policy adviser for Oxfam, rejected Sudanese allegations that the UK-based charity was spying for the ICC.

"We don't have an agreement with the ICC, we are a humanitarian organisation and we are impartial," he said. "We don't have anything to do with the ICC and we don't have a position on its decision."

Despite the apparent unity over the Sudan issue, Arab nations have deeply divided over relations with Iran and the response to Israel's 22-day assault on the Gaza Strip, which left at least 1,300 Palestinians dead.

Iran Early Bird

March 30, 2009
Diplomatic Affairs

1. Iran – Saudi Arabia – Iran’s ambassador to Saudi Arabia, Mohammad Hosseini, met (March 28) with the chairman of the Saudi Majlis, Al-Shura, Sheikh Abdullah bin Mohammed bin Ibrahim al-Asheikh. Hosseini called for forming a special committee.


2. Resolving problems in Afghanistan through regional partnership – Speaking in Moscow (March 29), Mehdi Akhundzadeh, foreign minister for Asia-Pacific affairs and Iran’s envoy to the International Afghanistan Conference, which is being sponsored by the Shanghai Cooperation Organization, said: "Resolving ongoing problems in Afghanistan will be possible by means of a regional partnership, and the Islamic Republic of Iran supports this stance." Akhundzadeh commented that the United States had linked the Afghan issue to its own internal problems and looked at Afghanistan from a U.S. angle. This policy and strategy, he added, had never been successful and had instead only increased problems in Afghanistan and the region.



3. Jalili meets Indian prime minister and his Indian counterpart – Iranian Supreme National Security Council (SNSC) Secretary Saeed Jalili met (March 28) with Indian Prime Minister Manmohan Singh to discuss matters of regional security. Jalili also held talks in New Delhi with his Indian counterpart, National Security Advisor M.K. Narayanan, on North-South corridor issues. Jalili was in India on an official visit following an invitation from Narayanan.

4. Iran's Majlis speaker in Iraq – Majlis Speaker Ali Larijani and Iraqi National Security Advisor Muwafaq al-Rubai underlined (March 29) the need to promote Tehran-Baghdad security cooperation and boost control along the common borders. Larijani arrived in Iraq last week on an unofficial and pilgrimage visit that began with a visit to the holy cities of Karbala and Najaf Ashraf. During his visit, Larijani conferred with top Iraqi religious figures, including Ayatollah Ali Husseini Sistani, as well as Prime Minister Nuri al-Maliki, President Jalal Talibani and Abdul Aziz al-Hakim, a member of the Iraqi Governing Council.



5. Foreign minister in Gambia - Heading a political-economic delegation to Gambia, Iranian Foreign Minister Manouchehr Mottaki met and conferred with Gambian President Yahya Jammeh, Vice-President Isatou Njie-Saidy and his Gambian counterpart, Omar Alieu Touray. Mottaki urged further expansion of bilateral cooperation in the areas of energy, health and agriculture. Mottaki is currently on a tour of several African and Latin American states. He has already visited Mali, Mauritania, Brazil and Venezuela. Mottaki left Gambia for Tehran on March 29.

6. Chavez due in Iran- Venezuelan President Hugo Chavez will visit Iran this weekend and will meet for talks with a number of senior Iranian officials, including President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad.



Domestic Affairs



7. Urgent and revolutionary measures needed - Ahmadinejad reflecting (March 29) on the message of the supreme leader, who termed the new year as the Year of Reforming the Model of Consumption. "We should begin with high priority issues. However, the bill for targeting subsidies is a long and fundamental step … In my view, bread, water and energy should be put on the agenda. I do not expect you to draw up routine programs. It is of no use to draw up a plan for pressurized irrigation that may take 30 years to implement. I ask you to take urgent and revolutionary measures. All bodies are responsible in this regard. Each body should draw up a plan for its own. All ministers should allocate time for this purpose …We should implement it [the budget bill] correctly, so that the pace of the country's progress will not decrease and the people will not be disadvantaged.

(Voice of the Islamic Republic of Iran Radio)

8. Sharp criticism of Khatami's withdrawal - Reformist journalists have criticized Khatami’s decision to withdraw from the presidential election, terming the move a "new year present of confusion and disappointment for the Reformists.” Hamid Mo'azzeni told Fars in an interview: “By changing his mind, Khatami created the worst situation for the Reformists and ended the era of reforms of the Khatami kind for good ... He made the best decision for the opponents of reforms ... Khatami proved that he is not the man for the job and just when there was a need for his presence, he resigned .. His withdrawal … is a superficial disguise for his lack of morals. In fact, Khatami has been ethical for the sake of Mir Hoseyn Musavi and the opponents of reforms but this move has been an unethical one as far as Reformists and his supporters are concerned. In fact, Khatami has resigned from reforms, not the presidential elections.”

[For the full version, please contact Terrogence.]



9. Preparing for the 10th presidential election- Mansur Haqiqatpur, the governor-general of the Ardabil Province, appointed (March 29) Firuz Ahmadi, the political and security deputy governor-general, as head of the provincial electoral headquarters and Abbas Dastbaz, director of the governor-general's office for political and electoral affairs, as deputy head of the headquarters. The two also remain in their previous positions. They will organize, monitor and conduct the country's 10th presidential election (in the province). Haqiqatpur urged them to use all equipment and capabilities of the governor-general's office to properly implement the election law, and safeguard and respect people's votes and pave the way for ensuring a high turnout in the forthcoming election.

(Voice of the Islamic Republic of Iran Radio)

10. Iranian regime fears popular uprising - Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps (IRGC) and Basij paramilitary forces were deployed to restore order in various cities as popular uprisings spread. Previously, the State Security Force (SSF) was in charge of security in the cities. Brig. Gen. Ismail Ahmadi Moqadam, head of the SSF, commented on the role of the IRGC and the Basij forces in domestic security, saying: "IRGC and Basij forces play an important role in organizing popular forces. Thus, it was decided to strengthen the two in order to allow them to control cultural, social and popular security. In turn, this should lead to lasting security." (Official news agency IRNA, March 27)

Brig. Gen. Ahmad Reza Radan, deputy commander of the SSF, had spoken earlier about "placing Basij force in charge of neighborhood security."

On February 9, Maj. Gen. Mohammad-Ali Jafari, commander of the IRGC, referred to the popular uprisings in 2000, 2001 and 2002 and said, “The events in those years were challenging. We should not allow such problems to occur in the future … As Imam [Khomeini] said, we are not afraid of foreign threats but our fear comes from inside.” (State-run news agency ISNA, February 9)

11. National football team head coach sacked- The head coach of Iran's national football team, Ali Daei, was sacked on Sunday due to the weak results of the team in the 2010 World Cup second qualifying round. An informed source said that Daei was fired following the Iranian team's 1-2 defeat against Saudi Arabia in Tehran on Saturday evening.

Security - Military Affairs


12. Iran rejects aiding North Korean rocket launch- Iran's embassy in Tokyo issued a statement rejecting a report in the Japanese daily, Sankei Shimbun, which quoted unnamed sources as saying that a 15-member Iranian delegation had gone to North Korea in early March to advise Pyongyang on missile-related matters. The embassy statement describes the Japanese report as “politically-motivated" and rejects any missile or military cooperation between Iran and North Korea.

13 New effective defense equipment promised - Major-Gen Mohammad Ali Jafari, commander of the IRGC said (March 29) that Iran would witness a dazzling achievement in the field of defensive equipment, noting that the IRGC would be inaugurating new and various kinds of effective and preventive defense equipment in the current year. "We will give good news to our honorable compatriots in 1388 [2009-2010] regarding the measures taken by the IRGC and Basij, particularly by the IRGC, on various kinds of effective and preventive defense equipment. I regret that I cannot give more details now; I can only say that something will be announced.”
(Vision of the Islamic Republic of Iran Network)

Human Rights

14. Executions by stoning and hanging in Iran - Amnesty International: "DEATH SENTENCES AND EXECUTIONS IN 2008"

“Continuing the trend from previous years, China - 1718, Iran – 346 and Saudi Arabia - 102 were the states with the highest rate of executions in 2008.

“Amnesty International remained concerned about the use of the death penalty in Iran. Some of the cruel and inhumane methods used to execute at least 346 people in 2008 included stoning and hanging …. Amnesty International was also concerned about proposals by the authorities in Iran to further widen the already wide scope of the use of the death penalty…. Authorities in Iran executed eight juvenile offenders in 2008 in flagrant violation of international law. Iran was the only country in the world in which juvenile offenders were known to have been executed in 2008.”



15. Juvenile to be executed - Stop Child Executions has informed the United Nations about the case of Abumoslem Sohrabi, who is facing execution in Iran. Sohrabi faces imminent execution for a murder committed when he was 17 years old. His execution order has been approved by the Supreme Court and passed to the Office for the Implementation of Sentences, the body responsible for ensuring that all sentences - including executions - are carried out.



16. Women’s rights activists arrested – Iranian authorities arrested (March 26) 12 women’s rights activists on Sohrevardi Street in Tehran. They were arrested on their way to the homes of some political prisoners as part of Iranian New Year. The women activists had plans to visit the mourning mother of Dr. Zahra Bani Yaqoub, who died mysteriously while in the custody of the State Security Force. The arrested women were transferred to the notorious Evin prison. According to the families, the detainees included Khadijeh Moqadam, Farkhondeh Ehtesabian, Delaram Ali, Leila Nazari, Mahboubeh Karami, Shahla Forouzanfar, Soraya Yousefi and Bahareh Bahrevan. A number of men who were also arrested included Ali Abdi, Amir Rashidi, Mohammad Shourab and Arash Nasiri Eqbali.



17. Political activist murdered - Ali Badozadeh, a political activist, was murdered in Mahabad, according to Iranian opposition sources in Iran. He was arrested on February 20 by agents of the Ministry of Intelligence and Security (MOIS) and was transferred to a secret torture chamber. Badozadeh's mutilated body, covered with snow, was found on March 25 on the outskirts of the city. His brother, Jahangear, is also serving time for political charges in the central prison of the northwestern city of Orumieh.

Judicial Nominee Says Prayers to Allah Okay, But Not to Jesus

True to his campaign promises, President Barack Hussein Obama has picked a rabid judicial activist as his first federal court pick. Judge David Hamilton has been chosen by Obama to serve on the U.S. Court of Appeals for the 7th Circuit. Hamilton is precisely what Obama wants in a judge: Someone who ignores the Constitution and imposes his own liberal ideas on each case. Hamilton will have what Obama calls “empathy” for the poor, child molesters, abortionists, murderers, etc.

Hamilton has ideal liberal credentials. He is a former ACLU lawyer and was a fundraiser for the corrupt group known as ACORN. This organization engages in fraudulent voter registration campaigns and is deeply involved in housing and poverty issues. Obama was an attorney for ACORN when he worked as a “community organizer” in Chicago. ACORN will be gathering data for the 2010 Census.

This lawyer is so radical that the liberal ABA rated him as “not qualified” when Bill Clinton nominated him for a district court post in 1994.

As a judge, Hamilton was a friend of abortionists, criminals, drug pushers and child sex offenders. He made is easier for child sex offenders to move around Indiana by invalidating a law designed to protect children. He helps criminals by suppressing evidence and warrants. He has ruled against waiting periods for those women seeking abortions.

Hamilton is also an enemy of the First Amendment and religious freedom. Interestingly enough, Hamilton has ruled that prayers in Jesus Name at the Indiana House of Representatives was unconstitutional, but prayers to Allah were not.

The Senate Judiciary Committee should soundly reject him as an out-of-control radical who has no respect for the Constitution or the rule of law. With a liberal majority on this committee, however, it is likely that Hamilton will be easily approved and his nomination will then go to the full Senate for confirmation. With a liberal majority in the Senate, his confirmation is virtually assured.

Hamilton’s confirmation will be one more nail in the coffin of freedom in America – and Obama will have been the hammer.



--
"Let us speak courteously, deal fairly, and
keep ourselves armed and ready."

Theodore Roosevelt

COP: Communicating the Financial Disaster

Dr. Paul Kengor
FrontPageMagazine.com | 3/30/2009

Newsflash, March 20, 2009: The Congressional Budget Office today forecast a U.S. budget deficit of $1.8 trillion for this year.
For many Americans, including some Democrats, there’s tremendous frustration over President Obama’s economic policies. Worse, they know that a huge portion of the public and media so adore Obama that they will not question anything he says or does, even as he pursues a course that previous presidents—including Democrats like Bill Clinton—would never have considered. Add to this the horrendous failure of our educational system—a failure to teach market economics—and we have a major challenge on our hands.

How do we communicate the depths of the nation’s fiscal depravity? How do we simply—very, very simply—explain the mindboggling generational debt being produced right now by President Obama and the Democratic Congress? Communicating this is crucial because Obama and the Congress, along with their supporters and media, are trying to blame this calamity on George W. Bush. Logically, of course, that is impossible. Politically, it will likely be accomplished—unless we can communicate the reality.

Since we live in a world of sound-bites, here’s how to present the argument in two basic lines:

President Bush, yes, spent money like a drunken sailor, and left the nation with a record $400-billion deficit. President Obama, however, is spending far more money than Bush, with a record $1.8-trillion deficit projected for his first year.

Period. Repeat that statement. Repeat it to those who don’t understand, or don’t wish to understand. Repeat it until you’re blue in the face. Make the person on the receiving end recite the numbers: $400 billion vs. $1.8 trillion.

Anyone can understand that math. From there, you can elaborate, if you desire, explaining how Obama’s deficit is a direct result of spending programs, like the $800-billion “stimulus,” like the $400-billion package that followed, and so on. The subsequent prolonged economic slowdown will pad the deficit more. The tax increases imposed to cut the deficit will further cripple the economy, ballooning the deficit and wider debt. The damage still to come from printing obscene amounts of new money will be inflationary and make all this yet worse.

Those are things that should be pointed out when trying to explain what Obama and the Congressional leadership have done in merely eight weeks.

And it cannot be emphasized enough that no president in American history—certainly not George W. Bush—has spent this much money in such a short period. These are the same politicians demonizing the private sector for fiscal irresponsibility. In fact, AIG is a paragon of parsimony compared to the politicians currently running America.

Make those arguments, too. But stick to the script:

President Bush, yes, spent money like a drunken sailor, and left the nation with a record $400-billion deficit. President Obama, however, is spending far more money than Bush, with a record $1.8-trillion deficit projected for his first year.

An American public that has not been taught basic economics—and that includes journalists—is not ready for theories from the Monetarists, from Friedman, from the Austrian School, from Hayek and Mises. When Lawrence Summers cites John Maynard Keynes as his model for what Obama is doing, it falls on deaf ears. The vast majority of our college graduates, not to mention politicians, have no idea of the core differences between Marx’s Communist Manifesto and Adam Smith’s The Wealth of Nations. (For the recent Intercollegiate Studies Institute survey on economic and civic literacy, click here.)

We cannot suddenly, over the next four years, make up for decades of failed education in how successful economies function.

Please, I don’t mean to be condescending. My point is to acknowledge these extremely troubling—and destructive—realities, so we can figure out how to respond.

I’d like to share a closing illustration: I heard a caller on a talk-radio show screaming that George W. Bush was responsible for these deficits. The host calmly asked the caller if he knew the amount of the deficit that Bush left behind. The caller tried to dodge the question—he clearly didn’t know the answer. The host pushed. Finally, the caller yelled: “Yes, Bush left a deficit of $2 billion!”

The caller figured he had picked an obscenely high figure. Hardly. If President Bush had left a deficit of $2 billion, he would be hailed for his fiscal management. That amount is so small that there would be a consensus that Bush had, in effect, left a balanced budget—like what he had inherited from his Democratic predecessor.

No, caller. Believe it or not, Bush did far worse—way beyond what you can imagine at the height of your outrage. And guess what? Obama’s deficit in eight weeks, not eight years, is projected to be more than four times worse. Forget $2 billion—how about nearly $2 trillion?

One more time:

President Bush, yes, spent money like a drunken sailor, and left the nation with a record $400-billion deficit. President Obama, however, is spending far more money than Bush, with a record $1.8-trillion deficit projected for his first year.

It isn’t rocket science. It is truth—a frightening truth. It is a crying shame. And America’s citizens desperately need to understand it so they can stop electing—and excusing—this kind of insanity.

Paul Kengor is author of God and George W. Bush (HarperCollins, 2004), professor of political science, and executive director of the Center for Vision & Values at Grove City College. His latest book is The Judge: William P. Clark, Ronald Reagan's Top Hand (Ignatius Press, 2007).

The blood libel is alive and well over Gaza

Barry Rubin
The allegations of IDF war cimes are no more than the usual baseless lies

A group of young Israeli soldiers met to evaluate their experiences in the Gaza war to see what could be learned from them. The next thing you know, there is a global news story about Israel committing war crimes. Given the eagerness to find Israel evil and guilty, it falls into the category of a “blood libel”, the historic allegation that Jews murder Christian children to use their blood for matzo.

The charges of war crimes and murder rest almost entirely on two stories. First, a Palestinian mother and daughter were being evacuated from their apartment. An Israeli officer told them to go one way; they went another. A sniper shot them, as instructed by the rules of engagement, which were formulated to protect soldiers from attacks by suicide bombers.

In the second story, an officer told soldiers to shoot an old woman — again in the belief she might be a suicide bomber — and an argument broke out among the Israelis over whether or not to do it.

These stories have been used to suggest bloodthirsty war crimes.

In the first case, an Israeli television station interviewed the soldier who had told this story and he stated that he had simply heard it as a rumour.

In the second case, it is not even clear that the woman was shot. And it highlights the caution and humanitarian standards of the Israeli army: enlisted men argued with an officer over obeying an order that soldiers in most armies would have obeyed without hesitation.

While Israel’s soldiers are accused of being “baby-killers,” they are in fact defending their country against those who are conscious and deliberate baby-killers. That is what terrorists like Hamas do.

Hamas deliberately uses civilians as human shields and disguises its fighters as civilians. Suicide bombers so dressed have constantly approached Israeli soldiers. Given such tactics, a wide range of security forces from Western troops in Iraq to British police in London have shot civilians thinking they were acting in self-defence.

This situation creates a genuine dilemma: What do you do if someone who appears innocent keeps walking toward you and refuses to halt? During the Gaza war, officers urged their men not to take risks.

Much of the media has not learned from earlier experiences of being tricked by deliberately concocted stories about Israeli atrocities. These include, for example, the Muhammad al-Dura affair in which charges that Israeli forces murdered a little boy in Gaza a few years ago were shown to be false. Several terrorist attacks were staged and Israeli civilians killed in seeking “revenge” for this media-generated blood libel.

The fact remains that there is not a single documented case of any Israeli soldier violating international law or committing a war crime in Gaza — or Lebanon in 2006. And it isn’t as if a lot of people haven’t tried to find or manufacture such an event. Indeed, things have gone so far that reputable newspapers are repeating the claim that Israel used phosphorus shells in Gaza against international rules when even the UN has already said this accusation is baseless.

On May 8, 1886, a little Christian boy named Stanislav Krasovsky disappeared in my grandparents’ town in Russia. He was later found dead.

One of my ancestors was accused of kidnapping him and draining his blood. One month later, fortified by vodka, a mob, on June 12, came looking for him and the results were rather tragic. It would be tragic today if false media incitement took the part once played by vodka.

Barry Rubin is director of the Global Research in International Affairs (GLORIA) Center

‘Obama Pressed to End Cast Lead’

Tzvi Ben Gedalyahu ‘Obama Pressed to End Cast Lead’

President Obama, before he took office, pressured outgoing Prime Minister Ehud Olmert to put a quick end to the Cast Lead counterterrorist operation against Hamas, according to New Yorker journalist Seymour Hersh. Hersh, who previously has divulged conversations with leaders promoting pro-Arab positions vis-à-vis Israel, reported in the current edition that President Obama approved of recent talks between American officials and Syrian President Bashar Assad.

The journalist stated that he conducted an e-mail interview with Assad, who wrote him that he wants to resume talks with the Netanyahu government. Outgoing Prime Minister Olmert sent senior aides for talks with Syria, mediated by Turkey, until instability in the Israeli government and the war against Hamas froze the discussions.

“The Obama transition team…helped persuade Israel to end the bombing of Gaza and to withdraw its ground troops before the Inauguration,” Hersh wrote. Israel stopped the campaign and agreed to a ceasefire without demanding the return of kidnapped IDF soldier Gilad Shalit and without the establishment of measures promised by the United States and other Western countries to stop weapons smuggling for Hamas.

Concerning Syria, Hersh said that one e-mail to him from Assad expressed a desire for a peace pact with Israel despite Cast Lead. The Syrian president reiterated that a surrender of the strategic Golan Heights was a precondition to an agreement. Hersh, whose agenda previously has pushed for Israel agreements with Arab countries and the Palestinian Authority, quoted American officials that “Israeli-Syrian negotiations over the Golan Heights are now highly likely.”



Hersh described the theory, adopted by Obama advisors, that an Israeli-Syrian agreement would wean the Damascus regime away from Iran and Hizbullah. He explained that the success of Hamas to remain in power throughout the Cast Lead campaign gives Assad “enough political room to continue the negotiations without losing credibility in the Arab world.”

Concerning the Golan Heights, he quoted former American Ambassador to Israel, Martin Indyk: “The return of the Golan Heights is part of a broader strategy for peace in the Middle East that includes countering Iran’s influence.”

Warning: Don't Sign With Vatican

Hillel Fendel Warning: Don't Sign With Vatican

Pope Benedictus XVI is scheduled to arrive in Israel six weeks from now, and concern is growing over possibly irreversible Israeli concessions to the Church.

For more than ten years, Israel and the Vatican have been negotiating a diplomatic agreement regarding their tax dispute over Catholic Church properties in Israel, as well as other issues over which they disagree. Though public details are sparse to nil, Foreign Ministry officials say major progress has been made – leading many to fear that the Church will be granted a political and religious foothold in the Holy Land. Though Church officials hope the agreement will be completed before the Pope’s arrival in May, this is not certain. The Foreign Ministry’s Bahij Mansour, who heads its religious affairs section, said two weeks ago, "We are 85-90% there.”

Mansour also said that most issues still in dispute would be resolved in a meeting in April. Different reports say the meeting will take place either April 7 or April 23 - before and after Passover, respectively - and is to involve relatively high-level officials from both the Vatican and Israel’s Foreign Ministry.

The Sanhedrin, a body of 71 rabbis that is attempting to renew the ancient tradition of Judaism’s most authoritative court, has written a public letter to Israel’s leading officials, warning that any agreement regarding the transfer of national, historic, and/or religious Jewish assets to the Catholic Church will be null and void and will not be recognized by Jewish authorities.

Striving for Internationalized Jerusalem

In February 2000, the Vatican and the Palestinian Authority signed an agreement calling for an internationally guaranteed special status for Jerusalem. During his visit that year, Pope John Paul II announced in Bethlehem that the Vatican had always recognized “Palestinian national rights to a homeland.” Rabbi Shlomo Aviner, Dean of Yeshivat Ateret Cohanim, said at the time that the Pope's goal was simply to obtain a foothold in Jerusalem for the Church.

The Sanhedrin, which sees itself as a “vehicle to bring about Jewish unity and civil justice, to help repair some of the deepest rifts in our society, and to provide an active, exemplary and unified Torah leadership,” warns President Shimon Peres and incoming Prime Minister Binyamin Netanyahu against the Church’s religious agenda hiding behind diplomatic agreements.

The letter states as follows [subheadings: The State of Israel grants freedom of worship to every religion – except to Jews on their most sacred spot, the Temple Mount. They do not have the right to pray there, nor even minimal religious rights. The State thus contravenes the purpose for which it exists, and undermines its own foundations.





On the other hand, the State of Israel goes out of its way to transfer diplomatic, religious and spiritual assets to foreigners.



Over the course of many years, contacts have been underway and promises of various agreements have been made regarding what the Catholic Church sees as its property or wishes were its property, in Mt. Zion, the Old City of Jerusalem, the Sea of Galilee, and elsewhere. There are those who came up with the idea of the Holy Crescent [an area around the Old City to the north and east, newly known as the Holy Crescent - ed -- the main purpose of which is to rid the Temple Mount and the Old City of exclusive Jewish sovereignty.



The Goal: Sever Jerusalem from Jewish People

Ever since the Israeli army liberated the entire city of Jerusalem in 1967, the members of other faiths and nations have not accepted the Jewish People’s sovereignty and return to its eternal capital, the place in which its Temple for the G-d of Israel and G-d’s kingdom will be established.



In recent years, the Vatican – acting on behalf of Catholic theology – signed a series of secret agreements, behind the public’s back, with various elements in the State of Israel, bereft of respect for the spiritual and political essence of the Jewish Nation. The essence of these agreements is the transfer of ownership over national Jewish property in Jerusalem to the hands of foreigners, and the instigation of processes to destabilize the Jewish People’s ownership over its sacred sites – primarily, the Temple Mount, the Western Wall, and the entire Old City of Jerusalem.



Giving these and other sites to the Vatican and international elements will lead to their detachment from the State’s territorial area.





The State of Israel is bound to the document of acquisition [known a the Bible, which was the basis for the Jewish People’s claim to its Land when it established the State of Israel. The State must therefore actualize Jewish sovereignty in Jerusalem, the City of G-d, the city of kingship, the capital of Israel, the heart of the world. It must guarantee the right of worship for Jews on the Temple Mount…





Standing Up For Israel's Honor

It should be noted that in 1964, when Pope Paul VI visited Israel, the third President of Israel, Mr. Zalman Shazar, read to him the verse in Micah stating that though other nations might follow other gods, “we will walk in the Name of our L-rd G-d forever.” The Chief Rabbis at the time similarly stood up for Israel’s honor by refusing to meet with him at all, after he refused to meet with them in their Jerusalem office. [During his visit, Paul VI did not acknowledge Israel’s existence or visit its key sites, did not mention its name, and refused to meet with the Chief Rabbi in Jerusalem. He later addressed a thank you note to the Israeli president, who lived in Jerusalem, by writing, “Mr. Salman Shazar of Tel Aviv.” - ed



Public Opposition Worked

In 2000, when Pope John Paul II visited Jerusalem, various elements tried to promote foreign sovereignty on the Temple Mount at the expense of Israel’s sovereignty there. They attempted to enable the visit to the Jews’ holiest site in the world without official Israeli presence - but public opposition thwarted these efforts.





All official and religious elements in Israel must prevent the signing of an agreement that deviates from the spirit of this document, and express their objections to the Catholic restorationist tendencies whose goal are the neutralization of Israel’s sovereign powers and the Jewish People’s status in its Holy Land, the Land of Israel.



We expect you to show maximum alertness to the matter of Jerusalem as the holiday of Passover approaches, so that our right hand not be forgotten… Please, clarify your positions to your countrymen and the entire world. Show honor to the G-d of your forefathers, your city, and your nation, without flattery to foreigners who wish to minimize our national image…



The Sanhedrin asserts that the representatives of the State of Israel can represent the Jewish Nation as long as they act in accordance with its traditions and laws – and are not authorized to transfer the ownership, or authority over, lands and properties in the Land of Israel to any foreign religious or political element.



Agreement Will Be Null and Void

Therefore, any agreements made by such representatives with the Vatican as a theological political body, in opposition to the spiritual essence of the Nation of Israel, have no validity. They are all null and void, the Vatican should not believe that property promised to them by these contracts will remain in its hands.





Churches in Israel - The Result of Forced Exile

It should be remembered that the Vatican, as the leading Christian Church, is responsible for the legacy of Rome – the conqueror of Jerusalem, the exiler of its Jews, the destroyer of its land. All the churches that exists today in the Land of Israel are the result of the Jewish destruction 1,900 years ago, the elimination of the Jews from their land, and the exile that Christianity wishes to boast will be eternal. This, in addition to the priceless material and spiritual treasures found in the basements of the Vatican [such as the utensils of the destroyed Holy Temple - ed, as well as the countless synagogues throughout the world that were confiscated by the Vatican and its representatives and not returned.



It is gravely forbidden to validate such agreements, as determined by the State’s criminal law code.



Warning: Religious War

Continued flattery to the Church on the basis of illegal agreements is liable to end, Heaven forbid, in destructive religious wars all over the globe.



Former Chief Rabbi Yisrael Meir Lau has said that Pope Pius XII refused several requests by then-Chief Rabbi Isaac Herzog to meet with him before and during the Holocaust to discuss how the Church could help save Jewish lives. After the war, too, Chief Rabbi Herzog asked for the Pope's assistance in locating Jewish orphans who were cared for by Catholic families, and again, the Pope refused.

Asharq Al-Awsat Talks to Iraqi Oil Minister Dr. Hussein Shahrastani

Michel Abu Najm

Paris, Asharq Al-Awsat-Iraqi Oil Minister Dr. Hussein Shahrastani emphasized that the federal government of Iraq wants complete transparency in dealing with foreign oil companies, which will be treated on an equal footing. He admitted that the Iraqi petroleum sector is in need of investment to the tune of 50 billion dollars in the next five or six years, and that the money is not available locally, which means that foreign companies' assistance will be needed. The Iraqi oil minister criticized the government of the Kurdistan region for concluding contracts with foreign companies and blamed them for operating in Iraq without the approval of central government. He said that the Kurdistan government is refusing to surrender the oil it produces to the Iraqi government, but he left the door open for settling the situation of foreign companies which made agreements with the Kurdish government, if those companies agreed to central government's demand to become subject to federal Iraqi laws.

Shahrastani's statements were made at an exclusive interview with Asharq Al-Awsat during his visit with an Iraqi delegation to Paris, to activate the 'Joint French-Iraqi economic committee.'

The following is the text of the interview:

[Asharq Al-Awsat] What is the purpose of your visit and that of the delegation accompanying you to Paris?

[Shahrastani] We are here to activate the joint French-Iraqi economic committee, which remained idle after the fall of the former regime. You may recall that there was close cooperation between France and Iraq for many decades in commerce, economics and other fields. In the past years this cooperation came to a standstill and bilateral relations waned. But after President Sarkozy's visit to Baghdad last month, both parties expressed the wish to activate the joint economic committee and upgrade political, economic and cultural cooperation between the two countries. Thus, I am heading a delegation representing ten ministries, to explore the horizons of mutual cooperation with the French. And there will be many more meetings with French officials and representatives of French oil companies.

[Asharq Al-Awsat] What impact did the fall in oil price have on your 'petroleum plans', given that the Iraqi budget depends 90 per cent on oil revenue?

[Shahrastani] It is clear that the present oil prices are low, unrewarding and unconvincing, not only from the point of view of oil producing countries, but also from the point of view of the consumers. The world is going through an economic crisis -the worst in 80 years, which has affected the demand for oil, and has pushed the price down. For instance, the present demand for oil in the US market is one million barrels less than it was for the same period last year. But this is a temporary crisis, after which demand will increase. It should be stated that the world would not be able to find alternatives to oil and gas. The alternative resources would at best cover 20 per cent by the year 2030, or perhaps 2050.

It is therefore in the interests of both producers and consumers that oil prices go up in order to provide the oil producing countries with the finance necessary for investment, in order to increase production and respond to market needs when demand on oil increases anew. Present day prices in some countries are not covering the production cost, let apart future investment.

I would like to note that some oilfields have stopped production, which means that world production will decrease; and if the present economic crisis continues, the world will face a severe crisis, especially as developing oilfields usually takes years. In our view, the price of oil should not go below $70 a barrel, if it were to convince the investors to spend tens of billions in the petroleum sector.

[Asharq Al-Awsat] What are your plans for increasing production in Iraq?

[Shahrastani] Our production at present is 2.5 million barrels per day. Our ten-year plan (2008-2017) is to increase production to six million barrels per day. On a previous occasion we issued permits for six huge oilfields and two gas fields that would lead to an increase in production by 1.5 million barrels per day. A second batch of permits was issued around the end of last year, which we expect to add another two million barrels per day, and thus make a total planned production of six million barrels per day.

[Asharq Al-Awsat] But where would you get the necessary investment to develop these oilfields?

[Shahrastani] We need an investment of 50 billion dollars over the next five or six years. This money is not available locally. Moreover, we need finance for the reconstruction process and for services such as housing, education, health, infrastructure, etc. That is why we are going to the international oil companies -all of which have expressed interest in investing in the Iraqi petroleum industry.

In order to facilitate negotiations with these companies we prepared a 'standard contract' which we proposed to them. This contract abolishes the principle of partnership in production and replaces it with a 'production services contract', according to which the foreign company would receive a fixed sum of money for every barrel of oil it produces from an oilfield allocated to it to develop and produce from, regardless of the ups and downs of oil prices. This way, Iraq would be purchasing services from oil companies and paying for them, no more or less. We have so far 35 foreign companies that will be competing for tenders.

[Asharq Al-Awsat] How was the 'standard contract' received by those companies?

[Shahrastani] They all expressed their will to compete on the basis of the 'standard services contract'. It should be noted that many countries are adopting this system in their attempt to avoid partnership in production.

[Asharq Al-Awsat] But how would you sign contracts with foreign companies while the Iraqi Petroleum Law has not yet been adopted by the Iraqi Parliament, and moreover there is the problem with the government of the Kurdistan region?

[Shahrastani] According to Article 111 of the Iraqi constitution, the oil and gas of Iraq is the property of the people of Iraq. Therefore, no section of the Iraqi people should act in the name of the whole; the Iraqi federal government is the only representative of Iraq. Consequently, any disposal of Iraqi oil and gas from any region of Iraq, without the consent of the central government, is unacceptable.

[Asharq Al-Awsat] But the government of the Kurdistan region is signing contracts with foreign companies and does not seem to care about this constitutional principle.

[Shahrastani] Yes they did sign contracts, but our position was clear, that these contracts are not binding on the Iraqi government, and no foreign company has the right to operate in Iraq on the basis of contracts that have not been approved by the government of Iraq. According to the Iraqi laws in force, only the Iraqi ministry of petroleum has the right to sign contracts on behalf of Iraq. Accordingly, any contracts signed by other parties will not be binding on Iraq. To the foreign companies which signed such contracts, I say you bear the responsibility of your action.

[Asharq Al-Awsat] Even though these companies are present in Iraq?

[Shahrastani] A company may drill or develop an oil well or construct pipes and storage facilities, but the oil produced [according to the contract signed by the Kurdistan government without the approval of the federal government], cannot be exported or disposed of. Our view is that it should be surrendered to the Iraqi government to be exported through proper channels.

[Asharq Al-Awsat] Does this mean that the contracts signed by the government of the Kurdistan region are merely theoretical?

[Shahrastani] So far, there are activities and drilling operations taking place, but no oil has been produced from these oil wells. If any were produced, it might be sold in the internal market or smuggled abroad; but it cannot be exported except through the proper channels owned by the Iraqi government.

[Asharq Al-Awsat] Does the Kurdish government accept this approach?

[Shahrastani] There is difference of opinion, as there are discussions between the federal government and representatives of the government of the region of Kurdistan. We have reached an understanding to the effect that the revenue from the oil they produce goes to the central government in Baghdad, which in turn will distribute the revenue through the general state budget.

[Asharq Al-Awsat] Do you have a set date for implementing this agreement?

[Shahrastani] Work is continuing to connect the oil pipes -through which the oil produced as a result of contracts signed by the Kurdish government is pumped -with the Iraqi network; but the government of the Kurdish region is still objecting to this on the grounds that the oil companies which developed these oilfields should be rewarded and compensated. If we regard this logic to be correct, it follows that the Kurdish government should submit the contracts it signed with foreign companies to government scrutiny to determine whether these contracts provide for complete Iraqi authority over its natural oil wealth, and whether the companies' profits as a result of these contracts were reasonable. In particular we want to make sure that the foreign companies are not partners in oil production but are merely offering production services for which they will be paid.

I would like to say here that we may agree to a modification of these contracts, as we agreed to modify contracts concluded by the former regime with Chinese companies. Our view is that all contracts concluded between the date of the fall of Saddam's regime and the date of issuance of the draft petroleum and gas law in February 2007 can be reviewed and transformed into 'production services' contracts, after making sure that Iraqi interests are protected.

And by the way, I would like to point out that the contracts signed by the government of the Kurdistan region were with fourth or fifth grade companies, have been concluded without competition and transparency, and have not been presented to the federal government or even the Kurdish people. Consequently, they are secret contracts in contravention of Iraqi laws and regulations, and naturally raise the suspicion of the Iraqi people as well as the Kurdish people.

Our position is clear; it says that any contract concluded without competition and transparency is unacceptable and contrary to the laws and regulations in force, and the concerned companies would not be allowed to operate on Iraqi soil; and if they do, they bear the responsibility for their actions.

[Asharq Al-Awsat] The French oil company 'Total' has been interested in Iraqi oil contracts for decades, what are Total's plans in Iraq and what may it get from you?

[Shahrastani] Gone are the days when the Iraqi government used to negotiate with a certain company. This used to be the case in the past, in the days of Saddam Hussein, for political reasons. Now the companies have to compete through transparent tenders. We open the tenders publicly and the choice is made on a transparent basis. Some companies, and I am not talking about 'Total', prefer to talk with politicians behind closed doors so as to get some privileges.

As the man responsible for the petroleum sector in Iraq, I would like to explain unequivocally that this will not happen in Iraq; companies wishing to compete have to submit their tenders, and they have all welcomed this Iraqi procedure. And by the way, Iraq possesses huge oil reserves, and there are opportunities for many companies. We are not going to deal in the way the government of the Kurdish region has conducted itself.

[Asharq Al-Awsat] Is 'Total' receptive to the idea of 'service contracts'?

[Shahrastani] Yes they are; they have no objection. A month ago we met with them and tens of other oil companies at a conference in Istanbul. Some of them made remarks, some of which were correct. Among the correct remarks there were some relating to dual taxation and the need for Iraq to have a law dealing with this aspect.

[Asharq Al-Awsat] When will the first 'production service contract' be signed?

[Shahrastani] With respect to the first batch of licenses, contracts may be signed by the middle of this year; with respect to the second batch of licenses, they may be signed before the end of this year. With regard to the first batch of licenses, 35 companies out of 120 applicants are qualified to tender.

We are now receiving applications from companies wishing to be considered for 'tendering' for the second batch of licenses and we are going to announce shortly the names of companies that we regard as qualified to tender.

[Asharq Al-Awsat] How badly are the low oil prices reflecting on your economy and government services?

[Shahrastani] Iraq depends 90 per cent on its oil revenue. Consequently, the low oil prices affected us badly. In the budget of 2009 we counted on an average price of 50 dollars a barrel; but as you know, OPEC decided at its meeting last December in Algeria, to reduce production by 4.2 million barrels a day, to stop oil prices deteriorating. At the Vienna meeting more than a week ago, we stressed the importance of abiding by what has been agreed, as there was only 80 per cent adherence, which means that it is still possible to withdraw 800,000 barrels a day from the markets. Once that is achieved, there will be a balance between offer and demand, and prices will start to rise again. OPEC has given the member states two months to observe the situation and we will meet again in May 2009 to assess the situation and to decide whether there would be need for an increase in production. If prices do not go up, we will insist once again on another reduction of oil production.