Washington Report on Middle East Affairs, December 1998, pages 108-114

Waging Peace

Dan Connell Discusses Eritrea-Ethiopia Conflict

Dan Connell, founder of the Boston-based humanitarian organization Grassroots International and author of Against All Odds: A Chronicle of the Eritrean Revolution, discussed the recent tensions between Eritrea and its neighbor, Ethiopia, at an Oct. 16 appearance in Washington, DC. The forum was co-sponsored by the Middle East Research and Information Project (MERIP), of which Connell is chairman of the board; the Institute for Policy Studies (IPS); and the Red Sea Press.

Connell, who visited the Eritrean-Ethiopian border region in August, recalled the “palpable atmosphere of relief and celebration” that existed only five years ago, when, emerging victorious after 30 years of fighting, Eritrea voted to become an independent nation rather than remain in a federation with Ethiopia. People were anxious to put the war behind them, Connell said, and there seemed no limit to the possibilities of the two countries working together. Indeed, both the Eritrean and Ethiopian leaders actively promoted confidence-building measures between the two neighbors, who also were a major component of IGAD, the Intergovernmental Authority for Development, the regional organization whose other members are Djibouti, Kenya, Sudan, Somalia and Uganda.

“Suddenly, in May,” Connell said, “it all seemed to fall apart.” On May 6, Eritreans patroling the border killed some Ethiopian troops and crossed over the border, and on May 13, Ethiopia declared war on Eritrea, with fighting breaking out on three fronts.

Connell maintained that the details of what actually happened are the least important—and most difficult—aspect of the current situation. Rather, he said, it is a task “for the peace process itself.”

He postulated that the leaders of the two countries “may have tried to leave the past behind too quickly.” Ethiopia had devastated Eritrea during their 30-year war, Connell noted, leaving no Eritrean family unaffected—not only by the war, but by the cruelty of the Ethiopian occupation. After such an experience, he said, “every inch of a new country is sacred, every casualty a matter of intense concern.”

Connell called for both sides to “step back from the brink” politically, rhetorically and militarily, and for a transition from the present conflict to more formal state-to-state relations, abandoning for the moment any dreams of unification. Lessons from other conflicts point to three requirements: a cease-fire, no preconditions to peace talks, and international guarantees for a negotiated settlement.

“What saved the region from further conflict,” Connell said, “was the rainy season, which is now over,” with the two countries on the brink of renewed fighting. He noted that former national security adviser Anthony Lake has been sent to the region on a mission of “quiet diplomacy,” providing some cause for optimism since, like all family feuds, “there is no way to settle this dispute by force.”

—Janet McMahon

Palestine Festival in San Francisco

San Francisco’s Golden Gate Hall of Flowers was the setting for the 21st Annual Palestine Cultural Festival Day on Sunday, Sept. 27. On the eve of Yasser Arafat’s speech to the United Nations General Assembly, a lively crowd of more than 500 local Palestinians gathered to eat, enjoy music, and share conversation and ideas.

Discussion topicsincluded the 50 years of Palestinian dispossession, hope for progress in the ongoing peace negotiations, and the continued struggle by diaspora Palestinians to bring about changes in recognition and respect for the Palestinian people. Beautiful handicraft items were on sale in the various booths, along with authentic Middle Eastern cuisine. A variety of information was also available on topics ranging from anti-discrimination to domestic violence. Festive music and dancing by local performers, along with the opportunity for camaraderie and celebration, provided highlights and memories for this increasingly popular annual event.

—Elaine Pasquini

Alfred M. Lilienthal Establishes Fund for Palestinian Children

Pioneer anti-Zionist writer and Middle East peace activist Alfred M. Lilienthal, who will observe his 85th birthday in December, has set up a foundation, in conjunction with American Near East Refugee Aid (ANERA), to support the education and nurture of Palestinian children.

Funds from the non-profit, tax-exempt Lilienthal Foundation, which Dr. Lilienthal established with a personal donation and to which he will bequeath his estate upon his death, will be used by ANERA to provide books and other school supplies; food, clothing and medical care; pay for school building upkeep and utilities and teachers’ salaries; and fund emergency needs for children in Gaza, the West Bank and Lebanon.

The foundation will continue Dr. Lilienthal’s more than half-century of service to the cause of justice for the Palestinians, whose plight came to his attention when he was serving in the Middle East during World War II with the U.S. Army and the Department of State. Since then he has written extensively in an effort to educate Americans about the injustices inflicted upon the Palestinians since the 1947 United Nations partition of their country, which awarded 53 percent of the former Mandate of Palestine to its Jewish inhabitants, who constituted less than one-third of the population and who owned only 7 percent of its land.

As a concerned American Jew, Dr. Lilienthal wrote a landmark article for the Reader’s Digest in 1949 entitled “Israel’s Flag Is Not Mine.” Undaunted by a storm of criticism and attempted intimidation from within the American Jewish community, he subsequently wrote a number of books. His first book, What Price Israel? published in 1953, forecast the tensions and bloodshed soon to engulf the area. His other books were There Goes the Middle East, The Other Side of the Coin, and The Zionist Connection II: What Price Peace?

In addition to writing on Middle East affairs, Dr. Lilienthal has lectured regularly, particularly on college campuses, for many years and also produced a film entitled “The Turbulent Middle East.” Between 1968 and 1982 he edited a monthly newsletter, Middle East Perspectives, in which he reported the findings from his annual visits to Middle Eastern countries.

Readers wishing to make a tax-deductible contribution to the Lilienthal Foundation may write to ANERA, 1522 K Street NW, Suite 202, Washington, DC 20005, telephone (202) 347-2558 or e-mail anera@anera.org

—Richard H. Curtiss

Kate Head Discusses Palestinian Advocacy at NDI

Political organizer and activist Kate Head discussed advocacy and lobbying in Palestinian society Oct. 8 at the National Democratic Institute (NDI) in Washington, DC. As the NDI West Bank/Gaza Field Representative, Head spent a year in the region assisting Palestinian civic organizations with issues such as influencing government, lobbying, media relations and legislative drafting.

She said that the Palestinian government has failed to focus on major pieces of legislation, causing people to “give up on the legislative process.” Due to a lack of specific action in the drafting of laws, post-election Palestinian optimism has faded drastically.

The lack of optimism, Head noted, has created a sense of nervousness within the Palestinian community. Even the probable announcement of Palestinian statehood in May of 1999 has caused a sense of uncertainty among Palestinians. However, she said, the way Palestinians interact with their government may change after a statehood announcement.

Palestinian NGOs tend to be “one of the stronger NGO communities worldwide,” according to Head. Although the groups remain highly goal-oriented, a distinct lack of organization has greatly weakened their effectiveness. Palestinian NGOs fail to keep updated and systematized membership and donor lists, partly due to fear of Israeli intervention and confiscation. Consequently, most planning is done verbally, which results in uncertain and disorganized activities.

While in the West Bank and Gaza, Head presided over media training groups. She trained Palestinians to look at arguments from various perspectives and to present their arguments while considering the reactions of others. She emphasized the need to state objectives clearly. Head noted that many groups had trouble with the decision-making process and found that listing pros and cons on paper helped the groups make decisions. As part of her work in the West Bank and Gaza, Head printed and distributed 10,000 manuals to aid Palestinians with advocacy and legislative issues.

—Samia El-Mahdi

MEPC Hosts Panel Discussion on Capitol Hill

“If the Peace Process Has Run Its Course, What Are the Costs for the Region and the United States?”, was the title of a panel discussion hosted by the Middle East Policy Council on Capitol Hill Oct. 2.

The event was moderated by MEPC president Chas W. Freeman, Jr., former U.S. ambassador to Saudi Arabia, who began by stating that there is thankfully again some movement in the peace process, which is a favorable alternative to throwing stones and pulling triggers. While the seemingly intractable issues will come later, Freeman stated, the current negotiating focus is on the more manageable ones.

The first panelist was Robert Pelletreau, the former assistant secretary of state for Near Eastern affairs, currently of the Afridi and Angell law firm. Noting the resumption of activity and negotiations in the U.S. in September and October, he posed the question of what damage had been done to Israeli-Palestinian relations by the impasse of the last one and one-half years. Stressing the benefits for all three parties, the U.S. included, in reaching an agreement in a set time-frame, Pelletreau apportioned much of the blame to Israeli Prime Minister Binyamin Netanyahu for the current state of the peace process. Netanyahu slowed the process to the point of paralysis, with rampant distrust now present between the two parties where trust had been beginning to take shape.

Pelletreau noted that the Hebron agreement reached between the Netanyahu government and the Palestinian Authority had won overwhelming support from the Knesset and the Israeli public and that the time is now to rebuild the soured relationship between the United States and Israel.

Turning his attention to Palestinian Authority President Yasser Arafat, Pelletreau said the new PA cabinet is more an exercise in public relations than a real effort in reducing corruption, citing Hanan Ashrawi’s resignation from the cabinet. Pelletreau expressed skepticism over Arafat’s ability to govern effectively. Referring to Arafat’s vow to declare a Palestinian state unilaterally if no final settlement has been reached by May 4,1999, Pelletreau said this already had been accomplished at the November 1988 Palestine National Congress meeting in Algiers, when Arafat called for a two-state solution. Pelletreau added that the 1991 Madrid Peace Conference put the Palestinian people and their leaders on the path of a two-state solution.

Pelletreau emphasized, however, that such a Palestinian declaration next May does not have to mean the end of negotiations between the two sides. He noted that, contrary to Israeli claims, in April of 1996 the Palestine National Council ended the Palestinian National Charter’s call for the destruction of Israel. He also stated that in January of this year, Arafat listed, in writing to President Clinton, each point in the charter dealing with the destruction of Israel that had been deleted.

Pelletreau charged that Israeli border closures and trade and travel restrictions placed on the West Bank and Gaza have made a shambles of the Palestinian economy. He criticized delays on the part of the Palestinian Authority in setting up the legal and institutional framework for outside investment.

He briefly talked about the establishment by the United States of the Tripartite Security Committee, including the U.S., Israel and the Palestinian Authority, to coordinate their intelligence agencies to better head off potential terrorist attacks. He closed by stating that other important issues in the region could be tackled more effectively with strong U.S. involvement in the Arab-Israeli negotiations.

The next panelist, assistant professor Mamoun Fandy, of Georgetown University’s School of Foreign Service, said the principal U.S. interests in the Middle East are the secure flow of oil at reasonable prices and the security of Israel. What the U.S. has created, Fandy argued, is a failed peace process between Israel and its neighbors and a failed balance of power in the Persian Gulf region, where the oil originates.

Contrary to the U.S. assertion that Iraqi President Saddam Hussain is constantly testing U.S. resolve, he is really capitalizing on the collapse of the peace process, Fandy postulated. With the peace process so short on results, the Arab allies of the United States have begun to look weak in the eyes of their own people. So, according to Fandy, Saddam concocts other crises and the United States takes the bait every time, causing Egypt, Jordan, Saudi Arabia, Kuwait and the rest of the Gulf Cooperation Council nations no end of political and diplomatic problems.

With the continuation of this cycle, Fandy noted, the GCC nations are reluctant to throw their support behind U.S. muscle-flexing toward Iraq every time a new problem erupts between the two countries. Fandy believes Israeli Prime Minister Binyamin Netanyahu’s ultimate plan is to deliver the Palestinians into the hands of Hamas and the rest of the Arab world into the hands of Saddam Hussain in order to justify discontinuation of the peace process.

Fandy concluded by stating that America’s allies in the region have a huge stake in the peace process and that the U.S. would do well to take its cues from its Arab allies. He said he hopes that people will not be asking some day, ‘Who lost the Arab world?’

Ian Lustick, of the University of Pennsylvania, began his remarks by emphasizing that when world attention is so focused on a few yards of West Bank territory and the dimensions of a nature preserve, the big picture is missed. In fact, Lustick said, any realistic level of redeployment by the Israelis would have minimal positive consequences. Jewish settlers in areas such as Ras al-Amoud in the Old City of Jerusalem, Har Homa, and Tel Rueda in Hebron could cause all manner of mayhem in the aftermath of a signed interim agreement, much like the short period of time between the January 1997 Hebron agreement, the ground-breaking at Har Homa, and the subsequent suspension of the peace process.

Lustick went on to say that U.S. policies in the region have been discredited by the failure of the peace process. Among the most important of these U.S. policies to suffer are U.S. efforts to control ballistic missiles and weapons of mass destruction in the Middle East, Lustick said.

He said there is simply no alternative to partition. A real agreement must be reached soon, according to Lustick, before an enfeebled Arafat fades away and the generation of Palestinians who came of age during the intifada are lost. Additionally, the secular, peace-leaning Israeli core is becoming increasingly beleaguered.

Lustick concluded by emphasizing that large parts of the world need attention, encompassing more people and representing larger issues than those present in the Israeli-Palestinian conflict, thus necessitating the reaching of an agreement in the near future.

The final speaker was Assistant Secretary of State for Near Eastern Affairs Martin Indyk, who noted that while the peace process has been hard work, it has come a long way since the first Egypt-Israel disengagement agreement in 1973. In addition, he noted that Syrian officials have let the United States know that an Israeli-Syrian agreement was very close when the talks broke down after Binyamin Netanyahu’s election.

The United States remains committed to finishing talks on an interim agreement and beginning final status talks, said Indyk, explaining that Israelis and Palestinians must work with each other directly, rather than looking to the U.S. for all of the answers.

He said the May 4, 1999 deadline for the end of final status talks is still sacred to the United States, noting that Israelis and Palestinians are coming to see the urgency of finishing talks by that date. Indyk stated his opinion that a unilateral declaration of Palestinian statehood next May will give Israeli radicals an excuse to get rid of the Oslo accords and cause instant chaos. If agreement can be reached in the next few weeks, he said, negotiations should resume between Israel and Syria as well as Israel and Lebanon.

Indyk concluded by stating that after going through a long, dark tunnel, there is now a chance to emerge into the light before entering the next long, dark tunnel.

—Michael S. Lee

Congressmembers Criticize Khatami Adminstration in Tehran

Some 220 members of Congress, evenly divided between Republicans and Democrats, signed a statement criticizing the government of Mohammad Khatami in Iran and presented to the press Sept. 16 by Soona Samsami, representative in the United States of the National Council of Resistance in Iran. Presiding over the conference in a hearing room of the House of Representatives in Washington, DC was Rep. Gary Ackerman (D-NY), who was joined at the conference by Reps. Robert Menendez (D-NJ), and Ileana Ros-Lehtinen (R-FL).

Expressing concern that the Department of State had included the People’s Mojahedin, affiliated with the National Council of Resistance of Iran, on its list of “terrorist organizations,” the statement expressed strong reservations about how that action affected the application of anti-terrorism legislation adopted by Congress in 1995.

“It was not Congress’s intent,” the statement read, “that a legitimate opposition to the Iranian regime be included within that particular list of terrorist groups. This has essentially had the effect of opening up the main opposition group in Iran to further attacks by the Iranian regime’s state-sponsored terrorism machine.”

The congressional statement quoted a senior Clinton administration official as having said that inclusion of the People’s Mojahedin on the list of terrorist organizations was “intended as a goodwill gesture to Tehran and its newly elected moderate president, Mohammed Khatami.”

“This designation is indeed a wrongheaded approach and appears to directly contradict at least the spirit of the anti-terrorism law, and we believe the decision should be reviewed immediately,” the statement continued. “In fact on Jan. 16, 1998, Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei ruled out dialogue with ‘the Great Satan,’ which he branded ‘the enemy of the Iranian nation.’ Khatami himself took up the theme only days later, attacking the United States in a strident speech completely at odds with earlier statements.”

In her statement, Samsami noted that the election of Mohammed Khatami as president of Iran “whetted the appetite of the advocates of appeasement. The futile and costly search for that elusive commodity, the ‘moderate mullah’ was on again. They claimed that Khatami was different from other mullahs, and the U.S. should recognize these differences...But let’s be realistic. Contrary to the expectations of the U.S., the Tehran regime has not modified its terrorist and fundamentalist policies at all.”

Representative Ackerman noted that in President Khatami’s extended interview with CNN in January 1998, “he expressed his willingness to reach out to the United States and begin the process of reconciliation.” In reality, Ackerman said, “we have only seen his willingness to continue his support for those who would attack innocent Americans...In the year since Khatami’s election, one thing has been quite obvious: the ruling mullahs are absolutely incapable of reform. Khatami has been and remains an integral part of that system, and understands full well that any move toward liberalization contradicts the essence of the regime in its entirety.”

In his statement to the conference, Representative Menendez said, “every one of us is anxiously awaiting the day when Iran will rejoin the society of democratic nations. Unfortunately, that day has not yet come. Mohammad Khatami is doing the same old things, only with a smile for the cameras.

“If we accept Khatami’s propaganda about a civil society and the rule of law, it will lend a legal atmosphere to the gross violations of human rights. It is clear that the recent trend in Iran has not been toward reform. We should not mistake signs of weakness or disintegration for moderation.”

In her statement, Rep. Ros-Lehtinen challenged her listeners: “Let’s look at Khatami’s human rights record for his first year in office to see if Iran’s deeds match the expectation of moderation: 260 public hangings, scores secretly executed on political charges, 7 stoned to death in public, 42 assaults on Iranian dissidents abroad, scores of public protests and demonstrations violently suppressed throughout the country.

“From July 27 to Aug. 5, almost 2,000 young men and women were arrested on charges of ‘lewd conduct and malveiling’ in the course of urban maneuvers staged by the Revolutionary Guard in the capital, Tehran,” Ros-Lehtinen said.

—Richard H. Curtiss

MEI Conference Tackles Problems and Opportunities

The Middle East Institute hosted its 52nd annual conference Oct. 16 and 17, in the National Press Club in Washington, DC. This year’s topic of discussion was “The Middle East: Problems and Opportunities.” There were five panel discussions held on Israel/Palestine, Iraq, Central Asia, Iran, and the Arab economic market, as well as special addresses and an award ceremony to bestow the 1998 MEI Award upon Prof. Majid Khadduri of John Hopkins University’s School of Advanced International Studies (SAIS).

The keynote speaker, professor of Middle Eastern History from Columbia University, Richard Bulliet, an authority on Islamic politics, said the Islamic political movement offers the most hope for people in the Middle East to see substantial improvement in their lives. In Muslim politics, religious pressure ends tyranny. Each country faces the challenge of how to introduce Islam as a counter-force to tyranny.

Iran is a good lab experiment, Bulliet said. “We can examine what Muslim politicians do when they have power. They’re facing problems, making their constitutional system work.” America was doing quite well 20 years after the Founding Fathers, Bulliet said, and he predicted that 20 years after the revolution in Iran Iranians will be able to say the same.

“We have to quit saying Iran is a terrorist state,” he said. “Words matter. Iran has a legitimate constitution and is a moral entity in the world.”

Bulliet predicts a series of collapses of Middle Eastern political regimes. “We’ll have to do some fancy footwork to keep up with it, or at least keep out of the way,” he warned. Asked if Islam is compatible with democracy, Bulliet quipped: “Is the two-party, Democratic and Republican, the best democratic system? Do we get the two best candidates at the end of elections or do the candidates who could afford the best ad campaign win? Do we take ownership of democracy?”

The first panel of the conference discussed recent “Developments in Arab-Israeli Relations,” as the Wye talks were beginning in Maryland. Assuming an agreement is reached, former U.S. Ambassador to Egypt Alfred Atherton, chairman of the Initiative for Peace and Cooperation in the Middle East, a program of Search for Common Ground, said it must not bog down into another Hebron agreement. The interim arrangements need to lead quickly into final status talks. These talks must be a turning point, a renewal, Atherton said. It took six months after the Camp David agreement was signed to resolve all the problems, and there are only seven months remaining before the May deadline for completion of the final status talks.

Ali Attiga, a Libyan national and secretary-general of the Arab Thought Forum in Amman, Jordan, gave an overview of the Arab-Israeli conflict, saying it is a 20th century problem, not an age-old dispute between Arabs and Jews. Its seeds were imported by the West. He listed the perceptions versus the realities in Middle East:

1. All Arab countries are against lonely Israel. This is false because Arabs aren’t a collective entity. Israel has never been alone, it has always had the U.S. behind it.
   
   
2. Palestine was a land without people for a people without land. But Palestine was always populated and Jews had been citizens of nations all over the world.
   
   
3. Future generations of Palestinians will forget their home country and settle around the world. It seems strange that the same people who remembered living in Israel two thousand years earlier could believe this would not be true of the Palestinians. Collective memories don’t fade away.

“Peace is not a high priority,” Attiga concluded. “Israel is more interested in building facts on the ground. If it wanted peace, Israel would have returned the occupied land, and recognized an independent Palestinian state. Egypt and Jordan gave total peace in return for total land return. Other countries are willing, but Israel just doesn’t do it.”

Simcha Dinitz, former ambassador of Israel to the U.S., admitted he doesn’t see eye to eye with the Likud Party (he was elected to the Knesset in 1984, representing the Labor Party). “Only Mr. Attiga can get me to defend the Israeli government,” he laughed. “When Netanyahu won the elections, he inherited Oslo and vowed to honor the agreement, not because he liked it but because the polls said he wouldn’t be elected if he didn’t.”

Netanyahu won because he always finds the right phrase to “solve” problems. He has a total lack of consistency, saying what people wish to hear, using creative ambiguity, and making tactical moves to gain time. He’ll say, “after we’re assured security we’ll pay the territorial price,” Dinitz said. But achieving peace requires compromise.

Former Assistant Secretary of State for Near East Affairs Robert Pelletreau, now with the Afridi and Angell law firm, said the deterioration of the peace talks before Wye was caused by Netanyahu’s numerous delays, which replaced the spirit of cooperation with deep and growing distrust.

“Oslo was a triumph for Israel,” Pelletreau continued. “The world got the idea that the core issues were resolved.” It changed the world’s perception of Israel as an occupying power, not giving back land. But all the key issues were left out. In fact, the secret deal was a framework for failure.

“Implementation is left to the party in control of the land, and any terrorist act is seen as an excuse for not carrying it out,” Pelletreau said. But no one can eliminate terrorism unless the feelings of injustice that cause it are eliminated. Pelletreau said he hoped the hard lessons learned from Oslo would help at Wye Plantation.

—Delinda C. Hanley

The second MEI panel discussion was entitled “Iraq: Recent Developments and Prospects.” Andrew Parasiliti, MEI director of programs, opened the panel with the observation that France, Russia and China do not hold the same views on Iraq that the United States does. He explained that current U.S. policy with regard to Iraq is faced with the image of a double standard. Parasiliti said Iraqi President Saddam Hussain is better off today than he was three years ago, which causes a great deal of frustration in Washington. Over the past several months, since air attacks on Iraq were narrowly averted early in 1998, Parasiliti noted that U.S. policy on Iraq has been in transition.

Phoebe Marr, of the Woodrow Wilson International Center for Scholars, began her presentation with the observation that since 1997 there has been relative peace in the Kurdish areas of northern Iraq, even in the absence of a Western presence. With security relatively good, she said that a government is functioning in enclaves both of the Kurdistan Democratic Party (KDP) and of the Patriotic Union of Kurdistan (PUK), with rebuilding from the past decade of turmoil going strong. Marr explained that 2,000 of the 3,000 villages which were destroyed in the last 10 years have been partially or completely rebuilt.

Marr noted a paradox in the fact that while the younger Kurdish generation is growing up with more freedom, the neighboring countries have closed their borders with the Kurdish enclaves in northern Iraq, causing hardships for professionals in these enclaves who seek visas for international travel. This causes many of these individuals to stay away from northern Iraq if they are allowed out.

While much is going well in northern Iraq, Marr said there has been a weakening of village life and agriculture, with urbanization consequently growing. She noted that there still are many persons in the urban areas of northern Iraq who were displaced during Saddam Hussain’s brutal 1987 crackdown on the Kurds.

Noting that Kurdish governments in northern Iraq are made up of a combination of Iraqi Kurd fighters and Kurds who were bureaucrats in Iraq’s Ba’ath Party governments, Marr stated that governments in the region are currently in transition. The key to a successful future lies in the ability of the two groups to reconcile, allowing for the formation of a broad-based Kurdish government in northern Iraq.

MEI vice president David Mack, a former U.S. ambassador to the UAE, began his remarks with the assertion that the oil-for-food program is going well in Iraq, with food imports now partially relieving the hardships of eight years of economic sanctions. He said, however, that beginning in 1995, Saddam Hussain became more effective at testing the will of the United States and its allies.

This has caused problems for the United States, as evidenced by the huge costs entailed in the military buildup in the Persian Gulf region in the fall and winter of 1997-98 in response to the dispute over the makeup of United Nations inspection teams in Iraq. Ambassador Mack explained that Iraq has been successful in making the economic and political costs of the confrontational policy the U.S. has pursued since the Gulf war of 1991 too high for the United States to continue.

Mack finished by saying that while the oil-for-food program is not perfect, it has been generally successful and is the only plan for feeding the Iraqi population that can be effective under the curent Iraqi leadership.

The final panelist was Rend Rahim Franke, executive director of the Iraq Foundation, who began her presentation by stating that U.S. policies toward Iraq since the end of the Gulf war of 1991 have made a complicated process even more difficult. She explained that in dealing with the opposition parties in Iraq, the United States should have played a catalytic role, but instead intensified the rivalries between them.

Franke next noted that human rights should have been given equal footing with disarmament, and that the U.S. has failed abysmally in softening the hardships imposed by the sanctions on the people of Iraq. She said that while opposition leaders in Iraq had supported sanctions against the regime of Saddam Hussain in the beginning, they no longer do because there is no end-game in the sanctions strategy.

Franke stated that the problems associated with U.S. policy on Iraq are so deep that they must be overhauled from the ground up. She closed by stating that it would be in the U.S. interest to pursue policies that would make the Iraqi people amenable to supporting the United States.

Leading off the third panel, entitled “Developments in Central Asia,” S. Frederick Starr, of the Johns Hopkins University Central Asia Institute, said that Congress and the Clinton administration had no clear awareness when they imposed sanctions on Libya and Iran in 1995 and 1996 that these acts would have any impact on Central Asia and the Caucasus. Starr said both regions have become important in the eyes of the United States and the West because of the presence of oil in the Caspian Sea basin, although it is now commonly believed that there is not nearly as much oil present in the area as was once thought.

Julia Nanay, director of the Petroleum Finance Company, Ltd., spoke next, beginning her presentation with the observation that Kazakhstan is the most important country economically to the United States in the region, as it holds the most exploitable resources, including onshore oil and gas reserves. Azerbaijan, Nanay added, is the most important country politically to the U.S. in the region, as it is through Baku, the Azerbaijani capital, that the U.S. wants to build an east-west pipeline to carry oil from Kazakhstan and Turkmenistan through Azerbaijan to Turkey, thus bypassing Iran as a transit route. She closed by stating that falling oil prices have somewhat cooled Western interest in Caspian oil.

Barnett Rubin, of the Council on Foreign Relations, spoke on the effect of Afghanistan and the ruling Taliban government there on the South and Central Asian regions. He explained that conflicts in the region are extremely interconnected, with Afghanistan, Pakistan and the United Arab Emirates all involved as various points along a very lucrative smuggling route. Rubin described the Taliban as a trans-border phenomenon, based on the fact that the movement is led by Afghans who spent their childhoods in Pakistan, attending religious schools there funded by Saudi Arabia and Pakistan.

Rubin painted an increasingly alarming picture as he explained that Pakistanis who now are fighting alongside the Taliban will eventually return to a Pakistan that is economically troubled, bringing with them their Taliban ideology. He noted that militant Sunnis and Shi’i in Pakistan have assassinated members of each other’s communities, pushing Pakistan toward chaos of gigantic proportions. Rubin tried to close on a positive note by stating that Iran and the United States might be able to work together in the future to deal with the Afghan issue.

—Michael S. Lee

“Developments in Iran.” Since the March 1997 landslide election victory of moderate President Mohammed Khatami, he and his supporters within Iran’s fractured government have initiated a policy of a cautious “warming” of relations with the West, and the United States in particular. This shift, and the puzzling contemporary situation in Iran, were addressed by the panelists.

Mehrzad Boroujerdi, associate professor of political science at Syracuse University, cited statistics showing that 83 percent of eligible voters participated in the 1997 elections, as opposed to only 54 percent participation in the 1993 elections, as proof of a demand for more moderate politics in Iran. The catalyst for this trend, he said, is the fact that Iranian society is becoming increasingly urbanized, educated and young.

According to Boroujerdi, demographics is not the only reason for the shift toward moderate politics, “The clerics have failed to drive modernity underground, and now they have to deal with it,” he said.

But while all of this can be viewed as a very positive development in Iranian politics, Boroujerdi cautioned that Iran’s present government must not let this become “a one-man show,” as was the case during the rule of Ayatollah Ruhollah Khomeini. “Iranian politics is acquiring a maturity way beyond what it was in the revolution,” he said.

As for Khatami’s continued popularity after his first year in office, Boroujerdi likened him to former U.S. President Ronald Reagan, who became a “Teflon president to whom problems did not stick. Even the economic problems do not touch Khatami,” Boroujerdi said. “They are blamed on the global crisis, or on opponents of the Khatami regime.”

Boroujerdi also emphasized the essential role of Islam within Iranian politics. “Without Islamic liberalism, political liberalism will not succeed in Iran,” he said.

Robin Wright, an Iran expert and national security affairs correspondent for the Los Angeles Times, examined the regional impact of President Khatami’s positive foreign policy steps, particularly in regard to the volatile situation between Iran and the Taliban in Afghanistan. “So far, calm, rational thinking has won the day,” Wright said. “President Khatami thinks a war will be nothing but a bad thing for all sides involved.”

On the issue of Iranian attempts to acquire weapons of mass destruction, Wright said she sees no change in sight. “Not only does Iran feel vulnerable with respect to Iraq, but also in regard to the nuclear tests by India and Pakistan,” she explained.

“I think that Iran would need to see a nuclear-free zone around it before it would give up any weapons,” Wright concluded.

—Rob Swanson

International Peace Award Bestowed upon Sultan Qaboos

Former U.S. President Jimmy Carter presented on behalf of the National Council on U.S.-Arab Relations and 32 other U.S. organizations the International Peace Award to Sultan Qaboos bin Said of Oman, at an Oct. 15 ceremony in Washington, DC. Accepting the award in the ballroom of the Willard Hotel on behalf of Sultan Qaboos, who was recognized for 27 years of distinguished contributions toward regional and international peace, was Omani Foreign Minister Yusuf Alawi bin Abdullah.

In presenting the award for Sultan Qaboos, President Carter said, “For many years, I personally have admired his courageous efforts to bring peace to his region of the world. He deserves recognition and thanks, as do the people of Oman for their support of him. His Majesty has promoted peace in many ways. On behalf of his own country, he has negotiated and settled difficult boundary disputes with all of his neighbors. He has brought Oman to a position of leadership in the United Nations and other international organizations.

“I have been especially grateful for his encouragement on the Camp David peace process,” President Carter concluded. “He continues to be a leader among those seeking peace between the Arab world and the nation of Israel, working for a just and final settlement that will protect the full rights of the Palestinian people. He has set an example of leadership that I pray will be followed by others throughout the world.”

Delivering an address on behalf of Sultan Qaboos, the Omani foreign minister responded, “We believe that humankind is inherently peace-loving. And so, we also believe that all, individually and collectively, have a sacred duty to pursue the cause of peace, and that in fulfilling this duty, we help humankind to realize its destiny.”

In the address the Sultan thanked President Carter for “the leadership he gave the world during his presidency” and Dr. John Duke Anthony, president of the National Council on U.S.-Arab Relations, and the other sponsoring organizations for the award and for their “recognition of our contribution to regional and international peace.”

After the ceremony, President Carter said that he doesn’t normally participate in such events, but he had a special reason for traveling to Washington to present the award to Sultan Qaboos, since he was one of the Arab leaders to publicly support the Camp David agreement. President Carter compared the Wye discussions, scheduled to begin in the following week, with Camp David. Noting that it might be necessary for President Clinton to invest a great deal of personal time and effort to achieve an agreement at Wye, President Carter offered reminiscences about the 13 days he spent with the Egyptian and Israeli leaders at Camp David.

“Prime Minister Begin and President Sadat were personally incompatible,” Carter said, “so for the last 10 days they never saw each other. While one slept, the other talked, and then when he slept I talked to the other. So they both got a lot of sleep but I didn’t get much sleep.”

—Delinda Hanley

Yemeni Minister Outlines Economic Challenges to Confederation Government

Yemeni Deputy Prime Minister Abdalqadi Bajammal, who also is his country’s foreign minister, gave a briefing Oct. 1 on the problems and progress of his country’s confederation government at the National Council on U.S.-Arab Relations in Washington, DC.

Bajammal served as a minister in the People’s Democratic Republic of Yemen (South Yemen) and later was imprisoned for four years by that regime’s socialist government. He also worked for many years for Saudi Aramco in Saudi Arabia. Before his present appointment in the confederation government of both former North and South Yemen by Yemeni President Ali Abdallah Saleh, he was Yemen’s minister of planning.

Pointing out to his audience of executives of non-governmental organizations concerned with Middle East affairs that “Yemen was the first home of all the Arabs,” the minister said, “this is a very important period of our history” because the confederation represents “a changing of our culture and of our economy.”

“The long struggle has not been easy,” he said. “Three presidents, one prime minister and three foreign ministers all have been killed. Most of them were struggling for unity. The idea that the south was building socialism and the north was building capitalism was not true. It was all aiming only at Yemeni development.

“People rejected socialism in the south [because] as Muslims the people did not want to be communists. Now we want to speak about the future. The economy in Yemen is very backward, but it has good promise for the future. There are good possibilities for oil and gas exploitation.”

He said geologists still are not certain about the total extent of oil deposits, and also are examining possibilities for gold mining. Nor has Yemen secured markets for the gas it can produce. At the same time, he said, Yemen needs “more schools, more clinics, more roads, more water and more electricity.”

Yemen is working hard to reduce inflation and improve its economy, which is burdened by a deficit that is 22 percent of GDP, he said. It also is working upon building refineries, terminals, and land transportation facilities for its petroleum production, along with modernizing its port facilities.

To facilitate these ambitious projects, Yemen is encouraging privatization. “We want to increase the middle class,” Bajammal said. “If there is no middle class, there is no democracy. The middle class is a center and the hub of social and political life. The middle class is like the concrete for a building. Without it, there is no building.”

—Richard Curtiss

U.S. Ambassador to Israel Speaking to U.S. Jewish Audiences

U.S. Ambassador to Israel Edward S. Walker, Jr. addressed an audience of 100 persons on Sept. 18 at Congregation Ko Shofar in Tiburon, California. Ambassador Walker, who was appointed ambassador to Israel in December 1997, replacing Martin Indyk, who returned to Washington to become assistant secretary of state for Near Eastern affairs, was speaking in selected U.S. cities about U.S. relations with Israel. When asked in an informal discussion following his presentation if he would be speaking with any Palestinian groups, he said that was not his domain and that he did “not have any contacts with local Palestinians.”

The evening presentation was arranged by the synagogue in coordination with B’nai B’rith’s Anti-Defamation League. Ambassador Walker worked with the ADL during his term as U.S. ambassador to Egypt from 1994 to 1997, specifically in relation to ADL’s charges of anti-Semitism among Egyptian intellectuals. Walker said he feels there has been very little movement away from anti-Semitism in Arab countries dating back to the time of the late President Gamal Abdel Nasser.

Addressing the current state of the peace process, Ambassador Walker stated: “Today [in Israel] no one expects there to be a redeployment of less than 13 percent.” He described this as a “major step forward” in peace process negotiations. He said that if the second redeployment is implemented soon, and there are no terrorist attacks, “May 4, 1999 [the date on which Palestinian PresidentYasser Arafat vows to proclaim a Palestinian state if the Oslo accords have not been implemented] will come and go and nobody will know the difference.”

Discussing U.S. commitments to maintain Israel’s military superiority in the region, Walker said Israel’s recent successful launch of experimental Arrow surface-to-air missiles “was a good stop-gap measure, but not a long-term answer.” He also said that the cost of creating new technology is a problem, but that “we [the U.S.] will have to share the cost and the burden. We really do not have an option. We have an iron-clad, rockbottom commitment to help Israel retain the military edge” in the region.

When asked about Egypt’s “cold peace” with Israel, he pointed out that the deterioration began with the Israeli invasion of Lebanon in 1982. This Israeli action greatly embarrassed the Egyptians, who had signed their own treaty with Israel in 1979.

“For real peace to exist, more than treaties are needed,” Walker said. “You can’t have real peace until people change their attitudes.” Regarding the current situation in southern Lebanon, he said the low-intensity conflict is politically difficult to sustain and that “Syria does not have an interest in seeing the conflict end. They would use it as leverage for the return of the Golan.”

With respect to the emotional and sensitive issue of Jerusalem, Ambassador Walker stated, “We [the U.S.] stay away from this.” He explained that after other issues are resolved, U.S. participation in discussions regarding the future of Jerusalem might occur. But in light of the sensitivity of this subject, only during final status negotiations would the U.S. possibly become involved.

Prior to flying on to Miami for his next appearance, Ambassador Walker met in San Francisco with representatives of the American Israel Public Affairs Committee (AIPAC), Israel’s principal lobby in the United States.

—Elaine Pasquini