Middle East Matters

Significant Developments Iran. President Obama reacted cautiously to the election of former nuclear negotiator Hassan Rohani to become Iran’s new president. In an interview with Charlie Rose broadcast Monday night, Obama said, “Clearly, you have a hunger within Iran to engage with the international community in a more positive way...And so we’re going to have to continue to see how this develops and how this evolves over the next several weeks, months, years.” Israeli prime minister Benjamin Netanyahu expressed concern, however, cautioning Israel’s Western allies that the election of Rohani did not signal a change in Iran’s nuclear policy. Netanyahu dismissed the role and authority of the president in determining Iran’s nuclear policy, saying, “He doesn’t count. He doesn’t call the shots.” Turkey. Protesters turned to silent demonstrations and passive resistance in Turkish streets and squares yesterday, following the violent clearing of Istanbul’s Gezi Park last weekend. Turkish deputy prime minister Bulent Arinc said on Monday that police would “use all their powers” to end anti-government protests and threatened the use of military force, though he acknowledged the peaceful nature of yesterday’s protests, saying, “We cannot condemn it.” Human rights groups say more than three thousand people were detained since anti-government demonstrations began May 31 with dozens currently remaining in custody. Meanwhile, Germany has blocked the start of new EU talks with Turkey following Ankara’s violent crackdown. German chancellor Angela Merkel said she was “shocked” by the Turkish government’s reaction to the demonstrations. Syria. Free Syrian Army spokesperson Louay Meqdad appealed to Western and Arab leaders today to provide heavy weapons and impose a no-fly zone ahead of Saturday’s “Friends of Syria” meeting. G-8 leaders met in Northern Ireland earlier this week and called for a “political solution” to Syria’s conflict in a final communique issued on Tuesday. The G-8 leaders endorsed holding a Geneva peace conference “as soon as possible” and condemned chemical weapons use in Syria without identifying perpetrators. The G-8 leaders did not call for Syrian president Bashar al-Assad’s departure, due to pressure from Russia. Meanwhile, the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees said in a report yesterday that the number of refugees and internally displaced persons worldwide has reached an eighteen-year high of 45.2 million people. The report notes that the Syrian conflict has contributed to the highest numbers of refugees since the brutal wars in Rwanda and the former Yugoslavia. Most of today’s refugees come from Afghanistan, Somalia, Iraq, Syria, and Sudan. Palestine. Prime Minister Rami Hamdallah submitted his resignation today after only two weeks since entering office. Hamdallah reportedly resigned over a dispute with his two new deputies. President Abbas has neither accepted nor rejected the resignation. Abbas aides met with Hamdallah for three hours this evening in an effort to convince Hamdallah to reconsider his move. The meeting ended with both sides declining to comment. U.S. Foreign Policy Syria. Bloomberg reported on Tuesday that Secretary of State John Kerry and Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff Martin Dempsey argued over the wisdom of strikes against regime controlled airfields in Syria during a senior White House meeting last week. According to the report, Kerry advocated immediate U.S. strikes against airfields used to launch chemical weapons attacks against the Syrian opposition. Dempsey reportedly pushed back, explaining that such a course of action would likely require the air force to conduct seven hundred or more sorties to take out Syria’s air-defense systems. The meeting reportedly formalized President Obama’s decision to supply small arms to the Syrian rebels after U.S. intelligence agencies concluded that Bashar al-Assad’s forces had used chemical weapons against the opposition forces. Jordan. The U.S. military exercise in Jordan dubbed “Eager Lion” concluded today after twelve days of drills focused on potential spillover scenarios from the Syrian conflict. An estimated eight thousand personnel from nineteen countries, including the United States, Jordan, Britain, France, Italy, Qatar, Turkey, and Saudi Arabia, participated. The United States announced on Saturday that a Patriot antimissile battery and F-16 warplanes that were deployed to Jordan to take place in the war games will remain in the kingdom. While We Were Looking Elsewhere Egypt. Tourism Minister Hesham Zazou resigned Wednesday in protest over the appointment of Adel al-Khayat, a member of the Islamist group Gamaa al-Islamiyya, to become governor of Luxor. Egyptian president Mohamed Morsi appointed al-Khayat to the post on Sunday. Members of Gamaa Islamiya killed sixty-two people, mostly tourists, in a terrorist attack in Luxor in 1997. Meanwhile, Egyptian foreign minister Kamel Amr and Ethiopian foreign minister Tedros Adhanom met on Tuesday to discuss the Great Ethiopian Renaissance Dam and agreed on further dialogue to resolve the dispute. The two ministers agreed that further studies should be conducted, and Adhanom said consultations would take place without halting dam construction. Iraq. Voting began today in elections for provincial councils in Anbar and Nineveh. The elections were delayed two months after the other twelve provinces voted due to security concerns. Despite heavy security, mortar attacks on polling stations left two policemen dead, and a suicide bombing killed a Sunni Muslim political leader and some family members yesterday. Kuwait. Kuwait’s cabinet announced today that parliamentary elections will be held July 25 following the Constitutional Court’s dissolution of parliament on Sunday. The voting will take place under a new system of one person, one vote. Kuwait’s opposition has rejected the new system, preferring the old system that had allowed voters to cast ballots for up to four candidates, thereby making possible alliances in a country that bans political parties. This Week in History This week marks the twelfth anniversary of the withdrawal of Syrian troops from Beirut and their redeployment to the Bekaa valley. On June 20, 2001, Lebanese officials announced that Syria had completed its six-day withdrawal of an estimated six to ten thousand troops from primarily Christian suburbs of Beirut. The withdrawal from sensitive neighborhoods followed a campaign against the presence of Syrian troops led by Nasrallah Sfeir, the Maronite Christian patriarch. Syria sent military forces to Lebanon during the Lebanese civil war in the mid-1970s and did not fully withdraw from the country until April 2005. The redeployment of Syrian forces by 1992 had been required by the 1989 Taif Accord, the agreement reached to broker the end of the Lebanese civil war.

Significant Developments Syria. United Nations high commissioner for human rights Navi Pillay said today that the Syrian death toll is approaching ninety-three thousand. Syrian rebels attacked the village of Hatlah yesterday, killing at least thirty Shiite villagers and burning homes while shouting sectarian slogans. The raid came one day after two suicide bombers detonated their explosives in central Damascus, killing fourteen people. Austrian peacekeeping forces began withdrawing from the United Nations Observer Force (UNDOF) in the Golan Heights on Wednesday. UN secretary general Ban Ki-moon is set to hold talks with Swedish officials over plans for a replacement peacekeeping force; Sweden is reportedly interested but wants UNDOF’s mandate to be expanded to allow for forces to defend themselves if attacked. Turkey. Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdogan gave a “final warning” today to peaceful protesters to evacuate Gezi Park so security forces can deal with the “terrorist organizations” that remain. He met with a group of eleven activists yesterday in an attempt to ease tensions, but many of the protesters claimed that the selected activists did not represent them. Shortly afterwards, Erdogan issued an ultimatum of twenty-four hours to clear out of the park. Meanwhile, Huseyin Celik, deputy chairman of the ruling Justice and Development Party, suggested that the government might be open to a referendum on the fate of the park, a concept that has been largely rejected as insincere by the protesters. Thousands of protesters streamed back into Taksim Square yesterday after riot police cleared the square on Tuesday using tear gas and water cannons. Egypt. Ethiopia’s parliament ratified a treaty today between six upstream Nile basin countries that redistributes the rights to the Nile’s water and rejects Egypt’s claim to the vast majority. The ratification comes against the backdrop of an escalating feud over Ethiopia’s plans to build a new hydroelectric dam on the Nile that Egypt fears will reduce its water supply. Ahmed Mohamed Ali, a spokesman for the Egyptian army, said yesterday that it is “too early to involve the army,” but Defense Minister General Abdel Fattah al-Sisi issued a statement the same day that the armed forces are “ready and able to protect the nation.” Egyptian president Mohamed Morsi warned in a live televised address on Monday that “all options are open” to prevent Ethiopia from threatening Egypt’s water security. Egyptian foreign minister Mohamed Kamel Amr is scheduled to travel to Addis Ababa next week to discuss the dam project with Ethiopian officials. U.S. Foreign Policy Syria. Secretary of State John Kerry held a joint press conference with British foreign minister William Hague in Washington yesterday, in which they both addressed developments in Syria. Kerry said that “it’s not a question to me whether or not the opposition can, quote, win, it’s a question of whether or not we can get to this political solution.” Foreign Minister Hague said that “the scale of the regime’s oppression and the human suffering that it has caused beggars belief.” Meanwhile, the United States eased trade restrictions on the Syrian opposition yesterday, allowing companies to purchase oil and to supply software, technology, reconstruction equipment, food, and medical supplies. Israel-Palestine. Secretary of State John Kerry postponed an expected trip to the Middle East this week in order to stay in Washington in part to attend meetings on Syria. State Department spokesperson Jen Psaki said that Kerry is “looking forward to doing that trip in the short term,” but she did not provide a specific date. While We Were Looking Elsewhere Yemen. Tribesmen attacked a crucial oil pipeline today, killing a soldier who was escorting a technical team and completely stopping the flow of oil. Meanwhile, Yemeni electricity minister Saleh Sumai blamed a two-day power outage in the capital and several provinces on other attacks on power lines in Marib province. Lebanon. The Lebanese army issued a rare warning to Syria after a helicopter fired two rockets at the urban center of Arsal, a Lebanese border town, wounding one person. Lebanese president Michael Suleiman said, “It is our right to take the necessary measures to defend our sovereignty and our people – including filing a complaint to the Arab League and the UN.” Meanwhile, Hisham Salman, a Lebanese protester, was shot and killed outside the Iranian embassy in Beirut on Sunday during a rally against Hezbollah’s widening involvement in Syria. Demonstrators accused Hezbollah supporters wearing yellow armbands of attacking the protesters. Iran. Campaigning in Iran’s presidential election ended today, a day before voting begins. Tomorrow’s presidential election is the first since 2009. Only one moderate candidate, Hassan Rouhani, remains in the race, and Iran’s former president Akbar Hashemi Rafsanjani officially endorsed him yesterday. Rouhani faces five conservative opponents. Iraq. A series of car bombings killed at least fifty-seven people in central and northern Iraq on Monday in the most recent attack in what has been the deadliest spike of violence since 2008. Iraqi prime minister Nuri al-Maliki visited Kurdistan on Sunday for the first time in over two years, in a symbolic step towards easing the tension between the autonomous Kurdish region and Maliki’s central government. Kuwait. Several Kuwaiti supermarket chains began boycotting goods from Iran on Wednesday to protest Iranian support of the Syrian regime. Meanwhile, the Gulf Cooperation Council (GCC) said on Monday that it would take action against members of Hezbollah living in GCC countries and that those measures could affect residency permits and commercial transactions. This Week in History This week in history marks the fourth anniversary of Iran’s Green Movement. On June 13, 2009, protests broke out in the streets of Tehran after the Interior Ministry announced Mahmoud Ahmadinejad the landslide victor of Iran’s presidential elections. Mir Hussein Mousavi, the top challenger, disputed the results, and his supporters took to the streets demanding a new election. The opposition came to be known as the Green Movement. Iran’s security forces repressed the protests, killing dozens and injuring and detaining thousands of people. Mousavi and Medhi Karroubi, another candidate for president in the 2009 elections who took part in the protests, have been under house arrest for more than two years.

Significant Developments Turkey. Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdogan was welcomed home today from a four-day trip to Africa by thousands of supporters at the airport— the first major show of support by pro-government demonstrators in Turkey since unrest erupted last week. Erdogan defiantly told supporters that the “protests that are bordering on illegality must come to an end as of now.” Even as he spoke, thousands of people were massing in Istanbul’s Taksim Square for the eighth straight night after police used tear gas and water cannons last Friday against a peaceful demonstration against government plans to turn a park into a shopping mall. The confrontation sparked broad protests against Erdogan’s government across Turkey. Two protestors and a police officer have reportedly been killed in the ensuing clashes, with nearly five thousand people wounded. Syria. George Sabra, acting leader of Syria’s main opposition group, said today that peace negotiations are not possible with Hezbollah and Iran fighting for the government of Syrian president Bashar al-Assad. Sabra said that Hezbollah’s involvement in Syria is turning the conflict into a sectarian battle between Sunnis and Shiites. Regime troops, aided by Hezbollah fighters, scored a major victory earlier this week by capturing the strategically valuable town of Qusair on Wednesday, quickly followed by two nearby villages in a new offensive against the rebels. Meanwhile, French foreign minister Laurent Fabius said on Tuesday that there is “no doubt” that the Syrian government used sarin gas. Britain’s UN ambassador Mark Lyall-Grant also said on Tuesday that the British government has evidence that sarin gas has been used in Syria. The United Nations’ independent commission reported that it has “reasonable grounds” to believe chemical weapons have been used in Syria. The Obama administration struggled to react to these new reports. State Department spokeswoman Jen Psaki said that the U.S. did not intend to “evaluate or litigate in public” the information it has received from Paris. For my take on the worst-case scenario for Syria and its impact on the Middle East, read this. Egypt. An Egyptian court convicted forty-three NGO workers on Tuesday in a case against foreign-funded democracy promotion groups. The judge gave five year sentences to twenty-seven defendants tried in absentia, including a group of fifteen American defendants and the son of U.S. secretary of transportation Ray Lahood. The verdict also ordered the closure of the offices and seizure of assets belonging to the U.S. and German nonprofit organizations: the International Republican Institute, the National Democratic Institute, Freedom House, and the Konrad Adenauer Foundation. Secretary of State John Kerry said that the United States is “deeply concerned” and said the ordered closure of offices and seizure of assets “contradicts the government of Egypt’s commitments to support the role of civil society…especially at this critical stage in the Egyptian people’s democratic transition.” Meanwhile Egypt’s supreme constitutional court ruled on Sunday that laws governing the election of members to the upper house, or Shura Council, and to the constitutional panel were illegal. It is unlikely that the court’s ruling will have any immediate effects because the Shura Council is immune from dissolution until a new house of representatives is elected. U.S. Foreign Policy Israel-Palestine. Secretary Kerry is set to return to Israel and Palestinian next week for the fifth time since becoming secretary of state in an attempt to restart direct peace talks. He will also visit Jordan. Kerry addressed the American Jewish Committee (AJC) in Washington on Monday to stress the urgency of a two-state solution. Kerry warned the AJC that “Israel will be left to choose between being a Jewish state or a democratic state, but it will not be able to fulfill the founders’ visions of being both at once,” if a peace deal with the Palestinian is not struck soon. While We Were Looking Elsewhere Palestine. President Mahmoud Abbas swore in a new government yesterday headed by Rami Hamdallah, until now president of the West Bank university An-Najah. Prime Minster Hamdallah replaces Salam Fayyad, who had resigned in April but had stayed on as a caretaker since. Today, Abbas called for national reconciliation and blamed “Hamas’ refusal to hold elections” for the lack of progress towards a national unity government. Iran. Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei addressed a crowd of thousands on Tuesday and denounced making concessions to the West. The televised speech comes on the eve of upcoming presidential elections scheduled for June 14. Meanwhile, Yukiya Amano, director general of the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA), said Monday that UN investigators may no longer be able to find anything even if granted access to Iran’s Parchin site, due to suspected Iranian efforts to cleanse the site of any illicit activity. Amano described the IAEA’s talks with Iran as “going around in circles.” Jordan. The Jordanian government ordered nearly three hundred news websites shut down on Sunday under a law passed last September. The law requires a variety of restrictive steps including the registration of news sites with the government and licensing fees costing more than one thousand dollars. The law also makes editors legally responsible for the often anonymous comments posted by readers, in addition to actual articles published. Lebanon. Citing political deadlock and the civil war in neighboring Syria, Lebanon’s Parliament voted last Friday to delay upcoming parliamentary elections by seventeen months until November 2014. The elections had been scheduled for June 16, but the Lebanese Parliament failed to agree on a new electoral law. It is the first such delay since the end of Lebanon’s civil war in 1990 Libya. NATO Secretary General Anders Fogh Rasmussen announced on Tuesday plans to send a team of experts to Libya to provide security assistance. The assistance will mostly consist of training with the primary aim of preventing Libya from turning into a safe haven for militants fleeing Mali. This Week in History This week marks the twenty-fourth anniversary of the death of Iran’s founder, Ayatollah Ruhollah Khomeini. On June 3, 1989, Khomeini died at the age of eighty-six, twelve days after undergoing surgery for bleeding in his digestive system. Khomeini led the revolution that overthrew the Shah of Iran, returning to Tehran in 1979 after fifteen years in exile and helping to transform Iran into an Islamic republic.