A supporter of Turkish Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdogan holds red and blue balloons, symbolizing Europe and Turkey, in the capital Ankara. (AFP File Photo)

By intervening in Lebanon, Europeans have made a far-reaching, risk-fraught and, at the same time, correct decision. The reason is that the future of Europe’s security will be determined in the Eastern Mediterranean and the Middle East. Europe, whether it likes it or not, has taken on a new, strategic role in the region. Should it fail, the price will be high.
In view of the serious risks that Europe has assumed, in full awareness of the consequences, it is of the utmost importance that a European “Grand Strategy“ for the Eastern Mediterranean and the Middle East be developed, so that Europe can calmly and clearly define its interests. In any serious variation of this Grand Strategy, Turkey will need to play a central role--politically, militarily, economically and culturally.
Safeguarding Europe’s interests today means establishing a strong link--indeed an unbreakable bond--with Turkey as a cornerstone of regional security. So it is astonishing that Europe is doing exactly the opposite: firmly closing its eyes to the strategic challenge posed by Turkey.
This autumn, the European Commission is scheduled to issue a progress report on accession negotiations with Turkey. A dangerous situation may well emerge, as this report threatens to derail the whole process.
The key dispute is over Cyprus. Turkey has refused to open its ports, airports and roads to the Republic of Cyprus, as it is obligated to do by the Ankara Protocol, which set the terms of Turkey’s accession negotiations. Turkey explains its refusal by the EU’s failure (as a result of a veto by the Greek Cypriot government in Nicosia) to fulfill its own promise to open up trade with Northern Cyprus, which is under Turkish rule. The EU made these promises at the Council of Europe in December 2003 and formally at the Council of Foreign Ministers in April 2004. But so far it has not fulfilled them. So it is Ankara--and not the EU!--that has a legitimate point here.
When the Ankara Protocol was agreed, the government of Turkish Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdoan achieved something that, until then, had been considered impossible: he shattered the decades-old opposition of Turkish Cypriots to a compromise between the two parts of the divided island. Turkish Northern Cyprus accepted UN Secretary General Kofi Annan’s plan (massively supported by the EU) to resolve the long-standing conflict.
But the Greek South, goaded and inflamed by its government, rejected it. It would be deeply unjust and outright foolish if the EU Commission’s report holds Turkey responsible for its refusal to make further concessions to Greek Cyprus (now an EU member), while refusing to blame the government in Nicosia, which is the real cause of the blockage.
Some in the EU--mainly in France, Germany and Austria--seem smugly pleased by the prospect of a clash on this issue, believing it will force Turkey to give up its drive for membership. But this attitude is irresponsible. The EU is about to commit a grave strategic error by allowing its report this autumn to be guided by the shortsighted domestic policy considerations of some of its important member states.
Of course, there is vast domestic resistance to Turkey’s accession to the EU. The final result of the accession process is therefore an open question for both sides. Admittedly, Turkey has a long way to go. But to endanger this process here and now, in full awareness of the possible costs, is an act of very costly stupidity on the part of the Europeans--and stupidity is the worst sin in politics. In European-Turkish relations, two trains are racing headlong towards each other. Neither Turkey nor Europe can afford the all-too-foreseeable crash.
Joschka Fischer was Germany’s foreign
minister and vice chancellor from 1998 to 2005
PROJECT-SYNDICATE.ORG

Israel is guilty of many things. The list of its violations and wrongdoings is long. At the top are its usurpation and continuous occupation of Palestinian and Arab land, its reckless use of heavy military power against innocent civilians in the occupied territories and other neighbouring sovereign countries, its manufacturing and storing of large quantities of weapons of mass destruction, its flagrant violations of human rights and international law.
One thing which often is forgotten, however, needs to be highlighted--namely, the daily suffering it inflicts on the Palestinian people.
The media tend to cover hot, visible and flagrant matters. The media cover the Israeli army’s bombing of a Palestinian town, the assassination of a prominent Palestinian figure, the heavy crash down on demonstrators--most often live. While this is important (in fact, Israel does much at this level which needs to be revealed to the world), focus on daily, somewhat invisible, unnoticed, or silent suffering is also important.
Much happens at this somewhat hidden level which should be revealed to the world.
The Palestinians, in effect, live in a prison. Israel has separated and isolated most Palestinian communities from each other. While early on Palestinian citizens under Israeli occupation could move somewhat freely among the various communities, drawing support from relatives and friends, contact now, due to the erection of the so-called security wall and hundreds of other walls and barriers, is almost non-existent. If you want to reach the house of a relative who lives a kilometre away, you have to walk or drive 30 kilometres to get there.
Such a situation is unbearable. Today, when so many Palestinians are out of work and not getting any money, this separation is criminal. The Palestinians, Arabs in general, get much support (including financial) from families and relatives. When contact with relatives and friends is cut and in the absence of support from their helpless “state“ and the international community, they are left to fend for themselves.
Israel maliciously prevents them from working, going to schools and universities, having access to medical centres (many pregnant women die at checkpoints) and other services. It arrests individuals any time, under any pretext, puts them in prison and tortures them.
There are so many flagrant violations which need media focus; more importantly, they need the focus of the international community which has abandoned them at the mercy of merciless Israel.
The daily plight of the Palestinians needs to be addressed, and the international community needs to develop mechanisms that deal with the lives of people under occupation who suffer unbearably, on daily basis.
JORDANTIMES.COM

Sudanese Red Crescent members distribute food in Kebkabiyah, a government controlled town in north Darfur, Sept. 3. (Reuters File Photo)

here is still a chance to protect Darfur’s civilians from a further round of violence, hunger and displacement, but only if government and rebels resume peace negotiations. This means stepping back from rhetorical confrontation and empty threats of military action. Sudan’s President Omar Bashir knows that US and British saber-rattling is moralistic hyperventilation, and he has called their bluff. Finding a solution hinges on a sober assessment of what is practical, not on making Darfur a guinea pig for “the duty to protect“ or a test case for a new global moral consciousness.
Over the past two decades we have learned enough about both peacekeeping and ending African civil wars to know that there is a workable alternative to philanthropic imperialism. They’re called peace talks. On this topic, Jenkins is too pessimistic. But that is unsurprising, as the peace process has never been properly covered in the media.
The immediate root of today’s crisis in Darfur is the breakdown of the political process. Violence escalated after the peace talks, which ended in the Nigerian capital Abuja on May 5, concluded with the signing of the Darfur peace agreement by the Sudan government and one rebel faction, headed by Minni Minawi. Two groups--the Sudan Liberation Movement of Abdel Wahid Al-Nur (the largest group) and the Justice and Equality Movement--didn’t sign, and the smoldering war promptly re-ignited.
The breakdown did not happen because the peace agreement was faulty, but because the political process was brought to an abrupt and premature end when Minawi signed.
I was part of the African Union mediation team and was present in the final negotiating session when Wahid declared the peace agreement’s security arrangements “acceptable“ and the wealth-sharing provisions “95 percent acceptable.“ He stalled because his party was offered far fewer executive and legislative posts than it wanted, and because his group was given an ultimatum of signing without time to examine the options. The outstanding differences between him and Khartoum were small and could have been accommodated with modest flexibility on both sides.
The disaster of the DPA was that the book was closed on May 5 and those who failed to sign were shut out of any further formal negotiation. All the high-powered mediators left Abuja.
For a month, I stayed behind and continued to facilitate negotiations between Wahid and the Sudan government. We came agonizingly close to an agreement--had we found a formula for providing an additional $100 million for immediate compensation for victims of the violence, I believe we might have closed the deal. But, prevented from revisiting the DPA’s text, I had only the tiniest room for maneuver.
Wahid did agree with Khartoum on a comprehensive cease-fire, including withdrawal of forces to designated zones of control, demilitarization of displaced camps and humanitarian supply routes, restriction of the Janjaweed leading to ultimate disarmament, and much more robust mechanisms for monitoring and reporting violations. But that counted for naught when he was given the “take it or leave it“ option on the whole package.
When that last-chance mediation failed, Khartoum insisted that the rebels who hadn’t signed up should be expelled from the Darfur cease-fire commission. The AU’s greatest error was to acquiesce in this decision, which has left its troops branded as pro-Khartoum by many Darfurians.
Sudan’s government shoulders the greater part of the blame for today’s violence on account of its perfidy and military aggressiveness. But it was correct in appreciating that, with only Minawi’s signature, the peace agreement could not be implemented and could not bring peace.
We need to get back to negotiation. Step one is to reconstitute the Darfur cease-fire commission so that all the warring parties are represented. A good cease-fire agreement is the best measure to protect Darfurian civilians.
Step two is resuming dialogue toward an overall political settlement. This involves a credible negotiation to address the shortcomings of the peace agreement and also a patient and all-inclusive community dialogue to address the local issues that contributed to the war and mass killing. Diplomatic efforts are under way on both: they need political backing and time to succeed.
We should recognize that restoring stability to Darfur is a long task--at least seven to 10 years--and that this job is nine parts politics and community relations to one part force, or the threat of force. And while the Sudan government is the major cause of the tragedy, that government must also be a partner in finding a solution. The decision to keep AU peacekeepers until the end of the year gives us a breathing space. Let’s tone down the rhetoric and focus on the politics and the practicalities.
Alex de Waal
GUARDIAN.CO.UK

Like many other debates that flourish in American mass media, the standard answers on both sides are wrong--because the question bypasses human realities.
Most obviously, Iraq is not a swamp; it’s a place where real people live and die. They are not metaphors, and neither is their country. Iraqi people exist quite apart from the roles imputed to them by politicians and journalists in Washington.
But “quagmire“ serves as a kind of mental framework for where most US media coverage has remained. Forget the American Century. This is the American Narcissism.
You see, no matter what happens in Iraq, it’s mostly about us--spelled US; the United States. We’re encouraged to perceive that Iraq is most important, at least implicitly, because of what it means for the US: Its image in other countries, the deaths and wounds of its soldiers, the political strength of the president and, this fall, the likely effects on the midterm congressional elections.
During September, as the Nexis media database attests, the US’ sizeable newspapers and wire services ran articles referring to Iraq as a “quagmire“ several times a day. Readers of The New York Times have seen such references on an average of once a week this year. Overall, major US media outlets have associated Iraq with the term “quagmire“ thousands of times in 2006.
Some of those references are from war supporters eager to dispute the notion that “quagmire“ is applicable to what’s going on in Iraq. They challenge the relevance of the word yet do not hesitate to recycle other cliches that were also used in public debate about the Vietnam War four decades ago--and so we hear that the United States must “stay the course“ and must not “cut and run.“
But to focus arguments on whether the Iraq war should be called a “quagmire“ is to flatten moral issues, transmuting them into matters of strategy and efficacy. That may sound like appropriate journalistic attention to practical politics. However, if a war is wrong, the wisdom of supporting it shouldn’t hinge on whether it’s a quagmire or a cakewalk.
Criticisms of the war that accuse it of being a “quagmire“ can be disputed with lofty calls to persevere--doing the difficult right thing--until conditions on the ground change, the Iraqi government gets stronger and so forth. But opposition to the war that turns on morality cannot be so easily deflected in such ways.
The extreme American self-absorption of the “quagmire“ debate lends itself to ostensible solutions that shift--but perpetuate--the US government’s central role in the carnage. Reigning political manipulator Karl Rove, whose Machiavellian electoral calculations have had extraordinary leverage over the current administration’s foreign policy, is very likely to seek further US reliance on air power that uses the latest Pentagon technologies as blunt and lethal instruments in Iraq.
A key goal will be to bring down US casualty rates and reduce American troop levels in Iraq while the people of that country suffer further deaths and destruction.
If the Iraq war is primarily framed as a problem because of what it’s doing to Americans, the “solutions“ could make the war seem like less of a quagmire even while more Iraqi people pay with their lives. Media arguments over whether Iraq is a quagmire turn the spotlight away from the human calamities that Iraqis are experiencing on a daily basis, while American taxpayers continue to subsidize Uncle Sam’s deadly machinations. Sometimes the fancy words don’t provide the kind of clarity that we need. “Quagmire“ may sound sophisticated and realpolitik; many journalists and pundits seem to think so. But that doesn’t really get to the essence of the war.
It’s not a quagmire. It’s wrong.
Norman Solomon
CREATORS.COM