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delft said:

This is rubbish. Turkey is supporting the insurgency in Syria, but to suppose Syria will retaliate by attacking Turkey is as daft as supposing that Mexico will retaliate for the supply of firearms to its gangsters from the US by bombing Las Vegas.
And why the concern about those antique Scuds? They are just one generation more modern than the V-2.

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asif iqbal said:

That is not true, Syria has shown it is in clear violation of the any world law, bombing civilians who queue at bakery's to using cluster bombs in school gardens where small children plays

Asad had the choice to handle this in a mature responsible manner with the international community on board they unfort made the wrong choice

They have bombed Turkish territory, killed Turkish border guards and shot down F4 which belongs to Turkish Air Force

Turkey has full right to supply weapons to rebels and people who want freedom, you just cant go around killing people for no reason like Asads forces are doing

Would Syria fire on Turkey using scuds? Probably not, should Turkey still install Patriot III battery's, off course yes it's a Nato member and has full right

And maybe you do not know about basic ballistic missiles but Scuds are unguided fast traveling missiles which carry big warheads, in 1991 they have a great success against coalition forces and also against Israel where very few were intercepted

They can be equipped with chemical or biological weapons even go nuclear so its paramount Turkey gets Patriot III

Assad is a mad man out of control he can do anything better safe than sorry, a person who kills his own can kill others, however as I said he won't cross a certain limit but still better to be ready never the less

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delft said:

We see in Syria a multitude of non-cooperating insurgent organisations. They don't need to cooperate because they are sponsored by outside forces, most prominently Qatar and France. They are clearly unfit to form an alternative government, just like the rabble that took over in Libya. Under these circumstances it is clearly a violation of the Charter of the United Nations to support these gangsters.
And were do you get any other threat to Turkey than a black operation to justify a Turkish or NATO intervention?
You shouldn't believe everything the BBC tells you. I've been listing to them, nearly daily, since the Six Day War in the mid-sixties so I have a lot of experience.

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asif iqbal said:

You might have the experience but you do not have the judgment, I've been to Syria traveled through the country from North to South back in 2004 during my year out from University, sat with the people listen to the street vendor seen the secret police and Assads rule over his country

No one could have a political conversation in Syria because even brothers would betray brothers and inform the secret police, no society can form in a univeristy without the full approval of the Assad government, what kind of country is this? It's 2012 going into 2013 why can't someone just speak thier mind without the fear of being arrested

Every person had a right to be free, the right to speak thier mind, Assad closed Syria and the Syrian people out from the rest of the world, on top of that when Syrian people demonstrated Assad used live fire on protestors, a mistake which changed the course of the opposition

I do not support the rebels off course both sides are wrong but rebels are less wrong, thier actions do contain a element of a great majority of Syrian people's beliefs

40,000 people have died in this war and they can't be allowed to die for nothing, first his father and now Assad what have they done for Syria over the last 50 years??

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delft said:

So you think that after the destruction of Syria the situation will be better then it is now in Libya? The same parties are sponsoring the insurgents.

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BRICS obituaries are premature

2013 has barely got under way but Indian foreign policy is already trotting — between a walk and a canter in speed. Certainly, the consultations with the secretary-general of Iran’s national security council, Saeed Jalili have been extremely significant both in timing and content.

Iran has just announced its willingness to resume talks on the nuclear issue amidst a flurry of diplomatic signaling that the United States President Barack Obama is not waiting till the presidential election in Iran in May to get over before engaging the leadership in Tehran.
If the reports are true, Obama is all set to make a great announcement early next week naming Chuck Hagel as the new Secretary of Defence.
If that great announcement is duly made on Monday or Tuesday in Washington, one can safely surmise that Obama is keenly looking for a political/diplomatic resolution of the US-Iran standoff. The Iran nuclear issue has always been a totem; what is at stake is Iran’s integration into the international community. It is a momentous issue, not least because Iran’ is the last frontier in energy security.
National Security Advisor Shiv Shankar Menon’s decision to schedule the consultations with Jalili (which were overdue) on the first day of the New Year underscores that the policymakers are on the ball regarding the likely paradigm shift in the regional security scenario and the consequent power dynamic in a vast swathe of land to the west and northwest which is critical to India’s vital interests.
So far so good — the equestrian has been masterly. However, what takes the breath away is that Menon will be playing host to his counterparts from the BRICS grouping in New Delhi on Thursday. This will be the first such meeting of the NSAs from the BRICS. That India has taken the initiative to add such a strategic dimension to the BRICS process needs to be noted.
Because, it also signifies consolidation of the remarkable transformation that has come over the India-China discourses in the past year. There is no gainsaying the fact that the BRICS’s strategic credibility in the international system depends heavily on the extent to which China and India can set aside their differences and recognize that they have more — much more, in fact — in common by way of shared interests and concerns than what might separate them in the contemporary world situation.
The upcoming BRICS meet on Thursday brings Menon face to face with Dai Bingguo for the second time in successive months. The two officials also double up as the respective special representatives with regard to the talks on the border dispute.
The BRICS meet is expected to focus on the Middle East and what passes as ‘counter-terrorism’. The brew in the BRICS NSAs’ cauldron can be expected to carry the flavor of the season — Syria, Iran, Arab Spring, Afghanistan and so on. As host country, the responsibility to distill the consensus on these burning issues lies with New Delhi.
What remains to be seen is whether there is going to be an institutionalization of the ‘NSA-format’ within the BRICS, similar to what exists within the Shanghai Cooperation Organization.
Funnily, my mind goes back to the words commonly attributed to Mark Twain: ‘The rumors of my death have been greatly exaggerated.” I just filed away for future reference in my archives with a heavy heart a few ‘obituaries’ on BRICS written by some worthy names in some worthy publications — WSJ, Morgan Stanley, Ruchir Sharma.
But then, as more than recompense, there is always the other side of the story as well, written by the man who ‘invented’ the BRICS acronym – Jim O’Neill, president of Goldman Sachs — who remains convinced still that the ‘emerging world is rising’. Speaking of the mystique of slower growth rates in BRICS economies, which was the refrain in the ‘obituaries’, O’Neill made a forceful point:
“China will grow by 7-8% partly because that is what policymakers have decided they want. In late 2009, within a year of their massive policy stimulus in response to the global credit crisis, the Chinese leadership, I believe, decided that 10% annual growth had outlived its usefulness. Income inequality was rising dramatically, environmental damage was worsening rapidly, and inflation was leading to weak real-income growth for poor households. Indeed, a key reason for China’s slowdown in 2011-2012 is that officials wanted it.”
So, what explains the ‘obituaries’? Evidently, there is growing worry in the West that BRICS could come of age and pose formidable challenges to the established economic and political order. Belying prognosis, the Indian proposal on creating a BRICS development bank gained traction, after all, and might get formalized at the summit in Durban in March.
The stunning point is, BRICS’ output growth amounts to “creating the equivalent of another Italy every 12 months.” In sum, the emerging powers are the main story for the global economy. And that is a disconcerting thought, isn’t it? O’Neill’s column is here.

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No one has the last word on Syria

The Russian and American diplomats are to hold joint consultations in Geneva on Friday with the United Nations special envoy on Syria Lakhdar Brahimi. Is the crunch time coming?

What is apparently on the cards is a process of formation of a transitional government in Syria. Here, the question is framed in such a way as to imply whether Bashar Al-Assad would step down to pave the way for the transition or will preside over the transition.
To my mind, Bashar will remain where he is through this year and into the early part of next year when his presidential term ends. The next big question will be: Will the Syrian opposition countenance Bashar’s continuance? The odds, again, are that they will.
Such an impression becomes unavoidable from the joint press conference by the Egyptian and Saudi foreign ministers last week at Riyadh. What the Saudi FM Prince Saud Al-Faisal didn’t say struck me as very meaningful: he didn’t repeat the Saudi demand that Bashar should forthwith step down.
On the other hand, what Faisal actually said was rather interesting; he said the way out of the crisis in Syria and “the conditions for a solution are the responsibility of the Syrian people.”

Faisal’s remarks take added meaning when we factor in that in the ‘rare speech’ by Bashar later in the weekend in Damascus, he didn’t criticize Saudi Arabia for arming and funding the Syrian rebels although he said some very harsh things about the countries that are fueling the sectarianism in Syria. (Interestingly, Faisal also hit out at the spectre of the hydra-headed monster of sectarianism rearing its head in the region.)
To be sure, the Saudis feel uneasy about the rise of Muslim Brotherhood. The UAE claims it just smashed up a clandestine MB cell.
On the contrary, Qatar has become the big-time patron of the MB. Qatar just announced that it is doubling the financial assistance to the MB-led government in Egypt to a princely sum of $5 billion.
Qatar is loosening the purse on the eve of an expected visit by the Iranian FM Ali Akbar Salehi to Cairo, the first ‘bilateral’ by an Iranian FM for decades. Syria is bound to figure at Salehi’s talks in Cairo.
Surely, from all accounts, Egypt’s MB has some big choices to make between Qatar, Iran and Saudi Arabia — and, vis-a-vis the situation in Syria or Jordan. Conceivably, Egypt’s MB leaders being master tacticians will make multiple choices.
Equally, the Saudi-Qatari divergence over Syria puts Turkey in some dilemma. This may partly explain why Turkish rhetoric against Bashar has lately diminished. Some rethinking on Syria is apparently going on. At any rate, Ankara is refocussing seriously on the Kurdish problem and may be approaching the threshold of a reopening of the peace track with the PKK. The developments in Syria would have a bearing on the peace track with PKK.
Thus, the short point becomes clear: Russian and American diplomats meeting in Geneva on Friday cannot pretend that they own Syria. An Iranian expert recently noted, “It is true that Russia and the US are the two influential powers in Syria’s developments. But this does not mean that if they agree on an issue, it will be certainly implemented in Syria. Of course, both these powers play determining roles, but they do not control all developments in Syria. A general conclusion must be reached based on all the views within Syria and those of the countries which impact the trend of the crisis, including France, Iran, Turkey, Qatar and Saudi Arabia.”

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Khamenei plays hardball with Obama
By M K Bhadrakumar

It was an extraordinary week in the politics of the Middle East and it ended appropriately by being rounded off with a reality check lest imaginations ran riot.

Three major happenings within one week would have to be taken as the inevitable confluence of a flow of developments and processes: the offer by the Syrian opposition of a bilateral dialogue with the Bashar al-Assad regime; the historic visit of an Iranian president to Egypt; and the public, unconditional offer by the United States of direct talks with Iran and the latter's ready acceptance of it.

Yet, they are interconnected. First, the Syrian kaleidoscope is dramatically shifting despite the continuing bloodbath. Unless the European countries drop their arms embargo on Syria (which expires on March 1 anyway) and decide to arm the rebels, the stalemate will continue.

The mood in Western capitals has shifted in the direction of caution and circumspection, given the specter that al-Qaeda affiliates are taking advantage. If anything, the hurricane of militant Islamism blowing through Mali only reinforces that concern and reluctance.

Suffice to say, what prompted the Islamist leader of the Syrian National Coalition, Moaz al-Khatib, last weekend to show willingness to take part in direct talks with representatives of the Syrian regime - and pushed him into meeting with Russian and Iranian foreign ministers - was as much the disarray within the Syrian opposition and his failure to form a credible "government-in-exile" as his acute awareness that the Western mood is now cautious about Syria.

To be sure, Iran played a signal role in the grim battle of nerves over Syria through the recent months. Strangely, it is Iran today, which is on the "right side of history", by urging dialogue and negotiations and democratic elections as holding the key to reform and change in Syria - or, for that matter, in Bahrain.

The shift in Syria has actually enabled Iran to cross over the Sunni-Shi'ite barriers that were tenaciously put up to isolate it. Thus, President Mahmud Ahmedinejad's historic visit to Egypt this week has a much bigger regional dimension to it than the restoration of the Iran-Egypt bilateral relationship. The trilateral meeting held between Ahmedinejad and his Egyptian and Turkish counterparts Mohammed Morsi and Abdullah Gul signified Iran's compelling relevance as an interlocutor rather than as an implacable adversary for the two major Sunni countries.

Interestingly, Morsi added, "Egypt's revolution is now experiencing conditions similar to those of Iran's Revolution and because Egypt does not have an opportunity for rapid progress like Iran, we believe that expansion of cooperation and ties with Iran is crucially important and necessary."

Needless to say, Iranian diplomacy has been optimal with regard to the Muslim Brotherhood-led regime in Cairo - neither fawning nor patronizing, or pushing and pressuring, but leaving things to the Brothers to decide the pace. Basic to this approach is the confidence in Tehran that the surge of Islamism in the Middle East through democratic process, no matter "Sunni Islamism", will ultimately work in favor of Iran's interests.

The cordial welcome extended by Sheikh Ahmed al-Tayyeb, head of Egypt's Al-Azhar, to Ahmedinejad and the strong likelihood of his visit to Tehran in a very near future also underscores the common desire to strengthen the affinities.

Simply put, the Syrian crisis has virtually receded from the Iran-Egypt field of play as a serious issue of discord. True, the Turkey-based Syrian National Council (SNC) continues to reject any negotiation with the Syrian regime, and the Muslim Brotherhood dominates the SNC. But this may also provide the window of opportunity for Turkey, Egypt and Iran to knock their heads together.

Besides, the SNC has no real influence over the rebel fighters, and Ankara feels exasperated at the overall drift of the Syrian crisis.

Thus, it was against a complex backdrop that US Vice President Joe Biden said in Munich last weekend that Washington is ready to hold direct talks with Iran over the country's nuclear energy program. Iran's immediate response was one of cautious optimism. Foreign Minister Ali Akbar Salehi reacted: "I am optimistic. I feel this new [US] administration is really this time seeking to at least divert from its previous traditional approach vis-a-vis my country."

However, by the next day, he had begun tempering the enthusiasm: "We looked at it positively. I think this is a good overture... But we will have to wait a little bit longer to see if their gesture is this time a real gesture... so that we will be making our decisions likewise."

Salehi subsequently explained, "A look at the past shows that whenever we have had talks with the Americans, including efforts to bring stability to Afghanistan, unfortunately the other side has failed to fulfill its obligations. You cannot use a threatening tone and say all options are on the table, on the one hand, [because] this is an apparent contradiction... Exerting pressure and [invitation to] talks are not compatible. If you have honest intentions, we can place serious negotiations on the agenda."

Obviously, Salehi spoke in two voices, and his retraction finally proved to be the "authentic" voice of Tehran. When the Supreme Leader Ali Khamenei broke his silence on Thursday, he rejected the possibility of direct talks with the US. He said, "You [Americans] are pointing the gun at Iran and say either negotiate or we will shoot. The Iranian nation will not be frightened by the threats... Some naive people like the idea of negotiating with America [but] negotiations will not solve the problems. If some people want American rule to be established again in Iran, the nation will rise up to them."

One way of looking at Khamenei's harsh statement on Thursday is to put it in the immediate context of the announcement of further sanctions against Iran by Washington the previous day, which the US administration has explained as "a significant turning of the screw" that will "significantly increase the economic pressure on Iran".

But it does not fully explain the manifest harshness and the comprehensive rejection by Khamenei. Meanwhile, three factors are to be taken into account. First, Iran's domestic politics is hotting up and the dramatic eruption of public acrimony between Ahmedinejad and the Speaker of the Majlis Ali Larijani last weekend testifies to a rough period when Khamenei will have his hands full as the great helmsman.

Indeed, a lot of jockeying is going on as the presidential election slated for May draws closer. Khamenei could factor in that the talks with the US are best held after the elections. (By the way, this may also be Obama's preference.) Second, Khamenei has flagged by implication that Tehran expects some serious goodwill gesture on the part of the US before any talks take place. He has recalled that the US did not act in good faith in the past - such as when Iran helped out in the US's overthrow of the Taliban regime in Afghanistan.

A third factor is that Khamenei genuinely sees that Iran is on the "right side of history" as regards the regional upheaval in the Middle East, whereas the US's regional strategies are getting nowhere. In sum, whereas the US propaganda is that the Iran sanctions are "biting" and the regime is in Iran feels besieged, it is in actuality a bizarre situation of Washington believing its own propaganda while the ground realities are vastly different.

If the propaganda has us believe that the regime in Tehran is living in fear of a Tahrir-like revolution erupting in Iran, Khamenei's words show no such traces of fear or timidity. On the other hand, Khamenei would have carefully weighed Obama's capacity (or the limits to it) to bulldoze the Israeli lobby and to initiate a genuine normalization process with Iran.

When Richard Nixon worked on China in the early 1970s, he had the benefit of a broad consensus of opinion within the US political establishment. On the contrary, when it comes to Iran, pride and prejudice influence still rule the roost for most consequential Americans.

Khamenei's message to Obama is to get serious and think through what he really wants instead of lobbing a vague offer through Biden with no strings attached and no commitments underlying it. The Iranian leader who has continuously dealt with successive US administrations through the past 22 years simply threw the ball into Obama's court and will now wait and see how the latter kicks it around when he is in Israel next month.

Ambassador M K Bhadrakumar was a career diplomat in the Indian Foreign Service. His assignments included the Soviet Union, South Korea, Sri Lanka, Germany, Afghanistan, Pakistan, Uzbekistan, Kuwait and Turkey.

(Copyright 2013 Asia Times Online (Holdings) Ltd. All rights reserved. Please contact us about sales, syndication and republishing.)

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