January 30, 2008
Khalilzad for Afghan president?
Thank you to Pacifist et al, for drawing my attention to the White House’s displeasure at Zalmay Khalilzad’s decision to appear alongside the Iranian foreign minister at Davos. I was at that session and - I must say - I don’t think the Bush administration has much to fear. There were no surprises. The Iranians ranted about their right to nuclear energy and about injustice in the world. Khalilzad said nothing that was out of line with American policy.
But his general demeanour was cool and unconfrontational - and maybe that was the problem. As it happens, Khalilzad has impeccable neocon credentials. He studied under Albert Wohlstetter, a fiercely conservative strategist, and was a founder member of the Project for a New American Century. But, in other ways, he does not fit the stereotype. He is not a headbanger and has gone down very well as American ambassador to the UN. Unlike his predecessor, John Bolton, he does not go out of his way to offend people. And he also has a deep knowledge of the countries he is dealing with. He was born in Afghanistan and - at Davos - he listened to the Iranians without using the headphones.
Khalilzad is currently in the news for other reasons, however. There is a suggestion doing the rounds that he is thinking of trying to replace Hamid Karzai as the next president of Afghanistan. Now, I try to be broad-minded about these things, but it seems bizarre that a man who has served as American ambassador to Afghanistan could then return as president of the country. It gives a whole new spin to the idea of American imperialism. If the US ambassador to Israel decided that - on balance - he would prefer just to be president of the country, we would never hear the end of it. My advice to Khalilzad is - don’t trade in that American passport.
Switiching back to the Iranians in Davos - I also saw Manouchehr Mottaki, Iran’s foreign minister, giving a press conference in the coffee room at my hotel. Davos makes you curiously lazy. Normally, I would be very keen to see a prominent Iranian official - it doesn’t happen every day, after all. If I was feeling especially keen I might even fly to Tehran for a meeting like that. But informed that the Iranian foreign minister was actually downstairs in the hotel lobby, I found myself thinking - "Can I really face another meeting." I felt drowsy - an afternoon nap seemed tempting.
Eventually I struggled downstairs and sat through the press conference. But a nap might have been a better use of my time. Mottaki said almost nothing. The only amusing moment came when he said, gallantly, that he would like to take a question from one of the ladies. Unfortunately, the woman he motioned to turned out to be an Israeli journalist - so he refused to answer the question. Refusing to talk to people usually makes you look silly, I think - which is perhaps a lesson the White House should bear in mind, when thinking about Khalilzad’s appearance in Davos.
Dear Mr Rachman,
You promised to bring up the Middle East and now you’ve kept your promise. Faster, I would guess, than you intended - it just keeps on creeping up! Interesting, though, that of all countries with American ambassadors you should mention the example of Israel. Is not Israel in the news often enough? As it goes, however, your example is serendipitously apt: not the ambassador, but the governor of the Bank of Israel is an American. And he did not have to trade in his American passport — both Israel and the US allow for dual citizenship. Why not? I think this befits the globalising world we live in. Think about it.
Was not Shevardnadze the Georgian president, after serving as Soviet foreign minister? I think Khalilzad would make a good candidate for president, and Hillary Clinton would make a good president of Afghanistan (teach them tolerance too!).
Posted by: RCS | January 30th, 2008 at 6:01 pm | Report this commentDear Mr Rachman,
I appreciate your settle understanding of the dynamics, and I am in full agreement with your conclusions here, while we know Afghanistan is not exactly a country but a NATO military base, please allow us (The Afghans) to pretend that maybe there is some kind of democratic process where we the Afghan people decide who should govern us, it seems that the Western Media tend to ignore the people themselves, as somehow we are lost in the crowds of our neighbours, and foreign “guests”. Clearly, everyone assumes that the average Afghan is barbaric and can’t really think for themselves, example; I was astonished to be approached by a Frenchman at The Arts Club in London’s West End this evening, whom took a good look at me and said “ is there civilization in Afghanistan? Are you civil ? huh you seems civil and educated, are you Afghan?”… Oh boy that my wine glass was empty!
Warm Regards,
Posted by: Mariam Sultani | January 30th, 2008 at 10:45 pm | Report this commentRCS, before you start talking about teaching others tolerance, stop and think. Think about whether you really know what you’re talking about, the history that has brought about today’s circumstances, the people who are responsible and the people whose nation you’re speaking of so dismissively. Then think about whether you are really so different from them.
Refusing to talk to people might make one look silly. But talking without thinking first makes one look an absolute fool.
Posted by: RR | January 30th, 2008 at 10:51 pm | Report this commentMr Rachman
I’ve written a response to your remarks about Khalilzad on the Lowy Institute’s blog:
http://www.lowyinterpreter.org/post/2008/01/Khalilzad-for-president-(of-Afghanistan).aspx#continue
Posted by: Sam Roggeveen | January 31st, 2008 at 12:47 am | Report this commentDear RR,
Cultural relativism is morally wrong.
Posted by: RCS | January 31st, 2008 at 8:54 am | Report this commentIn our post-modernist environment events like this are quite likely.
To me this appointment looks like an episode from
a Monty Python movie: Consider a situation whereby as the Titanic is sinking the Yanks decide
that the solution is an american captain!
Last Monday the Guardian published extracts from the forhcoming book by Jonathan Steele.
One of the exracts had the title “Guys, I’m afraidd we haven’t got a clue” (Title of the book: “Defeat” — self exlanatory.
http://www.guardian.co.uk/g2/story/0,,2244113,00.html
In my view the whole neo-con project in the ME
will turn out to be the worst foreign policy debacle in the history of the US.
The whole project will fail: from Lebanon to Pakistan. There will be no solution to the Palestinian problem. The israelis have created an
Posted by: Cassandra | January 31st, 2008 at 6:57 pm | Report this commentapartheid set up in the west bank and they will keep that way (55% is already inaccessible to the peole of the west bank). Like the So African system it will collapse eventually.
Sorry, but I don’t see the analogy with South Africa (this is also a reply to Philip Stephens): if worse comes to worse, Israel could always unilaterally evacuate the West Bank settlements, as was done in Gaza. Such a possibility exists because the areas inhabited by the Palestinians, the West Bank and Gaza, are territorially delimited, whereas in South Africa Whites and Blacks were interlocked in a territorial mesh (and therefore the impetus for apartheid). The exception is Israeli Arabs, but they form only a 20% minority and therefore can be easily integrated, as indeed they have been (they enjoy full voting rights to the Knesset).
That is the geo-strategy. As for the morals, a case could possibly be made for the existence of an emerging quasi-apartheid situation in the West Bank — not by design, but as a consequence of the security constraints, constraints which however would not have been present were there no religious settlements planted within the heart of the West Bank. However, I would not allow the Palestinians the moral high ground, not after the murderous second intifada, which was a suicide-bomber intifada for which the Palestinian populace enthusiastically supplied the human armaments (the polls at the time showed overwhelming Palestinian support for the atrocities committed). The Palestinians chose not to follow, as they could have done, the Gandhi path of peaceful resistance — a choice for which they are now paying the price, having brought upon themselves the inevitable security crackdown which followed.
This is a conundrum which must be solved, but I will not acquiesce the moral high ground to the Palestinians. Secondly, this conundrum does not impinge on Israel’s viability as a Jewish state, for reasons as outlined above.
Posted by: RCS | February 1st, 2008 at 12:15 am | Report this commentTo RCS: What really counts is reality and not subjective opinion. Here is an article from the FT
which is reasinably accurate. Actually the checkpoints are about 700.
http://search.ft.com/ftArticle?queryText=ft+map+of+west+bank&y=7&aje=true&x=13&id=070604008070&ct=0
The view of Israel most academics have is similar to the one in the UK.
It will be later recorded that there was a time when a people
Posted by: Cassandra | February 1st, 2008 at 3:57 am | Report this commentwas actively ethnically cleansed while the so called international community did nothing.
Does not contradict anything I wrote, subjective or otherwise. Please tighten up your logic.
As for your final paragraph, if it were true, then Israel’s position would have been unassailable. But of course it is not possible to ethnically cleanse the Palestinian populace, even if Israel were willing to do so (and there are many strands in Israeli society, there is also a strongly independent judicial system etc). The creeping cantonisation is not something which has been planned, rather it is a reaction to the security situation. And it has been effective — the second intifada has been quashed. This is not to say that Palestinians do not deserve full legal and political rights. However, it is misleading to paint the current situation without placing it within the wider context of the aftermath of the last bloody intifada. It is as if the Allied conquest of Berlin were examined by a visitor from Mars who had no knowledge of the second world war which just had ended.
Posted by: RCS | February 1st, 2008 at 6:53 am | Report this commentCassandra,
Ethnic cleansing? Don’t make me laugh. If you’re so concerned about ethnic cleansing, where are your crocodile tears for Darfur, Tibet, the Indians who fled the creation of Pakistan, the nearly 1 million Jews who were expelled from Arab lands? If you’re so concerned about ethnic cleansing, where is your condemnation of the policy of “from the river to the sea” in Hamas’s charter, not to mention the DNA of Fatah. That is a true policy of ethnic cleansing. Let’s hear your condemnation of that.
RCS,
I also read Philip Stephens with incredulity. Especially his point about the blame which Israel has incurred for the “lock down in Gaza”. Do any of these journalists look at a map? Which border do they think the hundreds of thousands of Palestinians just breached? I’ll spell it out for them: Egypt also has a border with Gaza, and is equally concerned to keep Hamas in check. The difference is that Hamas is not firing, or allowing the firing of, thousands of rockets at Egyptian cities.
Hamas should be thankful they don’t face the Russians, who apparently rocketed the centre of Grozny indiscriminately, at the cost of thousands of civilian lives.
Posted by: AYC | February 1st, 2008 at 10:06 am | Report this commentWOW Mr. RCS! So the Israeli annexation of the West Bank is akin to the Allies’ capture of Berlin?
Who was that old Englishman who once said “Oh what tangled webs we weave, when first we practice to deceive”?
P
Posted by: Pacifist | February 1st, 2008 at 10:12 am | Report this commentDear AYC,
You logic about Egypt (in your address to your alter ego, RCS), would have had merit if, but only if, Egypt were a democracy that pursued the will of the Egyptian people.
In fact, Egypt’s government is an unpopular military dictatorship (you could count Mubarak as a forerunner of Musharraf - a military man who for convenience has taken off the uniform) that has held the Egyptians at gunpoint and is supported and works hand in glove with Americans and Israelis against the wishes of its own people (who support the Palestinian cause fervently).
As for your last point, again it shows the desperation of the Zionists to defend the indefensible. You try to hold up Israel as a civilised democracy that deserves the enormous financial, military and diplomatic subsidy that it gets from the West but when you are held to account, your defence consists of comparing yourself with perpetrators of outright genocide (although I am not entirely sure that even then you are that much better.)
Hoping for a secular, democratic Middle East,
P
Posted by: Pacifist | February 1st, 2008 at 10:25 am | Report this commentAs this thread has veered so far off-topic, I have closed the comments on this post for the time being.
Posted by: Damian Carrington, FT.com Interactive Editor | February 1st, 2008 at 10:56 am | Report this comment