Day after U.N. resolution, at least 9 killed in Yemen clashes


From Mohammed Jamjoom and Hakim Almasmari, CNN

Sanaa, Yemen (CNN) -- At least nine people were killed and 23 wounded during clashes between Yemen security forces and rival fighters on Saturday, medical officials said.




Fighting erupted in several districts of Sanaa, the Yemeni capital, and explosions could be heard across the city, said the medical officials, who declined to be named for safety reasons.



The conflict again pitted government forces against a group loyal to Hashid tribal leader Sheikh Sadeq al-Ahmar and another group loyal to military defector Gen. Ali Mohsen al-Ahmar, who is also from the Hashid tribe.
CNN cannot independently confirm the accounts and the Yemeni government was not immediately available for comment.



In a statement issued Saturday, Ali Mohsen al-Ahmar claimed that Yemeni President Ali Abdullah Saleh told his generals to "start attacking and use all kinds of weapons" against civilians opposed to his remaining in power.

These and other remarks were allegedly made in a phone call that the former general's camp intercepted, Mohsen al-Ahmar said. CNN did not hear, and thus cannot authenticate the content of such a call.


Mohsen al-Ahmar -- who defected in March, after suspected government forces killed more than 50 protesters -- alleged in a statement that the president told his military leaders to "destroy everything," saying

"there is no difference between a military location and a civilian's house, men or women, a child or elderly person."



According to the ex-general's account, Saleh said the international community would not help the opposition and told his military leaders to "feast over their blood and dead bodies. ... I want to take revenge, even if the whole country is burned down."


A senior official in Saleh's administration blasted the allegations as false and described them as a feeble attempt by Mohsen al-Ahmar's camp to hurt the constitutional government's reputation.


"These are lies and untrue," said the senior official, who is not authorized to talk to the media. "President Saleh would not incite (forces to) kill his own people."


The official claimed, moreover, that "opposition forces are bombarding residential areas and are blaming the government, to cover up their crimes."
Residents in Sanaa, meanwhile, say Yemeni government forces on Saturday targeted the compounds of the family of Sadeq Al-Ahmar.His family's homes are scattered across three districts in the capital -- Hasabah, Sofan and Natha.


This is the second attack on his family in a week.Last week, witnesses and residents reported heavy clashes between forces and tribesmen. A spokesman for the family said six people were killed when government forces attacked homes of tribesmen in that attack.The Ahmar tribes first clashed with government forces in May when 12 days of fighting led to the death of more than 160 people.The tribes are supporting change in the country and have demanded the ouster of the president.


In a separate attack, clashes erupted between soldiers loyal to a defected military general and government forces in Hasaba and Sofan districts.One resident of Hasaba told CNN that Republican Guard troops knocked on her door Saturday and warned her, like her neighbors, that they have 24 hours to leave.


The fighting comes one day after the U.N. Security Council unanimously condemned the months of violence in Yemen. But the resolution stopped short of explicitly calling for the resignation of the country's president.The Gulf Cooperation Council, meanwhile, welcomed the U.N. resolution against the beleaguered Arab nation.


That regional alliance's Secretary-General Abdul Latif bin Rashid al-Zayani stressed "the need to sign and implement the Yemeni crisis settlement agreement...at the earliest possible time," he said in a written statement Saturday.The proposed Gulf council-brokered accord, which is backed by the United States and European Union, would allow Saleh to resign from power in exchange for immunity from prosecution.


The Security Council resolution, passed by a 15-0 vote, demands Yemen allow peaceful demonstrations and end crackdowns on civilians.

Day after U.N. resolution, at least 9 killed in Yemen clashes - CNN.com

Gadhafi's autopsy reveals he was shot in head
From Ingrid Formanek, CNN


Tripoli, Libya (CNN) -- Doctors completed an autopsy of Moammar Gadhafi on Sunday, with the chief pathologist confirming the former Libyan leader died of a gunshot wound to the head.


Dr. Othman el-Zentani would not disclose whether findings revealed if Gadhafi suffered the wound in crossfire or at close-range -- a key question that has prompted the United Nations and international human rights groups to call for an investigation into the final moments of the late Libyan strongman's life.
Doctors performed the autopsy at a Misrata hospital in the presence of officials from the prosecutor's office, Zentani said. Autopsies were also conducted on the bodies of Gadhafi's son, Mutassim, and his former defense minister, Abu Baker Yunis.



Purported Gadhafi killer on-camera Cooper: New details in Gadhafi's death Destruction where Gadhafi found, killed Arab Spring changes leadership picture
No foreign or independent officials were present, Zentani said.The autopsy report will go to the attorney general's office before it is released to the public, he said.



Meanwhile, the three bodies would likely return to a cold storage unit at a Misrata meat market for public viewing, Zentani said.


Long lines of people turned up all weekend long to view the corpses.Gadhafi's family issued a statement Friday calling on the United Nations and Amnesty International to push Libya's new leadership "to hand over the bodies of the martyrs of their tribe so they can be buried according to Islamic rites," a pro-Gadhafi TV station reported.


Gadhafi's death Thursday solidified the power of the National Transitional Council, which marked the country's liberation on Sunday in the eastern city of Benghazi, where the uprising started.But uncertainty was still swirling Sunday about the death of the Libyan leader, who Libyan and world powers wanted to capture and prosecute for war crimes.


Leaders of Libya's interim government have said Gadhafi was killed in crossfire after fighters captured him Thursday.But others have questioned that account.Peter Bouckaert, Human Rights Watch's emergencies director, told CNN that fighting had ended when Gadhafi was cornered in a drainage ditch. He said crowds beat Gadhafi in what was a "humiliating end" for the former dictator.

"When he left the area, he was very much alive," Bouckaert said. "There's no reason why he should have been subjected to this kind of mob justice."


An amateur video distributed by the Reuters news agency Sunday showed NTC fighters congratulating a man the fighters say killed Gadhafi. CNN could not independently verify that claim.The video, purportedly recorded near an ambulance carrying Gadhafi's body, shows a jubilant group of fighters pouring water on a man's head."He is the one who killed him," one man says, pointing."He killed him in front of me, I swear to God," another man chimes in.A lawyer for Gadhafi's son Saadi, who fled in September to Niger, issued a statement Sunday saying, "Saadi Gadhafi is shocked and outraged by the vicious brutality which accompanied the murders of his father and brother."
"

The contradictory statements issued by the NTC excusing these barbaric executions and the grotesque abuse of the corpses make it clear that no person affiliated with the former regime will receive a fair trial in Libya nor will they receive justice for crimes committed against them," the statement said.


Mahmoud Jibril, chairman of the NTC's executive board, has said Gadhafi's right arm was wounded when a gunbattle erupted between the fighters and Gadhafi loyalists as his captors attempted to load him into a vehicle. More shooting erupted as the vehicle drove away, and Gadhafi was shot in the head, dying moments before arriving at a hospital in Misrata, Jibril said, citing the city's coroner.



The United Nations human rights office and activist groups like Amnesty and Human Rights Watch have called for a probe into Gadhafi's death.The United States supports those investigation requests, U.S. Secretary of State Hillary Clinton told CNN's "State of the Union" Sunday.


"As Libyans move into the future once again, they need to do so with a sense of unity and reconciliation. They need to hold each other accountable. Those who do not have blood on their hands must be made to feel safe and included, regardless of whether or not they supported Gadhafi in the past," she said.

"So we believe in the rule of law, and accountability, and such an investigation would contribute to that."


U.N. human rights spokesman Rupert Colville told reporters in Geneva on Friday that there were "at least two cell-phone videos, one showing (Gadhafi) alive and one showing him dead."
"

Taken together, these videos are very disturbing," he said.

"We believe there is a need for an investigation and more details are needed to ascertain whether he was killed in the fighting or after his capture.

Gadhafi's autopsy reveals he was shot in head - CNN.com

U.N. Security Council unanimously condemns Yemen
By Mick B. Krever, CNN


United Nations (CNN) -- The U.N. Security Council voted unanimously Friday in favor of a resolution to condemn violence in Yemen, where demonstrators, government forces and rival factions have been embroiled in months of unrest.The 15-0 vote demands that Yemen allow peaceful demonstrations to take place and to end government crackdowns on civilians.


U.S. Ambassador Susan E. Rice said the "Security Council sent a strong message to President (Ali Abdullah) Saleh that it is time to heed the legitimate calls of the Yemeni people for a peaceful and orderly transition toward a unified, stable, secure and democratic Yemen."


"President Saleh has repeatedly pledged to sign the (Gulf Cooperation Council) initiative," Rice said. "Today, the Security Council made clear to President Saleh that his continued equivocation is weakening his country and imperiling a peaceful and democratic future for the people of Yemen.


Friday's resolution does not, however, sanction the embattled leader.The proposed deal, which Rice noted, referenced a GCC-brokered accord, backed by the United States and European Union, whereby Saleh could resign from power in exchange for immunity from prosecution.


Peter Wittig, German ambassador to the United Nations, said the resolution was "not ideal" but "can make a difference."


"We would have liked to express those messages that are in that resolution even in a stronger and more unequivocal form, especially the strong call to President Saleh to step down," he said.


Nobel Peace Prize winner Tawakkol Karman also weighed in Friday, calling the resolution "not sufficient."


"They have to discuss about the ousting of Ali Saleh and that he has to be handed over to the authorities immediately," says the Yemeni activist who plans to stay in the United States "until I am able to submit Ali Saleh's case to the international tribunal."


"But in general," she said of the resolution, "I would say it is good."U.N. director at Human Rights Watch Philippe Bolopio said the group welcome's "the long overdue condemnation of Yemeni government abuses," but Bolopio believes "the Security Council should have more clearly distanced itself from the GCC impunity deal."

Earlier this week, several people were killed during clashes with Yemeni security forces after anti-government protests filled the streets of the country's capital.Crowds had marched through downtown Sanaa, where government forces allegedly gunned down protesters.Hundreds of security forces attempted to restrict the protesters' movements, and tear-gas canisters could be seen flying toward the crowd, said hospital director Mohammed Qubati.


A senior U.S. official, speaking on condition on anonymity, said that Friday's resolution, introduced by Germany and the United Kingdom, would send a strong signal of urgency for political transition.The official said that unanimity is an indication of greater consensus on the council.Russia and China issued a rare double veto of a resolution condemning the violence in Syria this month.
Security Council members have said a political solution in Yemen should be based on a initiative put forward by the GCC, a political and economic union of Arab states.

U.N. Security Council unanimously condemns Yemen - CNN.com

Syrian, Yemen opposition buoyed by Gadhafi death


CNN) -- Inspired by the death of deposed Libyan dictator Moammar Gadhafi in Libya, demonstrators took to the streets of Syria and Yemen on Friday filled with a renewed sense of purpose to end the regimes there.In Syria, protesters flooded streets in Homs, Idlib and other areas, congratulating the Libyan people and warning their own ruler that he could soon meet the same fate. "Now Gadhafi is done, done! It is your turn Bashar!" they chanted.



Security forces raided areas in Jisr Al-Shoghour and fired on homes in the Bab Amr neighborhood in Homs with machine guns, vehicle-mounted weapons and anti-aircraft guns, the Local Coordinating Committees, a Syrian opposition group that organizes protests, reported. It said a total of 24 people died across the country in the fighting. CNN cannot independently verify events inside of Syria.


In Yemen, demonstrations broke out in 17 provinces and in the capital city of Sanaa, where thousands of demonstrators took to Change Square. They flew the Libyan revolutionary flag and chanted, "Saleh the killer look at where Gadhafi is now; his forces could not save his life." Women in the crowd carried roses, a symbol of peaceful revolution in Yemen.


"Saleh will not sleep after seeing what happened to Gadhafi," Ahmed Bahri, head of the political circle in the opposition Haq party said. "He knows Gadhafi was more powerful than him but still fell."




The next chapter in the Arab Spring The death of a dictator Gadhafi was hiding in drainage pipe Libyans celebrate in front of White HouseMohammed al-Salami, a youth activist in Sanaa, called the ongoing demonstrations across the Middle East and Africa "the era of the people.""We will not accept being ruled by families who want to take our wealth," he said. "Saleh knows he will fall and he is panicking and killing innocent people."The Syrian movement to oust President Bashar al-Assad seized on Libya's tale of a populist uprising chasing a widely despised tyrant into a sewer drain."The Libyan people chased the Libyan colonel like he said he would chase them... chased him into a sewage drain... and now your turn has come doctor, from the people you described as germs," the Syrian Revolution Facebook page said.
"

Wonder if you¹ll be able to buy time and get away with your own skin like Ben Ali did... or will you stand behind bars like the deposed Mubarak.... or will you run like Gadhafi ran and your people will chase you down?"


Hosni Mubarak is Egypt's toppled leader and Zine Abedine Ben Ali is Tunisia's former ruler. The phrase "doctor" is a reference to al-Assad's profession, ophthalmology.


Syrian demonstrators chanted in support of the Libyan people on Thursday night in demonstrations in the provinces of Homs and Idlib and other locations warning. The protesters kept up their chants on Friday after prayers, with outpourings in Hama, Damascus and other places.


The Local Coordinating Committees said 24 people died in protests Friday in Homs, Hama, Idlib and the Damascus suburb of Saqba, where defectors from the armed forces were fighting government security forces.Syrian security forces have launched a fierce crackdown against protesters who've taken to the streets since mid-March to protest the government and its policies. More than 3,000 people have died, according to activists and the United Nations.


The LCC issued a statement Friday congratulating Libya and warning al-Assad and other dictatorial regimes.


"This third great victory for the Arab Revolutions sends a critical message to the region, the people suffering under other tyrants, and the world at large." the LCC said. "Therefore, there is no turning back from the demands for freedom, or from the dear and generous blood and souls of those who perished in the fight."


Syrian, Yemen opposition buoyed by Gadhafi death - CNN.com


No oil bounty for France and UK as Libya rebuilds
By John Hamilton, Special to CNN

London (CNN) -- As the National Transitional Council (NTC) prepares to dissolve itself, and its replacement starts working towards Libya's new constitution and democratic institutions, it is worth reflecting why the United Kingdom and France supported the revolution back in late March. Contrary to what some believe, it was not all about oil; but oil and gas will be central to Libya's recovery.

John Hamilton


No oil bounty for France and UK as Libya rebuilds - CNN.com




There is no doubt that if the No Fly Zone had not been imposed and the decision to back regime change was not taken, then Colonel Moammar Gadhafi would have carried out his threat to punish Benghazi for its February 17 uprising, at enormous human cost. But even if Prime Minister David Cameron and President Nicolas Sarkozy were motivated by humanitarian concerns -- and encouraged by the feasibility of protecting an enclave that had bravely won freedom for itself -- could they nevertheless be expecting a bounty in return for their support?



There has been a lot of disinformation and muddled thinking on this question, starting with the letter purportedly written by the rebels in early April promising to assign France 35% of the country's oil in return for its support. The NTC has denied making such a commitment, but even if it had, would any new and legitimate government of Libya need to honor it? What, indeed, does Libya's oil wealth amount to and how should the new government manage it?The answers to these questions show just how impossible it will be for the rulers of the new Libyan state to hand out portions of its reserves and production to its friends, or for Britain, France and even Italy, which has huge political influence and vast interests in Libya's oil and gas sector, to expect many favors.Gadhafi's body in Misrata cooler Gadhafi's death inspires Arab protesters Inside Gadhafi's last moments



Libya's past oil production of about 1.6 million barrels per day was sold on contracts arranged by the National Oil Corporation (NOC)'s opaque oil marketing committee. There is a lot which the new management can do to make this process more transparent and open and also to account for revenues more fully. It is in the country's interests to ensure the process is competitive.



Any future scramble for new Libyan hydrocarbons reserves will also be competitive. Existing reserves are of course spoken for. All of Libya's production belongs either to subsidiaries of NOC or to approximately half a dozen joint ventures with European, U.S. and Canadian companies. Dozens of other companies including ExxonMobil, BP, Shell, Gazprom have exploration rights to large areas of Libya's desert and sea, but so far not many of them have made discoveries. These rights are tied up in contracts most of which give a very good deal to the Libyan side.



Initially the NTC said it would honor all these contracts unless there was clear evidence of corruption. It has shifted this position somewhat in response to popular pressure. The interim oil and finance minister Ali Tarhouni recently announce the formation of a committee which will examine every contract. But changes at this level are unlikely. Many of the recent contracts were awarded in highly-competitive open licensing rounds in which the scope for corruption was very limited. The older contracts could be more doubtful, but these are the producing contracts -- the country's life blood. The government may make the bold move of publishing them, but cannot cancel them without huge cost.



If anything is up for grabs in the Libya of the future, it could be service contracts to help the state oil company improve production from its existing fields and further exploration rights for gas. In the two months since the Gadhafi regime fell, the NTC has brought oil production back up to 300-400,000 barrels per day. From now every extra 100,000 barrels will be more difficult, costly and time-consuming to bring back. Thousands of workers have to return, and a huge amount of investment is required to recapitalize the oil field camps, many of which have been looted over the past six months. Some wells will also need repair as will the main export terminals in the Gulf of Sirte, which suffered the most damage in the conflict.



The gas potential is huge and largely unrealized. Libya already sends gas to Italy by pipeline, but it is a much less significant producer than its neighbor Algeria. It would like to find more gas and take a larger slice of the European market. Shell and BP are amongst those already involved in expensive projects to make this happen. New exploration contracts could be issued: French and British companies could benefit. Italy's Eni is already a predominant player, and has returned to the country more quickly than its competitors.



But they are not the only contenders. Some analysts expect that Qatar, holder of the world's third largest gas reserves and a vital supporter of the NTC, may work alongside Libya to market any future gas to Europe, perhaps cooperating on Liquid Natural Gas developments. In any case, the gas has to be found first.

U.S. pullout in Iraq raises concerns about Iran


(CNN) -- The announced withdrawal of U.S. troops from Iraq put new attention Friday on the influence of Iran, accused of supporting Iraqi militias that have killed American soldiers, but analysts were reluctant to declare the pullout a clear victory for Iran.



Still, President Obama's announcement that all servicemen in Iraq will be home for New Year's -- ending a war that began in 2003 -- could reveal weaknesses and vulnerabilities in Iraq, which could strengthen Iran's hand, analysts said.


"It will not have negative effects against Iran," James Gelvin, history professor at the University of California at Los Angeles and Middle East expert, said about the U.S. pullout.


But the relationship between Iran and Iraq's Shias isn't monolithic, especially if Iraq's firebrand Shia cleric Muqtada al-Sadr seeks to reassert his own power, he said. Iran and Iraq have a Shia majority.


"There are tensions" between Iran and Iraq, Gelvin said. "We don't know if this is going to be a replay of (the Iran-Iraq War of) 1980 to 1988 or if it's going to be different. I think anyone giving you information on this is whistling in the wind."


Mike Breen, vice president of the progressive Truman National Security Project in Washington, described the ties between Iran and Iraq as "complicated."
"


I would say it's too soon to tell because the Iraqi people and the Iraqi government are only beginning to write the next chapter in their nation's history, and they have a complicated relationship with their neighbor Iran, and that's not always been a positive relationship," Breen said.On the one hand, Iran, one of the last theocracies and military regimes in the Middle East, is surrounded by the democratic uprisings of Arab Spring. But its immediate borders will no longer have to face the might of the U.S. military, analysts said.
"

At the very least, what they get out of an American withdrawal of Iraq is an extraordinarily weak Iraq, and at most they get a manipulable Iraq," Gelvin said.


"The American position in the region is weakening, which means that regional powers are going to exert themselves more. And the two most important regional powers right now are Turkey and Iran. Without the United States really there, people are going to be looking around and perhaps cutting deals," Gelvin said.

But Denis McDonough, the president's deputy national security adviser, contended that Iran is becoming more isolated in the eyes of the international community -- as well as weaker economically. He cited the international criticism against Iran's human rights record and nuclear program.


"Am I afraid about the Iranians?" McDonough told CNN. "The answer is no."Republican Sen. John McCain of Arizona differed and said he was concerned about the U.S. pullout -- and how it works to Iran's advantage.


"We're leaving Iraq completely -- which is the No. 1 priority of the Iranian(s)," McCain said. "We are taking unnecessary risks in Afghanistan by withdrawing troops there, and I can tell you from traveling the world, that in the world they believe the United States is withdrawing and is weakening. That's a fact."


A U.S. official who was not authorized to speak for attribution said the Iraqis "will not roll over" to Iran and added how the two nations have a long history of border disputes and fought the eight-year war from 1980 to 1988.
"


The Iranians have been trying to gain influence in Iraq for some time and will continue to do so. It's in Iran's interest to have a relationship with a neighbor they've gone to war with in the past. At the end of the day, however, the Iraqi people will decide whether Iranian meddling is acceptable," the official said.
"

Iranian influence in Iraq has limits," the official added.


"The Iraqi people have a strong sense of nationalism and won't take kindly to interference from a neighbor with whom it fought a bloody war."



U.S. commanders, including Adm. Mike Mullen, the chairman of the U.S. Joint Chiefs of Staff, have blamed Shia Muslim militias backed by Iran for increased deadly attacks on American troops.



Last month, Major Gen. David G. Perkins, the commander of U.S. Division-North and the 4th Infantry Division, said that Iranian-backed attacks or militias have been active throughout Iraq.


"The majority of them historically have occurred in the south, in Baghdad," Perkins said. "The areas where I see them up here in the north historically have been in Diyala province, because I kind of have a Sunni-Shia divide there. And at the beginning of the year, we were seeing Iranian-type munitions such as our explosively formed penetrators and things like that, which come across the border from Iran.


"Recently, there has been a reduction in the number of attacks that we attribute to Iranian-backed militias. But, again, we know that capacity is there, so we keep those pressures on those networks," Perkins said.


U.S. pullout in Iraq raises concerns about Iran - CNN.com

Ahmadinejad: Iran’s Last President?


Iran’s supreme leader has hinted that the country's presidency could be eliminated. It’s a clear warning to Mahmoud Ahmadinejad.

By Meir Javedanfar


1.Ahmadinejad on the Ropes

2.Iran’s Next President?

3.The Seditious Ahmadinejad?

4.Inside Iran’s Fight for Supremacy

5. Who’s Next on Ahmadinejad’s List?


The message from Iran’s most powerful man was clear: the post of president could be removed sometime in the future. If this happened, the parliamentary system could instead be used to elect officials holding executive power. ‘There would be no problem in altering the current structure,’ stated Iranian Supreme Leader Ali Khamenei in a speech in the city of Kermanshah on Sunday.

What we have here is a tussle between Khamenei and President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad over their respective legacies. And Khamenei is taking this matter so seriously that he’s threatening to remove the very position of the presidency altogether. For now, this is only a threat. But it’s one that can’t be ignored, especially by Ahmadinejad.

Ahmadinejad isn’t eligible to run for president again when his term expires in June 2013, as Iran’s Constitution is clear a president can run for only two consecutive terms. To ensure his legacy, then, Ahmadinejad seems to be backing his right hand man Esfandiar Rahim Mashaei as a presidential candidate. Ahmadinejad likely hopes that with Mashaei as president, he will be able to retain a powerful cabinet position – think an Iranian twist on what Vladimir Putin has done in Dmitry Medvedev’s government. When Mashaei finishes his four year term, Ahmadinejad would then be able to use his likely high profile in Meshai’s government as a platform to develop a renewed bid for the presidency.

This concerns Khamenei, and rightly so.

Mashaei is an extremely divisive figure. Many conservatives despise him. For some, it is because of reports that he married a former member of the opposition Mujahedeen-e-Khalq (MEK), which he was interrogating in the early 1980s, as well as reports that his brother was also member of the same organization. Others, though, are furious that he said publicly that the people of Iran have no problem with the people of Israel.

Jealousy is another factor. Soon after Meshai’s daughter married Ahmadinejad's son, his political career started to take off. From once being a virtually unknown politician, these days Mashaei is seen as Ahmadinejad’s right hand man (some even speculate that it’s Mashaei that holds the real power in the Ahmadinejad government).

But the animosity felt toward Mashaei isn’t confined to Iranian politicians – even Ahmadinejad’s brother Davood has been attacking him publicly. Ahmadinejad’s son-in-law, Mehdi Khorshidi, meanwhile, has joined in on the attacks against Meshai. Some believe that Davood left his post as chief of the presidential inspection unit because of Meshai.

It’s clear, then, that if Mashaei runs for president, it will create ferocious pitched political battles inside Iranian politics, conflicts that could even spark violence. This is the last thing Khamenei needs for a regime that already faces sanctions and a host of economic problems, as well as opposition from the Green movement. Khamenei therefore won’t want serious conflict among conservatives, who in the political world of the Islamic Republic are his biggest supporters.

This suggests that the recent warning by Khamenei about the possible removal of the post of president is most probably a warning to Ahmadinejad. It basically says to Ahmadinejad that if at any point Khamenei feels that the next election could result in more divisions and violence because of Ahmadinejad's own political plans, then he will be prepared to do away with the post entirely. (Khamenei could also be concerned about the reaction to possible plans by Tehran Mayor Mohammed-Baqer Qalibaf to run as president, as many ultra conservatives oppose him as well).

But Khamenei is also worried about his own legacy.



After taking up the post of supreme leader in 1989, Khamenei had a difficult relationship with his first two presidents, Ali Akbar HashemiRafsanjani and Seyed MohammadKhatami. Ahmadinejad, who entered office in 2005, therefore seemed a breath a fresh air. During his first term, he was to Khamenei what Khamenei himself was as president to Ayatollah Khomeini – an enthusiastic and obedient soldier who followed his commander. These are the same qualities that endeared Khamenei to Khomeini. According to Baqer Moin, author of Khomeini: Life of the Ayatollah, this is why during Khomeini’s 10-year reign, he received Khamenei more than 150 times – more than any other official in his entire government. However, this quickly ended during Ahmadinejad's second term, when the president was seen as challenging as Khamenei.

It’s unclear how long Khamenei has left as supreme leader. For the sake of the remainder of his term in office, he may have decided that he doesn’t want to work with a president anymore – that he has had enough. This isn’t the first time. When serving as president between 1981 and 1989, he had severe problems working with then-Prime Minister Mir Hossein Mousavi. So bad was the relationship that it has been reported that Mousavi tried to resign, only staying on because of Khomeini’s insistence.

Back then, as president, Khamenei couldn’t do much. But when he became supreme leader, he didn’t object to the position of prime minister being eliminated by a change in the Constitution. Now he could do the same with the post of the president. With stability a concern, why not rip out the co-pilot seat and captain the plane of the Islamic Republic alone? After all, quarrelling with the co-pilot can be distracting, and could ultimately cause the plane to crash. And with the new set up, the parliament would be too weak to pose any challenge to regime stability.

Khamenei could also be planning for his own succession, as removing the post of president would have an impact on Iran’s next supreme leader as well. It’s possible that he has already decided that his son Mojtaba should take over, or that another, weaker, figure should replace him with the Islamic Revolutionary Guards Corp (IRGC) manning the political levers of the country.

With these kinds of scenarios in mind, Khamenei may have decided that having a president could create division, division that the regime’s foes might exploit. With this in mind, and to ensure a smooth transition of power to the next supreme leader – and clear lines of authority after he takes the helm – it would be better to drop the post of president.

Ali Khamenei had less legitimacy than Khomeini, which explains why he felt threatened by his presidents. And Mojtaba Khamenei would have even less legitimacy than Ali Khamenei. With this in mind, it really is tempting to ask why he should bother having a president at all.

Ahmadinejad: Iran

__________________
"Wa tu izzu man-ta shaa, wa tu zillu man-ta shaa"

Gaddafi Dead - So What?


by Raymond Ibrahim


What a myopic view the Western media and its array of "experts" have concerning the so-called "Arab Spring" — a myopia that naturally metastasizes among the general public.

Consider the Libyan crisis. As usual, the focus is entirely on the individual, on the tangible — the now dead Gaddafi — whom all the blame can be heaped upon, while the existentialist elephant in the room, the real mover and shaker, the spirit of the age behind all these uprisings, is never acknowledged.

So another Arab dictator has been eliminated, and the talking heads are abuzz: some, whose knowledge of the world and reality is chronically limited to their own experience, naively cry "democracy!" (even as those who butchered Gaddafi were crying "Allahu Akbar!"); others cautiously include the usual boilerplate caveats in their analyses, which otherwise remain parochial.

Either way, as many interpret events in Libya, they project their own values and notions of right and wrong, good and bad — most notably by portraying the Arab uprisings as positive signs of democracy — thereby demonstrating, yet again, their inability to comprehend Islam's distinct civilization, let alone the Closing of the Muslim Mind.

I am reminded of an especially pertinent observation by philosopher Arthur Schopenhauer:

The discovery of truth is prevented most effectively, not by the false appearance things present and which mislead into error, nor directly by weakness of the reasoning powers, but by preconceived opinion, by prejudice [in this case, by the Western conviction that all people want a secular, liberal democracy], which as a pseudo a priori stands in the path of truth and is then like a contrary wind driving a ship away from land, so that sail and rudder [reality and those who present it] labor in vain.

Indeed, 19th century Germans, such as Hegel, understood that world events, far from being inextricably tied to individual leaders, were products of the Zeitgeist, defined as: "The spirit of the time; the taste and outlook characteristic of a period or generation … the spirit, attitude, or general outlook of a specific time or period … the general atmosphere of a place or situation and the effect that it has on people."

Consider Libya's neighbor, Egypt, as described in the 2009 book Inside Egypt. The author's otherwise prescient argument was that revolution was in the air; however, he too took the narrow view, ignoring the "spirit of the time." My review of the book, written before the Egyptian revolution, is especially applicable today:

Unfortunately, there is a myopic tendency to view nearly every problem in Egypt as a byproduct of Husni Mubarak, Egypt's president since 1981, and in [the author] Bradley's view, the "most corrupt offender of them all." Even things one might have supposed were products of time or chance — from the condition of Egypt's Bedouin, who have led the same desperate lifestyle for centuries, to the radicalization of Muslims, a worldwide phenomenon—are somehow traced back to Mubarak. … Indeed, this is the book's chief problem. Bradley is convinced that, given a chance, through the elimination of Mubarak, Egyptians would create a liberal, egalitarian, and gender-neutral society. … And while he is convinced that Egypt is a byproduct of Mubarak, one is left wondering instead whether Mubarak is a byproduct of Egypt.

In fact, since the Mubarak scapegoat has been ousted, and after Western media and politicians gushed and hailed "democracy," Egypt has seen the worst Islamist inspired violence — especially from the state itself — against its non-Muslim minorities.

The lesson? To understand grand scale events, stop focusing on individuals — whether ousted Arab dictators (Tunisia's ben Ali, Egypt's Mubarak, now Libya's Gaddafi) or slain jihadist leaders (Osama bin Laden and the various no-names the administration boasts of killing) — and start focusing on the forces, the "spirit of the time," in this case, Islam, which creates bin Ladens no less than the tyrannical autocrats who suppress them.

Nor is this approach limited to comprehending the significance of the "Arab Spring." To the many who think that America's problems begin and end with Obama, consider the logic of the following quote, attributed to a Czech newspaper:

The danger to America is not Barack Obama but a citizenry capable of entrusting an inexperienced man like him with the presidency. It will be far easier to limit and undo the follies of an Obama presidency than to restore the necessary common sense and good judgment to a depraved electorate willing to have such a man for their president. The problem is much deeper and far more serious than Mr. Obama, who is a mere symptom of what ails America. Blaming the prince of the fools should not blind anyone to the vast confederacy of fools that made him their prince. The republic can survive a Barack Obama. It is less likely to survive a multitude of fools such as those who made him their president.

Gaddafi Dead - So What? :: Middle East Forum

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"Wa tu izzu man-ta shaa, wa tu zillu man-ta shaa"

Preserving Iraq's Assyrians: Federalism

by Aymenn Jawad Al-Tamimi


As U.S. troops continue to pull out from Iraq, it is worth visiting the question of what future there is, if any, for the country's Assyrians. Since the 2003 American-led invasion, the Christian population has declined from some 1.2-1.5 million to 400-800,000 today, and it is undeniable that Christians constitute a disproportionate percentage of Iraqi refugees. In fact, it is thought that around 40% of refugees are Christian, even though prior to the war they comprised at most 5% of Iraq's population of roughly 30 million.

Since the end of 2006, there has been a marked decline in violence, for most of the Sunni insurgents began to realize that they were losing the sectarian civil war for Baghdad against the Shi'a militias and thus appreciated that survival depended on working with the central government against al-Qa'ida.

However, Iraq's Assyrian community still faces two problems. Outside of the areas administered by the Kurdistan Regional Government (KRG), there is the threat of al-Qa'ida, which is still able to extort money around $150 per month from most businesses in Mosul and is capable of carrying out mass casualty attacks and hostage takings. The most notorious recent example is undoubtedly the attack on the Our Lady of Salvation Assyrian Catholic Church in Karrada on October 31st 2010.

Although the Iraqi security forces were able to take out 8 militants and relieve the hostage crisis, the terrorists nonetheless detonated their explosives prior to being killed, leaving 58 dead and 67 wounded. The attack was followed by 11 roadside bombings and mortar firings on Christian neighborhoods in Baghdad that killed 5 more civilians and injured 20. Consequently, around 133 and 109 Christian families registered as refugees in Syria and Jordan respectively. More recently, two churches were bombed in Kirkuk last August, leaving 23 wounded in the first attack and damage to the church in the other (a third plot was foiled after the bomb was defused).

The KRG areas have provided a safe haven for many Assyrians fleeing the threat of Islamist violence further south since 2003, and the former KRG Minister of Finance- Sarkis Aghajan- did use some KRG funds to finance a Christian defense militia in Mosul and help rebuild a few churches and villages. The KRG hoped that these limited initiatives would win over the Assyrian (also known as Chaldean and Syriac) Christians to submit to Kurdish rule and authority, at the expense of marginalizing the Assyrian Democratic Movement (ADM).

Yet many Assyrians justifiably complain of problems of discrimination. As a 2007 report by the United States Commission on International Religious Freedom notes:

"KRG officials were also reported to have used public works projects to divert water and other vital resources from Chaldo-Assyrian to Kurdish communities…leading to mass exodus, which was later followed by the seizure and conversion of abandoned Chaldo-Assyrian property by the local Kurdish population."

The anxieties of some Assyrian leaders over these issues are apparent in disclosures from the Wikileaks cables. Consider a message from the Ninewa Provincial Reconstruction Team:

"In a July 3 meeting with PRT and US Army civil affairs personnel, Mayor of Tal Kaif [Tel Keppe] District (and Provincial Chairman of the Assyrian Democratic Movement) Basim Bello said Assyrians in Ninewa Province feel intimidated by the Kurds and suffer from a lack of essential services. Bello said the solution lies in the inclusion of all groups in the provincial government. He said civil rights protections for Christians will continue to be a concern whether predominantly Christian areas remain part of Ninewa or join the KRG. He reiterated his party's position that the Christian areas of Ninewa should form an autonomous region under Article 125 of the constitution."

In light of issues highlighted above, one can only agree with the ADM's proposal that the only viable way to preserve Iraq's fledgling Christian population is the creation of an autonomous province, based on Article 125 of the Iraqi Constitution, which affirms that the "Constitution shall guarantee the administrative, political, cultural, and educational rights of the various nationalities, such as Turkomen, Chaldeans, Assyrians, and all other constituents, and this shall be regulated by law." There are of course several predominantly Christian towns around which this autonomous region could be based, including Alqosh, Batnaya, Tesqopa and Baqofa. The question now arises of how the prospects for attaining this goal can be raised.

The answer lies in one word: federalism. According to the constitution, provinces can break away into separate autonomous regions (or in groups) subject to a referendum. Calls for federalism have a long history in southern Iraq, especially in Basra province since 2003.

Basra has witnessed a growing number of Nouri al-Maliki's supporters advocate for autonomy amid a boom in foreign oil investment. Thus, as Wail Abdul Latif, a former lawmaker and advocate for autonomy, put it, "While the foreign companies, mainly the oil ones, are entering Basra to tap into its resources, Basrawis are being crushed by deprivation and poverty." None of this should be surprising since Iraq's centralized command economy inherited from the days of Saddam Hussein allows oil revenues to be siphoned off through bureaucracy and corruption.

As many analysts have observed, the premier has been able in violation of the constitution to obstruct these initiatives for federalism largely because the calls for federalism in these Shi'a areas have come from members of his own State of Law bloc that heads the ruling coalition in Baghdad.

Yet as Reidar Visser points out, "any growth of such calls for federal regions in the Sunni governorates would create an interesting dilemma for the central government." This could trigger a "domino effect" across the country, making advocacy for autonomy in any province much harder to resist. Of interest were Osama al-Nujaifi's comments on the issue in an interview with the BBC during his recent visit to the UK. Pointing to the fact that many Sunnis feel they are now second-class citizens, al-Nujaifi apparently affirmed that "the Sunnis are frustrated in the country and feel they are second-class citizens, forcing many of them to demand the establishment of geographic and non-sectarian regions, because they support the unity of Iraq." For these remarks, he was condemned by the White Iraqi National Movement, which is a splinter group formed in March from Allawi's al-Iraqiya bloc that is predominantly Sunni.

Nevertheless, there are good grounds to think that calls for federalism beyond rhetorical threats could significantly increase on account of the ongoing splits within the al-Iraqiya movement. More and more members are becoming frustrated at Allawi's inability to counter al-Maliki's attempts to control areas of government like the Defense Ministry that should have been awarded to al-Iraqiya in accordance with the compromise agreement drawn up by Massoud Barzani in December 2010. Most recently, members of the 'Solution Bloc' have split from al-Iraqiya only this month.

Hence, it is to be hoped that exasperation with the persistent personal power struggles among the Iraqi political elite will multiply calls for autonomy on a much larger and serious scale. Indeed, as Joel Wing notes, the preoccupation of the likes of al-Malki and Allawi with acquisition of political power for its own sake means that "the needs of the average lawmaker are hardly ever heard." This could well trigger a chain of events in the driver for federalism culminating in the realization of the ADM's goal of creating an autonomous region for Christians in the north. Such a development could also provide a safe haven for Syrian Christians if they are subject to attacks at the hands of the Sunni majority in the event of the downfall of Assad's regime.

Preserving Iraq's Assyrians: Federalism :: Middle East Forum

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"Wa tu izzu man-ta shaa, wa tu zillu man-ta shaa"

A Moral Tipping Point


Those Images of his corpse. That face, still alive but bloodied, hounded, and taunted. That bare head—suddenly and oddly bare! We were used to seeing him in turbans, and there was something poignant in the denuding that renders this criminal strangely pitiable.




You can say that the man was a monster. You can replay again and again the scenes that for eight months have haunted the friends of free Libya—the images of mass executions, torture, the hangings of April 7, the prisoners who were sort of buried alive until released from their prisons by the revolution—these and so many other victims of the dictatorship. You can point out that Gaddafi had a hundred chances to negotiate, to stop it all, to save himself, and that, if he elected not to do so, if he preferred to bleed his people to the very end, he chose his fate knowingly. You can observe that the West is not necessarily in the best position to teach the rest of the world lessons about revolutionary mercy. After all, don’t the Europeans still have on their consciences the massacres of September 1792 in France? What about the women whose heads were shaved after the liberation of Paris? Mussolini hung by his feet and abused? The Ceausescus slaughtered like old cattle?




I don’t buy it. I may be an incurable romantic, or what amounts to the same thing, an unreconstructed opponent of the absolute evil that I believe the death penalty to be. There is, in the spectacle of Gaddafi’s lynching, something revolting. Worse, I fear that it will pollute the essential morality of an insurrection that had been, up to that point, almost exemplary. And anyone who knows something about revolutionary history knows that this could be the tipping point at which a democratic uprising begins to degenerate into its opposite.



Muammar Gaddafi's body in Misrata, Libya, on October 20, 2011., Michael Christopher Brown for Newsweek



I said as much by telephone to some of my friends in the National Transitional Council. I said it to Mustafa el-Sagizli, the leader of the fighters in Cyrenaica, who called me to share his joy after the liberation of Sirte. And then, later on Thursday, to the commander of the regiment that included the unruly elements that struck and killed Gaddafi. He was happy. He said (and he was right) that the disappearance of the tyrant opens a new page in the history of his country. Through a friend, a shipowner in Misrata who was translating into English for me, this commander gave me the scoop on the capture: “He treated us like rats, but he was the rat, down in his sewer pipe, and it was my fighters who found him, pulled him out of his hole, and subdued him.” To him, too, I said that this was indeed a great day, a new dawn for Libya, but that the nobility of the conqueror is measured in how he treats the vanquished.

“Do you know the difference between Caesar and Saladin?” I asked him. “Caesar, conqueror of the Gauls, lost the moral benefit of his victory by humiliating Vercingétorix, showing him off like a trophy before having him strangled. The glory of Saladin, by contrast, owes much to the magnanimity that he showed the Crusaders after he had defeated them and had them at his mercy.”



The commander seemed to understand. And the officials of the NTC whom I was able to reach sounded perfectly aware that the fate of the Libyan Spring may hang on these images. El-Sagizli, in particular, the prince of the Libyan resistance fighters and the organizer of the Benghazi resistance from the first days of March, clearly shared my concern. He is among those who insisted on a formal investigation, the very existence of which proves that the Libyan authorities are not rushing to cover up this act.

Two outcomes are possible.

Either this collective crime will be, like the beheading of the last king of France in Albert Camus’s account, the founding act of the coming era, which would be a terrible sign. Or it will be the swan song of a barbarous age, the end of the Libyan night, the death rattle of Gaddafi’s system, which, before expiring, must turn against its founder and inject him with his own venom, making way for a new era that will fulfill the promises of the Arab Spring.
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Translated from French by Steven B. Kennedy.


A Moral Tipping Point: On Gaddafi's Gory End - The Daily Beast

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"Wa tu izzu man-ta shaa, wa tu zillu man-ta shaa"

Cease fire declared in Sanaa, but clashes continue


From Mohammed Jamjoom and Hakim Almasmari, CNN

Cease fire declared in Sanaa, but clashes continue - CNN.com

__________________
"Wa tu izzu man-ta shaa, wa tu zillu man-ta shaa"