Karzai’s Compromises

Hamid Karzai is quite the shrewd politician. He realises that his foreign friends with the big guns could be leaving Afghanistan soon, and is expending considerable effort to ensure that he remains in power after they leave.

Renewed efforts to shore up local Afghani defense forces are meeting with the approval of Karzai and General David Petraeus, who knows as well as Karzai that the US and its allies are on the way out. Former UK Prime Minister Gordon Brown, in a hilarious political euphemism, once called the groups they are trying to form “community defense initiatives“. Such local forces are, in effect, militias or paramilitary units that are supposed to fight the Taliban or keep it at bay (or, to the truly deluded, dismantle and destroy it). But there are a couple of reasons why that might not happen.

First, it is unlikely that these local forces feel much loyalty to Hamid Karzai or his government, which is seen by many Afghans as a puppet of foreign occupiers. Even if Karzai were seen as legitimate, ordinary Afghans are not likely to respect a government that forces them to pay large portions of their income in bribes for public services. They may even join the other side. There is no reason to think they would be less loyal to the Taliban than anyone else who might pay their salaries. These bands of fighters will not protect Afghanistan but only their friends and family. If there is a more effective route to doing so, for instance getting paid better by income from poppy farming, which might come from anyone, they could take it.

Second, Karzai is making deals with the Taliban, too. The consummate pragmatist, Hamid Karzai realises that the Taliban is strong, stronger than he, and without thousands of ISAF troops behind him, his future is uncertain. The US government has blacklisted many Taliban leaders by name, which means placing them on a UN list presumably so that they are not allowed to fly or talk to officials anywhere the US or UN have enough influence to stop them. Hamid Karzai asked the UN to remove as many as 50 of the names from the blacklist so that he could talk to them. Besides the fact that they are not all terrorists (whatever American authorities say), Karzai is reaching out to those who will want to wrench power from him when he is weak.

Hillary will visit Kabul soon for an international conference on Afghanistan after her present trip to Islamabad. (Her visit and its urgency were heralded by a suicide bombing in Kabul yesterday, not far from the US embassy.) She will likely discuss the US’s plans for reintegrating low level Taliban, the militias, anti-corruption efforts and aid, all of which are meaningless if there is no strong commitment to them for the next ten or twenty years. But we do not have ten or twenty years. The Barack administration plans to begin, carefully, to withdraw troops from Afghanistan in 2011, a year before an election. 2011 and 12 could be interesting years for the short term future of Afghanistan; however, its medium and long terms are in the hands of Afghanis. A British withdrawal is scheduled for 2014; however, if British forces suffer inordinate casualties due to increased pressure from Afghan fighters, the curtain may fall before then. Karzai will attempt to make it look as if he was the strong leader who demanded that the foreign troops leave. The real reason ISAF troops are leaving, however, is because the citizens they answer to are no longer convinced it is in their interest to shore up another corrupt dictator of a failed state.

If all these deals and olive branches and community defense initiatives work, it could mean that the US government claim that Afghanistan will fall apart if it leaves might turn out false. Again, Karzai is a shrewd politician, which means he is a power broker, and his remaining in power for now might mean an end to the decades of conflict Afghanis have had to endure. Either way, Karzai’s actions are a clear indication that relying on the ISAF to always be there would be foolish.

If you want to help Haiti, open the border

The unfortunate nation of Haiti has still not recovered from the earthquake it suffered six months ago today. It has the marginal good luck of remaining in the news, albeit somewhere between stories of cats getting caught up trees. Many people have pledged their twenty dollars or what have you. However, if we are serious about helping Haitian people, we should let them leave.

Beside the over 200,000 dead and 300,000 injured in the quake, some one million people were left homeless. Haiti’s president Rene Preval said in the aftermath, “wipe away your tears to rebuild Haiti”; and the world said, Yes, we shall rebuild Haiti. Governments who have pledged aid to Haiti are behind in their commitments. The US government has delivered 2% of the aid it promised. Rebuilding, apparently, is not at the top of Barack’s priorities.

But perhaps rebuilding is not the solution for a failed state. Should we rebuild it so the same corrupt people can remain in power? So that deforestation can continue–if there are, indeed, any trees left? So that structural poverty and rampant crime are allowed to flourish? Surely “rebuilding” should mean “recreating”.

One easier and cheaper way to solve Haiti’s problems is to let its people come to the rich world. There are two compelling reasons to think this solution is worth considering. First, for the self-interested, immigration is a great way to increase wealth and economic power wherever it is introduced. According to estimates cited in the book Let Their People Come by Lant Pritchett and the Center for Global Development, full liberalisation of global labour markets, enabling all the world’s workers to migrate to where they can be most efficiently employed, would result in an incredible $40t in world GDP gains. The money is available to whichever country is willing to let people through. It is also a huge boon to the developing world. Remittances, money sent home by migrant workers, totaled some $300b in 2006. Manuel Orozco, an expert on remittances, estimates that 30% of Haiti’s economic wealth comes in the form of remittances. Given that the money is sent to individuals to spend as they see fit, the benefits of remittances far outweigh those of development aid and loans to corrupt governments.

Second, criminalising immigration has proven extremely problematic in the short term. Turning away asylum seekers and economic refugees could lead to more disastrous and widespread conflict, which would, if it grew along with barriers to immigration, spill over into the anti-immigrant rich world. Never mind the Culture Wars; trying to prevent all immigration would mean more of the real kind.

The merciful, logical and even self-interested course for the rich world to take for Haiti or any disaster-struck zone is not to restack the rubble but to let people, rich and poor, come to their countries and begin new lives.

Greens, nukes, fears: untangling Iran

Iran is not a place easy to explain in a few sentences, or even in a few books. As those who observe (rather than avert their eyes from) Iran can tell you, it is a land of contrasts. It is simultaneously a democracy and a theocratic dictatorship. Its Revolutionary Guard (IRGC) is highly reactionary. Its president spouts silly racist slurs against Israel and Jews while ignoring the fact that Iran’s own Jewish population is a protected minority. Naturally, Iran poses us questions many feel must be answered soon. To reduce the dangers from the falsehoods typically circulated in our media, better understanding of Iran would be beneficial.

Twelve months ago, I cautioned against too much wishful thinking regarding Iran’s election and its Green Movement. People living outside Iran, many of whom do not know anything about the country, were quick to pounce on the claim that Iran’s election was fraudulent. Not long after, two scholars went through all widely-published accusations and discredited them. As the Green Movement protesters picked up steam, many well-meaning Americans and Europeans rooted for whom the media told them were the good guys. The news from Iran was so difficult to ascertain that the hopeful relied on rumours as much as reporting. Twitter was the frequently-quoted medium that was apparently being used by the Green Movement to coordinate their actions. However, as Mehdi Yahyanejad, the manager of “Balatarin,” one of the Internet’s most popular Farsi-language websites, told the Washington Post, “Twitter’s impact inside Iran is zero…. Here, there is lots of buzz, but once you look… you see most of it are Americans tweeting among themselves.” Outsiders believed, for example, that Oxfordgirl, a Twitter profile, was, in her own words, “almost coordinating people’s individual movements” by cell phone on days of protests. She presumably hoped no one would mention that the Iranian government shut down cell phone networks on days of protests. It also made little sense for all the supposed protesters to tweet in English when they were in Iran. Oxfordgirl gained great publicity for herself, but did little to aid protesters.

The Green Movement was disappointing to those praying that Iran would collapse in on itself or undergo a democratic revolution. However, a revolution is not what all of its members were fighting for. The Greens have been better described as a civil rights movement than a revolutionary one. Siavash Saffari, a scholar at the University of Alberta, points to the various forms that protest in Iran has taken since last year’s election: a recent general strike in Iran’s Kurdish area, demands from labour organisations for rights and vigorous debate among Iranians about Iran’s direction. Hamid Dabashi, professor of Iranian studies at Colombia University, deplores the support the well-meaning crowd gave the Greens as typical, ignorant, self-indulgent Orientalism that is more likely to hurt relations with Iran than give the movement the support it needs. Twisted perceptions built up the Green Movement into something it was not and disillusion with it was inevitable. Only sober thinking will help us understand enough about Iran to make wise decisions regarding its nuclear programme.

Frankly, I am opposed to my having any power over another state’s goals, but the belief among Americans that the world’s business is America’s business is not about to go away. But perhaps the demonisation of Iran, its branding as a fanatical Muslim state desperate to get nuclear weapons so it can wipe Israel off the map could be dispelled with a little clarity. Iran is not Nazi Germany. It is not about to invade its neighbours or attempt to obliterate Israel. In fact, it probably could not if it wanted. In spite of its president’s posturing, Iran’s military budget is smaller per capita than any other state in the Gulf beside the UAE (an ally of the US). To whom does it pose a threat?

To Israel? To the Israeli Defense Forces, one of the best trained militaries in the world, with its nuclear arsenal and its ability to crush any military in the Middle East? I have discussed the infinitesimal likelihood Iran will attack Israel elsewhere. In my opinion, Israel is far more likely to use nuclear weapons on Iran than vice versa. Israel has been involved in numerous wars, large and small, since its founding in 1948. Iran has spent most of the last hundred and fifty years fighting colonialist oppression, and has not once in that time invaded a neighbour. Given their records, who is more likely to fire on whom?

Iran’s government is often accused of funding and supplying arms to Hamas. This support is then employed as an excuse not to talk to Iran, or Hamas as the case may be. However, former senior British diplomat Sir Jeremy Greenstock said in an interview with the BBC that Hamas is not politically tied to Iran. On a logical level, if Iran is supplying Hamas with arms, it is a sign of Iran’s weakness, not its strength. Hamas has no tanks, no aircraft, no ships, no artillery, no missiles besides Qassam rockets, which are so weak that of the nearly 10,000 fired at Israel in the past decade, just over 20 have actually killed anyone. It is well known that Iran supports Hezbollah (though that support recently came in the form of reconstruction aid, as Iran helped rebuild Lebanon after the 2006 Hezbollah-Israel war), but like Hamas, Hezbollah poses little threat to Israel’s existence. Meanwhile, the Badr Corps, a key US ally in Iraq, was once part of Iran’s Revolutionary Guard. The US government has designated the Revolutionary Guard a terrorist organisation (even though it has never engaged in terrorism) and the Badr Corps a pillar of Iraq’s democracy.

In 2003, the US led an invasion of Iraq based partly on the testimony of a few exiled Iraqis and orientalist scholars who assured Americans they would be treated as liberators. Their Iranian counterparts and many of the same “experts” are providing Americans with the same lies in an attempt to lead the US into yet another foolish foreign adventure. Christopher Hitchens, for instance, who backed the invasion of Iraq, warns with his dispensable eloquence that Iran’s leaders might follow through on Ayatollah Kharrazi’s threat to establish a Greater Iran in Bahrain and the UAE. Such people have some difficulty in understanding people in other parts of the world because they are not able to put themselves in the shoes of those from other cultures. They believe that all the world’s people want democracy, which to them means political parties and a constitution. But Juan Cole, who has lived in and studied the Muslim world for many years, says that among Muslims he has met, democracy means freedom from foreign oppression. As ironic as it may seem, this revelation means that dictatorship would be viewed more favourably by Muslims than American-backed political competition. Iran, having suffered all manner of foreign intervention, is no exception.

Iran is probably developing a nuclear weapon, and its leaders will probably continue to promise violence. But a look at the evidence says there is little reason to worry that Iran’s leaders’ threats are worth heeding. What are we so afraid of? Listening to an adversary? Fortunately, the truth is available to all of us, waiting to be found, ready to disprove any of the fears that could warrant war with Iran.

Funerals, the Turkish public and war with the PKK

Anti-PKK demonstration in Turkey

For the past two decades, the Turkish military has been at war with the Kurdistan Workers’ Party, or PKK, a terrorist group once fighting for independence from Turkey for the nation’s Kurds (but now probably just fighting for amnesty). The conflict has become a drawn out war of attrition, and some 40,000 have been killed. Some of the 40,000 have been Turkish soldiers. We see in Turkish public reaction to the killing of Turkish soldiers a hardening and increased polarisation of attitudes, a push for an escalation of the fighting against the terrorists. This reaction can be found at the soldiers’ funerals.

Like most modern nationalists, Turkish nationalists consider Turkey’s territorial integrity inviolable. Mustafa Kemal Atatürk, the founder of modern Turkey (Atatürk means father of the Turks), laid out the principles of the new Turkish nationalism in the 1920s, and one of them was complete independence and sovereignty over the land Turkey covers. Moreover, while Turkey comprises some 73 ethnic groups, they are all considered Turks. Ethnic Kurds, whose ethnic consciousness stretches back before the 20th century, and who make up about 20% of Turkey’s population, had their dreams of independence turned down. Atatürk’s successor, Ismet Inonu, stated “Only the Turkish nation is entitled to claim ethnic and national rights in this country. No other element has any such right.” Any movement perceived as inimical to the homogenisation of Turkey’s people and the unity of its borders needed to be crushed. The Turkish military would ensure, and die for, this principle. When soldiers die defending nationalist principles, nationalists grieve.

Though different cultures face death differently, such grieving mechanisms as crying, fear and anger are universal. People most commonly go through feelings of shock, disbelief and numbness, then guilt, attempting to comprehend the death, and in the end, recovery. Funerals take place near the beginning of this process, when people are still shocked, afraid, angry and ready to point fingers. Far from being a catharsis, funerals may fuel anger at the perpetrator. For years now, funerals for Turkish soldiers have become rallying grounds for expressions of anti-PKK sentiment.

In September 2006, dozens of Turkish soldiers died in skirmishes with the PKK in the latter’s one time stronghold, the southeast of Turkey. At the funeral of one soldier, thousands of people protested. The protest was as much pressure on the Turkish authorities to act as it was protest against the PKK. The government had recently introduced legal reforms proposed to let the air out of some Kurdish grievances, but they may have been too little, too late. The reforms may also have been merely cosmetic, designed to appease the European Union but do nothing to stop terrorism. An election was ten months away, and no party expecting to win could afford to look soft on terror.

October 2007 saw more fighting and killing between Turkish soldiers and Kurdish militants. Headlines in Turkey declared that the PKK wanted to split Turkey, they wanted war, they wanted to damage Turkey as much as possible. During one soldier’s funeral in Bursa, in northwest Turkey, 10,000 people are said to have paralysed traffic to protest and, in effect, demand military action against, the PKK. “We are all soldiers, we will smash the PKK“, they chanted in front of a mosque. Government and military officials attended the funerals, which were held 11 provinces in Turkey and broadcast live on several television stations. About a fifth of the population of a town southeast of Ankara demonstrated, shouting “the martyrs are immortal, the motherland is indivisible,” and “hang Apo”, the PKK’s jailed founder and leader. Each protest reflected and spurred a rising anti-PKK (and inevitably among some, anti-Kurd) nationalism in Turkey.

As a result of this pressure, along with political battles also taking place at the time, Turkey’s parliament voted overwhelmingly to grant the military greater freedom in the war on the PKK and approve of incursion into northern Iraq, where the PKK were hiding out. On February 21, 2008, between 3000 and 10,000 Turkish soldiers deployed in the region in Turkey’s biggest offensive in a decade. (See more on the incursion here.) But the violence did not abate, and five months after the conclusion of hostilities, the PKK struck again, this time on a street in Istanbul. Such incessant terrorism leads quite easily to the feeling among Turks that the terrorists are insatiable and will stoop to any level.

I should note that anti-Kurdish racism is not exploding. A survey of Turks and Kurds in 2009 found most willing to have the other marry into their families. Moreover, terrorism was not the most important issue to those surveyed–it was third, after the economy and unemployment. Nonetheless, the pressure on the government to act to end the war has not ended.

Attacks have occurred more recently (see here and here, for example). One online Turkish news outlet describes the soldiers killed and their funerals. At one, thousands of people, including senior military officers, attended. The crowd chanted “the homeland is indivisible” and “Kurds and Turks are brothers, separatists are hypocrites”. Eight Army Corps Commander Mustafa Korkut Özarslan spoke at the funeral, vowing that the Turkish army would never allow the PKK to achieve its goals. The people of Turkey are not about to let this conflict end inconclusive.

The unbeatable logic against the War on Drugs

How is the War on Drugs still not over? Why are drugs still illegal? The testimonies, the moral arguments, the numbers: all point with inescapable logic to the fact that drug prohibition and its enforcement is more costly than its alternatives. More and more people are speaking out against it: see here, here, here and here for news articles written just in the past two days by mainstream media outlets concerned that the War on Drugs is unwinnable, unnecessary, an attack on our freedoms and an assault on the lives and livelihoods of millions. I will let their words explain the arguments further. Suffice it to say, nearly every country in the world, every major city, is feeling the pain of organised crime and state violence.

More violence is being employed in the fight against the “scourge” of drug trafficking. I was under the impression that the targeting of poppy farms in Afghanistan would be terminated, and I approve. It turned out, however, that we were misled. The violence against Afghan poppy farmers has just taken a dangerous and probably illegal twist.

We need a shift in mindset. Very few problems are permanently solved with laws, police, violence, repression, incarceration or war. We treat the mentally and physically ill like patients, smokers as victims and drug users as criminals. We ignore the quiet but powerful special interests that perpetuate the War on Drugs. And democrats need to believe in and use the power of their political system to change failed and foolish policies. I suggest writing to your congresspeople or members of parliament to legalise all drugs, to help make the world safer and smarter.

As logical as the arguments against the War on Drugs are, they may require an infusion of pathos, the other element in a persuasive argument. I would like to see more articles like this one prominently displayed in newspapers. The photo that greets is of a body, freshly bathed in blood from Jamaica’s drug war, and the article title is “Jamaica bleeds for our ‘war on drugs’”. Let mainstream media show more of the victims of this wrongheaded policy and ask more of the questions that need to be asked: when will American politicians rebuff the special interests and do what is right; when will foreign state representatives reject American pressure to fight their war; when will the people on the fence start paying attention and acting; when will more media join in the chorus.

At the moment, entrenched interests are blocking chances at reform. But there is hope. As even in the notoriously conservative United States a rising number of people is in favour of legalising marijuana, there are ever more signs that the War on Drugs is coming to an end. Those of you who agree with me, keep pushing: soon the scales will tip.

Sheep thinking and the push for war

We like to think of ourselves as autonomous individuals with opinions formed on the basis of independent decisions. But the reality may be that we are little more than products of our culture, with our genetic differences thrown in to mix.

Certainly, we all think a little differently. I do not agree with anyone about everything, and I do not know anyone who does. Nevertheless, when we watch television, or read newspapers, or read books, we absorb the patterns of thought that unite us in belief and separate us from ourselves. A simple test:

Name the hero:
a) Your friend Johnny. b) me. c) The Dalai Lama.

Name the villain:
a) The baker on the corner. b) Peter from Family Guy. c) Osama bin Laden.

Almost everyone in our culture would get the same answers to both questions. We seem to succumb to a kind of cultural groupthink: agreeing without considering why. We hold up the Dalai Lama and other people as paragons of perfection in an imperfect world, while bin Laden (or perhaps Hitler) is the ultimate evil in the universe. Can one truly be an individual when one thinks the same as everyone else?

In teaching the method of “crap detecting” or “resistance to enculturation”, author Karl Albrecht says the following.

“It’s easy to become hypnotized by the swirl of messages that surround us: do this but don’t do that; buy this, own that, wear this, drive that; eat this, drink that, smoke this; don’t believe them–believe us; don’t side with them–side with us; demonize this person and idolize that person; worship this or that celebrity. We’re much more the products of our cultural environment than we want to believe.” (Karl Albrecht, Practical Intelligence, p139; italics in original.)

He also says that every society has a few “deep thinkers” and a large number of “sheep thinkers”. Sheep thinking not only limits our imagination, it could have enormous consequences. In Nuremberg Diary, Gustave Gilbert recounts a conversation he had with Hermann Goering, Hitler’s second in command, who revealed a deep understanding of the ability of the elites to control the sheeplike masses.

“Why, of course the people don’t want war. Why would some poor slob on a farm want to risk his life in a war when the best that he can get out of it is to come back to his farm in one piece?…But after all, it is the leaders of the country who determine the policy and it is always a simple matter to drag the people along, whether it is a democracy or a fascist dictatorship or a parliament or a communist dictatorship…. All you have to do is tell them they are being attacked and denounce the pacifists for lack of patriotism and exposing the country to danger. It works the same way in any country.”

History shows innumerable examples of the public’s approval of or even pushing for war. So often the elites throw the war into the open because of some high political squabble and make everyone think they need to go to war. As the idea of war mixes and churns in political discourse, in the media and in the minds of the people, it soon becomes a given that we must go to war. After all, we are being attacked.

Culture can be a kind of voluntary cult. Admittedly, we are not cut off from all opposing opinions; however, we do cut ourselves off from them by refusing to seek them out or denying them when they find us. People like clear and simple answers, emphasised repeatedly, which means their problems should have simple, explicable causes. Yesterday, it was, “the Jews are responsible for all our problems”; today, “Iran is developing nuclear weapons to destroy the world”. Such answers are inevitably framed in “us vs. them” terms, reinforcing divisive collectivist labels, as these are the most powerful of identities. Furthermore, the people need to believe they are thinking for themselves, that all their firmly-grasped ideas came to them in a fit of intelligence, not while absorbing propaganda. When one watches political debates, for instance, one assumes that the panel consists of the entire spectrum of thinkers on the subject, when generally there are only two or three perspectives out of a possible infinite number. Seeking out only opinions we agree with, favouring simple explanations and the erroneous belief that we think for ourselves lead us to shut off our capacity to reason. Instead, we become sheep and we follow the shepherds to war.

War crimes in Sri Lanka, but does it matter?

International law exists partly to deter the worst actions by governments. But so many violations of international law go unpunished. Much has been done by international actors such as the International Criminal Court (ICC) and its sponsors, and national courts invoking universal jurisdiction such as Spain’s and Britain’s to end impunity. But in general, international law is very hard to enforce and impunity is the rule, not the exception.

That is why the opening of a new chapter in the debate about war crimes committed by Sri Lanka’s government against the Tamil Tigers (LTTE) might be pointless. Several groups, including Human Rights Watch and the International Crisis Group, accuse the Sri Lankan government of war crimes. But while these groups can investigate, put together reports, publish findings and so on, they have no power to bring criminals to justice.

Leaving aside the fact that both the Sri Lankan military and the Tamil Tigers probably violated international law, the remaining question is, does it matter? Will anyone be brought to justice over it? The ICC has done a reasonably good job so far, with the help of national authorities, in prosecuting the most egregious offenders, but the fact that many of its indictees, such as Omar al-Bashir of Sudan, run free, is testament to the challenges the system has yet to overcome. But the progress made since World War Two has been impressive. It should continue. All Sri Lankan leaders, Tamil and Sinhalese, who violated human rights should be held accountable.

Hezbollah is the greatest threat to peace in Lebanon

UN special envoy Terje Roed-Larsen said recently that the continued existence of armed militias in Lebanon were a threat to regional peace. What he meant was that Hezbollah’s continued presence in Lebanon was a threat to Lebanon’s fragile peace and stability.

In 1989, to end the 15 year civil war that tore Lebanon apart, the ethno-religious militias agreed to disarm under the Taif Agreement. Most or all did so, except Hezbollah, which called itself a “resistance force” whose job it was to end Israeli occupation and all the rest of it. Hezbollah has remained armed and popular, particularly in southern Lebanon, where it is seen as the only competent defender of Shii Muslims against Israeli aggression. But it is precisely this popularity that imperils Lebanon.

Hezbollah’s boldness stems partly from its popularity. When Israeli forces attacked in 1982 and occupied parts of Lebanon after that until 2000, returning six years later to punish southern Lebanon in a devastating counter-attack, Hezbollah was the resister. Israeli commanders believed in 2006 that punishing Lebanese for supporting Hezbollah would turn them against the organisation, which was a serious miscalculation. From then till now, Hezbollah has been the hero of the people of southern Lebanon. It not only opposes Israel, it builds houses, provides health care and does everything Muslim charity (zakat) requires.

Hezbollah was required to destroy its weapons by UN Security Council Resolution 1559, but instead it waged a propaganda campaign against it. Terje Roed-Larsen said that, as long as Hezbollah retained its weapons, “there will always be tension”. Leaving aside Lebanon’s chronic instability and perennial conflict, as if that could be separated from wider regional issues, Hezbollah is always one move away from provoking another attack by Israel. Israeli raids on southern Lebanon have been a recurring feature of life there since violent resistance to Israel by Palestinian commandos began after the formation of the state of Israel. The Israeli government has always made it clear that it held the Lebanese state responsible for attacks from Lebanon on Israel, and in January it reiterated its policy. Yes, Israel shares the blame for the thousands it has killed; but Hezbollah usually throws the first punch. Hezbollah knows Israel will mount a huge offensive at small provocation like kidnapping and cardboard rockets, so they continue to poke the IDF. Other Palestinian militias exist in Lebanon but they do not cause a fraction of the trouble Hezbollah does. If it disarmed and renounced violence (which it will not as long as it exists), Israel would have no reason to invade Lebanon again.

But Hezbollah refuses to disarm. What is to be done? Disarm the group by force? Though this course is suggested by some, it would almost certainly provoke another major regional conflagration. Of course, failing to do so could mean little more than a delay of the same. Besides, given Hezbollah’s size, strength and support from Iran and Syria, it is unlikely that the Lebanese Armed Forces could disarm them. Could Hezbollah be given the incentive to accept a permanent peace?

Iran is Nazi Germany and other fairy tales

Benny Morris is one of Israel’s so-called “new historians”, a group of relative misfits in Israeli academia who dared, in the 1980s, to contradict the traditional narratives about the birth of Israel. He was one of the first to shatter the once widely accepted belief in Israel that hundreds of thousands Palestinians had left their homes in 1948 (the Nakba) because invading Arab armies told them to (in fact, it was because of Jewish violence). He has written several books since then and generally stuck to the facts. He has been considered pro-Palestinian and left-wing (refusing to serve in the West Bank during the first Intifada), but for the past decade or so he has become more of an ideologue, showing his true nationalist credentials.

Most recently, Morris wrote an opinion piece for the LA Times called “When Armageddon lives next door“. In it, he argues that President Barack is turning his back on Israel at a time when it is in mortal danger from Iran. Because Iran’s president has announced publicly that he wants to wipe Israel off the map, and because Iran seems to be building a nuclear bomb, Morris concludes that the US and Israel must attack Iran.

As with many like-minded people, Morris likens Iran with Nazi Germany. He reminds us that the international community did not take Hitler’s threats seriously until it was too late. Barack is too busy “obsessing over the fate of the ever-aggrieved Palestinians of the West Bank and Gaza Strip” and not spending enough time threatening Iran with military force. He says that Iran’s primary goal with its nuclear weapon is to destroy Israel. Engagement with Iran has failed and the US must either attack Iran itself or at least give Israel the green light to do so itself. “[T]he clock,” Morris warns us, “is ticking.”

Unfortunately, Benny Morris has been spending too much time reading Israeli newspapers and not enough time studying Iran. Morris’s article was written not by a historian but by an ideologue attempting to scare Americans into favouring war on Iran. His first mistake is his belief that Mahmoud Ahmadinejad has the power to fire nuclear weapons at Israel. As Reza Aslan, who does study Iran, asserts, the president of Iran is effectively powerless. It is not the president but the mullahs who will decide on the use of Iran’s nuclear weapons, or any weapons. The president talks tough about Israel, but given the menacing climate among the Israeli press, Israeli public opinion and Israeli government statements, he would look cowardly not to. Iranians presumably voted for him (at least the first time) because hardliners are the choice of people who feel under threat of war. Moreover, Morris has committed the Poli Sci 101 fallacy in believing that, because a politician says something he is bound to put it into action.

Second, comparing Iran with Nazi Germany is slimy, populist rhetoric with no basis in fact. Nazi Germany was a racist regime that continuously fed its people with anti-Jewish, anti-communist, anti-everyone propaganda. Iran is multicultural, and has no record of turning on its ethnic minorities. There are over 10,000 Jews in Iran, and they are allocated one seat in the Iranian parliament. Nazi Germany was, at its height, one of the major military powers of the world. Iran will probably never be one. It is relatively small, a middle income country, a third rate military power that has never expressed irredentist territorial ambitions. It is rife with internal dissent and any major actions that would lead to war would be unpopular enough at least to unseat the government.

Third, Morris claims that Barack’s attempts at engagement with Iran have failed. However, the Barack administration has not tried to appeal to Iran. Barack has generally kept Iran in a headlock and called it reaching out. I think we can forgive Iranians for not taking, say, a flurry of effort to impose sanctions on Iran as engagement. Real diplomacy is not all sticks.

Fourth, Iran is trying to position itself as a protector of Muslims in the Middle East. Given that 16% of Israeli citizens are Muslims, and that a nuclear bomb would almost inevitably strike Jerusalem, Islam’s third holiest city, how could Iran attack Israel with indiscriminate weapons and continue to hope for support from coreligionists?

Finally, as I have said repeatedly, Iran poses little military threat to Israel. All the people worrying about one or two bombs that could be fired at Israel ignore the fact that Israel has a large nuclear arsenal, most of which is likely aimed at various Iranian hotspots. Israel has one of the best trained and equipped militaries in the world. And it is close partners with the preeminent military superpower of our time. A nuclear strike on Israel would be justification enough for the US to join in Israel in attacking Iran, which would soon be reduced to rubble.

Alarmist rhetoric like Morris’s shows that he has strayed from a critically thinking and sober historian to a media hack that advocates the worst policies for Israel and the world. One thing he does know, however, is that fear is a powerful lever under the feet of those unacquainted with the facts.

The Stoics would have approved of Costa Rica

I have begun writing (well, researching) a new book on why and how the public approves of and thus legitimises war fought in its name. In a democracy, if not also in a dictatorship, the people must approve of or at least tolerate war if the state is going to commit billions of dollars and thousands of lives to it. Each section of my book will explore the causes of war from the public’s perspective. Some questions I will ask include, why did the American public allow the US to invade Iraq in 2003? How do Israeli history books affect the way Israelis see Arabs? Why do Christians and Muslims in Jos, Nigeria, fight each other? And why did some Buddhist monks in Sri Lanka encourage the war against the Tamil Tigers?

I have several ideas for an introduction. One of them is to discuss Costa Rica. Costa Rica is surely one of the most peaceful countries in the world. It has done what so few other states have: abolished its military and replaced it with a civil guard. And yet, this apparently easy target has managed to avoid most of the bloodshed that its neighbours in Central America have suffered. Before going into why this might be, let us turn to the lens through which we will analyse Costa Rica: stoicism.

An article by William O. Stephens in Star Wars and Philosophy entitled “Stoicism in the Stars: Yoda, the Emperor and the Force” describes Yoda as a stoic. The stoics in ancient Greece believed in acting virtuously and in harmony with their fate. They remained happy by accepting the things they could not change. They were in no danger from the Dark Side of the Force.

Yoda was patient. He lived waiting for the jedi to arrive so that he could train him. When Luke Skywalker arrived in Yoda’s swamp, insisting that they hurry to be taken to the jedi master, Yoda bid him stay and eat first. During training, Yoda implores Luke to focus on the present. The jedi’s mind does not wander to future adventures but remains rooted in the present, choosing the right moves for the right time. Instead of seeking excitement and risk, the jedi seeks virtue through control of his emotions, equanimity and calmness. The jedi’s mind is at peace, even when all around is chaos. The jedi may be happy and humorous. He avoids anger, fear, aggression: The Dark Side of the Force are they. He uses the Force for wisdom and defence, but never aggression. Let us see how Costa Rica fits this mold.

First, as mentioned above, Costa Rica has no military. That means it cannot, at least not easily, prosecute a war of aggression. Not only is aggression clearly not a virtue in Costa Rica, it has become effectively impossible.

Second, Costa Rica ranks first in the 2009 Happy Planet Index, which measures happiness, health and sustainable development. This achievement accords with its rank of third in the world and first in Latin America in the Environmental Performance Index for 2010.

Third, its history has been more peaceful than those of its neighbours. It went through a civil war in 1948–for six weeks. Contrast this with Nicaragua’s ten year civil war and Guatemala’s incredible 36 year civil war and we see that Costa Ricans have escaped the misfortune that they could have. This observation of chaos outside its borders and peace within presumably allowed Costa Ricans the privileges of stoicism.

Oscar Arias Sanchez, elected president of Costa Rica in 1986, is a jedi. In 1987, he won the Nobel Peace Prize for negotiating the Esquipulas Peace Agreement that played a major role in ending the wars of ideology and beginning democratisation in Central America. He has also won the Albert Schweitzer Prize for Humanitarianism and is a trustee of the NGO Economist for Peace and Security.

Oscar Sanchez was reelected in 2006. At a speech in Trinidad and Tobago last year, he reprimanded fellow Latin American leaders for spending too much on their militaries and not enough on education. He was proposing they leave the path to the Dark Side and seek wisdom, enlightenment, peace.

Costa Rica is a strong example of a peaceful state. It could be an excellent introduction to my next book, as a contrast to the states I will be examining.