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Politics : Foreign Affairs Discussion Group -- Ignore unavailable to you. Want to Upgrade?

To: JohnM who wrote (69572)	1/28/2003 4:44:01 PM
From: paul_philp	Respond to of 281500

John, The only speculation I have heard is that the Likud strength and Labour weakness makes it unlikely that Labor will stick with the no coalition promise. Some feel that Mitzna has no power now and cannot resist joining the coalition. The fact that Labor + Shinui + Likud looks to be enough to form a coalition adds to the dynamic. Sharon can form a narrow right wing coalition OR a broad centrist coalition. It seems pretty clear that the general public attitude would support the broader coalition since it might last longer and cover the largest part of the population. I heard a political strategist for Sharon say something to the effect that 'Tonight isn't the real world, the real world is what President Bush wants'. I took that to mean that at least a faction within Likud wants the broader coalition so that Sharon can implement the roadmap to a Palestinian state without risking the government. Making Bush the heavy, look what he's forcing us to do, might give Sharon some cover. Of course, if he leaves Shas out and upsets the religious Jews, he risks the 'Rabin solution'. He would certainly light a candle underneath Netanyahu (sp?). My gut feeling is, if the numbers hold, he will build the broad coalition. Could just be a fantasy but the logic seems compelling, I do think Bush willplay the heavy. Paul

To: JohnM who wrote (69572)	1/28/2003 5:05:29 PM
From: stockman_scott	Read Replies (1) \| Respond to of 281500

THE PRESENT DANGER "Standing In Defense of International Law, International Cooperation, and Multilateralism" presentdanger.org January 28, 2003 ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~ Introducing a new commentary from The Project Against the Present Danger Pump Up the Pentagon, Hawks tell Bush By Jim Lobe While public opinion polls show that most of the U.S. public is concerned about the economy, hawks in the Bush administration see another problem as more urgent: the Pentagon is poor. Last week a group of influential right-wing figures close to Pentagon chief Donald Rumsfeld and Vice President Dick Cheney complained that the current military budget of almost $400 billion -- already greater than the world's 15 next-biggest military establishments combined -- is not enough to sustain U.S. strategy abroad. In a letter to the president released on the eve of his State of the Union Address, the Project for the New American Century (PNAC), whose alumni include both Rumsfeld and Cheney, as well as most of their top aides, called for increasing the defense budget by as much as $100 billion next year. "Today's military is simply too small for the missions it must perform," said the letter whose signatories included mainly key neo-conservatives, former Reagan administration officials, and a number of individuals close to big defense manufacturers like Lockheed Martin. "By every measure, current defense spending is inadequate for a military with global responsibilities." The letter also suggested that Washington should prepare for confrontations with North Korea, Iran, and China. Jim Lobe <jlobe@starpower.net> is a policy analyst for Foreign Policy In Focus (online at www.fpif.org). He also writes regularly for Inter Press Service. See complete new Present Danger commentary online at: presentdanger.org <http://www.presentdanger.org/commentary/2003/0301pnac.html> With printer-friendly PDF version at: presentdanger.org <http://www.presentdanger.org/pdf/gac/0301pnac.pdf> For Background and other analysis see: PNAC's Open Letter to the President about the defense budget. newamericancentury.org <http://www.newamericancentury.org/Bushletter-012303.htm> PNAC'S Present Dangers As Blueprint for Bush Doctrine By Tom Barry presentdanger.org <http://www.presentdanger.org/frontier/2002/1031neocon.html> A Strategy Foretold By Tom Barry presentdanger.org <http://www.presentdanger.org/papers/foretold.html> U.S. Foreign Policy-Attention, Right Face, Forward March By Tom Barry and Jim Lobe fpif.org <http://www.fpif.org/papers/02right/index.html> ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~ Distributed by The Project Against the Present Danger, an initiative of Foreign Policy In Focus (FPIF), which is a joint project of the Interhemispheric Resource Center (IRC) and the Institute for Policy Studies (IPS). To report problems or request that we remove you from future mailings, email: communications@irc-online.org. We honor all removal requests and will never share your name or address with third parties. ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~ Interhemispheric Resource Center (IRC) irc-online.org <http://www.irc-online.org/> Siri D. Khalsa Communications Coordinator Email: communications@irc-online.org

To: JohnM who wrote (69572)	1/28/2003 5:56:32 PM
From: paul_philp	Respond to of 281500

Sharon 'wants a broad-based coalition' (CNN) --Exit polls project a strong win for Israeli Prime Minister Ariel Sharon and his Likud party in elections Tuesday, raising questions about what kind of government Sharon will try to form. CNN senior political analyst Bill Schneider talked to chief international correspondent Christiane Amanpour in Tel Aviv, Israel, on Tuesday about the future of the government. AMANPOUR: An Israeli newspaper recently dubbed these Israel's "curious" elections. ... Curious indeed, Bill. And what is most on people's minds is what's going to happen tomorrow. What kind of a government is Israel going to see? SCHNEIDER: Well, we don't know if it's going to be a broad-based government of national unity. That is clearly what Ariel Sharon wants. But this election is important because the kind of government that Israel is electing today will determine the prospects for peace. Now, how can we be talking about peace? The Labor Party ...really ran on the Oslo peace process, and this election could confirm that Oslo is dead. That is where the war with Iraq could come in, because if ... Saddam Hussein is overthrown, it will open up new prospects for peace, and Sharon wants to be the man who negotiates that deal. He wants a broad-based coalition. He does not want to depend on a narrow base of right-wing parties because he wants maximum flexibility. Notice what we're saying here, something quite remarkable: Ariel Sharon as a moderate. AMANPOUR: And if he is unable to pursue that, and if he has to go into a coalition with right-wing religious parties and form a narrow government, what kind of pressure would that put on him, vis-a-vis his relations with the United States, with the rest of the world, particularly at this time? SCHNEIDER: It will be very difficult for him because he will have no flexibility. He will have a very small coalition. It's unlikely to last very long, and he will have no flexibility to make the deal [on a framework for peace] that President Bush proposed in June of 2002, a deal that involves [establishing] a Palestinian state [by the end of 2003]. Every time President Bush talks about a new peace initiative, he talks about a Palestinian state. And Sharon has indicated a willingness to at least consider the possibility of a Palestinian state. AMANPOUR: And some of these potential coalition-makers would not consider that. [The] Bush administration's worst nightmare, surely, ... as it contemplates further action in the Arab-Islamic world, is to have a government [here] that could further inflame feelings? SCHNEIDER: That's right, and that's exactly what a narrow, right-wing government would do. And so, oddly, Sharon is trying to create a government of national unity. In his victory statement tonight, he has indicated, he will reach out to the Labor Party. Oddly, what's happening is the Labor Party doesn't want to go into that government of national unity, and the Shinui Party, another [potential] coalition partner, says it won't go into a government unless it's a government of national unity. So [Sharon's] options are very limited. cnn.com

To: JohnM who wrote (69572)	1/29/2003 6:13:16 AM
From: stockman_scott	Respond to of 281500

War Is Not Yet Necessary By Jessica Mathews Editorial The Washington Post Tuesday, January 28 Two supreme questions still demand convincing answers: "Why war?" and "Why now?" The reasons that have been offered collapse under scrutiny. The threat posed by Iraq is contained for now. Any attempt at external aggression would be instantly overwhelmed. Inside the country, the inspection teams preclude any significant advance in weapons-of-mass-destruction programs. The only other source of threat is the extremely unlikely possibility that Saddam Hussein would give some of what he regards as his crown jewels to terrorists. That would be to put his life in the hands of those he cannot control. The only condition under which he would be remotely tempted to do so would be if he believed he was about to be wiped out -- in a war. Weigh that risk against the near certainty that a war will be seen in the region as an American war that will draw thousands of new recruits into the ranks of terrorist America-haters. The U.S. homeland is unready for that threat. The only possible conclusion is that while the status quo is safe for the American people, a war will put us at great risk. The administration's answer to "Why war?" is that Saddam Hussein has failed to "voluntarily disarm." Who expected that he would? Security Council Resolution 1441 demanded a complete disclosure by Iraq of its programs, but the inspections were never envisaged as an exercise in voluntary surrender. They were undertaken as an attempt at forcibly coerced disarmament just short of war, under conditions much tougher and more invasive of Iraqi sovereignty than anything previously attempted. Such a regime would never have been set up if all that was going to be needed was a team to verify a voluntary surrender. The resolution demanded a full declaration not in the expectation of getting one but because every fact Iraq could be pressured into revealing is one inspectors do not have to uncover. Iraq's failure to come clean is indisputably a material breach of the resolution, but the question remains, is it a reason to go to war? Regarding the timing, a study released this week by the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace reveals that far from being "exhausted," as Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld described it, the inspection process has barely begun. The teams received their first bits of intelligence just three weeks ago, and much is still being held back. The first helicopter flight -- essential for no-notice inspections -- occurred on Jan. 5. Eight U.N. helicopters are in Baghdad now. The inspection teams are not yet at full strength. They are less than halfway through inspecting the more than 700 sites that the earlier inspection effort identified and have hardly started to examine new sites. The crucial tracking down of banned imports is in its earliest stages. Most important, overhead surveillance, without which the most sensitive sites cannot even be attempted, has not yet begun. Inspections have neither failed nor succeeded. Much more time -- about a year -- is required to reach either outcome. (A six-month to two-year time frame is the range every expert and every study, including the administration, cited as necessary long before Resolution 1441 was negotiated.) The crucial issue, therefore, is on what grounds the United States would terminate inspections in midcourse in favor of an immediate invasion. That Hussein is a determined liar is hardly news. Only if the government's true aim is not, as stated, to disarm Hussein but rather to remove him as a matter of principle does a turn to war at this moment make sense. If that is the case, of course, the inspection and disarmament process now underway is irrelevant -- and probably was even as it was being negotiated. If so, it would be an exercise in bad faith for which the United States will pay dearly for years. Given the immense costs and risks of war, which rise sharply without broad international support, inspections should continue until they are seriously obstructed (which should trigger an immediate invasion) or succeed. To keep the pressure on, U.S. forces must stay where they are. There is an economic and human cost to this deployment, but it is minuscule compared with the costs, in both dimensions, that would be incurred by a war. Blix must be quickly pressured to undo the blunder he has made in negotiating with Iraq over U-2 surveillance flights. The Iraqis must simply be told that if there is any physical interference it will mean the end of inspections, and if they tail the planes into the no-fly zones, their planes will be shot down. End of discussion. These are comply-or-else inspections, and such negotiations should never have been allowed to begin. An aim of U.S. policy must be to put the onus on each of the permanent members of the Security Council, in particular, to place its complete commitment behind the intent of Resolution 1441 to disarm Iraq. If that can be achieved without war, and no one can do more now than guess at the result either way, it will be a tremendous victory for President Bush. A war at this moment, however, regardless of the outcome, will bear one of history's harshest judgments: an unnecessary war. ________________________________________________________ The writer is president of the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace. © 2003 The Washington Post Company washingtonpost.com