What Happened This Weekend at the ISF, A View from the Press Room. Part 2

The Elephant in the Room: Iran. The Tiger Behind the Elephant: China.

This article is a continuation of Part 1. The reader would be best served by reading Part 1 before delving into Part 2.

The United States Congressional delegation, consisting of Senators John McCain, Lindsey Graham, and Mark Udall, was supposed to decode the American election for the International Security Forum. Unfortunately, the delegation was unable to decode the election, and could only speculate what the new foreign policy outlook of this recently dumbed-down version of the American government will look like. That being said, the world will not stop spinning while the new Republicans in Congress and the weakened Democratic Senate figure out how to get along.

In case you forgot, this is a conference to figure out who America and its NATO pals are planning to single out over the coming months for sanctions, harsh words, or worse! At the forefront of everyone’s minds is, of course, the Islamic Republic of Iran. Big, bad, Iran is next on the American hit list, and who better than the thinking man’s George W. Bush, Senator Lindsey Graham, to stoke the fires of war.

As has by now been widely reported, Graham did respond at the ISF that if America were to take military action against Iran, the campaign would be “...not to just neutralize their nuclear program, which are probably dispersed and hardened, but to sink their navy, destroy their air force and deliver a decisive blow to the Revolutionary Guard. In other words, neuter that regime.”

Ouch. The word ‘neuter’ is the kind of word that sticks in everybody’s mind. Graham did add that he hopes that sanctions work, but the sound bite heard round the world for the next week will be that one phrase. “Neuter that regime.”

On the other hand, if we move past the knee-jerk reaction to Graham’s southern bluster, there is a great deal more to be gleaned from the proceedings of the ISF. America and its ire for Iran are certainly a story from the Forum. But in my opinion, America and China, whose invitation to the ISF must have gotten lost in the mail, are the story of the Forum.

 There is a reason that American-imposed sanctions against Iran don’t dull the verbal jousting of Iranian president Mahmoud Ahmadinejad, himself always good for a quote. That reason is China. The UN has issued four rounds of sanctions against Iran, and as fast as they print ‘em, Iran says it will defy ‘em. China and Iran are in deep, and whether or not the Iranians are developing nuclear arms, the Chinese are not going to give up on the numerous billions of dollars in trade it enjoys with Iran. When questioned by Min-soon Song, a member of the National Assembly from South Korea, Senator Graham lamented that if only China would get on board with sanctioning Iran, the sanctions might be more potent.

Graham also notes that the mood of the new American government will be confrontational towards China, and that the currency issue, as it relates to recent American charges that China is manipulating its currency to the detriment of American trade, will take centre stage in upcoming Sino-American relations. Ornstein, the pundit, notes that if there was one thing that will unite the new government it is the bi-partisan view that China is “dangerous”.

We should note that on Wednesday, November 3rd, the Fed announced it would print 600 billion more dollars, thus significantly devaluing the American dollar on the global market. When America prints money they call it a stimulus package. When China prints money they call it manipulation.

Most telling, perhaps, was this statement from Senator Graham.

“When we (America) borrow as much from them (China) as we do, when they own as much (of America) as they do, there’s little they or we can do.”

Directly, at this juncture, there is little they can do to each other. Indirectly though, it is unfortunate that Iran appears to be the staging ground upon which the two global powers will play out the latest act in their love/hate relationship.   

 

We’ll Take Care of the Big Picture. Uncle Sam needs you to watch your Neighbour. Especially if He’s Young and Been to Somalia.

You know you’re at the wrong party when Dame Pauline Neville-Jones, Security Minister in the Home Office, UK, Ehud Barak, Minister of Defence, Israel, and Janet Napolitano, Secretary of Homeland Security, USA, get rolled out as the comedy relief. But there they are, presiding over one more open-panel discussion with the guffaw-inducing title of “Protecting the Public: Job Number One.”

Barak espouses upon the benefits of profiling one’s own citizenry. Apparently, when all levels of governmental security work together and function smoothly, as he claims that they do in Israel, the 5% of the population that is considered a “suspicious element” jumps out automatically. In a cryptic statement, Barak mentions that “The public is aware that things need to be dealt with.” Can you see the dark van coming for you, too?

Min-soon Song, quickly becoming my favourite figure at the ISF, tries to nail Barak, but the old politician is too greasy a fighter. Song mentions that when he visited Israel in 1997, he learned a great deal about incident response from the Israeli forces. He went back to South Korea, and was able to incorporate the lessons he learned. Sounds scary. Returning in 2007, Song visited Gaza and saw jobless, loitering, Palestinians on the streets, and thought to himself that this was the real source of insurrection. With all the efforts made towards increasing technology and self-monitoring, Song asks Barak about the opportunity for jobs and training being made available for Palestinians.

Without missing a beat, Barak notes that things have radically changed since 2007, and invites Song to visit Gaza and see the difference three years have made. Barak then notes that giving women the opportunity to get a high school education will make all the difference in Gaza. Once women begin participating in the workforce, the Palestinian birthrate will decrease, and there won’t be jobless and loitering people on the streets anymore. (Note to Barak: even the most conservative studies put unemployment in Gaza at about 50%. High school educated, unemployed Palestinian women will stop making babies? Some contingency plan.)

 Not to be outdone in this carnival of idiots, Janet Napolitano pipes up and mentions that the best way to intervene in that critical stage between when a prospective terrorist starts studying violence, and when he/she decides to start committing violence, is through community policing. She makes a troubling reference to a hypothetical situation where unemployed youth, who you don’t know, visit Somalia, and how you should report on them.

In short, suspect everyone and keep yourself occupied with ratting out your neighbour. Play soldier in your own backyard while America and its friends invade Iran. Things are far more complicated than this, but the message from the International Security Forum this weekend was not.

Stay tuned for one more instalment from the ISF, where we take a look at what got said on the other side of the steel barricade! A few dozen stalwart protestors braved the elements, and we’ll have a look at what they were preaching!