The Tel Aviv Connection

What is Tel Aviv to do now that it’s known Israelis and pro-Israelis ‘fixed’ the intelligence that induced the U.S. to war in Iraq?

Fool me once, shame on you. Fool me twice, shame on me. Con me consistently for six decades and the relationship is over, as is Israel’s credibility as a legitimate nation state.

Tel Aviv knows this. But what can the Zionist state do about it? Answer: Wikileaks.

Why now? Misdirection. Shine the spotlight on Washington to take it off Tel Aviv. That’s good old-fashioned psy-ops.  And challenge the credibility of the U.S. That’s Wikileaks.

Any credible forensics would start by asking: to whose benefit? Then look to means, motive and opportunity plus the presence of stable nation-state intelligence inside the U.S.

Other than Israel, who else is a credible candidate? Notice how quickly Israel’s role in the peace process vanished from the news. Now it’s Iran, Iran and more Iran. To whose benefit?

Tel Aviv knows that the phony intelligence on Iraq leads to those skilled at waging war “by way of deception”—the motto of the Israeli Mossad. Wikileaks are noteworthy for what’s missing: the absence of any material damaging to Israeli goals.

But still Tel Aviv faces an unprecedented peril: transparency. Americans know they were duped. And Israel rightly fears that Americans will soon realize by whom.

Tepid Support will not Suffice

Obama has behaved as anticipated by those who produced his presidency. Anyone surprised at the lack of change in U.S. policy in the Middle East fails to grasp the power of the Israel lobby.

Did he hesitate to support their latest Israeli strategy for scuttling peace negotiations? Absent peace, the U.S. will continue to be the target of those outraged at America’s unflinching support for Israel’s thuggish behavior in pursuit of its expansionist goals.

Confirming the lobby’s influence, Netanyahu announced he would not agree to halt settlements on Palestinian land until Obama reduced to writing a $3 billion bribe.

In return for a proposed 90-day freeze, what form of bribe will America provide? Twenty F-35 jets at $150 million each plus parts, maintenance, training and armaments.

That’s $231 million per week or $1,373,626 per hour. What will the U.S. receive in return? A temporary partial freeze on settlements. How many more times can this ruse work?

Israel has evaded a peace agreement since it drove Palestinians from their land in 1948 and seized more land in 1967 to shape today’s geopolitics.

Should Israel reach an agreement with the Palestinians, Secretary of State Hillary Clinton proposes a "comprehensive security agreement." At what cost no one knows. The U.S. Congress has already budgeted $30 billion for Israel over 10 years. This latest $3 billion is on top of that.

That doesn't include the cost to American credibility posed by an offer to veto U.N. recognition of Palestine as a state. And a pledge Never Again to pressure Israel on settlements. Plus the freeze omits East Jerusalem where Tel Aviv insists on moving ahead with new housing starts.

Timing Is Everything

By scheduling its latest incursion into Gaza between Christmas 2008 and the January 2009 Obama inaugural, Tel Aviv ensured only muted opposition during political down time in the U.S. Thus it came as no surprise to see an agent provocateur operation on Thanksgiving Day 2010 as Israel demolished a West Bank Mosque and a Palestinian village. 

After seven hours of nonstop talks, Hillary Clinton praised Netanyahu as a "peacemaker." In return, he agreed only to "continue the process." Meanwhile, U.S. elections marked a major victory for Israel when incoming Republican Majority Leader Eric Cantor, a Jewish Zionist, announced that the new majority would "serve as a check on the Obama administration."

The Israel lobby has good reason to gloat. Confirming ongoing duplicity, Israeli Foreign Minister Avigdor Lieberman proclaimed: "a permanent agreement is impossible."

Wikileaks’ release of confidential diplomatic cables provides Israel an opportunity to undermine U.S. relations worldwide while also inflicting lasting damage on U.S. interests in the Middle East. After this, what nation would trust the U.S. to maintain a confidence?

In October, Turkey asked that the U.S. not share intelligence with Israel. Now who dares share intelligence with the U.S.?

This may signal the beginning of the end for the Obama presidency his domestic policy failures are eclipsed by his failures in foreign policy.

This may also signal pre-staging for the 2012 presidential primary with a weakened Obama forced to name Clinton as his running mate or stepping aside so she can lead the ballot.

Her 2008 presidential campaign promised recognition of Israel as a “Jewish state” and promised an “undivided Jerusalem as the capital.” Tel Aviv was elated. A second Clinton presidency would ensure another victory for Israel—and no peace.

Israeli psy-ops typically serve multiple purposes. Wikileaks is no exception.

* Jeff Gates; a Vietnam veteran,   is a widely acclaimed author, attorney, investment banker, educator and consultant to government, corporate and union leaders worldwide. He served for seven years as counsel to the U.S. Senate Committee on Finance. He is widely published in the trade, popular and academic press. His latest book is Guilt by Association: How Deception and Self-Deceit Took America to War. His previous books include Democracy at Risk: Rescuing Main Street From Wall Street and The Ownership Solution: Toward a Shared Capitalism for the 21st Century. Topical commentaries appear on the Criminal State website.

Candidly speaking: The de-Zionization of Anglo Jewry by *Alan Hart

That was the headline over a story – wonderful news, I say, if it’s true – in Israel’s English language newspaper, the Jerusalem Post, on 25 November. On behalf of Zionism’s colonial project in Palestine, the writer, Isi Leibler, was verbally crucifying one of Britain’s most influential Jewish leaders for daring to go public with his criticism of Netanyahu and saying, among other things, that Israel’s policies and actions were harming the best interests of British Jews, and by implication non-Israeli Jews everywhere.

The target of Leibler’s attack was Mick Davis. For those who don’t know about him, he is b-i-g in business. He’s the CEOof Xstrata, a major global diversified mining group (alloys, coal, copper, nickel and zinc) which is listed on the London and Swiss stock exchanges and, in the words of the group’s mission statement, has “the single aim of delivering industry-leading returns for our shareholders”. But there’s much more to Mick Davis than that.

He is the chairmanof Anglo Jewry’s United Jewish Israel Appeal (UJIA). That’s the principal fund-raising institution for Israel of the UK Jewish community. He also heads a body known as the Jewish Leadership Council (JLC). This was described by Leibler as essentially comprised of “a group of wealthy British Jews and their acolytes who, by virtue of their financial largesse, assume a dominant influence on many levels of communal life.” Leibler added (my emphasis): “The power represented by their collective wealth enables them not to be accountable to anyone and few would dare question their policies.”

Leibler acknowledged that many Jews are critical of Israeli governments but Davis, he wrote, “brazenly incites his fellow Jews to criticize Israel.” Leibler went on:

“While occupying the role of chairman of the UIJA resident in London, he had the chutzpa to berate the Israeli prime minister ‘for lacking the courage to take the steps’ to advance the peace process, arguing that ‘I don’t understand the lack of strategy in Israel.’ He also employed the terminology of our enemies, predicting an ‘apartheid state’ unless Israel was able to achieve a two-state solution – unashamedly blaming Israelis rather than Palestinians for being the obstacle to peace.

“His sheer arrogance was best demonstrated in his most outrageous remark: ‘I think the government of Israel has to recognize that their actions directly impact on me as a Jew living in London, UK When they do good things, it is good for me; when they do bad things, it is bad for me… I want them to recognize that.’”

Davis, Leibler added, was not only implying “that Israel is responsible for the anti-Semitism he is encountering,” He was also “effectively warning that when considering defense issues which may have life-or-death implications for Israelis, the government must be sure not to create problems for him in his non-Jewish social circles. From his London mansion, he blithely brushes aside suicide bombers, rockets launched against our children and the threat of nuclear annihilation because his gentile friends might complain about the behaviour of his Israeli friends.”

The notion that Israel faces the threat of nuclear annihilation is Zionist propaganda nonsense on stilts and there was more of it. “Emanating from a Jewish leader in the anti-Semitic UK environment in which campaigns to boycott and delegitimize Israel are at an all-time high, and at a time when Israel is under siege and fighting for its existence, it (Davis’ contribution to debate) surely represents a level of unprecedented vulgarity.”

Then I had to laugh. Davis’ latest outburst, Leibler wrote, “is neither intellectually challenging nor persuasive.” So why then, I asked myself, was Leibler bothering to address it and, by so doing, give it the oxygen of publicity?

The answer is that Leibler is right about one thing. In Palestine that became Israel mainly as a consequence of Zionist terrorism and ethnic cleansing, Zionism is under siege, but not from Arab or other Muslim hordes. Israel is under siege because of its racist policies and criminal actions. Put another way, more and more citizens of the world (if not their governments) are beginning to understand that Zionism’s in-Israel leaders are not interested in peace on terms the vast majority of Palestinians and most other Arabs and Muslims everywhere could just about accept.

Even more to the point is that a growing if still smallish number of the Jews of the world are beginning to understand two things. One, even if they cannot bring themselves to read it, is that there is substance to the title of my book Zionism: The Real Enemy of the Jews. The other is the danger (in my view extreme danger) of the rising tide of anti-Israelism being transformed at a point into violent anti-Semitism if they, the Jews of the world and American and European Jews in particular, are perceived as being complicit in Zionism’s crimes.

It might be too late save Israelis brainwashed by Zionist propaganda from themselves, but it’s not yet too late for the Jews of the world to save themselves from Zionism’s colonial enterprise and all the evils that came and are still with it.

If the de-Zionization of Anglo Jewry and possibly even Western Jewry in general is underway, I think the following question should be asked. What, if anything, can the Gentiles among whom most Jews live do to encourage the process?

In the original UK two-volume edition of my book I called for a New Covenant, not between the Jews and their God but between the Jews and the Gentiles. In the three-volume American edition of the book, I dropped the call because I thought on reflection that it was somewhat naive.

I’ve changed my mind again and now think the idea for a New Covenant should be back on the agenda.

For their part of the deal the Jews of the world would commit to making common cause with rational Israelis for the purpose of de-Zionizing Israel/Palestine. The Gentiles for their part would commit to slaying the monster of anti-Semitism. As I noted in my original text: “An undertaking to let the monster die in its sleep would not be good enough. There would have to be evidence that a stake was being driven into its heart.”

Why, really, do I believe that such a covenant – in spirit at least – is a good and necessary idea?

The main reason for the silence of the Jews of the world is the unspeakable fear – the product of persecution through the centuries and, after the Nazi holocaust, Zionism’s manipulation of the fear – that another great turning against them is inevitable. That being so, if only in their sub-consciousness, they perceive the need for Israel as their refuge of last resort. So say nothing and do nothing that could assist Israel’s enemies and put that insurance policy at risk.

It follows that if the Jews of the world are to play their necessary part in de-Zionizing Israel/Palestine, they need to be reassured about their security and wellbeing in the lands in which they live. For most Jews these are the nations of the mainly Gentile world. (Most of the Arabs and other Muslims who also live in these lands have always known the difference between Judaism and Zionism. Most Gentiles don’t know).

Footnote

I have just viewed a 15-minute trailer for Mustafa Barghouti’s documentary Our Story. It contains some details which I think invite the conclusion that Israel’s occupation is not only illegal but wicked. The whole documentary should be essential viewing for all Jews everywhere. And I hope that Jews who do see it will be enraged enough to make common cause with Mick Davis and others with integrity and courage who are speaking out.

To order the film on DVD, send requests to palestineourstory@gmail.com Or call on +972 599 9 400 73

*Alan Hart has been engaged with events in the Middle East and their global consequences and terrifying implications – the possibility of a Clash of Civilisations, Judeo-Christian v Islamic, and, along the way, another great turning against the Jews – for nearly 40 years…

He’s been to war with the Israelis and the Arabs, but the learning experience he values most, and which he believes gave him rare insight, came from his one-to-one private conversations over the years with many leaders on both sides of the conflict. With, for example, Golda Meir, Mother Israel, and Yasser Arafat, Father Palestine. The significance of these private conversations was that they enabled him to be aware of the truth of what leaders really believed and feared as opposed to what they said in public for propaganda and myth-sustaining purposes.

It was because of his special relationships with leaders on both sides that, in 1980, he found himself sucked into the covert diplomacy of conflict resolution

Competence of NATO and The US? by *Dr. Raja Muhammad Khan

According to the Western media, Mullah Mohammad Akhtar Mansour, now proved to be an imposter, has met the high-ranking Afghan, NATO and U.S officials in Kabul, at least thrice, portraying himself as the deputy of Mullah Mohammad Omer, the head of Taliban.  The imposter had once met with President Karazai too in the Presidential Palace. In fact, President Karazai and his NATO and US allies, occupying Afghan land realized after nine years of unsuccessful military campaign that, reconciliation with the warlords and Taliban is the only way forward for bringing stability in that country. Moreover, being an Afghan national and head of the Kabul administration, Hamid Karazai considered his personal responsibility, to integrate all those in the Government, who are ready to reconcile and work for the betterment of Afghanistan.

Mohammad Umer Daudzai, the Chief of Staff of Afghan President, has recently disclosed in an interview with Washington Post, that the British diplomats brought this fake Taliban deputy, Mullah Mansour, in a sensitive meeting with Afghan President in Kabul. The same newspaper quoted a senior U.S official saying that, “the Mansour impersonator was ‘the Brits guy’. This fact was even published in the British newspaper, Times, which says, that, “the impostor was promoted by British overseas intelligence agency MI6, which was convinced it had achieved a major breakthrough.” Moreover, he was flown to Kabul in a NATO aircraft.

President Karazai has initially denied that he ever met the fake Mullah Mansour. He particularly said that, “We have not met anyone named Mullah Akhtar Mohammad Mansour. Mullah Akhtar Mohammad Mansour has not come to Afghanistan. Do not accept foreign media reports about meetings with Taliban leaders. Most of these reports are propaganda and lies.” However, now after the confirmatory interview of his Chief of Staff, it is absolutely clear that, the imposter met President Karazai in July/ August this year and participated in three rounds of confidential dialogue with Afghan Government and the NATO and US officials.

British diplomats might have arranged this meeting; however, both Afghan officials and U.S were pinning high hopes from these negotiations. Even Commander of ISAF, General David Petraeus, was claiming that perhaps the credit of the talks goes to him once he said, “the talks indicated that Taliban leaders, whose rank-and-file fighters are under extraordinary pressure from the US-led offensive, were at least willing to discuss an end to the war.” He never expected that the Taliban negotiator would be a fake man Mullah Mansour. Therefore, now neither Afghan administration, nor U.S and NATO should refuse to accept their follies or incompetence. Afghan Government should not disown the episode and give up the reconciliation process, if it is serious to reach to a political resolution of the issue. The incidence however, raised questions about the “credibility of some NATO officials who earlier confessed that they facilitated contacts between Taliban figures and Afghan officials.”

It is worth mentioning that the real Mullah Mansour, has been the Civil Aviation Minister of Taliban regime  and currently is the deputy of Mullah Omer besides being the in charge of the weapons procurement for the Taliban, fighting against the NATO and U.S in their homeland. Unlike Mullah Omer, Mullah Mansour never hidden his face during the tenure of his ministry, therefore, any Afghan or even the spying agencies of the occupation forces  should have made no mistake in recognizing him. The NATO, United States, and the Afghan Government also paid the imposter a huge amount for these rounds of negotiations, before he disappeared under mysterious circumstances. Upon establishing the fact that he was a fake man portraying as the Taliban’s deputy, a Western diplomat in the Kabul said, that, “It's not him and we gave him a lot of money.”

The identity of this imitator is yet to be determined. Some say he is a low-level Taliban leader, other say; he is a shopkeeper of Quetta Pakistan.  Still another group, who claim that he, was an intelligence officer of Pakistani spying network. However, irrespective, who was this impersonator or who brought him to the Afghan Palace, there are a number of stimulating questions arising out of this exceptional situation.  First, Hamid Karazai and his team, all Afghan nationals, should have been able to recognize their own fellow citizen, who has been occupying major seat in the former administration. The non-identification means that, this bunch of ruling class is so scared of the Taliban and warlords, that they are unable to come out from the Afghan palace to interact or know about the their masses. This mean, their know-how about the people of Afghanistan is scant, secondary and based on foreign agencies, who may portray anything. Under such a situation, should the incumbent team have any right to continue ruling Afghan people?

Secondly, the U.S and NATO forces are occupying the Afghan soil since 2001, with absolute power. Apart from their combat forces now numbering to 150,000 troops, there is a huge concentration of their spying networks; CIA, FBI, MI6, all interconnected and working for a common objective as a team. These intelligence agencies have the support of newly established Afghan spying network, RAMA; the Research and Analysis Mili Afghan and the Indian intelligence the RAW, intimately linked with RAMA. CIA and FBI in particular have been frequently interacting with the Taliban leaders, including Mullah Mansour, once they were in power in Afghanistan. Why should they make a mistake in identifying this dominating personality of the former regime? Was this a deliberate act to laugh at the Afghan rulers or they too know very little about the Taliban leadership.

Nevertheless, in either case, the NATO and U.S cannot be absolved from their basic responsibilities, being the occupiers of that soil. If they have deliberately attempted to let down incumbent Afghan regime, then it should be of lot of concern for the Hamid Karazai led team to tolerate them any more in their homeland. However, the fact of the matter is that, including MI-6, representatives of all spying network, operative in Afghanistan, have been directly involved in the reconciliation process with Taliban and other warlords. How did an imposter cheat all these, where even a layman could have differentiated between a authoritative leader and a fake counterpart.

The top Taliban leadership has so far been denying any linkage with Afghan Government, NATO, and U.S, as Mullah Omar declared negotiations between the Taliban and the Afghan government mere a Western ploy. Nevertheless, the incumbent Kabul regime has been engaged in the dialogue with some Taliban and warlords, who might not have the authority to do that on behalf of the Taliban. Indeed, there is confusion as who is interacting with whom for the peace and stability in Afghanistan and is anyone serious for that. According to BBC correspondent, Quentin Sommerville, what it appears that, some of those claiming to represent the Taliban have turned out to be frauds.

Linked with this is the repeated U.S demand to take action against the so-called Quetta Shura. Since last few years, U.S has been emphasizing that, Quetta is the headquarters of the Shura, whereas, Pakistan repeatedly denies the existence of any such setup in its country. Even in the recent past, once U.S emphasized Pakistan for enlarging the zone of drone strikes up to Quetta (to target Quetta Shura), Pakistan seriously reacted to that.  Pakistan made it amply clear to U.S that, it need to review its drone attack policy as the attacks are producing a “drone-hardened generation,” therefore, must stop drone strikes in Tribal areas too.

However, the major question arise, if the NATO and U.S really could not identify this imposter, then how did they reached over to the conclusion that, there is a Quetta Shura and Haqqani network in North Waziristan Agency, for which they have been accusing Pakistan of housing them. If the fake Mullah Mansour, can be taken as the deputy of the Mullah Omer by this highly informed group of partners, who stops them from making fake claims that there is a Quetta Shura and the Haqqani network too. Declaring this imposter as an agent of Pakistani spying agency and simultaneously pressurizing for expansion of the drone attack zone up to Quetta, can be part of a deliberate planning by NATO and US. Nevertheless, they should be mindful that through 150 drone attacks so far, U.S has caused scare among the people and killed over 2,000 innocent Pakistani just for 30-suspected militants.

The collateral damages caused by these drone attacks are reciprocated by the people in the form of rise in the number of terrorists, to take the revenge of their loved ones. As observed in the past, drones would not win the war for NATO and U.S. Rather it would create more militants, who would further destabilize the already crises region. As per a recent analysis of Eric Margolis, “Amazing as it sounds, NATO, the world’s most powerful military alliance, may be losing the only war the 61-year old pact ever fought. All its soldiers, heavy bombers, tanks, helicopter gunships, armies of mercenaries, and electronic gear are being beaten by a bunch of lightly-armed Afghan farmers and mountain tribesmen.”

The NATO and U.S forces are far superior militarily to pin down Afghan resistance of few thousands irregulars, but they have miserably failed so far. Indeed, these forces are not only high in numbers but also “equipped with a massive air power, have the facility of satellite imagery and Aerial Intelligence Surveillance and Reconnaissance systems, which are the ultimate real time aid to aerial intelligence.” In spite of these if an ordinary man has swindled them all, than, they need to re-asses their competence level. Should not this be a high time for ISAF to leave Afghanistan and Hamid Karazai to hand over power to a rightful Afghan who has the confidence of masses and can control, what is in a worst shape now?

*Dr. Raja Muhammad Khan, IR analyst

Can Israel defeat Hezbollah? by Dr. Franklin Lamb

“Know thyself”  Tsu Sun and Hassan Nasrallah

Beirut: According to the Lebanese military, at 11 am and again at 1 p.m.  on 1l/24/10, a total of six Israeli warplanes crossed into Lebanese airspace, and violated for the 8256^th time UNSC resolution 1701 that ended Israel’s 5^th war against Lebanon, on August 14, 2006. Nearly, daily, and sometimes several times daily, warplanes and/or reconnaissance aircraft invade the skies over Lebanon to frighten, attempt to intimidate, and pressure the Lebanese population. They also try to keep tabs on Lebanon’s resistance, led by Hezbollah.

As every Resistance defender is aware, if a twice daily high flyover by a US supplied specially programmed satellite imaging camera detects a stone the size of golf ball out of place, since the previous photo, anywhere in an area thought to be visited by Hezbollah forces, the photos are closely examined by Israeli and American analysts. The moving of a stone or a tree branch or significantly more or fewer goats appearing in a herd, meandering, for example, in Lebanon’s “nature preserves” is carefully analyzed. The reason, and perhaps encapsulating Israel’s increasing likelihood, according to UNIFIL and US sources, of failing in its next war against Lebanon, is that Israel has never even been able to figure out what became of the hundreds of tons of chipped rock and soil removed during the construction of hundreds of suspected deep Hezbollah bunkers, impenetrable to every weapon but nuclear.  Some bunkers are almost literally under the noses of where suspected Israeli agents live or where UNIFIL forces patrol daily. “Do they remove the debris by teaspoons full?”  A UNIFIL official wondered recently.

Also unsettling to the Israeli military and reportedly censored from viewing by Israeli forces  are a collection of Hezbollah training videos thought to have been photographed by US  high altitude  cameras. IDF psychologists reportedly have advised the Israeli Cabinet that seeing the Hezbollah videos may further erode Israeli forces confidence if they are ordered again into Lebanon.

One such video shows the following:  A line of Hezbollah fighters on mountain bikes in a steep ravine south of the Litani River riding at high rates of speed. The rider must flip the bike up onto only the back wheel so the soldier’s body is facing the sky and his back flat parallel with and about two feet off the ground. The examinee must travel at close to 90 mph  holding a RPG in either hand, and a cell phone in the other waiting firing instructions from a subterranean command center. The fighter must then fire the rocket through a swinging small tire approximately 120 meters away on a tree branch.  Achieving fewer than 11 bulls eyes out of 12 requires the arduous physical test repeated.  A commander in UNIFIl, who claims to be familiar with this particular Hezbollah training exercise commented that none of the UNIFIL soldiers from the 28 countries could even do the exercise, much less get one RPG through such a swinging tire.  “ I would doubt very much if any Israeli could do it either. Hezbollah fighters are probably the world’s best. I have never studied the Chinese up close but I’ve seen a whole lot of the others.”

It is these kinds of skills that Hezbollah fighters used to force repeated errors by Israeli forces during the July 2006 war, and although not widely reported, during its 18 years of occupation of Lebanon (1982-2000). Errors, that the Israeli Winograd commission called “ the worst kind of mistakes and failures of the ground forces.” Among the examples still discussed in Dahiyeh, and presumably in Tel Aviv and Washington,include  the Hezbollah forces routing of the Israeli  “elite” Golani, Egoz and Magland Brigades at Maron al Ras on the Lebanese-Palestine border between July 25-30, 2006.  Another was the Battle of Bint Jbeil which Dan Halutz  called Israel’s planned “Web of Steel’ which was expected to take less than 48 hours to defeat Hezbollah forces starting on July 24.  But by July 30,  the much battered  Golani forces withdrew and the Israeli air force renewed indiscriminate aerial bombardment.  Down the road from Bint Jbeil, at Aita al-Shaab, Israel lost 26 soldiers and more than 100 severely injured without gaining an inch of territory. Shortly before Israel agreed to a ceasefire,  its forces experienced the catastrophe at Wadi Slouqi, a ravine through which  a column of Israeli tanks were sent to link up with airlifted troops at Ghandouriyah village.  The Israeli plan, read by Hezbollah forces from the onset, was to move toward Tyre and head north.  “They (Hezbollah forces) jumped up out of the ground all around us” one Israeli at the scene testified later. Hezbollah hit more than a dozen tanks, quickly killing 17 Israelis and wounding more than fifty. It became known in Israeli military  circles as “the Black Sabbath, the goddamned Sabbath”, as one Israeli war room officer commented.

 Increasingly during the 33 day July 2006 War, Israeli forces refused orders to advance against Hezbollah fighters, happily opting for 14 day jail sentences for failure to obey orders.  Concerning IDF recruitment and AWOL problems, according to IDF Captain Arye Shalicar of the IDF Recruitment Fraud unit, it is US taxpayers who  foot the bill  for eight companies of private investigators recently hired to track down Israeli draft dodgers.  The popular social networking site, Facebook,  is being used  to track down thousands who lied about being religiously observant and seeking to avoid facing Hezbollah.  Israelis not wanting to join the military often post a photograph on Facebook showing them eating at non-kosher restaurants or accepting invitations for fake Friday night (Sabbath) parties sent by the investigators.

It was against the backdrop of examining these kinds of IDF-Hezbollah confrontations, that  a US Senate Armed Services Committee staffer reports that, “seemingly counterintuitive given the past six decades of US coddling  Israel with all manner of  support and  political cover”, the White House has informed Israel that the days of ‘green lights’ for trampling and carpet bombing Lebanon are over.  Secretary of State  Clinton reportedly told PM Netanyahu during his recent visit to basically ‘forget about it’ when Israel’s Prime Minister repeated ad nausea the mantra that “Lebanon is now Hezbollah and Hezbollah is  now Lebanon” so Israel can exercise “blanket self defense.”  ( Ed: gets to bomb and obliterate at will)

During US Foreign Relations Committee Chairman, John Kerrey’s recent swing through the region he warned Lebanese  and Syrian officials that Israel could attack at any time.  But he also carried the message to Israel that Washington does not want an Israeli attack on Lebanon or on Iran for precisely the same reasons.  Israel can’t win Washington increasingly believes and the risk of regional conflagration from either is too great. 

It is in this context that Washington is  using the Special Tribunal of Lebanon as a 6th war against Lebanon, following those 1978, 1982, 1993, 1996, and 2006. It is reported by Haaretz on 11/16/10  that  Israeli Foreign Minister  Lieberman reveal Israel has been helping the STL with its “investigation.”

“Hezbollah’s  greatest advantage against Israel in the next war against Israel”, according to Pentagon sources, including a 22 year veteran who maintains an office in Beirut,   “is not seen in Washington  as  being based on just Hezbollah’s  demonstrated ability to prevail on the battlefield against Israeli ground forces, withstanding potential days or weeks or months of carpet bombing and during hugely asymmetric conflicts. Rather, increasingly Hezbollah’s success against Israeli is being explained by its moral, political, popular, religious, psychological, culture that were enhanced by Hezbollah’s “Lebanonization” and growing acceptance by other sects while being dubbed by some at the Pentagon as now “the 8^th  greatest missile power in the World.”

There is also the factor of the environment that is embracing Hezbollah and the Resistance. These are  people who will no longer accept to yield to the dictates of  Israel,  the US, Lebanese Forces, Phalanges, or anyone else.  As far as the Resistance is concerned, no one can ask a people that was oppressed, occupied, and disdained by others for decades and centuries, yet managed to gain power to defend itself at a time when everyone abandoned it, to let go of its element of power and become again under the mercy of Israel's threats as well as those of its local Israel’s allies. Hezbollah believes it has to win the next war for the sake of the whole country, because the army is poorly equipped and because Lebanon has hundreds, maybe thousands of Mossad agents in Lebanon compromising the country's institutions. Hezbollah MP, Nawaf Moussawi has said on many occasions that the STL indictment accusing Hezbollah of the Hariri assassination will be dealt with as a US Israeli invasion, and to date Hezbollah has proven to have great skills in countering 'invasions.'  The Party is not easily provoked or intimidated but when their existence is threatened it fights back.

Hezbollah, has  smashed the myth of Israel’s invincibility, broken the barrier of fear, increased the popular demand for resistance, exposed  the fake peace process and rejected  appeasement, acquiescence and surrender. Hezbollah forces taught the world that Arabs can and will liberate Palestine because  they possess the qualities  and acumen to do it. The kings and the presidents in the region, who for six decades chose their thrones over Jerusalem  quake as does Israel.

 This observer is obviously not privy to any security information relating to Hezbollah, and it would be treasonous and unthinkable for anyone in Hezbollah to share any, but among the many scenarios that the Lebanese National Resistance  is said to be preparing for includes a possible invasion from  North  Lebanon using troops from two Arab countries that for years having been trying to train Sunni and Lebanese Forces “ Security minus”  troops. The plan, if it exists, would try to force Hezbollah from Beirut back to the south, by using a blitzkrieg type of invasion using Arab, American and Israeli forces attacking south Beirut as north Lebanon Sunni and Christian forces  close of roads heading out from Beirut. Phalange forces would try and capture Mt Lebanon, and Arab special forces would hunt Hassan Nasrallah and the Hezbollah leadership amidst “ Dahiyeh option”  ruins.  All to be made perfectly legal and respectable by the all but certain  STL indictments and convictions.

This kind of scenario is reminiscent of  when the French sent  Moroccans and Algerians to fight for them last century against the Turks.  A French General on the scene was asked“you are sending Muslims to fight against Muslims” ?

* Dr. Franklin Lamb is Director of the Sabra Shatila Foundation in Lebanon. He is working with the Palestine Civil Rights Campaign (PCRC), in Lebanon to encourage its Cabinet and Parliament to enact basic civil rights legislation for Palestinian refugees, including the right to work and to own a home. The general reportedly laughed and replied, “ if  our Arabs win we get the credit , if our Arabs or theirs die, who cares”.

Geopolitical Journey, Part 5: Turkey by *Dr. George Friedman

Editor’s note: This is the fifth installment in a series of special reports that Dr. Friedman will write over the next few weeks as he travels to Turkey, Moldova, Romania, Ukraine and Poland. In this series, he will share his observations of the geopolitical imperatives in each country and conclude with reflections on his journey as a whole and options for the United States.

We arrived in Istanbul during the festival of Eid al-Adha, which commemorates the willingness of Abraham to sacrifice his son Ishmael on God’s command and praises the God who stayed his hand. It is a jarring holiday for me; I was taught that it was Isaac whom God saved. The distinction between Ishmael and Isaac is the difference between Hagar and Sarah, between Abraham and the Jews and Abraham and the Muslims. It ties Muslims, Jews and Christians together. It also tears them apart.

Muslims celebrate Eid with the sacrifice of animals (sheep and cattle). Istanbul is a modern commercial city, stunningly large. On this day, as we drove in from the airport, there were vacant lots with cattle lined up for those wishing to carry out the ritual. There were many cattle and people. The ritual sacrifice is widely practiced, even among the less religious. I was told that Turkey had to import cattle for the first time, bringing them in from Uruguay. Consider the juxtaposition of ancient ritual sacrifice so widely practiced that it requires global trade to sustain it.

The tension between and within nations and religions is too ancient for us to remember its beginnings. It is also something that never grows old. For Turkey, it is about a very old nation at what I think is the beginning of a new chapter. It is therefore inevitably about the struggles within Turkey and with Turkey’s search for a way to find both its identity and its place in the world.

Turkey’s Test

Turkey will emerge as one of the great regional powers of the next generation, or so I think. It is clear that this process is already under way when you look at Turkey’s rapid economic growth even in the face of the global financial crisis, and when you look at its growing regional influence. As you’d expect, this process is exacerbating internal political tensions as well as straining old alliances and opening the door to new ones. It is creating anxiety inside and outside of Turkey about what Turkey is becoming and whether it is a good thing or not. Whether it is a good thing can be debated, I suppose, but the debate doesn’t much matter. The transformation from an underdeveloped country emerging from the ashes of the Ottoman Empire to a major power is happening before our eyes.

At the heart of the domestic debate and foreign discussion of Turkey’s evolution is Islam. Turkey’s domestic evolution has resulted in the creation of a government that differs from most previous Turkish governments by seeing itself as speaking for Islamic traditions as well as the contemporary Turkish state. The foreign discussion is about the degree to which Turkey has shifted away from its traditional alliances with the United States, Europe and Israel. These two discussions are linked.

At a time when the United States is at war in both Afghanistan and Iraq, and in confrontation with Iran, any shift in the position of a Muslim country rings alarm bells. But this goes beyond the United States. Since World War II, many Turks have immigrated to Europe, where they have failed to assimilate partly by choice and partly because the European systems have not facilitated assimilation. This failure of assimilation has created massive unease about Turkish and other Muslims in Europe, particularly in the post-9/11 world of periodic terror warnings. Whether reasonable or not, this is shaping Western perceptions of Turkey and Turkish views of the West. It is one of the dynamics in the Turkish-Western relationship.

Turkey’s emergence as a significant power obviously involves redefining its internal and regional relations to Islam. This alarms domestic secularists as well as inhabitants of countries who feel threatened by Turks — or Muslims — living among them and who are frightened by the specter of terrorism. Whenever a new power emerges, it destabilizes the international system to some extent and causes anxiety. Turkey’s emergence in the current context makes that anxiety all the more intense. A newly powerful and self-confident Turkey perceived to be increasingly Islamic will create tensions, and it has.

The Secular and the Religious

Turkey’s evolution is framed by the collapse of the Ottoman Empire after World War I and the creation of modern Turkey under Mustafa Kemal Ataturk. Ataturk’s task was to retain the core of the Ottoman Empire as an independent state. That core was Asia Minor and the European side of the Bosporus. For Ataturk, the first step was contraction, abandoning any attempt to hold the Ottoman regions that surrounded Turkey. The second step was to break the hold of Ottoman culture on Turkey itself. The last decades of the Ottoman Empire were painful to Turks, who saw themselves decline because of the unwillingness of the Ottoman regime to modernize at a pace that kept up with the rest of Europe. The slaughter of World War I did more than destroy the Ottoman Empire. It shook its confidence in itself and its traditions.

For Ataturk, Turkish national survival depended on modernization, which he equated with the creation of a secular society as the foundation of a modern nation-state in which Islam would become a matter of private practice, not the center of the state or, most important, something whose symbols could have a decisive presence in the public sphere. This would include banning articles of clothing associated with Islamic piety from public display. Ataturk did not try to suppress Muslim life in the private sphere, but Islam is a political religion that seeks to regulate both private and public life.

Ataturk sought to guarantee the survival of the secular state through the military. For Ataturk, the military represented the most modern element of Turkish society and could serve two functions. It could drive Turkish modernization and protect the regime against those who would try to resurrect the Ottoman state and its Islamic character. Ataturk wanted to do something else — to move away from the multinational nature of the Ottoman Empire. Ataturk compressed Turkey to its core and shed authority and responsibility beyond its borders. Following Ataturk’s death, for example, Turkey managed to avoid involvement in World War II.

Ataturk came to power in a region being swept by European culture, which was what was considered modern. This Europeanist ideology moved through the Islamic world, creating governments that were, like Turkey’s, secular in outlook but ruling over Muslim populations that had varying degrees of piety. In the 1970s, a counter-revolution started in the region that argued for reintegrating Islam into the governance of Muslim countries. The most extreme part of this wave culminated in al Qaeda. But the secularist/Europeanist vision created by Ataturk has been in deep collision with the Islamist regimes that can be found in places like Iran.

It was inevitable that this process would affect Turkey. In 2002, the Justice and Development Party (AKP) came to power. This was a defining moment because the AKP was not simply a secular Europeanist party. Its exact views are hotly debated, with many inside and outside of Turkey claiming that its formal moderation hides a hidden radical-Islamist agenda.

We took a walk in a neighborhood in Istanbul called Carsamba. I was told that this was the most religious community in Istanbul. One secularist referred to it as “Saudi Arabia.” It is a poor but vibrant community, filled with schools and shops. Children play on the streets, and men cluster in twos and threes, talking and arguing. Women wear burqas and headscarves. There is a large school in the neighborhood where young men go to study the Koran and other religious subjects.

The neighborhood actually reminded me of Williamsburg, in the Brooklyn of my youth. Williamsburg was filled with Chasidic Jews, Yeshivas, children on the streets and men talking outside their shops. The sensibility of community and awareness that I was an outsider revived vivid memories. At this point, I am supposed to write that it shows how much these communities have in common. But the fact is that the commonalities of life in poor, urban, religious neighborhoods don’t begin to overcome the profound differences — and importance — of the religions they adhere to.

That said, Carsamba drove home to me the problem the AKP, or any party that planned to govern Turkey, would have to deal with. There are large parts of Istanbul that are European in sensibility and values, and these are significant areas. But there is also Carsamba and the villages of Anatolia, and they have a self-confidence and assertiveness that can’t be ignored today.

There is deep concern among some secularists that the AKP intends to impose Shariah. This is particularly intense among the professional classes. I had dinner with a physician with deep roots in Turkey who told me that he was going to immigrate to Europe if the AKP kept going the way it was going. Whether he would do it when the time came I can’t tell, but he was passionate about it after a couple of glasses of wine. This view is extreme even among secularists, many of whom understand the AKP to have no such intentions. Sometimes it appeared to me that the fear was deliberately overdone, in hopes of influencing a foreigner, me, concerning the Turkish government.

But my thoughts go back to Carsamba. The secularists could ignore these people for a long time, but that time has passed. There is no way to rule Turkey without integrating these scholars and shopkeepers into Turkish society. Given the forces sweeping the Muslim world, it is impossible. They represent an increasingly important trend in the Islamic world and the option is not suppressing them (that’s gone) but accommodating them or facing protracted conflict, a kind of conflict that in the rest of the Islamic world is not confined to rhetoric. Carsamba is an extreme case in Istanbul, but it poses the issue most starkly.

This is something the main opposition secularist party, the People’s Republican Party (CHP), can’t do. It has not devised a platform that can reach out to Carsamba and the other religious neighborhoods within the framework of secularism. This is the AKP’s strength. It can reach out to them while retaining the core of its Europeanism and modernism. The Turkish economy is surging. It had an annualized growth rate of 12 percent in the first quarter of 2010. That helps keep everyone happy. But the AKP also emphasizes that it wants to join the European Union. Now, given how healthy the Turkish economy is, wanting to join the European Union is odd. And the fact is that the European Union is not going to let Turkey in anyway. But the AKP’s continued insistence that it wants to join the European Union is a signal to the secularists: The AKP is not abandoning the Europeanist/modernist project.

The AKP sends many such signals, but it is profoundly distrusted by the secularists, who fear that the AKP’s apparent moderation is simply a cover for its long-term intentions — to impose a radical-Islamist agenda on Turkey. I don’t know the intentions of the AKP leadership, but I do know some realities about Turkey, the first being that, while Carsamba can’t be ignored, the secularists hold tremendous political power in their own right and have the general support of the military. Whatever the intentions imputed to the AKP, it does not have the power to impose a radical-Islamist agenda on Turkey unless the secularists weaken dramatically, which they are not going to do.

The CHP cannot re-impose the rigorous secularism that existed prior to 2002. The AKP cannot impose a radical-Islamist regime, assuming it would want to. The result of either attempt would be a paralyzing political crisis that would tear the country apart, without giving either side political victory. The best guard against hidden agendas is the inability to impose them.

Moreover, on the fringes of the Islamist community are radical Islamists like al Qaeda. It is a strategic necessity to separate the traditionally religious from the radical Islamists. The more excluded the traditionalists are, the more they will be attracted to the radicals. Prior to the 1970s this was not a problem. In those days, radical Islamists were not the problem; radical socialists were. The strategies that were used prior to 2002 would play directly into the hands of the radicals. There are, of course, those who would say that all Islamists are radical. I don’t think that’s true empirically. Of the billion or so Muslims, radicals are few. But you can radicalize the rest with aggressive social policies. And that would create a catastrophe for Turkey and the region.

The problem for Turkey is how to bridge the gap between the secularists and the religious. That is the most effective way to shut out the radicals. The CHP seems to me to have not devised any program to reach out to the religious. There are some indications of attempted change that came with the change in leadership a few months ago, but overall the CHP maintains a hostile suspicion toward sharing power with the religious.

The AKP, on the other hand, has some sort of reconciliation as its core agenda. The problem is that the AKP is serving up a weak brew, insufficient to satisfy the truly religious, insufficient to satisfy the truly secular. But it does hold a majority. In Turkey, as I have said, it is all about the AKP’s alleged hidden intentions. My best guess is that, whatever its private thoughts and political realities are, the AKP is composed of Turks who derive their traditions from 600 years of Ottoman rule. That makes Turkish internal politics, well, Byzantine. Never forget that at crucial points the Ottomans, as Muslim as they were, allied with the Catholics against the Orthodox Christians in order to dominate the Balkans. They made many other alliances of convenience and maintained a multinational and multireligious empire built on a pyramid of compromises. The AKP is not the party of the Wahhabi, and if it tried to become that, it would fall. The AKP, like most political parties, prefers to hold office.

Turkey and the World

The question of the hidden agenda of the AKP touches its foreign policy, too. In the United States, nerves are raw over Afghanistan and terror threats. In Europe, Muslim immigration, much of it from Turkey, and more terror threats make for more raw nerves. The existence of an Islamist-rooted government in Ankara has created the sense that Turkey has “gone over,” that it has joined the radical-Islamist camp.

This is why the flotilla incident with Israel turned out as it did. The Turks had permitted a fleet to sail for Gaza, which was blockaded by Israel. Israeli commandos boarded the ships and on one of them got into a fight in which nine people were killed. The Turks became enraged and expected the rest of the world, including the United States and Europe, to join them in condemning Israel’s actions. I think the Turkish government was surprised when the general response was not directed against Israel but at Turkey. The Turks failed to understand the American and European perception that Turkey had gone over to the radical Islamists. This perception caused the Americans and Europeans to read the flotilla incident in a completely unexpected way, from the Turkish government’s point of view, one that saw the decision to allow the flotilla to sail as part of a radical-Islamist agenda. Rather than seeing the Turks as victims, they saw the Turks as deliberately creating the incident for ideological reasons.

At the moment, it all turns on the perceptions of the AKP, both in Turkey and the world. And these perceptions lead to very different interpretations of what Turkey is doing.

In this sense, the ballistic missile defense (BMD) issue was extremely important. Had the Turks refused to allow BMD to be placed in Turkey, it would have been, I think, a breakpoint in relations with the United States in particular. BMD is a defense against Iranian missiles. Turkey does not want a U.S. strike on Iran. It should therefore have been enthusiastic about BMD, since Turkey could argue that with BMD, no strike is needed. Opposing a strike and opposing BMD would have been interpreted as Turkey simply wanting to obstruct anything that would upset Iran, no matter how benign. The argument of those who view Turkey as pro-Iranian would be confirmed. The decision by the Turkish government to go forward with BMD was critical. Rejecting BMD would have cemented the view of Turkey as being radical Islamist. But the point is that the Turks postured on the issue and then went along. It was the AKP trying to maintain its balance.

The reality is that Turkey is now a regional power trying to find its balance. It is in a region where Muslim governments are mixed with secular states, predominantly Christian nations and a Jewish state. When you take the 360-degree view that the AKP likes to talk about, it is an extraordinary and contradictory mixture of states. Turkey is a country that maintains relations with Iran, Israel and Egypt, a dizzying portfolio.

It is not a surprise that the Turks are not doing well at this. After an interregnum of nearly a century, Turkey is new to being a regional power, and everyone in the region is trying to draw Turkey into something for their own benefit. Syria wants Turkish mediation with Israel and in Lebanon. Azerbaijan wants Turkish support against Armenia in Nagorno-Karabakh. Israel and Saudi Arabia want Turkish support against Iran. Iran wants Turkey’s support against the United States. Kosovo wants its support against Serbia. It is a rogue’s gallery of supplicants, all wanting something from Turkey and all condemning Turkey when they don’t get it. Not least of these is the United States, which wants Turkey to play the role it used to play, as a subordinate American ally.

Turkey’s strategy is to be friends with everyone, its “zero conflict with neighbors” policy, as the Turks call it. It is an explicit policy not to have enemies. The problem is that it is impossible to be friends with all of these countries. Their interests are incompatible, and in the end, the only likely outcome is that all will find Turkey hostile and it will face distrust throughout the region. Turkey was genuinely surprised when the United States, busy finally getting sanctions into place against Iran, did not welcome Turkey’s and Brazil’s initiative with Iran. But unlike Brazil, Turkey lives in a tough neighborhood and being friendly with everyone is not an option.

This policy derives, I think, from a fear of appearing, like the Ottoman Empire, so distrusted by secularists. The Ottoman Empire was both warlike and cunning. It was the heir to the Byzantine tradition and it was worthy of it. Ataturk simplified Turkish foreign policy radically, drawing it inward. Turkey’s new power makes that impossible, but it is important, at least at this point in history, for Turkey not to appear too ambitious or too clever internationally. The term neo-Ottoman keeps coming up, but is not greeted happily by many people. Trying to be friendly with everyone is not going to work, but for the Turks, it is a better strategy now than being prematurely Byzantine. Contrary to others, I see Turkish foreign policy as simple and straightforward: What they say and what they intend to do are the same. The problem with that foreign policy is that it won’t work in the long run. I suspect the Turkish government knows that, but it is buying time for political reasons.

It is buying time for administrative reasons as well. The United States entered World War II without an intelligence service, with a diplomatic corps vastly insufficient for its postwar needs and without a competent strategic-planning system. Turkey is ahead of the United States of 1940, but it does not have the administrative structure or the trained and experienced personnel to handle the complexities it is encountering. The Turkish foreign minister wakes up in the morning to Washington’s latest demand, German pronouncements on Turkish EU membership, Israeli deals with the Greeks, Iranian probes, Russian views on energy and so on. It is a large set of issues for a nation that until recently had a relatively small foreign-policy footprint.

Turkey and Russia

Please recall my reasons for this journey and what brought me to Turkey. I am trying to understand the consequences of the re-emergence of Russia, the extent to which this will pose a geopolitical challenge and how the international system will respond. I have already discussed the Intermarium, the countries from the Baltic to the Black seas that have a common interest in limiting Russian power and the geopolitical position to do so if they act as a group.

One of the questions is what the southern anchor of this line will be. The most powerful anchor would be Turkey. Turkey is not normally considered part of the Intermarium, although during the Cold War it was the southeastern anchor of NATO’s line of containment. The purpose of this trip is to get some sense of how the Turks think about Russia and where Russia fits into their strategic thinking. It is also about how the Turks now think of themselves as they undergo a profound shift that will affect the region.

Turkey, like many countries, is dependent on Russian energy. Turkey also has a long history with Russia and needs to keep Russia happy. But it also wants to be friends with everyone and it needs to find new sources of energy. This means that Turkey has to look south, into Iraq and farther, and east, toward Azerbaijan. When it looks south, it will find itself at odds with Iran and perhaps Saudi Arabia. When it looks east, it will find itself at odds with Armenia and Russia.

There are no moves that Turkey can make that will not alienate some great power, and it cannot decline to make these moves. It cannot simply depend on Russia for its energy any more than Poland can. Because of energy policy, it finds itself in the same position as the Intermarium, save for the fact that Turkey is and will be much more powerful than any of these countries, and because the region it lives in is extraordinarily more complex and difficult.

Nevertheless, while the Russians aren’t an immediate threat, they are an existential threat to Turkey. With a rapidly growing economy, Turkey needs energy badly and it cannot be hostage to the Russians or anyone else. As it diversifies its energy sources it will alienate a number of countries, including Russia. It will not want to do this, but it is the way the world works. Therefore, is this the southern anchor of the Intermarium? I think so. Not yet and not forever, but I suspect that in 10 years or so, the sheer pressure that Russian energy policy will place on Turkey will create enough tensions to force Turkey into the anchor position.

If Moldova is the proof of the limits of geopolitical analysis, Turkey is its confirmation. There is endless talk in Turkey of intentions, hidden meanings and conspiracies, some woven decades ago. It is not these things that matter. Islam has replaced modernism as the dynamic force of the region, and Turkey will have to accommodate itself to that. But modernism and secularism are woven into Turkish society. Those two strands cannot be ignored. Turkey is the regional power, and it will have to make decisions about friends and enemies. Those decisions will be made based on issues like energy availability, economic opportunities and defensive positions. Intentions are not trivial, but in the case of Turkey neither are they decisive. It is too old a country to change and too new a power to escape the forces around it. For all its complexity, I think Turkey is predictable. It will go through massive internal instability and foreign tests it is not ready for, but in the end, it will emerge as it once was: a great regional power.

As a subjective matter, I like Turkey and Turks. I suspect I will like them less as they become a great power. They are at the charming point where the United States was after World War I. Over time, global and great powers lose their charm under the pressure of a demanding and dissatisfied world. They become hard and curt. The Turks are neither today. But they are facing the kind of difficulties that only come with success, and those can be the hardest to deal with.

Internally, the AKP is trying to thread the needle between two Turkish realities. No one can choose one or the other and govern Turkey. That day has passed. How to reconcile the two is the question. For the moment, the most difficult question is how to get the secularists to accept that, in today’s Turkey, they are a large minority. I suspect the desire to regain power will motivate them to try to reach out to the religious, but for now, they have left the field to the AKP.

In terms of foreign policy, they are clearly repositioning Turkey to be part of the Islamic world, but the Islamic world is deeply divided by many crosscurrents and many types of regimes. The distance between Morocco and Pakistan is not simply space. Repositioning with the Islamic world is more a question of who will be your enemy than who will be your friend. The same goes for the rest of the world.

In leaving Turkey, I am struck by how many balls it has to keep in the air. The tensions between the secularists and the religious must not be minimized. The tensions within the religious camp are daunting. The tensions between urban and rural are significant. The tensions between Turkey and its allies and neighbors are substantial, even if the AKP is not eager to emphasize this. It would seem impossible to imagine Turkey moving past these problems to great power status. But here geopolitics tells me that it has to be this way. All nations have deep divisions. But Turkey is a clear nation and a strong state. It has geography and it has an economy. And it is in a region where these characteristics are in short supply. That gives Turkey relative power as well as absolute strength.

The next 10 years will not be comfortable for Turkey. It will have problems to solve and battles to fight, figuratively and literally. But I think the answer to the question I came for is this: Turkey does not want to confront Russia. Nor does it want to be dependent on Russia. These two desires can’t be reconciled without tension with Russia. And if there is tension, there will be shared interests with the Intermarium, quite against the intentions of the Turks. In history, intentions, particularly good ones, are rarely decisive.

* George Friedman, Dr. Friedman is the Chief Executive Officer of STRATFOR, a company he founded in 1996 that is now a leader in the field of global intelligence. Dr. Friedman guides STRATFOR’s strategic vision and shapes the firm’s long-range geopolitical forecasts.

Dr. Friedman is also the author of numerous articles and books on international affairs, warfare and intelligence. His most recent book, The Next 100 Years: A Forecast for the 21st Century, is a New York Times Best Seller. In this book Dr. Friedman draws on an exploration of history and geopolitical patterns dating back hundreds of years to explain where and why future wars will erupt and how they will be fought, which nations will gain and lose economic and political power, and how new technologies and cultural trends will alter the way we will live in the new century. Included among his previous books are The Future of War, The Intelligence Edge, and America’s Secret War.

Major television and radio networks such as CNN, Fox News, and NPR frequently invite Dr. Friedman to appear as an international affairs intelligence expert. Barron’s has cited STRATFOR’s analysis on numerous occasions and Barron’s cover article featured an interview with Friedman in October 2001. He has also been featured in Time magazine, The New York Times Magazine and The Wall Street Journal and is frequently quoted in USA Today, The New York Times, Fortune, Newsweek, International Herald Tribune and many other domestic and international publications. Dr. Friedman is invited as a keynote speaker at numerous conferences and industry specific events for private organizations and government agencies.

Dr. Friedman received his bachelor’s degree from the City College of the City University of New York and holds a Ph.D. in government from Cornell University.

STRATFOR is a global intelligence company with its headquarters in Austin, Texas.

<a href="http://www.stratfor.com/weekly/20101122_geopolitical_journey_part_5_turkey%22%3EGeopolitical Journey, Part 5: Turkey</a> is republished with permission of STRATFOR.