PEN-L message, Just Foreign Policy News, July 21, 2006

Just Foreign Policy News

July 21, 2006

In this issue:

1) Kucinich Resolution Calls for Immediate Ceasefire in Lebanon; 23 Cosponsors

2) Poll: Lieberman Trails For First Time

3) Israel Calls Up Reserves, a Sign of Wider Ground Raids

4) Iran Cleric Accuses UN of Tyranny

5) Iranian Leader's Letter Attacks Israel: Germany

6) Bush to Meet Blair at White House July 28

7) European Nations Circulate U.N. Iran Draft

8) Iran Offers a Pledge and a Warning

9) In Mideast Strife, Bush Sees a Step To Peace

10) Israel, Hezbollah Intensify Ground Conflict in Lebanon

11) US says Iran witnessed N. Korean missile tests

12) Rice to Present Diplomacy Plan for Lebanon

13) Seven Questions: The Fight for Lebanon

14) Congresswoman Kilpatrick Calls for Immediate Ceasefire

15) A Closer Look at a Close Vote in Mexico

Summary:

On Wednesday Representative Dennis Kucinich introduced a resolution (H. Con. Res. 450) "calling upon the President to appeal to all sides in the current crisis in the Middle East for an immediate cessation of violence and to commit United States diplomats to multi-party negotiations with no preconditions." The text is here: http://thomas.loc.gov/cgi-bin/bdquery/z?d109:h.con.res.00450 . There are 23 cosponsors: http://thomas.loc.gov/cgi-bin/bdquery/z?d109:HC00450:@@@P . Of the 62 members of the Congressional Progressive Caucus, 20 are cosponsors. To ask your representative to cosponsor, you can use this link: http://www.democracyinaction.org/dia/organizationsORG/justforeignpolicy.org/campaign.jsp?campaign_KEY=4697. Just Foreign Policy is also circulating a petition in support of an immediate ceasefire: http://www.democracyinaction.org/dia/organizationsORG/justforeignpolicy.org/petition.jsp?petition_KEY=320

Sen. Joe Lieberman is narrowly trailing his challenger for the first time in their race for the Democratic nomination, a poll released Thursday shows. Businessman Ned Lamont had support from 51 percent and Lieberman from 47 percent of likely Democratic voters in the latest Quinnipiac University poll — a slight Lamont lead, given the survey's sampling error margin of plus or minus 4 percentage points. Liberals have criticized Lieberman for his support of the Iraq war and other moves perceived to support congressional Republicans and Bush.

Israel called up a few thousand reservists in possible preparation for a more extensive ground operation in southern Lebanon, as its warplanes continued to hit targets there and to drop leaflets warning residents of villages to leave their homes and head northward.

Over the last two days, there has been an increase in ground clashes as Israeli troops have moved about a mile or so inside Lebanon to demolish Hezbollah outposts and fortifications.

Lebanon's defense minister said on Thursday that the Lebanese Army — which has so far remained on the sidelines — would go into battle if Israel invaded: "The Lebanese army will resist and defend the country and prove that it is an army worthy of respect."

Lebanon's prime minister Siniora said that no settlement was in sight to end the violence. He accused the United States of giving Israel a green light to bomb Lebanon. "The United States is allowing Israel to pursue its aggression," he told Agence France-Presse.

On Thursday UN Secretary General Annan called for an immediate ceasefire and spoke of the human suffering caused by the offensive, which has displaced hundreds of thousands of Lebanese from their homes. He proposed that Hezbollah release the two soldiers, that attacks by both sides be halted and that an international peacekeeping force be deployed. And he condemned the Israeli operation as an "excessive use of force."

The Russian Foreign Ministry called Israel's actions in Lebanon "far beyond the boundaries of an antiterrorist operation" and urged a cease-fire.

President Bush's press secretary, Tony Snow, said, "I'm not sure at this juncture we're going to step in and put up a stop sign," although he called on Israel to "practice restraint" and said Mr. Bush was "very much concerned" about a growing human crisis in southern Lebanon.

Diplomats are investigating the idea of creating a more robust international peacekeeping force than the current, largely ineffectual Unifil force, which has occupied a narrow strip along the Lebanese-Israeli border for decades. The new force would be under United Nations auspices, but made up largely of European troops, and would help the weak Lebanese government move its army to the Israeli border and push back a weakened Hezbollah.

The Lebanese government said it had so far sheltered as many as 120,000 refugees, mostly in schools. It is considering setting up tents and temporary barracks in public parks and sports fields. The United Nations estimates that a total of 500,000 people have been displaced, on in eight of Lebanon's population of 4 million.

On the West Bank, Israeli forces continued to surround the Mukata compound in Nablus, where Palestinians wanted by Israel have been taking refuge since Wednesday morning. Tanks fired five shells at the buildings and army bulldozers worked to knock down the exterior walls, while warning those inside to come out or risk being buried underneath the rubble. Israeli troops fired rubber-coated bullets at Palestinians who demonstrated against the troops, wounding five, one seriously, Palestinian medics said.

The U.N. Security Council risks committing "a historic act of tyranny'' against Iran if it passes a resolution demanding Tehran stop making nuclear fuel, powerful cleric Akbar Hashemi Rafsanjani said on Friday. U.N. Security Council permanent members are wrangling over the text of a draft resolution that includes the threat of sanctions if Iran fails to halt making enriched uranium. "They are going to commit another historic act of tyranny against Iran, despite Iran announcing several times that it is ready to negotiate,'' he said. He said it would be humiliating for Iran to end its domestic nuclear fuel cycle, which it says it needs to run nuclear power stations. "If Iran accepts, that would mean putting our hands up and surrendering,'' he continued. Former President Rafsanjani heads the powerful Expediency Council, Iran's main legislative arbitration body.

U.S. Ambassador to the U.N. John Bolton said on Wednesday major powers disagreed about how to make legally binding demands that Iran suspend enrichment and stop work on a reactor that can produce plutonium. Russia and China, both of which have opposed sanctions, have raised questions in informal talks about the draft resolution backed by Western nations. The drafts looks to set a date, possibly by the end of August, for Iran to comply. The United States has consistently declined to rule out military strikes on Iranian nuclear facilities.

Germany rejects parts of a letter from Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad to Chancellor Angela Merkel which called into question Israel's right to exist, a government spokesman said on Friday. A German government official who saw the letter told Reuters it criticized Israel and said Germany and Iran should cooperate in dealing with Zionism and solving the Palestinian problem. The spokesman said the letter did not mention Tehran's nuclear standoff with the West, or the fighting in Lebanon and Israel. Asked if Germany planned to respond to the letter, Wilhelm said: ``We have no intention of entering into a long correspondence with the Iranian president.''

President George W. Bush and British Prime Minister Tony Blair will hold their talks next week. Bush has yet to sign on to Blair's call for deploying an international security and monitoring presence along the border of Lebanon and Israel. Bush's position is that he wants to hear the report of a U.N. mission to the region on whether such a force would be worthwhile. He has declined to endorse calls for a ceasefire from U.N. Secretary-General Kofi Annan and others.

Key European nations circulated a draft U.N. Security Council resolution Thursday that would put the threat of sanctions, but not force, behind demands that Iran suspend uranium enrichment and clear up suspicions about its nuclear program. If Iran does not comply, the draft states, the council will follow up under Article 41 of Chapter 7 in the U.N. Charter, which allows punishments that do not involve military action, such as economic sanctions, banning air travel or breaking diplomatic relations. The draft, proposed by Britain, France, Germany and backed by the U.S., would make mandatory earlier demands from the council that Iran stop uranium enrichment. The U.S. had hoped to have the Security Council pass the resolution by the end of this week, but that seemed unlikely because diplomats were occupied with the Lebanon crisis. In addition, there was no indication that a split with Russia had been bridged. Russia had circulated a counterproposal Wednesday that stripped much of the tough language from the draft. Western powers presented their version to the full council anyway.

Russia's U.N. Ambassador, Vitaly Churkin, indicated on Wednesday that Moscow was in no rush to get a resolution passed but said Russia wanted an answer sometime soon to the package of incentives, put forward on June 5. Churkin stressed the council is not trying to push Tehran to suspend enrichment. ''We are not in a rush at all,'' Churkin said. ''We do not want to ambush Iran in any way. We're very much in a negotiating political mode. We do not want to dictate things to Iran.''

Iran promised again on Thursday to respond to an international package of incentives on Aug. 22 but warned that it would reconsider its position if its case was sent to the United Nations Security Council. The announcement was in a statement issued by Iran's National Security Council. The council is led by Iran's chief nuclear negotiator, Ali Larijani.

Bush's unwillingness to pressure Israel to halt its military campaign is rooted in a view of the Middle East sharply different from his predecessors, the Washington Post reports. When hostilities have broken out in the past, the usual U.S. response has been immediate diplomacy aimed at a cease-fire to avoid escalation. But now the administration is content to see the Israelis inflict the maximum damage possible on Hezbollah. The U.S. position represents a shift away from a more traditional view that the U.S. plays an "honest broker's" role in the Middle East. In the new view, the conflict is an opportunity to seriously degrade a big threat in the region. Many Mideast experts warn that there is a dangerous consequence to this worldview. They believe that Israel, and the United States by extension, is risking serious trouble if it continues with air strikes that are producing mounting casualties. The history of the Middle East is replete with examples of the limits of military power, they say, noting how the Israeli campaign in Lebanon in the early 1980s helped create the conditions for the rise of Hezbollah. They warned that the military campaign is turning mainstream Lebanese public opinion against Israel rather than against Hezbollah. "There needs to be a signal that the Bush administration is prepared to do something," said Larry Garber, executive director the New Israel Fund, which pushes for civil rights and justice in Israel. "Taking a complete hands-off, casual-observer position undermines our credibility. . . . There is a danger that we will be seen as simply doing Israel's bidding." Robert Malley, who handled Middle East issues on the NSC for Clinton, voiced skepticism about whether the current course would pay off for either Israel or the United States. "Hezbollah could emerge with its dignity intact and much of its political and military arsenal still available," said Malley, who monitors the region for the International Crisis Group. "What will you have gained?"

The Israeli public, while so far largely supportive of Prime Minister Ehud Olmert's war effort, has been generally less tolerant of ground operations since Israel's 1982 invasion of Lebanon and the bloody 18-year occupation that followed, the Washington Post notes. Amos Yaron, a retired general, said "We didn't have any problem entering Lebanon in 1982…The problem was leaving it."

The United States said on Thursday Iran had attended North Korean missile tests this month, increasing U.S. concern about ties between two countries Washington accuses of having secret nuclear weapons programmes.U.S. Assistant Secretary of State Chris Hill said one or more Iranian representatives witnessed July 4 missile tests in North Korea.

Asked at a U.S. Senate hearing about reports Iranians witnessed the North Korean tests, Hill said: "Yes, that is my understanding."

In a statement published on her Congressional website, Detroit Congresswoman Kilpatrick called for an immediate ceasefire in Lebanon. The President must send a strong signal that the United States does not condone the ongoing loss of innocent civilian lives, she said.

A letter in the Washington Post noted that claims that Mexico has had "two full tallies" of its July 2 presidential vote are incorrect. Both the initial count on the day of the vote and the so-called 'recount' -- were of precinct results, not of actual ballots. There has been no centralized count of the ballots themselves, as López Obrador, who is disputing the precinct tally, is calling for.

Articles:

1) Kucinich Resolution Calls for Immediate Ceasefire in Lebanon; 23 Cosponsors

Representative Dennis Kucinich [OH-10]

July 19, 2006

http://thomas.loc.gov/cgi-bin/bdquery/z?d109:h.con.res.00450 :

2) Poll: Lieberman Trails For First Time

HARTFORD, Conn.,

Associated Press

July 20, 2006

http://www.cbsnews.com/stories/2006/07/20/politics/main1823685.shtml

Sen. Joe Lieberman, under fire from activists in his own party, has lost ground to his challenger and is narrowly trailing him for the first time in their race for the Democratic nomination, a new poll released Thursday shows.

3) Israel Calls Up Reserves, a Sign of Wider Ground Raids

Steven Erlanger And Jad Mouawad

July 21, 2006

New York Times

http://www.nytimes.com/2006/07/21/world/middleeast/21cnd-mide.html

JERUSALEM, July 21 — Israel called up a few thousand reservists today, in possible preparation for a more extensive ground operation in southern Lebanon, as its warplanes continued to hit targets there and to drop leaflets warning residents of villages to leave their homes and head northward.

4) Iran Cleric Accuses UN of Tyranny

Reuters

July 21, 2006

Filed at 6:48 a.m. ET

http://www.nytimes.com/reuters/world/international-nuclear-iran-cleric.html

TEHRAN (Reuters) - The U.N. Security Council risks committing ``a historic act of tyranny'' against Iran if it passes a resolution demanding Tehran stop making nuclear fuel, powerful cleric Akbar Hashemi Rafsanjani said on Friday.

5) Iranian Leader's Letter Attacks Israel: Germany

Reuters

July 21, 2006

Filed at 8:55 a.m. ET

http://www.nytimes.com/reuters/world/international-germany-iran.html

BERLIN (Reuters) - Germany rejects parts of a letter from Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad to Chancellor Angela Merkel which called into question Israel's right to exist, a government spokesman said on Friday.

6) Bush to Meet Blair at White House July 28

Reuters

July 21, 2006

Filed at 9:47 a.m. ET

http://www.nytimes.com/reuters/news/news-mideast-bush-blair.html

WASHINGTON (Reuters) - President George W. Bush and British Prime Minister Tony Blair, who have a difference of opinion about a multilateral force for southern Lebanon, will next week hold their second face-to-face talks this month.

7) European Nations Circulate U.N. Iran Draft

Associated Press

July 21, 2006

Filed at 12:25 a.m. ET

http://www.nytimes.com/aponline/world/AP-UN-Iran-Nuclear.html

UNITED NATIONS (AP) -- Key European nations circulated a draft U.N. Security Council resolution Thursday that would put the threat of sanctions, but not force, behind demands that Iran suspend uranium enrichment and clear up suspicions about its nuclear program.

8) Iran Offers a Pledge and a Warning

Nazila Fathi

New York Times

July 21, 2006

http://www.nytimes.com/2006/07/21/world/middleeast/21iran.html

TEHRAN, July 20 — Iran promised again on Thursday to respond to an international package of incentives on Aug. 22 but warned that it would reconsider its position if its case was sent to the United Nations Security Council.

9) In Mideast Strife, Bush Sees a Step To Peace

Michael Abramowitz

Washington Post

Friday, July 21, 2006; A01

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2006/07/20/AR2006072001907.html

President Bush's unwillingness to pressure Israel to halt its military campaign in Lebanon is rooted in a view of the Middle East conflict that is sharply different from that of his predecessors.

10) Israel, Hezbollah Intensify Ground Conflict in Lebanon

Long Fight Signaled as Evacuations Proceed

Scott Wilson and Edward Cody

Washington Post

Friday, July 21, 2006; 7:32 AM

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2006/07/21/AR2006072100344.html

JERUSALEM, July 21 -- Israeli ground forces and Hezbollah guerrillas engaged in heavy fighting inside Lebanon on Thursday, as senior Israeli defense officials braced the country for a long conflict against the radical Islamic groups on its borders and indicated that a large ground operation could still lie ahead.

11) US says Iran witnessed N. Korean missile tests

Carol Giacomo

Reuters

Friday, July 21, 2006; 12:32 AM

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2006/07/21/AR2006072100057.html

WASHINGTON (Reuters) - The United States said on Thursday Iran had attended North Korean missile tests this month, increasing U.S. concern about ties between two countries Washington accuses of having secret nuclear weapons programmes.

12) Rice to Present Diplomacy Plan for Lebanon

Anne Gearan

Associated Press

Friday, July 21, 2006; 11:12 AM

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2006/07/21/AR2006072100388.html

WASHINGTON -- Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice will lay out U.S. plans Friday for a diplomatic solution to the Israeli-Hezbollah fighting, an administration official said.

13) Seven Questions: The Fight for Lebanon

Interview with Rami Khouri, Editor, Beirut Daily Star

Foreign Policy

Posted July 19, 2006

http://www.foreignpolicy.com/story/cms.php?story_id=3531

As the conflict between Israel, Lebanon, and the Palestinians escalates, FP spoke with Rami Khouri, editor at large of the Daily Star, Beirut's largest English-language newspaper, for some perspective on Hezbollah's tactics, Iran's role in the crisis, and whether there's any end to the fighting in sight.

14) Congresswoman Kilpatrick Calls for Immediate Ceasefire

Congresswoman Carolyn Cheeks Kilpatrick Issues Statement about the Escalating Conflict between Israel and Hezbollah

Tuesday, July 18, 2006

http://www.house.gov/kilpatrick/pr060718.htm

Detroit, MI – Congresswoman Carolyn Cheeks Kilpatrick (13th District-MI) issued the following statement today regarding the escalating violence in the Middle East: I am deeply concerned about the escalating violence between Israel and Lebanon. The violence is resulting in substantial losses of innocent civilian lives.

15) A Closer Look at a Close Vote in Mexico

Greg Grandin, New York

Letter to the Editor

Friday, July 21, 2006; A16

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2006/07/20/AR2006072001854.html

Jorge G. Castañeda [op-ed, July 16] wrote that Mexico has had "two full tallies" of its July 2 presidential vote. This is incorrect. Both the initial count on the day of the vote and the so-called "recount" -- which occurred three days later -- were of precinct results, not of the actual ballots. There has been no centralized count of the ballots themselves, as Andrés Manuel López Obrador, who is disputing the precinct tally, is calling for.