Undiplomatic Revolt

I've been dragged back to "active service" with The Daily Telegraph for a day to take a look at the Foreign Office. ...

Diplomatic discretion cast aside to criticise 'failing policies'
The Daily Telegraph 4 August 2006

Britain's diplomats, trained for years in the virtues of discretion and obedient service, are in an unprecedented state of rebellion over Tony Blair's policies in the Middle East.

In recent days there have been signs of disagreement between the Prime Minister and the Foreign Office, an ambassador's warning about civil war in Iraq has been leaked and now one of Britain's best known former diplomatic heavyweights has accused Mr Blair of doing "more damage to British interests in the Middle East than Anthony Eden, who led Britain to disaster in Suez".

Sir Rodric Braithwaite, formerly British ambassador to Moscow and the chairman of the Joint Intelligence Committee, issued a more withering personal criticism of Mr Blair and his foreign policy than the divided Tory opposition could ever muster.

Writing in the Financial Times, Sir Rodric compared the Prime Minister to "a frayed and waxy zombie straight from Madame Tussauds... programmed to spout the language of the White House in an artificial English accent".

He continued: "Stiff in opinions, but often in the wrong, he has manipulated public opinion, sent our soldiers into distant lands for ill-conceived purposes, misused the intelligence agencies to serve his ends and reduced the Foreign Office to a demoralised cipher because it keeps reminding him of inconvenient facts.

"He keeps the dog, but he barely notices if it barks or not. He prefers to construct his "foreign policy" out of self-righteous soundbites and expensive foreign travel."

Separately, Oliver Miles, a former British ambassador to Libya, accused Mr Blair of "bias towards Israel" in its military campaign against Hamas and Hizbollah.

Writing in The Guardian's internet edition, he said: "There is little indication that he [the Prime Minister] has grasped the horror of what is happening in Gaza and Lebanon; still less that he is aware that Lebanon today is a repeat of what happened when Israel invaded last time.

"This is in strong contrast with the empathy he shows for Israelis who feel that their existence is under threat from their neighbours, a feeling that is real enough but which in terms of experience of suffering and death simply does not match the horrors that Palestinians and Lebanese have lived through in the last generation."

It is difficult to gauge how far such sentiments are shared among other diplomats, whether serving or retired.

Mr Miles, for instance, has been unable to repeat his publicity coup of two years ago, when he gathered the signatures of 52 former diplomats telling Mr Blair that his policies in Iraq and the Israeli-Palestinian conflict were "doomed to failure".

Israeli officials, who have an acute interest in observing the state of the Foreign Office and Downing Street, say they have not detected a significant split between Mr Blair and the major foreign policy officials dealing with the Middle East.

Still, Mr Blair admitted there were "people within the system", as well as ministers, who disagreed with his policy.

Leaked Government memos have highlighted senior officials' concerns at the lack of post-war planning in Iraq, and warnings that the invasion would radicalise Muslims in Britain.

In private, senior British officials sometimes voice criticism. One said recently he could not remember a time when the West's strategic position was weaker than it is today.

Another compared the embattled position of the Army in Iraq to its situation in Palestine in 1947, when it was unable to stop the war between Jews and Arabs and withdrew from the country.

After the invasion of Iraq, one senior official explained: "This Government is made up entirely of doves and one hawk - and the hawk is the Prime Minister."

This situation is little changed today.

Valedictory

My valedictory piece from The Daily Telegraph.....


Lebanon Bleeds as the World Fights its Bloody Wars
The Daily Telegraph 18 July 2006

Shed a tear for Lebanon, the beautiful country being destroyed by a war that is not of its own making.
After earlier suffering 15 years of civil war, Lebanon finally saw the departure of Israeli forces in 2000, followed five years later by the withdrawal of Syrian troops. But just as Beirut was rediscovering its old joie de vivre, the spectres of the past have returned: the Israelis, the Syrians, the Iranians and the Americans, all fighting their wars on Lebanese soil and playing with Lebanese lives. Lebanon may mean "white", but its colours have reverted to blood-red and burnt-black.
Supported by the US, Israel claims the bombardment of Lebanon and its attempt to crush Hizbollah are for Lebanon's own good. Syria and Iran are all too happy to stoke the conflict, support Hizbollah, and fight Israel to the last Lebanese. Lebanon is burning, on the Golan Heights the ceasefire line with Syria is the quietest of Israel's borders.
There is a risk that the conflict could expand to include Syria and others. For the moment none of the players wants the fighting to spread beyond the borders of Lebanon. Yet the impact of what happens in Lebanon, and the now forgotten fighting in the Gaza Strip that started the crisis, will have far-reaching consequences for the region.
The G8 summit this week pointedly blamed Hamas and Hizbollah, and by implication their sponsors in Syria and Iran. "These extremist elements and those who support them cannot be allowed to plunge the Middle East into chaos and provoke a wider conflict. The extremists must immediately halt their attacks," said the G8 declaration.
This must rank as one of the most pro-Israeli international statements in at least a decade. It is motivated by the fear that a victory for Hamas and Hizbollah will be a victory for the forces of extremism across the Islamic world. Arab leaders know this too, which is why they wring their hands about the agony of Lebanon but have done nothing to stop Israel, and have even muttered criticism of Hizbollah's "adventurism". Israel sees the war as an opportunity to change the perception that its withdrawals from Lebanon in 2000 and Gaza in 2005 were a sign of weakness. America, badly bled in Iraq by insurgents supported by Syria and Iran, and feeling too weak to take on its regional foes directly, now sees the fighting in Lebanon as a means of settling the score with Damascus and Teheran.
For Syria, the chaos gives it an opportunity to return to its favourite role as arsonist and fireman of regional conflicts: Damascus stirs trouble, and the world then comes begging for it to help put a stop to it.
And Iran, which has successfully manoeuvred its allies into positions of power in Iraq has turned Lebanon into its strategic front-line with Israel. The mullahs hold America by the cojones in Iraq, and are now trying to do the same to Israel in Lebanon.
Lebanon confuses the usual dividing lines of the region: the split between Arabs and Israelis, Persians and Arabs, Shia and Sunni, radical states and pro-western ones. Sunni Arab leaders are alarmed by the rise of Shia power in Iraq, fearing it would strengthen Iran, traditional rival to the Arabs, and stir up other Shia minorities in the Gulf. The last thing they want is for Hizbollah, an Iranian proxy, to hijack the great Arab cause of Palestine.
Who will win the contest? Playing the internal politics of Lebanon has proved treacherous for foreigners. The Israeli forces that invaded Lebanon in 1982 were greeted with sweets by ordinary Shiites, but a year later the same Shiites started sending suicide bombers against them. America and France (and Britain and Italy) sent peacekeeping forces into Lebanon and received the same treatment.
Surprisingly, perhaps, America did not absorb this lesson. As with the Israelis in Lebanon, the cheers for the US soldiers who brought down the statue of Saddam Hussein were soon followed by the explosions of human bombs.
It took an exhausted Israel two decades to leave Lebanon. America and Britain may fare no better. In many ways, America took on the wrong country. The bigger threat to the Middle East came from Iran rather than Iraq. The elimination of Saddam has emboldened Iran's clerical regime and encouraged it to accelerate its nuclear programme. If dealing with Iran and its extremist allies is difficult today, it will become all but impossible once Teheran has armed itself with atomic weapons.
Democratisation of the Middle East had been President George W Bush's big idea to win the "war on terror": given the right to choose their own governments, Muslims would turn away from anti-western extremism. In practice, many of those given the vote chose the extremists. Iraq is in the hands of religious parties, Hizbollah increased its vote in Lebanon, the Muslim Brotherhood made big advances in Egypt and Hamas took power in the West Bank and Gaza Strip.
So now America and Israel have returned to the use of force. A success against Hizbollah in Lebanon is important, but it is difficult to see what would constitute a clear "victory".
Perhaps Israel can destroy enough Hizbollah missiles, and even kill some senior Hizbollah leaders hiding in their underground bunkers in Beirut's southern neighbourhoods, to weaken the organisation. Israeli commanders are confident they can win the military campaign, given enough time. Yet time plays against Israel by stoking international protest over the plight of civilians, and increasing the chances that a misdirected bomb on a building filled with civilians will turn the military venture into a political disaster. And with more time, a weakened Hizbollah will reconstitute itself and restart the violent cycle.
The international intervention force being pushed by Tony Blair will either be ineffectual, like the current Unifil force, or, if it tries to take on Hizbollah, risks turning itself into a target for the same kind of attacks that drove the Israelis out of Lebanon.
Perhaps the best chance of success lies in politics and diplomacy, but it will be a long haul. Some Lebanese politicians have already accused Hizbollah of dragging the country into pointless war by attacking Israel behind the UN-demarcated border. The task for the world will be to strengthen them and empower the Beirut government to assert its authority, extend its control to the south of the country and disarm the state-within-a-state that is Hizbollah.
More unified big-power diplomacy will be vital in restraining Syria and forcing Iran to back down on its nuclear programme. And a concerted effort is needed to resolve the Israeli-Palestinian conflict that fuels radicalism elsewhere.
Yes, the world has to tell Israel to give up the occupied territories. But at the same time it must hold the Palestinians to account for suicide bombers and rockets sent into Israel.
Israel must be made to retreat to internationally recognised borders for the sake of peace. But peace is only possible if those frontiers are sacrosanct. That is the heart of the matter in Gaza and Lebanon.

Which side does time favour?

Tel Aviv

The front page of Israel’s mass circulation Yediot Ahronot sums up America’s attitude to Israel’s military action in Lebanon: “Take Your Time”.

Senior Israeli officers say they need at least a week, maybe more, to achieve their military aims, although there is growing confusion as to what they may be. First Israel said it wanted to destroy Hizbollah, then revised this to say it wanted the militia to be disarmed and now reduced this further to a desire to “push Hizbollah away from the border”, even if just by a few kilometres.

Whatever the aim, America seems ready to fend off international pressure for an immediate ceasefire, saying any halt to the violence had to be “enduring”. She said the political spadework, to devise a way of helping the Beirut government extend its control to south Lebanon, had to be in place first. In truth, this argument is a political manoeuvre to allow Israel to keep up its military campaign.

Prioivately, though, Western officials have been expressing doubt about how much damage Israel is really causing to Hizbollah. A senior British official toldme the bombing was yieding "diminishing returns for Israel". The question now is whether it is actually counter-productive.

Does more time really benefit Israel? More time for bombing may, in theory, give greater opportunity kill Hizbollah fighters and destroy their rockets. But it also progressively weakens the pro-western government of Fouad Siniora, whose cooperation is essential in the post-war settlemetn, and increasingly radicalises Muslim opinion.

More importantly, time also gives Hizbollah more opportunities to build up the myth of heroic resistance against the "Zionists". Every day that Israel does not silence Hizbollah’s missiles is another victory in the propaganda battle. Every day that Hizbollah fighters hold off Israeli ground troops in the border villages further increases Hizbollah’s mystique as the only fighting force able to hold Israel back.

Hassan Nasrallah, the Hizbollah chief, told an interviewer this week: “If the resistance survives, this will be a victory. If its determination is not broken, this will be a victory.”

Israel has made no secret of its desire to kill Nasrallah. But after dropping countless bombs on his suspected bunkers, he keeps back popping back up to give interviews and make statements. That, too, is a victory for Hizbollah – and it is being noticed elsewhere in the Muslim world.

Condi may be doing Israel no favours by allowing it to go on bombing Lebanon.

Arabs to defend Israel?

Jerusalem

Lost in the tumult and misery of the war across the Lebanese border is a fascinating political change in the Middle East: Israel accepts, even welcomes the deployment of foreign forces; Arabs leaders openly criticise Hizbollah's attack on Israel that provoked the massive bombardment of the country and Palestinian leaders accuse Iran of hijacking their cause.

These are the building blocks for the diplomatic package that Condoleezza Rice is trying to put together in her mission to the Middle East.

One surprising idea being promoted by Ehud Olmert, the Israeli prime minister, is that the foreign intervention force should include Arab troops. The idea that Israel would entrust its security to Arab armies - if it happens - is astonishing.

Israel has traditionally refused intervention by third parties, believing that peace would be longer-lasting if negotiated directly. And if conflict continues, Israel would would have a freer hand in its military operations without having to worry about harming foreigners.

But in accepting the idea of a foreign intervention force, Israel has taken a leaf out of Palestinian tactics, as the New York Times reports. According to Israeli lore, only the Jews can propely defend themselves and their threat. Outsiders can help, but would not be expected to fight on Israel's behalf.

There have been exceptions to this, for instance in 1956, when French fighters patrolled Israeli air space during the Suez crisis, when Israel colluded with France and Britain in the failed effort to bring down Egypt's leader, Gamal Abdel Nasser.

More recently, a US-British mission to monitor a Palestinian jail in Jericho ended in fiasco when the monitors, feeling threatened, abruptly pulled out and the building was stormed by Israeli forces.

Still, Israel last year agreed to amend the Camp David Accords with Egypt to allow Egyptian forces to reinforce the border with Gaza after Ariel Sharon withdrew soldiers and settlers from the area last year. It also agreed that European Union monitors should supervise the Rafah border crossing

Now, realising it cannot it cannot destroy Hizbollah from the air, and doubting that it can even win a points victory over Hizbollah, Israel and America are increasingly turning their attention to winning the post-conflict diplomacy. A key element is to help the Lebanese government take control of south Lebanon from Hizbollah.

This is where the idea of an intervention force comes in. It has been tried before, without success. The Multi-National Force the deployed in Lebanon in 1982, after the Israeli invasion of Ledbanon, was forced to withdraw a year later after it got sucked into the civil war and became the target for Hizbollah suicide bombers.

UNIFIL, the UN "interim" force, has been in Lebanon since 1978 and the best it can do is to watch the fighting and keep its heead down when the going gets really tough.

Would a new international force would do a better job of fighting Hizbollah than the Israelis? They tried for years and failed, and withdrew from Lebanon in 2000. To be effective the force would neeed to include a serious western army, but the Americans and the British have given notice that they would not contribute. It is hard to see the French taking on such a burden, particularly given France's role as the former colonial power.

Perhaps the inclulsion of Arab forces would give the force greater "legitimacy" in the eyes of the Lebanese. It would also serve notice on Iran that a coalition of the West, pro-western Arab states and Israel are standing up to its attempt to inflame the Middle East.

But if it is hard to imagine western armies returning to Lebanon, it is almost impossible to conceive of an Arab army being sent to fight fellow Arabs and defend Israel.

Welcome!

Welcome to my new blog site.

I have left The Daily Telegraph after 19 years to move to The Economist, and have taken my blog with me.

I will pick up from where I left off, with postings and links on international affairs and other observations.

If you want to see my postings from my earlier incarnation as The Daily Telegraph's Diplomatic Editor, click here