This is musing and speculation on some of the ramifications of the Hamas coup in Gaza. I solicit your thoughts.
1. Hamas is no longer the legitimate government of the Palestinian people, Abbas having dissolved the government and appointed a new Prime Minister under emergency conditions. But, Hamas now, for the first time, has full responsibility for all aspects of governing the Palestinians in Gaza. Western aid will immediately flow to the West Bank and the new Abbas government but Gaza will see little if any of that. I cannot see Hamas, wholly surrounded by an unfriendly Egyptian government and a mortal enemy in Israel, being able to do much for the residents of Gaza - beyond imposing security and Sharia law.
2. Hamas is in a position of extreme weakness. Gaza’s water and electricity is controlled by Israel. Even with all the economic support in the world from Iran, no water and no electricity in a small plot of land with over 1,500,000 people is a disaster but a flick of some switches away. The next rocket coming across the border could send Gaza’s living conditions into the tank. Israel need not invade Gaza to hold life and death control over the society and to make any offensives by Hamas untenable.
3. While a majority of people in Gaza voted for Hamas, does that mean that they look forward to the mini-caliphate that they now find themselves under? Hamas ran on two prongs – one, providing services to Palestinians compliments of foreign funding, and two, not being as corrupt as Fatah. They did not run a campaign about imposing Sharia law of which I am aware. And how will they treat the concept of democracy in Gaza now that they have power? Palestinians in Gaza subject to decades of secular rule have just had it come to an end. It will be interesting to see how the populace takes to this in the long term, particularly if the West Bank Palestinians begin to thrive in a freer secular environment.
On a related note, there are about a thousand alleged Fatah supporters camped at the border crossing with Israel who are seeking to go to the West Bank. "Israel’s deputy defense minister, Ephraim Sneh, told Israel Radio that those whose lives were deemed in danger would be taken out through Israel. But he added, about the others, "No one knows for sure who these people are. We can assume they are people who don’t want to be in Gaza. Pretty soon there will be 1.5 million people who don’t want to be in Gaza."
4. Hamas by itself will not get the aid dollars they need to stay afloat. This will seriously strain the already troubled economy Hamas’s major patron, Iran. And how long will Iran support Hamas if Hamas does not take an active role in attacking Israel?
5. Abbas, though no friend of Israel, has, to his credit, long been a vocal opponent of the second intifada but lacked the strength necessary to challenge Hamas and the more radical elements. Now, with control over Palestinians in the West Bank and a much stronger security posture compliments of the IDF, Abbas may actually have a chance to develop a true Palestinian alternative with a viable economy. The flip side is that Iran, Hamas, Syria and possibly others will be intent on doing all they can to prevent this from happening. Expect the next round of suicide bombings in Ramallah.
6. If there is a real and lasting split between the Hamas contingent and Palestinians interested in developing an economy and a life, this would be a great disaster for many of the surrounding countries who have long used their influence and money to grossly manipulate the Palestinians for half a century. Indeed, "Abbas is already under pressure from some Arab governments, in particular the Saudis, who mediated the national-unity government at Mecca, to take Hamas at its word and try to recreate a shared government. In a speech on Friday to an emergency meeting of the Arab League, Foreign Minister Saud al-Faisal of Saudi Arabia said, "The Palestinians have come close to putting by themselves the last nail in the coffin of the Palestinian cause." To the extent that the "Palestinian cause" is the one defined by the Muslim Brotherhood and the salafists of Saudi Arabia – to support suicide bombers, to keep the Palestinians in poverty, to claim Israel’s treatment of the Palestinians as the cause of all misery in the Middle East, etc., then one can only hope that Faisal is accurate.
Feel free to chip in with your thoughts. All in all, in the world of unintended consequences, the Hamas coup has the potential of being a very positive event for Israel and West Bank Palestinians and a real problem for Hamas and Iran.
Monday, June 18, 2007
Is The Hamas Coup A Plus Or Minus?
Saturday, May 12, 2007
Money, Sex, Power & Oil
Sex, money, spying, coups, . . . is it an Ian Flemming novel? Not this time. It's BP dispensing with business ethics and redefining the term "offshore drilling.":
BP executives working for Lord Browne spent millions of pounds on champagne-fuelled sex parties to help secure lucrative international oil contracts.
The company also worked with MI6 to help bring about changes in foreign governments, according to an astonishing account of life inside the oil giant.
Les Abrahams, who led BP's successful bid for a multi-million-pound deal with one of the former Soviet republics, today claims that Browne . . . presided over an "anything goes" regime of sexual licence, spying and financial sweeteners.
. . . Mr Abrahams tells how he spent £45 million in expenses over just four months of negotiations with Azerbaijan's state oil company.
Armed with a no-limit company credit card, he ordered supplies of champagne and caviar to be flown on company jets into the boomtown capital, Baku, to be consumed at the "sex parties".
The hospitality continued in London, where prostitutes were hired on the BP credit card to entertain visiting Azerbaijanis.
Mr Abrahams, an engineer by training, joined BP in 1991, just as the disintegration of the Soviet Union had triggered a "new gold rush" by oil multi-nationals seeking a share of the 200 billion barrels of oil reserves beneath the Caspian Sea.
While employed by BP, Mr Abrahams says he was persuaded to work for MI6 by John Scarlett, now head of the service but then its head of station in Moscow.
He says he was passing information to Scarlett in faxes and at one-to-one meetings in the Russian capital.
He also claims that BP was working closely with MI6 at the highest levels to help it to win business in the region and influence the political complexion of governments.
Mr Abrahams worked for BP's XFI unit - Exploring Frontiers International - which specialises in opening new markets in often unstable parts of the world.
He said Lord Browne, then BP's head of exploration, allocated a budget of £45 million to cover the first year's costs of the Baku operation.
"The order came from Browne's aides to 'get them anything they want'.
"By 'them', they meant local officials in Azerbaijan," Mr Abrahams said.
"There were 20 or 30 people working on it at BP head office, and we soon had a steady stream of executives coming over as negotiators. We got through the money in just four months - after which it was simply increased without question."
He described a Wild West world in which oil executives with briefcases full of dollars rubbed shoulders with mafia members, prostitutes and fixers and cut their deals in smoke-filled back rooms.
"The BP officials would come out to Baku in groups of five or six, every week," he said.
"Sometimes I would charter an entire Boeing 757 to carry as few as seven staff. Their main base was the hard currency bar of the old Intourist hotel - so named because it accepted only dollars and was only open to foreigners.
"It was full of prostitutes and many of us, including me, used them on a regular basis, although we quickly established they all worked for the KGB.
"If we went back to the rooms, not only were they bugged, but the girls would quiz us closely about what we were doing and where we were going, and reported straight back to their handlers.
"Everywhere was bugged, and all the phones were tapped. One of our executives was recorded saying unflattering things about the president, and his comments were played back to us in a meeting with local state oil company officials.
"We were then told clearly that he was no longer welcome in the country."
Mr Abrahams helped to forge links with the local officials by throwing lavish parties. He said the Azerbaijani girls who worked in the BP office, which occupied a floor of the Sovietskaya hotel, would attend the parties and routinely provide "sexual favours".
They were also presumed to work for the local intelligence services.
"There was one girl, called Natasha, assigned to teach us Russian, but it usually ended up as more that that. She would use the intimate opportunity to ask us questions about what we were up to.
"Caviar and champagne were consumed at the parties, which would start in the bars but inevitably end with the girls in the rooms.
"We had a company American Express card with no name on it which we could use to draw out $10,000 a time to pay for entertaining without ever having to account for it.
"Our local fixer was called 'Zulfie', who would help find girls, drink and occasionally hashish. We always suspected he worked for the KGB, because he was so well connected.
"A lot of the BP men's marriages went wrong. Either they ended up with the local girls, or the wives would find out - often because the girls would ring their home numbers "by accident".
"I don't believe that Browne didn't know everything that was going on. He came out to Baku on five or six occasions."
. . . He said BP applied the same laissez-faire attitude to hospitality when Azerbaijani officials came to the UK during the negotiations.
"I was given a hotline number which connected to a desk in the Foreign Office. It meant visas could be granted instantly for the Azerbaijanis and collected on arrival at the airport, rather than taking the usual several weeks.
"We had bundles of cash to spend on them when they got here, and could again use the corporate card without restraint.
"We would typically have a dinner at which Lord Browne would be present, then he would go home and we would head off to somewhere like the Gaslight Club in Piccadilly - where girls would dance topless and you would get charged £250 for your drink.
"Our guests would usually want girls to go back with afterwards. Sometimes we could persuade the girls in the clubs, but more often we would just phone up an escort agency.
"We could charge them straight to the BP Amex card. But it sometimes became problematic. One group of Khazak Oil officials stripped their hotel rooms in Aberdeen bare, including the sheets and pillowcases, and they would usually clear out the minibars wherever they were staying."
All the entertaining paid off in September 1992 when BP signed a £300 million deal to exploit the Shah Deniz oilfields.
Mr Abrahams says that a key factor in securing the deal was an £8 million payment BP made that year to SOCAR, the state-owned oil company in Azerbaijan, for the right to use a construction yard on the edge of the Caspian Sea.
"It was effectively a sweetener to help to secure the deal - and it worked," he said.
Among the guests at a dinner and ceremony at Baku's Gulistan Palace to celebrate the Shah Deniz deal were Lord Browne and Baroness Thatcher.
Mr Abrahams says he was told to ensure that everything ran smoothly for the event, including meeting Browne's fastidious requirements.
"I had his favourite brand of water, Hildon, and his preferred foods flown out in advance, and I made sure money was paid for police escorts and to circumvent immigration procedures at the airport for Browne and his entourage.
"That evening, he personally handed me a briefcase containing a cheque for $30 million (£15million), to close the deal.
. . . In 1993, Mr Abrahams played host to a group of MPs who visited Baku as guests of BP, including Harold Elletson - then a Tory MP but now an adviser to the Liberal Democrats - and Home Secretary John Reid, a Shadow Defence Minister at the time.
"John flew out in the BP Gulfstream jet," he recalls.
"After dinner, we went drinking in the hard currency bar. He was drinking a lot - this was a year before he gave up for good - and I grew worried as it got closer to the time of the curfew imposed because of the tense political situation at the time.
"I said, 'Come on John, we have to get back to the hotel.' But as we left, he was swaying around and being very noisy.
"I urged him not to draw attention to us because we weren't meant to be still on the streets. But then a van load of police armed with Kalashnikovs pulled up and asked us what we were doing.
"He said, 'I am a British politician...' I urged him to be quiet, but then he said to one of the policemen, 'If you don't take that f***ing Kalashnikov out of my face I'm going to stick it up your f***ing a***.'
"With that, we were arrested and shoved at gunpoint into the back of the van.
"It was only after I persuaded the driver to go to the hotel to speak to the intelligence officer there that they released us. John had only about two hours' sleep, then was up at 5.30am to fly to the nearby war zone of Nagorno Karabakh. He was completely hung over."
Some of Mr Abrahams' most intriguing claims surround the alleged co-operation between BP and the British intelligence services to secure a more pro-Western, pro-business regime in the country.
He says the operation, masterminded by Scarlett in Moscow, contributed to the coup in May 1992 which saw President Ayaz Mutalibov toppled by Abulfaz Elchibey, and then to a second change a year later which saw Haydar Aliyev take power.
Just months after Aliyev was installed, BP signed the so-called 'contract of the century', a £5 billion deal which placed BP at the head of an oil exporting consortium.
John Scarlett, says Mr Abrahams, "approached me very subtly and asked me to help to gather information for him.
"Because my daily route to the construction yard passed the supply routes for Nagorno Karabakh, he asked me to report on troop and weapons movements. And BP's deputy representative in Russia seemed very close to the embassy, too.
"BP supported both coups, both through discreet moves and open political support. Our progress on the oil contracts improved considerably after the coups."
Subsequently released Turkish secret service documents claimed BP had discussed an 'arms for oil' deal with the assistance of MI6, under which the company would use intermediaries to supply weapons to Aliyev's supporters in return for the contract.
When the documents emerged in 2000, BP denied supplying arms - although sources admitted its representatives had "discussed the possibility".
A BP spokesman said last night of Mr Abrahams' claims: "There are some facts in his account that are accurate, but we don't recognise most of it. We regard it as fantasy."
A spokeswoman for John Reid said she had no comment and the Foreign Office said of Mr Abrahams' claims: "We neither confirm nor deny anyone's allegations in relation to intelligence matters."
Read the entire story here.
Wednesday, May 9, 2007
Remaking The World In His Image, One Entity At A Time
George Soros is possibly the worst enemy of freedom, democracy, and conservative values to grace this world in many a year. With a billion dollars at his disposal, he has played a pivotal role in changing the face of American politics by funding the far left organizations that now control the Democratic party. Across the Atlantic, he is organizing the European Council on Foreign Relations, an organization that will no doubt seek to imprint his philosophy on the EU and EU nations. He is using his money to reshape the Western political world in his distorted image.
Having said all that, let's switch gears to the World Bank and the move to unseat Paul Wolfowitz as Chairman. The whole fiasco surrounding Mr. Wolfowitz is well documented. The facts read like a very bad movie script. Mr. Wolfowitz agrees to take over as head of the World Bank with full disclosure that his paramour works there. He asks to be recused from all personnel decisions regarding her, but the request is refused by the ethics committee who instead outline a plan for her to be transferred to a different job with additional compensation for her lost opportunities. Mr. Wolfowitz fully complies. Mr. Wolfowitz then begins a campaign against corruption - followed shortly thereafter by charges that he violated ethics rules in regard to the transfer of his paramour.
So what is the intersection of Paul Wolfowitz and George Soros? The Wall Street Journal suspects that it is the hand of George Soros behind the World Bank inquisition to unseat Mr. Wolfowitz. As they explain:Mark Malloch Brown spoke Monday to a crowded auditorium at the World Bank's headquarters, warning that the bank's mission was "hugely at risk" as long as Paul Wolfowitz remained its president. Only hours earlier, news leaked that a special committee investigating Mr. Wolfowitz had accused him of violating conflict-of-interest rules. A coincidence? We doubt it.
Read the entire story here. This is one where the Bush administration needs to stand solidly behind Mr. Wolfowitz. Further, one hopes that, with his position secured, Mr. Wolfowitz will start taking a much closer look at the personnel decisions to be made inside the World Bank. The stench emenating from the World Bank Headquarters is palpable. A thorough house-cleaning seems wholly in order.
Mr. Malloch Brown, remember, was until last year Kofi Annan's deputy at the United Nations. In that position, he distinguished himself by spinning away the $100 billion Oil for Food scandal as little more than a blip in the U.N.'s good work, and one that had little to do with Mr. Annan himself. Last week, Mr. Malloch Brown was named vice president of the Quantum Fund, the hedge fund run by his billionaire friend George Soros. A former World Bank official himself and ally of soon-to-be British Prime Minister Gordon Brown, Mr. Malloch Brown would almost surely be a leading candidate to replace Mr. Wolfowitz should he step down. Not surprisingly, Gordon Brown cold-shouldered Mr. Wolfowitz at a recent meeting in Brussels.
The bank presidency would be a neat coup for Sir Mark, and not just because the post has heretofore gone to an American. He also stands for everything Mr. Wolfowitz opposes, beginning with the issue of corruption. Consider Mr. Malloch Brown's defense of the U.N.'s procurement practices.
"Not a penny was lost from the organization," he insisted last year, following an audit of the U.N.'s peacekeeping procurement by its Office of Internal Oversight Services. In fact, the office found that $7 million had been lost from overpayment; $50 million worth of contracts showed indications of bid rigging; $61 million had bypassed U.N. rules; $82 million had been lost to mismanagement; and $110 million had "insufficient" justification. That's $310 million out of a budget of $1.6 billion, and who knows what the auditors missed.
. . . Mr. Malloch Brown never made any serious attempt to reform the U.N. beyond the cosmetic, while doing everything he could to block the real reforms proposed by Americans Christopher Burnham and former Ambassador John Bolton. He was, however, energetic when it came to lecturing Americans about what they owed the U.N., such as joining the "reformed" Human Rights Council (whose only achievement to date has been to castigate Israel), pursuing a "new multilateral national security," and otherwise empowering the likes of Mr. Malloch Brown, his multilateral mates and their tax-free salaries.
Views like these help explain why Mr. Malloch Brown is in such favor with Mr. Soros, who has publicly suggested the U.S. will need a "de-Nazification" program to erase the taint of the Bush Administration. So close are the two that Mr. Malloch Brown lives in a suburban New York home owned by Mr. Soros. Mr. Malloch Brown says he pays market rent, though reporting by the New York Sun's Benny Avni disputes that. In any case, it's safe to assume that Mr. Soros's widely published views are close to Mr. Malloch Brown's somewhat more guarded ones.
So it's not surprising that many on the World Bank staff would cheer Mr. Malloch Brown: He's perfect for an institutional culture in which "progressive" thinking goes hand-in-glove with a tolerance for corruption. That culture has been on vivid display in the Euro-coup against Mr. Wolfowitz.
. . . Mr. Malloch Brown warned on Monday that, if Mr. Wolfowitz stayed as president, European countries might withhold funding from the next financing round for the bank's International Development Association.
. . . If the Bush Administration now abandons Mr. Wolfowitz as he faces a decision from the bank's board of governors, it will not only betray a friend but hand the biggest victory yet to its audacious enemies in the George Soros axis.
Wednesday, May 2, 2007
Turkey To Resolve Constitutional Crisis By Holding June Elections
Prime Minister Erdogan has opted to resolve Turkey's contstitutional crisis by calling for new elections to be held June 24. The background to this crisis is here, here and here. The crisis, nominally about legal requirements to elect a President, actually turns on the fundamental issue of what the nature of the Turkish state should be. Should Turkey retain its identity as a wholly secular state, or should secularism be discarded in favor of political Islam? This from Reuters, reporting PM Erdogan's decision to resolve the issue democratically:
. . . The AK Party has proposed bringing forward the parliamentary election to June 24 from November 4. Erdogan is expected to win a second term after five years of strong economic growth since his party came to power in 2002.Read the entire article here. The AKP Party is clearly quite popular becasue it has very successfully managed a reform of the economy and a period of rapid economic growth during its years in power. That said, this election will almost certainly turn far less on the economy and far more on the issue of retaining a strictly secular government.
The AK Party will also propose that in future the president be elected by popular vote, not by parliament, Erdogan said.
Deniz Baykal, leader of the secularist main opposition Republican People's Party (CHP), said it was too late for this parliament, elected in 2002, to overhaul the constitution.
"This is about a fundamental power struggle. Erdogan is saying 'ok, you're using everything in order to stop me, then I am going to the public and I will ask them (what they want)'," said Mehmet Ali Birand, a leading Turkish commentator.
A threat by the army, which regards itself as the guardian of Turkey's secular system, to intervene in the presidential poll, an opposition boycott of the first round vote in parliament and an anti-government rally of up to one million people on Sunday sharply increased tension in Turkey.
The decision to bring forward the election brought relief to financial markets which had suffered their biggest fall in a year over the previous two days on fears of instability.
The European Commission welcomed the planned early election. Italy said recent events in Turkey showed caution was justified over its admittance to the 27-nation European Union.
Turkey, constitutionally secular and its 74 million people predominantly Muslim, began EU membership talks in 2005. . .
(H/T Dinah Lord)
Saturday, April 14, 2007
Turks March Against the Rising Tide of Islam
As Turkey's pivotal election approaches on May 16, a large portion of the populace is protesting the islamicization of their country that will likely occur if Prime Minister Erdogan is elected President. This from al Babwa:
More than 200,000 Turks protested against Turkey's prime minister Recep Tayyip Erdogan Saturday, demonstrating the intense opposition he could face from Turkey's secular establishment if he decides to run for president next month.
According to the AP, protesters called on the government to quit and chanted slogans including, "We don't want an imam as president."
Tens of thousands traveled from across the country overnight to attend the rally in downtown Ankara. Police cordoned off the meeting area - near the mausoleum of Mustafa Kemal Ataturk, the founder of modern Turkey. Police on the scene estimated the crowd at more than 200,000.
Turkey's president, Ahmet Necdet Sezer, said Friday that the threat Islamic fundamentalism posed to the country was higher than ever. "For the first time, the pillars of the secular republic are being openly questioned," Sezer said in an address to military officers.
The fact that Turkey's President Sezer made his remarks to military officers should be seen as ominous by those that would see Turkey bcome an islamic state. Turkey's military has a long history of coups, and one could well imagine another if the military perceives the secular republic established by Attaturk as under threat.
Update: Much more on this at Instapundit.
Monday, March 12, 2007
The Muslim World's Youngest Democracy
No, it is not Iraq -- even though Iraq has officially only been a democracy for less then a year. The newest democracy is Mauritania, a country on the northeast of Africa about three times the size of New Mexico. According to the CIA factbook,Mauritania is populated by some 3.2 million people, all Muslim.
This is from Sandmonkey at the Middle East Journal: 
It's hard not to get excited over what's going on in Muritania. I mean, a country that was ruled by a despot for 21 years gets a military coup, that gets done by a group of military officers who chose not to rule the people but hold fair and democratic elections, where not a single one of them or anyone backed by them gets to run, and where they will resign from power and the military after the new government is in place, and this is the middle-east? And they did this totally by themselves, without foreign intervention or pressure? How could you not love that?
Power in Mauritania has never changed hands at the ballot box, although past votes have been held by dictators amid opposition cries of fraud. The last president, Maaoya Sid'Ahmed Ould Taya,took power in a 1984 coup and held it until a popular military junta led by Col. Ely Ould Mohamed Vall toppled him in August 2005.
Vall has been praised for ending the nation's history of totalitarian rule, making good on promises to ensure a free press and establish an independent judiciary. In June, he oversaw a successful referendum that enshrined basic constitutional liberties and limited future presidents to two five-year terms. Municipal and legislative elections took place in November.
"We have big hopes for democracy," said Ahmed Ould Daddah, a leading candidate in Sunday's race and a longtime opposition figure who ran twice against Taya in past ballots and spent four years under house arrest. "People are afraid of a return to the old ways. They are paranoid about this."
What great news.
