FROM IRAN, FORMER ENEMIES OF USA, NOW ALSO AGAINST ISIS

REPORT

The Dark Knight Rises

For years Qassem Suleimani has been Iran's secret covert-ops puppet master. Why has he suddenly stepped out of the shadows?

SIOBHAN O`GRADY, OCTOBER 14, FOREIGN POLICY

Qassem Suleimani, a silver-haired Iranian spymaster Washington has long disparaged as a terrorist, has spent decades staying out of public view as he quietly worked to funnel arms and money to Iranian proxies and allies across the Middle East. Now, he's stepping into the limelight as the face of Tehran's intensifying battle with the Islamic State.

In recent weeks, photos of Suleimani on a mountaintop alongside Yazidi elders who had faced extermination at the hands of the Islamic State and shaking hands with Kurdish Peshmerga fighters on battlefields in Kurdistan have been widely shared on Twitter, Facebook, and Iranian state-run media. That means the once-elusive leader of the Quds Force, a branch of the Iranian Revolutionary Guard responsible for high-profile missions outside of Iran, is enjoying a strange form of celebrity among those cheering Iran's willingness to deploy small numbers of ground troops against the Islamic State, something Washington has steadfastly refused to do.

Suleimani's emergence highlights the vastly different ways Washington and Tehran are trying to portray their roles in the fight against the Islamic State. While the United States downplays its involvement in strikes against the militants by hiding under the umbrella of a fragile coalition, the Iranian government is taking a totally different approach: boasting of its solo ventures into Iraq and trying to argue that Iran, not the United States, deserves credit for recent victories, no matter how temporary.

According to reports from the Guardian, soon after the first images of Suleimani appeared, Yadollah Javani, a senior advisor to Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, said on Iranian state TV that "Baghdad was prevented from falling because of the presence and assistance of the Islamic Republic."

Iran's Gen. Amir Ali Hajizadeh made similar assertions on state TV about the preservation of Erbil, the capital of Iraqi Kurdistan, which was nearly captured by ISIS militants last month. 

For U.S. officials, Suleimani's leadership role in the fight against the Islamic State is a double-edged sword. Senior American military and intelligence officials have long seen Suleimani as an unusually canny adversary who has managed to build and maintain a network of proxies ranging from Hezbollah in Lebanon to an array of Shiite militias inside Iraq. With Washington seeking allies in the fight against the Islamic State, Suleimani has decades of experience cajoling others into fighting on his country's behalf.

At the same time, U.S. officials believe that Suleimani was responsible, at least in part, for hundreds of American combat deaths in Iraq. Shiite militias used advanced weapons called explosively formed penetrators (EFPs) to destroy American armored vehicles and kill those inside. Those weapons were almost certainly made in Iran and then given, using networks Suleimani helped establish, to Shiite fighters. The militants also used Iranian-made rockets and mortars to batter the Green Zone in central Baghdad.

During the height of the anti-American violence there, Gen. David Petraeus, the top U.S. commander in Iraq, sent a letter to then-Defense Secretary Robert Gates describing Suleimani as a "truly evil figure," according to a later report in the New York Times. 

Indeed, Suleimani's support for Assad has prolonged the country's brutal civil war and helped contribute to the deaths of tens of thousands of Syrian civilians. Hezbollah, meanwhile, has used Iranian weaponry to kill hundreds of Israelis and repeatedly bring the region to the brink of wider conflagrations. 

Operations to halt the advance of the Islamic State could have been an opportunity for collaboration between the United States and Iran, which have been unable to come to a diplomatic agreement in 35 years, if it weren't for Iran's fierce loyalty to Assad and its tense standoff with the West over its nuclear program. At last month's U.N. General Assembly meeting in New York, British Prime Minister David Cameron said Iran had the potential to help defeat ISIS, and that the West "should welcome their engagement."

But the same forces that are now fighting the Islamic State in Iraq were the ones to take down the American-funded Syrian rebels in strategically located al-Qusayr in 2013, a move that helped Assad maintain his seat at a time when Washington was desperate to overthrow him. Suleimani is also responsible for the organization of Hezbollah and other Shiite fighters who have battled alongside the Syrian military in efforts to protect Assad. 

But even during those operations, Suleimani was kept out of sight and out of mention in Iranian media reports, making Tehran's decision to dramatically publicize his activities in Iraq all the more surprising.

In the United States, the subject of Suleimani is one that is particularly sensitive. A former Iranian soldier who fought in the Iran-Iraq War from 1980 to 1988, Suleimani quickly rose through the ranks of Iran's national military. He was named a Quds commander in 1998 and gained fame when he led Quds operatives on a special mission to southern Lebanon that helped end the Israeli occupation there.

Though the United States and Iran have refused to negotiate since 1979, Suleimani's relationship with Washington was not always so cut-and-dry. Even as he operated out of the former American Embassy in Tehran, he was the organizer of secret meetings between Iranian and American diplomats in Geneva after 9/11 that were intended to help destroy their common enemy: the Taliban.

But in early 2002, George W. Bush named Iran a member of the "Axis of Evil" in the Middle East, in what Ryan Crocker, the former American ambassador to Iraq, called a decision that "changed history."

In interviews for a 2013 New Yorker profile of Suleimani, Crocker told reporter Dexter Filkins that prior to Bush's assertion, Suleimani told a U.N. negotiator that in the aftermath of Sept. 11, "Maybe it's time to rethink our relationship with the Americans."

"We were just that close," Crocker said. "One word in one speech changed history."

And the American relationship with Suleimani seemingly only went downhill from there.

In 2011, Reuel Marc Gerecht, a former Middle Eastern specialist at the CIA's Directorate of Operations, testified before members of Congress that Suleimani should be found and assassinated for his attempt to blow up the Saudi ambassador to the U.S. -- a plan that was foiled when the Mexican drug cartel operative he tried to hire ended up being an American government informant.

"Qassem Suleimani travels a lot," Gerecht said. "He's all over the place. Go get him. Either try to capture him or kill him."

Washington hasn't gone that far, but it has tried to hammer Suleimani before. In 2011, the U.S. Treasury named him to its sanctions list for his alleged involvement in the Saudi terror plot.

But his most recent visits to Iraq in the past month signal that at least in Iraq, Suleimani and the United States might finally have something they're both fighting for: the elimination of the Islamic State.

On NBC's Meet the Press on Sunday, Henry Kissinger, former secretary of state under presidents Nixon and Ford, said Iran is "a natural ally to the United States."

And James Baker, who served in the Ronald Reagan and George H.W. Bush administrations, didn't deny the possibility Iran and the United States were in fact negotiating secretly before Suleimani's photo shoot began.

"I wouldn't be at all surprised if Iran was not helping us quietly deal with some of this," he said.

EVO MORALES Y EL TRIUNFO DE LA SENSATEZ ECONOMICA - POR FLAVIO BUCHIERI

FLAVIO BUCHIERI es Doctor en Economía, Universidad del CEMA. Profesor e investigador universitario. Consultor y Analista Económico.

Se puede ser de izquierda o de derecha. También de centro, aunque en Argentina siempre se tiene tendencia hacia la polarización, hacia los extremos. Sin embargo, lo único que no se puede discutir es que en la actualidad, más que nunca y con la historia a nuestras espaldas, se debe ser racional en lo económico para que la economía de un país transite un sendero de estabilidad, que genere mayor riqueza y, en consecuencia, oportunidades de mejoras sociales a su población. Situación que, sin intentar minimizar, implica estar bien informado y asesorado, con una mirada realista y amplia de la sociedad mundial y sus tendencias y, por encima de todo, aplicar el sentido común.

Esto es lo que muestra el resultado electoral de Bolivia del pasado domingo. Y aunque los números son provisorios, el pueblo boliviano premió a Evo Morales con un tercer mandato de gobierno, con más del 60% de los votos escrutados.

Evo Morales parece haber entendido muy bien que la izquierda moderna no reniega de los principios y las leyes básicas de la economía. Su gobierno ha dado pruebas concretas no sólo de su sentido de la realidad sino también de la oportunidad y los tiempos que se necesitan para la concreción de las conquistas sociales que mejoran el bienestar de la sociedad. Evo sabe que sólo a largo plazo se puede hablar de un crecimiento económico con una mejor distribución del ingreso si antes se brinda un contexto económico sostenible en el tiempo, donde el principal elemento de ascenso social debe residir en el aumento de la productividad de su población.

Si los tiempos se aceleran y se intenta por la fuerza alterar la dinámica económica concreta de una sociedad, los resultados serán efímeros, en importancia y duración. Y eso que a Evo no le ha temblado la mano para alterar los principales cuadros contractuales que regulaban las relaciones económicas y de reparto de excedentes con los principales grupos económicos, en su mayoría externos al país. Aún así, Evo Morales se ha ganado el respeto de la comunidad económica y financiera mundial. Lejos de un discurso atemorizante, su actuación ha permitido que Bolivia no careza de inversiones. Y hoy en día puede colocar deuda en los mercados internacionales de capitales a tasas de interés que, a los argentinos, nos da una sana envidia.

Hay “años luz” de distancia entre Evo y Cristina. La realidad de ambos países difiere tan sensiblemente que hoy se observa a argentinos que, como no pueden acceder al dólar, compran en la frontera pesos bolivianos. Por su estabilidad y predecibilidad. Ojalá Cristina hubiese aprendido de Evo y no de Chávez.

LA FIFA O "LA COALICION DE LA INSENSATEZ"

FIFA y UEFA, la coalición de la negligencia

• Mario Aguirre
• /
• Redacción FOX Deportes
• /
• OCT, 15 2014 9:31 AM CST

Para la FIFA, o su 'sucursal europea', es decir, la UEFA, el España-Gibraltar es más propenso a desatar un conflicto armado que un Serbia-Albania. La disputa de un peñón representa mayor peligro para ellos que alrededor de los 11 mil kilómetros que mideKosovo. "De alto riesgo" se limitaron a adjevitarlo.

Según el ente rector, la ciudad, el castillo, el puerto, las defensas y las fortalezas de Gibraltar implican un riesgo más potencial que un territorio en el que cuyas diferencias implican idiomas, religiones, etnias, soberanías, entre otros puntos, los cuales han cobrado la vida de aproximadamente 12 mil civiles, de acuerdo con cifras de Europa Press.

¿En qué cabeza cabe eso? Justamente en la de las supuestas 'neuronas' de FIFA y UEFA. Sólo en las de Joseph Blatter y Michel Platini, respectivamente. En medida, también responsables de los incidentes en Belgrado.

Sí, ya no es el Siglo XX; sin embargo, un cotejo entre serbios y albaneses destila pólvora; por más que en teoría no hubiese aficionados visitantes. Era cuestión de que una chispazo de ignición lo detonara todo. 

Igual que en un Rusia-Georgia o un Armenia-Azerbaiyán. Esos partidos, a diferencia del citado, estrictamente prohibidos tanto por la FIFA como la UEFA. O al menos no pueden compartir grupo en la fase de clasificación rumbo a laEurocopa. 

Rusos y georgianos, y armenios y azeríes tienen sus propios 'Kosovos'. Sus cicatrices hiperestésicas, las de la fractura territorial: Osetia del Sur y Nagorno-Karabaj, correspondientemente. Pero FIFA y UEFA decidieron ignorar las secuelas de una guerra en presunta fase fría como la de los Balcanes. 

No se trata de una crisis diplomática o de la suspensión de relaciones bilateralmente. Lo de esta zona, como en lugares contados en el mundo, escapa las normas de la convivencia social. 

Basta un símbolo —como el de la bandera de la Gran Albania— para desmembrar a serbios, albanos, kosovares, bosnios, búlgaros, croatas, macedonios, montenegrinos, rumanos y, en menor proporción, hasta griegos y turcos. Las selecciones (y los clubes en competencias internacionales como la Champions o Europa League) amplifican esas disparidades hasta transformarlas en un nacionalismo cegado.

Casi todos 'hijos' eslavos. Casi todos 'huérfanos' de Yugoslavia. Del expaís de siete fronteras, seis repúblicas, cinco nacionalidades, cuatro lenguas, tres credos, dos alfabetos y un Mariscal. "Una región que produce más historia de la que se puede digerir", así la describió en su momento Winston Churchill, otrora primer ministro de Inglaterra entre 1940 y 1955.

Aún así, el ente rector del balompié decidió no voltear a ver el pasado. Cerró de golpe el libro de historia y, bajo su ideal de la hermandad del deporte, el que ellos llaman mercadológicamente "Fair Play", los emparejó en el mismo sector.

La enseña que provocó la pelea entre ambos bandos | GETTY

El sueño de FIFA no es censurable. Por lo contrario se reconoce. Aunque, precisamente, en algunos rincones del orbe su misión evangelista de universalizarlo con base en un balón se reducirá a buenas intenciones. 

A buenos actos que parecen malos. Que terminan siendo malos como en el Estadio Partizan. Para su fortuna no culminó con una desgracia. Simplemente crispó y radicalizó todavía más los ánimos chauvinistas de un foco rojo de tensión geopolítica.

FIFA debe de dejar de interpretar un papel que no es el suyo: jugar a ser 'el intermediario de las pelotas'. Carece de ellas porque no posee esa facultad. No es la Organización del Tratado del Atlántico Norte (OTAN) ni las Naciones Unidas (ONU). 

UEFA y FIFA no coincidieron para que Gibraltar tuvierse la oportunidad de asistir a Mundial. No obstante, en esta ocasión sí se pusieron de acuerdo. Formaron su coalición: la de la negligencia. La que se negó a ver lo que se vislumbraba a leguas.

TURKEY, A CRITIC ALLY

Turkey's Crucial Role in America's Campaign against ISIL

DANIEL R. DE PETRIS

THE NATIONAL INTEREST, 14/10.

Two months ago, a medium-sized Yazidi village in Iraq called Sinjar was in desperate need of help. Surrounded and besieged by fighters from the Islamic State of Iraq and the Levant—a group that explicitly stated its intention to destroy those who practice the Yazidi faith—tens of thousands of men, women and children vacated their homes for a remote, dry and uninhabitable mountain range. Under siege with nowhere to go, thousands of men, women and children were forced to endure the hardship of living without food, water and shelter for days on end. Old men were starving to death, young children were dying of thirst and for the first time in a very long time, there was the possibility of an act of genocide occurring right under the world’s nose.

Thankfully for those Yazidis trapped on Sinjar Mountain, the United States took notice of their dire humanitarian plight. On August 7, in the State Dining Room at the White House, President Barack Obama stepped up to the podium and explained to the American people in a prime-time speech why the United States could not allow such a barbaric group of people to succeed in killing innocent civilians simply because of their faith. “When we face a situation like we do on that mountain—with innocent people facing the prospect of violence on a horrific scale, when we have a mandate to help—in this case, a request from the Iraqi government—and when we have the unique capabilities to help avert a massacre, then I believe the United States of America cannot turn a blind eye,” Obama said. “We can act, carefully and responsibly, to prevent a potential act of genocide. That’s what we’re doing on that mountain.”

The situation was eventually resolved: U.S. air strikes bombarded ISIL positions on the foot of the mountain, opening up a humanitarian corridor that allowed thousands of civilians to escape the horrendous conditions in which they were living. That act would come to represent the opening salvo of a broader and more comprehensive U.S. military campaign against the Islamic State group—as of August 8, over 400 air strikes have hit hundreds of ISIL targets, from artillery pieces and ISIL formations to armed vehicles and anti-aircraft weapons. A broad coalition of European partners has since joined the United States to conduct operations of its own.

If “degrading and ultimately destroying” the Islamic State within the borders of Iraq is hard, doing the same in Syria is harder. Unlike in Iraq, where U.S. airpower can be matched with forces on the ground like the Iraqi army and the Kurdish peshmerga, allies in Syria are in short supply. It will take an estimated twelve months for the training and equipping program established in Saudi Arabia to churn out the first batch of moderate Syrian fighters (which will number 5,000), and according to Pentagon Press Secretary Rear Admiral John Kirby, the vetting hasn’t even begun yet. Elements of the Free Syrian Army who are already on the ground wedged between Assad forces and ISIL are angry and bewildered as to why the United States is not coordinating the air campaign with them. The fact that the Syrian Kurdish city of Kobane is about to fall into the hands of ISIL, despite nearly eleven air strikes around the town in a 36-hour period serves as a perfect microcosm to the challenges and inherent flaws in Washington’s counterterrorism strategy in Syria: that is, without allies on the ground that can be trusted and are equipped with the weapons they need, air strikes will be limited to creating breathing space for fighters that are locked into their positions and unable to move.

Blaming America first is easy to do in this context. It is the United States, after all, that effectively drew up the campaign plan against ISIL, assembled the sixty-nation coalition and devoted far more combat aircraft, personnel and military resources to the fight than any other country. But that in and of itself is a significant problem, for it shows that despite claims from the Obama administration about the impressive breadth of the anti-ISIL coalition, its durability is severely tested by nations who are either unable or unwilling to do their share.

Turkey, a country that has the second biggest army in all of NATO, is perhaps the most critical player in the U.S.-led coalition. Yet, instead of President Tayyip Erdogan and Prime Minister Ahmet Davutoglu doing what they pledged to do publicly, both men are reticent of using Turkish troops and artillery to push ISIL back from their own border. It was Davutoglu himself who declared that Turkey “will do whatever we can so that Kobane does not fall,” and yet the reality is far different: Turkish tanks, standing by, watching ISIL creep even closer to the center of Kobane without doing anything about it. Turkish leaders, like Davutoglu, are also choosing to complain about what is not happening (like a no-fly zone inside Syria), rather than using Turkey’s considerable resources to improve what is. It’s a divergence between words and deeds that is beginning to upset Washington. As one anonymous U.S. official confided to The New York Times, “[t]his isn’t how a NATO ally acts while hell is unfolding a stone’s throw from their border.”

What once looked like an air campaign that was effectively diminishing the command-and-control and financial capability of the Islamic State in both Iraq and Syria, now looks like a campaign, two months in, that is impeded by a lack of ground troops in Syria and a set of supposed allies that are not buying into what the United States is trying to accomplish. Every military campaign has its troubles and pitfalls along the way—the question is whether the United States will convince its regional allies, like Turkey, to act on their pledges.

LAVROV AND KERRY (OR THE RETURN OF RATIONALITY AGAINST ISIS)

U.S. Secretary of State John F. Kerry, left, and Russian Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov reached the agreement in Paris on Tuesday. (Carolyn Kaster/AP)

Russia to help fight Islamists in the Middle East

By Carol Morello and Michael Birnbaum October 14 at 5:21 PM  

PARIS — The United States and Russia will share intelligence on Islamic State militants in Syria and Iraq and work together to combat the threat of terrorism that hangs over the region, U.S. Secretary of State John F. Kerry said Tuesday after meeting with Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov.

After three hours of talks in Paris, Kerry said Russia has agreed to “explore” whether to provide more weapons to Iraqi security forces fighting Islamist extremists, as well as to train and advise them.

The two top diplomats also discussed how to keep Iran’s nuclear programfrom being converted to military use.

“We are deeply committed to the diplomatic effort to try to reach an agreement that assures the international community of the fact that the Iranian nuclear program is exclusively peaceful,” said Kerry, who is to meet with Iranian Foreign Minister Mohammad Javad Zarif on Wednesday in Vienna as a Nov. 24 deadline to finalize an agreement looms.

The U.S.-Russian willingness to work jointly on the two fronts was the first sign of a thaw after seven months of grinding dispute over Russia’s actions in Ukraine.

President Barrack Obama told military chiefs from 21 nations he is "deeply concerned about the situation in and around the Syrian town of Kobane," on Tuesday. (Reuters)

Kerry’s language was conciliatory, stressing areas in which the two nations can cooperate despite their deep differences.

Although Russia recently withdrew some troops from its border with Ukraine, Kerry said Western economic sanctions will not be lifted unless Russia pulls back its heavy weaponry from the frontier and allows observers from the Organization for Security and Cooperation in Europe to monitor and secure the border.

He said another precondition is the release of all prisoners held amid the conflict. He specifically cited the case of Nadiya Savchenko, a helicopter navigator who turned into a symbol of Ukrainian resistance after she was detained by pro-Moscow separatists in a firefight in eastern Ukraine and ended up in a Russian prison.

Kerry and Lavrov began their meeting on a casual note. They sat for half an hour on a wooden park bench outside the U.S. ambassador’s residence, gesturing animatedly before wandering inside to a more formal setting.

The standoff between Russia and the United States has steadily worsened since Russia annexed Ukraine’s Crimean Peninsula in March, a move that Kiev still views as illegitimate. The resulting stalemate over Ukraine is the worst since the end of the Cold War. Kiev and its Western allies accuse Russia of instigating the conflict by sponsoring rebels in eastern Ukraine. The Kremlin denies supporting them.

A cease-fire signed in early September lays the groundwork for an uneasy equilibrium in which Russia maintains power over a key stretch of its neighbor’s industrial heartland, but the truce has not ended the fighting. Russian President Vladimir Putin and Ukrainian President Petro Poroshenko will meet Friday in Milan to discuss the conflict.

Over the weekend, Putin ordered the pullout of more than 17,000 troops massed along the border with Ukraine, signaling a desire to de-escalate the situation.

Despite the potential openings for easing tensions, however, the rhetoric remains sharp.

Just hours before Lavrov arrived in Paris, he delivered a defiant speech to a group of European businesspeople in Moscow. He said Russia would move to protect itself against Western sanctions by reducing its reliance on imports in fields such as technology and defense.

He also said the European Union had helped usher into power leaders in Ukraine who “rely on the ideas and slogans rooted in the dismal Hitler era,” the news agency Interfax reported. Russian leaders often focus on the role of far-right Ukrainian nationalist groups in the protests that toppled pro-Moscow President Viktor Yanukovych in February. They have been less harsh toward Poroshenko, who was elected president three months later.