Obama should agree with new French president on some points

In an article in the Huffington Post Robert Naiman suggests that Obama should agree with Francois Hollande the newly elected French president on two points. First he should agree that a new deal in Europe promoting growth rather than emphasizing austerity should be promoted. Secondly, he should agree with Hollande that withdrawal of French troops from Afghanistan should be speeded up.

As Naiman points out Obama is likely to try and convince Hollande not to withdraw French troops more quickly.. Naiman says that both Hollande and Obama agree on ending the Afghan war. On this I think that Naiman is incorrect. Obama is not that nterested in ending the war at present. In fact the Strategic Partnership Agreement extends U.S involvement in Afghanistan until at least 2024.What he is interested in is to commit less troops so that there are fewer casualties and less negative political reaction in an election year. He knows that the war is unpopular. But at the same time he is committing the U.S. to financing Afghanistan's military to the tune of about a billion a year after 2014.

Obama still supports NATO's involvement in Afghanistan. He simply wants other NATO members such as France to share in the cost both in terms of troops and financially.

Perhaps Obama will make common cause with Hollande on changing European austerity policy. However, I would not be surprised if he were luke warm even to that knowing that U.S. ally Britain and key European player Germany are in favor of continuing austerity measures as are most financial capitalists. For more see the full article.

Bahrain: New visa requirements strands people at airport

Robert Naiman in the Huffington Post writes about being stranded in the Bahrain International Airport. The Bahrain authorities refuse to let him into the country.

In the past Bahrain authorities had almost automatically given Americans visas at the airport. But not now. Naiman reports for the Huffington Post among other activities.

Some observers did get in and their reports of the celebrations of the first anniversary of earlier protests can be found at Witneess Bahrain. The site is blocked in Bahrain itself. The visa policy happened just after Americans had been arrested for taking part in protests.

Although Naiman was not able to report on the protests he was able to observe people in the airport many of whom were having the same problem as he was. Many were simply in Bahrain on business and were much irritated at a barrier that had never existed before.'

The visa policy is impacting a much broader group of people than just those wanting to cover protests. Business people and plain tourists were inconvenienced and angry.

Naiman noted a group of Brits who said they were invited by the Bahrain oil company to give a marketing presentation. They complained they were late for the presentation since authorities would not let them out of the airport. One of them shouted: Ï don't even want to be here!""

A group of Spaniards were coming to Bahrain for a conference. One of the group was even scheduled to give a presentation. Yet they were all stuck in the airport. Needlessly to say thay were angry.

Naiman is quite critical of U.S. policy in Bahrain. The U.S. refuses to raise the profile of the situation in Bahrain so that anything such as happened in Tunisia or Egypt could happen there.

The excuses people give Naiman finds unconvincing. THe U.S. needs Bahrain as a base for the fifth fleet. Bahrain is a defence against Iran. The U.S. cannot afford to offend Saudi Arabia. None of these are very cogent. Certainly Bahrain is not likely to kick the U.S. out of Bahrain because of U.S. criticism nor is Saudi Arabia likely to do anything if the U.S. criticises Bahrain except perhaps grumble. For much more see the full article.

Recently the Obama administration approved the sale of military equipment to Bahrain even after a report commissioned by the king himself had admitted that protesters had been tortured some even dying. Barely a whisper in the mainstream press about this.

Robert Naiman: Obama Originally Supported Iran fuel swap brokeder by Turkey and Brazil.

This is an interesting article. I had thought that Brazil and Turkey were working on the deal just to show that the medium powers could do what the big powers could not do, broker a deal with Iran. However, this article shows that originally the deal was supported by the U.S. but later probably due to domestic political considerations the U.S. changed course completely. The U.S. media has been complicit in covering up this drastic change. This is from huffington post.

Robert NaimanPolicy Director of Just Foreign Policy

U.S. Media Censors U.S. Support of Iran Fuel Swap
Sao Paulo - If you get your information from major U.S. media, and you follow U.S. foreign policy, then you know that last week Iran, Brazil, and Turkey signed an agreement for Iran to ship about half of its stockpile of low-enriched uranium to Turkey, in exchange for subsequent Western supply of higher-enriched uranium to fuel Iran's medical research reactor - fuel Iran needs in order to treat Iranian medical patients, fuel to which Iran is entitled as a signatory of the nuclear non-proliferation treaty.

If you were paying close attention, you might know that the deal is quite similar to one proposed a few months ago by the United States. An initial AP story on the Washington Post's website last Monday - which I cited at the time - said the agreement was "nearly identical" to the deal the U.S. was pressing for, although by the end of the day the AP article on the Post's website had been revised to downgrade this comparison to "mirrors." [The original AP story is still visible here.] U.S. officials have dismissed the deal brokered by Brazil and Turkey, even though the deal is "nearly identical" to the one proposed by the U.S. Indeed, according to the Washington Post, U.S. officials are "thoroughly irritated" with Turkey for its role in mediating the agreement.

But if you get your information from major U.S. media, here's something that you almost certainly don't know: Brazil and Turkey say that before they reached the deal, they understood that they had the backing of the Obama Administration for their efforts. The available evidence suggests that Brazil and Turkey had good reason to believe that they had U.S. support, and that the Obama Administration has taken a 180 degree turn in its position in the last few weeks, and is now trying to cover its tracks, with the active collaboration of major U.S. media.

Reuters reports from Brasilia - in an article you won't find on the web sites of the New York Times or the Washington Post:

Brazil argues Washington and other Western powers had prodded Brazil to try to revive the U.N. fuel swap deal proposed last October.
"We were encouraged directly or indirectly ... to implement the October proposal without any leeway and that's what we did," said Amorim.

In a letter to Brazilian President Luiz Inacio Lula da Silva two weeks ago, U.S. president Barack Obama said an Iranian uranium shipment abroad would generate confidence.

"From our point of view, a decision by Iran to send 1,200 kilograms of low-enriched uranium abroad, would generate confidence and reduce regional tensions by cutting Iran's stockpile," Obama said, according to excerpts from the letter translated into Portuguese and seen by Reuters.

I haven't seen any reference to this letter from President Obama to President Lula in the U.S. press - have you? But in Brazil, this letter from Obama to Lula was front-page news on Saturday morning - I saw it on the front-page of O Estado de S. Paulo, above the fold.

Note that the Reuters story, dated May 22, says Obama sent this letter two weeks ago. The deal was announced Monday, May 17. So, about a week before the deal was announced, Obama told Lula that from the U.S. point of view a decision by Iran to send 1,200 kilograms of low-enriched uranium abroad would generate confidence and reduce regional tensions. Note furthermore that Obama's words - according to Reuters, this is a direct quote from Obama's letter - actually specify an exact amount of transfer that would "generate confidence": 1,200 kilograms, exactly what was agreed a week later. So the U.S. officials and media stenographers (like Glenn Kessler in the Washington Post - "Iran creates illusion of progress in nuclear negotiations") saying a 1,200 kilogram transfer would have been great in October but would be worthless now are directly contradicting what President Obama himself wrote to President Lula one week before the deal was announced. But if course you wouldn't know about that direct contradiction from the U.S. media, because in the U.S. media, the letter from Obama to Lula apparently doesn't exist.

Morever, Brazil says that before the deal, no-one raised the issue of Iran's 20% enrichment as an obstacle:

"It wasn't on the agenda. Nobody told us, 'Hey if you don't stop 20 percent enrichment, forget the deal'," said [Brazilian Foreign Minister Celso] Amorim.
So, if Brazil is telling the truth - and there is no evidence that they are not - then this means that President Obama's letter to Lula did not raise the 20% objection, and the excerpt provided by Reuters suggests that it didn't.

So far, I've seen one clear reference in U.S. media to claims by Brazil and Turkey that they had the Obama Administration's backing in pursuing negotiations: not in a news article, but in an International Herald Tribune column by Roger Cohen reprinted by the New York Times, "America Moves the Goalposts."

Cohen wrote:

No wonder Ahmet Davutoglu, the Turkish foreign minister, is angry. I believe him when he says Obama and U.S. officials encouraged Turkey earlier this year to revive the deal: "What they wanted us to do was give the confidence to Iran to do the swap. We have done our duty."
Cohen's explanation for the Obama Administration's stunning flip-flop? Domestic politics:

I believed Obama was ready to think anew on Iran. It seems not. Presidents must lead on major foreign policy initiatives, not be bullied by domestic political considerations, in this case incandescent Iran ire on the Hill in an election year.
Last year, the Administration concluded that Iran wasn't ready to negotiate with the U.S. because of Iranian domestic politics. Now, it seems, the United States isn't ready to deal because the Obama Administration is afraid of Congress.

It's a shame we don't have a leader in the White House right now who is ready to lead on this issue. If only we had elected this guy: