On February 4 China and Russia vetoed a Security Council resolution on Syria. The resolution was based upon an Arab League peace plan. The Russian Ambassador to the United Nations, Vitaly Churkin, stated that his country wanted an end to the bloodshed but felt that the resolution sent an unbalanced message to Syria and did not call for an end to rebel attacks, nor did it take into account what he termed the association of the rebel groups with extremists. Ambassador Churkin further stated that Russia was committed to a solution to the Syrian crisis but said that peaceful settlement was undermined by the advocacy of regime change by certain influential members of the international community.  All other thirteen members of the Security Council voted in favor of the resolution and strongly condemned its veto.

Queen Elizabeth ascended the throne of the United Kingdom the Sixth of February 1952 upon the death of her father, King George VI.  On Monday February 6, 2012 there was a forty-one gun salute in the Hyde Park section of London by the King’s Troop Royal Horse Artillery to inaugurate the 60th Anniversary celebrations which will continue throughout 2012.

MIDEASTINSIGHTS ⋅ NOVEMBER 9, 2011 (Originally published in Middle East Insights)

Last month, senior Palestinian negotiator Nabil Shaath declared that negotiations between the Middle East Quartet (US, UN, EU and Russia) reached a deadlock and he chided special envoy Tony Blair as serving only Israeli interests.  However, Shaath suggested that Palestinians could be encouraged to return to direct talks if Israel imposed a full settlement freeze and agreed that the 1967 boundaries would serve as the basis for negotiations.  In response, Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu has agreed to a partial settlement freeze to persuade Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas to return to the negotiating table, but the gesture was rebuffed since it did not entail a total halt to all construction activity. Read more »

September 22, 2011 | 0856 GMT

By Scott Stewart

Lone wolf. The mere mention of the phrase invokes a sense of fear and dread. It conjures up images of an unknown, malicious plotter working alone and silently to perpetrate an unpredictable, undetectable and unstoppable act of terror. This one phrase combines the persistent fear of terrorism in modern society with the primal fear of the unknown.

The phrase has been used a lot lately. Anyone who has been paying attention to the American press over the past few weeks has been bombarded with a steady stream of statements regarding lone-wolf militants. While many of these statements, such as those from President Barack Obama, Vice President Joseph Biden and Department of Homeland Security Director Janet Napolitano, were made in the days leading up to the 10th anniversary of the 9/11 attacks, they did not stop when the threats surrounding the anniversary proved to be unfounded and the date passed without incident. Indeed, on Sept. 14, the Director of the National Counterterrorism Center, Matthew Olsen, told CNN that one of the things that concerned him most was “finding that next lone-wolf terrorist before he strikes.” Read more »

“Pakistani Intelligence and the CIA: Mutual Distrust and Suspicion is republished with permission of STRATFOR.”

Pakistani Intelligence and the CIA:

Mutual Distrust and Suspicion

March 3, 2011 | 0956 GMT 

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By Scott Stewart

On March 1, U.S. diplomatic sources reportedly told Dawn News that a proposed exchange with the Pakistani government of U.S. citizenRaymond Davis for Pakistani citizen Aafia Siddiqui was not going to happen. Davis is a contract security officer working for the CIA who was arrested by Pakistani police on Jan. 27 following an incident in which he shot two men who reportedly pointed a pistol at him in an apparent robbery attempt. Siddiqui was arrested by the Afghan National Police in Afghanistan in 2008 on suspicion of being linked to al Qaeda.

During Siddiqui’s interrogation at a police station, she reportedly grabbed a weapon from one of her interrogators and opened fire on the American team sent to debrief her. Siddiqui was wounded in the exchange of fire and taken to Bagram air base for treatment. After her recovery, she was transported to the United States and charged in U.S. District Court in New York with armed assault and the attempted murder of U.S. government employees. Siddiqui was convicted in February 2010 and sentenced in September 2010 to 86 years in prison.

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The second city of Libya fell under the control of anti-government forces as of Monday.

Vladimir Zhirinovsky, leader of the LDPR and Deputy Speaker of the lower house of the Russian Parliament called for Gadhafi to stop the violence and move to Moscow.  The question here would be if Zhirinovsky extended this offer at the behest of the Russian government.

The Russian Foreign Ministry issued a statement: “We call on all sides in Libya to peacefully resolve existing problems, on the path to a responsible and broad national dialogue and the conduct of necessary reforms,” the Russian Foreign Ministry said in a statement. “In any case, the violence must be stopped.”

The United Nations and the Arab League called upon Libya to halt its armed aggression against the Libyan people who have been demonstrating.  Both organizations scheduled meetings on the situation in Libya for Tuesday, February 22.  The UN meeting would be a session of the UN Security Council.

It would appear that most governments in the region lack popular support as evidenced by the extent of the demonstrations.  The pace of events is truly breathtaking and CNSIS will continue to study events as they unfold.  It is important to compare and contrast events in each country to those of other states.  There are differences as well as similarities.  The Egyptian military is acting quite differently from that of Libya, though the Libyan Armed Forces are not uniform in their support for the regime and many have defected to the opposition and some to other countries.  Probably, if one had to point to a likely result of the political transformations underway, it would be that there will be governments that will have a different view of their national interest with respect to cooperation with the United States.  Islam will likely play a greater role in public life. These possible trends will be different in every country and some regimes that survive may be forced to bend to popular will by changing their foreign relations, with Jordan being one such example.  Some commentators view Islamic religious political programs as distinct from secular/nationalist ones.  Historically this has been largely accurate and definitely true in the case of Egypt, where the Muslim Brotherhood tried to assassinate President Nasser thus unleashing decades of repression against the Brotherhood, which indeed modified its approach.  However, might we not see the development of political movements that combine features of nationalism and political Islam.  Certainly there is the possibility that even if parties/movements stay distinct, that the new age of new coalition politics might produce this result.  Perhaps Egypt is moving in this direction.  The new constitution will be crucial particularly in terms of the power that the new presidency will have and what will the role of the military be.  At the present moment, it would appear that in Egypt at least, the various groups want to share power, though the final alignment is yet to be determined.  The Armed Forces are not likely to cede all power and be at the mercy of a civilian government, and yet, they do not want to govern.