Author: Jim Lobe

As pointed out in this post by Rasmus Christian Elling of the University of Copenhagen, the U.S. Treasury – notably Stuart Levey, whose zeal in trying to make it difficult for Iranian banking interests to do business outside their borders has been widely remarked – just designated the Free Life Party of Kurdistan (PJAK) a terrorist group, or, more accurately, a group controlled by the better known Kurdistan Workers Party (PKK) of Turkey. PJAK, of course, was named by Seymour Hersh, among others, as a likely beneficiary of alleged U.S. covert aid designed to harass the Islamic Republic two years ago after it claimed responsibility for a number of deadly attacks against Iran’s Revolutionary Guard and other regime targets. Tehran itself has long claimed that PJAK is supported by the U.S. and Israel. Like the PKK, it is based in Iraqi Kurdistan.

While designating PJAK a terrorist group is unlikely to have any immediate practical impact on its operations, it raises the question, as noted by Dr. Elling, whether this marks the first concrete gesture – or token of good faith – by the Obama administration toward Iran or whether this was simply the coincidental fruition of a bureaucratic process that may have been set in motion by the publication by the New York Times of a front-page article on the relationship between PJAK and the PKK back in October, 2007. I don’t have a clear answer as yet, but the timing and the fact that Levey, who is being retained by the Obama administration in his current position as Undersecretary for Terrorism and Financial Intelligence, has strong political instincts argues in favor of the more purposeful interpretation.

Here’s the release put out by Treasury:

February 4, 2009
TG-14

Treasury Designates Free Life Party of Kurdistan a Terrorist Organization

Washington, DC – The U.S. Department of the Treasury today designated the Free Life Party of Kurdistan (PJAK), a Kurdish group operating in the border region between Iraq and Iran, under Executive Order 13224 for being controlled by the terrorist group Kongra-Gel (KGK, aka the Kurdistan Workers Party or PKK).

“With today’s action, we are exposing PJAK’s terrorist ties to the KGK and supporting Turkey’s efforts to protect its citizens from attack,” said Stuart Levey, Treasury’s Under Secretary for Terrorism and Financial Intelligence.

Designated in December 2002 under E.O. 13224, KGK has been involved for more than 20 years in targeting Turkish government security forces, local Turkish officials, and villagers who oppose the KGK in Turkey. Turkish authorities have confirmed or suspect that KGK is also responsible for dozens of bombings since 2004 in western Turkey.

The KGK leadership authorized certain Iranian-Kurdish KGK members to create a KGK splinter group that would portray itself as independent from but allied with KGK. PJAK was created to appeal to Iranian Kurds. KGK formally institutionalized PJAK in 2004 and selected five KGK members to serve as PJAK leaders, including Hajji Ahmadi, a KGK affiliate who became PJAK’s General Secretary. KGK leaders also selected the members of PJAK’s 40-person central committee. Although certain PJAK members objected to the KGK selecting their leaders, the KGK advised that PJAK had no choice.

As of April 2008, KGK leadership controlled PJAK and allocated personnel to the group. Separately, PJAK members have carried out their activities in accordance with orders received from KGK senior leaders. In one instance, PJAK’s armed wing, the East Kurdistan Defense Forces, had been acting independently in Iran. KGK senior leaders immediately intervened, however, and recalled the responsible PJAK officials to northern Iraq.

Under E.O. 13224, any assets PJAK has under U.S. jurisdiction are frozen, and U.S. persons are prohibited from engaging in any transactions with PJAK.

Identifying Information
FREE LIFE PARTY OF KURDISTAN
AKAs:
Kurdistan Free Life Party
Party of Free Life of Kurdistan Partiya Jiyana Azad a Kurdistane
PJAK
PEJAK
PEZHAK

Location: Qandil Mountain, Irbil Governorate, Iraq
Alt, Location: Razgah, Iran

Back in July, I wrote a post on this blog with the title, “Is Petraeus Preparing to Betray the Neo-Cons?” in which I suggested that, given his expanded geographical jurisdiction as CentCom commander, Gen. David Petraeus, like the Joint Chiefs (and candidate Barack Obama for that matter) at the time, would soon see Afghanistan/Pakistan as the “central front on the war on terror” and thus develop a sense of urgency about diverting more U.S. military and related resources from Iraq to Southwest Asia. At that time, neo-cons like Fred Kagan and Max Boot were arguing that Iraq was far more important than Afghanistan and that any diversion of troops eastward could have catastrophic geo-political consequences for the U.S. position in the Gulf and the Middle East.

Since then, of course, Petraeus has occasionally noted the necessity of a regional approach in dealing with Afghanistan/Pakistan, one that would include India to the east, the “Stans” to the north, and Iran to the west, but he has never been as explicit about common U.S. and Iranian interests in the region as he was today in a presentation to the U.S. Institute of Peace (sponsored, incidentally, by Lockheed Martin and Raytheon, as well as McDonalds and Coca-Cola). Despite evidence that Tehran has provided some weapons to anti-NATO forces in Afghanistan, he noted, Iran doesn’t “want …to see Afghanistan in the grip of ultra-fundamentalist extremist Sunni forces. Nor do they want to see the narcotics problem get worse. In fact, they want to see it reduced; it’s a huge issue in Iran,” he said, noting again that Iran, like India, could be critical to stabilizing Afghanistan.

Petraeus’ appreciation for the importance of bringing Iran into a regional effort to stabilize Afghanistan — he spoke shortly after former UN Special Envoy on Afghanistan Ibrahim Brahimi told the same conference that Iran was “second perhaps in influence to Pakistan” in Afghanistan and would not hesitate to create problems if it felt its interests there were threatened — may, of course, lead him into conflict not only with the neo-conservatives (as I suggested back in July), but, more importantly, with Dennis Ross and his backers within the Obama administration. Ross, who, according to numerous reports now, appears certain to be made special envoy on all matters pertaining to Iran (and possibly the entire Middle East) has even less expertise on Afghanistan and Southwest Asia than he does on the Islamic Republic. Moreover, his Israel-centric worldview (in which Iran, rather than al Qaeda, represents the greatest regional threat to both the U.S. and Israel) is almost certain to clash with Petraeus’ (and the Pentagon’s) view that Iran’s cooperation — or at least acquiescence — is critical to stabilizing Afghanistan and ultimately Pakistan as well. In other words, a serious conflict is likely to develop between those, like Ross, who see Iran as the greatest threat to U.S. interests and Israel in the region defined as the “Middle East”) and those who believe that al Qaeda and its allies in “Southwest Asia” represent the greatest immediate threat to U.S. security.

Of course, Richard Holbrooke, who will be special envoy on Afghanistan/Pakistan (and India in parenthesis, according to the latest news), generally shares Ross’s views on Iran — they are co-founders, after all, with James Woolsey and Fouad Ajami of a group called United Against Nuclear Iran; see this Wall Street Journal op-ed, for example — and may be expected to back him up in inter-agency debates about how confrontational a policy Obama should pursue toward Iran. But I think Petraeus and the military will have some pretty strong views about how well-positioned Tehran is to make life much more difficult for the U.S. in both Afghanistan and even in Pakistan, not to mention Iraq — and how much easier it could be if some sort of a “grand bargain” — even one that recognizes Iran’s right to enrich uranium under strict international inspection — with the Islamic Republic could be forged. Perhaps, if things really went well, Iran could even offer NATO a desperately needed new and inexpensive supply route for its troops in Afghanistan…

Jacob Heilbrunn of The National Interest, which is related to the Nixon Center, has written two very interesting articles on the plight of the neo-cons after the Republican debacle in November that are well worth a read.

The first, published on the journal’s blog December 19, addresses the departure of Joshua Muravchik and Marc Reuel Gerecht, as well as that reported earlier of Michael Ledeen, from the foreign-policy ranks of the American Enterprise Institute (AEI). Like Ledeen, Gerecht has found a new home at the Foundation for Defense of Democracies (FDD), which, so far as I can tell, is basically a front for both Israel’s Likud Party and for the pro-Likud Republican Jewish Coalition (RJC). Muravchik, who, like Ledeen, had been associated with AEI for some 20 years, is apparently yet to find a new perch. Heilbrunn suggests that these departures are evidence of an ideological purge against neo-cons led by Danielle Pletka, who came to prominence as a staffer for the ultra-right Jesse Helms, but I find this a little difficult to believe if, for no other reason, than Pletka is as neo-conservative (and Likudist) as anyone I can think of. I understand from mutual friends that Muravchik had been worried about his position at AEI for at least the past year and a half due to withering pressure from above to write and publish more than he had. It is true as Heilbrunn points out, however, that Muravchik has been a bit more nuanced in his approach to the various “evils” that neo-cons have identified over the past two decades than some of his ideological colleagues; for example, Daniel Pipes (with whom Pletka has been close) has attacked him (and Gerecht) for entertaining the notion that the West should be willing to dialogue with and possibly even support non-violent Islamist parties in the Middle East, a notion that is anathema to Pipes. Perhaps AEI’s or Pletka’s aim is guided less by Republican loyalty than by Islamophobia, if indeed ideology — and not personality, as was reportedly more the case with Ledeen — is playing a role in these decisions.

The second article by Heilbrunn, whose book, They Knew They Were Right: The Rise of the Neocons I reviewed last year, is much longer and appears in the latest issue (Jan 12) of The American Conservative. It speculates on the internal splits that the neo-cons are going through as a result of the political campaign and Obama’s victory, and the possibility (I would say probability) that at least one major faction — headed by people like Robert Kagan, David Brooks and even David Frum — will seek to forge an alliance with liberal interventionists, presumably led by Secretary of State-designate Hillary Clinton (although Susan Rice also fits the bill), in the new administration, much as they succeeded in doing during the Clinton administration with respect to Balkans policy. As I’ve written before, the two movements have similar historical origins (inspired in major part by the “lessons” — “never again” — they drew from Munich and the Holocaust) and tend to see foreign policy in highly moralistic terms in which the U.S. and Israel are “exceptionally” good. While I don’t agree with everything in Heilbrunn’s analysis, it offers a good point of departure for watching the neo-cons as the Age of Obama gets underway.

A guest post by fellow Inter Press Service columnist Eli Clifton:

We have followed the campaign behind Obsession: Radical Islam’s War Against the West since it first emerged in 2005. IPS has published two articles on its producers and distribution here and here. This new rebuttal by JewsOnFirst is one of the most comprehensive attempts to dismantle the arguments presented in the film.

JewsOnFirst, an organization, “dedicated to the protection of the separation of church and state under the First Amendment,” has published Rebutting Obsession: Historical Facts Topple Film’s Premise that Violent Muslim Fundamentalists are Nazis’ Heirs, Expose its Fear-mongering, a devastating critique of Obsession: Radical Islam’s War Against the West. Obsession, a 2005 film that, in the name of exposing violent fundamentalism, casts suspicion on all Muslims, experienced increased exposure this fall, when the mysterious Clarion Fund initiated the unsolicited distribution of millions of DVD inserts inside swing state newspapers.

In support of the rebuttal, JewsOnFirst also offers a web-based slide presentation summarizing the key arguments, as well as profiles of the supposed experts interviewed in the film. (The slide presentation will soon be available for download as a PowerPoint presentation next week.)

Key arguments made in JewsOnFirst’s Rebutting Obsession are:

• Obsession and the “expert” viewpoints presented in it represent the ideology of the far right wing within the Republican Party, which seeks to intervene in the Presidential election with a distraction from the current economic turmoil.

• Obsession ignores the geopolitical environment in which radical Islam was cultured, and makes a baseless argument that such fundamentalism is the ideological descendent of Nazism.

• Obsession seeks, at a time of economic pain and cultural division to permit the viewer to project all real or imaginary fears and anxieties onto Muslims, as an alien and externalized enemy. This propaganda mirrors the situation faced by Japanese Americans during World War II and non-Anglo-Saxon immigrants in the 20th century. Such divisiveness actually weakens America by threatening our principles of cultural coexistence and religious freedom.

• The “experts” presented in Obsession have limited experience in the Middle East, few speak Arabic or Farsi and most have limited or no academic background in Islam or the Koran. They represent a fringe group of Middle East “specialists” who align themselves with the Likud party in Israel and Christian evangelical and pro-settler lobbies in the United States.

• Finally, Obsession, despite its half-hearted disclaimer that radical Muslims are a small minority, seeks to promote the concept of a violent clash of civilizations instead of cultural coexistence and religious pluralism.

The full project can be viewed at http://www.jewsonfirst.org/obsession/.

After Georgetown University decided against renewing his contract, a brief stay as a Visiting Scholar at Harvard’s Kennedy School of Government, and his efforts to get a post at the Brookings Institution came to naught, former Undersecretary of Defense for Policy Douglas Feith appears to have found a new home at the Hudson Institute, another predominantly neo-conservative “think tank” that tends to lie in the shadow of the much more media-prominent American Enterprise Institute (AEI). According to Hudson’s latest News & Review, Feith, whose self-serving memoir, War and Decision: Inside the Pentagon at the Dawn of the War on Terrorism pretty much bombed with the few credible critics who reviewed it, will be the Institute’s Director for National Security Strategies.

Hudson, of course, was the first refuge of I. Lewis “Scooter” Libby after his 2005 indictment for perjury, but he apparently left after his conviction (and despite Bush’s commutation), and I’ve completely lost track of him now. (Does anyone know what he’s doing?)

Feith will join other leading Likudist lights at Hudson, including Meyrav Wurmser (wife of former Cheney aide David Wurmser), who heads the Institute’s Middle East Studies department; Hillel Fradkin; Laurent Murawiec; Anne Bayefsky; Norman Podhoretz (not in residence); and Nina Shea, among others. It’s interesting to note that the two Wurmsers, as well as Feith and another Hudson Senior Fellow, Charles Fairbanks, Jr., made up half of the eight members of the task force sponsored by the Jerusalem-based Institute for Advanced Strategic & Political Studies (IASPS) that produced the 1996 “Clean Break: A New Strategy for Securing the Realm” paper for incoming Israeli Prime Minister Binyamin Netanyahu that many analysts believe helped plant the seed for the Iraq invasion eight years later. (That alone suggests how dangerous it might be to put Feith in charge of developing any kinds of “strategies,” as Hudson seems to have done.) The other task force members included IASPS’s highly eccentric (check its website) president, Robert Loewenberg, James Colbert, then-Washington Institute for Near East Policy (WINEP) researcher Jonathan Torop; and the nominal chairman, Richard Perle, from whom not much has been heard lately — another sign that, with the exception of Bill Kristol, Max Boot, and the Kagan boys, neo-cons have been lying rather low during the election campaign.

Feith’s former boss, Deputy Defense Secretary Paul Wolfowitz, has also not been heard from recently, which in many ways is very strange, given that his last public post was president of the World Bank and his official at AEI (where he has been a Visiting Scholar since his ignominious resignation 18 months ago) stresses his interest in development and trade. You would think that, given the current financial crisis and its potentially disastrous ripple effects on emerging economies and poor countries (for which he has expressed particular sympathy in the past), he would not have been shy about offering his advice about how to protect them. But, apart from his advocacy of business and defense ties with Taiwan (he’s chairman of the U.S.-Taiwan Business Council), he seems to have largely disappeared from the public sphere. In the realm of economic development and aid, Hudson has acquired a far more credible figure in the person of former USAID Administrator Andrew Natsios, who joined the Institute at the same time as Feith.