Mega-yacht Topaz arrives in New York

On my morning walk I spotted this enormous yacht sailing from New York Harbor into the Hudson River. I guessed it must belong to some Russian oligarch, since a couple of other such yachts--see here and here--have recently arrived here. Searching the net, I was able to determine that this yacht is Topaz, which arrived here today from Algeciras, Spain. Topaz, which is one of the world's largest yachts, is of mysterious ownership, although the owner, as reported here, may be His Highness Sheikh Mansour bin Zayed bin Zayed Al Nahyan, Deputy Prime Minister of the United Arab Emirates.

Egyptian Blogger Gets Three Year Sentence for Criticizing Military

Just before Hosni Mubarak's capitulation, I wondered what kind of government might succeed his. This story from today's New York Times (thanks to Andy Bachman for bringing it to my attention) is, to say the least, not an encouraging portent. Maikel Nabil Sanad, a 25 year old blogger, has been given a three year prison sentence by a military tribunal for posting material, often quoting established human rights groups like Amnesty International, exposing abuses by the military against protesters.

I'm glad Mubarak is gone, but I hope the Egyptian people will find the strength to bring their military under civilian control, where it belongs in any decent society.

Egypt: what kind of democracy?

Yesterday's New York Times op-ed page includes a piece by Essam El-Errian, a member of the Guidance Council of Egypt's Muslim Brotherhood, with the title "What the Muslim Brothers Want". It includes many reassuring (to those of us who want to see Egypt emerge from its crisis as a robust democracy) declarations: "we have persistently demanded liberation and democracy"; "the Muslim Brotherhood is committed to...reform and progress"; and, most significantly, "We aim to achieve reform and rights for all: not just for the Muslim Brotherhood, not just for Muslims, but for all Egyptians."

I don't question the sincerity of these declarations. I do pause, nevertheless, at this paragraph, which I think may reflect a misunderstanding:

As our nation heads toward liberty, however, we disagree with the claims that the only options in Egypt are a purely secular, liberal democracy or an authoritarian theocracy. Secular liberal democracy of the American and European variety, with its firm rejection of religion in public life, is not the exclusive model for a legitimate democracy.

I'm heartened by Mr. El-Errian's evident rejection of "authoritarian theocracy" (which I take to mean no imposition of Sharia as civil law); but I claim a misunderstanding because he characterizes American and European democracies as having strictly excluded religion from the public sphere. In America, religious references abound both in our governmental ceremonies (yes, nonbelievers and religious objectors--there are those--are given the opportunity to omit references to God or "affirm" rather than to "swear"), and, more importantly, in our political discourse. Our First Amendment prohibits the establishment of a particular religion, but in its succeeding clause guarantees the right to "free exercise" of religious beliefs. This point is also made in a letter, published in today's Times, by Regan McCarthy in response to Mr. El-Errian's column (see here).

European democracies offer even stronger counterexamples. Britain, for instance, still has an established church, and the Archbishop of Canterbury, who is formally appointed by the monarch, takes part in ceremonies of state. Nevertheless, adherents to faiths other than that of the Church of England are allowed to practice their religion, and no one, including nonbelievers, is excluded from public life, including the holding of office.

Also troubling to me is Mr. El-Errian's apparent rejection of "liberal" democracy. I'm sure what he means by "liberal" is not what that has come to mean in American political discourse, i.e. the belief that government should intervene in the economy to prevent abuses of private power and to maintain a strong social safety net, but rather the classic meaning, which is that the establishment and preservation of individual liberty should be the fundamental principle (for more discussion of this, see "Genghis Khan: the first liberal?").

In conclusion, despite Mr. El-Errian's encouraging words, I'm perplexed as to what role he proposes for religion in public life, and what scope he is willing to allow for individual freedom.

Update: Aljazeera English has just reported Mubarak's resignation.

Straight talk on Iran.

Steve Kornacki has an excellent column in PolitickerNY about why President Obama is right not to utter red-meat rhetoric concerning events in Iran, and why John McCain and some of his Republican colleagues are wrong

The question isn't whether having the CIA, back in 1953 and largely at the behest of the British, put into action a coup d'état against the premiership of Mohammed Mossadegh was a good thing (I believe it wasn't), or whether Mossadegh, had he not been deposed, would have brought Iran into alliance with the Soviet Union (I think he would have gladly taken aid, military and otherwise, from the U.S.S.R., and would have proclaimed Iran "non-aligned", which, in practice, would have meant voting with the Sovs in the U.N. most of the time; in other words, much like India in the 1950s and '60s). It isn't even whether he would, bribed sufficiently, have allowed the Russkies their wet dream of a warm water naval port, right on the Straits of Hormuz.

No matter what geopolitical horror scenes you can imagine, retrospectively, from not overthrowing Mossadegh, the present reality is that even those Iranians who are protesting against the election results remember this episode of Western interference in their politics ruefully. So, right or wrong, the U.S. is constrained in the appeals it can now make. Appeals to basic human rights concerns; yes. Appeals to "democracy" (whether or not you dispute Mossadegh's status, at the time he was deposed, as "democratically elected") may ring hollow, and will, no doubt, be used by those in power to discredit the source by recalling the anti-Mossadegh coup.

Image courtesy of Tehran24.

Eartha Kitt, "Uska Dara"

All I can say is, a bit of my childhood has gone. As I posted before, and will repost below for your convenience, Ms Kitt's Uska Dara was an indelible memory from age seven:

When I was about seven, and we were living in rural Hertfordshire, England, one afternoon my mother and I were listening to BBC radio when the disc jockey said, "And now, here's some Turkish music." What followed was a tune so hooky that it remained caught in my memory until some thirty or so years later when Mike McGovern, a New York Daily News writer who later became known as Kinky Friedman's sidekick in the Kinkster's detective novels, invited several of us who had closed down the Lion's Head to come to his place for a nightcap. He poured us each some whiskey, then put an Eartha Kitt album on his turntable. After a couple of cuts, I was amazed to hear the same exotic tune that had so captivated me as a child. Judge it for yourself here:

QE2 arrives at her final berth.

Forty years to the day from the beginning of her maiden voyage, Cunard's magnificent Queen Elizabeth 2 (photo above from her penultimate visit to New York, last January) docked today at Dubai, United Arab Emirates. There she will remain as a floating luxury hotel.

The story and photographs of her arrival are in today's Khaleej Times. I'm sad to learn that her towering red and black funnel will be removed to make way for a "four-story penthouse"; but glad of that which will be preserved, including some of her best-loved interior spaces.

Fouad is out of jail.

A friend who is traveling in the Middle East e-mailed me this item from Arab News, in which the wife of Saudi blogger Fouad Al-Farhan is quoted as saying he has been released from prison. I double-checked and found confirmation of this on Ahmed Al-Omran's blog Saudi Jeans. It's a great relief to know that Mr. Al-Farhan has been allowed to return to his wife and two young children.

But is he now truly free? The Arab News piece quotes Saudi Deputy Interior Minister Prince Ahmed as saying

The issue (of Al-Farhan) was not that important as it represented the mistake committed by a person on himself. A man who commits a mistake should bear its result.

This cryptic (and evidently awkwardly translated) statement gives us no clue as to the nature of Al-Farhan's alleged "mistake". Moreover, the article also quotes "an official statement" as saying he "was detained on Dec. 10 for violating the Kingdom’s regulations,... but no charges were pressed against him." Again, there is no indication of what regulations he is said to have violated. Perhaps more importantly, he was held in prison for 137 days without being charged with any crime. (Yes, I know that my own government is not immune to criticism in this respect.) One can only wonder what chilling effect the prospect of being once again torn from his family and held indefinitely without charges for some unspecified "violation" will have on his writing.

Nevertheless, this is an occasion to celebrate. Thanks to Mark Crawford and all others who joined me in signing letters asking for Mr. Al-Farhan's release. I like to think that we at least hastened the course of justice.

Another blogger has "disappeared".

I posted earlier about Fouad Al-Farhan, a Saudi blogger who was arrested and taken to an undisclosed location where he is being held incommunicado (now for 65 days) without any publicly announced charges against him, apparently for the offense of criticizing government officials. I've now learned that a similar fate befell a young (23) Syrian blogger, Tariq Biasi, who has been in custody for over six months. You can read about his case on the Global Voices Advocacy site. As with Fouad, there's a petition to free Tariq. The link is here. The text of the petition is given in both Arabic and English (scroll down) and, if you follow the link at the bottom that says "sign the petition", you'll find a box where you can add additional comments, if you wish.

"Free Fouad" update: please sign the petition.

An earlier post called attention to the plight of Fouad Al-Farhan, a Saudi citizen and blogger who, just over a month ago, was arrested and is being held in an undisclosed location without any publicly announced charge against him. His only offense, apparently, was criticizing some government officials. This action appears to run counter to King Abdullah's own declared intent to allow greater freedom of speech and the press.

Ahmed Al-Omran, publisher of the excellent English language blog Saudi Jeans, has linked to his blog a petition to free Fouad. The link to the petition is here. Please follow the link and consider adding your name to mine and to the almost 900 (as of the time I write this) people who have signed and submitted it. Note that you may edit the words of the letter to suit your own taste or convictions (wimp that I am, I changed "demand" in the first line to "respectfully request", noting that it was addressed to high Saudi and U.S. officials).

Get to know Andrew Olmsted.

I recently did, if only by reading his words, and that's as much, unfortunately, as I ever will. He's dead. He was a blogger, like me, until a sniper's bullet found him a few days ago. A major in the U.S. Army, serving in Iraq, he had prepared a final message, which he entrusted to a friend to post to his blog in the event of his death. It's here, and I offer it without further comment on my part, which would be superfluous.

Well, OK, I will add this to the many good things being said about him: he was a Yankee fan who converted to the Red Sox. And, as he noted concerning the brevity of his life: "few of us are destined to make more than a tiny dent in history's Green Monster."

He suggested that the reader of his final post "put on a little 80s music (preferably vintage 1980-1984)"; so, for you, Andy, here's Joan Jett:



Kudos to Hilzoy of Obsidian Wings for being the caretaker and publisher of Andy's final post.

Update: Hilzoy has posted this on Obsidian Wings:

A member of Andy Olmsted's family has just written me to say that if people want to do something in honor of him, they can send donations to a fund that has been set up for the four children of CPT Thomas Casey, who served under Andy and was killed while trying to help him. The address is here:

Capt. Thomas Casey Children's fund
P.O. Box 1306
Chester, CA 96020

Thanks so much.

Free Fouad!

In Saudi Arabia, it seems, blogging about political prisoners can land you in jail. See the New York Times story here.

Update: As the linked "Free Fouad" site now shows, an NGO called the Committee to Protect Journalists has sent a strong letter to King Abdullah, in care of the Saudi ambassador to the U.S., referring to the Saudi government's expressed commitment to greater press freedom, and urging the immediate release of Fouad Al-Farhan.

Before you do the war, do the math.

The ever-popular Cosmic Log provides a link to a University of Georgia press release announcing UGA assistant professor Patricia L. Sullivan's publication of a paper in which she describes a statistical method for predicting the outcome of a war. She claims an eighty percent success ratio in using her method to "predict", ex post, the outcomes of the 122 conflicts that have ocurred since World War Two, and which have involved one of the great powers against a weaker adversary. She says her method shows that the probability of U.S. success in the first Gulf War, i.e. of realizing its objective of driving Iraqi forces from Kuwait, was 93 percent. Similarly, the chance of the U.S. achieving its primary objective in the second Gulf War, the removal of Saddam Hussein's government from power, was about 70 percent. However, the likelihood of success at the longer term goal of maintaining a stable Iraqi government is now only 26 percent, and likely to take ten years to accomplish.

Sullivan also concludes that the Soviet Union had only a seven percent probability of prevailing in its war in Afghanistan. The press release doesn't state what her finding was with respect to the U.S. Afghan war, in which the long-term outcome still seems in doubt. If I had to hazard a guess, I would say that the probability of success with respect to overthrow of the Taliban government was high, given the existence of allies on the ground there. The likelihood of long-term stabilization may be less.

Of course, to apply Sullivan's method ex ante, you need accurate information concerning the various factors that affect the statistical determination. If your intelligence is faulty, your prediction of your chance of success may be off the mark. In other words: garbage in, garbage out

Postscript to "When good things ... "

The suggestion in Fred Kaplan's Slate article, to which I linked a couple of posts below, that the blanket refusal of the current administration to engage in discussions with the Syrians is dysfunctional, is echoed, and extended to the Iranians, by Richard Holbrooke in this Washington Post column.

Interestingly, Holbrooke's WaPo column was reprinted in the neocon organ, The New York Sun, which is where I first saw it. If Slate and the Sun can agree on something, well, ...

When good things happen because of bad people.

There's an interesting article by Fred Kaplan in yesterday's Slate that reveals the source of at least much of the information Britain's MI5 relied on to thwart the transatlantic airliner bombing plot as being the Pakistani military intelligence agency. Kaplan also refers to a New Yorker piece by Seymour Hersh, which I somehow missed, that described Syria as a valuable source of information about al-Qaeda in the period following the September 11 attacks. However, this helpful connection was cut after the invasion of Iraq, and a Syrian offer to rein in Hezbollah in return for continued exchanges of intelligence was allowed to expire.

Of course, the government of Bashar Assad wasn't being munificent out of sympathy with this country over the September 11 tragedy. The Baathists who rule Syria, as Kaplan explains, are no friends of al-Qaeda, which is allied with their principal internal opposition, the Muslim Brotherhood. It was simply a case of the enemy of my enemy being, perforce, if not my friend, at least someone with whom I'll cooperate. Similarly, Pervez Musharraf's military regime is, no doubt, less concerned about loss of innocent life than the consequences concerning substantial U.S. and British aid likely to ensue from massive loss of life caused by a plot hatched at least partially in Pakistan.

Kaplan's point is that an excessively Manichaean world view, which he ascribes to the Bush administration, can be unhelpful in coping with real world problems. This is something any fan of noir fiction can appreciate. To put it another way, the real lesson of Munich is not "Don't do deals with bad people", it's "Don't do bad deals with bad people."

"[T]ruly, deeply, tragically inconvenient."

I've been loath to post about the Middle East. I tell myself this is because I'm no expert, but I know it's really because, whatever opinion one may express on the subject, no matter how apparently anodyne, someone is going to find it mightily offensive. Moral cowardice? I prefer to think it's just that my thoughts on the matter, ill-informed as they may be, are - how you say? - nuanced.

So I'm glad to find a link in Eric Alterman's MSNBC blog to an essay in, of all places, New York magazine, which I dismissed years ago as lightweight fare for superficial yups - a kind of upscale People - that I think I can recommend almost (Okay, I have problems with the first paragraph. I agree that global warming is a serious problem. I'm not sure that any solution "doesn't look that onerous.") unreservedly. It's by Kurt Andersen, and you can find it here.