Getting Iran's Nuclear Program Wrong, Very Wrong



Published in Huffinton Post UK, 10 May 2012

What is the aim of Iran's insistence on advancing its nuclear program? The question might seem odd, or an unnecessary elaboration of a question answered long time ago. However, recent developments in the region and negotiations with Iran have highlighted the urgent need to stop and ask the basic questions once again and formulate responses suiting the current conjuncture.

It is clear that while it is still a long way ahead, Iran's nuclear program ultimately aims to be able to reach at least to a level where it could weaponize its nuclear stock. There are two major reasons why a country would want to do that, and in the case of Iran, those two main reasons have been debated ad nauseam.

The first of these is deterrence. The potential to have nuclear weapons, if not having some, would strengthen Iran's sense of security and stand against other countries in the region which it deems to be a potential threat or competitor.

The second is aggression, a reason continually spoken of by the Israeli Prime Minister Netanyahu and a host of voices in the West. In this reading of Iran's nuclear ambitions, the ultimate goal is actually attacking Israel and threatening the region.
Since no sane human being would clearly pursue such a path, it is said that the religious framework of the regime as well as Ahmadinejad's bizarre references to millenarian visions mean that if Iran was to have nuclear weapons, it would use them even though it would also mean the destruction of Iran itself. After all, once you believe in a hidden imam and a mahdi, what would stop you from taking the world down with you?

Both of these explanations, however, assume that the nuclear program is exclusively about Iran's foreign policy. While it is true that deterrence is a major motivation, there is a less spoken but equally important domestic reason: legitimization.

Ever since the initial euphoria of the 1979 revolution, the regime has been in need of dialectic external pressures to be able to maintain its power. Since the death of Ayatollah Khomeini and the end of Iran-Iraq war, the regime has faced a powerful routinizing process, a fate well known by social scientists.

The emotive momentum of the revolutionary project and an actual armed conflict gave way to the banal challenges of running a country, crippled with a weak economy, poor international relations and chaotic governance. Since, accepting such a poor outcome of the promised glories would undermine the foundations of the regime's public image, everything that has gone wrong has been said to be the undertakings foreign powers.

Therefore, the regime needed the nuclear program to remain elusive and non-conclusive but operational, not so much so that it could reach the capacity to fulfill its weaponization, but because by creating a tension with the 'Great Satan-U.S.,' it was able to brush all of its malfunctioning, corruption and idiocies under the carpet and unite Iranians in support of the regime against a common enemy.

During a trip to Iran at the height of Bush versus Ahmadinejad verbal threats and declarations of evil intent of the other, dozens of Iranians told me that while they do not like Ahmadinejad and his crazy rhetoric, nevertheless they support him because he has stood against Bush Jr., who seemed fixed on attacking Iran.

This has always been the case and will always be so. Outside threats have a way of legitimizing the regime that has lost so much credibility in the eyes of many Iranians. Yet, when they perceive a threat against their country, they rightfully opt for protecting it. Thus, even though the international pressures are hurtful, many Iranians still see an imperial foreign aggression in the face of Iran's attempts to produce nuclear energy and if necessary have a deterrent against Israel, where politicians seem to daily urge the world to attack Iran at once.

If this reading is true, then negotiations with Iran cannot simply be a matter of nuclear armament pressured by clear threats. The mimetic escalation of stand off must be defused, as the more the regime finds itself as a 'victim' of Western 'imperialism' the more it entrenches its hold on Iran. What seems to matter to Iran's rulers most is not the end goal of weapons, but the very process of tension with the outside of world. If we simply focus on stopping Iran from having nuclear weapons, the regime might in fact stand to gain more in the end.

The case for privatizing religion in Turkey


Published by Today's Zaman, 9 May 2012

The recent decision by the Justice and Development Party (AKP) government to privatize state theaters has caused a wide stir.
While I do believe the state should provide funds for the arts, the state employment of actors and management of theaters were not about the arts but state control of the public and cultural space.
In fact, communist countries have always had a keen commitment to “supporting” the arts and to using them as an important vehicle to influence and control public imagination. Therefore, as painful it is for many in the industry who will lose their jobs, in the long run, the privatization of theaters will provide freedom and market competition necessary for better productions and performance by actors.

There is, however, an elephant in the room -- a much larger, powerful state control mechanism: state regulation of religion. It is really no surprise that the newly founded Turkish Republic saw it vital to establish the Directorate of Religious Affairs and, through it, to regulate and manage the type of Islam it sought to enforce.

The directorate still consumes a giant slice of the state budget, employs all imams in the country and by and large still dictates particular readings of Islam. In the last few years, the official enforcement of a particular creed has been widely challenged and various groups who do not fit into that creed have argued for representation and funds from the directorate. However, these acts are not enough. The directorate must be decommissioned, just like state theaters.

There are two common worries regarding the decommissioning of the directorate. The first one comes from concerned secularist circles, which fear that an end to state regulation would open the floodgates of Islamism and all sorts of problems with religious groups. The second one comes from concerned conservative circles, which fear decommissioning the directorate would mean that clergymen and mosques would not receive funding to perform their duties and thus the practice of Islam would be harmed. As convincing as these concerns sound to their respective adherers, they are both wrong.


The problem with the secularist argument

The secularist argument is fundamentally flawed in its assumptions as to the nature of Islam and the social and political aspirations of a vast majority of Muslims in the country. Again and again, numerous studies have shown how the vast majority of Muslims in the country demand democracy, economic reforms and equality as well as freedom to live according to their conscience, not Shariah law or a return to some previous century.

Those who might fit into the Islamist or fundamentalist categories already have their own religious networks outside of state reach. Rather than enabling them to unleash an Islamization plan, the fast-growing contemporary Muslim civil society in the country would in fact minimize and challenge their appeal for those who feel alienated from the state. In other words, far from it, the end of the state market monopoly and the start of equal state distance from all religions and creeds will create a competitive market that will reward those religious actors who meet what the Turkish public demands, which is clearly reform, freedom and advancement alongside traditional values and personal piety.

The same implications apply to the conservative arguments, too, over what would happen if the state were to stop managing religion. Far from harming the practice of Islam, it would in fact free Muslims to live, think and worship freely and thus increase its vibrancy. Take for example state-managed Christianity in northern Europe, where the clergy is state-employed and churches receive state funds, versus the free-market religious competitions in which Christian churches find themselves in the US.

While Christianity’s public appeal in northern Europe is in decline, this is not so in the US.
One of the key reasons behind this is that the clergy and churches in the US must work hard to provide for the needs of their congregations, as the survival of the church and the clergy depends on their congregations. They must also continually engage with social and philosophical developments and compete with other religious providers, as they cannot take the durability and public plausibility of their beliefs for granted.

In contrast, a clergyman in northern Europe will always be paid as long as he plays the sacramental role of being there and keeping the doors of the churches open, regardless of whether anyone attends the services. It is only thanks to migration and Islam in Europe that slowly northern European clergymen are finding themselves having to learn how to defend their faith and keep their role in society.

This is already observable in how energetic and increasingly influential various Islam-inspired civil society movements outside of state structures are. Obviously, the Directorate of Religious Affairs cannot simply close up shop. However, the creation of foundations that would accredit imams and allow citizens to donate money for their work would solve the problem. The process would be a long, complicated and difficult one. However, it would be the best thing to maintain both the secular nature of the country and the freedoms of Muslims and non-Muslims alike and to negotiate a healthy space for religion, politics and public life.

Shariah in Times of Political Change

Published by Today's Zaman, 24 April 2012

As calls for the adoption of Shariah grow louder across the Middle East and North Africa, many people are frightened. Yet what is frightening is not the prospect of Shariah itself, but the political immaturity of the new actors calling for it and the possibility that they might repeat certain mistakes characteristic of previous hasty reintroductions of Islamic jurisprudence.

There has been enough scholarly work, by both Muslims and non-Muslims, to show that there is no inherent reason to think that the principles of Shariahh set out in the Quran and the life of the Prophet contradict today’s legal and political ideals. The dynamic evolution of laws and regulations across Muslim-majority countries over the last 30 years attest that Shariah is highly adaptable and capable of meeting modern legal, social and economic needs. New interpretations and applications of Shariah are enabling Muslims to live freely according to their consciences within the realities of this century.

What we need to worry about, therefore, is not Shariah but its political utilization. We saw the detrimental outcomes of emotional Shariah politics in the 20th century that harmed Muslims and non-Muslims alike and created serious conflicts and suffering.

For the vast majority of Muslims living in Africa, Asia and the Middle East, cries for Shariah are cries for equality, justice, fairness and moral values in the face of corrupt politicians and regimes. But whenever such genuine calls were used by political elites to maintain their power by purporting to uphold Islam, or used by opposition movements to achieve power with claims of being Islam’s standard-bearers, the result was often disastrous. Few if any of the problems leading to calls for Shariah were solved and, in some cases, things became much worse.


The politicization of Shariah is especially dangerous in transitional contexts where state structures are not strong or are nonexistent. As there is not a single codified and agreed upon written reference as to what the Shariah laws are, when combined with ill-educated, self-declared sheikhs and chaotic political processes, what often follows is the exact opposite of the noble principles of Shariah.

Warning signs in Nigeria
The country that serves as the most important warning sign in this regard for today’s Middle East is Nigeria, where clashes between Christians and Muslims have caused the deaths of more than 15,000 people in the last decade alone and where corruption, inequality and injustice are pandemic problems.
Just as in the Middle East, calls to expand the application of Shariah in Nigeria first emerged in the 1970s. The issue was hotly debated in the Nigerian national assembly in 1978 to no conclusion. It emerged again in 1988, when a group of assembly members from Northern Nigeria demanded Shariah be applied across the entire country. Christians, who comprise half of the population, as well as tribes who hold traditional animist beliefs, refused the imposition of Shariah outside of Muslim-majority regions.

When military rule ended in 1999 with multiparty elections, the sociopolitical and religious tensions that had been brewing surfaced once again. In 2000, the governor of the state of Zamfara, following his electoral promises to do so, unilaterally expanded the application of Shariah beyond personal status matters to all aspects of the legal system, including the criminal code. Eleven other northern states quickly followed Zamfara’s example.

The result was serious human rights abuses and inhumane, hasty punishment -- including stoning, executions and amputations. More insidiously, the change led to the creation of semi-official religious enforcers called the hisba in Shariah states, who sought to regulate minute aspects of personal morality and lifestyle with minimum accountability. These developments triggered riots in Kaduna and Jos, causing serious damage, and set the stage for the widespread ethno-religious violence and political instability that have beset the country ever since.

What is clear in the Middle East is that the years of authoritarian pressure, low levels of education, isolation from global developments and denial of political and diplomatic experiences beyond grassroots opposition have frozen the political and religious horizons of the region. Dwelling on abstract religious discourse with no clear proposals as to how collapsing economies and corrupt political, judicial and security structures will be reformed, the new groups are developing angry politics that alienate and exclude everyone who does not support them. Unless the new political groups in the Middle East catch up with the substantial economic, theological, social and legal advancements achieved by Muslims in other parts of the world, their zealotry will only result in further instability, social tensions and chaos.

The Syrian crisis and its implications for Turkish-Russian relations



Published by BitterLemons International, 08 March 2012

On Tuesday, during his weekly speech to the Justice and Development Party (AKP) group in the Turkish parliament, Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdogan repeated his strong statements on Syria. While his call for humanitarian corridors to bring aid to Syrian people captured international attention, his talk also included an indirect yet equally strong challenge to third party countries involved in the crisis.

After expressing his grave concern over the escalation of violence against civilians, the Turkish premier unleashed a heavy criticism of countries that "passively watch", "give permission to" or "encourage" what is happening in Syria. He warned that their hesitancy to provide a solution will be "a dark stain in their history" and that the "single drop of the blood of an innocent child is many times [more important] than any kind of strategy, power and self-interested ambitions."

While Erdogan and the Turkish government regularly make clear their stand on the atrocities of Syrian President Bashar Assad and overtly criticize the failures of international bodies, their references to specific countries behind such failures are almost always indirect--albeit increasingly strong and loud.
Turkish reluctance to publicly name these countries--i.e., Russia and Iran--is understandable. As Turkey tries to navigate through its soft cold war with Iran amidst attempts to galvanize nuclear negotiations, it simply cannot afford to clash with Iran publicly. A similar reason explains why Turkey has limited its criticism of Russian involvement with Syria to closed door conversations and indirect public language.

When Russian President Vladimir Putin visited Turkey in 2004, he was the first Russian head of state to visit the country in 32 years. Subsequent high-level visits between the two countries resulted in the signing of a joint declaration in 2009 between Putin's successor President Dmitry Medvedev and President Abdullah Gul, as well as the creation of the High-Level Cooperation Council in May 2010.

The council aims to enhance economic, diplomatic and cultural relations between the two countries. In line with the aims of the council, in January 2011 foreign ministers Ahmet Davutoglu and Sergey Lavrov signed the Strategic Planning Group Meeting Protocol and, one year later, the second meeting of the planning group was held in Moscow with Davutoglu's participation.

All of these high-level structures are starting to show themselves in hard currency. The trade volume between Russia and Turkey rose from $11 billion in 2004 to $25 billion in 2010. Both countries have declared a commitment to increase trade to the value of $100 billion dollars by 2015.

However, just as the so-called "Arab spring" has soured the budding romance between Syria and Turkey, there are underlying anxieties over how long Turkey can keep calm about Russian involvement in Syria.

From the Turkish point of view, Russian interests in Syria are thin. A small symbolic naval base, seemingly lucrative yet limited arms sales, and assertion of the usual bravado of "standing against colonial western interventionism" are no compensation for what Russia stands to lose through its dangerous Syria policy.

In contrast, for Turkey, what happens next in Syria represents more than a distant humanitarian crisis. With a lengthy land border between the two countries, the implications of a large-scale refugee influx, the potential of a prolonged civil war, all the ills that come with having a failed state as a neighbor, and the possible spillover of Syrian unrest into Turkey, the Syria question is a top foreign policy concern for Turkey.

The AKP government adopted a strong public stand against the Assad regime and burned bridges painstakingly built since 1999 as soon as it became clear that the Assad family would not pursue reforms and stop its violence. Turkey embraced great economic losses in the process, but it has stuck to its position that the Assad regime must go and championed many of the international initiatives against the regime.

Will Turkey soon adopt a similar bold stand against Russia, which has direct culpability in the deaths of thousands of innocent Syrians? The answer is: not likely. Turkey is pursuing quiet and friendly pressure on Russia to change Moscow's position. The last example of this were the recent gentle statements by President Gul, who said that ultimately Russia will see that it has no choice but to join diplomatic efforts to force Assad from his post.

When Russia will finally accept this path and what kind of solution it will back is far from clear. Now that the predestined Russian elections are over, a teary-eyed Putin might indeed be moved to heed Erdogan's exhortation that the blood of an innocent child is much more valuable than any possible short-term benefits Russia might achieve from the suffering of Syrians. If this kind of argument does not work, Putin might otherwise soon accept that Russia stands to lose far more than it will ever gain by backing Assad.

Damage Caused by WikiLeaks to Human Rights Advocacy

 
Huffington Post, UK,  6 February 2012

The legacy of WikiLeaks on the practice of diplomacy is already clear: not much at all. Leaving aside the field day the media and civil rights groups had in bringing down the curtains on the secrets of the giant United States foreign policy machinery; in actuality, there was hardly anything that was not known by observers and the learned public. But, yes, we did have some juicy verbatim quotes about and from world leaders here and there.

All the leaks did was show that the US was more consistent in the way it pursued foreign policy than the conspirators had wanted to believe. While there have been some serious audits at the State Department and a host of other foreign ministries on how information should be gathered and sent back to base, and how and by whom it should be handled and consumed, the essential nature of diplomacy has not changed.

However, when the remaining documents were 'leaked' from WikiLeaks without deleting the names of sources, WikiLeaks tasted its own bitter medicine and risked the lives of hundreds of human rights advocates, researchers, lawyers and activists who live in precarious situations. Without much media attention, human rights activists found themselves facing intimidation and questioning and many sleepless nights.
Myself included, many professional researchers who spend their time conducting field research and documenting human rights issues around the world went through documents with the fear of seeing their names cited in cables. The fear was twofold: firstly, our research is often done under the radar, and public citations of our names as a source will likely result in our being banned from countries we work on; and secondly, our sources take tremendous risks by meeting us and providing us with information, thus leaking our names puts them in great danger.

In contrast to the shallow apologies and comments made by supporters of WikiLeaks on the documents posted online without editing out names and details of sources, the US has silently lived up to its responsibility. Away from the eyes of self-righteous crusaders of 'liberty', the US has provided legal advice and support, and in some cases has offered to relocate people who were facing danger.

So now, some researchers are wondering how many years of the careful process of conducting research, developing networks and gaining the trust of persecuted people have been damaged by the reckless and self-indulgent bravado of a few people living comfortably in the West. Contacts in the field worryingly joke about dreams of seeing their own names popping up in a cable online. Both diplomats and researchers say that people are more reluctant to speak, and some irreplaceable relations have been broken.

While protests in Western capitals or clicks on Facebook and retweets on Twitter might give some cases high profile attention, most specific cases of suffering are handled quietly behind closed doors, and with relationships based on trust and good rapport. Sensitive data about a person facing torture in country X is passed to a contact working for a country or body Y that has influence on country X, and country Y is urged to approach country X silently on that case. The reason is that by the time specific cases become international media sensations, it is often the very last attempt to help the person. Often widespread international media attention hardens the stance of the persecuting country and is therefore the last resort. Now, all of that process is disrupted.

So for some, WikiLeaks might have brought fame and a show on a shady Russian television channel, amid sympathetic cheers of courage to advance civil liberties in the West. For those who actually live in the world's most difficult places, and risk their lives to change the situation in their countries; and for those international actors, most of whose names are almost never cited or used in media reports, and with good reason - WikiLeaks brought nothing but damage and concern.

Would acknowledging past prevent new crimes?



Published by Today's Zaman, 27 January 2012

Armenia’s Foreign Minister Eduard Nalbandian commended the French attempts to criminalize denial that the events of 1915 constituted genocide by saying “it is a very important mechanism to prevent new crimes against humanity.”

This idea is commonly accepted in academic and public circles as plain truth. Some go even further, saying that if Turkey had acknowledged the events of 1915 as genocide earlier on, the Holocaust would not have happened. Hitler is said to have been inspired by the lack of attention shown to the fate of the Armenians as he hatched plans to exterminate the Jews.

Sadly, just as the shallow popular psychology books that argue facing your own past will always heal you is an argument that is not grounded in reality, neither is the argument that officially acknowledging historical atrocities will prevent new ones. It is only an emotive discourse.
First of all, world history is full of examples of how historical grievances and incidents have been used to justify war, violence and political domination. For example, Rwandan Hutus were mindful of the suffering they faced under Tutsis and this was used as a justification for the killing of Tutsis during what is called the Rwandan genocide. Serb nationalists regularly referred to their defeat to Ottoman forces at the Battle of Kosovo in 1389 to reassure themselves that the time to set the record straight had come, as they marched on, killing Bosnian Muslims.

That is why yesterday’s victims can make the best of today’s perpetrators. As soon as a particular group internalizes the feeling of being wronged, it is vulnerable to suspending all further moral considerations or responsibilities and seeing itself as a legitimate user of power that can demand more significance and rights than others. See the crimes the US has committed following 9/11.

Secondly, even though the 20th century has left a legacy of memorializations of wars and genocides, they still do happen. World War I memorial sites had “never again” and “lest we forget” inscriptions on them, yet far from preventing further war, grievances from World War I were influential factors in the lead-up to World War II. So now, World War II memorial sites stand next to those of previous wars with the same inscriptions. Similarly, even though the Holocaust became a symbol of racial hatred and violence, genocides and racial violence continued and continue to happen today.

Thirdly, there is an extremely strong case to be made for letting go of the past. On the personal level, we know that dwelling too much on the past takes away our capacity to live in the present and achieve a better future. Nietzsche refers to this as plastic energy, meaning the capacity we have to remold ourselves, and warns that an obsession with the past will stop progress. In fact, individuals and countries regularly employ collective forgetting and amnesia to be able to start afresh and move on. This is all the more so in contexts of transitional justice, where countries are only able to stop conflict and coordinate a transition into peace by passing amnesty and amnesia laws.

The past does not exist. Its fragments are evoked, constructed and represented by us in the present tense. It is a neutral bag, full of bits and pieces that can be utilized for whatever narrative contemporary actors need for their purposes. Therefore, we have every right to be skeptical of any attempt to officially endorse and enforce a version of the past.

Saying this is not synonymous with promoting an “eternal sunshine of the spotless mind,” as Alexander Pope put it. Just as one can be naive about facing the past, one can also be naive about the importance of letting go of the past.

The challenge is not simply remembering or enshrining the past today but acknowledging it in the right way in order to enable a better future. That is where the French attempt to criminalize discussions over 1915 has gone wrong. It is stifling any chance of the debate and discussion much needed for Turks and Armenians to hear each other and process the past together.

Loving Prophetic Voices of the Past but Hating Those of Today



Published on Huffington Post UK, 19 January 2012
This week, Martin Luther King Jr was remembered with great love and affection not only in the US but all around the world. His legacy continues to inspire and leads us to believe that we human beings can aspire to and achieve higher moral values and practice them in our societies to better the world.
Every generation needs its prophetic voices to reflect back to itself where it goes astray and what it needs to do to regain what makes us different from animals only guided by their evolutionary instincts to sustain their lives. In other words, being human is a process and cannot be taken for granted. We have to fight to remain human in the face of strong impulses to dominate, exclude, consume and posses. Thus, remembering the prophets of old days is integral for our present as well as the future.
However, something more sinister might be at play in our memorialization of long dead prophets and the issues they fought to change. We know from the experiences of truth and reconciliation commissions and mundane politics that every new regime will seek to hang out all of the dirty laundry of the previous ones to establish their own legitimacy. By dwelling on how the previous governments and generations got it wrong, political and social actors are able to tame the past and seize a powerful moral tool that can be used as a shield against anyone suggesting that the same problems old prophets fought against still continue.
Take the issues Martin Luther King Jr fought against. It is true that the African American community is not facing blatant racism it faced when he was alive. Yet, even the fact that Barack Obama received more death threats than any other previous US President as soon as he took office signals to the deep undercurrents that still exist.
The core element of racism - exclusion of a particular group on assumed reasons of difference - always remains within all of us and our societies. It only changes its properties and objects, but mechanisms of exclusion are very much alive and kicking. Today, it shows itself not so much on biological qualities of skin colour, but in properties of belonging. You are either with 'us' or with 'them'. You are either 'in' or 'out'. 'Your' life and rights can be overridden if it is not in 'our' interest. 'You' can be denied to live among 'us', who have unlimited access to roam around the world including 'your' country.
In other words, the reason why the prophets of Old Testament protested by walking around naked, covering themselves in ashes, preaching a message of repentance from injustice and exclusion of the weak and vulnerable is still valid today as it was then.
It is easy to love the long dead prophets and seek to affirm moral decency based up on social ills we think to be long gone. But, it is extremely hard to love today's prophets who speak up for today's ills. They disturb, shame and challenge us by their mere presence.
That is why we prefer hearing stories of abusive priests, corrupt politicians, incompetent NGOs and selfish celebrities, rather than saints and selfless people out there who are not part of the rat race we find ourselves in. They make us feel dirty and judged, even though the last thing on their minds are us but the suffering, excluded and needy. Thus, we remain cynical of anyone with any claim of morality, but not because we do not believe in morality. In fact, we demand people to treat us morally. Yet, the moral truth that we see in the lives of prophetic voices of today disrupt our self image. That is why we only wholeheartedly and en masse celebrate the dead, not the living.
Voices such as Martin Luther King Jr, Dietrich Bonhoeffer and Nelson Mandela or many others who stood boldly when their countries were being carried away with poisonous currents are not and cannot be reduced to history lessons, cold stone memorials, school trips and quick quotes to remove our own guilt and responsibility. They are messages of repentance, reminding all of us to look deep into our own hearts, not some distant future. They demand action, change and courage from us, today, here and now.