Mere days after sobering official ceremonies marked the end of the U.S. mission in Iraq, America’s most dubious partner – Prime Minister Nouri al Maliki – charged his Vice President Tareq al-Hashemi with aiding and abetting terrorism and sought to remove his Deputy Prime Minister, Saleh al-Mutlaq from office. In short order, sectarian violence spread rapidly from the capital city of Baghdad, further south into Basra and north towards Mosul. Within a month, nearly 450 Iraqis had lost their lives – one of the highest tolls for short an amount of time in years.

However, the physical violence that rocked the struggling democracy concealed a major political crisis simmering below the superficial horrors of car bombs and death squads. Iraqis now face a new crisis as the fragile government juggles uncertain national unity under pressure of sectarian tension and raw competition for political leverage.

The Carnegie Endowment for International Peace is holding a special forum, “The State of Iraq” to discuss the growing political crisis left behind in the wake of America’s military occupation. Ad Melkert, former UN Special Representative in Iraq, and Carnegie’s Marina Ottoway will discuss the prospects for quelling the gathering storm.

The United States has exited Iraq, stage left, but for the second time since the 2003 invasion disrupted Saddam’s autocracy, the state finds itself on the verge of disintegration. Thank goodness some folks haven’t forgotten our obligation to help clean up the mess we left behind.

Photo Credit: Reuters

A Malaysian judge has ruled today that fiery opposition leader Anwar Ibrahim is not guilty of sodomy charges brought forth by a former male aide. The verdict opens up the possibility for Ibrahim to stand in the next general election and challenge the ruling Barisan Nasional (BN) party which has held political power in the country for the past five decades.

The ruling from the presiding High Court judge, Mohamad Zabidin Diah, was rather unexpected, and Ibrahim stated that he was “pleasantly shocked” by the verdict. This was not the first time Ibrahim has faced allegations of sexual misconduct. In 1998, he was convicted of a similar charge and spent six years in prison before the ruling was overturned. One year prior, Ibrahim was the Deputy Prime Minister and looked poised to be the next leader of the country. However, after campaigning on an anti-corruption platform, he was sacked by then-Prime Minister Mahathir Mohamad. Ibrahim has consistently maintained that the subsequent sodomy charges levied against him were politically motivated.

After emerging from prison, Ibrahim put together a coalition of three opposition groups in the 2008 elections and scored the biggest political victory against BN in Malaysia’s democratic history. The BN lost five out of the nation’s sixteen states and also lost its traditional two thirds majority in Parliament. Not long after the elections, new charges appeared against Ibrahim, this time from his former male aide, Saiful Bukhari Azlan.

Exiting the courthouse today surrounded by his supporters, Ibrahim now seems poised to mount the strongest challenge yet to BN’s longtime control of Malaysia; the next elections are scheduled to be held no later than 2013. Ibrahim’s message is one of populism: in the wake of the Arab Spring and other myriad occupy movements across the globe this past year, Ibrahim is seen as the reformist candidate who has pledged to rollback several harsh laws which have served to curtail many political and civil rights within Malaysia. Moreover, he is seen as the voice of the country’s various ethnic minorities — such as Han Chinese and Indian — who have long been left out of the political process.

Fire on the Yekaterinburg. (C) Ru-RTR

Just a couple of weeks ago, a Russian oil rig sank off the coast of Sakhalin Island, leaving at least 17 dead and 36 more missing. Only 14 people survived, and the search has been called off to ensure the safety of the rescuers in harsh conditions. Now, in the Arctic shipyard in the village of Roslyakovo, Murmansk in northwest Russia, the Yekaterinburg, a nuclear submarine, has caught on fire while undergoing repairs. Welding that was occurring on the wooden scaffolds surrounding the vessel reportedly caused the fire, which started at 4:20 pm GMT. Eventually, the flames spread to the submarine. Villages in Roslyakovo, rather than the Navy, noticed the fire and reported it to Russia’s Ministry of Emergency Situations. A video of the fire is available here, courtesy of RIA Novosti.

Helicopters were on-site trying to put out the fire. Six hours later, at 10:35 pm, the submarine was submerged to try to stop the blaze for good. Minister of Emergency Situations Sergey Shoygu said that the fire had been mostly contained at 1:40 am, but that firefighters were still combatting small pockets of flames.

Nineteen crew members have been injured so far, either from burns or smoke inhalation, though the Russian authorities claim that no one was hurt. They also will not disclose how many crew members were onboard the submarine at the time of the fire. They have claimed that neither nuclear weapons nor the nuclear reactor were on the ship, as the sixteen ballistic missiles, along with torpedo tubes, had been removed prior to repairs. If this is true, the fire should not be radioactive. Since the fire reportedly only broke out on the submarine’s outer hull, there also should not be any major radiation risk, since the nuclear weapons and reactor would be farther inside. The Yekaterinburg normally carries R-29RMU Sineva intercontinental ballistic missiles.

Deputy Prime Minister Dmitry Rogozin sent Acting Head of Industry and Trade Denis Manturov to Murmansk. Meanwhile, the Investigative Committee of the Russian Federation has launched an inquiry into the fire, entitled, “Damage to property due to negligence of the military.”

It is hard to believe Russian authorities and federal investigations after the last few maritime disasters, notably the sinking of the nuclear submarine, the Kursk, in 2000. On top of that, and on top of the recent sinking of the Kolskaya oil rig, a Russian nuclear icebreaker, the Vaygach, caught on fire earlier in December, killing two. Again, there was reportedly no radiation released, since the fire occurred in the ship’s living quarters, far from the reactor. Still, in order for foreign investors to feel secure about investing in Russia’s maritime industries, whether they be icebreakers or offshore oil rigs, there needs to be more transparency. Russia also probably needs to enforce tighter regulations and upgrade its infrastructure. After all, you don’t hear about similar disasters in countries like Norway or Canada nearly as often. This blog post from the Voice of America’s Russia Watch on the sinking of the Kolskaya is highly informative and offers great insight into what happened, why, and the culture of negligence that persists in Russia from the top down.

News Links

“Massive fire engulfs Russian nuclear submarine at Arctic repair dock; possibly 19 injured, and links remain uncertain,” Bellona

This end of year has been quite tumultuous in Europe: European citizens are in the street, rating agencies threaten to downgrade the rating of some members of the Eurozone, the race to elections is going full speed in several EU countries, all this taking place in a dire economic and political climax. The political debate in Europe has been quite violent, and France has played a considerable part to it. Under President Nicolas Sarkozy, France has been extremely active on the European and international stage leading the way in many European Summits and other sorts of meeting. However, France has also been in the middle of considerable political and diplomatic crises: one with its neighbor Britain; and the other with Turkey. These bilateral crises could spill-over to higher levels.
The crisis between France and Britain has reached its peak the week following the European Council to reform the Treaties on December 8th and 9th. British Prime Minister, David Cameron, vetoed the agreement that would have led the way to the construction of a fiscal union. Instead it became an intergovernmental agreement between the 17 members of the Eurozone. Germany Chancellor, Ms. Merkel, wanted an agreement among 27 in order to increase the accountability of Member States, while Mr. Sarkozy preferred an intergovernmental agreement. Ms. Merkel had to settle down with her second option because of Britain, even though she “insisted on wholesale revision of the EU’s treaties to enshrine in law the Eurozone’s promise of greater fiscal discipline.”
In the aftermath of the meeting the members of the French ruling party as well as members of the government started a war of words against their cross-channel neighbor. French Prime Minister, François Fillon, and the head of the French central Bank suggested that the AAA credit rating of Britain should be downgraded before France considering that British economy – inflation and debt – was worst than the French. French Finance Minister, François Baroin, added on French public radio that “in terms of the economic situation, one prefers to be French rather than British at the moment.” Even Nicolas Sarkozy took an active role in the vendetta by declaring that Mr. Cameron had acted like a child during the EU Summit.
As declared by a European diplomat in the Financial Times, “Nobody understood what Cameron wanted – nobody. We were talking about big things – saving the euro – and he was asking for peanuts. It was not the time or place.” Even the centrist and pro-European deputy prime minister, Nick Clegg, who declared that “I’m bitterly disappointed by the outcome of last week’s summit, precisely because I think now there is a danger that the UK will be isolated and marginalized within the European Union.” He underlined that the interests of Britain is with the EU and that being isolated could only have negative considerable economic, financial, and political consequences for Britain. Following the aggressive tone of the French government, one of the few assets across the channel has declared that the French attacks were ‘simply unacceptable.’

The second crisis concerns a project of law by the French Parliament on the Armenian genocide, which was approved earlier on today, December 22nd. Despite public manifestation in front of the building of the French Assembly and the repeated threats of the Turkish government, the French deputies passed the law, which still needs to be approved by the Senat. Under French law, the denial of the Armenian genocide of 1915 would be penalized by one year of imprisonment as well as a heavy fine. Under the law, France recognized two genocides, the Jewish genocide that took place during World War two and the Armenian of 1915. This is no secret that Ankara, the capital of Turkey, still refused to recognize it. The question of the Armenian genocide has been at the center of Turkish membership to the EU. The diplomatic consequences between the two partners will be considerable with the possible implementation by Ankara of diplomatic, commercial and economic sanctions. Following the approval of the draft law, Turkish Prime Minister, Mr. Erdogan, declared the suspension of bilateral meetings, called back the Turkish ambassador to France, as well as putting on hold all military exercises between the two countries.
Relations between Paris and Ankara have not been at their best since the election of President Sarkozy in 2007. Mr. Sarkozy clearly expressed France opposition to the EU membership of Turkey. Plus during his presidential run in 2006-07, Mr. Sarkozy pledged for his support of a law that would penalize any kind of denial of the Armenian genocide.
However, France claims that the proposed text does not target Turkey, as it is not even mentioned in the text and expressed by Valérie Boyer, a right wing deputy. Turkey’s reaction has been to denounce the colonial past of France and all the excess that occurred in Algeria and Rwanda.

What to take from these two considerable political and diplomatic crises beyond the fact that France is in serious period of crisis and confusion. Frustrations are high in France. Even after the success of the Libyan mission and the leadership of France with Germany on trying to save Greece and ultimately solving the Euro crisis, President Sarkozy’s approval ratings are at an all-time low. President Sarkozy as well as the members of his party, UMP, are feeling the progressive shift of the political and societal wind. The level of unemployment, low growth, societal tensions, continuous strikes, erosion of the welfare state, social inequalities and so on have affected the functioning of the state and the credibility of Mr. Sarkozy’s abilities to govern and ultimately lead. By frustrating and offending its close allies and partners, France is not helping its case.
However, it would be a considerable strategic mistake for France to continue down this path for two reasons. First, France needs the support of Britain in order to solve the crisis in Europe. A stable economic and financial Britain can only benefit the EU and ultimately France. The degree of interdependence between the island and the continent is too important to be left behind. Britain has its share of the blame and needs to either commit to the EU or leave. The status quo has lasted well too long. In this time of crisis, Britain cannot keep playing hardball, as it will not only affect its growth and political stability. Thus, the political divisions between Cameron and Clegg are unhealthy for the future of Britain. Second, Turkey has emerged as a new regional power. France cannot destroy its diplomatic, economic, military and political ties with such an important emerging power. For example, one of the solutions of the Syrian crisis lies down with Turkey. Furthermore, Turkey has been a reliable partner of the EU and its Member States. Alienating Turkey, a secular state in a conflicted region, would not be in the interest of neither France nor the EU. Thus, the Turkish-French fraught could have considerable impact on the weakening Common Security and Defense Policy (CSDP). Turkey, a NATO member, will not hesitate to block any future Berlin plus type mission affecting the success of CSDP operation as well as the cooperation between the EU and NATO on military and humanitarian matters.

French must take a hard look at itself and have an honest discussion about its current situation and the future that it wants for itself domestically and internationally. The current presidential race could become this platform of discussion in order to shape a new future and design appropriate and needed policies. Domestic and economic problems cannot affect the ties with its partners. French’s interests need to be reassessed. It is not in the interest of France and the EU to have its government shouting inflammatory narratives. France cannot isolate itself for the simple reason that its power emerges from its international stature.

What is certain is that the EU is in serious crisis politically, economically, ideationally, and sentimentally. It will take some times before the emotions go down. In this interesting climax, we can only wish well to the new member, Croatia. It will most likely be a tumultuous Christmas dinner. Welcome to the family!

What's Next, Prime Minister? — From The Evening Standard, London

At least 23 and perhaps as many as 26 of the 27 members of the European Union have agreed to an inter-governmental agreement that may or may not save the euro from the bond market vigilantes. A full-blown treaty failed because there was not unanimous support for the idea – Britain stood alone in saying flat out that it wasn’t signing up for that. Prime Minister Cameron had little choice either on the grounds of national interests or domestic politics. However, the EU is a much different place than it was just last week.

Mr. Cameron went to Brussels demanding that the UK have a veto over any financial services regulations. While this may seem a bit extreme, one must remember that France and Italy have protected their farming sector with the EU’s Common Agricultural Policy for decades. And the euro’s greatest benefit to Germany was the protection of its neighboring export markets – a single currency ensured that German manufactured goods were still relatively affordable outside Germany, the Low Countries and Scandinavia. Britain simply wanted to protect the 10% of its GDP that comes from financial activity.

President Sarkozy of France explained why he could not accept that, saying “You cannot have an opt-out and then ask to participate in all the discussion about the euro that you did not want to have, and which you also criticized.” His European policy has always been to form a core group within Europe that excludes the more free-market British, Scandinavians and Eastern Europeans – this will maximize French power.

The details of the “fiscal compact” are pretty clear. The BBC reported them as “a cap of 0.5% of GDP on countries’ annual structural deficits, ‘automatic consequences’ for countries whose public deficit exceeds 3% of GDP; the tighter rules to be enshrined in countries’ constitutions; European Stability Mechanism (ESM) to be accelerated and brought into force in July 2012 adequacy of 500bn-euro (£427bn; $666bn) limit for ESM to be reassessed; Eurozone and other EU countries to provide up to 200bn euros to the IMF to help debt-stricken eurozone members.”

The agreement itself is far less important than Britain’s position in the EU. As the Economist noted, “Whether the agreement does anything to stabilise the euro is moot. The agreement is heavily tilted towards budget discipline and austerity. It does little to generate money in the short term to arrest the run on sovereigns, nor does it provide a longer-term perspective of jointly-issued bonds. Much will depend on how the European Central Bank responds in the coming days and weeks.”

Frankly, I don’t think it will work in the long-term. Greater austerity is not going to get the Greek or Portuguese economies growing anytime soon, but Hoover’s ghost haunts the eurozone now. And as a result, saving the whole thing is going to cost Germany more in the end than it would have a year or more ago.

Instead, Britain now finds itself alone on matters of budgeting and taxation within the EU. The 17 eurozone members and at least six others will be part of the inter-governmental agreement (just shy of a treaty in international legal terms), and Sweden, Hungary and the Czech Republic may sign up to it after parliamentary debates.

Why was Mr. Cameron so uncooperative? Quite simply because he had no choice. As noted, 10% of the UK’s GDP is finance based. Moreover, though, he leads a coalition that ranges from Conservatives who still think of Europe as the enemy, Conservatives who are tolerant of the EU’s existence, and Liberal-Democrats who are rabidly pro-Europe. His room for maneuver was very small, and his margin of error even smaller.

No matter what he did, he risked splitting these various factions. By vetoing a new treaty, he opted to distance the Conservative Party from the junior coalition Liberal Democrats. Not only is he Prime Minister, he is also leader of the Conservatives, so this should come as no surprise.

For their part, the Liberal Democrats are putting a brave face on it, but there is a clear sense that they know their policies have suffered a huge, perhaps lethal, setback. Leader of the LibDems and Deputy Prime Minister Nick Clegg initially put the blame on the French and Germans rather than on Mr. Cameron. However, he has made it clear that he doesn’t like the result no matter who is to blame. He said on the Andrew Marr program on the BBC, “I’m bitterly disappointed by the outcome of last week’s summit, precisely because I think now there is a danger that the UK will be isolated and marginalised within the European Union. I don’t think that’s good for jobs, in the City [the UK's financial district] or elsewhere, I don’t think it’s good for growth or for families up and down the country.” Since then, he has been more vocal in his protests.

Less diplomatic were statements from LibDem bigwigs Lords Oakeshott and Ashdown. Lord Oakeshott stated on the record that LibDem Business Secretary Vince Cable had “given a very serious warning last Monday in the cabinet against elevating these financial regulation points into a make or break deal.” Former leader of the LibDems, Lord Ashdown, put it in the blunt terms of the special forces soldier he once was stating that the veto “tipped 38 years of British foreign policy down the drain.”

Where does all this leave us? The British governing coalition is clearly divided and may not survive the remaining three-and-a-half years this parliament has to run. Europe will move forward toward fiscal union, but without the UK. Moreover the other 9 EU members that aren’t part of the eurozone may discover that having Brussels handle their economic policy to suit German and French desires is less than appealing. There will be legal battles over the use of EU-wide institutions to enforce rules that do not apply to the entire EU. And in the end, the problem of heavily indebted countries failing to achieve meaningful economic growth remains the central issue in European finance.

2011 can’t end soon enough.