Middle East & North Africa

Election activities began in December as Iran's Election Commission announced that the Ministry of Interior established election headquarters in all 31 provinces. The key dates for the elections are:

• December 24, 2011: The candidate registration period began.
• December 30, 2011: The registration period ended.
• January 2012: The Guardian Council reviews the credentials of all candidates, a process that usually takes about a month.
• Late January or early February, 2012: The final list of eligible candidates—and disqualified candidates—should be released. In the past, the majority of candidates have been disqualified for failing to meet vague criteria.
• February 22, 2012: The official campaign period begins and lasts eight days.
• February 29, 2012: The official campaign ends.
• March 2, 2012: Election Day.

‘Sensitive’ elections

Iran is set for what its senior officials have described as "the most sensitive" elections in the history of the Islamic Republic, amid economic and political discontent at home and fears of a major confrontation with the ‘West’ over its nuclear program.

The authorities have publicly acknowledged the challenges they face. The supreme leader, Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, has warned that the elections could pose a risk to the country's security, and he has appealed for national unity. “To some extent, elections have always been a challenging issue for our country,” he admitted. He asked people “to be careful that this challenge does not hurt the country's security.”

More than 5,000 candidates have put their names forward for parliamentary elections in March, the first national vote since the 2009 disputed presidential poll when popular uprisings known as the Green Movement challenged the results.

Managing the elections

Two bodies are charged with managing and administering election-related activities in Iran:

The Guardian Council has a broad supervisory role. It vets all candidates, monitors the voting process and certifies the election results.

The Ministry of Interior implements election operations under the council's authority. It is responsible for the conduct of elections, including establishing and operating polling stations, administering the vote and tabulating the results.

Iran's electoral infrastructure has technically not changed much since the 1979 revolution, but in practice the role of the Guardian Council has increasingly marginalized the Ministry of Interior. The 12-man council, composed of religious and legal experts, has emerged as the main arbiter of election outcomes in two ways:

First, the council has extended its powers to interpret the constitution to include supervising all stages of the elections, including the approval and rejection of candidates.

Second, the council has transformed its temporary supervisory offices staffed with volunteers into permanent offices in every county across the country. Today, Iran has more than 384 Guardian Council supervisory offices operating year-round with full-time staff members. Concurrently, the council has enjoyed an astronomical budget growth from $480,000 in 2000 to $25 million in 2011. The Guardian Council, dominated by conservatives, has thus morphed into the most powerful and far-reaching electoral management body in Iran.

Conservative infighting and competing factions

Over the past three decades, relations between the Guardian Council and the Ministry of Interior have fluctuated. Occasionally, the two bodies have had common interests, but at other times they have been controlled by competing factions. Since its inception, the council has been tied to conservative factions. The Interior Ministry, however, has changed hands as part of the executive branch of government.

During the 2004 Majles elections, the conservative-dominated Guardian Council and the reformist-controlled Ministry of Interior were at daggers drawn, however the 2008 Majles elections took place at a time that both institutions were under conservative control. The upcoming 2012 Majles elections are different: Although conservative factions control both the ministry and the council, their rivalries have turned the process into political fratricide.

Conservative factions with significant differences have generally melded into broad coalitions during electoral events to maximize their share of the votes. At the onset of the 2009 presidential election, competing conservative factions united against the reformists. But following the election, brewing tensions over President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad's long-term political agenda re-emerged. A public rift between Supreme Leader Ali Khamenei and Ahmadinejad erupted in the spring of 2011 and deepened conflict among conservatives. The president's staunchest conservative supporters quickly turned into vocal critics. The president's associates were charged with corruption and embezzlement and publicly dubbed political “deviants.”

Revelations about Iran's largest incidents of bank embezzlement, scandals over corruption in the automotive industry, and the alleged plundering of social security pensions fueled the conservatives' war against Ahmadinejad. Members of parliament have repeatedly threatened to summon the president for questioning, and some have even proposed to impeach him.

In late 2011, Ahmadinejad, seeking to solidify his own political constituency, fought back by threatening opponents with revelations about their own misconduct, and so far, the Interior Ministry, headed by Mostafa Mohammad Najjar, a former Revolutionary Guard close to Ahmadinejad, has blocked at least 33 MPs from running in the elections, although many of them are currently serving in the parliament. Ali Motahari, a conservative MP whose father, Ayatollah Morteza Motahari, was among the key founders of the Islamic Republic, is among those on the blacklist. As an outspoken critic of the government's political and economic policies, Motahari was the driving force behind an impeachment motion against Ahmadinejad.

The role of reformists

As the election date approaches, the issue of participation is also gaining prominence. While in the past, calls to boycott elections were mainly led by the Iranian diaspora community, now, for the first time in the history of the Islamic Republic, the leaders of the reformist groups, including former president Mohammad Khatami, 2009 presidential challengers Mir Hossein Mousavi and Mehdi Karroubi, and Mohammad Mousavi Khoeiniha, the secretary general of the reformist Association of Combatant Clerics, are emphasizing the ineffectiveness of participation in the polls.

The opposition Green Movement had announced earlier that it would only consider participating if its leaders Mir Hossein Mousavi and Mehdi Karroubi were released from house arrest, but the authorities have remained reluctant to do so. The Fars News Agency, which is close to the Revolutionary Guard, announced that more than 1,200 reformists had put their names forward for the elections. Independent observers, however, questioned the claims, arguing that the regime has encouraged many of its own candidates to register as reformists in an attempt to undermine any boycott.

The issue of participation, along with the competition among disparate conservative factions is likely to make these elections more interesting or contentious than originally expected.

Raymond Karam is a program assistant for EWI's Regional Security Initiative.

Sayyari’s statement was swiftly followed by a warning from Washington that any attempt to close the strait would “not be tolerated.” Following these exchanges, the price of oil jumped by $4 a barrel and has remained over $100 a barrel even as Iran concluded its 10-day naval exercises and despite a return of Libyan oil to world markets and weakening U.S. demand. Below, an examination of what is at stake and what might be done to avoid a dangerous conflict in a militarily and economically vital world region: 

The World's Most Important Oil Choke-point

The Strait of Hormuz tops the list of global energy security concerns. Leading into the Gulf of Oman and the Arabian Sea, the strait is the only possible route for tankers transporting crude from the oil-rich states of the Gulf to world markets. Iran controls the strait’s northern coast, while Oman and the United Arab Emirates own the southern coast. The entire strait is only 112 miles long, and at its narrowest point it is only about 21 miles wide.

According to the U.S. Energy Information Administration, daily oil flow through the strait amounted to almost 17 million barrels in 2011, up from between 15.5-16.0 million in 2009–2010, that constituted roughly 35 percent of all seaborne traded oil. Roughly 90 percent of all Gulf oil, or 20 percent of oil traded worldwide, leaves the region on tankers that must pass through this narrow waterway, as land pipelines do not provide sufficient alternative export routes.

A Mounting Standoff

Tensions between Iran and the United States fueled fears of supply disruptions as Iran threatened to take action if the U.S. Navy moved an aircraft carrier, the USS John C. Stennis, back into the Gulf. In most analysts’ assessments, the jump in oil prices was likely to continue as long as Tehran continued its threats to use force against U.S. warships patrolling the strategically vital Strait of Hormuz at the mouth of the Gulf.

The tough rhetoric exchanged between Tehran and Washington over the waterway comes in the wake of the latest wave of sanctions that Washington says are designed to discourage the Iranian state from developing nuclear weapons. Late last month, U.S. President Barack Obama signed legislation imposing sanctions against Iran’s central bank intended to make it more difficult for the country to sell its oil. The Iranian escalation is seen in Washington as evidence that tighter sanctions are finally beginning to bite.

Tougher measures against Tehran are also expected to be announced at the end of this month by EU foreign ministers who have signaled that they will agree to impose an embargo on Iranian oil imports. Iranian officials have made clear they would view an oil embargo as an act of “economic war,” and that they could respond by closing the strait.

Exacerbating these tensions are internal factors in the United States and Iran, where political groups are positioning themselves in anticipation of crucial parliamentary elections in Iran in March and the U.S. presidential elections in November.

The Iranians are pledging not to back down militarily. Iran’s latest military exercise is seen as a clear signal that it has a deterrent capacity, making it capable of inflicting unacceptable harm on anyone thinking of attacking it. Moreover, following the Iranian navy’s exercises, the naval commander for the Islamic Revolutionary Guards Corps (IRGC), Rear Admiral Ali Fadavi, announced that the IRGC’s own drills will take place in February. On the same day, the Israeli military said it was preparing for joint exercises with the United States to rehearse missile defense and cooperation between the forces. Theses maneuvers, which will involve thousands of troops, have been planned for some time and were hailed by Israeli and U.S. officials as their biggest ever joint drill. Hopefully, the massive exercises will remain just that, but with three armies on the playing board, one spark could be enough to ignite an all-out war.

The United Kingdom has also joined the United States in pledging a tough response to any Iranian threat. Philip Hammond, the British defense secretary, said during a visit to Washington: "Disruption to the flow of oil through the strait of Hormuz would threaten regional and global economic growth. Any attempt by Iran to close the strait would be illegal and unsuccessful." Hammond followed on his warning by sending the Royal Navy's newest and most advanced ship, the destroyer HMS Daring, to the Gulf for its first mission. Meanwhile, there is speculation that Israel might attack Iran's nuclear facilities, claiming that it is a front for acquiring nuclear weapons, or at least a capacity to make them.

A Great Power’s Vulnerability  

Although the regional dominance of the U.S. Fifth Fleet, not to mention the other military assets that Washington could deploy from local bases, is not in question, Iran has invested shrewdly in asymmetric warfare capabilities specifically designed to counter U.S. technological superiority. To that end, it has emphasized the procurement of numerous types of guided missiles, many of them placed on light, highly mobile and relatively cheap platforms on land, in the air and at sea.

Iran could also strike at U.S. economic interests in the Gulf, such as oil facilities and tankers, and block ships by laying mines, as it did during its war with Iraq in the 1980s. And, despite the damage that the Syrian uprising is doing to the relationship between Iran and its other Middle Eastern allies, Tehran could still call on Hezbollah and Hamas to inflict as much damage as possible on its adversaries.

The Market’s Watchful Eye  

Extended closure of the Strait of Hormuz would remove one-fifth of the world’s oil from the market causing a supply shock of the type not seen since OPEC’s heyday. Even if the strait were not to physically close, a military conflict in the area could cause oil prices to skyrocket in anticipation of a supply disruption, and prices would remain high until markets are assured that free and safe passage has been restored. A sharp rise in oil prices would prove catastrophic to the world economy. Energy analysts say even a partial blockage of the strait could raise the world price of oil by $50 a barrel or more within days, and that would quickly push the price of a gallon of regular gasoline to well over $4 a gallon in the United States. This would have serious effects on the world economy, and would surely send the United States economy back into recession.

Despite such deterrents to armed confrontation, a miscalculation is possible that could cause an overreaction from one side or the other. If allowed to continue, the current heated-up situation could quickly turn into a military confrontation that would prove disastrous to all parties involved.

Finding A Way Out

More than ever, a de-escalation of tensions is required, and an open line of communication between rival militaries in the Gulf is needed. It is not clear how such de-escalation would take place, but the January 4 surprise trip by Turkish Foreign Minister Ahmet Davutoglu to Tehran could have be designed for such a purpose.

In fact, at a joint news conference on January 5 with Iranian Foreign Minister Ali Akbar Salehi, Davutoglu indicated that he carried a message from EU foreign policy chief Catherine Ashton in regards to the resumption of talks in Istanbul between Iran and the “P5+1” group, composed of the five permanent members of the U.N. Security Council plus Germany. If and when the meeting takes place, the parties would still have to overcome the main obstacle which hindered previous rounds, namely agenda setting. The P5+1 has wanted to tackle the issue of the Iranian nuclear enrichment program, while Iran prefers to include this issue in the overall negotiations over what Iranian Secretary of the Supreme National Security Council Saeed Jalili termed “security issues that affect Iran regionally and globally.”

What is necessary is for Iran, the United States and its allies to return to the negotiating table in order to resolve the litany of grievances and not to allow these grievances to spill over into a military confrontation.

Raymond Karam is a program assistant for EWI's Regional Security Initiative.

The lecture, held at EWI's New York Center and moderated by EWI's Andrew Nagorski, was named in honor of the distinguished British diplomat and counterterrorism consultant Ian Cuthbertson, who served in senior roles at both EWI and WPI.

The ongoing turmoil in the Middle East and North Africa (MENA), which many observers at least initially hailed as moves toward democratization, has raised many questions about the potential consequences for international security. Among these concerns is the effect it will have on counterterrorism operations throughout the region, especially in light of the pre-existing relationships between countries undergoing political upheavals and the Western governments most actively targeting terrorist operations. At a fundamental level, there is a sharp divide between many analysts on the question of the relationship between regime type and the prevalence and effectiveness of terrorism. Some argue that the institutions comprising a liberal democracy weaken the potential for terrorist activity and allow for more effective counterterrorism operations, while others maintain that autocratic regimes are more effective at thwarting and minimizing security threats.

Helfstein, who spoke first, is director of research for the Combating Terrorism Center at the U.S. Military Academy at West Point. An advisor to public and private sector organizations, Helfstein has extensively studied the effects of democratic and autocratic transitions from 1970 to 1990. Naureen Chowdhury Fink, who followed Helfstein, is a senior analyst at the Center on Global Counterterrorism Cooperation. Having worked closely with the U.N. Counter-Terrorism Executive Directorate (CTED) on developing their initiatives in South Asia, Fink offered her expertise on Bangladesh as a case study to understand the impact of regime type on counterterrorism.

The Arab Spring raises the question of whether the security relationships established between Western and MENA autocracies are more effective at combating terrorist activity than new democracies, liberal or not, which come with uncertainty. During the discussion, a consensus quickly arose that reality calls for far more nuance than a simple “yes” or “no” answer.

In the wake of the revolutions, functioning security networks have been thrown out the door and have yet to be replaced. Helfstein noted that the United States has “created a foreign policy in the past based on the notion that democracy actually hinders terrorism, but there are good reasons to question that assumption.” He went on to cite a quantitative analysis of the impact of regime type transitions on terrorism that at least partially discredits the notion that democracy inhibits terrorism.

Speaking about his research on regime transition from 1970–1990, Helfstein pointed out that regimes that transitioned from democracies to autocracies had substantially fewer terrorist acts in the two year period following the transition when compared to the two year period preceding the transition. And in fact, nations that became democracies in that period underwent just the opposite experience: a substantial increase in terrorist attacks in the following two years. Regardless of the optimism generated by images of democratic participation in formerly autocratic regimes, it is clear that the future holds serious challenges for these states.

Fink, a specialist in South Asia, offered her extensive experience as an analyst of counterterrorism in Bangladesh as a case study for the topic. “Democracy has created an inhospitable environment for militancy and terrorism in Bangladesh,” she noted, adding that the majority Muslim nation’s democratic institutions have acted as a “pressure valve” for managing discontent. Bengali democracy, which has been in place since 1972, serves to establish expectations of transparency and accountability from public officials who, should they fail to meet these expectations, can be replaced at the ballot box.

That said, Fink noted that the “violent political culture” found in Bangladesh has threatened the stability of fundamental democratic practices such as the peaceful transition of power, even among members of the same political party.  A major lesson for the Arab Spring is that the abuse of power within democratic institutions can allow alternate narratives of religious extremism and militancy to become more compelling to the populace.

In light of this discussion, the conventional wisdom holding democratic transition as an absolute good proves to be a questionable one. Helfstein said that transitions are usually “jarring events” that “not only impact the political institutions but they impact the social structure of society.” The societal shock produced by regime change can often lead to unpredictable consequences.

Both speakers emphasized the role of culture and social norms. The outcome of a democratic (or autocratic) transition is significantly linked with ingrained social mores that can prove highly resistant to the influence of imposed institutions. The coming months are sure to shed more light on how the current political transitions in the Arab world are influencing the prospects for effective counterterrorism.

Click here to listen to a podcast of the event.

Click here for a gallery of photos from the event on Google+.

Click here to visit the World Policy Institute's website.

This retreat was supported by a series of other consultations on the same subject which ran from mid-September until the end of October. These discussions engaged some 40 recognized leaders in global and regional policy, high-level private sector actors, and world-renowned research specialists in Brussels, London and Washington DC. The main outcome of the retreat was the shaping of a set of recommendations for G20 governments available with the event report here:

• “Egypt Addressing Climate Change”, Climate Change Central Department, Egyptian Environmental Affairs Agency
• “Building Resilience in the Horn of Africa: Environmental Considerations”, Regional Office for Africa, Division of Regional Cooperation, UNEP
• “Strategic Alliances for Increasing Climate Resilience in Critical Localities”, Western Province, Rwanda
• “Energy Situation in Egypt”, Ministry of Environment, Egypt
• “Dust Storms in Saudi Arabia: Facts & a Strategy to Cope with”, King Saud University
• “New Science and Technologies to the Rescue of the Horn of Africa”, Nile Valley and Sub-Saharan Africa Regional Program, International Center for Agricultural Research in the Dry Areas (ICARDA)
• “Country-Level Governance of Climate Adaptation Finance for Building Resilience in the Developing World”, Ethiopian Civil Society Network on Climate Change (ECSNCC) hosted by Forum for Environment (FfE)
• “Assessment of Selected Development Policies and Strategies of Ethiopia from a Climate Change Perspective and Cross Border Cooperation”, Ethiopian Civil Society Network on Climate Change (ECSNCC) hosted by Forum for Environment (FfE)
• “Sustainable Development of Agriculture and Water Resources in the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia”, King Saud University
• “Cross-Border Cooperation versus Local Initiatives – Assessment of Existing Policy Approaches to Natural Resources Management”, Inter-Islamic Network on Water Resources, Development and Management (INWRDAM)
• “Promoting Sustainable Desert Development as a Means for Reducing Effects of Global Warming in Regions Suffering from Scarcity in Water & Food Production”, Friends of Environment and Development Association (FEDA)

According to the United States, “Iran is keeping open the option of developing nuclear weapons”. This written statement of 10 February 2011 by the Director of National Intelligence, General James Clapper, implies a belief that Iran was not then developing nuclear weapons. Clapper also said that Iran believes it can deter its adversaries with its conventionally armed missiles. There are other reports in the public domain from US intelligence agencies supporting these views. In 2007, the CIA assessed with high confidence that Iran called a halt to its nuclear weapons program in 2003.

Intelligence sources have told this author that the Iranian government appears to have decided to abandon its nuclear weapons work in 2003 and that it did not return to that nuclear weapons design or testing after 2003. At the same time, Iran does continue to develop two enabling technologies for developing nuclear weapons should it choose to do so, enriched uranium and ballistic missiles. This is exactly what U.S. intelligence officials appear to be saying in public on the record. Iran is obliged under its international legal commitments to reveal all military related aspects of its nuclear program, whether these were in the past or the present. The current United Nations Security Council resolutions and continued concerns of the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) about Iran’s military nuclear activities relate to the period of Iranian weapons related work before the end of 2003, and to Iranian concealment after 2003 of that previous activity.

The recent IAEA Board of Governors’ report (8 November 2011) includes a special Annex that “provides a detailed analysis of the information available to the Agency to date which has given rise to concerns about possible military dimensions to Iran’s nuclear programme”. The Report and its Annex reveals no specific evidence of Iranian government development of a nuclear weapon that is specifically dated by the report after 2003. The report claims a good knowledge of events before 2003, but acknowledges that the “Agency’s ability to construct an equally good understanding of activities in Iran after the end of 2003 is reduced, due to the more limited information available.”

The IAEA report goes on to say: “The information indicates that Iran has carried out some research activities that might be relevant to the development of a nuclear explosive device.” This does relate to activities dated “after 2003”, but the report notes that the activity also had civil applications. 

The report says that IAEA information “indicates that prior to the end of 2003, these activities took place under a structured programme, and that some activities may still be ongoing.”  It appears to reveal uncertainty whether such activities continued after 2003 at all. It does not describe a comprehensive set of weaponization activities that continued after 2003, rather some inconclusive evidence that possibly it did. By contrast, the IAEA has very detailed information on different strands of weaponization research and design that occurred up to the end of 2003, such as trigger design and safety arrangements for nuclear testing. The IAEA report can be faulted in many places for putting dates on certain information and the activities described in that information and not on others, or conflating past events of almost a decade ago and the present, as in the excerpts above. The report can be faulted for not indicating which military activities “may” be “ongoing” and when exactly they occurred. Those governments holding well-sourced evidence of Iranian nuclear weapons development after 2003 should share it publicly. The IAEA report is not that helpful in trying to get at the facts. It paints a less than convincing picture that the Iranian government is now pursuing a weaponization program. 

Read this piece in New Europe

Photo: "Thiep Nguyen (01611296)" (CC BY-SA 2.0) by IAEA Imagebank

The bill criminalizes exploitative and discriminatory practices such as forced marriages and denial of women’s rightful inheritance. People who engage in these practices, which are customary in some parts of Pakistan, are now subject to hefty fines or up to 10 years in prison.

Though Pakistan’s parliament has a greater proportion of women than the U.K. Parliament or the U.S. Congress, Pakistani women parliamentarians must constantly work against gender bias and prove themselves as serious contributors in the legislature.

The Parliamentarians Network for Conflict Prevention congratulates Dr. Aziz, a member of its Executive Council and a leading member of its working group on Women, Peace and Security. It also congratulates the many female lawmakers who work to improve women’s and human rights in Pakistan. We are proud to continue to work together to support women in their active role in public life.

Click here for more information on the bill.

The Parliamentarians Network for Conflict Prevention is an international, non-partisan, standing structure with a membership of almost 180 parliamentarians from 58 countries across the globe. The Network connects members of parliament to mobilise efforts towards the prevention of conflicts turning violent through diplomatic initiatives and effective collective action. The latest report from the Parliamentarians Network for Conflict Prevention’s working group on Women, Peace and Security is available here.

According to the host organization’s report of the meeting at the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace, Mullen went on to suggest that it would be in the American national interest to resume contact with Tehran at either a political, diplomatic, or military-to-military level.

On 14 September, as reported by the Pentagon, Mullen said that Iran is attempting to develop nuclear weapons and wants regional hegemony in the Middle East; and the lack of contact between the United States and Iran could be dangerous to the region and the international community.

One could see these views more or less as a statement of the obvious – the United States needs to be talking to countries that give it concern. However, given the negative political sentiment in the United States toward Iran and given the rigid policy position of the U.S. government, then Mullen’s statements seem to indicate a division of some sort in the Obama Administration about the wisdom of continuing to isolate Iran diplomatically.  Another possible meaning of the remarks, though less likely, is that Mullen is just expressing U.S. frustration that as far it is concerned, Iran has not conducted itself properly to allow re-establishment of contact; and that it is Iran’s behavior that leads to the lack of contact.

Assuming the former interpretation (and not the latter) is correct, Mullen’s views open up the obvious question of what is it that the United States has to do or can do to start meaningful bilateral conversations on both nuclear issues and regional security issues.

Any restoration of formal relations seems highly unlikely in the next 2-3 years. The United States has, at least in a practical sense, made that conditional on a number of significant policy reversals by Tehran. In U.S. policy, Iran is more or less where it was when George Bush gave his “axis of evil” speech in 2002.  That said, the route of informal diplomatic “contacts” would be relatively easy if Iran and the United States were both willing.

Yet Mullen’s mention of military and political contacts in contrast to diplomatic efforts suggests a complete roadblock on one side or both to unofficial diplomatic contact. Military contacts would seem even more difficult. It is almost impossible to imagine that the State Department would agree to the idea that military officers would conduct any part of the diplomacy with Iran while diplomatic relations are so strained.

Moreover, at least as far as the public record is concerned, there does not seem to be much of a foundation for military to military contacts. So what about “political contacts”? In the run up to a Presidential election in the United States in 2012, this would seem at first glance to be extremely high risk.

Then there is the problem of who in Iran to talk to. The level of the contact would need to be finely set, and at a fairly middle level, to minimize political risk. Any prediction of what might come from Mullen’s statements would be foolhardy. Yet the ground-breaking significance of his comments as a very direct and unusually public opening to talk with Iranian leaders cannot be discounted.

Click here to read Austin's piece in New Europe

It seems therefore, if we are to credit Ahmet Davutoglu, Turkey’s foreign minister, with the diplomatic talent so often ascribed to him, that there are now ambitions in play beyond the current game -- that is, outside the frame of the bilateral relationship. Turkey is now playing for a different Israel. This is not good news for Netanyahu.

Israel’s diplomatic environment may be at its most turbulent and uncertain for almost thirty years, even worse than during the two wars in Iraq in 1991 and 2003. The United States President has gone public on his insistence that Israel return to 1967 borders (with some land swaps), the United Nations General Assembly may recognize Palestine as a non-member state, and the Arab spring is playing itself out with profound effects in Syria, Egypt, Jordan and the Arabian peninsula. Turkey, which has powerful military forces, is downgrading its relations with Israel and challenging the legality of its blockade of Gaza. Disputes over Israel’s maritime resource boundaries have re-emerged in recent months. This all comes at a time of a persistent protest movement inside Israel against economic and social conditions, a movement inspired in part by the Arab spring. Terrorist attacks inside Israel continue and its government reports a reconstitution by Hamas of its military capabilities. Netanyahu’s promotion of his ambition for Israel to be recognized as a Jewish state as part of peace settlements runs against the demographic trends inside Israel, which will see the Arab share  of the population rise from its current 20 per cent to 25 per cent several decades hence.  However, it also offends the moral sensibility of Israel’s neighbors. 

What does Turkey want? It wants nothing more than a normalization of its regional environment. Since the uprising and associated violence in Syria, that ambition seems shattered and stability seems to have disappeared. Turkey has had a rather public spat with Iran over how to respond to events in Syria, even as Erdogan announced plans for a visit to Egypt this week. There is talk of a new security agreement of some sort between the two countries, and Turkey has been campaigning in support of the UN General Assembly resolution to recognize Palestine as a state.

In short, Turkey has laid down the gauntlet. It seems that Turkey refuses to return to the status quo where Israel was conducting its Palestine policy with no significant interference from Turkey. Turkey at government level is now threatening to take on the role of spoiler against Israel. The moral and legal challenge that the government of Turkey has now taken to the international stage against Israel is unambiguously a sharp turn in policy. It was a decision not taken lightly, yet Turkish citizens were killed in a manner that made any other policy path for Erdogan impossible.

Only time will tell, but we may come to remember the Erdogan/Davutoglu gambit to Israel in September 2011 as a major departure point for a new reckoning in regional affairs. We will probably have to wait for Netanyahu to leave office before that new reckoning can begin to take shape. 

Click here to read Austin's piece in New Europe

“We need to give the world human security,” said Kazakhstan’s Ambassador to the UN Byganym Aitimova, who delivered the opening remarks. Kazakhstan, which destroyed its cache of Soviet-era nuclear weapons, has been a leader in global disarmament

While largely positive in tone, the speakers said that vast progress still needs to be made to implement the 64 concrete disarmament measures detailed in the May 2010 Nonproliferation-Treaty Review Conference’s final document.

Libran Cabactulan, the Philippines’ Ambassador to the UN and Chair of the 2010 NPT Review Conference, recommended that countries strike nuclear weapons from their defense doctrines and create a convention that makes nuclear weapons illegal. More immediately, Cabactulan said that it is “essential” to hold the Middle East Conference on a nuclear-free zone in 2012 as planned, even though a facilitator has not been chosen. He explained that the conference “may not result in an agreement on a WMD Free Zone outright, but it could be the first step to one.”

Several speakers called for a comprehensive ban on nuclear weapons testing, including the UN’s High Representative for Disarmament Affairs Sergio Duarte. “A test ban is part of a larger process of delegitimizing nuclear weapons,” he declared.

Annika Thunborg, spokesperson for the Preparatory Commission of the Comprehensive Nuclear-Test-Ban Treaty Organization (CTBTO), called for the ratification of the CTBT. She said that  if any of the nine outstanding states, especially those that are nuclear-armed, were to lead the way and adopt the treaty, the "logjam" on on the CTBT would be broken.  

CTBT ratification is a priority of the Obama administration, according to U.S. State Department’s Deputy Assistant Secretary of the Bureau of Arms Control, Verification and Compliance Marcie Ries.

Ries, who delivered the workshop’s most upbeat remarks, called last December’s Senate ratification of the New START a “bright spot” in U.S.-Russian relations, saying that U.S. and Russian weapons inspectors have conducted a total of 15 reciprocal site visits since April. Ries also signaled U.S. enthusiasm for future talks among the P5 and for further multilateral talks to prepare for the 2015 NPT Review Conference.

“We hope that all countries will join in the common effort to increase transparency and build confidence,” said Ries. “Confidence-building at its very core is, of course, a shared effort.”

Global Security Institute President Jonathan Granoff reframed the nuclear weapons debates in terms of human rights. “Nuclear weapons are unworthy of civilization,” he said. “We have to get rid of them.”

A lively discussion followed, with participants speaking about everything from technical measures to chip away at standing nuclear weapons stockpiles to the damage done to Kazakhstan -- and other countries -- by nuclear-weapons testing.

“We need to build political support for eliminating nuclear weapons in countries that, unlike Kazakhstan, have forgotten what nuclear weapons can do,” said EWI Vice President Greg Austin, who moderated the workshop. “We need to take this discussion out of the UN and back into the public sphere.”

Click below to read speakers' remarks:

Ambassador Byrganym Atimova, Permanent Representative of Kazakhstan to the United Nations

Sergio Duarte, the UN’s High Representative for Disarmament Affairs

Marcie Ries, U.S. State Department’s Deputy Assistant Secretary of the Bureau of Arms Control, Verification and Compliance

H.E. Mr. Libran N. Cabactulan, President of the 2010 NPT Review Conference and Permanent Representative of the Philippines to the United Nations

Dr. Annika Thunborg, Spokesperson and Chief of Public Information of the Preparatory Commission for the Comprehensive Nuclear-Test-Ban Treaty Organization (CTBTO)

Jonathan Granoff, President Global Security Institute