Iran parliament endorses Rouhani's diplomatic gambit

(Reuters) - Iran's parliament

The backing from the assembly, controlled by political factions deeply loyal to Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, is a further sign that Rouhani has the support of the Iranian establishment, though there are some rumblings from hardliners.

Khamenei, the most powerful figure in Iran, has yet to comment publicly on Rouhani's trip.
Rouhani briefed parliamentarians on his trip, including discussions on Iran's nuclear dispute with the West and regional relations, the student news agency ISNA said.

A group of 230 parliamentarians, out of the total of 290, signed a statement expressing their support of Rouhani for presenting the image of a "powerful and peace-seeking Iran which seeks talks and interaction for the settlement of regional and international issues", Fars news agency said.

While Rouhani's visit to New York boosted hopes of a diplomatic breakthrough in talks to resolve the 10-year-old dispute over Iran's nuclear program, Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu dismissed it on Tuesday as a ruse concocted by a "wolf in sheep's clothing".

The United States, Israel and other countries accuse Iran of using its nuclear program as a veil for efforts to try to develop the capability to produce weapons. Iran says the program is for peaceful energy purposes only.

Iranian Foreign Minister Mohammad Javad Zarif said Netanyahu and "the Zionist lobby" were trying to hinder negotiations.

"We will not let Netanyahu determine the future of our talks," Zarif wrote on his Facebook page. The next round of nuclear talks between Iran and six world powers is to take place in Geneva on October 15-16.

POSSIBLE RESOLUTIONS
Such is the mistrust between Iran and the West that a big sticking point of negotiations over Tehran's disputed nuclear program has been who should make the first move.

Iran has insisted the United States and the European Union should ease sanctions before it makes any concessions over enriching uranium, while Western powers have argued the reverse.

Western powers are however considering easing their long-standing demand that Iran suspend all enrichment as part of a possible deal to resolve the dispute that Rouhani says he wants to reach within months, a senior EU diplomat said.

"I believe part of the game is that if the Iranians prove that whatever they are doing is peaceful, it will, as I understand, be possible for them to conduct it," Lithuanian Foreign Minister Linas Linkevicius told Reuters.
Lithuania holds the rotating presidency of the European Union until the end of this year, giving Linkevicius a closer insight into many policy debates.

"It's conditional. It is not a done deal, but nevertheless it is a possibility to explore," he said. "Thanks to this rapprochement. How it will look, we don't know."

But both Rouhani and Obama face domestic opposition to rapprochement from those who fear their president may be too willing to grant concessions before the other side takes any concrete steps.

U.S. Republicans argue that it is the sanctions that have brought about Iran's greater apparent willingness to at least discuss compromise over some aspects of its nuclear activities and so therefore now is not the time to ease pressure on Tehran.

But Rouhani said on Wednesday a growing international consensus favored lifting sanctions against Iran.
"During my visit to New York, many of the officials of countries made moves to have meetings with the Iranian delegations and they were saying that sanctions are ineffective and some of them even said they were unjust," the student news agency ISNA quoted Rouhani as telling a cabinet meeting.

"It appears that the international environment is such that sanctions need to be put to one side," he said, but did not say which countries wanted the sanctions to be eased.

The strongest sanctions are those of the United States and the European Union on Iran's oil, gas, banking and shipping sectors and neither Washington nor Brussels has shown any sign of easing sanctions soon, at least not before Iran acts.

In Iran's view, Rouhani has taken a big step already by talking directly to Obama and now it is the turn of the United States to show evidence of its own good will.

"In my view what American officials say is not important. What is important is that they have understood that sanctions against Iran are useless," Mehr news agency quoted Rouhani as saying.
"The problems of eight years or a decade certainly can't be solved in eight or 10 days."

OPTIMISM AND SUSPICION
Separate talks between Iran and the U.N. atomic watchdog in Vienna last week however appeared to make little real headway, though both sides described their discussions as "constructive".

One Western diplomat said he had the impression that Iran and the International Atomic Energy Agency were relatively "optimistic" after the meeting. Another envoy said the discussions had been focused and the atmosphere positive.

The Iran-IAEA meeting was a "good harbinger of better relations", said Mark Fitzpatrick of the International Institute for Strategic Studies, a London-based think tank. "There is a new mood of optimism in Vienna that finally there is a way forward," he said.

But even as Iranian conservatives fall in line behind Rouhani there were signs of unease within their ranks.
Parliamentary speaker Ali Larijani praised Rouhani's address to the U.N. General Assembly, ISNA said. But Larijani, a champion of the conservative establishment, made no specific mention of Rouhani's phone call with Obama.

The head of the powerful Revolutionary Guards said on Monday the call had been premature, a possible beginning of resistance to the relative moderate Rouhani from Iranian hardliners.

Gaza suffers as Hamas fights for survival on several fronts

The furore over the recent chemical weapons attack in Syria has overshadowed disturbing events to the south. Palestinians in Gaza find themselves caught in the middle of a growing row between their Hamas rulers and the new Egyptian military regime.

Hamas has become increasingly isolated, politically and geographically, since the Egyptian army helped oust the Muslim Brotherhood government in early July.

Since the military intervention, much of the Brotherhood’s leadership has been jailed and last week its activities were outlawed and its assets frozen. Inevitably Hamas, which has close ties to the Brotherhood, has also come under severe suspicion from Egypt’s generals.

The Egyptian army blames Hamas for the rise of militant Islamic groups in the Sinai, many drawn from disgruntled local Bedouin tribes, which have been attacking soldiers, government institutions and shipping through the Suez Canal. According to the army, a third of the Islamists it has killed in operations originated from Gaza.

At a recent army press conference, several Palestinians confessed to smuggling arms from Gaza into Sinai. An Egyptian commander, Ahmed Mohammed Ali, also accused Hamas of “working on targeting the Egyptian army through ambushes”. Additionally, the Egyptian media blamed Hamas for a car bombing in Cairo this month which nearly claimed the life of the new interior minister, Mohammed Ibrahim.

Lurking in the shadows is the army’s fear that, should the suppressed Muslim Brotherhood turn to terrorism, its most useful ally will be a strong Hamas. The result has been a growing crackdown on the Palestinian Islamic movement that has also harmed the lives of ordinary Palestinians.

The Egyptian army has intensified the blockade along Egypt’s single short border with Gaza. Over the past weeks, the army has destroyed hundreds of tunnels through which Palestinians smuggle fuel and other necessities in short supply because of Israel’s siege. Egypt has established a “buffer zone”, as Israel did inside Gaza a decade ago when it was still occupying the enclave directly, to prevent more tunnels being dug.
That has plunged Gaza’s population into hardship and dealt a severe blow to the tax revenues Hamas raises on the tunnel trade. Unemployment is rocketing and severe fuel shortages mean even longer power cuts.
Similarly, Gaza’s border crossing with Egypt at Rafah – the only access to the outside for most students, medical patients and business people – is now rarely opened.

And the Egyptian navy has been enforcing tight limits on Palestinian boats fishing off Gaza’s coast, in a zone already tightly delimited by Israel. Boats have come under fire and crews been arrested for coming too close to Egypt’s territorial waters.

Palestinians’ fears about the future were encapsulated in a recent newspaper cartoon showing Gaza squeezed between pincers – one arm Israel, the other Egypt.

Hamas is short of regional allies. Its leader Khaled Meshal fled his Syrian base early in the civil war, alienating Iran in the process. Other regional supporters are also keeping their distance.

Hamas fears mounting discontent in Gaza, and particularly a demonstration planned for November modelled on this summer’s mass protests in Egypt that helped to bring down the Egyptian president, Mohammed Morsi, and the Muslim Brotherhood.

Hamas’ political rival, Fatah – and the Palestinian Authority (PA), based in the West Bank – are reported to be behind the new protest movement.

The prolonged efforts by Fatah and Hamas to strike a unity deal are now a distant memory. Late last month, the PA announced it would be taking “painful decisions” towards Hamas, assumed to be a reference to declaring it a “rogue entity” and thereby cutting off funding.

The PA sees in Hamas’ isolation and its own renewed ties to the Egyptian leadership a chance to take back Gaza.
As ever, Israel is far from an innocent bystander.

After the unsettling period of the Brotherhood rule, the Egyptian and Israeli armies have restored security cooperation. According to media reports, Israel even lobbied Washington following the July coup to ensure Egypt continued to receive generous US aid handouts – as with Israel, mostly in the form of military assistance.

Israel has turned a blind eye to Egypt pouring troops, as well as tanks and helicopters, into Sinai in breach of the 1979 peace treaty. Israel would rather Egypt mop up the Islamist threat on their shared doorstep.

The destruction of the tunnels, meanwhile, has sealed off the main conduit by which Hamas armed itself.
Israel is also delighted to see Fatah and Hamas sapping their energies in manoeuvring against each other. Political unity would have strengthened the Palestinians’ case with the international community; divided, they can be easily played off against the other.

That cynical game is in full swing. A week ago, Israel agreed for the first time in six years to allow building materials into Gaza for private construction, and to let in more fuel. A newly approved pipe will double the water supply to Gaza.

These measures are designed to bolster the PA’s image in Gaza, as payback for returning to negotiations, and undermine support for Hamas.

With Egypt joining the blockade, Israel now has much firmer control over what goes in and out, allowing it to punish Hamas while improving its image abroad by being generous with “humanitarian” items for the wider population.

Gaza is dependent again on Israel’s good favour. But even Israeli analysts admit the situation is far from stable. Sooner or later, something must give. And Hamas may not be the only ones caught in the storm.

Tunisia’s Government Falls, Arab Democracy Is Born

If you blinked, you missed it, but the democratically elected Islamist government of an Arab country just promised to resign peacefully, with no threat of a coup d’etat in sight.

Tunisia is still a long way from political stability. Yet once again, the nation that started the Arab Spring is showing the rest of the region how it’s supposed to be done. Reasonable people facing deep disagreements are negotiating and power-sharing their way to the Holy Grail of legitimate constitutional democracy.

Start with the deal. Ennahda, the Islamic democratic party that formed a government after Tunisia’s free elections in 2011, didn’t agree to step down for nothing. In exchange for agreeing to resign in favor of a caretaker government of nonpartisan technocrats, Ennahda got the opposition to agree to ratify a draft constitution that has been painstakingly drafted and debated over the last year and a half.

Under the rules of the road, adopted after the old regime fell in January 2011, the constituent assembly can approve the constitution if two-thirds of its members vote in favor. That structure put a premium on consensus, the political value most valued by Tunisian political culture. It also put Ennahda in a tough position during the drafting process: Its slight coalition majority in the assembly gave it almost no leverage, because it needed lots of opposition votes to get to two-thirds. The only alternative was to go to the public, which might have approved the constitution by a bare majority. But that would have violated the goal of consensus, and Ennahda consistently refused to treat it as an option.

Egypt’s Errors

A culture of consensus is usually a curse for an elected majority -- but in Tunisia, it’s turned into a blessing. Instead of distrusting the opposition and trying to ram through its proposals, the way the Muslim Brotherhood tried to in Egypt, the Tunisian Islamic democrats have compromised from the start. Former Egyptian President Mohamed Mursi, convinced (correctly, to be sure) that the Deep State wanted him out, failed utterly to include independent secularists in his government. He became so focused on the fact that a majority of the public had elected him that he forgot that it hadn’t taken a majority to bring down his predecessor, the dictator Hosni Mubarak -- just the potent combination of millions in the streets and a restive Army. Attempting to govern without broad-based support, he found himself hamstrung, thwarted and, eventually, alone.

In Tunisia, the government has been very attuned to the precariousness of its mandate. When secularists opposed putting Shariah into the constitution, Ennahda fumed -- then agreed. When a prominent secularist politician was assassinated in February 2012, Ennahda sought to distance itself from the radicals who carried it out -- but its own prime minister resigned in a show of contrition for failing to prevent it.

More recently, after the assassination of a second secularist leader in July, the Islamic democrats faced their deepest challenge yet. Secular opponents were buoyed by outrage at the killing and widespread frustration with an economy that still hasn’t turned around. Sensing that the tide was turning, the opposition essentially decided to block the constitution.

In crisis, Ennahda made an extraordinary decision: It would put the secular constitution it had helped draft ahead of its party interests. A starker contrast to Morsi’s Muslim Brotherhood could hardly be imagined. Where Morsi forced a hastily drafted, highly religious constitution through a badly fractured assembly, only to see himself ousted, Ennahda put principle first. Offering to resign not only staked the moral high ground, but also foreclosed any threat of removal by force. There’s no point in plotting a coup against a government willing to step down of its own accord.

Electoral Test

The obvious gamble Ennahda is taking might be imaginable in other regions: The government is effectively calling for new elections in a few months and hoping that the public respects its success in getting a constitution through and its modesty in putting itself up to the electoral test. But this is the Arab world we’re talking about. When was the last time power was transferred peacefully in a sovereign Arab state through free and fair elections? That would be, uh … oh yeah: never.

Ennahda is staking everything on the hope that Tunisia is going to become the first Arab democracy worthy of the label. Will the gamble pay off? If it does, the reason will be precisely the Tunisian norm of consensus and Ennahda’s realization that it must respect it.

In new democracies, it can be hard to avoid the temptation to mistake an electoral majority for the capacity to rule. But majorities don’t make democracy work. Alternating governments do. The secret sauce of democracy is no secret at all. The opposition must believe that it will someday have a chance to govern, and the majority must have the same expectation. Then, with luck, self-interest will prevail, and the majority of the moment will treat the opposition with respect in the hope and expectation of receiving the same treatment when it goes out of power.

By compromising on a constitutional draft and offering to resign, Tunisia’s moderate Islamists have done their part. What remains now is for the secularists to do the same, and not to repress Ennahda when they eventually get the chance. Fingers crossed.

At least three soldiers killed by Suspected al-Qaeda militants in Yemeni army base

The Yemeni army has sent reinforcements to the port city of Mukalla to retake an army headquarters overrun by gunmen. 

At least three soldiers and two attackers were killed when 30 gunmen in army uniforms attacked the compound.

Some soldiers managed to escape but others are still inside the headquarters, which is surrounded by armoured vehicles.

Yemen is struggling to control general lawlessness, an al-Qaeda insurgency, and divisions within the army.
Officials say the militants drove up to the army headquarters in stolen military trucks, firing at security guards and setting off explosives at the main gate.

They took control of the compound, in the south-eastern province of Hadramawt, and are reported to have taken a number of hostages.

Yemeni army reinforcements have been deployed to the headquarters, and have cordoned off the surrounding area.

On 20 September, suspected al-Qaeda fighters killed at least 40 soldiers and police in simultaneous attacks on military targets in the neighbouring province of Shabwa.

Israeli Prime Minister is urging President Obama not to let up on sanctions against Iran.

Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu is urging President Barack Obama not to let up on sanctions against Iran.

Netanyahu says he appreciates U.S. sanctions on Iran in light of global concerns about its nuclear program. He says for diplomacy to work, quote, "those pressures must be kept in place."

Netanyahu says Iran remains committed to Israel's destruction.

Netanyahu spoke during an Oval Office meeting Monday with Obama. The meeting comes just days after Obama's historic phone call with new Iranian President Hassan Rouhani.

Netanyahu has been warning the U.S. against equating Rouhani's more moderate rhetoric with substantive changes in Iran's nuclear policy. Israel considers a nuclear-armed Iran to be an existential threat. Iran denies that it is seeking nuclear weapons.