The Green Ribbon

Shia or Sunnis? Keeping up with the enemy du jour

Juan Cole has an interesting post on the Iraqi Prime Minister Nuri al-Maliki, who visited Washington and London in the past few days. If Cole is correct, its more than a little ironic that Bush and Blair were praising al-Maliki and condemning Hezbollah at the same press conferences.

My understanding is that Nuri al-Maliki was the bureau chief of the Dawa cell in Damascus in the 1980s. He must have been closely involved with the Iraqi Dawa in Beirut, which in turn was intimately involved in Hizbullah. I am not saying he himself did anything wrong. I don't know what he was doing in specific, other than trying to overthrow Saddam, which was heroic. But, did they really think he was going to condemn Hizbullah and take Israel's side? (Informed Comment)

Of course, this wouldn't be the first time that the west has backed an Iraqi politician with links to Lebanese Shia militias. Remember Ahmed Chalabi:

Prospect symposium on the English question

The August issue of Prospect carrries a series of articles on the English Question, by Arthur Aughey, Robert Jackson, Malcolm Rifkind and Chris Huhne. For my money, the latter piece is the most interesting:

if the Tories do decide to campaign to end Scottish votes on English laws, they will be on fertile ground. Scotland receives far more public spending per head than England, and there is a sense of injustice in poorer English regions. Moreover, the Tories have a long history of constitutional opportunism—they were prepared to trade a sustainable constitutional settlement for short-term party advantage when Edward Carson’s 1912 Ulster covenant committed its signatories to resist home rule “by all means necessary,” and accelerated the end of the union with Ireland just as assuredly as the 1916 Easter rising. (Chris Huhne)

Like my own recent piece, Huhne's article argues that a solution to the English question need not lead to a Conservative-dominated Parliament if it were introduced alongside proportional representation.

MI5 internet reading list

MI5 takes over responsibility for national security intelligence work in Northern Ireland next month. To mark the occasion, the Pat Finucane Centre has produced an internet bibliography on the Security Service.

Iain Dale on Radio Slugger

Slugger carries an interesting audio interview today with top Tory blogger Iain Dale on the West Lothian Question, in which Mick Fealty draws out some of the issue's implications for Northern Ireland.

Dale is perhaps best known for his pursuit of John Prescott, but he is also a strong supporter of an English Parliament.

Lebanon analysis roundup

Intriguing snippet from Robert Fisk, an old hand in Lebanon:

The long-range Iranian-made missiles which later exploded on Haifa had been preceded only a few weeks ago by a pilotless Hizbollah drone aircraft which surveyed northern Israel and then returned to land in eastern Lebanon after taking photographs during its flight. These pictures not only suggested a flight path for Hizbollah's rockets to Haifa; they also identified Israel's top-secret military air traffic control centre in Miron. (Robert Fisk, The Independent, via countercurrents.org)

Below are some links to various analyses of the crisis that have emerged in the past few days. Perhaps the key question is who will be weakened most by the Israeli offensive, Hezbollah or the Lebanese state?

Tory policy: Paisley votes for English laws (as long as there's no Stormont deal)

The Conservative stance of 'English votes for English laws', doesn't exactly mean what it says apparently:

Shadow Northern Ireland Secretary David Liddington has confirmed that the Tories will still allow Ulster MPs the right to vote on English matters for at least two years of a future Conservative government.

Last night the nationalist SDLP and Labour MPs claimed the Tories' willingness to grant Northern Ireland MPs more voting powers than their Scottish counterparts was part of a strategy to secure potential unionist votes at Westminster if Labour and the Conservatives were neck and neck after the election. (Observer)

Barron Links Glennane gang to 1975 Dundalk bombing

There was another major development in relation to events in Ireland in the mid-1970s earlier this month, the report of Barron Inquiry into the Dundalk bombing of 1975. Although he stopped short of concluding there was proof of collusion, Mr Justice Barron linked the bombing to the Glennane gang, which included members of the security forces.

1976: MOD feared SAS would get Birmingham Six treatment

Research at the National Archives in London has produced a number of revelations about British covert operations in Ireland in the 1970s recently, (including my own story about the secret Special Reconnaissance Unit.)

The latest is an Irish News piece about the British response to the arrest of eight SAS men in the Republic in 1976. It highlights the extent to which the lengths which the British were prepared to go to, to influence the Irish judicial process, but perhaps the most interesting passage is this one:

in a hardening of positions, a senior MoD official wrote to the secretary of state, Merlyn Rees, on May 25 stating: "I feel it would be naive to believe that in effect a prison sentence would not be something approaching a death sentence.

"Given the extent to which the Irish believe their own propaganda, and the mythology surrounding the SAS in the Republic, I can see little chance that the soldiers, were they convicted and sentenced to imprisonment, would escape uninjured."

In an interesting reference to the fact that the British establishment was already fully aware of attacks on six Irishmen wrongly convicted of the Birmingham pub bombings the previous year, he wrote: "One has only to think of the incident in this country in which those responsible for the Birmingham bombing were assaulted by prison officers to realise how much more likely a similar, or probably more serious occurrence would be in this case.

"Obviously, we must give full weight to our relationship with the Republic of Ireland, but I cannot help feeling that the Foreign Office have been concentrating on this to the exclusion of common sense. (Irish News, via Nuzhound)

Stratfor predicts 'major assault on Lebanon'

Worrying assessment of the crisis on the Lebanese-Israeli border from the US Stratfor service:

The Israel Defense Forces is preparing for a major, sustained assault into southern Lebanon to eliminate the Lebanese militant group Hezbollah. The assault will extend at least to the Litani River -- the first natural barrier, roughly 20 miles into Lebanon -- and possibly all the way to areas south of Beirut. The advance might have been intended for July 16, when the reservists of the Israeli Northern Command who were just activated will have had 72 hours to spin up. However, since rockets fired from Lebanon hit Israel's port city of Haifa on July 13, Israel's 7th Armored, Golani and Barak Brigades -- some of the elite and most decorated units of the regular Israeli army -- might push ahead as far as the Litani and let the reservists catch up later. (Stratfor)

I have found Stratfor to be useful in the past, at least in reflecting US thinking about Iraq. If the above link doesn't work, you can find read some of their articles via a search at Google News.

Is Doha failure a sign of hegemonic decline?

Tim Worstall points us to an interesting piece on global trade negotiations by Martin Jacques in the Guardian today:

The irony of Doha is that it is being killed by western disinterest in the face of the growing power of the developing world. The rise of China and, to a lesser extent India, is likely to be accompanied by a parallel irony. The west, which has been the traditional defender of free trade - because free trade always favours the most powerful and advanced economies - is likely to run for cover and put up protectionist barriers, unable to cope with the political, social and economic implications of the rise of China. In a sense, the death of Doha is a dress rehearsal, albeit an early one, for the end of globalisation. And those who bury it will be those who designed it and proselytised for it - the US and Europe. (Guardian)