Daily News Brief — July 20, 2010

Former MI5 chief says Hussein and 9/11 were never linked
Ex-MI5 chief said there was no credible link between Saddam Hussein and September 11, and that no such connection was discovered ahead of the U.S. invasion of Iraq in 2003. Eliza Manningham-Buller, the director of the MI5 between 2002 and 2007 also said the invasion “substantially” increased the terrorist threat to the UK because it “radicalized” a generation of youth. Further, she believed the intelligence regarding the nature of Iraq’s threat was not “substantial enough” to justify the invasion.

Manningham-Buller believed Saddam’s threat to the UK was “very limited and containable.” When asked if she thought Saddam would have linked terrorists to weapons of mass destruction, she replied: “It certainly wasn’t of concern in either the short term or the medium term to me or my colleagues.”

Syria, Turkey and Lebanon meet to discuss the future of Palestine
Syrian President Bashar al-Assad met with Turkish Foreign Minister Ahmet Davutoglu yesterday in Damascus. The leaders discussed the peace process between Israelis and Palestinians, as well as each of their own relationships with Israel. Lebanese Prime Minister Saad Hariri joined the leaders during lunch, where they reportedly discussed how to strengthen ties among Syria, Turkey and Lebanon.

• Turkish FM meets with Hamas leader Khaled Meshal to discuss the Palestinian cause.
• Iran passed a bill of retaliation against countries that inspect Iranian ships.
• Israel denies presenting Egypt with a final peace settlement plan.
• Europe considers tough, new sanctions against Iran.

Daily Snapshot

A Mandean man, known in Arabic as Sabean, takes part in the ‘great feast’ or the Mandaean new year rituals in Baghdad on July 19, 2010. The Sabeans, originally from southern and southeastern Iraq, say their religion is pre-Christian even though they revere John the Baptist. They speak a distinct language, Mandean, and their religious books are written in Sabaen script. Some 100,000 live in Iraq and they are officially recognized as a separate religion (Ahmad AL-Rubaye/AFP/Getty Images).

Arguments & Analysis
‘Water in the Arab world’ (Mohamed Hafez, Al-Ahram Weekly)
As economic development and demographic growth continue largely unabated, the world’s coming conflicts over water resources will be acutely felt in the Arab world, likely displacing oil as a prime determinant in regional instability.

‘Democratic sequencing’ (Amr Hamzaway, Carnegie Institute for International Peace)
With the notion of democracy promotion in the Arab world falling out of fashion since the hay day of the Bush administration, many scholars have engaged in debates around the concept of ‘democratic sequencing’–the idea that a set of minimal social and political conditions must be established before the onset of democracy can take roots. Yet this hedged debate on democracy has its own shortcomings that need to be addressed.

‘Balance between democracy and security’ (Lale Kemal, Today’s Zaman)
The ruling AKP party in Turkey has done a better job that its predecessors in balancing democracy and security with regards to the Kurdish question, and has primarily focused on targeting terrorism associated with the PKK. Still, the government must not neglect to follow through on reforms for the country’s Kurdish population and must seek to establish a democratic national consensus on the issue.

‘Democracy be Damned’ (Hagai El-Ad, Huffington Post)
Last week’s decision by the Knesset to revoke parliamentary privileges of MK Hanin Zoabi for her participation in May’s ‘Freedom Flotilla’ reveals a serious democratic deficit pervading Israeli politics. In their quest to highlight an ‘enemy of the state’, Zoabi’s accusers have ignored the very democratic forum they have used to stifle dissent and the rights of minority voices.

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